Stimpaks are a staple of the Fallout franchise, appearing across every title in the series. Of course, it’s also a common item in Fallout 76, where players can collect them from a number of different sources, including from Medical Vending Machines scattered across the wasteland.
Recently, however, Bethesda implemented some changes to Stimpaks in the Public Test Server. Though these haven’t been implemented across all Fallout 76 servers yet, player responses are varied.
Planned Changes to Fallout 76’s Stimpaks
In an update log from January 13, Bethesda unveiled new content and tweaks to some other aspects of the game. One of the miscellaneous changes is the Stimpak adjustment, which implements several changes to both the classic Stimpak and the Diluted Stimpak. Each item’s weight and price are reduced by 25 percent. Aside from that, there will also be an increased number of both Stimpaks and Diluted Stimpaks in Medical Vending Machines.
Currently, Stimpaks weigh 1 lb and have a value of 40 caps. Meanwhile, Diluted Stimpaks weigh 0.5 lb and have a value of 15 caps. Should the changes be approved by Fallout 76's development team, these values will become 0.75 lb and 30 caps for Stimpaks, then 0.375 lbs and 11.25 caps for Diluted Stimpaks. It’s not yet known whether Bethesda will choose to round up or down the longer decimal values.
That said, it’s worth noting that the assigned cap values of items don’t necessarily reflect the in-game value. This is because Fallout 76 vendors — both player and NPC variants — can edit the prices of items as they please to barter. As such, the wider playerbase is still unsure of how exactly Bethesda plans to change Stimpak values. However, some are theorizing that it will directly affect the Stimpak’s selling price.
Fallout 76 Community’s Initial Response
Players who believe that the adjustments will affect selling prices were quick to express their disapproval. Currently, one Stimpak sells for 10 caps at a vendor. Since the game’s vendors have a combined cap limit of 1,400, players simply need to sell 140 Stimpaks to get the most caps possible from trading before the limit resets in 20 hours.
However, should the price of Stimpaks change, some players argue that they’d have a more difficult time reaching the 1,400-cap threshold with Stimpaks. Thus, they believe the price reduction to be a needlessly arbitrary change. Other members of the community counter this argument by stating that the adjustment isn’t really that big of a deal, and that it’s still possible to get to 1,400 bottle caps if Stimpaks were reduced to seven or eight caps in price. It would take 200 and 175 Stimpaks, respectively.
Some Fallout 76 players have also taken to criticizing naysayers, saying that the Stimpak adjustments are a positive change. The weight reduction makes inventory management much easier, while the price reduction makes Stimpaks more accessible to lower-level players. So it looks like the Stimpaks adjustments are geared towards the newer playerbase.
Lastly, there is a sizable camp of players who are neutral or indifferent to these changes. Some say that they’ve never even bought from Medical Vending Machines and instead purchase Stimpaks and other such consumables from player vendors. This isn’t surprising as some player vendors sell their Stimpaks for as low as one cap.
Overall, the plans for Fallout 76’s Stimpaks elicited mixed reactions from the player base. While the changes in the update log have yet to be implemented throughout the game, players can only wonder how the new Stimpak adjustments will make — or break — Fallout 76, especially since there are still plenty of bugs that plague Fallout 76's Appalachian wasteland.
Fallout 76 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
