[2019] Fallout 76: Update 16 Patch Notes – December 10, 2019

We’re releasing Update 16 today, which includes a number of limited-time holiday events and activities, and brings a number of additional improvements and bug fixes to Fallout 76. Read on for today's patch notes or catch them on Fallout.com.

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Update 16 Highlights

• Holiday Scorched: Starting December 12, some of the Scorched will be spreading holiday cheer throughout Appalachia. Take them down to get a Holiday Gift, which you can unwrap to claim new loot!
• Ho! Ho! Ho! Santatron is Here: Unlock a free Santatron for your C.A.M.P. by visiting the Atomic Shop now until December 31. Once built, your Santatron bot will roam your C.A.M.P. to find items like toys, candy, and more.
• More Privacy for Private Worlds: We’ve added a new button to the Play Menu for Private Worlds that you can use to decide whether players in your friends list can enter your Private World.
• (NW) Map Voting: The Flatwoods and Morgantown maps are now both available in Nuclear Winter. Exercise democracy by casting a vote for your map of choice at the start of each match.
• (NW) Limited Time Holiday Challenges: Unlock exclusive cosmetics by completing Challenges in Nuclear Winter! Halloween Challenges return December 11, and Christmas Challenges begin December 17.

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Update Version

Download sizes for this update will be around 8 GB for consoles and under 3 GB for PC.

• PC: 1.2.6.2
• PS4: 1.2.6.2
• Xbox: 1.2.6.2

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General Updates

Celebrate the Holidays with the Scorched!

Starting December 12, some of the Scorched will be spreading merriment this holiday season by dressing up in their most festive attire and wrapping presents. Take down these “Holiday Scorched” and they will drop Holiday Gifts for you to unwrap.

• Open a Holiday Gift it to see what the Scorched have given you, which may be anything from crafting components to aid items, or even rare plans.
  • Holiday Gifts can be low, medium, or high-quality, and the higher the quality of the Gift, the better the chances for rare loot.
• Craft Your Own Holiday Gifts!
  • Be sure to check in with your favorite Vendors around Appalachia during the Holiday Scorched event, because they are selling Wrapping Paper that you can use to craft Holiday Gifts of your own to give to others.
• Holiday Scorched Event Dates:
  • Start Date: Thursday, December 12 at 11:00 a.m. ET
  • End Date: Thursday, December 26 at 12:00 p.m. ET

Atomic Shop

Now until December 31, you can bring a little holiday cheer to your C.A.M.P. by unlocking a free Santatron Collectron Station in the Atomic Shop.

• Build the Santatron Station in your C.A.M.P. and your jolly Santatron bot will wander the nearby area to look for toys, candy, and other items for you.
  • While the Holiday Scorched event mentioned above is active, Santatron will also occasionally find a Holiday Gift of random quality.
  • Any items Santatron finds will be placed into the container attached to its Station, and you can collect them from there.
  • Players who also own a Scavenger Collectron Station can switch their Santatron to hunt for the items the Scavenger bot normally finds, and vice versa. However, only one type of Collectron Station can be built at any given time.
• You will still be able to build and use your Santatron even after it has left the Atomic Shop, so be sure to claim yours before December 31.

Challenges

• In response to community feedback, we have revisited many of our existing Challenges in order to make them more player-friendly and remove others that had too many requirements.
  • We have also updated our Daily and Weekly Challenges so they are more straightforward, simpler to complete, and to help them feel like they are part of the core experience of the game.
  • These changes will take effect starting January 1, 2020.

Sound

• Music: New Holiday tunes have been added that will play while you browse the Atomic Shop.

User Interface

• Private Worlds: Following community feedback, we have added a new button to Private Worlds mode on the Play Screen so that Private World owners have more choice in how friends can join their World.
  • The button can be toggled between “Team Only” and “All Friends.”
  • Team Only: When “Team Only” is enabled, only the Private World owner and players they have already formed a team with can enter the Private World.
  • All Friends: Switching to “All Friends” will allow any players on the Private World owner’s friends list to enter the Private World.
• Item Transfer: It is no longer possible to transfer items into a dead enemy’s inventory.

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Nuclear Winter Updates

Vote for Your Map of Choice

After receiving requests from Overseer Candidates who would like more choice in map selection, we have added the Flatwoods map back to Nuclear Winter and Candidates can now vote for the map they want to play on during the upcoming match.

• Map voting begins at the start of each match while Candidates are in Vault 51.
• Once voting starts, you can press the Map button to open the new voting interface and make your choice.
  • Your vote cannot be changed after it has been cast.
  • The map that receives the majority of Candidates’ votes will be selected for that match. In the event of a tie, ZAX will choose the Map randomly.

Happy Holidays, Candidates!

Halloween-Themed Challenges are Back

It’s the Nightmare Preceding Christmas and our Halloween-themed Nuclear Winter challenges are making a comeback for a limited time.

• All six challenges and their cosmetic rewards will be available at once. You can also pick up right where you left off, because any progress you made toward completing them in October will be preserved.
• Nightmare Preceding Christmas Challenge Dates:
  • Start Date: Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00pm ET
  • End Date: Monday, December 16 at 7:00pm ET

Unlock Festive Cosmetics with Six New Christmas Challenges

We’ve added six new Challenges and themed cosmetic rewards for the holiday season that will begin appearing in the Character Challenge menu next week.

• One new challenge will appear each day until all six are available. However, before you can begin earning progress toward any given Challenge, you must first complete the Challenges preceding it in order.
• Rewards include wrapped presents for your C.A.M.P. from ZAX, Wrapping Paper Hunting Rifle Paint, a Snowflake Metal Armor Skin, a new outfit, and more, so start racking up Overseer XP to claim them while they’re available.
• Christmas Challenge Dates:
  • Start Date: Tuesday, December 17 at 7:00pm ET
  • End Date: Monday, January 6 at 7:00pm ET

A More Festive Vault

• Even ZAX is getting into the spirit of the season, and has adorned Vault 51 with holiday decorations for Candidates to enjoy before they engage in the merciless Overseer selection process.

Matchmaking

We’ve updated Nuclear Winter so that the Storm will now automatically constrict the starting area to account for the number of players that begin a match .

• When this occurs, the Storm will not deal increased damage at the start of the match, even though the playable area is smaller.
  
• This will help encourage combat from the beginning of a match and reduce time spent hunting for other Candidates. It will also make for a quicker match overall, so that you can requeue to find a better match.
• We made these changes so that players can spend more time on the battlefield, less time in the matchmaking queue, and get to the fun more quickly in cases where creating a full match may take longer than expected.

Sound

• Deployment Selection: A sound effect will now play to notify Candidates that Deployment Selection has begun.
• Emotes: Inside Vault 51, Emote music and sound effects will become quieter or stop playing the farther a Candidate moves away from someone who uses an Emote.
• Overseer Tickets: New sound effects have been added that will play when earning or spending Overseer Tickets in Nuclear Winter.

User Interface

• Tutorials: New tutorial entries have been added to the Terminals in Vault 51 that offer instructions for the Choose Your Perks, Color-Coded Item Rarity, and Map Voting features.

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General Bug Fixes

Art and Graphics

• Graphics: Fixed an issue that could cause the Pip-Boy light to flicker when turning it on or off.
• Graphics: The electric visual effects for The Invader no longer appear black when previewing the weapon at a Workbench.
• Graphics: Fixed a hole in the neck portion of the Makeshift Ronin Helmet.

C.A.M.P., Crafting, and Workshops

• Artillery Piece: Smoke Grenades can now be looted correctly from the container attached to the Artillery Piece.
• Lights: The Light Bulb Letters Set has been moved to the Lights section of the Build Menu.
• Outfits: Ranger Armor Outfits no longer appear craftable in Workbench menus if the owner lacks the materials required to craft them.
• Refrigerator: Toxic Soot Flowers and Frog Legs can now be correctly assigned to Refrigerators.
• Signs: Adjusted several Warning Signs that previously counted toward the maximum Light count in the C.A.M.P. budget.

Combat

• Stagger Locks: Added mitigation for an issue in which ranged enemies could repeatedly cripple a player’s limbs, causing multiple stagger animations to play back-to-back.
  • Please note: While this issue is now much less likely to occur, it is still possible that you may encounter it. We are investigating a more complete fix for a future update.

Enemies

• Corpses: Enemy corpses no longer sometimes disappear shortly after death.

General

• Exploit: Implemented multiple fixes to address exploits that could be abused to create an unfair advantage.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit related to the Purveyor.

Items

• Jet Packs: No longer activate automatically when performing a normal jump. To activate a Jet Pack, players must release the jump button and then press it again.
• Legendary Weapons: Reloading a weapon that has the “+250 Damage Resistance While Reloading” legendary effect no longer negates the effects of that weapon’s primary legendary attribute.
• Ranged Weapons: Fixed a rare issue in which, under specific circumstances, a player’s ranged weapons could emit a continual humming sound.
• Loot Bags: Loot Bag skins now remain equipped when returning to Adventure Mode after a Nuclear Winter match.
• Outfits: Glasses can now be worn while the Turkey Mascot head is equipped.
• Targeting HUD: Fixed an issue that could prevent players from crafting the X-01 Targeting HUD for their Power Armor.

Localization

• Patch 16 brings a large wave of fixes for localization bugs across all aspects of the game for our players around the globe who play Fallout 76 in languages other than English.
  • This includes fixes for untranslated, partially translated, and mistranslated text in game menus, item names and descriptions, notifications, Terminal entries, Holotapes, Quests, Objectives, Subtitles, and more.
  • In addition to this set of fixes, we plan to address many more localization bugs with the Wastelanders update next year.

Performance and Stability

• Performance: Implemented multiple improvements for server performance.
• Stability: Addressed multiple issues that could result in a server crash.
• Stability: Fixed a server crash related to Player Vending Machines.
• Stability: Fixed an issue that could cause the game to crash on Xbox One.

Quests and Events

• First Contact: A quest target now appears correctly at Pennington’s location during the First Contact quest.
• Miner Miracles: Players under level 25 who have acquired the Miner Miracles quest no longer receive a pop-up message about the quest’s level requirements every time they log in.
• Monster Mash: After joining Monster Mash, the optional objective to “Use the SMART Vending Machine” will no longer appears over the player’s Survival Tent on the Map.
• Officer on Deck: Fixed an issue that could prevent players from progressing past the “Speak with MODUS” objective.

User Interface

• Main Menu: On Xbox, switching User Accounts after reaching the Main Menu no longer causes error messages to appear.
• Scrapbox: Fixed an issue that could cause the yellow selection bar to appear twice in the Scrapbox transfer menu.
• Scrap Kits: The prompt that appears when using a Scrap Kit has received updated wording to clarify that Junk which does not scrap automatically will be placed into the Stash.
• Turrets: Corrected placeholder text in the names of the Halloween Machine Gun Turret and Halloween Heavy Machine Gun Turret in C.A.M.P. Build menus.

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Nuclear Winter Bug Fixes

C.A.M.P.

• Build: The Scavenger Collectron Station is not useable in Nuclear Winter and will no longer appear placeable in C.A.M.P. menus.

Combat

• Exploit: Addressed an exploit that could allow players to remain in Stealth longer than intended.

Items

• Bobbleheads: The description text for Bobblehead: Unarmed in Nuclear Winter now correctly states that it increases damage and no longer displays an incorrect percentage.

User Interface

• Player Names: Are now correctly displayed during Nuclear Winter matches, even if the “Show Other Players’ Names” setting is turned off.
• Spectator Mode: Updated the “Changing Spectator Target” text that appears in Spectator Mode to “Finding Spectator Target.”
• Subtitles: Corrected subtitles that did not match the voiceover for holotapes found in Vault 51.
• Subtitles: Corrected a typo in the subtitle for one of ZAX’s voice lines.

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