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

[ArchAngel]

Is it right that this game has no night vision?

Oh it's got night vision. It's just that it's for NPCs only.

I got angry because of that shit so in game options I upped gamma from 50% to 75% and now I got "night vision" as well

 

[Mercatroid]

There's no chance in hell these retorded hohols will ever be able to implement anything even barely resembling an actual A-Life in Stolkor 2.

Keep in mind, people have already confirmed that a real a-life system is in the game files but it just completely deactivated at present. I have no doubt that at the very least, modders will eventually alter and implement this system, essentially doing GSC's work for them. The real question is whether or not the game is interesting enough as a game--or better enough than all the other games that still have active modding communities--to be worth investing time in. Like Inec0rn, playing Stalker 2 just made me want to go back to playing CoC, and when I did I felt extremely appreciative of CoC for being what it is. Like I even appreciated the lack of overdone graphics. The start of Stalker 2 has a million plants and glowy things everywhere just cluttering the screen and distracting you, and I find this kind of thing is always detrimental to intelligent gameplay. Like, the human brain only has so much visual bandwidth, and if you overload it with visual stimulation like tons of high-poly models and particles and shaders, it becomes much more difficult to think about what you're seeing, and almost impossible to imagine the world of the game, because you're being absolutely bludgeoned to death with a high-fidelity visual representation of it. Simpler graphics are much more evocative. So I played some CoC in Truck Cemetery, which is pretty sparse and empty of foliage and has relatively low-poly models, but I was fighting swarms of military guys in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm, and using lightning strikes to time my grenade launcher shots at them. It was immersive and evocative and fun as hell. And I was like "why did I want to play a Stalker game with 'better graphics' again?"

Having a whole new Zone is pretty cool, and is pretty much the only reason I'm interested in S2. But in the end I think the graphics hardware we have nowadays just inherently leads to the development of visually-saturated, stimulating-but-boring games.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Keep in mind, people have already confirmed that a real a-life system is in the game files but it just completely deactivated at present. I have no doubt that at the very least, modders will eventually alter and implement this system, essentially doing GSC's work for them. The real question is whether or not the game is interesting enough as a game--or better enough than all the other games that still have active modding communities--to be worth investing time in. Like Inec0rn, playing Stalker 2 just made me want to go back to playing CoC, and when I did I felt extremely appreciative of CoC for being what it is. Like I even appreciated the lack of overdone graphics. The start of Stalker 2 has a million plants and glowy things everywhere just cluttering the screen and distracting you, and I find this kind of thing is always detrimental to intelligent gameplay. Like, the human brain only has so much visual bandwidth, and if you overload it with visual stimulation like tons of high-poly models and particles and shaders, it becomes much more difficult to think about what you're seeing, and almost impossible to imagine the world of the game, because you're being absolutely bludgeoned to death with a high-fidelity visual representation of it. Simpler graphics are much more evocative. So I played some CoC in Truck Cemetery, which is pretty sparse and empty of foliage and has relatively low-poly models, but I was fighting swarms of military guys in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm, and using lightning strikes to time my grenade launcher shots at them. It was immersive and evocative and fun as hell. And I was like "why did I want to play a Stalker game with 'better graphics' again?"

Having a whole new Zone is pretty cool, and is pretty much the only reason I'm interested in S2. But in the end I think the graphics hardware we have nowadays just inherently leads to the development of visually-saturated, stimulating-but-boring games.

The code in the 'A-life' .cfg we saw was a spawner, that's it.

 

[randir14]

First patch coming next week
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1643320/announcements/detail/4455843903878203416?snr=2___

 

[cretin]

Moreover, they're still claiming their 100 yard radial spawn system is an "a-life system." People have reported and proven by pointing to the scripts file that it will load in entire pre-scripted fights out of thin air, like "here are some bandits fighting boars." It will load the same fight like this repeatedly, conjuring up conflicts between NPCs who didn't exist 30 seconds ago.

I just want to hammer home that this is literally how the far cry games work.

 

[Gerrard]

First patch coming next week
https://steamcommunity.com/games/1643320/announcements/detail/4455843903878203416?snr=2___

Not a single word about performance.

 

[Mercatroid]

The code in the 'A-life' .cfg we saw was a spawner, that's it.

Welp. I was on the fence, but I guess I'm just going to refund. I was under the impression that people had found something genuine in there that was just too unstable to run.

Moreover, they're still claiming their 100 yard radial spawn system is an "a-life system." People have reported and proven by pointing to the scripts file that it will load in entire pre-scripted fights out of thin air, like "here are some bandits fighting boars." It will load the same fight like this repeatedly, conjuring up conflicts between NPCs who didn't exist 30 seconds ago.

I just want to hammer home that this is literally how the far cry games work.

In the end, it's not really a surprise, is it? I look forward to talking with you about Improved Weapon Pack addons.

 

[Latro]

GSC just said the heart of Chernobyl version will have real a-life!!! Chornobyl version is more like far cry on purpose

 

[Mercatroid]

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1gwsxbv/alife_is_actually_present_in_the_game_code_here/

This is more than just a spawner.

 

[ADL]

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1gwsxbv/alife_is_actually_present_in_the_game_code_here/

This is more than just a spawner.

If that's the case, they really should have just launched this into early access if they needed $$$.

Pinned comment on the Super A-Life Maybe mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/62?tab=posts

Hey! Alife Anomaly Dev here, I've rewrote the alife for Anomaly completely for my Anomaly MilsimRTS Conversion... what you're most likely dealing with here is purely spawn rates. IF alife works the same, we need to increase the online combat distance and auto switch distance, as well as add(or edit) functions for target priority so NPCs will actively travel to new locations. PM me if you need anything bossman. I'm waiting on the SDK before doing anything tbh.

Replying to "realistically, what are the chances of having A-life 1.0 or 2.0 ported/modded into the game later on, on a map of this scale and size ?"

In theory, almost every script can be ported/converted to blueprints.. It just depends on how much they stripped from UE5.1 on how difficult the process is. If we can use the blueprint system like we normally can with UE5, then we'll be golden. My two big concerns for modding are
1. Can we take full advantage of the blueprint system?
2. Will we be able to use prefabs as frameworks.

I'm not to concerned with getting alife working, one way or another, it will work.. Just depends on if its us, or them.. and how much effort its going to take if it is left up to us.

 

[PanteraNera]

https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1gwsxbv/alife_is_actually_present_in_the_game_code_here/

This is more than just a spawner.

It is simply that S2 spawns encounters out of thin air around you, while the originals had a simulation of a world that had all kinds of stuff happen without you being around.

Yes it is more than just a spawner, because it tries to hide that instead of a simulation it is just a spawner.

 

[ADL]

Those strings indicate something much more complex than a spawner. Doesn't mean it's finished or actively being used.

 

[PanteraNera]

Those strings indicate something much more complex than a spawner. Doesn't mean it's finished or actively being used.

The first games had entities that had goals, everything unfolded even without the player being around.
S2 has a system that spawns entities if the player is in a set distance, with timers and cool-downs to make it look like a simulation.

That does not mean that dev's or modders might change that, but it is clear that it will be a lot of work as basically they have to start from any prototype or parts of what is left of that in the game to make it a simulation.

I think it should not be that hard to understand.

 

[Odoryuk]

The code in the 'A-life' .cfg we saw was a spawner, that's it.

Config file is not code. Unless we have decompiled version of the code, we can't be sure how it works. There might be full blown A–Life system deep in the game's codebase which, by the look at it, is disabled by now, but it looks like devs might work on it and enable it in recent patches

 

[Hace El Oso]

Config file is not code. Unless we have decompiled version of the code, we can't be sure how it works. There might be full blown A–Life system deep in the game's codebase which, by the look at it, is disabled by now, but it looks like devs might work on it and enable it in recent patches

I’m not interested in hairsplitting. The contents of that file linked in the thread I was referencing is a spawner.
If the most recent Reddit link from Mercatroid that insists there is an A-Life system that directly compares with the originals is correct, then I happily anticipate being impressed.

 

[Latro]

Attempting to trick me and others into paying full price for an absent main feature will never impress me.

 

[Zarniwoop]

The fuck is Alife?

Is it one of those stupid Zoomster terms for something that's been around forever?

 

[Inec0rn]

effectively "alife" was the original games AI on xray engine that that made the zone feel alive. Unfortunately for this release they just drag n dropped some UE5 generic spawning script so the game plays like FO4 or a Farcry game. There's a lot of cope going around datamining the game for "alife" strings hoping good AI will just be patched in. Dev's saw the people lap up fo4 / farcry slop and thought they would get a pass but it hasn't panned out.

 

[kites]

The fuck is Alife?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080228032107/https://aigamedev.com/interviews/stalker-alife

I'm not sure why they claim it's implemented in the build we are playing but that bugs are hampering it. It's clear while traversing the world space it's not functioning that way in the slightest. It'd be an easier answer to swallow that it wasn't at a workable stage yet, and that they opted to switch in random close-proximity spawns that are transient as a bandage. Game has a solid core but it's held down by how undercooked the systems are overall. To play at this point you may as well only follow MQ mission string and hope it doesn't break.

 

[Drakortha]

STALKER 2 IS SHIT!

RETURN AND REFUND IT, RIGHT NOW!

 

[ArchAngel]

effectively "alife" was the original games AI on xray engine that that made the zone feel alive. Unfortunately for this release they just drag n dropped some UE5 generic spawning script so the game plays like FO4 or a Farcry game. There's a lot of cope going around datamining the game for "alife" strings hoping good AI will just be patched in. Dev's saw the people lap up fo4 / farcry slop and thought they would get a pass but it hasn't panned out.

At this point even FO4 system would be preferable. I never had enemies respawn in a location in Fo4 while I was still there.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

STALKER 2 IS SHIT!

RETURN AND REFUND IT, RIGHT NOW!

They wanted to force you out through the back and make you run away. So they just forced an infinite spawn in the military base.
I personally would've kept 2 machine gunners or something so you can't leave through the front door, the current implementation makes you think you can escape as long as you kill them all, then eventually realize there is no end.

 

[ArchAngel]

STALKER 2 IS SHIT!

RETURN AND REFUND IT, RIGHT NOW!

Yea, I did that mission recently, tried to exit that way and noticed this. Game wants you to exit another way and forces you by this beyond stupid CoD system of endless respawns.

 

[Drakortha]

STALKER 2 IS SHIT!

RETURN AND REFUND IT, RIGHT NOW!

Yea, I did that mission recently, tried to exit that way and noticed this. Game wants you to exit another way and forces you by this beyond stupid CoD system of endless respawns.

It's not a CoD system, it's an Anomaly™

​

 

[Drakortha]

Yea, I did that mission recently, tried to exit that way and noticed this. Game wants you to exit another way and forces you by this beyond stupid CoD system of endless respawns.

Well that was shortsighted of them. Did they forget that most retarded gamers will be playing on the easiest difficult level? It's not hard to kill NPC's in such a confined space, either. Most players will not even think to exit out the back.