The One Guy Who Still Cares About Fallout 76 Was Banned After Logging 900 Hours

One fan of Fallout 76 has been banned after logging 900 hours because Bethesda thought he was cheating.

In a detailed Reddit post, Glorf12 describes how he went on a bit of a bullet collecting spree after using a card that helped reduce the weight of ammo in his inventory by 90 percent. A smart move by a smart player, seeing as inventory space is just one of the many things players have to manage while rebuilding West Virginia. Well, Bethesda doesn’t agree. In fact, the studio provided a little bit of context for the ban, citing a duplication exploit that they haven’t managed to fix since the game’s launch in November last year. For those unfamiliar, this allows players to duplicate items over and over.

This is performed by having a friend drop some items in a smoke grenade box after building artillery. Once this is done, the friend leaves the server and the item he built will disappear, while the box stays. Take the dropped items out of the box and have your friend return. The artillery, along with the items left in the case, will reappear while you keep the ones you took. This can be done over and over again, and players can then use their duplicated items to craft things like food and medicine, as well as bigger items like legendary weapons and armor.

The user in question says he thinks the creation of a second character is what may have tipped off moderators. As he decided which guns he focused on, there was a lot of switching back and forth between the two characters, passing ammo and weapons back and forth as he tried to make the perfect loadout, which we guess could look a little sketchy for anyone policing a server. With the way it was described by the player, it seems like there could be grounds to at least accuse him of exploiting the bug, but it doesn't seem like his playtime was taken into account as a possible reason for acquiring so many bullets. Regardless, his account is banned until the next update, and fans are pretty upset.

This is just another drop in the bucket when it comes to the bad PR surrounding Fallout 76. Dating back to the game’s pre-order collectibles, Bethesda advertised a canvas bag among other cool items for fans of the series. Yet, when gamers received their product, they found that the bags were made of nylon. Instead of instantly owning up to their false claims, the publisher stated a lack of available materials caused the sudden swap. Eventually, after enough bad press, Bethesda offered a replacement to the bag, but that came after they tried merely offering some in-game currency.

That was just the pre-order. The launch was pretty brutal too. Aside from the aforementioned duplication exploit, Fallout 76 was riddled with glitches and issues. The server actually crashed at launch because too many players launched nukes at the same time.

With all that in mind, Bethesda seems to have their hearts in the right place for this ban. It’s one thing to exploit a single player game, but in a multiplayer setting where gamers are working with and against each other, there needs to be strict moderation. Still, from the looks of it, Glorf12 didn't really do anything "wrong," and if he did, the issue stems from a very clear lack of bug testing on the studio's part. So, maybe fix the game, Bethesda.