S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[Iucounu]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

I recall Cyberpunk 2077 has it too, maybe it's fashion now. But rest assured the female stalkers are not shown doing it.

Postal 2 had way better urine mechanics.

And player agency.

 

[ArchAngel]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

I recall Cyberpunk 2077 has it too, maybe it's fashion now. But rest assured the female stalkers are not shown doing it.

What female stalkers?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

 

[Zewp]

People on the GAMMA discord were apparently looking through the leaked Stalker 2 dev build from last year/early this year and apparently couldn't find A-Life code.

yerts — Yesterday at 16:25​

Just like how the leaked developer version of the game is entirely empty for a life as well?

reter — Yesterday at 17:14​

oh right i should use that developer version too, do you see no alife string in there?

yerts — Yesterday at 17:17​

There’s no a life code in the developer version
Like the menu was made yet the scraps are mostly empty
it shows they tried but
they’re nowhere near releasing anything for a life
Maybe a year or two
considering it’s nearly entirely empty

Dunno. It could be that the people digging through the dev build don't know what they're talking about, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are actually spot-on.

Personally, my money is on A-Life 2.0 doesn't exist. If there wasn't time to get basic stuff like NVG and binoculars working, it's not at all far fetched that they couldn't get a complex system like A-Life working. The game was obviously rushed out unfinished to avoid having another delay.
And now they've done an interview in which they claimed that performance issues is the reason that it's not working and that the text was just removed from the store page because of a marketing guy doing it without their permission (yeah fucking right). So now they've got the perfect excuse. A year from now they could be telling us "oh, it's still not working because we haven't managed to fix the performance issues" and people will still lap it up, because nobody wants a game that already runs like shit to run even more like shit.

Here's my theory: they couldn't realise a complex A-Life system like in the original games, so they used a very basic spawn director and hoped that nobody would notice. As with many other design decisions in the game, they completely misunderstood what made their core fans like Stalker and expected them to be satisfied with playing the game like a themepark.

 

[Gerrard]

Here's my theory: they couldn't realise a complex A-Life system like in the original games, so they used a very basic spawn director and hoped that nobody would notice.

There was nothing complex about this system in any of the original games, and it's about time to stop pretending otherwise. It did not require a genius to make, and it did not require a supercomputer to run.

 

[Alienman]

Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?

Guaranteed someone's fetish on the dev team.

 

[Fargus]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

It's like they are trying to convey a message:
"We piss all over your game nerd! You are just another consumer to us and nothing more".

Supposedly some lowlife urinating in a dead end street adds to the atmosphere. I mean it definitely added the disgusting feeling when you walk around dirty streets of Khorinis or in some shit town in Witcher games.

Not sure what atmosphere CDPR tried to achieve by adding a nigger that pisses himself while deadlifting tho. Could be some cyberbladder malfunctioning? Maybe it's not just half assed buggy moment and there is an entire story behind it. Idk like... a nigger augmented his dick to score with some fat white broads and it ended up a counterfeit malfunctioning implant.

 

[Dark Souls II]

Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?

It's a hohol thing, you wouldn't get it.

 

[ArchAngel]

People on the GAMMA discord were apparently looking through the leaked Stalker 2 dev build from last year/early this year and apparently couldn't find A-Life code.

yerts — Yesterday at 16:25​

Just like how the leaked developer version of the game is entirely empty for a life as well?

reter — Yesterday at 17:14​

oh right i should use that developer version too, do you see no alife string in there?

yerts — Yesterday at 17:17​

There’s no a life code in the developer version
Like the menu was made yet the scraps are mostly empty
it shows they tried but
they’re nowhere near releasing anything for a life
Maybe a year or two
considering it’s nearly entirely empty

Dunno. It could be that the people digging through the dev build don't know what they're talking about, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are actually spot-on.

Personally, my money is on A-Life 2.0 doesn't exist. If there wasn't time to get basic stuff like NVG and binoculars working, it's not at all far fetched that they couldn't get a complex system like A-Life working. The game was obviously rushed out unfinished to avoid having another delay.
And now they've done an interview in which they claimed that performance issues is the reason that it's not working and that the text was just removed from the store page because of a marketing guy doing it without their permission (yeah fucking right). So now they've got the perfect excuse. A year from now they could be telling us "oh, it's still not working because we haven't managed to fix the performance issues" and people will still lap it up, because nobody wants a game that already runs like shit to run even more like shit.

Here's my theory: they couldn't realise a complex A-Life system like in the original games, so they used a very basic spawn director and hoped that nobody would notice. As with many other design decisions in the game, they completely misunderstood what made their core fans like Stalker and expected them to be satisfied with playing the game like a themepark.

Well performance issues are true since there are mods that turn on more complex AI and it kills the performance. As for A-life 2.0, it does not need to be as complex as v1, just like in movie, sequels are usually worse :D

 

[Iucounu]

Here's my theory: they couldn't realise a complex A-Life system like in the original games, so they used a very basic spawn director and hoped that nobody would notice.

There was nothing complex about this system in any of the original games, and it's about time to stop pretending otherwise. It did not require a genius to make, and it did not require a supercomputer to run.

Maybe it's complex relative to what devs are capable of, and/or to what management is willing to spend money on?

Considering almost no game has done something similar ever since suggests something is holding developers back. But it could be something as simple as lack of imagination.

 

[Iucounu]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

It's like they are trying to convey a message:
"We piss all over your game nerd! You are just another consumer to us and nothing more".

Supposedly some lowlife urinating in a dead end street adds to the atmosphere. I mean it definitely added the disgusting feeling when you walk around dirty streets of Khorinis or in some shit town in Witcher games.

Not sure what atmosphere CDPR tried to achieve by adding a nigger that pisses himself while deadlifting tho. Could be some cyberbladder malfunctioning? Maybe it's not just half assed buggy moment and there is an entire story behind it. Idk like... a nigger augmented his dick to score with some fat white broads and it ended up a counterfeit malfunctioning implant.

In Far Cry 2, I was hiding in a dark street corner when an NPC walked up to me and started pissing on me, and I couldn't do a thing without alerting my enemies.

 

[Iucounu]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

I recall Cyberpunk 2077 has it too, maybe it's fashion now. But rest assured the female stalkers are not shown doing it.

What female stalkers?

I think I glimpsed a female technician in one of the trailers (at Yanov station?). Are you saying there are none? Finally some good news!

 

[Zewp]

Well performance issues are true since there are mods that turn on more complex AI and it kills the performance.

Mods cannot currently turn on the more complex parts of A-Life, like the offline simulation. The mods currently out just change a few parameters for the Spawn Director. Most of them increase the amount of spawns and make the enemies spawn further away/not in your field of view.

I tried out A-Life Extended, which claims to use custom code, but it just regulary spawns tons of enemy squads about 100-200m away from you, who then proceed to just gun each other down. Pretty much a band-aid over a missing limb.

 

[ArchAngel]

I don't understand.
Why do devs these days go out of their way to simulate urination?
Shouldn't there be more important stuff in a proper video game?

I recall Cyberpunk 2077 has it too, maybe it's fashion now. But rest assured the female stalkers are not shown doing it.

What female stalkers?

I think I glimpsed a female technician in one of the trailers (at Yanov station?). Are you saying there are none? Finally some good news!

Shop keepers are not Stalkers. Only female I've seen so far was a bartender in Sultan's ship-base. And you can get rid of her if you wish.

But number of black men keeps rising as more of the game unlocks. You all can decide if they fit this setting.

 

[Gerrard]

I tried Stalker 2 and while environment is beautiful the game itself is just boring. Every minute - after maybe first 2 hours - spent in it is just thinking "why play this, why not replay SoC or CoP"

"Old good, new bad"

General Disarray EvilWolf Pyrite Pachyderm Hace El Oso Konjad
Can any one of you explain, without sounding like a woman, how is S2 boring but SoC or CoP aren't, when they have the same exact gameplay?

 

[NecroLord]

I tried Stalker 2 and while environment is beautiful the game itself is just boring. Every minute - after maybe first 2 hours - spent in it is just thinking "why play this, why not replay SoC or CoP"

"Old good, new bad"

That's the actual truth though.

 

[kites]

Also "oh no i can't survive with terrabyte of bandwidth, there is so much slop to consume!! why God why???"

First world problems.

I suppose. It’s just difficult sharing 1tb/month with the family and the game was already 155gigs before the 40+ of patches so far.

If I hadn’t gotten into the MQ I would have shelved it for being unfinished, but I’d rather not play that all over again and I just want to bee-line to the end at this point. I got in at launch and the game did a good job of subverting refunds by hiding the missing A-life through lengthily compiling shaders and a long scripted tutorial. Overall highly flawed and doesn’t measure up to the originals and their mods, but still worth playing the MQ for what it is. Lots of patches and free-play focused hxcx mods will probably make this game hold a candle to the originals in a few years.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

His whole motivation for risking his life in the Zone, fighting countless bandits and mutants, having this dumb revenge plot against Dalin, was because his apartment burned down? I thought they would've AT LEAST mentioned some family members dying or something like that but they specifically say that he was a loner with no friends/family. How do you make a protagonist this fucking unrelatable?

Being a loner with no friends and family, who will do anything due to terrible housing market, is extremely relatable.

 

[EvilWolf]

I tried Stalker 2 and while environment is beautiful the game itself is just boring. Every minute - after maybe first 2 hours - spent in it is just thinking "why play this, why not replay SoC or CoP"

"Old good, new bad"

General Disarray EvilWolf Pyrite Pachyderm Hace El Oso Konjad
Can any one of you explain, without sounding like a woman, how is S2 boring but SoC or CoP aren't, when they have the same exact gameplay?

Why did you drag me into this? I think it's a great game with a flawed release. Absense of A-Life and optimization are the only issues the game has.

 

[NecroLord]

His whole motivation for risking his life in the Zone, fighting countless bandits and mutants, having this dumb revenge plot against Dalin, was because his apartment burned down? I thought they would've AT LEAST mentioned some family members dying or something like that but they specifically say that he was a loner with no friends/family. How do you make a protagonist this fucking unrelatable?

Being a loner with no friends and family, who will do anything due to terrible housing market, is extremely relatable.

Many stalkers came from ex military/police backgrounds.
I always assumed they did what they did for the action and most importantly for money? Those artifacts sell for quite hefty sums of money and perhaps the stalker's retirement plan isn't that great...

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

His whole motivation for risking his life in the Zone, fighting countless bandits and mutants, having this dumb revenge plot against Dalin, was because his apartment burned down? I thought they would've AT LEAST mentioned some family members dying or something like that but they specifically say that he was a loner with no friends/family. How do you make a protagonist this fucking unrelatable?

Being a loner with no friends and family, who will do anything due to terrible housing market, is extremely relatable.

Many stalkers came from ex military/police backgrounds.
I always assumed they did what they did for the action and most importantly for money? Those artifacts sell for quite hefty sums of money and perhaps the stalker's retirement plan isn't that great...

Whenever I watch a film or other media, I like to refer to TV Tropes website - where autistic people analyze plot points etc. Often a good point of reference.

I found this to be interesting:

Diagnosed by the Audience: It’s subtle, but his diary, his Makarov pistol's description, and his willingness to risk his life in a dangerous hellhole like the Zone for the sake of getting a new apartment indicates there’s something…off with him. Agatha mentions that he has no friends or family, is quick to escalate to violence (as seen in his intro), and hyper-focuses on finding the scanner stolen from him in the intro even as the search escalates to being more and more dangerous that isn’t worth the payday he’d get. His personal handgun’s description of painful memories, plus mentions of staring blankly at his television, could be indicative of PTSD from his time in the army.

Spoiler

Not to mention that his personal ending, which is tied to the desire of whoever enters the C-Con pod, has him unleash the Zone across the world, which is bar none the most destructive of the four choices.

 

[ArchAngel]

His whole motivation for risking his life in the Zone, fighting countless bandits and mutants, having this dumb revenge plot against Dalin, was because his apartment burned down? I thought they would've AT LEAST mentioned some family members dying or something like that but they specifically say that he was a loner with no friends/family. How do you make a protagonist this fucking unrelatable?

Being a loner with no friends and family, who will do anything due to terrible housing market, is extremely relatable.

Many stalkers came from ex military/police backgrounds.
I always assumed they did what they did for the action and most importantly for money? Those artifacts sell for quite hefty sums of money and perhaps the stalker's retirement plan isn't that great...

Well this game's lore kind of kills artifact value but devs ignore their own lore LOL

Spoiler

When you are inside SIRKA later they tell you they can create any artifact except Alpha artifact. So they got no reason to buy them from Stalkers, and since artifacts lose their properties once outside the zone who else would care to pay lots of money for them?

 

[Gerrard]

His whole motivation for risking his life in the Zone, fighting countless bandits and mutants, having this dumb revenge plot against Dalin, was because his apartment burned down? I thought they would've AT LEAST mentioned some family members dying or something like that but they specifically say that he was a loner with no friends/family. How do you make a protagonist this fucking unrelatable?

Being a loner with no friends and family, who will do anything due to terrible housing market, is extremely relatable.

"We could be deciding the future of mankind!"
"Cool story bro, who's going to pay for my house that blew up?"

 

[ArchAngel]

I've chosen to side with Ward. They offered to get me a nice new apartment and want to destroy the Zone so it is a win win. I am sure it will all go smoothly until the end of the game, I just need to get rid of some pesky stalkers and whatever Faust is planning.

 

[NecroLord]

Destroy the Zone?
Is that even possible?