Fallout 76’s ‘Patch 5’ caps carry weight and reshuffles endgame builds

Fallout 76 is barreling towards a new game mode and the eventual opening of the other vaults in Appalachia, but the developers are stopping to make more gameplay tweaks and quality of life changes before this new content enters beta. Today’s patch, referred to as Patch 5 by Bethesda, tackles some pressing matters. In addition to general stability and performance improvements, the developers have nerfed end game builds and certain types of legendary weapons.

First up are hits to some powerful perks: Demolition Expert, White Knight, and Licensed Plumber.

The damage bonuses provided by each rank of the Demolition Expert perk have been reduced from +20%/40%/60%/80%/100% to +20%/30%/40%/50%/60% to match other weapon perk damage bonuses.

The condition loss bonuses provided by each rank of the White Knight and Licensed Plumber perks have been reduced from 30%/60%/90% to 20%/40%/60%, and their repair bonuses have also been reduced, to match the Power Patcher perk.

Dev Note: In looking at the Demolition Expert, White Knight, and Licensed Plumber perks, we felt they have so far been overperforming in their current roles, and we wanted to bring them more in line with similar perks to help prevent them from feeling like mandatory picks.

Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks via Polygon

Some other changes are tied to Explosive and Two Shot weapon modifiers. These have become by far the most powerful weapons in the wasteland, and the duping problem has led to many players who are interested in this power boost getting their hands on the weapons quite easily. This new patch lowers their damage by a hefty amount. In addition, fewer weapons can spawn with the Explosive legendary mod - Flamers, Cryolators, plasma weapons, and laser weapons will no longer spawn into the world with these modifiers attached. The developers have noted that this change is because the above weapons don’t fire bullets, so it’s a bit odd for them to have a modifier that gives them exploding bullets, and they will return in the future with some adjustments.

Weapons: The Explosive legendary mod’s damage bonus has been reduced from +100% to +20% of base weapon damage, with explosive radius damage.

Weapons: The Two Shot legendary effect’s damage bonus has been reduced from +100% to +25% of base weapon damage.

Dev Note: As mentioned in a previous Inside the Vault article, both the explosive mod and two shot weapons could result in dealing very high amounts of damage, and this was compounded if two shot and explosive were combined. We’ve decided to tone both of these damage bonuses back.

The biggest potential change is the one to carry weight, which is now capped at 1,500 pounds above your character’s maximum carry weight. The example provided is that a character with 210 carry weight can now carry a maximum of 1,710 pounds. It is now impossible to exceed this new weight limit moving forward; characters who already exceed this weight limit can keep their inventories, but cannot add any additional items and/or caps until they’ve cleared the bar and lowered their inventory.

The Fallout 76 devs note that this will help server performance, but an additional target of this change is dupers. Due to the nature of duping in Fallout 76, there are characters with hundreds of thousands of powerful items. Now, their trading and duping is restricted. It remains to be seen how effective a change this will be, especially since many transactions are conducted out of game with real money transfers, but it’s a step in the right direction for solving the game-threatening duping crisis.

There are a few more changes in the full patch notes, including changes to C.A.M.P. scrapping and crafting, the Hunter/Hunted queue, and a few quests and events around the world. We can expect a larger patch to come in future weeks with the new Survival mode beta, and likely weekly events as well in the months to come.