MagnusTheReD wrote:I don't think that there's an actual act of "joining"...
I think I joined Duty when I agreed to help them storm the Freedom base, but I got the cool looking armor (Duty's SEVA version) by making another mission for them.
It did involve stealing from Freedom, but since they never found out about it I remained on good terms with them.
So, I dunno...
The inability to join is pretty stupid - your guy is famous throughtout the zone, instantly recognisable as 'the marked one'... and yet you can support either side at many different points. Some Duty guys will try and kill me even if I help Duty, and many Freedom guys will talk to me even after I kill hundreds of them. Since they touted the relationships and reputation as a big part of the game, I'm kind of disappointed. A more widespread campaign of warfare would be much more interesting than the current 'uncover the short and silly plot that suddenly ends'.
InnocentBystander wrote:Does joining a side mean you get that cool looking armor?
I don't think that there's an actual act of "joining"...
I think I joined Duty when I agreed to help them storm the Freedom base, but I got the cool looking armor (Duty's SEVA version) by making another mission for them.
It did involve stealing from Freedom, but since they never found out about it I remained on good terms with them.
So, I dunno...
Err ya, I can't seem to figure that quest out, I chatted with the guy but the task log still says I need to talk to him. How many times can I ask him to tell me something interesting?
Who are these monolith guys? They fight like normal soldiers but live up in the heavy... HEAVY radiation. Are they like zombies or something?
InnocentBystander wrote:
Who are these monolith guys? They fight like normal soldiers but live up in the heavy... HEAVY radiation. Are they like zombies or something?
Spoiler:
The Monoliths are a group of stalkers who have been reprogrammed by the Collective. Rather than the mindless zombies outright controlled by the Brain Scorcher, the Monolith have their thinking rewired, so that they revere the area around the Monolith and protect it with their life.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
InnocentBystander wrote:
Err ya, I can't seem to figure that quest out, I chatted with the guy but the task log still says I need to talk to him. How many times can I ask him to tell me something interesting?
If you talk to the heavily armored guy at the main gate he'll tell you that the cook is a major drunktard!
Can you see where it's heading?
When you have vodka in your inventory you get new options when speaking with him. You need three bottles.
Stark wrote:The inability to join is pretty stupid - your guy is famous throughtout the zone, instantly recognisable as 'the marked one'... and yet you can support either side at many different points. Some Duty guys will try and kill me even if I help Duty, and many Freedom guys will talk to me even after I kill hundreds of them. Since they touted the relationships and reputation as a big part of the game, I'm kind of disappointed. A more widespread campaign of warfare would be much more interesting than the current 'uncover the short and silly plot that suddenly ends'.
Yeah, it's kinda retarded. Maybe is there would be an expation pack they would make this whole factions deal a bit more complicated and interesting.
I always wanted a game where NPC's actually react to your recent actions that weren't necessarily directed at this specific NPC. You know, like if you kill someone famous the NPCs start talking about you, or mock you.
I know S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is not that kind of a game, but damn, I was hoping you can at least expect your dumbass character to stop calling himself a rookie after he reaches the first position in the stupid ranking sheet!
Ok, i'm kind of going to create an "Ultimate Wish List" for a long term mod that i'd like to see built, add to it if you will. When we are done, we could post it on the moder's forum at STALKER files.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Redux.
Weapons - - -
1. Weapons will all be balanced, some weapons are better than others in a straight shoot out, but everything has a tradeoff.
A. Advanced military weapons are less common. Civilian weapons are more common.
B. Light Hunting rifles and .22 target shooting rifles will be common in the early parts of the game. They are excellent against early level mutants like boars and dogs, but less than desireable against other humans or more advanced mutants. These weapons are easy to maintain and ammo is easy to find, the military will not consider it a problem if you are seen with them.
C. Weapon quality and types progress
> indicates general progression of types. While I do believe in balanced weapons, obviously you wouldn't want to take your dad's taget shooting .22 into a combat zone.
Light Civilian Weapons (.22 target rifles, .38 pocket revolvers) > Mid civilian (PMm, 16 gauge single shot hunting shotguns) > High civilian (.308 scoped hunting rifles, double barrel shotguns) > Police equipment (M9 Beretta, Pump shotguns, sub machine guns) > Low grade military (Older wartime bolt action rifles like the K98, sub machine guns, many semi automatic 30 cal rifles, molotov cocktails, AK-47) > Standard military (Assault rifles such as AK-74, M-16, some carbines, some sniper rifles) > Specialist military weapons (light machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and anti tank weapons)
D. High explosives, plantable mines, C4/special purpose items like flashbangs.
2. More customizeable parts. ACOG sights, bayonets, magazines taped to one another, etc.
E. Cleaning kits, maintenance kits, replacement parts.
F. Expanding on specialist weapons, these weapons are extremely powerful, but have their problems, especially in the zone where supply is difficult to come by. For instance
Light Machine Guns - Obviously powerhouses, a STALKER on a hill with a clear line of fire could WTFPWN 30 or so bloodsuckers yes. But he's in for one hell of a shock when he gets back to the bar to see the replacement ammo is worth almost as much as the gun. Also, LMGs are high maintenance weapons, you need to pay for new barrels, recievers, etc. They are also very heavy, say good bye to loads of carrying space plus ammo and replacement parts. Keeping it in good health is something you really can't afford to do through the entire game. Did I mention these weapons are also obscenely rare?
A.I. - - -
1. Bandits are more likely to break and run with casualties. They're stupid kids out on the country side looking to bully random noobies, not assault military bases and compounds.
2. Military personel are much more threatening. Even the regulars of the Ukrainian army understand how to flank and supress. You do NOT want to fuck with a squad of army soldiers if you see them. Unless you have something like a 3:1 advantage of allies on your side.
3. STALKERS can follow orders from you. Your reputation increases squad sizes and the tenacity with which orders are carried out.
A. Losing men in raids or failing said raid can result in points subtracted from a reputation.
4. Stealth will not only work now, but will be imperative to survival. Pick your fights carefully.
5. The AI will actually use grenades and medical equipment. "Medics" will exist who carry a good amount of medical supplies on them, but they are rare.
6. Supression, the AI will shoot at your general area and won't stop until you are dead or run away. At least the intelligent STALKERs and military will.
7. The line of AI skill, barring other factors like surprise, ammo, and numerous other battlefield conditions, this is the combat food chain.
Civilians > Rookie Stalkers > Bandits > Police/Security > Military Regulars > Experienced STALKERs > The STALKER factions > STALKER Veterans > STALKER experts > Military veterans > Military experts.
Universe - - -
1. More factions, Duty and Freedom return, as does Monolith.
A. New factions, all joinable. Russian Mafia, Ukrainian Army, UN Peacekeeping army, (the situation with the zone is considered an international crisis) Mercenaries, Bandits "squads".
B. Long term work with a faction and against another can permanently change the zone and game ending.
2. Civilian units in town just outside of cordon. Yes, you can go here. Some civilians in the zone as well, although they are unadvised to go there.
3. Mutant and anomoly frequency increases the deeper you get into the zone. At southern Cordon in the town, it's compeltely peaceful. Some wild dogs come by every few months or so.
4. Anomalies are much less frequent, they are much more dangerous as well.
5. More dungeons.
6. More opened buildings.
Gameplay - - -
1. Band aids bring back no health, neither does food. Medpacks bring back health slowly or fast depending on difficulty setting.
2. Ammo is found easily, but lost quickly. Bear in mind, the average soldier will fire thousands of rounds in his life and only hit targets with a few. Except that soldiers have the benefit of ammo supply, as a STALKER, you must choose fights you wish to waste ammo on carefully.
3. Guns are accurate when shouldered and fired in tight bursts. No reticle while running, much less worthwile accuracy.
4. Gun additions, such as grenade launchers and silencers change weight and center of gravity, making aim harder over longer distance.
5. Free roam world. The entire map is open to exploration, town of Chernobyl added. Should this fail, then much bigger levels, not to mention entirely new levels.
6. Vehicles, fuel requirements become more demanding with complexity of vehicle, not to mention maintenance and replacement parts.
7. Customizable armor. Extra kevlar sheets, shoulder pauldrons, insignias, symbols.
8. Backpack, increases weight you can carry, but nothing from the backpack can be used instantly, it must be opened and moved into your user inventory. Weapons inside the backpack are partially disassembled so they can fit. Carrying more means you will want to eat more often. Food can weigh a lot.
A. On the subject of food, If you eat bread, you can stave off hunger longer by eating a sausage as well, with some water or vodka. (In other words, varying your meal.) Military rations are an exception because they are self contained meals, but they are difficult to come by.
Feel free to add/complain/nitpick/tar and feather.
Last edited by CaptHawkeye on 2007-04-03 05:53pm, edited 1 time in total.
This helped me fix many of the problems I was having, like gameplay stuttering and audio crackling. This just involved changing my sound provider to Direct Sound and disabling a lot of the pre-loading of assets Stalker does during play using a couple of command line parameters. I'm about to try some of the in-game console settings and see what I can do, I will report any significant gains I make there.
Amusingly, according to that guide, the anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings are broken and don't do anything. I suspected as much but thought I was just getting aliasing because the game was doing some weird post-processing on the scene. Unfortunately you can't force the AA or AF on via graphics card control panel either, though there is apparently a "fake" AA setting to be found in the console.
MagnusTheReD wrote:I was hoping you can at least expect your dumbass character to stop calling himself a rookie after he reaches the first position in the stupid ranking sheet!
Your ranking does change as you move up the list.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
MagnusTheReD wrote:I was hoping you can at least expect your dumbass character to stop calling himself a rookie after he reaches the first position in the stupid ranking sheet!
Your ranking does change as you move up the list.
I meant to say when talking to NPCs.
You always ask for an advice for a "rookie"! Considering you're the guy who turned off the Brain Scorcher you can at least expect yourself to have a bit higher self esteem!
Stuck at the lab with the elementals. I got to the bottom level of the lab and grabbed the documents, but the door is on fire and it says someone is holding it, and there doesn't seem to be any other way out. Am I missing something, or is my save game just borked?
"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark." - Muhammad Ali
"Dating is not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be a heart-pounding, stomach-wrenching, gut-churning exercise in pitting your fear of rejection and public humiliation against your desire to find a mate. Enjoy." - Darth Wong
Stuck at the lab with the elementals. I got to the bottom level of the lab and grabbed the documents, but the door is on fire and it says someone is holding it, and there doesn't seem to be any other way out. Am I missing something, or is my save game just borked?
A Poltergiest is in the room attacking you with randomly placed fire anomalies. (At least he should be) You'll recognize him as the hovering cloud of magic dust that looks strangely like the redshirt slaughtering cloud demons from TOS.
Just shoot at it, it takes a little time and ammo but eventually I was able to kill it with enough shooting.
Stuck at the lab with the elementals. I got to the bottom level of the lab and grabbed the documents, but the door is on fire and it says someone is holding it, and there doesn't seem to be any other way out. Am I missing something, or is my save game just borked?
A Poltergiest is in the room attacking you with randomly placed fire anomalies. (At least he should be) You'll recognize him as the hovering cloud of magic dust that looks strangely like the redshirt slaughtering cloud demons from TOS.
Just shoot at it, it takes a little time and ammo but eventually I was able to kill it with enough shooting.
Cool, thanks.
"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark." - Muhammad Ali
"Dating is not supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be a heart-pounding, stomach-wrenching, gut-churning exercise in pitting your fear of rejection and public humiliation against your desire to find a mate. Enjoy." - Darth Wong
MagnusTheReD wrote:I meant to say when talking to NPCs.
You always ask for an advice for a "rookie"! Considering you're the guy who turned off the Brain Scorcher you can at least expect yourself to have a bit higher self esteem!
Even worse the 'rep level' is based on 'points' you get for doing missions/objectives or whatever. You can cut straight through the bare minimum story tasks, and even after several major objectives still be a 'rookie' or just 'experienced' and barred from certain arena fights... even though you've got awesome equipment and solved famous problems like zombies etc. People talk down to you after you've done things nobody else could, and even though 'the marked one' is known everywhere!
It's weak, but even Oblivion had lameness like everyone calling you the 'hero of the first town' even after you'd done WAAAAAY more famous earth-shaking things.
Wow... what an anti-climactic ending. I was expecting to be able to continue the game after I finished the main quest. However, after not being able to figure out the chief quest I figured I might as well just head on up to the reactor, see whats what. I figured that I wouldn't make it too far, being not quite as badass as I figured one becomes after doing all the side quests. Unfortunately I'm a HUGE packrat and made it through the whole area pretty easily. I'd have liked to been put in more situations where I could have used my fancy new sniper rifle, or AP rounds or something.
I suppose now I've got to go back and finish all these side quests and such, but I feel a little cheated, knowing I went through 10 miles of radioactive wasteland just to get crushed while hallucinating. Of course I suppose wishing for wealth fits, considering how I played the game.
Got to the Red Forest, shot a bunch of Monolith guys. and then got ambushed by some psuedodogs, including an albino one. I shot the albino one, it disappeared, reappeared. I shot it again, and crashed. WTF?
"Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth." M.A.A.A
Stark wrote:It's weak, but even Oblivion had lameness like everyone calling you the 'hero of the first town' even after you'd done WAAAAAY more famous earth-shaking things.
Well, I never got deep enough into Oblivion to know that, but people over there are obviously ungrateful!
I wonder why there is no games with somewhat more complex NPC relations and interaction?
Is it so really hard to make them react appropriately to your actions or is it that the developers are too lazy?
Stark wrote:It's weak, but even Oblivion had lameness like everyone calling you the 'hero of the first town' even after you'd done WAAAAAY more famous earth-shaking things.
Well, I never got deep enough into Oblivion to know that, but people over there are obviously ungrateful!
I wonder why there is no games with somewhat more complex NPC relations and interaction?
Is it so really hard to make them react appropriately to your actions or is it that the developers are too lazy?
It's not, the developers are just lazy. Come on, little things like "your character wears powered armor = npc says this or that" can't be horribly hard to code...this pissed me off ever since Fallout.
Then again, maybe I'm missing something technical which makes it a horrible waste of time and resources.
I've just picked up the "rapid fire" AK74 from the underground Stalkers lair in the Agroprom area (I've been playing through the game slowly) and see what other people mean about the difficulty past this point.
I'm playing on veteran difficulty, and whereas before I would carefully route my way around bandits and other squads now I can just cut right through them using quick bursts to the head. Worse, most soldiers give you more ammo than you need to use to kill them, so I've got 600+ rounds of ammo for the AK74 already. I wiped out a squad a Spetnaz in the Agroprom factory and they dropped the "Obokan" assault rifle which the game seemed to indicate was even better than the one I had, so I just left it alone.
I think the main problem is healing, if you can store enough med-kits you can survive pretty much any assault. I think it would be much improved if health-kits/bandages took some time to apply (say 5 seconds for bandages, 15 for medkits) and moving cancelled the process. That way you would actually need to extricate yourself from a firefight if you got hit too badly.
Also I hate that all food does is just heals you a little bit. I've picked up so many tinned rations I can spam them in a firefight to heal back to full health. Perhaps this would be a little too hardcore, but I would have liked to see food control your stamina - the more hungry/thirsty you get the less total stamina you have. Or something else, just not "food is crap medkits".
Stamina drinks/anti-raditaion meds need to have a quick use key (anyone know any way to do this?), its utterly lame to die from radiation poisoning because you weren't quick enough to open your inventory and double click the syringe.
This game is also desperately in need of either a shared "stash" or a fast travel system. I know some people would consider this heresy, but it's a pain to find something you think you might want later (say I gun you have no ammo for, or some other special piece of kit) and have to lug it around everywhere with you or stick it in some random stash hoping you remember where that was.
Useful tip - try holding F in an area with lots of items on the ground and it will show there names, great for finding items in grass.
You do need to eat, if you don't eat food often enough you get a little icon with a fork and spoon, similar to when you've got too much radiation (it would be super cool if the rad bar was visible too!).
InnocentBystander wrote:You do need to eat, if you don't eat food often enough you get a little icon with a fork and spoon, similar to when you've got too much radiation (it would be super cool if the rad bar was visible too!).
It would be much better if you had no idea what kind of dose you received other than the geiger counter reading and then you got symptoms of radiation poisoning some time later on.
Also, food needs either to be done away with or implemented in a way that makes sense, not: "Oh, I'm in a firefight and just got a little hungry. I'll just chomp on this canned meat and go on to kill those Spetznaz troops in a sec"
Once I'm finished the game and if I still have the interest I will probably have a look at modding some the stuff into the game that I would like to see. Anybody have any other ideas that haven;t already been listed?
Also is there any news on the expansion pack other than "There will be one"? I would dearly love for them to just, to be blunt, finish the game - there is so much untapped potential in there already.
PeZook wrote:It would be much better if you had no idea what kind of dose you received other than the geiger counter reading and then you got symptoms of radiation poisoning some time later on.
You might as well make radiation kill you instantly if you get a big dose of it. Unless advances in anti-radiation drugs and vodka have made a radiation 'cure'...
Stark wrote:
It's weak, but even Oblivion had lameness like everyone calling you the 'hero of the first town' even after you'd done WAAAAAY more famous earth-shaking things.
I thought it was appropriate- they call you the Hero of Kvatch because, well, you are. It's the first name you got, and no matter what else you've done in furtherance of what you started at Kvatch, that's your moniker. They'll also recognize you as the Grand Champion of the Arena. When you finish the game, you're the Champion of Cyrodiil and everyone raves about your role in Martin become avatar of Akatosh and kicking Dagon's ass.
Do Knights of the Nine, and you're the Lord Crusader/ Sir Knight/ Divine Crusader etc as well (depending on who you talk to), and they'll remark on your battle with Umaril in the sky above Imperial City.
Bah! You need high expectations! The game already has a list of all missions accepted, completed and failed, including which objectives you solved (giving some hint to the approach you used). Aside from voice 'acting', they could easily have had characters simply pull quest information out of your journal - even localised, or related to their guild/race/whatever, or NPC links to friends etc. Sure it'd be a pain if you actually scripted it all, but scripting isn't necessary to get a bit of added immersion where people might mention anything other than one mission, which somehow everyone knows about and cares about more than the far more impressive thing you did right next to them. We all know it's so the world could have a name for you (like 'marked one', you're 'hero of lameo town'), but there are less-clumsy ways of doing it. Non-scripted 'hey you help out bartenders' or 'that fighters guild mission was hardcore' would be an improvement.
Just because it's 'fine' doesn't mean it's 'good' or couldn't be better.
And nobody better mention MMO nonsense like porting in Stalker again. The game isn't that big, you never actually need to carry much (like Magnus says) and after a few hours you've got more money than Jesus and can buy whatever you want. Regardless what your cheese cannon is (I use a G36 but it still makes the game piss easy) you'll have it quickly and never need to loot guns again. However, the map SERIOUSLY needs the ability to drop your own stash markers. I initially though that's what one of the buttons on the screen did, but it's the 'show whole zone' button. Being able to remember every stash ever with overlays but not having anything for your own stashes = fail.
I'd really like to see MMO-style 'warmup bars' on things like bandages/medikits/pills/food/etc. You can use a complex 'science medikit' while sprinting, reloading, and jumping at the same time. And while I think hotbars are silly, the game could really use them.
