Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 50 51 [52] 53

Author Topic: Stalker Series  (Read 88648 times)

Darkmere

  • Bay Watcher
  • Exploding me won't bring back your honey.
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #765 on: August 17, 2013, 09:36:01 pm »

So, I did a play-through with COMPLETE and then tried Misery. After about 20 minutes, Misery is getting uninstalled and deleted. The core of it sounds like a decent concept, but everything about the implementation is shit AND it's buggy as hell... and they made the whole thing hideous, apparently on purpose (that's the real reason all those promo pics were photoshops with some text. The entire Zone is now a brown blob and maddeningly boring).

and

Sorry about the rant. Just had to get that out there. Don't waste your time on Misery, there has to be any number of better mods.
Logged
And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

Zyxl

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #766 on: August 17, 2013, 11:38:01 pm »

Yeah the MISERY dev team kind of lost it. MISERY 1.1 or 1.2 or whatever the pre-2.0 release was is actually very good. MISERY 2.0 didn't deliver on many promised features and cranked the artificial difficulty to 11 as well as the grinding.

The lead gameplay designer for MISERY 2.0 stated on the forums he intended for things you'd normally do in STALKER to be effectively impossible without the right piece of equipment, with which it becomes pointlessly easy. An equipment-based RPG, if you will, where you'll spend 5 hours grinding to buy the equipment to unlock a new thing to grind.

He cited EVE online as inspiration. No seriously, I've seen a screencap of his explanation where he actually states EVE online is his inspiration for STALKER.

Hope you like quick-save too, and not because you actually died. Generally speaking, even with the right equipment, MISERY 2.0 is designed that the repair costs will always be more than the loot no matter what you do. Even if you buy the most anomaly-resistance suit in the game, the repairs ALWAYS cost more than the artifacts are worth. That's even with the cheaper DIY repair methods implemented.

Then there's the straight up artificial difficulty. Excepting the best couple guns in the game shooting the most expensive ammo... nothing dies in less than 2-3 headshots. Excepting you of course. Unless you've grinded up for the exo-suit+addons, everything will kill you in one hit.

Then there's the bugs. Even with the latest official+unofficial patching, around Jupiter and beyond the game crashes constantly. Even before that too, I couldn't get out of Zaton with all the crashing.
Logged

Catastrophic lolcats

  • Bay Watcher
  • [FORTRESSDESTROYER:2]
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #767 on: August 17, 2013, 11:56:37 pm »

God that sounds awful. The main draw to STALKER for me is the fact that although the game can be a right dick and really punishing it's usually pretty fair. While you yourself die pretty quick so do enemies. If you want to take on a Monolith army with a pistol, a bottle of vodka and a raincoat you could as long as you had the balls and skill to do it.

Setting up brick walls that can only be overcome by grinding and pre-set requirements is just bad archaic game design. Reward players for their skill and deduction, not for just looking up the wikia page.

Stalkersoup/Naradnaya Solyanka remains my preferred STALKER experience not only due to it being such a massive expansion but also the fact that a lot of the mechanics are usually pretty fair. Sure there's a lack of transparency in some mechanics but that can sometimes be engaging in a game such as STALKER. When you've learnt that the bag doesn't split open just by pure chance and is instead based around overloading you do get a small sense of satisfaction for learning the mechanic and feel less cheated since you can influence it. 
Logged

Darkmere

  • Bay Watcher
  • Exploding me won't bring back your honey.
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #768 on: August 18, 2013, 03:00:53 am »

God that sounds awful.
It is.

If I could cut out the stupid half of Misery and leave the interesting parts intact, I'd probably be fine with it.

Honestly, what I really want is the equivalent of Fallout Overhaul Kit for STALKER. STOOK? STOOKER? Yeah. Something that just adds moar of everything but still stays roughly plot- and gameplay-neutral.
Logged
And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.

Krevsin

  • Bay Watcher
  • [RAINBOWS:REQUIRED]
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #769 on: August 18, 2013, 06:39:16 am »

I heard good things about the STALKERSOUP mod, the englosh version of the Narodnaya Solyanka mod. It is supposed to be extremely difficult, as it starts you off with a makarov, one clip's worth of ammo and on the military side of the Cordon. It contains all the locations in the 3 games, anomalies are more dangerous and picking up an artifact hurts you.

I have not played this mod (because i doubt my PC can handle it) but I've heard a lot of praise for it.
Logged

snelg

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hoary Marmot Extraordinaire
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #770 on: August 18, 2013, 06:56:37 am »

I've played Misery since the 2.01 patch came out and even if I haven't played CoP before it works out kind of alright. The main problem I have is that there's so many cool things that I would like to use and try but it's so expensive I'd rather not. I also am not particularly impressed by the various headgear covering your screen so you can't see anything. It kind of still works but I'd probably enjoy it a lot more without. I'm not particularly fond of the class system either, since I'd rather experience most of the things and try various weapons throughout the game instead of being shoehorned into using certain weapons and equipment.
Logged
When there's no more room in the fortress, the cats will walk the earth.
Cancels writing: Interrupted by Hoary Marmot.

Mech#4

  • Bay Watcher
  • (ಠ_ృ) Like a sir.
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #771 on: April 27, 2014, 09:46:18 pm »

Related to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series; the S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Lost Alpha mod came out yesterday on Moddb.

Apparently being in development since 2008, S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Lost Alpha aims to include many features that didn't make it into the final release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl. The biggest of which in my mind is adding a whole bunch of new areas like the Dead City, Generators, Swamps and others that were included in some alpha builds but cut from final release.

The mod is actually a fully stand alone game, not requiring the base game S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, as I think the developers of the mod worked with GSC members to release the mod. They were going to release it sometime in the future but due to someone leaking a beta version they moved the release date up to April 26th.

Downloading it from Moddb might be a bit difficult as there are a lot of people trying to at the moment. There is a link to a torrent on the Moddb page that I used which should be easier. The mod is around 20gb in size and comes in four parts.


As an addition, I did try the Misery mod and while it has nice elements of survival and such in it, I didn't like that I had great difficulty trying to shoot an NPC from 150 metres away with a sniper rifle while they could do the same with an assault rifle, even if I hadn't shot at all. They have a really high detect radius, to the point that they could see me prone, hiding in grass and the aforementioned 150m away.
Logged
Kaypy:Adamantine in a poorly defended fortress is the royal equivalent of an unclaimed sock on a battlefield.

Here's a thread listing Let's Players found on the internet. Feel free to add.
List of Notable Mods. Feel free to add.

marples

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #772 on: May 05, 2014, 04:53:16 am »

I've put a few hours into Lost Alpha and its pretty impressive. A lot of work has gone into rebuilding the levels, for instance Cordon now has a huge underground section and Garbage is unrecognisable. The Alife seems to have been toned down a lot though, there never seems to be too much non scripted activity.
Logged

Mech#4

  • Bay Watcher
  • (ಠ_ృ) Like a sir.
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #773 on: May 05, 2014, 05:39:34 am »

Yah yah, I've been playing "Lost Alpha" recently as well.

From looks, it's incredible what the engine is able to do. Lighting in S.T.A.L.K.E.R always was it's strong point, but standing in a field and watching cloud shadows move over the swaying grass, darkening as the sun goes behind clouds is really something else.

As I mentioned before, the mod adds a number of areas that were never included in the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R, however the developers have also added new areas to the existing places, and in some cases changed the environments quite a bit.

Cordon for example; the novice camp is more or less the same, but there's the addition of a few other underground bunkers for shelter. The bridge under the road now has a swamp on the bandit hideout side not to mention where the bandits are is now a big factory.

All this though is a bit marred by rather a lot of bugs. Since they released it earlier than they had originally planned, the community is reporting bugs for them to patch. A patch came out on May 2nd which fixes some of the more immediate issues (Such as crashes caused by a missing foot bone or somesuch) but there's apparently still quite a few problems with quests and the A.I.

I'll add that there's an interesting mechanic in the game where you can call up NPCs on your PDA and ask them if they have any jobs for you to do. This is usually small things like bringing them a medpack or food I believe but I don't think that was something in any of the original games.
Logged
Kaypy:Adamantine in a poorly defended fortress is the royal equivalent of an unclaimed sock on a battlefield.

Here's a thread listing Let's Players found on the internet. Feel free to add.
List of Notable Mods. Feel free to add.

Akura

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #774 on: May 07, 2014, 02:17:49 pm »

I'll add that there's an interesting mechanic in the game where you can call up NPCs on your PDA and ask them if they have any jobs for you to do. This is usually small things like bringing them a medpack or food I believe but I don't think that was something in any of the original games.
Clear Sky had something similar, you could ask squad leaders if they had jobs, and it was usually bring them some ammo or medkit in return for something from their faction's shop owner or barman.
Logged
Quote
They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I told them I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard.
... Yes, the hugs are for everyone.  No stabbing, though.  Just hugs.

Mictlantecuhtli

  • Bay Watcher
  • Grinning God of Death
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #775 on: May 10, 2014, 11:13:33 am »

Lost Alpha is very, very rough but I'm loving it. Not like STALKER 1 and the others were that good on first release, anyways ;p All I need is the FPS to stay stable. Sometimes I get really bad choppiness during lightning storms, for a reason I can't seem to figure out.
Logged
I am surrounded by flesh and bone, I am a temple of living. Maybe I'll maybe my life away.

Santorum leaves a bad taste in my mouth,
Card-carrying Liberaltarian

motorbitch

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #776 on: May 10, 2014, 11:44:27 am »

you may run out of memory on your gfx card. the lightning require a lot for the shadows.
reducing the shadow resolution may work.
Logged

marples

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #777 on: July 11, 2014, 02:29:21 pm »

There's a new patch out for Lost Alpha. I've had to download the whole game again, so no info on what's changed as download speeds seem a little slow http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha

The patch is supposed to address many bugs and instabilities but here's to hoping they filled in a few smart terrains as well.

You don't need to own Stalker to play this, it's completely stand alone and free.

*Edit whilst typing* moddb is back to its 'speedy as fuck' self so downloads are pretty rapid.
Logged

BuriBuriZaemon

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #778 on: September 19, 2014, 06:39:15 pm »

Does anyone have any mod recommendations for Stalker Call of Pripyat? Misery seems to be popular. Other mods seem to have been released in 2011-2012.

I am using the GoG version if that matters.
Logged
Napalm is great if you enjoy hot and spicy foods. I personally enjoy some liquid nitrogen.

Steam profile: Elsior
Friend Code: 2938 - 7181 - 3815 (Elsior/Elle Ciel)

Darkmere

  • Bay Watcher
  • Exploding me won't bring back your honey.
    • View Profile
Re: Stalker Series
« Reply #779 on: September 19, 2014, 07:13:52 pm »

I liked the Complete mods just for vanilla-ness and continuity. Misery's only worth it if you absolutely love having everything but you being invincible titans with autoaim and running around in washed-out muddy gray auto-kill areas.

I should note though, and I have no idea what caused it, but my modded game died right before the final mission, and I have no idea what specifically triggered that to make the game unwinnable.
Logged
And then, they will be weaponized. Like everything in this game, from kittens to babies, everything is a potential device of murder.
So if baseless speculation is all we have, we might as well treat it like fact.
Pages: 1 ... 50 51 [52] 53