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Tell me about the STALKER games.

normie

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Particularly annoying thing about Clear Sky is that its original locations, especially the swamps, are actually really good as locations. It's what they are used for that is the problem so much so that in the end they are the least Stalkery parts of the whole thing. The start in the swamps, the area that would've been perfect for slow, lonely exploration, is an active, messy battlefield between two factions. The last portion of the game, from the battle at the bridge to Limansk onwards, plays like a standard 00s setpiece FPS.
Yeah, both red forest and swamp are begging to be placed in SoC-atmosphere, in SoC itself. To have some encounters designed within, to have its weather and mood tied to game progress ie the swamp is always overcast and rainy until X point. To have Mooze knock together a moody swampocalyptic theme lol. I'd love something as minimal as just ZRP or RMA with those maps added, without overburdening the experience and having glaring seams with the overall focused experience of vanilla.

Another thing SoC has going for it is that it has the best illusion of NPC permanence. You feel confined in the zone with a cast of dudes, while CS completely fucks it up with endless faction war pods and CP with its unwarring pods. Overpopulated. Faceless. If in any way distinct, stuck. Seemingly unmotivated. In SoC as you progress, as you change the zone, NPCs change locations. You have an account of them, because a lot of them you have memorable encounters with. Someone gets killed and someone you've seen comes to take up the former's position; you change the landscape and people push north. They feel motivated by something (ie Wolf, who hoofs it to army bases, Sparrow, Oleg "Demon" Gusarov, Barin, Bes etc etc). The PDA rankings, as goofy as it is, is great at cementing this illusion.
 

antimeridian

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Recently played SoC vanilla with only the ZRP patch and haven't gotten too far into the others yet. Was very surprised that the vanilla game is much less "hardcore" than the reputation it's gotten due to the popular total conversion mods. Both you and enemies are pretty tanky even on max difficulty, and your movement speed is insane when sprinting which can trivialize most encounters. Vanilla balance is bad and you'll be swimming in so many healing items you'll be leaving them behind pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong though, it's a great game with a lot of cool ideas and unparalleled atmosphere. The AI behavior is a highlight as others have given examples of. The engine does some strange things calculating bullet trajectories that leaves early game gunplay feeling wack until you get a more accurate rifle, but once it clicks it's very satisfying. Just don't go in expecting anything like the Anomaly vids on YouTube or the tacticool games like Tarkov that Stalker clearly inspired. If anything it plays a little more like the original Far Cry (here and there).

Also there is lots of walking.
 

Tacgnol

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Recently played SoC vanilla with only the ZRP patch and haven't gotten too far into the others yet. Was very surprised that the vanilla game is much less "hardcore" than the reputation it's gotten due to the popular total conversion mods. Both you and enemies are pretty tanky even on max difficulty, and your movement speed is insane when sprinting which can trivialize most encounters. Vanilla balance is bad and you'll be swimming in so many healing items you'll be leaving them behind pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong though, it's a great game with a lot of cool ideas and unparalleled atmosphere. The AI behavior is a highlight as others have given examples of. The engine does some strange things calculating bullet trajectories that leaves early game gunplay feeling wack until you get a more accurate rifle, but once it clicks it's very satisfying. Just don't go in expecting anything like the Anomaly vids on YouTube or the tacticool games like Tarkov that Stalker clearly inspired. If anything it plays a little more like the original Far Cry (here and there).

Also there is lots of walking.

Yes, I never understood the "super hardcore" difficulty reputation that SOC attracted.

Even on master, you're reasonably tanky, especially as you replace your outfits/armour and get higher tier artefacts. The default carry cap is also high enough to carry enough weapons and ammo to start a small war, and enough medical supplies to clean up afterwards.

I've never understood why the modders of the "complete" series thought it necessary to increase the carry cap and mess around with the damage taken values to make things easier.
 
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Recently played SoC vanilla with only the ZRP patch and haven't gotten too far into the others yet. Was very surprised that the vanilla game is much less "hardcore" than the reputation it's gotten due to the popular total conversion mods. Both you and enemies are pretty tanky even on max difficulty, and your movement speed is insane when sprinting which can trivialize most encounters. Vanilla balance is bad and you'll be swimming in so many healing items you'll be leaving them behind pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong though, it's a great game with a lot of cool ideas and unparalleled atmosphere. The AI behavior is a highlight as others have given examples of. The engine does some strange things calculating bullet trajectories that leaves early game gunplay feeling wack until you get a more accurate rifle, but once it clicks it's very satisfying. Just don't go in expecting anything like the Anomaly vids on YouTube or the tacticool games like Tarkov that Stalker clearly inspired. If anything it plays a little more like the original Far Cry (here and there).

Also there is lots of walking.

Yes, I never understood the "super hardcore" difficulty reputation that SOC attracted.

Even on master, you're reasonably tanky, especially as you replace your outfits/armour and get higher tier artefacts. The default carry cap is also high enough to carry enough weapons and ammo to start a small war, and enough medical supplies to clean up afterwards.

I'll never understood why the modders of the "complete" series thought it necessary to increase the carry cap and mess around with the damage taken values to make things easier.

MISERY's fault. Contaminated the English language mod scene forever and altered perceptions of the entire series.

SHOC in particular is a fun linear sci-fi FPS with semi open levels rather than a hardcore open world survival simulator. All the better for it too.
 

Riskbreaker

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Mind you, that perception of SoC as "hard-core" FPS was there at the start. There was one video review at the time - either Gametrailers or GameSpot, I'm sure that someone here will remember it - complaining about difficulty, where the reviewer actually pointed the AI as a negative. But not in the sense that it was bad but rather too good, and enemies taking cover or flanking the player was supposedly unfair. Not kidding. Now that is all sorts of hilarious in hindsight.

Anyhow, CS ought fix the impression that vanilla Stalkers can't kick your ass somewhat. It's raining ГРАНАТА, hallelujah.
 
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Mind you, that perception of SoC as "hard-core" FPS was there at the start. There was one video review at the time - either Gametrailers or GameSpot, I'm sure that someone here will remember it - complaining about difficulty, where the reviewer actually pointed the AI as a negative. But not in the sense that it was bad but rather too good, and enemies taking cover or flanking the player was supposedly unfair. Not kidding. Now that is all sorts of hilarious in hindsight.

Anyhow, CS ought fix the impression that vanilla Stalkers can't kick your ass somewhat. It's raining ГРАНАТА, hallelujah.

Journoworld's perception of difficulty, as ever, bears no relation to the reality.
 

toughasnails

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One thing ought be given to Clear Sky is how good its original maps looked even compared to Call of Pripyat which came later. It's a noticeable jump in visual fidelity compared to the locations in the first game which kind of showed how long the game was left in the kitchen by the time it was released, and this is coming from someone who loves its visuals (I even have a soft spot for the look you get with the static lighting). The swamp area has such a great attention to detail, artistry, and understanding of both the engine's strong points and its shortcomings that had to be hidden. Compare that to the starting swampy area in CoP which is a p unconvincing and gamey environment, and all of engine's shortcomings are on full display. limited draw distance, distant terrain looking like it was modeled out of clay and so on...
 

antimeridian

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Anyhow, CS ought fix the impression that vanilla Stalkers can't kick your ass somewhat. It's raining ГРАНАТА, hallelujah.

Yes, I only got a couple hours into CS before real life interfered but it was a noticeable uptick in difficulty, especially in the opening area. Having to assault the fortified swamp positions with nothing but a crappy pistol and shotgun led to some really fun situations.
 

Daemongar

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I haven't finished SoC and only have 6 hours into it - picking it up again after seeing this thread. Also installing the community patch referenced and thats it for mods. Not sure what difficulty I was on, but I do know that when I first started I said I'd solo the garage and ended up reloading an incredible amount of times until I got used to it. Now I started a game and selected STALKER difficulty and I waltzed through the first mission. Only 5 guys? I'm no FPS pro, but whatever you do, at least take veteran level. There is a huge difference in difficulty.
 

antimeridian

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Now I started a game and selected STALKER difficulty and I waltzed through the first mission. Only 5 guys? I'm no FPS pro, but whatever you do, at least take veteran level. There is a huge difference in difficulty.

Master difficulty is best in SoC since it mostly reduces the artificial bullet spread the game uses to prolong firefights iirc.
 

Tacgnol

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Now I started a game and selected STALKER difficulty and I waltzed through the first mission. Only 5 guys? I'm no FPS pro, but whatever you do, at least take veteran level. There is a huge difference in difficulty.

Master difficulty is best in SoC since it mostly reduces the artificial bullet spread the game uses to prolong firefights iirc.

Master has no impact on player accuracy, though it does make enemies hit the player more frequently at long range.

People get confused because there was a myth (that was disproven even back in 2007 with experimentation), that an RNG % of bullets would miss based on a misunderstanding of hit_probability values in the actor.ltx file. These values only applied to the player and basically give the player a "dodge chance" at ranges greater than 50m.

The ZRP author went to great pains to dispel this myth, and some people still believed it even after it was categorically proven to be false with access to the xray source code.

Edit: normie is correct that Master actually makes most weapons do less damage by default so I've removed that point from my post. It definitely has no impact on accuracy though.
 
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antimeridian

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The ZRP author went to great pains to dispel this myth, and some people still believed it even after it was categorically proven to be false with access to the xray source code.

Ah, just checked ZRP page and you are correct, thanks. Never messed with other difficulties to see for myself so I must have crossed a couple wires somehow.
 

anvi

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I always post the same thing whenever this game comes up, basically I went into these games not expecting anything and was amazed when the AI worked as a team to attack me in a bunch of impressive ways. (But realistic too). Much better than the dumb AI you get in other games like Bethesda etc. Don't be surprised if they spot you going into a building and they turn off their lights and quietly follow you in from different entrances and then sneak up behind you and
:terminate:

There is some janky gameplay in them though. But the last one is a lot more slick. But it's worth seeing them all because they do things differently. Or you could just skip to Pripyat.

Arma3 is my shooter of choice though, it's really improved over the years. But I love Stalkers too.
 

antimeridian

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Don't be surprised if they spot you going into a building and they turn off their lights and quietly follow you in from different entrances and then sneak up behind you and
:terminate:

Nothing like having one or two Spetsnaz dudes break off from the main engagement to circle you and empty an AS VAL clip into your ass
 

Reever

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I wouldn't recommend it for ShoC but consider installing a weapons mod if you ever plan on playing CoP after the first one to spice up the gameplay between playthroughs a little bit. I feel like the gun feel is one of the parts where stalker can feel a little bit dated at times.
Don't install complete overhaul mods on first playthroughs and definitely don't fall for the Complete meme.
 

schru

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All three games are worth playing, but the first one, Shadow of Chernobyl, is the only one that has the soul of what Stalker was supposed to be, even if the gameplay has many problems and the scope of the game had to be reduced drastically compared to GSC's ambitions. Clear Sky is more of an expansion pack attached to the base and exploring just one of those features that weren't implemented very satisfactorily in the original, namely the factions. Call of Pripyat is technically a nicely designed, semi-open-world game with more RPG-like quests and fairly interesting new areas to explore, but it seems that by the time it entered development the more skilled programmers and artists had left GSC, so the result feels more like a mod and it disappoints visually.


There is much to complain about in the first game, as the way weapons progression is handled, with the weapon models which are available early on being very inaccurate and weak, feels like a hackneyed attempt to impose a more generic structure of the game late in the development. It makes the game's pretentions to a more realistic, simulation-like style and elements somewhat ridiculous, but the problem improves later on with the better weapons. When I replayed the game on Master difficulty this issue seemed alleviated and I enjoyed it a lot more, so what Tacgnol says about the weapons doing more damage to both the player and enemies seems true. At any rate, the AI is indeed very good regardless of the difficulty setting, though playing on Master also forces one to play in a way that lets the enemies do more interesting things. However, note that the weapons themselves look, sound, and feel very nice, even those that aren't very effective.

I also seem to recall reading that there was something about head-shots or dealing critical damage in general which was limited to a certain number of times or an amount for every few seconds, which could account for the strange feeling one sometimes gets in close-quarters combat when enemies can take a lot of bullets. Tacgnol, is this correct or am I confusing it with something?

Another problem with Shadow of Chernobyl is the very straightforward and linear structure of the main quest, in which you're just sent from place to place and from person to person to fetch and deliver certain items, always being directed towards the goal by pointers on the map. It again seems like a decision that was made late during the development in an attempt to stitch together whatever showed promise and was relatively complete, and to give it a more typical form where the player is directed through a specific series of prepared encounters. This isn't to say that those encounters are bad, on the contrary, they're some of the best parts of the game, but it really feels like the player is rushed through them.

Given the size of the maps and the frequency with which the player finds secret stashes or supplies left there specifically to help him in one of those main-quest areas, the optional quests from the traders feel quite pointless and it's annoying how they can be given automatically. They're also on the level of some low-level MMO quests, so they just spoil the over-all impression.

The way the story is delivered relies a bit too much on intermittent exposition, which felt like when time came for it, there was too much of it at once and it was too explicit, while more natural means like incidental conversations, fragmentary information about the research institutes, and letting the world and locations speak for themselves weren't used that well. The ideas the developers had for the story were interesting, but the way they're presented ends up feeling awkward, with the best part being the main premise of the game and the way exploring its world and interacting with the NPCs was handled.

It's worth noting that none of these problems have much to do with Stalker's being ‘dated’. It was probably quite apparent from the day it came out that the troubled development required a lot of compromises to get the game finished at all.


Despite all that, Stalker is indeed a very special game with a very unique feeling to it, and it's clear that the developers were inspired by a vision. Basically, the atmosphere, combat encounters, exploration, the simulation-like style, and the visuals that show a good artistic sense are the things that make the game. It's the only instalment that contains the original content, locations, and story from the rather interesting pre-release trailers in a coherent form. Clear Sky is a small addition which doesn't do well what it sets out to deliver, and it trivializes the original areas borrowed from the base game. Call of Pripyat represents a proper attempt at making an open-world shooter with some RPG elements and its anomalies are even pretty creative, but it lacks all those other things that made the first game special.


As for setting them up, I wouldn't recommend any mods as they might always make some stupid changes, unless there are some that really do limit themselves to fixing bugs. Shadow of Chernobyl should be played in a 4:3 resolution as that is what it was designed for; mods might fix the stretched weapon scopes, the PDA, or the shadows cut-off limit, but I'm not sure if there's anything like letter-boxing for the main menu. The other games have proper wide-screen implementation.

I'm not sure if I'm right about it, but it seems like the night skies in the first game don't work right on current systems. It'd be hard to verify it now, but it seems like something is wrong with the sky textures, the lighting, or specifically the lighting and textures during and after thunderstorms. Perhaps someone else might know? I'd be very interested in finding out if this is indeed the case.

As for the game's language, it's possible to play with Russian or Ukrainian audio and have English subtitles. There's a modification for it, but might even be enough to copy the files from the English localization's folder into one of the others.

It seems that originally at least Shadow of Chernobyl and Clear Sky were released with Russian, but Ukrainian support was added later and going by what is said in this news release, it seems like the Ukrainian version is treated by the developers as the more authentic one: https://cs.stalker-game.ru/ru/?page=news&subpage=2&item=232

"S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Clear Sky" in Ukrainian
june 10, 2009
We hasten to please the fans of the game, who were so patiently waiting for the release of the Ukrainian version of the game. Now you can download it from the official website and install it on your computer. Follow the instructions of the installation wizard and in a few minutes the characters of the game will speak in their "native language".

And although all the texts are translated into Ukrainian, the voice acting went a little further, even more realistically representing each group, so "Dolg" speaks Russian language, and, for example, the bandits mainly speak Surzhyk - which in the complex adds a special flavor to the beloved game.

I would like to note that the Ukrainian localization is installed on the Russian licensed version of the game and will work with any patch installed by you.

Priemnoi gri!
 

normie

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so what Tacgnol says about the weapons doing more damage to both the player and enemies seems true
it's not true for the player, it's true for enemies that they do more damage to the player because you take more damage in general, not that their weapon damage is buffed

it's the easier difficulties that give the player weapon damage a boost - enemy damage resistance is the same on all difficulties
 

Tacgnol

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so what Tacgnol says about the weapons doing more damage to both the player and enemies seems true
it's not true for the player, it's true for enemies that they do more damage to the player because you take more damage in general, not that their weapon damage is buffed

it's the easier difficulties that give the player weapon damage a boost - enemy damage resistance is the same on all difficulties

Normie is correct there, been ages since I looked at the vanilla SOC ltx files. The AK-74u for instance:

hit_power = 0.32, 0.36, 0.39, 0.42

It actually goes master, veteran, stalker and novice. These are general damage values for the weapon itself. Been ages so I forgot and assumed it was the other way around.

Player damage resistance is directly controlled by actor.ltx in the immunity sections like:

[actor_immunities_gd_novice]
burn_immunity = 0.5
strike_immunity = 0.5
shock_immunity = 0.5
wound_immunity = 0.5
radiation_immunity = 0.5
telepatic_immunity = 0.5
chemical_burn_immunity = 0.5
explosion_immunity = 0.1
fire_wound_immunity = 0.5


[actor_immunities_gd_master]
burn_immunity = 1.0
strike_immunity = 1.0
shock_immunity = 1.0
wound_immunity = 1.0
radiation_immunity = 1.0
telepatic_immunity = 1.0
chemical_burn_immunity = 1.0
explosion_immunity = 1.0
fire_wound_immunity = 1.0

I also seem to recall reading that there was something about head-shots or dealing critical damage in general which was limited to a certain number of times or an amount for every few seconds, which could account for the strange feeling one sometimes gets in close-quarters combat when enemies can take a lot of bullets. Tacgnol, is this correct or am I confusing it with something?

Yes, there is an effect where the bullet damage is reduced when going full auto. It's why it's often better to actually use a lot of the full auto weapons in semi auto mode.
 

udm

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Since everyone has already done a good job of helping you out, I only have this to add: STALKER is not scary, Comrade Zombro. You have absolutely nothing to fear.
 

Beans00

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I would play them in order

SOC, CS, COP


Clear sky is easily the worst but still worth playing IMO.

I personally like COP the most but SOC feels the most original since it's the first I guess. Though there are parts of SOC that are better then anything in COP I'd say overall COP is a tighter experience.
 

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