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

[Grotesque]

The binoculars will come as a paid DLC?

Like horse armor in Oblivion?

 

[v1c70r14]

I love FEAR as much as the next guy, but the AI complexity is overblown by the fact they broadcast everything over radio and you say to yourself "Wow, they're working as le team!" when every other AI does pretty much the same thing except they don't actively tell you they're doing it.

No, most FPS AIs don't do even half of what the F.E.A.R. AI does, and them talking to one another isn't making the AI overrated, it's there to make sure you are aware that the AI is advanced and is doing what it is doing. Without the barks from the soldiers the player would have no real way of telling what they are up to, if it is dynamic or entirely faked, most games get away with minuscule AI partly because they are more opaque. No wonder most devs don't even bother with spending much money on AI when most of gamers are as retarded as you are, making them move forward, shoot at player, take cover if you feel very ambitious really is enough for you lot.

 

[ArchAngel]

I love FEAR as much as the next guy, but the AI complexity is overblown by the fact they broadcast everything over radio and you say to yourself "Wow, they're working as le team!" when every other AI does pretty much the same thing except they don't actively tell you they're doing it.

No, most FPS AIs don't do even half of what the F.E.A.R. AI does, and them talking to one another isn't making the AI overrated, it's there to make sure you are aware that the AI is advanced and is doing what it is doing. Without the barks from the soldiers the player would have no real way of telling what they are up to, if it is dynamic or entirely faked, most games get away with minuscule AI partly because they are more opaque. No wonder most devs don't even bother with spending much money on AI when most of gamers are as retarded as you are, making them move forward, shoot at player, take cover if you feel very ambitious really is enough for you lot.

AI in stalker2 does not need much more when it has permanent thermal vision and almost perfect aim.

 

[Gerrard]

The disaster of terrible AI, aborted A-Life, random spawn spam and NAFO agendas aside S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is a pretty good showcase of diminishing returns in terms of graphics, games being made today don't look a whole lot better than games made a decade ago, throwing in PBR and very poor approximations of ray-tracing, something they had done for very cheap with passable methods of faking it for a long time, doesn't do as much as you might think for the game. The biggest difference is foliage density.

This is a game from 2019 by the way, not even max settings. Needless to say it does not require a $800+ GPU to hit 60FPS today.

I would risk to say it actually has more detailed and more natural looking vegetation than Stalker 2.
What it doesn't have is shitty accumulation based lighting and shading effects. It looks soooo cool when I enter a building and it takes like 5 seconds for the light to propagate.

 

[deuxhero]

Even relatively low budget games have decent foliage nowadays. Here's a 2022 game from a studio that used to make licensed tie-in game for a brick and mortar retailer. Mostly stable 60 FPS at 1440P on a 6700 XT (I turn the graphics a notch down to keep the fan from going too crazy).

Spoiler

 

[430am]

It's been what, ten days and still missing patches for things that can be fixed with a line of code? They really don't fucking care do they.
Going to try to finish this, but I've got softlocked three times already, and had critical bugs with quest items not spawning in several other places. Noclip is essential to get through midgame.

 

[Gerrard]

ferratilis It's Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Im pretty sure they implemented some new middleware for vegetation, since there was a very distinct difference in how it looked and how detailed it was compared to Wildlands.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Even relatively low budget games have decent foliage nowadays. Here's a 2022 game from a studio that used to make licensed tie-in game for a brick and mortar retailer. Mostly stable 60 FPS at 1440P on a 6700 XT (I turn the graphics a notch down to keep the fan from going too crazy).

Spoiler

But all that ‘pretty foliage’ now is usually just pictures, signboards without collision or physicality. You lose the whole worldly function and satisfaction of foliage.



EDIT: It’s the Far cry 2 vs. 5 comparison video timestamped to the vegetation section, 5:25. I can't be held responsible for the author forcing you to watch it on youtube.

 

[jebsmoker]

friend of mine told me that the game's performance improves dramatically if you disable ray traced lighting in the ini file. the most noticeable difference is that it actually looks like the older games if you use the older lighting system

why is ray traced lighting not a thing you can turn off or on in the the options menu lmao

 

[kites]

Using UETools/noclip has been necessary for me a handful of times to progress the MQ ever since "Just Like the Good Old Days". I don't know why they haven't pushed out a hotfix for these simple scripting issues. Just started "Visions of Truth" and fell through the elevator floor during the ride and died; closed the game.

Started using a mod that makes the spawn radius a few times wider; it's anecdotal as I've only played a few hours with it, but it seems to be working at very little impact to performance. Occasionally it will dip down to ~50fps in more populated areas at my locked 60. I have been in an "aggro" state more though + I have only been at MTC Malachite and in the Duga region doing the "Happiness for Everyone" quest and checking a few question marks/stashes on the map; don't know how it will affect other settlements/scripted spawns. I expect anything touching this system without access to the game code will be extremely unstable and potentially game-breaking. It's a slip-shod band-aid, but it's nice to see stuff happening further in the distance - despite the NPC's not being persistent.

Also forgot to mention before: You should probably avoid the bartender "Ganja" in Rostok. Got locked into a Ukrainian "1 or 2" dialogue choice that I couldn't escape and had to alt+F4; happened to me twice hours apart.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Also forgot to mention before: You should probably avoid the bartender "Ganja" in Rostok. Got locked into a Ukrainian "1 or 2" dialogue choice that I couldn't escape and had to alt+F4; happened to me twice hours apart.

Masterful use of C&C to try and expand the usage of their native tongue.

 

[baba is you]

One of the modders on Nexus diagnosed A-life 2.0, claiming that there is no offline AI.

It's over. It seems like my thoughts that the Stalker 2 mod would end before it could even start properly have become reality.

 

[Lyre Mors]

One of the modders on Nexus diagnosed A-life 2.0, claiming that there is no offline AI.

It's over. It seems like my thoughts that the Stalker 2 mod would end before it could even start properly have become reality.

You gotta stop dooming so hard and give it more than a week and a half.

 

[kites]

Masterful use of C&C

Jokes aside it seems there’s actually some amount of C&C with the MQ so far. Compared to what I expected at least (which was none when I was observing how linear the A to B MQ maps were). Unfortunately I think my problem with it was breaking several main quests by sparing somebody or choosing the more neutral option in the hopes I could see them further down the road.

Spoiler

Small spoiler with the “Happiness for Everyone” quest. If you take his hand, you will have to start the boss battle over (probably for the best if you don’t immediately catch onto the boss gimmick). I thought maybe he had changed since I broke the psi-energy sources or whatever and he had gained his eyes back. Oh well. Ended up with a broken autosave that wouldn’t let me move til restart.

 

[Gerrard]

friend of mine told me that the game's performance improves dramatically if you disable ray traced lighting in the ini file. the most noticeable difference is that it actually looks like the older games if you use the older lighting system

why is ray traced lighting not a thing you can turn off or on in the the options menu lmao

Because the purpose of Lumen is not to make the game look better, it's to make it easier for devs to make the game. Never mind that the original stalker games never had hundreds of gay hidden lights that were meant to fake light bounce in the first place, like Bethesda games do.

 

[Alienman]

I miss old engines in general. The old Stalker engine still looks superior, in at least mood. And you know it will run perfectly.

 

[baba is you]

After waiting, the modder who made that claim explained it in more detail. He said that The Lair System is responsible for A-life's offline AI.

The modder claimed that The Lair System was the ultimate simulation system, but it was broken due to a bug. And he said that it is unlikely to be fixed anytime soon.

However, even after seeing this claim, the doubts in my mind still do not go away.