OK - I'll start with admiting that I am the guy personally responsible for balance and what you're experiencing - I am the gameplay lead for this project responsible for in-game implementation of all features (many of which I have constructed from ground up) and rest of the team has trusted me the responsibility on 'how the game is gonna play out in the end'. Please know that everything which is happening is done entirely on purpose and has been thought out and tested multiple times.
Now - I have not stated above to defend the current approach and state that it has to remain like that - on the contrary - I love balancing gameplay and there is no more fun thing for me than discussing it and setting stuff in-game accordingly (unfortunately around 50% of time I was spending on fixing bugs - and I actaully consider it an achievement how 'stable' the mod is now as it was way worse and few dozen nights was spend to iron out stuff which would prevent release altogheter).
I have red very carefully every work you've written above + many other places were ppl have put feedback regarding the mod. I am not saddened or dissappointed in any way as everything you've stated has been more or less forseen to happen (I'll explain below) - on the other hand I was not suspecting that it will back-fire as much as it apparently did.
Below - I will put my 'reply' in points / statements regarding how things were approached conceptualy and why. Main reason for this is not to defend the current situation - this is a project made to people afterall and it has to be adjusted towards general demand. Still I would like everyone to take below statements into account and provide feedback in some relation to them, in sort of way:
"OK I understand what your wanted to do but it failed / requires improvement because..."
OK, so here we go:
1. First and foremost please undestand that what is crucial for the gameplay is that I wanted to take the control over the experience out of the player's hands and make it so that its the world which enforces reaction rather than the player who can all the time choose what he wants to do.
Inspiration here was mainly taken from two games:
* Fallout 1 / 2 - go to wrong part of wasteland at the beggining of the game and you wont survive
* Gothic 1 / 2 - same as above - certain parts of the map / enemies were impossible to take out until the player progressed
2. Since Stalker is not an RPG game and the is obviously no leveling - the only way to make above happen is by restricting certain possibilities equipment-wise. In other words - it was my principle to restrict certain actions until you equip yourself adequately to be able to do certain stuff without frustration. I have assumed here that if certain thing makes you save / reload 30 times - you will refrain from doing this and rather think about doing something else for a while and returning to the 'impossible' activity once you can do it without frustration. So frustration is a tool I wanted to use to achieve and enforce above-mentioned sand-box restrictions and game progression.
Inspiration here is for ex.
* X series / EVE on-line - you begin in very tiny ship and its not a really good idea to try to destroy a mamoth ship with it right? On the contrary - thru the first 20+ hours of gameplay you should totally avoid combat and only do trading / scavenging.
3. So very large portion of gameplay desing has went into creating impossible situations (generating endless frustration) and then >>>> placing tools in-game and charging those tools properly which can make those impossible situations very much possible, non-frustrating or even easy.
This is an attempt to move the difficulty accent from the difficulty of the certain situation (which still should be challanging but deffinately not impossible and frustrating) into difficulty of preparing to certain situation (progressing enough withing allowed boundaries to aquire equipment allowing to takle cerain odd).
Above is also connected with breaking of regular game-proggresion - I did my best so that first clearing Zaton fully >>> moving to Jupiter is no longer the proper way.
Proper way - is to first clear all 'easy encounters' on both maps >>>> moving to clear 'hard encouters' on both maps when they are no longer impossible.
4. Below is the list of general areas to which sand-box gameplay in Misery has been divided to with 'tools' which make turn them from being impossible / frustrating ones into manageble / easy ones:
I. Hunting light mutants >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires shotgun / pistol with anti-tissue ammo
II. Clearing light anomaly fields (radiation, electrical) >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires gasmask (actually electrical ones dont require anything at all)
III. Clearing medium anomaly fields (acid) >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires SSP Headgear Set (screen helmet) or articats supporting the gasmask which is inadequate on its own
IV. Hunting lower-ranked humans >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires at least light combat armor (Sunrise Suit and derivative) and a weapon of choice with a supply of armor-piercing rounds (also supply of pain-reducing drugs is usefull, especially for recon)
V. Clearing heavy anomaly fields (fire) >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires SSP suit or SEVA suit (with SEVA being also the combat armor allowing to earch anomalys and fighting during a single expedition)
VI. Hunting heavy / psi mutants >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires explosive weapon / mines / supply of anti-tissue ammo. For psi mutant also headgear and anti-psi drugs are essential
VII. Hunting high-ranked NPCs / doing heavy-combat quests / going to Pripyat >>>> impossible / frustrating until player aquires heavy combat armor and hi-tier customized rifle with AP ammo
It has been made absolutely sure and it has been tested - than once appropriate 'tool' for certain stage of proggresion is attained the activity can be conducted in non-frustrating, fluent way. However trying to go against it - and tackle certain stage without the tool is to be almost impossible.
This concept has succeded - you can rely on this mechanic - just try it in-game or test it with this notion in mind.
Now...
WHERE IT FAILED?
Basically the main reason is I think is that that people are not put off from doing something by the sheer frustration and rather tend to try bash the head against the wall and go against the wind and in consequence bash us for unbalanced mod.
I think that were the mod has succeded: putting working equipment-based restrictions on sand-box game, lies the main problem with audience reactions. People basically feel over-restricted and not look for alternative ways.
Please know that I am not criticizing here - as hoobystic game desinger wannabe this is extremely important remark and observation for me.
Putting above statement in context of combat balance, it has been imho very well summarized in following statement from the comments:
Someone wrote:
-npc's dont die from a headshot even when not wearing helmets (i had to shoot 3 times with a deagle to kill them smaller calibers needed even more rounds)
but when npc's shoot you and your not wearing decent armor you instantly die
Well - I must say that this is exacly the point.
Note that also in this post none of you guys has stated in which armor you were in when trying to attack and kill NPCs, while this is exacly the feedback I would like to hear the most.
In short: NPCs are supposed to be equal to you in terms of resistance but only if suit 'worn' by them and you is of the same or similar class. When you'll be wearing Beril and feel that Beril-armored NPCs survive more than you: ok, this is were the change should be made. However fact that you're in Leather Jacket and get insta-raped by Exoskeleton NPC is something which has to be considered natural.
There is another layer here thou: ammo type. It has been set (for the first time in any Stalker mod ever) that ammo variety also affects NPCs - they can either use 'normal' ammo or 'ap' ammo and since differences in regard to armors are uge between them - higher-ranked, AP-shooting NPC at the beggining of the game will have tremendous advantage versus you.
QUESTION ARISES:
Lets assume that gameplay structured like above actually works. Is such gameplay fun? Are restrictions imposed by a sand-box world something to enjoy? I have automatically assumed that this is the way to go with Stalker gameplay and the only way I imagined introducing challenge to it.
Was I wrong?
---------------
Now - I would sincerely like to ask to take above into account and provide feedback with that in mind. I'd like to make this gameplay perfect but I am of course assuming that on some points execution might have gone wrong.
But to judge that - I would for ex. like you to actually aquire a 'decent armor', good weapon and AP ammo and letting me know how combat feels then. Without that and without having 'frustration-killing tools' for any other stages of gameplay progression model it is not possible to judge wheter it actully works and perfect it.
---------------
All that said and aside from conceptual stuff described above, there are still 'minor' gameplay issues that I'd like to adress:
- headshots - its simple - for me insta-kill headshots made the game to easy. So I've made this 'gamey' tweak as it was more fun and challanging for me personally. However - 99% of ppl dislike it - ok, its matter of changing a single line. Expect that done in monday's patch
- dropped weapon condition - again simple - allowing dropped guns in good condition makes having trader with weapons pointless, we can as well delete his stock. Have you ever actually purchased a gun in vanilla game? I dont think so and I wanted to change that. Only by saving on and purchasing a gun one starts to relate to it and wants to keep it in top condition >>>> which fuels manual repair system.
I never considered it unrealitic that rookies drop very worn guns - watching thru lets plays I have noticed that also players walk around with damaged guns at the beggining of the game no being able to afford the repair.
Note that veterans / masters (which will get more numerous later on) drop weapons in much better quality.
That said - ok, no problem I will rise the average condition of dropped guns to around 40-60%. Will that work ok? Making them mild thou is not the way to go. I hope you agree?
- mechanic repair costs - this is connected with above. Everything below 50% of condition is cheaper to buy new. For me it appeared logical, in terms of gameplay >>>> allowing cheap repairs of hundreds of looted guns again disables the need to purchase a single weapon ever >>>> we're in vanilla world again. Note however that repairing the weapon manuall is much cheaper but it will only work for weapons not lower than 45% of condition.
Still - we've already agreed in team that manual repair will work from 25%. OK?
- ammounts of ammo - again - same as with conditiona of dropped weapons. Ammo should be mainly purchased as otherwise whats the point of traders and stocks? Still ok: I'll rise the ammounts by 100%. OK?
---------------
OK - thats all from me. Sorry for wall of text I hope that you've found above insight at least interesting and can now see logic in some of the decisions.
I am confident that we agree that Misery v2 holds potential to be very unique experience among sand-box games (in comparison to FarCry 3 for ex.) and togheter we can make it perfect in every regard.
Looking forward to reading as much additional feedback as possible, however very much please locate it in above context as otherwise above 1000 words are pretty pointless
Thank you all for interest in our humble work.
Cheers!
), although attempting to access missing resource will create a lot of nasty lag.
