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S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chernobyl

Flogger23m said:
I also don't recall the original STALKER games to be that difficult or grindy. STALKER 1 maybe was a bit up front but about 40% through the game I was always so overloaded with stuff and I had zero issue upgrading. In STALKER 2 it seems like you would never get to experience the upgrades for 90% of the things, as a single upgrade or repair will cost you what you make in 2-3 story missions. STALKER SoC I would constantly be dropping ammo and whatnot especially towards the end of the game. Getting an upgraded exoskeleton was not hard at all. CoP was better balanced and played nicely on release, SoC and CS had some issues with some areas.

I still like STALKER 2. It is just so grindy by default, with oddly long walking distances. I finished a side quest last night that was 95% walking.
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Is the zone in S2 interesting enough to make all that walking worthwhile, ie emergent quests and cool A life going on? GAMMA is pretty interesting to travel around in.
 
peppergomez said:
Is the zone in S2 interesting enough to make all that walking worthwhile, ie emergent quests and cool A life going on? GAMMA is pretty interesting to travel around in.
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There is certainly some life, but a lot of the encounters are quite similar. I'll get attacked in the same spots by the same enemy types. But there is some stuff like NPCs do occasionally loot dead bodies. AI (on normal, doubt it changes on higher difficulties) can be questionable. Okay at times, but other times they might be oblivious to you, their buddies getting into a fight with grenades just 30 feet away, and their combat abilities are not that good. More or less walk and get into cover, often clipping to the wrong angle where they expose themselves. So they might "hide" behind a tree, but they're on the wrong side of the tree and are exposing themselves to you.

Mutants feel like they did in the original games and feel dated. You can stun human enemies with gunfire but after their stun animation they act as if nothing happened. They are either dead, alive, or incapacitated if you shoot them in the legs. I wish instead of sprawling maps and running for 15-30+ minutes game developers would make better mechanics. There are no limping enemies, reduced combat effectiveness after being injured, or anything like that. Mutants are either alive or dead, old fashioned HP system.

It isn't a bad game but it just falls into the same shortcomings of most modern games.

Also finally got myself an Exoskeleton. Apparently you need to upgrade it to be able to sprint.
 
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peppergomez said:
Is the zone in S2 interesting enough to make all that walking worthwhile, ie emergent quests and cool A life going on? GAMMA is pretty interesting to travel around in.
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Vanilla game is a lot less populated than GAMMA. You can add mods that make it more interesting, though, but still not quite on the level of GAMMA.

People need to keep in mind though, GAMMA is the result of like 10+ years of mod development. The base games were janky as fuck, and GAMMA is basically the first three games combined along with a ton of other fixes and content.
 
MavericK said:
Vanilla game is a lot less populated than GAMMA. You can add mods that make it more interesting, though, but still not quite on the level of GAMMA.

People need to keep in mind though, GAMMA is the result of like 10+ years of mod development. The base games were janky as fuck, and GAMMA is basically the first three games combined along with a ton of other fixes and content.
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GAMMA is a modpack of Anomaly, which was already a standalone total conversion of the base three games. Without Anomaly, there is no GAMMA.

Anomaly took all the maps of the three games and made it into somewhat of an open-world sandbox. It doesn't really represent the story of the original games, but added some atmosphere and surivival mechanics.

I'd argue Misery mod is what inspired most of these. I even see some Misery influences in the Stalker 2 base game. But really, Misery just turned Call of Pripyat into an atmospheric survival rpg shooter.

I can't event play CoP vanilla. To me, Misery is the way to play CoP.
 
The more I play this, the more lame it becomes. So many terribly designed missions. They should rename it to W.A.L.K.E.R. Bad open world design claims another causality. I think I've done a significant chunk of the side quests but I question if I should even bother anymore. The whole game is designed to waste time for no purpose. Walk somewhere for 15 minutes to have a 1-2 minutes dialogue conversation with a worthless, forgettable side character, one of dozens upon dozens only for it to immediately send you somewhere else for 15 minutes.

MavericK said:
Vanilla game is a lot less populated than GAMMA. You can add mods that make it more interesting, though, but still not quite on the level of GAMMA.

People need to keep in mind though, GAMMA is the result of like 10+ years of mod development. The base games were janky as fuck, and GAMMA is basically the first three games combined along with a ton of other fixes and content.
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I only considered CoP to be well thought out without mods. The other two had a number of bugs or questionable design decisions. SoC was clearly rushed in some areas. The mods did a whole lot to take the games to other levels, but CoP was fine vanilla IMO.

Edit: You know what? Fuck GSC. Grindy ass game that makes most MMOs blush. Garbage UI for upgrading that closes and opens random impossibly tiny to read text, installed an upgrade on my Saiga that does not allow it to use buckshot. Fine, just allow us to remove it even if we have to pay credits. Nope, does not allow you to do that. Need to buy a new Saiga and the other upgrades... would take 10+ hours of gameplay to get the credits to do that. No, fuck you GSC.
 
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I'm still having a lot of fun with the CLIKRAD mod collection. I added a combat AI mod to make it so they don't just laser you from across the map. Feels more fair now.
 
Ikawaru said:
The problem with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is that it is an AA game desperately trying to be an AAA game, and falling short.

They seem to want to be the next CD Project Red or something but can't quite achieve it.

The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy were definitely gems but those games were designed in a different time with much more limited and realististic goals in mind.
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It seems like most games Microslop publishes are AA games but with the price jacked up to AAA levels
 
Ikawaru said:
The problem with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is that it is an AA game desperately trying to be an AAA game, and falling short.

They seem to want to be the next CD Project Red or something but can't quite achieve it.

The original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. trilogy were definitely gems but those games were designed in a different time with much more limited and realististic goals in mind.
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I disagree. Stalker 2 had a pretty big budget and a lot of it went into marketing. Development had many disruptions due to the war. It's hard to say what was sacrificed there. Whatever you think of the game, it was given its best chance to be what it could be given the circumstances. It's certainly doing better than Concord, Highguard, etc. I'd argue it's in better shape today than Starfield. I've got a long list of "AAA" games that, in my opinion, Stalker 2 is subjectively better than.

The originals had no such thing. The only reason the states got the originals is because THQ stepped in and made the rest of the world aware of their existence.

Other than Cossacks 3, this is the only title GSC Game World has worked on in the past 15-16 years that didn't get canceled. By Ukraine standards, they are a AAA studio.
 
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Absalom said:
I disagree. Stalker 2 had a pretty big budget and a lot of it went into marketing. Development had many disruptions due to the war. It's hard to say what was sacrificed there. Whatever you think of the game, it was given its best chance to be what it could be given the circumstances. It's certainly doing better than Concord, Highguard, etc. I'd argue it's in better shape today than Starfield. I've got a long list of "AAA" games that, in my opinion, Stalker 2 is subjectively better than.

The originals had no such thing. The only reason the states got the originals is because THQ stepped in and made the rest of the world aware of their existence.

Other than Cossacks 3, this is the only title GSC Game World has worked on in the past 15-16 years that didn't get canceled. By Ukraine standards, they are a AAA studio.
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They also had one of the developers KIA while serving on the frontlines. His photo is in at least several locations in the zone.
 
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the DLC sounds incredible...Cost of Hope introduces two new regions to explore...one of them is the iconic Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was abandoned and locked away for decades and is now calling Stalkers back in...the second region is the Iron Forest, which features maze-like paths and plenty of uncharted locations to discover along the way

GSC Game World also shared that STALKER 2 expansions will be released in instalments, with Cost of Hope serving as the middle chapter of the so-called 'second trilogy'...together with a future story DLC, the details of which will be revealed at a later time, it will form a new, expansive narrative arc within the post-apocalyptic saga
 
polonyc2 said:
the DLC sounds incredible...Cost of Hope introduces two new regions to explore...one of them is the iconic Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which was abandoned and locked away for decades and is now calling Stalkers back in...the second region is the Iron Forest, which features maze-like paths and plenty of uncharted locations to discover along the way

GSC Game World also shared that STALKER 2 expansions will be released in instalments, with Cost of Hope serving as the middle chapter of the so-called 'second trilogy'...together with a future story DLC, the details of which will be revealed at a later time, it will form a new, expansive narrative arc within the post-apocalyptic saga
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The complete edition of this game with all that content and the new engime upgrade will be one hell of a banger when it eventually comes out. Kind of like all the very smart gamers who waited until now to play the complete cyberpunk and phantom liberty release, instead of struggling through the original 1.0 release.
 
I will also say that it's worth multiple playthroughs, I think there are like 3 main paths you can take and 4 endings, but so far on my second playthrough I chose a different side and it seems like a totally different story. Different quests, different locations, etc.
 
Counter-Strike 2 just added a Tarkov mag reload mechanic. I'd love that in this game.
 
Absalom said:
Counter-Strike 2 just added a Tarkov mag reload mechanic. I'd love that in this game.
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If you mean something where you have to manually reload mags, they had that in the EFP modpack for Anomoly, but they are moving away from it in future versions. Mostly because once you get high-cap mags it sort of unbalances the game.
 
MavericK said:
If you mean something where you have to manually reload mags, they had that in the EFP modpack for Anomoly, but they are moving away from it in future versions. Mostly because once you get high-cap mags it sort of unbalances the game.
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Not that per se so much as if you reload a gun you drop the existing mag on the ground. If the mag you dropped had 19 of 22 rounds your overall pool of ammo drops by 19. Not so unbalanced if you've got reload-itis.

The point, to me, is immersion and perhaps slightly more realism.

Late game Stalker 2 you have so much ammo it probably isn't even something anyone cares about, except the weight restriction limits how much overall ammo you can carry. Not sure how they'd execute this since you would be carrying full magazines, not just simply a pool of ammo. But as a mod, ammo management might satisfy those of us looking for that extra degree of realism.
 
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Absalom said:
Not that per se so much as if you reload a gun you drop the existing mag on the ground. If the mag you dropped had 19 of 22 rounds your overall pool of ammo drops by 19. Not so unbalanced if you've got reload-itis.

The point, to me, is immersion and perhaps slightly more realism.

Late game Stalker 2 you have so much ammo it probably isn't even something anyone cares about, except the weight restriction limits how much overall ammo you can carry. Not sure how they'd execute this since you would be carrying full magazines, not just simply a pool of ammo. But as a mod, ammo management might satisfy those of us looking for that extra degree of realism.
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I mean, in a world where ammo is scarce and stuff... in pursuit of realism -

You're in a lot more trouble in a limited situation if you walk around dropping extremely limited magazines and ammo all over the place. Where are you getting magazines to reload with rounds if you're just plopping them onto the ground as you run around?
This isnt a military game - its a survival game. You wouldnt have hundreds of magazines sitting around empty for all sorts of weapons - you would likely have a few and need to care for them.. Maybe a common weapon like an AK, sure, you could do this as more magazines are on others... but rare ARs, odd caliber pistols, etc? Absolutely not.

Im quite sure you would be taking the time to rig up a bag or retainer system so you arent just dropping mags on the ground to leave, or have to come back and find later if you can
 
FighterAce124 said:
I mean, in a world where ammo is scarce and stuff... in pursuit of realism -

You're in a lot more trouble in a limited situation if you walk around dropping extremely limited magazines and ammo all over the place. Where are you getting magazines to reload with rounds if you're just plopping them onto the ground as you run around?
This isnt a military game - its a survival game. You wouldnt have hundreds of magazines sitting around empty for all sorts of weapons - you would likely have a few and need to care for them.. Maybe a common weapon like an AK, sure, you could do this as more magazines are on others... but rare ARs, odd caliber pistols, etc? Absolutely not.

Im quite sure you would be taking the time to rig up a bag or retainer system so you arent just dropping mags on the ground to leave, or have to come back and find later if you can
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Having magazines exist out of thin air is no more immersion breaking that being able to carry around 2000+ rounds of .556 ammo. Much less having them magically load into an AR.

There's adding a small game mechanic to make ammo management more challenging, then there's overthinking it. I am conceding this is still a game.
 
New patch is out - apparently the new quest has to be done at a certain time during the main quest, so if you're too far into the game you can't access it until a new playthrough (or reverting way back in saves).
 
MavericK said:
New patch is out - apparently the new quest has to be done at a certain time during the main quest, so if you're too far into the game you can't access it until a new playthrough (or reverting way back in saves).
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Yeah it looks like if your beyond the mission "a minor incident" you cant' access the new content, which is bullshit. I have some saves from early on but I might as well start over, and is it worth doing it before the major update this summer. Honestly they are releasing their dlc pretty half assed.
 
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