Is the game Stalker ok for someone who is not very good at games?

[DigDog]

1. stalker MMO: "Survarium"

i have played it for about a year, and while i do have some praise for it, i also have very many negative observations and i would recommend people do not waste (yes, waste) time on it. ATROCIOUS netcode, basically P2W game structure, and a group of devs who have absolutely no idea what they want their game to be.


2. i am not giving you any spoilers

of all the games i've played, this series is really one that benefits from atmosphere, so i wouldn't be doing you any favours by giving you hints n tips.


keep in mind that, if you do run into severe bugs, crashes, or save data corruption, you'll need to go with the Complete mod.

@jtvang125 stalker is what fallout should have been.

 

[Stringjam]

Really? I had heard about some kind of Stalker MMO which I immediately dismissed as probably garbage if anything.

I think you might be thinking of Survarium(?) which was dev'd by the former STALKER team. Before GSC shut down several years ago, they had announced they were going to develop STALKER 2, but then the company fell apart shortly after.

Now that the company is back up and (seemingly) stabilized, it looks like they're going to take it on again. They just announced it today, so there isn't much info. I just hope they can keep it together and give the sequel the kind of game it deserves, and well...hopefully not shut down the office again.

I pray to God it will be a dedicated single-player experience without any MMO / multiplayer components.

 

[EXCellR8]

Yea, just seems to good to be a possibility but of course I'd love another game. I bet they could really knock it out of the park with today's modern graphics APIs.

 

[Stringjam]

Yea, just seems to good to be a possibility but of course I'd love another game. I bet they could really knock it out of the park with today's modern graphics APIs.

Yeah, at the time ShoC was developed, it was pretty groundbreaking - - if you play Lost Alpha you can get a taste of where they started and the kind of ambitions they had. The tech just wasn't there at the time - they were attempting open-world hybrid RPG / FPS with some pretty advanced AI when other devs were satisfied with run-n-gun corridor shooters.

Now the tool-sets that are required to build those environments are mature and defacto for any major engine. I'm just hoping they can capture the essence of those games now that the tech isn't a problem. I have a lot of faith in the Eastern European devs for building games like this.

STALKER is still the only game that has made me think twice about getting into a fight. Watching a group of "friends" get ravaged because I was low on ammo and bandages, and considering whether or not I would be better off letting them get killed so I could get their gear vs. stepping in and saving their lives (that's REAL survivalism).

You're not a hero in these games, and you're not a "badass" like Western developers always build you into. You're just a regular, desperate human in the same sad circumstance as everyone else. You're going to watch people who you're trying to help die. You're going to have to pick sides when "good and evil" is grey instead of black and white.

STALKER is everything that's missing from the current crop of FPS single-player games.

 

[EXCellR8]

I have the lost alpha downloaded but I don't think I ever attempted to install and/or run it; I wouldn't even know what OS to use. I forget the build version but it was like 5GB or something so I really wanted to check it out because I think the fan base added or optimized a good portion of it. The artist Pavel mods for the games were really cool too but I think the only one I got to work was the one for CoP.

It's definitely a game for those who don't simply want to level up and walk over enemies later in the game. Heck, even in the exo armor it was still super sketchy near the power plant itself; death was almost certain if you were careless.

 

[dasherHampton]

So those guys that died don't break anything? They're not quest givers?

I remember playing a game a very long time ago (unfortunately I don't remember what game it was) that had a bug that allowed a crucial quest giver to be killed, breaking the game. I didn't know what was going on until I finally went on the internet and found out. I had to restart from way back.

When the guy with the dogs was getting killed I was overloaded with loot and couldn't dash to try to help him. By the time I got near I could see he was in a lot of trouble, taking damage from dogs on all sides, and decided turn around so I didn't meet the same fate, being overloaded and all. I couldn't have escaped the pack of dogs if they turned their attention t me.

The game really gets to you. I haven't had a chance to continue yet but I will after work today. It's been in my mind constantly.

Why couldn't they put a shopkeep a little closer to the garage? That's such a long haul. Or at least let stalkers in the field buy limited weapons from you.

 

[dasherHampton]

I finally got a chance to continue the other day and ran into some issues. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I got to the railway depot and helped the guys there fight off the attack. No issues.

I ventured out towards the military installation to the west. Took out bandits outside the railway station fairly easily. You just have to wait inside the doors until they come in one by one lol.

I made it to the guy you're supposed to meet outside the factory and ran with him to help the guys fighting the soldiers. I saved right before this.

I've restarted there a few times and the result is always the same: By the time I get to the battle its pretty much over. I might have to kill one or two soldiers and thats it. No big deal. So I go try to find the guy calling for help inside the installation and by the time I get to him he's surrounded by solders, and by surrounded I mean SURROUNDED. The soldiers are all packed in tightly like they're dancing with him and trying to get a dry hump in. The first few times I got to that point they blew me away in seconds as soon as I tried anything. I finally was able to get past this by reviving one of the dudes from the first fight. When he came with me the soldiers finally dispersed a bit so we could take them out.

Then the guy I'm supposed to save runs out of the factory to the entrance of an underground place and says what I'm looking for is in there iirc. So I go in and it's not hard but it's a brutal slog. I mean - after I cleared out the initial bandits I ran into DOZENS of military guys down here. Seriously, when you look at the mini map its basically completely full of grey dots. It drained me of most of my ammo. Somehow the whole thing just didn't seem to fit the flow of the game up to that point. It didn't feel right.

So I finally get to the spiral staircase, dispatch the soldiers there, and go up on the top level. Then a mutant (or whatever it is) zeroes in on me and one shots me. I can't kill him. So after a few reloads I simply try sprinting away and it works. I find the exit.

The only problem is - the exit is right back into the installation that is now swarming with soldiers. There's NO way I can do anything. I'm not nearly powerful enough, and I don't have enough ammo to kill one guy, let alone a whole squad.

So I reload an earlier save from the dungeon and backtrack to the guy who showed me the hole. I thought maybe I could talk with him and get some more info, or figure out what I missed. But no - he immediately freaks out and runs to attack the soldiers like a kamikaze idiot.

Where did I go wrong here (or did I go wrong at all)? Do I simply need to grind for better armor and weapons/ammo in the first section of the game and then go back? I'm almost ready to try a mod that maybe smooths out some of this stuff and restart at this point.

I do like the game a lot. There is so much great stuff there.

 

[DigDog]

ok, most of the missions you get early on are NOT storyline quests - they are just there to amuse you. You can pretty much run to the end of the game and there's only a few quests you must do to trigger some events. When you do these quests, let the NPCs do the killing .. and the dying. the first few areas have no good gear, they do have some nice artifacts, but you will likely need a good detector before you can grab them, so you need to go ahead, and then come back. Just, not too far ahead.

which game are you playing? SoC, CS, CoP? they pretty much all use the same maps.

 

[dasherHampton]

I'm playing the first one.

I looked it up and the section that I'm talking about is Agroprom. There's a factory there and that's where the NPC/enemy behavior starts to get wonky.

Then, when you go underground, it gets really weird. As I mentioned: tons and tons of soldiers down there for some reason.

 

[Stg-Flame]

If you just started and you're already in Agroprom, then you rushed past a lot of things.

Also, you should be looting everything you kill (especially guns and ammo) and selling the extra stuff regularly. There's a few places with static-spawned equipment so you could look up where to find some of these (there's a SEVA suit in one spot that's fairly easy to get to early in the game). If nothing else, clearing out the military outpost in the beginning of the game (opposite to the rail yard) will usually yield enough weapons, ammo, and grenades to last you until the middle of the game. Unless you're going full-auto and spraying in their general direction instead of taking the time to place your shots (headshots are instant death), then you could run out of ammo.

 

[dasherHampton]

Something killed the military guys at the railway bridge. I didn't do it. I was on my way back to sell loot and saw that they were all dead. I looted them all.

Yeah, I found that suit. I returned it to the quest giver *facepalm*. I should have kept it, right?

Maybe I'm wrong. Agroprom is the facility west of the railway depot, isn't it?

I'm going to play some more tonight. I might have to restart from the save before that battle. I'm sure I still have it.

 

[JSt0rm]

the first stalker game is a masterpiece. One of the finest fps games to ever be made. But it is hard. Get good.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Something killed the military guys at the railway bridge. I didn't do it. I was on my way back to sell loot and saw that they were all dead. I looted them all.

Yeah, I found that suit. I returned it to the quest giver *facepalm*. I should have kept it, right?

Maybe I'm wrong. Agroprom is the facility west of the railway depot, isn't it?

I'm going to play some more tonight. I might have to restart from the save before that battle. I'm sure I still have it.

The military outpost I'm talking about is directly opposite of the railway. Meaning, when you're facing the railway station from the beginning of the game, go the other way on the road and you'll end up at a heavily fortified military outpost. If you don't sneak, they end up shredding you long before you can get anywhere near them, but if you can sneak up to them, you can use the cracks in the walls to your advantage and pick them off one by one or hope for a few well-placed grenades to take them out when they're bunched up.

As for the SEVA suit, if you're taking random quests from various NPCs, then yes, one of them will eventually ask you to find the SEVA suit and returning it is a very bad idea. It's one of the best suits in the game simply because it can hold 4 artifacts and has decent protection from various sources.

 

[dasherHampton]

Ahh, THOSE guys. The guys spouting the propaganda with the speakers.

Yeah, I got too close to them once and they shredded me immediately. I was careful after that.

 

[JSt0rm]

I killed those guys. Was a hell of a challenge. Fun.

 

[BFG10K]

Stalker series on sale @ GOG: https://www.gog.com/promo/20180517_stalker

 

[DigDog]

oh boy ..

so, i'm playing Shadow of Chernobyl, WITHOUT the Complete mod, and man, it's a mess. Weapons cannot hit anything until you have the god-tier special guns. I haven't encountered any game breaking events yet, since it's the GOG version. However, running, damage, shooting, it's all unbalanced to hell and beyond.

 

[Igo69]

You guys can get this for free it is a mod that combines all 3 Stalker games into one big game with its own story. It is amazing I highly recommend this.

By the way it is not exactly the same in terms of maps some of it is redone into new and something looks the same.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/lost-alpha

 

[JSt0rm]

oh boy ..

so, i'm playing Shadow of Chernobyl, WITHOUT the Complete mod, and man, it's a mess. Weapons cannot hit anything until you have the god-tier special guns. I haven't encountered any game breaking events yet, since it's the GOG version. However, running, damage, shooting, it's all unbalanced to hell and beyond.

Its not unbalanced. Its called "this s is hard"

 

[DigDog]

apparently there are some hidden statistics which are added to your aim and spread when shooting in vanilla stalker, which is why bullets can mysteriously disappear. but when you empty one full magazine of those very few magazines you have of that expensive ammo in the face within melee distance of a generic enemy and that generic enemy of which there are many more than the magazines you have refuses to die, that is unbalanced.

 

[dasherHampton]

I know, man. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this.

I know stalker is hard but but something just feels off. The whole factory/Agriprom thing is a mess.

Like I said - when I go to save mole the soldiers are bunched around him. It's weird. And the underground level is screwed up. Like I said - I encountered dozens of soldiers down there. What are they doing down there? Something was broken in a patch.

And I have no hope of completing the factory part of it. I basically get one shotted as soon as a soldier sees me.

I'll probably have to restart with a mod. But the game has shown me enough to know its worth the restart.

You can basically trigger endless waves of bandits at the abandoned car park if you want. All you have to do is go far enough to hit the trigger and bam - another batch of bandits.

 

[dasherHampton]

Ok, my friend is coming by tomorrow or Tuesday to check this out.

He'll know if something weird is up.

 

[Artorias]

Anyone who has, hasn't played or on the fence should watch this video on the STALKER franchise. Great documentary.

 

[JSt0rm]

apparently there are some hidden statistics which are added to your aim and spread when shooting in vanilla stalker, which is why bullets can mysteriously disappear. but when you empty one full magazine of those very few magazines you have of that expensive ammo in the face within melee distance of a generic enemy and that generic enemy of which there are many more than the magazines you have refuses to die, that is unbalanced.

one thing you learn in stalker is to not spray and pray.

 

[DigDog]

one thing you learn in stalker is to not spray and pray.

i don't have any specific thing against you but i did write "within melee distance" and honestly i've grown fed up over the years of people who dont read or avoid thinking about what they read i don't spray and pray nor have i give this impression anywhere on my posts. i've been playing exclusively hardcore shooters for the last 10 years so i know when i'm aiming correctly, i understand bullet travel, drop, latency, hitboxes, spread, and everything else associated with FPS games.
in stalker there are .. as i wrote earlier, but now i will highlight it just to make sure you read it, some calculations outside of what happens onscreen, which determine if you hit or not. you can edit your game files and set this arbitrary percentage higher, up to 100%, where at that time bullets only adhere to the rules of gun accuracy and crosshair placement.

now, sicne this will be my 3rd run through SoC, i know what to do and i now have a modified TRZ-1 so accuracy is no longer a problem. However, this does highlight why the game had such a hard time being recognized initially, it's still crude in its RPG/stats/whatnot and while there are reasons to appreciate it, there are also reasons to despise it.