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

[Ryzer]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

Because it's a buggy mess of a game.

 

[whydoibother]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

Its a game that will eventually be good.

 

[anvi]

That voice over though... I am shocked. Whose desicison was it to have people play Stalker as this fucker?

 

[PanteraNera]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

The problem is, it doesn't suck, quite the contrary it is in parts, world design, factions, characters, quests faithful to the originals.
The graphics also look good, but not good enough for the performance.
The real elephant in the room is if either they canned A-Life 2.0 for good or they just deactivated it because of performance reasons.
There is a lot of coping going on ITT were people are in denial, I would say. Which doesn't mean they are wrong. No one can look into the future.

But from playing S2 for 12 hours and shelfing it, mostly because of the stupid spawn system and playing S1 right after it I can say that S1 feels way way more alive, I fear that in fact it was a design choice to can the simulation aspect of the series. Just the first section of S1 has so much more interactivity and simulation going on than the starter region of S2. And from what I have heard it only gets worse from there. Can't tell.

So I would not recommend buying it right now, I downloaded the GoG version from somewhere to see if I will buy it or not. I will wait for at least a couple of months, probably more. I really hope they come around, but somehow I doubt it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

The problem is, it doesn't suck, quite the contrary it is in parts, world design, factions, characters, quests faithful to the originals.
The graphics also look good, but not good enough for the performance.
The real elephant in the room is if either they canned A-Life 2.0 for good or they just deactivated it because of performance reasons.
There is a lot of coping going on ITT were people are in denial, I would say. Which doesn't mean they are wrong. No one can look into the future.

But from playing S2 for 12 hours and shelfing it, mostly because of the stupid spawn system and playing S1 right after it I can say that S1 feels way way more alive, I fear that in fact it was a design choice to can the simulation aspect of the series. Just the first section of S1 has so much more interactivity and simulation going on than the starter region of S2. And from what I have heard it only gets worse from there. Can't tell.

So I would not recommend buying it right now, I downloaded the GoG version from somewhere to see if I will buy it or not. I will wait for at least a couple of months, probably more. I really hope they come around, but somehow I doubt it.

I wish I could shelve it but what I play before PoE2 comes out is what I am going to play for a long while. So I am going to suffer for 2 more weeks and maybe try it again in 6+ months

 

[Drakortha]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

The problem is, it doesn't suck, quite the contrary it is in parts, world design, factions, characters, quests faithful to the originals.
The graphics also look good, but not good enough for the performance.
The real elephant in the room is if either they canned A-Life 2.0 for good or they just deactivated it because of performance reasons.
There is a lot of coping going on ITT were people are in denial, I would say. Which doesn't mean they are wrong. No one can look into the future.

But from playing S2 for 12 hours and shelfing it, mostly because of the stupid spawn system and playing S1 right after it I can say that S1 feels way way more alive, I fear that in fact it was a design choice to can the simulation aspect of the series. Just the first section of S1 has so much more interactivity and simulation going on than the starter region of S2. And from what I have heard it only gets worse from there. Can't tell.

So I would not recommend buying it right now, I downloaded the GoG version from somewhere to see if I will buy it or not. I will wait for at least a couple of months, probably more. I really hope they come around, but somehow I doubt it.

They'll memory hole the simulation aspects of the OG trilogy while attaining a new fanbase, whom of which are already hard at work with the gaslighting and all. We saw the same thing happen with Baldur's Gate 3.

Hoping for GSC to bring A-Life back is like hoping Larian would patch BG3 to be not gay. It's never going to happen.

 

[Gargaune]

Fuck that voice is horrible.

You don't play Stalker to hear Brits speak.

Yeah, I wish GSC hadn't gone "native" English VO for this one. I liked the heavy Eastern Euro accents in the original, I felt like it added to the Zone's character, gave it a better sense of place. Now I'm watching these STALKER 2 clips and the Zone sounds like a night out in London. I suspect they maybe didn't want the international audience to interpret accented VO as a budget constraint, but I think it backfired.

 

[Gerrard]

https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/273

I've been using this mod for a couple of hours and haven't had a group of boars spawn up my anus so far, so I'd say it works.

 

[Echo Mirage]

Has anyone seen a PP-19 Bizon for sale anywhere? This game seems to love the hobo phase so much that the starter stuff is all that I've seen so far. Strider gave me a good gun and Quiet sells some nice weapons, But still I'm limited on SMG's.

 

[anvi]

https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/273

I've been using this mod for a couple of hours and haven't had a group of boars spawn up my anus so far, so I'd say it works.

Is there a mod for the voice yet?

 

[Crispy]

Interesting. Mods will fix it.

 

[Crispy]

I'm actually re-downloading the Game Pass version to try out all these mods. Apparently, as long as you have the GP version installed into a folder with full read/write/admin access, they're all usable as long as they rely on .paks or whatever.

 

[Gerrard]

Has anyone seen a PP-19 Bizon for sale anywhere? This game seems to love the hobo phase so much that the starter stuff is all that I've seen so far. Strider gave me a good gun and Quiet sells some nice weapons, But still I'm limited on SMG's.

I've seen some random bandits with GP37s already in the Garbage while traders offer fuck all. Also my game keeps crashing when there's a lot of NPCs around (basically in any hub).

https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/273

I've been using this mod for a couple of hours and haven't had a group of boars spawn up my anus so far, so I'd say it works.

Is there a mod for the voice yet?

A mod for what?

 

[Crispy]

FFS frame generation is disabled during cutscenes for some reason.

WHY IN THE HELL WOULD THEY DISABLE FRAME GENERATION IN CUT SCENES?

 

[Modron]

WHY IN THE HELL WOULD THEY DISABLE FRAME GENERATION IN CUT SCENES?

THEY PROBABLY THINK 24FPS IS CINEMATIC KINO.

 

[blessed king of longing]

Hard-locked the MQ ~17 hours in; judging by the mission list I'm nearly halfway through the story. I liked a lot about it, but it's a tough pill to swallow when there's so much lacking and underdeveloped. Going to shelve it for now.

The world feels dead, which is a problem when it's so large and there's very limited fast travel (might be story reasons or a bug, but the only travel option I have atm is to the Slag Heap, and even if you could pay neutral stalkers in the field to guide you it wouldn't be a fix because I've seen next to none wandering around). Feels like you're just running from one quest location to another. Missions are often far away, and you may go 5-10+ minutes running around without seeing any humans or mutants. Nothing is ever in the distance; I don't know why they even included snipers when everything spawns next to you. Makes sense they got rid of the binoculars.

Gear degradation feels a little too taxing. Weight limit/fatigue is also punishing when you have to go kilometers to stuff away or sell your junk. Loot is much too plentiful and the economy makes zero sense. Human AI is decent at times and impressively stupid in others. AI is completely incompetent at fighting itself but pinpoint when it comes to you. Stealth feels broken. No reward for wasting time/money on mutants (they could also use a 10-20% hp debuff to make them slightly less tedious). Radiation on-screen effect is overwhelming. Constant bleeding. Long animations I frequently interrupted at the last frame (like bandaging). If there is a complex faction/reputation system I didn't notice it. People don't acknowledge that you revived them. Can't control length of sleep. No NVG and the flashlight sucks for how dark the game is; days should be a little longer if they're going to be gloomy half the time anyways. No ranking systems or chatter. Placeholder descriptions that somehow made it through QA. Have to edit the .ini to get rid of mouse smoothing and other visual effects. Experienced small annoying bugs, but at least they would go away on reload (a few times I got stuck doing the corner peak when I left the wall, couldn't run, had weird objects floating off my gun, wall textures breaking, etc). I feel like I could go on and on. I'd suggest waiting at least a year or two to see if they fix it.

i recommend the following mods:

longer day cycle
longer sprinting
reduced repair cost
some mod that reduces weapon degradation

seems like common sense shit that should have been in at launch. i tried a stealth mod that seemed to do nothing, npc's have x-ray vision and see you through everything inexplicably. makes it very lame or even non-viable to sneak around

 

[Azdul]

Kodex Kensus is a bit unclear on this one, some think it's stalker some think its not. Too hard to judge.

Its a game that will eventually be good.

If it will sell shitton it will become good in 2-3 years either through official or unofficial patches. If not, developers will just cut the losses and work on something else.

One million would not be so amazing for US developers,

but costs of living are significantly lower in Eastern Europe:

so GSC developers are understandably enthusiastic:

 

[Drakortha]

It's always cringe when a developer does this. You sold a product, congratulations! Why should anyone care?

The reason they do it is because they know that gamers are pathetic losers who crave to feel 'included', who don't actually have a genuine interest in games themselves, but instead only seek to join whatever collective hive-mind of drooling imbeciles that are reciting memes and huffing the copium that their Chosen Developer of the month is shitting out. Like parasites they will jump to another 'fandom' next month. These mongrels are devoid of any independent thought or opinion of their own. They're fucking insects.

 

[Jenkem]

vatniks won.

 

[blessed king of longing]

Fuck that voice is horrible.

You don't play Stalker to hear Brits speak.

Yeah, I wish GSC hadn't gone "native" English VO for this one. I liked the heavy Eastern Euro accents in the original, I felt like it added to the Zone's character, gave it a better sense of place. Now I'm watching these STALKER 2 clips and the Zone sounds like a night out in London. I suspect they maybe didn't want the international audience to interpret accented VO as a budget constraint, but I think it backfired.

metro always did this pretty well, the voice acting was wasnt always great but atleast it felt like it belonged. even better, play it in russian - but then you have to pay attention to subtitles all the time

come to think of it, the radio music sucks ass too, i just found this: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/294

 

[ArchAngel]

Hard-locked the MQ ~17 hours in; judging by the mission list I'm nearly halfway through the story. I liked a lot about it, but it's a tough pill to swallow when there's so much lacking and underdeveloped. Going to shelve it for now.

The world feels dead, which is a problem when it's so large and there's very limited fast travel (might be story reasons or a bug, but the only travel option I have atm is to the Slag Heap, and even if you could pay neutral stalkers in the field to guide you it wouldn't be a fix because I've seen next to none wandering around). Feels like you're just running from one quest location to another. Missions are often far away, and you may go 5-10+ minutes running around without seeing any humans or mutants. Nothing is ever in the distance; I don't know why they even included snipers when everything spawns next to you. Makes sense they got rid of the binoculars.

Gear degradation feels a little too taxing. Weight limit/fatigue is also punishing when you have to go kilometers to stuff away or sell your junk. Loot is much too plentiful and the economy makes zero sense. Human AI is decent at times and impressively stupid in others. AI is completely incompetent at fighting itself but pinpoint when it comes to you. Stealth feels broken. No reward for wasting time/money on mutants (they could also use a 10-20% hp debuff to make them slightly less tedious). Radiation on-screen effect is overwhelming. Constant bleeding. Long animations I frequently interrupted at the last frame (like bandaging). If there is a complex faction/reputation system I didn't notice it. People don't acknowledge that you revived them. Can't control length of sleep. No NVG and the flashlight sucks for how dark the game is; days should be a little longer if they're going to be gloomy half the time anyways. No ranking systems or chatter. Placeholder descriptions that somehow made it through QA. Have to edit the .ini to get rid of mouse smoothing and other visual effects. Experienced small annoying bugs, but at least they would go away on reload (a few times I got stuck doing the corner peak when I left the wall, couldn't run, had weird objects floating off my gun, wall textures breaking, etc). I feel like I could go on and on. I'd suggest waiting at least a year or two to see if they fix it.

i recommend the following mods:

longer day cycle
longer sprinting
reduced repair cost
some mod that reduces weapon degradation

seems like common sense shit that should have been in at launch. i tried a stealth mod that seemed to do nothing, npc's have x-ray vision and see you through everything inexplicably. makes it very lame or even non-viable to sneak around

Stealth is useless, now I learned to hide behind trees when fighting enemies in the open as even with a slim tree they suddenly think you are in full cover and stop shooting :D

 

[baba is you]

It's true stealth, becoming one with nature.

 

[RomanRichter]

Fuck that voice is horrible.

You don't play Stalker to hear Brits speak.

Yeah, I wish GSC hadn't gone "native" English VO for this one. I liked the heavy Eastern Euro accents in the original, I felt like it added to the Zone's character, gave it a better sense of place. Now I'm watching these STALKER 2 clips and the Zone sounds like a night out in London. I suspect they maybe didn't want the international audience to interpret accented VO as a budget constraint, but I think it backfired.

metro always did this pretty well, the voice acting was wasnt always great but atleast it felt like it belonged. even better, play it in russian - but then you have to pay attention to subtitles all the time

come to think of it, the radio music sucks ass too, i just found this: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/294

Mod was banned, cuz lern ze ukrainian culture or GTFO you shovinistik swine!

For real, we now have mods purged cauze of music, changing logo with russian subtitle, how degenerate this can go?

EDT: Here is alternative link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2BrruPNP-cIYPP12LZiDbf3cnfTdncO/view
There are around 5 mods that replace radio, and cause meltdown

 

[blessed king of longing]

Fuck that voice is horrible.

You don't play Stalker to hear Brits speak.

Yeah, I wish GSC hadn't gone "native" English VO for this one. I liked the heavy Eastern Euro accents in the original, I felt like it added to the Zone's character, gave it a better sense of place. Now I'm watching these STALKER 2 clips and the Zone sounds like a night out in London. I suspect they maybe didn't want the international audience to interpret accented VO as a budget constraint, but I think it backfired.

metro always did this pretty well, the voice acting was wasnt always great but atleast it felt like it belonged. even better, play it in russian - but then you have to pay attention to subtitles all the time

come to think of it, the radio music sucks ass too, i just found this: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/294

Mod was banned, cuz lern ze ukrainian culture or GTFO you shovinistik swine!

For real, we now have mods purged cauze of music, changing logo with russian subtitle, how degenerate this can go?

EDT: Here is alternative link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2BrruPNP-cIYPP12LZiDbf3cnfTdncO/view
There are around 5 mods that replace radio, and cause meltdown

lmao wtf i thought you were making a bad joke but the mod is actually gone. i don't know why... all they did was add some music from that time period, similar to what was in metro exodus

 

[ArchAngel]

Fuck that voice is horrible.

You don't play Stalker to hear Brits speak.

Yeah, I wish GSC hadn't gone "native" English VO for this one. I liked the heavy Eastern Euro accents in the original, I felt like it added to the Zone's character, gave it a better sense of place. Now I'm watching these STALKER 2 clips and the Zone sounds like a night out in London. I suspect they maybe didn't want the international audience to interpret accented VO as a budget constraint, but I think it backfired.

metro always did this pretty well, the voice acting was wasnt always great but atleast it felt like it belonged. even better, play it in russian - but then you have to pay attention to subtitles all the time

come to think of it, the radio music sucks ass too, i just found this: https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/294

Mod was banned, cuz lern ze ukrainian culture or GTFO you shovinistik swine!

For real, we now have mods purged cauze of music, changing logo with russian subtitle, how degenerate this can go?

EDT: Here is alternative link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2BrruPNP-cIYPP12LZiDbf3cnfTdncO/view
There are around 5 mods that replace radio, and cause meltdown

lmao wtf i thought you were making a bad joke but the mod is actually gone. i don't know why... all they did was add some music from that time period, similar to what was in metro exodus

nexusmods is full on leftard led retardoland. And they full on drink the MSM propaganda.