S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl - coming September 5th

[Lyric Suite]

"Bethesda was involved"

 

[Ash]

Yeah, in two ways actually. a) publisher, b) developer of the game that New Vegas is essentially a Total Conversion/Large Scale Overhaul mod of.

 

[Zer0wing]

Ash The thing with STALKER games, they can't coexist and be experienced without one or another or they'd be felt too short and incomplete, especially the latest two. Clear Sky and CoP are addons. FFS the former can be finished in three hours with decent 360 no scope skillz. Decent sized and all, but they are still on top of the cake, which is SHoC. Yes, the final act of CoP seems weak and even could spoil the experience but that's the reality when developers are running out of content to restore.

 

[unfairlight]

But of course people treat Bethesda as the anti-christ for numerous reasons, such as continually dumbing down their games, their DLC practices, their paid mod scheme. Their butchering of other IPs. The shit you hear that went on behind closed doors such as the Human Head hostile takeover. And so on. Stalker and the companies associated with it is a golden child in comparison. It's quite simple.

Dumbing down their games, true I guess, but I've never been mad about games that I am not interested in. BGS is still a company under Zenimax, one of the worst companies in gaming and they have to keep the money flowing. It's pretty clear by now that they took a direction you probably don't like with Oblivion, so why do you care? I never bothered with Mass Effect Andromeda because I knew Bioware went to shit even though I liked Mass Effect 1 and 2, so I just let it go. You can't expect companies to stay the same because they made a game you liked almost 20 years ago, unless they are Piranha Bytes I guess. I don't really get the DLC practices thing above all here though, horse armor was shitty but that was over 10 years ago, Bethesda's current DLC is the closest there is to classical expansion pack type DLC where you get new stories in the current AAA industry. I can't think of any other AAA company that does what they do. You can (probably) thank Bethesda for telling Obsidian to make Fallout: New Vegas' DLC as they just took a page out of their book that they had done before with Bloodmoon, Shivering Isles and Fallout 3's DLC that I forgot as they were quite forgettable and poor.

Paid mods are shitty, I agree. No comment there. I don't really see how you can hold Bethesda Game Studios that actually makes Fallout and TES accountable for what Bethesda Softworks (the publishing label of Bethesda that are quite wide apart from each other) does with by your words 'butchering' IPs, the same with the Human Head takeover rumor. Bethesda Game Studios doesn't actively involve itself in what Bethesda Softworks does, so those are irrelevant to the discussion. BGS wasn't the one that told MachineGames to make Wolfenstein 2, that was Bethesda Softworks.
I brought up BGS's games in the first place as they were the first to come to mind when I thought of games that have a "mods will fix it" mentality that are generally quite poor at their core but have a big double standard to them compared to Stalker.

I appreciate that you gave a proper response and didn't press the retarded button and not make an argument because not liking Stalker is a BAD no-no opinion and I'm mad now!

Dude, what?

Bethesda Softworks was still the publisher to F:NV, I think that's what he meant as he just said 'involved' rather than developed.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ash The thing with STALKER games, they can't coexist and be experienced without one or another or they'd be felt too short and incomplete, especially the latest two. Clear Sky and CoP are addons. FFS the former can be finished in three hours with decent 360 no scope skillz. Decent sized and all, but they are still on top of the cake, which is SHoC. Yes, the final act of CoP seems weak and even could spoil the experience but that's the reality when developers are running out of content to restore.

Yean bro Bethesda basically made the game.

 

[Zer0wing]

Yean bro Bethesda basically made the game.

WHAT?

 

[Lyric Suite]

You heard him.

 

[Ash]

What is with these leaps of logic? "Involved" or "FO3 was the base", two true facts = basically made the game?

Spoiler

Oh look, a FO3 deathclaw, whose model, animations, exact AI programming etc were recycled with very minor tweaks in New Vegas. Kinda proving my point in your own post, you are.

New Vegas is great because of Obsidian's design sense/extensive work first and foremost. Nobody was saying it's a great game because Bethesda was involved. More like it's a great game despite bethesda being involved, though some small credit is still deserved. The higher ups could have just as well said "Make this a linear cover shooter or we don't fund you" , or "dumb it down heavily and make it bland as fuck like we are doing with Skyrim/FO4" rather than giving Obsidian a notable degree of creative freedom.

It's even odder that some would assume I am a Bethestard when I just highlighted the many reasons myself and others despise them on the previous page. I'm just giving credit where credit is rightly due, yet you challenge facts.

 

[Zer0wing]

You heard him.

And where I'm so wrong and regarding STALKER addons, btw?

 

[Lyric Suite]

What is with these leaps of logic? "Involved" or "FO3 was the base", two true facts = basically made the game?

You are using New Vegas in an attempt to show that Bethesda isn't all shit at making games. This is where you are failing. Who gives a flying fuck that New Vegas was build over shit Bethesda made. The basis Obsidian used to make their game was absolutely fucking garbage. New Vegas demonstrates precisely how incompetent Bethesda are at developing games since Obsidian had to try to make something decent out of pure total shit.

 

[Egosphere]

when does it change?

Never

 

[Black]

 

[Egosphere]

Yeah, in two ways actually. a) publisher, b) developer of the game that New Vegas is essentially a Total Conversion/Large Scale Overhaul mod of.

Yeah, but NV isn't exactly stellar in the gameplay department. Its so good because of the writing, c&c, factions etc. all of which blow fo3 away. The actual aim and shoot gameplay loop is weak, just as it was in fo3.

 

[Ash]

Storyfag! Combat ain't great, no, but there's way more to gameplay than just combat and NV made numerous improvements in that regard too: No level scaling. Not every location is marked on the map. Better, more varied locales/level design. No long-ass boring tutorial. Hardcore mode. Weapon modding was introduced. Survival skill. Challenge perks. You get 1 perk every two levels, like the good ol' days, and resulting in the player not having nearly everything in one playthrough. Differing ammo types. Re-tweaking of SPECIAL. Restoring Traits from classic FO. Flat skill checks in dialogue as opposed to % chance and so on and on.
Hell, even introducing something like Caravan (the card game) was incline, though sadly it was underutilised.

Yes the writing, story-based C&C etc was big incline, but the gameplay improvements were important too.

Wait, this was a Stalker thread. We're derailing. Get out of here, stalkers!

 

[Zer0wing]

A nuuu Cheeki, A nuuu Breeki!

 

[jaydee2k]

First footage of the game released:



True slav experience confirmed.

Oh my this is so great :D

 

[Zer0wing]

The actual aim and shoot gameplay loop is weak, just as it was in fo3.

Nope. Not really. Bullet spread is much lowered and bullets are actually flying where you were aiming, iron sights, ironically numbers in weapon skills also play lesser role in aiming; All of this moves FNV gunplay away from F3.

 

[Vexxt]

One thing I really liked about STALKER was realistic bullet physics. Every few bullets had a tracer, and each weapon mimicked actual bullet speed, rate of fire etc. It was pretty cool sniping from afar and watching the bullet tracer realistically drop over distance and kill the enemy.

 

[Beowulf]

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you at the mercy of RNG regarding shooting in vanilla Stalker?
For example - while aiming at the head, the bullets would still spread, so you could miss the headshot?

 

[Zer0wing]

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you at the mercy of RNG regarding shooting in vanilla Stalker?
For example - while aiming at the head, the bullets would still spread, so you could miss the headshot?

Wrong, shots always were at players aim and game ballistics mercy. Just like IRL. Only in real life we also have small difference in powder, case thicknesses, bullets center of gravity, air density, you name it. Bullets won't fall into the same target twice. In RPGs these differences are projected through rng tied to characters combat skills.

 

[Beowulf]

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you at the mercy of RNG regarding shooting in vanilla Stalker?
For example - while aiming at the head, the bullets would still spread, so you could miss the headshot?

Wrong, shots always were at players aim and game ballistics mercy. Just like IRL. Only in real life we also have small difference in powder, case thicknesses, bullets center of gravity, air density, you name it. Bullets won't fall into the same target twice. In RPGs these differences are projected through rng tied to characters combat skills.

I prefer it to be shown through weapon sway and recoil in that case, that is tied to character skill, rather than some arbitrary "you miss" values when the croshair is immobile and positioned on the enemy's head.
Like in DX, for example.

The kind of abstraction that you mention is more suited to RPG's like Fallout, not FPS games where player skill matters at least as much as character skill.

 

[Mikeal]

Stalker in earlier version was cRPG. It was changed at some point, but I don't remember why (probably due to FPS gameplay more fitting the game) . You can see Stalker's cRPG roots in inventory, gui etc. in SoC, in later games they were streamlined.

 

[Tacgnol]

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you at the mercy of RNG regarding shooting in vanilla Stalker?
For example - while aiming at the head, the bullets would still spread, so you could miss the headshot?

Nah, this was just a misunderstanding about one of the settings in the actor.ltx file.

It effects enemy chance to hit over long distances, it has no impact on player shooting.

 

[Ash]

Looking at the actual gameplay mechanics, especially with the low HP levels of JSawyer Mod, it's evident that New Vegas would be a solid shooter if the foundation (engine, AI, etc) wasn't what it was.

Nah, this is where Obsidian's monocle fell short. If they focused on combat, they could have elevated it to a greater degree gamebryo or not. Hell I may even prove it with another mod one day. I did a fair bit of AI work on Deus Ex as you know and the vanilla poopy AI was primarily limited by how much work was originally given to to it. The chosen engine has an influence but the main thing is simply putting in the time (well, and good design sense is of course required), which the devs have been on paper showing regret for not having done so, even though what they did do was already a shitload of work.

Yeah the base FO3 design and engine definitely counts for something, but I know it can be made notably better with more focus/time, and don't think it's inherently doomed as a result of being a FPS/RPG hybrid blend of real time skill and stat-based outcomes, the existence of vats, whatever...but then again I love FPS, RPGs, and FPS/RPGs, so of course I don't.

 

[sparq_beam]

One thing I really liked about STALKER was realistic bullet physics. Every few bullets had a tracer, and each weapon mimicked actual bullet speed, rate of fire etc. It was pretty cool sniping from afar and watching the bullet tracer realistically drop over distance and kill the enemy.

I really like this too. I also like how you can find cover in clever places so you can shoot and not expose yourself too much, e.g. by jumping on objects and using openings in the geometry. The double crouch, which seems pointless at first, is useful in these scenarios. It's much more natural and interactive than the usual contrived cover systems in other games, and something that I haven't found elsewhere. The shotguns could have tighter spread, though, and the RPG a faster projectile (most games get these things wrong).

Sometimes I felt the enemies were a bit too spongy. I think the goal was to avoid having the firefights end so quickly that you didn't experience the usual ebb and flow of stalker combat, such as displacing from cover to cover, looking around to check for flanking enemies, etc. It's a delicate balance. I wonder if increased damage, combined with improved AI, e.g. more capable of taking cover, could solve this problem. This is on my wish list for stalker 2.

I also hope they keep the artifact detector systems, but remove the more advanced detectors. The crappy Echo detector that only shows distance is the most fun to use, the Veles detector with the dots on the screen makes things too easy.

Err, correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you at the mercy of RNG regarding shooting in vanilla Stalker?
For example - while aiming at the head, the bullets would still spread, so you could miss the headshot?

Wrong, shots always were at players aim and game ballistics mercy. Just like IRL. Only in real life we also have small difference in powder, case thicknesses, bullets center of gravity, air density, you name it. Bullets won't fall into the same target twice. In RPGs these differences are projected through rng tied to characters combat skills.

Clear Sky might have an RNG element. I'm playing it right now, and I installed Sky Reclamation Project. The README file for one of the optional mods bundled with it says:

• The hit probability system has been removed: every well-aimed shot will hit its target without the game tossing a coin to determine whether it will be so.

Did they add this in CS?