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

[Iucounu]

Some pics for comparison

If both images are from finished areas it could mean house models are reused multiple times. That almost never happened in the original games, where every structure was a unique model. Only exception I remember is the house with broken roof in Wild Territory and Brain Scorcher (and generic objects like trailers or vehicles, of course).

Can't see any graphic quality difference between the two images, the top one just has more debris and vegetation models on the road, distance haze and a different time of day.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Some pics for comparison

If both images are from finished areas it could mean house models are reused multiple times. That almost never happened in the original games, where every structure was a unique model.

Can't see any graphic quality difference between the two images, the top one just has more debris and vegetation models on the road, distance haze and a different time of day.

that's not surprising when you remember ShoC developement - they really took their sweet time, throwing (wild) concepts around and making assets.
At least they used their time better than 3D Realms who wasted most of the time on World of Warcraft

 

[NecroLord]

Honestly, even after all these years there is something I really like about Shadow of Chernobyl's graphics.

Because the material feeling is realistic, but its not attractive for the zoomer plastic/fortnite tastes today.

True, but I think it is also the lighting system and general dread of the Zone. It enhances the atmosphere.

 

[Iucounu]

If both images are from finished areas it could mean house models are reused multiple times. That almost never happened in the original games, where every structure was a unique model.

that's not surprising when you remember ShoC developement - they really took their sweet time, throwing (wild) concepts around and making assets.
At least they used their time better than 3D Realms who wasted most of the time on World of Warcraft

That's the gamble with any research or innovation... But in the case of Stalker's levels it also means much of that innovative work is already done --"remastering" the older levels for Stalker 2 should be routine work now, with only completely new areas requiring design creativity. But if Stalker 2 really will have one coherent Zone, the intermediate areas between the old ones could become pretty large in total. What a shame if they have to resort to cloned buildings just to deliver on the marketing gimmic "giant Zone with no level changers".

 

[Iucounu]

Am I correct that everybody that played the Gamescom demo describe the same chain of events (dog-kick cutscene -> stalkers shooting dogs -> player shooting bandits -> emission cutscene)? Has anyone reported something different?

Sounds like a scripted corridor to me, unless all the demo players just happened to walk in the same direction by chance. And since the emission is a cutscene about knocking on a door there must be a local trigger for it. One Youtuber even circumvented the bandits, which should have saved him some time instead of fighting them; but apparently he still got the emission shortly after.

Maybe it's just an intentionally limited demo, or the game's beginnings are a bit corridor-like, like Clear Sky's first outpost mission.

 

[ferratilis]

These guys say that a lot of stuff felt unfinished and NPCs seemed like placeholders. Also, Phil Spencer told them to go easy on the team lol. There's no way this game is coming out in Q1 2024. But I guess we all knew that already.

 

[deuxhero]

There's no way this game is coming out in Q1 2024. But I guess we all knew that already.

Another 2/3rds of a year and announcement to release will have taken longer than Duke Nukem Forever.

 

[Gargaune]

normie Gerrard
Why fake news? You talked about first game and not fully pimped anomaly with graphic mods.

It looks like it's running on DX8 mode and with textures on the lowest setting. These are original textures, the only graphic mods I have are shaders that add ambient occlusion, because when the game came out SSAO wasn't even a thing.

Man, I played the game with Complete 2012 2009 and I was just blown away by the visuals back then.

Hell, it still looks amazing, the geometry's a bit dated by contemporary standards, but the lighting and textures are top notch.

 

[Hace El Oso]

High quality lighting has essentially vanished from gaming.

 

[ferratilis]

I played the game with Complete 2012

If I were a mod, I'd ban you right now.

 

[Stavrophore]

High quality lighting has essentially vanished from gaming.

Stalker has very natural lighting, no "upping" no "fantasified" palette or other hdr/levels fuckery. Combined with natural material feeling it gets you a grouned, realistic look, very well complementing the post-soviet, one could say "depressing" brutalist architecture. If you can't intrigue a viewer with architectural detail which brutalist commie blocks don't have, you at least have to give them the feeling of the texture, grit and grain of the materials used. I think stalker devs were aware of this. Its amazing how the combination of concrete, rebar and lighting in stalker can feel natural. The PBR pipeline can give you superior detail, but it also lazifies the process with premade materials and easy generator modifiers in programs like Substance Painter, hence the lazy assets we see in games. To make believable concrete or rust is A LOT of work. I guess no one cares about spending a lot of time to perfect things when it doesn't sell more games. Big devs do questionnaires of consumer preferences and things like realistic material textures are pretty low on the uninformed consumer list. Even RDR2 fails in this regard, a game known for attention to detail, the upscaling and smearing of today games[rdr 2 is a good example with its shitty AA] also doesn't help to show fine details.

 

[Tacgnol]

I played the game with Complete 2012

If I were a mod, I'd ban you right now.

Sadly, that's how many people experience the trilogy for the first time. I do try to warn people but you can't save everyone.

 

[janior]

SoC has probably the crispiest textures for 2007 that still look great, you just had bloom enabled and bunch of other shit settings so it looks bad

 

[Stavrophore]

normie Gerrard
Why fake news? You talked about first game and not fully pimped anomaly with graphic mods.

It looks like it's running on DX8 mode and with textures on the lowest setting. These are original textures, the only graphic mods I have are shaders that add ambient occlusion, because when the game came out SSAO wasn't even a thing.

Man, I played the game with Complete 2012 and I was just blown away by the visuals back then.

Hell, it still looks amazing, the geometry's a bit dated by contemporary standards, but the lighting and textures are top notch.

Complete replace a lot of textures.

 

[Gargaune]

I played the game with Complete 2012

If I were a mod, I'd ban you right now.

Sadly, that's how many people experience the trilogy for the first time. I do try to warn people but you can't save everyone.

I half expected some flak, so what's the beef with Complete anyway? I remember it was meant to have some gameplay changes, but not how extensive anymore, it was a long time ago.

 

[ferratilis]

I half expected some flak, so what's the beef with Complete anyway? I remember it was meant to have some gameplay changes, but not how extensive anymore, it was a long time ago.

"some" is an understatement. The changes it introduces completely trivialize the experience that was originally intended, along with the difficulty. The beginning of Stalker is supposed to be hard, you're supposed to struggle to find resources and weapons you get are mostly pea shooters. By doing it this way, progression is more satisfying. Complete mod makes weapons more accurate, makes sprinting infinite, significantly reduces weapon degradation (or completely removes it, not sure at this point), and increases inventory capacity to the point where all the aforementioned elements that make progression satisfying are neutered. Also, by making weapons more accurate, it neuters the enemy AI because the AI was designed around original limitations. They also reduced NPCs vision cones to make stealth viable, further trivializing the game. As far as I remember, it also added some sounds from Half-Life or other games that are completely out of place.

And the worst thing of all, instead of fixing bugs, it added new bugs that didn't exist before. Some people like the visual changes, but imo they are completely unnecessary, the original looks just fine. You robbed yourself of an amazing experience by playing an inferior version of the game.

 

[Tacgnol]

significantly reduces weapon degradation (or completely removes it, not sure at this point)

Reduced durability loss rather than removed for what it's worth, though the most offensive change for me is that they made the PC tougher on all difficulties.

You already end up a bullet sponge in the original trilogy after enough gear upgrades, there is no need to accelerate that process.

 

[NecroLord]

You already end up a bullet sponge in the original trilogy after enough gear upgrades, there is no need to accelerate that process.

That's not the case on Master difficulty.
Master is the way to play the games.

 

[Gargaune]

"some" is an understatement. The changes it introduces completely trivialize the experience that was originally intended, along with the difficulty. The beginning of Stalker is supposed to be hard, you're supposed to struggle to find resources and weapons you get are mostly pea shooters. By doing it this way, progression is more satisfying. Complete mod makes weapons more accurate, makes sprinting infinite, significantly reduces weapon degradation (or completely removes it, not sure at this point), and increases inventory capacity to the point where all the aforementioned elements that make progression satisfying are neutered. Also, by making weapons more accurate, it neuters the enemy AI because the AI was designed around original limitations. They also reduced NPCs vision cones to make stealth viable, further trivializing the game. As far as I remember, it also added some sounds from Half-Life or other games that are completely out of place.

Hold on, first off I made a mistake, I just checked my old files and I played it with Complete 2009, not 2012. Not sure why I got those wires crossed.

So did that shift across different iterations of the mod? 'Cause I absolutely had weapons breaking down with dire results and sprinting was aggressively limited by inventory load (though I think the overburdened threshold was 10Kg higher than the original). I skimmed the Readme and the only gameplay changes I saw listed were Bulbs Soc (can shoot out lights), AI Pack 10005 (NPCs can throw grenades, change armour and heal other NPCs), Normal Accuracy Plus 1.0 ("slight" increase) and Rules of Engagement 0.1 (nerfed NPC perception past 500m).

Frankly, I found nothing trivial about the game, it was still distinctly hard and especially merciless in the beginning. And if stealth was enabled at the expense of some AI challenge, I could see that as a value proposition.

You robbed yourself of an amazing experience by playing an inferior version of the game.

I had an amazing experience either way, it's why I still remember the game fifteen years down the line.

 

[Tacgnol]

You already end up a bullet sponge in the original trilogy after enough gear upgrades, there is no need to accelerate that process.

That's not the case on Master difficulty.
Master is the way to play the games.

I always play on Master. Wear an exoskeleton and you end up practically immune to everything short of the highest end AP rounds or gauss rifles.

It's even more extreme in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with the upgrades.

 

[Ryzer]

SLAVJANK is the best JANK.

Prove me wrong.

 

[Gerrard]

You already end up a bullet sponge in the original trilogy after enough gear upgrades, there is no need to accelerate that process.

That's not the case on Master difficulty.
Master is the way to play the games.

I always play on Master. Wear an exoskeleton and you end up practically immune to everything short of the highest end AP rounds or gauss rifles.

It's even more extreme in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with the upgrades.

Clear Sky is the only game where this isn't true, even in fully upgraded exo you can die to one unlucky burst, because the gun damage and armor was overhauled from SoC.

 

[Tacgnol]

Clear Sky is the only game where this isn't true, even in fully upgraded exo you can die to one unlucky burst, because the gun damage and armor was overhauled from SoC.

I'll take your word for it re: Clear Sky. I've only actually played CS through once as it's my least favourite and barely remember much of the endgame.

 

[Silva]

You already end up a bullet sponge in the original trilogy after enough gear upgrades, there is no need to accelerate that process.

That's not the case on Master difficulty.
Master is the way to play the games.

I always play on Master. Wear an exoskeleton and you end up practically immune to everything short of the highest end AP rounds or gauss rifles.

It's even more extreme in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat with the upgrades.

Stop playing these games vanilla. Most mods solve that problem, be it Autumn Aurora, Misery, Anomaly, etc.

 

[Modron]

SLAVJANK is the best JANK.

Prove me wrong.

Ex-russian slav jank is pretty nice, Russia itself mostly just makes freemium games in all flavors from mobas, mmos, tank/plane games, battle royales, and shooters. They're almost a step below China in doing anything besides just chasing trends and money.