S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series Megathread: The Zone will stop the Russians - Games

[QUOTE=Gatekeeper828;44065451]I believe Owl starts selling really good shit when you reach a certain rank. I do not know what rank that is though since I just reached somewhere around 700-800 recently and he only just got in stock a HK417. My advice is to find a Groza Breakwater or something like that off of an Alpha Squad if you're in need of a good gun. It does 80 damage per shot and uses 5.45 rounds. Plus it has a scope, grenade launcher, and suppressor.[/QUOTE]Turns out I had a breakwater in yanov stash. Works a lot better than the cyclone.

So just tried 2.1 of Misery. AI still can take a round from a Mosin to the face and survive, and I'm talking, non masked, Trenchcoat AI. And whilst camping up on the bridge, by on the bridge I mean across the supports out of sight from ANYONE where I know for a fact there is 0 chance of AI seeing me. I was using steam browser to simply reply to messages, and suddenly there is one bandit shouting at me who's partially morphed into one of the beams. I shoot him once I'm back in from the steam overlay, only to be gunned down by a second through a pure concrete pillar... I know this because he then proceeded to walk away from said pillar and I could see him being ON the other side of the concrete pillar. So yeah. Fuck Misery, still has the same problems that turned me off it last time.

[QUOTE=Jamie1992GSC;44065992]So yeah. Fuck Misery, still has the same problems that turned me off it last time.[/QUOTE] Well, Misery isn't for everyone. I personally didn't have issues with bullet spongey stuff since I shot three duty veterans with a GSH-18 and they all dropped dead when I hit them in the head. I can't say I liked Misery myself though, it didn't feel like that hostile yet peaceful place that I like stalker for, it just kinda felt like 100% hostile and nothing peaceful about it. That's just me though and my reason for not liking it probably doesn't make much sense to anybody. (Plus it broke my Steam Overlay when I installed it, rip overlay.)

I only had 3 gripes with 2.0.2 The amount of rounds they can take to the face from a Starting Mosin even though they are wearing practically nothing on the face. Even a basic Merc Suit Bandit took 3 rounds before dropping, he's wearing a mask, but kind of negates the point of a sniper if you can't do anything to them as soon as they wear anything more than a trenchcoat. How They were fucking snipers with pistols. How they can seemingly kill me through solid objects without seeing me or me making any real noise or know EXACTLY where I was even though there is an ENTIRE solid floor between us and proceeding to riddle the floor with bullets and kill me. Only one they have fixed is the sniper pistols for all I could see. If they fixed the other two. I would love Misery, but as it stands. I just can't deal with how...fake the difficulty is. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I always play games Like ArmA or VBS. Ahwell. I'll hop over to SGM 2.2 or something.

The two numbers for the SGM rank, what do they indicate?

[QUOTE=Lizzrd;44066318]The two numbers for the SGM rank, what do they indicate?[/QUOTE] General Rank, and the one in brackets is headshots.

[QUOTE=Jamie1992GSC;44066074]I only had 3 gripes with 2.0.2 The amount of rounds they can take to the face from a Starting Mosin even though they are wearing practically nothing on the face. Even a basic Merc Suit Bandit took 3 rounds before dropping, he's wearing a mask, but kind of negates the point of a sniper if you can't do anything to them as soon as they wear anything more than a trenchcoat. How They were fucking snipers with pistols. How they can seemingly kill me through solid objects without seeing me or me making any real noise or know EXACTLY where I was even though there is an ENTIRE solid floor between us and proceeding to riddle the floor with bullets and kill me. Only one they have fixed is the sniper pistols for all I could see. If they fixed the other two. I would love Misery, but as it stands. I just can't deal with how...fake the difficulty is. Maybe I'm just spoiled because I always play games Like ArmA or VBS. Ahwell. I'll hop over to SGM 2.2 or something.[/QUOTE] You could try Misery 2.2 beta or alpha, whatever it was. They have fixed combat, I just didn't personally like massive influx of items and inventory management that it focuses on. I prefer LURK-like mods more where it's simplistic. Probably the same reason why I don't REALLY like STALKERSOUP. It might have some hilarious moments but the influx of shit that it has is just...I can't bring myself to really enjoy it.

[QUOTE='[Green];44066422']You could try Misery 2.2 beta or alpha, whatever it was. They have fixed combat, I just didn't personally like massive influx of items and inventory management that it focuses on. I prefer LURK-like mods more where it's simplistic. Probably the same reason why I don't REALLY like STALKERSOUP. It might have some hilarious moments but the influx of shit that it has is just...I can't bring myself to really enjoy it.[/QUOTE] It was the latest beta I was playing. 2.1 It still has the same problems. [editline]27th February 2014[/editline] And that was with Hard Core AI Aim off also.

With STALKER SOUP, is the first load time supposed to be absurdly long? Because I'm pretty sure it's just freezing. The one time it did manage to get past that first loading screen, it froze right as the first cutscene began. Is this normal, or am I experiencing some weird shit? I realize that so much added content is gonna force STALKER to load a lot longer initially, but I can't tell how long it actually needs. It's becoming a pain in the ass.

So I wanted to start on Vanilla COP since I didn't touched it without mods for years... But why GSC ? Why this awful 55° FOV ? God, this is unplayable.

[QUOTE=Doneeh;44067040] Is this normal, or am I experiencing some weird shit?[/QUOTE] You're playing the Soup. By definition it's some weird shit. (Sorry that I don't have an actual, helpful answer to your problem.)

I think I am going to play a game with MSO/OWR/AtmosFear and try something new: I should only go out at night and sleep when it's daytime. It's probably going to be really fucking scary, but it sounds like it would be a lot of fun and it might change the way I fight drastically even if it isn't some super hardcore challenge.

Is soProject 1.0.1 at all decent?

Don't bother with it. It's an interesting proof of concept, but the dev never got far enough with it to make it actually fun.

[QUOTE=Doneeh;44067040] Is this normal, or am I experiencing some weird shit? I realize that so much added content is gonna force STALKER to load a lot longer initially, but I can't tell how long it actually needs. It's becoming a pain in the ass.[/QUOTE] Do you have noprefetch turned on? But yeah, the soup generally has long-ass load times.

[QUOTE=Jamie1992GSC;44065992] So yeah. Fuck Misery, still has the same problems that turned me off it last time.[/QUOTE] I've mostly gotten used to it. If you want, you can turn off the super duper aiming abilities of everyone in the settings menu. Plus get rid of that mosin ASAP and get something that uses AP ammo. A Green Dragon loaded with .338 DU rounds will instakill everyone aside from exo-stalkers, who need a follow up shot. A lot of the bullshit mechanics can be dealt with by being more careful and not dropping your guard right away. I have been shot through concrete before, but only once.

[QUOTE=zombini;44067789]I've mostly gotten used to it. If you want, you can turn off the super duper aiming abilities of everyone in the settings menu. Plus get rid of that mosin ASAP and get something that uses AP ammo. A Green Dragon loaded with .338 DU rounds will instakill everyone aside from exo-stalkers, who need a follow up shot. A lot of the bullshit mechanics can be dealt with by being more careful and not dropping your guard right away. I have been shot through concrete before, but only once.[/QUOTE] As stated I did turn it off. But it makes 0 sense to not be able to kill an unarmoured bandit with a headshot with a sniper rifle. I know it's a Mosin, but without ANYTHING to protect your head, you should just drop straight away. It's the ballistics and the way they can shoot through walls and floors with pinpoint accuracy, even with it off that drains any fun straight out of it for me. Either way. Uninstalled it now and am currently playing SGM 2.2 instead.

[QUOTE=JoeSibilant;44067724]Do you have noprefetch turned on? But yeah, the soup generally has long-ass load times.[/QUOTE] How do I do that again?

[QUOTE=Doneeh;44068226]How do I do that again?[/QUOTE] Steam: go to game properties, click 'set launch options,' add -noprefetch Non-steam: go to shortcut properties, and in the target field add (outside of the quotes) -noprefetch

Jesus, Zone of Alienation is really unforgiving. How do I enable back UI? That decision coupled with the magazine system is just a pure no-no. I can't know for sure whether the magazine I loaded has 1 bullet on it. And christ, what the heck? The AI has no recoil and aimbot. I reckon they are much smarter now (they camp, run and so on) but they hit you with no problem. EDIT: AARGGHHHHH, I keep loading 1 bullet magazines into every damn weapon I find....

So, a small update about the OWR2 sound patch [B][U]It's done![/U][/B] will upload tomorrow.

[QUOTE=LoNer1;44072248]So, a small update about the OWR2 sound patch [B][U]It's done![/U][/B] will upload tomorrow.[/QUOTE] Colour me cautiously hyped. Is it just for OWR? Or the addon version too? The models and animations are great but the sounds.... Arsenal's been a bit better in that regard, still not fantastic though, there's a sore lack of normalisation.

[QUOTE=JoeSibilant;44068265]Steam: go to game properties, click 'set launch options,' add -noprefetch Non-steam: go to shortcut properties, and in the target field add (outside of the quotes) -noprefetch[/QUOTE] Didn't seem to help, but thanks anyway. I seriously don't understand why it would take so long, or just freeze up for that matter. It's really getting annoying.

[QUOTE=Fuxed;44072452]Colour me cautiously hyped. Is it just for OWR? Or the addon version too? The models and animations are great but the sounds.... Arsenal's been a bit better in that regard, still not fantastic though, there's a sore lack of normalisation.[/QUOTE] Addon version, too ;) Also, I've noticed I'm way more cautious with OWR2 and Reborn. It's like COP blossoms again, for me. I really love the combination

Ok so, I'm getting back into STALKER and I'm wondering which mod to go for for COP - SGM or Misery?

I would say: Getting back: SGM Bored of CoP: MISERY No other way there

[QUOTE=Jamie1992GSC;44067933]As stated I did turn it off. But it makes 0 sense to not be able to kill an unarmoured bandit with a headshot with a sniper rifle. I know it's a Mosin, but without ANYTHING to protect your head, you should just drop straight away. It's the ballistics and the way they can shoot through walls and floors with pinpoint accuracy, even with it off that drains any fun straight out of it for me. Either way. Uninstalled it now and am currently playing SGM 2.2 instead.[/QUOTE] One way to approach Misery is knowing that it wasn't really made to be believable and more for difficulty. Personally I don't like Misery because it pretty much nerfs artifacts altogether. They're useless, the don't sell for much, and going hunting in chemical and thermal anomalies will cost you instead of turning a profit. And again it's not very believable at all. I kept getting thrown out of the immersion by how badly equipped dead S.T.A.L.K.E.R.s were in the deadliest place on planet Earth. I'd love to see a cross between Misery's better implemented features, like how radiation works with gasmasks (no mask = lotsa radiation. mask = almost no radiation), artifact containers, hunting and cooking, etc. And I don't mind the AI all that much. Sure they can be overkill at times, bandits shouldn't be able to kill you at large distances with precision accuracy. But I can't play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. without my artifacts. It just feels dull. The problem with optimizing something like Misery for difficulty and believability at the same time is that the player has the quicksave function. I'm not sure how it would be fixed, but think about it like this. Imagine if the game only saved when you entered and left skadovsk. If you died between visits to skadovsk, you'd lose all your stuff. That way, you could arm bandits with a sensible amount of gear, because the likelyhood of the player taking out several bandits without dying once is a feat worth a reward. It would put the edge back in the game, adding a whole sense of doom and fear of losing your stuff. I dunno. just my controversial opinion. dont eat me

Something that I want to see out of a future stalker game would be an expansion of the artifact system. Rather than stat bonuses, they just do weird shit. And, to make matters worse, you have no way of knowing exactly what that is until you try to use it. Sometimes it may be helpful, other times it may actually be ridiculously dangerous. Often it will do something that is neither inherently helpful nor harmful, though it can be sold for cash still. For instance a beneficial artifact may have a hidden random chance to stop incoming projectiles dead. Like you literally see the bullet stop and hover for a second before it drops to the ground. Or you might get one that will boil your blood or excite the powder in the magazine of your equipped weapon and cause severe damage to the weapon. Or you might just find one that makes it rain when you equip it. Or whispers constantly in your head. Or causes your geiger counter to give false readings. Or makes all food make you intoxicated. As it stands it is weird that all the artifacts are helpful or hurtful in very defined fashions. I want them to feel more alien and for there to be a boatload of them to find. You should always feel slightly torn about selling an artifact because you shouldn't encounter one twice in the same game. It would also be interesting if providing artifacts to the scientist faction would affect a hidden "research" stat which allowed them to provide you with increasingly exotic bits of hardware. Equipment which is otherwise normal, but modified with an artifact in some capacity. There would be a list of different items hidden from the player, each with a different "research value" that must be spent by the scientists in order to add it to the list of items they sell. Periodically, the scientist faction conducts research and will spend the points in the "research" stat and randomly choose an item that it can afford from the list to spend their research points on. If they can't afford anything, or there are leftover research points, they roll over to the next cycle. They might introduce a suit that has a zero effective weight due to gravity based artifacts or a gun with a higher muzzle velocity. Perhaps grenades that mix an electro explosion with traditional fragmentation or bullets that light people on fire. All for a steep price, of course. EDIT: Everest's mention of Misery's useless artifacts made me think of it. Thank you for reminding me.

[QUOTE=GunFox;44074354]-wurds-[/QUOTE] That is pretty much what i was thinking. The very existence of The Zone is a big 'Fuck You" to the laws of physics, so why should artifacts be limited to things that are minor blights on physics? I'd like to see some of the descriptions of artifacts in Myseri come true, such as how the Night Star artifact can level a small building if damaged. Kinda wish there were a little more imagination in the anomalies too. Ones that simply damage you, ones that suck you in then implode you, ones that spray acid, fire. All of those are boring. There could have been more done with psy anomalies too, little things like hallucinations, auditory and visual. Go walking in a group, you pass through the anomaly, next thing you know, you're getting rushed by snorks, so you and the group open fire on the snorks. After a few moments of the onslaught, you've used up lots of your ammo. Then you realize there were no snorks to begin with. STALKER needs more psychological phenomena. After all, the zone is the product of what happens when you fuck with the Noosphere. Another example would be, you were walking in an anomaly field, artifact hunting. You step into a psy anomaly that you didn't notice, suddenly, you spot an artifact on your detector. You chase after it, it moves wildly over the anomaly field. You almost grab the thing, when you nearly fall into a burner. That psy anomaly made you think there was an artifact, but it lead you right into a burner. These are just basic, not very well thought out examples, but i hope some of you understand what i am saying.

I am loving these ideas and discussions, so allow me; [I]My intake on these aspects[/I]: First and foremost, I'd like to talk about the [B]anomalies[/B]. Like [I]zombini[/I] said, they lack imagination. Most of the anomalies are, albeit in the zone, pretty 'usual' phenomenas. I mean, the vortex, for example, was probably inspired by a black hole, with a few minor modifications to it. It's not so difficult to actually give them an explanation in your mind, you know? And this factor, which is key to a place like the zone, [B]actually shouldn't exist[/B]. You shouldn't be able to [I]explain[/I] the anomaly, because this takes another factor out of the game; [B][I]fear[/I][/B]. The unknown is what we fear as humans, explaining things gives us comfort. Most games take this away, and STALKER should've also, on this front. I know it may look like I'm talking nonsense here, but think about it. Once you know what you're dealing with, you aren't afraid anymore, in most cases, right? Who's actually [I]scared[/I] of anomalies? Almost everyone in here probably isn't. That's what bothers me. I would've loved to see the following: You walk through a highly forested area. Suddenly, the wind becomes slightly noticeable. You start seeing leaves above you and around you, falling down and bursting into fire once they reach the ground. Then, you start to take a little bit of damage, every 2-3 seconds. You look around you, but you can't find the source of the 'thing' hurting you. The damage becomes more and more and weird sounds erupt. If you don't escape, you'll die there. So, you start to run out of the forrest, seeing your arms and gun catch fire as well. Once you've escaped the forrest and bandaged your wounds, you look back at the place only to see something like a huge psychedelic sphere overlaying the forest you've just been in and it slowly fades away. And next time you enter the forest, [I]it's not there[/I]. This is a whole new gameplay element as well. Surely we've tried, with randomized anomalies, but what's fun at randomizing anomalies we're already familiar with? I'd love new stuff like electrical anomalies, hovering a meter or so above the ground, pulling everything inwards. So, if you, for example, threw a grenade towards or over the anomaly, or rolled a barrel towards it, it would be sucked in and either vanish for forever, or teleport you to somewhere random. Or, if you managed to accidentally leave an artefact behind it would slowly 'go' towards the anomaly, to be sucked in as well and immediately 'spit out' with a whole new appearance and stats / effects. All these little 'inconsistencies' and random situations in the game would probably make STALKER [I][B]the[/B][/I] game with huge replay value. It already has this, but imagine this being in-game. And my last idea which I'm currently working on (trying to get this to work), an anomaly that covers [I]the whole level[/I], [B]constantly[/B]. Inspired by Cromm's radiation fall / acid rain and blowouts, I started working on my own version for SHoC. I won't spoil too much, but it consists of 5 things; 1, radiation, 2, acid, 3, rain, 4, fog and 5, electricity. I won't tell you how it'll work, but I hope it'll succeed. And this all was just about the anomalies. I could go on about the artefacts as well, but I don't want to make this too long. I can ramble on for quite a while actually :v: Ok, you know what? I'll just do it. I have to let it out: Second notion; [B]Artefacts[/B]. Where are these from? How do they exist? What are the side effects? What are the positivities of these things? All these questions, should also, just like with the anomalies, be left unanswered once you enter the zone. It's pretty weird to already know each and every artefacts effects in stats. Sure, it might make the game a lot harder if they aren't there, but there's a way around this. For example: Take MISERY. You have an artefact container. You can't equip artefacts to your belt because of the immense radiation they give off. What I should add in the game, if I were on the STALKER team; An improved appearance of scientist in the zone. They are vital to the artefact system. You should place the artefacts into a container, to take it with you on a long journey to the scientists bunker / team or whatever. You should then give the artefact to them for either of these actions: Sell, and get some money for it, [B] Examine the artefact[/B], vital to getting to know the artefact. You may also get bonusses if it's an unknown artefact, or get into situations where the scientists wouldn't want to return the artefact. Examination could take up to 5-7 in-game days as well, and you'd get a pop-up on your PDA once your artefact is ready to be used, [B] Merge[/B], take 2 artefacts and merge them. Much like the O.L mod did, but again with a delay, so you'd have to sacrifice the artefacts and time for this to happen. The outcome could be either way; Good ... or [I]bad,[/I] [B]Repair[/B], (I will get back at this later) And lastly, [B]Erupt[/B]. Why should Major D / Strelok or anyone know how to activate an artefact? This would take over a week for the scientists, and you could possibly kill some of them with this, which in return could influence the relation you have with them and the prices they're going to charge you for later actions in the game, but it could also give you an artefact you could use as weapon in dangerous situations. They would influence the artefact with electrical spikes, trying to get it to activate. Once it's 'activated' you'd have a set period to use it or it would 'erupt' in your backpack. Also, who ever said artefacts should always stay the same? Imagine, you place 4 artefacts in your 4-slot container. Once you've arrived at the scientific hideout / bunker, you've only got 3 left, or 2. Or maybe even 1? They merged in the container, or one's power did the other vanish? You could possibly have endless situations with this system where you'd plan to do something and The Zone shows you otherwise And the very last thing I'd love to see about artefacts ... [B]Durability[/B]. Once they start to degrade, you see an increase in radiation poisoning. If you wait too long with returning the artefact to the scientist for selling, or [B]reparation[/B], you'd either loose the artifact, or it would become stat-less and thus garbage. The value would severely decrease and the only thing it would do is poison you. If you'd place such an artefact in your container (taking into mind we have 3 'gens' of containers), the first 2 would probably break very quickly, leaking radiation into your backpack and such. So yeah, my intake.