STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl Mod Thread

[Ol' Willy]

As I write stuff over here, I will also say few things about NLC although I played it a while ago. Very interesting mod, well made, but I had mixed feelings about it.

The amount of new mechanics in it is impressive. The inventory autism is top notch; I liked the reworked, barter oriented economy; the manipulations with artifacts; etc, in regards to survival FPS features NLC is very rich. There are features that filter away many new players but nothing impossible once you know tactics or hacks to overcome them. Damage model in the mod is awesome by the way, the head alone is divided in several damage zones for each creature.

And the writing too. Usually, muh hardcore mods have barely writing at all, but not NLC. NLC has reworked main plot which I like and consider to be very decent, dialogues could be overly verbose but nothing to scare us (still far cry from Planescape levels). Different factions have different styles of talking which is quite remarkable.

But the gameplay itself... The amount of fetching in NLC is insane. You do fetch quests to finish fetch quests to finish fetch quests... You want equipment, you fetch, you want progress, you got it, you had to fetch more, a true courier simulator.

Because of this, the amount of running around the Zone is absolutely bonkers. My playthrough was around 200 hours, and of them, maybe 40 were of actual gameplay and dialogues. The rest was walking, grinding artifacts and trophies. And mind you, I was playing 3.0 which is considered to be easier, with guides and edited ACTOR file for speed so without it you can easily clock closer to 300 hours.

The main enemies in the game are low tier critters that are spawned non-stop in mindboggling amounts which reminds me of some oldest Stalker mods where spawns were simply broken. Of course, critter spawn zones are well defined so if you know the routes you may walk around without getting ever close to them. But sometimes (read - often) you will need trophies, so you would have to kill them. I think I fragged over a thousand of dogs, rodents, hogs, pigs and other shit over my run. Top tier critters, though, are victims of the mighty knife. You can kill anything at all with one knife attack, even pseudogiant. Just save nearby.

A-Life is absent. Aside from relentless critter spawns, nothing really happens in the Zone and the only change happens as you disable the brain scorcher.

Another problem is that NLC is very linear. When you do quests, it's the right way or highway. Either you farm the best outcome, or end up with very subpar rewards and brickwalled questlines. Add right here that key characters could be killed or disappear from the game because of some bugs. Regarding the amount of new stuff put into the game and amount of crutches needed to enable it, the stability is generally fine, but far from being perfect.

Now a point of criticism you want see very often. Despite muh hardcore approach, NLC still (as far as 3.0 goes) lacks the mag mechanics. Not a revelation that many muh hardcore FPSes and milsims don't draw ammo from a general pool but instead simulate mags (ArmA is good example), so you reload mags instead of just some abstract ammo. Some games, like Hideous Destructor for Doom, have proper mag manager where you can unload and reload mags you have in your inventory. Not sure if Anomaly or Misery have such mechanics, but not having it in muh hardcore mod is simply not right.

Because NLC is such a mixed bag, I sometimes have the urge to replay it, but then remember about endless walking and waves of trash mobs and decide not to. I know that lite version of NLC exists, but it feels self defeating

 

[Baron Dupek]

I've read somewhere they restored (in NLC) that old feature where NPCs could finish quests if you weren't fast enough.

And mags in ShoC? There was an attempts in Zone of Alienation. To call it "buggy" would be understatement of the last century...

 

[Ol' Willy]

I've read somewhere they restored (in NLC) that old feature where NPCs could finish quests if you weren't fast enough.

This was definitely not the case in 3.0. If you fail the quest you either brickwall the future quests from this character or take a hit to reputation, that's all

I am not sure if such feature ever existed at all. As far as I know, not a single of released builds has it. The only exception is artifact hunting quests from Boroda in CoP

 

[Gerrard]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

 

[deuxhero]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

 

[Gerrard]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

Good job immediately proving me right.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

With mag manager you can choose whatever mags you want given the situation. Drum feels like a good choice, but it is heavy, thus, penalties to reload or draw speeds

- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading

As I said, this is done well in Hideous Destructor:

- Assault rifle there uses caseless ammo, so when you unload the mag a round may accidentally go off, causing little damage
- if you press R shortly, you throw away the mag. But if you hold R for a while, you retain it

Isn't it great?

 

[cretin]

As I write stuff over here, I will also say few things about NLC although I played it a while ago. Very interesting mod, well made, but I had mixed feelings about it.

The amount of new mechanics in it is impressive. The inventory autism is top notch; I liked the reworked, barter oriented economy; the manipulations with artifacts; etc, in regards to survival FPS features NLC is very rich. There are features that filter away many new players but nothing impossible once you know tactics or hacks to overcome them. Damage model in the mod is awesome by the way, the head alone is divided in several damage zones for each creature.

And the writing too. Usually, muh hardcore mods have barely writing at all, but not NLC. NLC has reworked main plot which I like and consider to be very decent, dialogues could be overly verbose but nothing to scare us (still far cry from Planescape levels). Different factions have different styles of talking which is quite remarkable.

But the gameplay itself... The amount of fetching in NLC is insane. You do fetch quests to finish fetch quests to finish fetch quests... You want equipment, you fetch, you want progress, you got it, you had to fetch more, a true courier simulator.

Because of this, the amount of running around the Zone is absolutely bonkers. My playthrough was around 200 hours, and of them, maybe 40 were of actual gameplay and dialogues. The rest was walking, grinding artifacts and trophies. And mind you, I was playing 3.0 which is considered to be easier, with guides and edited ACTOR file for speed so without it you can easily clock closer to 300 hours.

The main enemies in the game are low tier critters that are spawned non-stop in mindboggling amounts which reminds me of some oldest Stalker mods where spawns were simply broken. Of course, critter spawn zones are well defined so if you know the routes you may walk around without getting ever close to them. But sometimes (read - often) you will need trophies, so you would have to kill them. I think I fragged over a thousand of dogs, rodents, hogs, pigs and other shit over my run. Top tier critters, though, are victims of the mighty knife. You can kill anything at all with one knife attack, even pseudogiant. Just save nearby.

A-Life is absent. Aside from relentless critter spawns, nothing really happens in the Zone and the only change happens as you disable the brain scorcher.

Another problem is that NLC is very linear. When you do quests, it's the right way or highway. Either you farm the best outcome, or end up with very subpar rewards and brickwalled questlines. Add right here that key characters could be killed or disappear from the game because of some bugs. Regarding the amount of new stuff put into the game and amount of crutches needed to enable it, the stability is generally fine, but far from being perfect.

Now a point of criticism you want see very often. Despite muh hardcore approach, NLC still (as far as 3.0 goes) lacks the mag mechanics. Not a revelation that many muh hardcore FPSes and milsims don't draw ammo from a general pool but instead simulate mags (ArmA is good example), so you reload mags instead of just some abstract ammo. Some games, like Hideous Destructor for Doom, have proper mag manager where you can unload and reload mags you have in your inventory. Not sure if Anomaly or Misery have such mechanics, but not having it in muh hardcore mod is simply not right.

Because NLC is such a mixed bag, I sometimes have the urge to replay it, but then remember about endless walking and waves of trash mobs and decide not to. I know that lite version of NLC exists, but it feels self defeating

NLCs biggest weakest IMO is the lack of A-life, attempting to make up for it with a sort of mixed spawn system of fixed spawn 'gulags' along with random and scripted ambush spawns as you well know. I have mixed feelings about the system, on the one hand, being bumrushed out of the bushes by 20 dogs, two pseudos and a pack of tushkanos is pure adrenaline and classic high octane shooter gameplay. The scripted spawns can sometimes provide an exciting punctuation to quest beats. On the other hand, it's definitely less dynamic and immersive than the classical A-life system, and feels much more gamey.

My general opinion of NLC has soured much over the years. The fetch quest guantlet is annoying, and fans would point out, obviously, that the real game is the gameplay in between - fighting muties, managing resources, thinking about efficient trade routes - but the grind is insane and these days feels like a waste of time to me. I especially hate the plethora of quests that involve transporting something ridiculously heavy. Apparently russians love this sort of shit and think its a braniac exercise on efficient use of labor or something, when in reality its just tedium that involves either repeatedly sprinting to max exertion and then dropping your backpack over and over, or dropping the item on the ground and attempting to literally push it and hoping like hell it doesn't encounter a physics bug somewhere along the way. Either way will turn a completely uninteresting section of gameplay into something that takes up the better part of an hour.

 

[Gerrard]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

The weapon upgrade system itself was due for a rework, I was honestly surprised it hasn't been done in base Anomaly. It should work with weapon parts, the same way that attachments currently do, that you could add and remove at will (at a workbench), instead of the current one that upon closer inspection seems to be quite hacked together.

 

[cretin]

Magazines is a great example of a feature that adds nothing to the gameplay. Unless you:
- restrict the number of mags a player can have ready to an unreasonable, unrealistically low number
- make loading mags extra tedious
- add some other dumbfuck idea like losing all remaining ammo in a mag when reloading
it's meaningless.
And if you do the above, you weren't beaten enough as a child.

The first obvious advantage is to enable the use of different types of mags.

The "ammo capacity increased" type of upgrade in maтy games annoys me to no end. How can you "upgrade" a mag, it's a fucking replaceable part!

The old trusty AKM can take 30 and 45 mags plus 75 drums

The weapon upgrade system itself was due for a rework, I was honestly surprised it hasn't been done in base Anomaly. It should work with weapon parts, the same way that attachments currently do, that you could add and remove at will (at a workbench), instead of the current one that upon closer inspection seems to be quite hacked together.

You want to look into stalker desolation

its an offshoot of anomaly that intends to have the most advanced weapon modificaiton system, like as advanced as EFT's, not the sort of hackjob that is currently present in mainstream anomaly.

 

[Ol' Willy]

especially hate the plethora of quests that involve transporting something ridiculously heavy. Apparently russians love this sort of shit and think its a braniac exercise on efficient use of labor or something, when in reality its just tedium that involves either repeatedly sprinting to max exertion and then dropping your backpack over and over, or dropping the item on the ground and attempting to literally push it and hoping like hell it doesn't encounter a physics bug somewhere along the way. Either way will turn a completely uninteresting section of gameplay into something that takes up the better part of an hour.

The general idea is to drastically limit your mobility so you won't just sprint through locations but think carefully about the route and possible dangers.

Which, of course, doesn't really work like that and becomes just a massive chore

 

[Baron Dupek]

Played Dead Air Revolution a bit

At the beginning I was fighting hordes of mutants with my melee weapons.
At the end of my adventure (not the in-game, just gave up at some point) I was fighting hordes of mutants with my melee weapons.
And that never changes because you need to be neutral with the army and bandits for their quest and safe passage.
No disguise available either. Got lucky with the latter by giving med to some laying (but still alive) bandit, which gave me enough rep boost. Still had to pay ransoms when they can't be avoided. If you miss any bandit asking for them (because you're blind or they started fighting with another wave of mutants) they become aggresive again.
No idea how I've got 80rep with the hogs, lol. Their heli can still randomly attack me, when they got decimated by mutants or stalkers, and I've been spotted nearby.
Some mutants can get random loot table including meds, ammo or artifacts. Is that the effect of Hunter's Kit? No idea. It's a decent backpack. Your inventory is limited by weight, but also space. Like in Road to the North.
Stalkers are looting stashes sometimes - better not dropping anything here.
New quests are decent - no map marking, but also sketchy translation. Not the first time for me.
Price rising (inflation) is there, but not so bad when you gather all those parts and find some spare artifacts - to get better detector you have to finish eggheads questline in Jupiter. Detectors can be upgraded to find more artifacts.
The most annoying part is mutants completely ignoring everyone nearby and rushing at us. They just run past stalkers squads firing at them to get you. They can decimate NPCs easily. Oh and important NPCs are not immortal. Have fun spending time in a game where it cuts you from quests.

 

[deuxhero]

You get reload speed penalties if your load bearing equipment forces you to do multiple mags in one pouch. Done. That's a soft limit of ~four spare mags ready for common web gear options, with option to double it if you are willing to take slower reloading.

Good job immediately proving me right.

How many mags do you think people can carry without sacrificing speed of access to some degree? Once you go beyond tactical tacos you need multiple mags to a pouch, which makes them much harder to access. The standard infantry loadout now is ~7 (3 double pouches, one in rifle).

 

[Ol' Willy]

Since this is a mod thread - my little rant about Stalker modding.

In general, most of the mods could be divided in two categories: muh HARDCORE and story mods. Of which we have:

I usually like hardcore shooters and milsims, stuff like ArmA, early Rainbow Six, early Insurgency, or aforementioned Hideous Destructor. But muh HARDCORE mods for Stalker have one major difference from such games - economy. And of course, economy in muh HARDCORE mods is fucked beyond any belief. The loot is so trashy that it is literal garbage not worth hauling around, the quest rewards are similarly shit - all the while prices are insane. What does it mean? Grind, a lot of grind. Gee, do you guys like to grind to afford any baseline normal stuff? Personally, not a fan

My second gripe is that lots of new mechanics and limitations apply to player, and player only. It's not ArmA where every unit on the map is subject to the same rules, in muh HARDCORE mods it's only you who suffer from jamming, weapon condition, only you can run out of ammo, only you suffer from hunger, radiation, psi, etc. Area is the worst in this regard, player is burdened by a plethora of new limitations including limb damage, while bots and critters behave just like in vanilla. It's always so pleasant to kill some guy and find out that he has a gun with 10% condition and 11 rounds on him... 11 rounds - do you need more to survive in the Zone?

For story mods... it would be easier to name good story based mods. Mods by Zhekan (Golden Sphere, Escape from the Zone, Return to the Zone) could be batshit insane, but at least they are enjoyable. OLR has some of the best quest design. NLC has good writing in dialogues and the reworked plot I like a lot, but NLC is a thing in itself and not really a "story mod".

For the rest... Either the writing is awfully bad, plotlines are cringe inducing or the quest that make no sense whatsoever. Even some mods with relatively high production values, Shards of the Past is concentrated cringe while Another Story has dull storyline with nonsensical quests... And then there is a stuff like Reborn trilogy, oh man... and Lost Alpha...

For now I installed CoC, rolled over STCoP weapon pack + EOC to play some faction warfare; no grind, no plot, just lots of combat with good weapons to chill out in the evenings

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[jebsmoker]

true stalker is here. i tried some and i am actually surprised by how good its production quality is and how challenging the gameplay is

 

[Taim]

I had forgotten about this - this is awesome news.

For those who aren't as looped in: It's a mod made by a group of very high profile people in the modding community that is supposed to have some of the best production values this side of Anomaly. It comes with an english translation built in (although a cursory glance onto some player feedback shows its not perfect - alas).

For the 2 people who might be interested that aren't already on the C-Con discord - I'm posting a bunch of links for more information - hope your browser has auto-translate.

TRUE STALKER Socials and download links:

https://vk.com/wall-15844953_724374
https://ap-pro.ru/forums/topic/6273-true-stalker/

Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LEUr5o4g-4ptzcZgOt4MbgJ6j9hyIKcT
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sp-R4N2I1cDc8e4_oEDOrcZUp7X-gSrx (Backup Link)

Torrent link:
magnetxt=urn:btih:21CC20DC7309912ADA09222B91E9EE3F99C85F8C&dn=TrueStalker&tr=wss%3a%2f%2fwstracker.online

Torrent file was also provided by Meztinos (use something like qbittorrent)

Cloud.mail.ru:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/Zx9K/76gMdDvaU
Yandex:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/TR2oA5bocAIlyQ

 

[Gerrard]

I only saw this and it was enough.

 

[cretin]

yeah that fucking UI is atrocious. Absolutely modern AAA cancer, I really hate it.

True Stalker might be the biggest drop on the scene in a while but for some reason I just cant bring myself to care about. It's probably good, I dont know. I'm more interested in prosectors at the moment.

 

[Gerrard]

It's extra funny because even S2 kept the multi-block inventory despite the bland as hell UI.

I'll probably check it out anyway, but the first impression isn't good.

 

[Taim]

So far True Stalker is very much a one step forward, two steps back kinda thing.

The good:

• The engine is great.
• There's a ton of polish - no CTDs or long loading times or anything like that.
• Game also looks gorgeous.
• It's super nice to have a story driven mod instead of Tarkov Simulator #73.

The bad:

• There is no A-Life. Biggest gripe with NLC was all the static spawns, but at least the game was dangerous enough to keep even the static spawns interesting for a while. Not the case here.
• Tons of unkillable NPCs. Massive pack of mutants swarm the rookie village? no worries you can just hide if you want since every stalker is invulnerable.
• Want to do a quicksave and test out some weapons on the unfortunate rookies at the camp? Nope - you can point blank shoot them - it does no damage and they don't react.
• New music is nice but its a pale imitation of Mooze's work on SoC so far.

All of this is minor and tolerable except...

THE QUEST DESIGN IS ATROCIOUS

• It took like 5-6 hours to get through the Cordon (more?). Due to all the fucking backtracking. Hilariously enough I leave the rookie camp FINALLY to go to Garbage, all the quests + story side quests are done - and then BAM! Right at the entrance to the garbage i get a sidequest to go all the way back to the rookie camp. No actual interesting stuff on the way back or anything, just literally run back and forth. Even NLC with all of its running around somehow kept it interesting for me.
• Some quests are so heavily scripted that you don't actually have any influence into what happens.
• Finally go to garbage and I get a quest that spawns me in front of two bandits with full assault weapons open firing on me. At that point I had to put the game down - not sure if i'll pick it up again.

It's good to see people doing great stuff with OpenXray but I really wish we could get some new levels and some actual quest design in the mix.

I might look into Prosectors next but I don't know if I'm feeling Vanilla+ right now.

 

[cretin]

I might look into Prosectors next but I don't know if I'm feeling Vanilla+ right now.

Same here man, prosectors sounds great on paper technical features wise but really im going to go to fucking cordon and rescue nimble again and all that shit for the 1000th time goddamn

 

[V17]

So far True Stalker is very much a one step forward, two steps back kinda thing.

The good:

• The engine is great.
• There's a ton of polish - no CTDs or long loading times or anything like that.
• Game also looks gorgeous.
• It's super nice to have a story driven mod instead of Tarkov Simulator #73.

The bad:

• There is no A-Life. Biggest gripe with NLC was all the static spawns, but at least the game was dangerous enough to keep even the static spawns interesting for a while. Not the case here.
• Tons of unkillable NPCs. Massive pack of mutants swarm the rookie village? no worries you can just hide if you want since every stalker is invulnerable.
• Want to do a quicksave and test out some weapons on the unfortunate rookies at the camp? Nope - you can point blank shoot them - it does no damage and they don't react.
• New music is nice but its a pale imitation of Mooze's work on SoC so far.

All of this is minor and tolerable except...

THE QUEST DESIGN IS ATROCIOUS

• It took like 5-6 hours to get through the Cordon (more?). Due to all the fucking backtracking. Hilariously enough I leave the rookie camp FINALLY to go to Garbage, all the quests + story side quests are done - and then BAM! Right at the entrance to the garbage i get a sidequest to go all the way back to the rookie camp. No actual interesting stuff on the way back or anything, just literally run back and forth. Even NLC with all of its running around somehow kept it interesting for me.
• Some quests are so heavily scripted that you don't actually have any influence into what happens.
• Finally go to garbage and I get a quest that spawns me in front of two bandits with full assault weapons open firing on me. At that point I had to put the game down - not sure if i'll pick it up again.

It's good to see people doing great stuff with OpenXray but I really wish we could get some new levels and some actual quest design in the mix.

I might look into Prosectors next but I don't know if I'm feeling Vanilla+ right now.

I got through the quest you mention, took me about 6 reloads. It's doable because you should already have something like an AK74M with armor piercing bullets, just be careful to reload before you go and teleport to the cutscene, and then immediately turn left to shoot the guy who's 10 cm from you, the rest you can survive.

But the problems don't end there: there are some situations in which you cannot reasonably know what to say or do and if you say or do the wrong thing, the only solution is to reload. This happens a bit later on - you escort someone through garbage, which despite being an escort quest is no problem, but at the end you meet a few people who want to kill him. If you try to have a chat with them and convince them to let you go through various means, afaik the only result is that they start shooting at you both, which means you get a shotgun in the face and die immediately, faster than in the situation you mention above.

The best solution is to not talk to them at all and just shoot the leader in the face and then kill the other two. Which you only know after trying it first and reloading.

The amount of backtracking in Cordon is ridiculous, but it seems to be considerably less bad in Garbage so far, though partly because the Garbage map is not as fucking long and doesn't have a military checkpoint in the middle. I also think the map traversal is not as terrible because the maps are actually different and interesting and the anomalies are less visible and more dangerous, so you do have to stay careful.

Despite the weird-ass "modern" GUI and shortcomings mentioned it does feel like a return to classic Stalker in many ways after playing GAMMA, so I'm giving it a chance to see if it opens up after reaching the Bar.

 

[Ol' Willy]

THE QUEST DESIGN IS ATROCIOUS

• It took like 5-6 hours to get through the Cordon (more?). Due to all the fucking backtracking. Hilariously enough I leave the rookie camp FINALLY to go to Garbage, all the quests + story side quests are done - and then BAM! Right at the entrance to the garbage i get a sidequest to go all the way back to the rookie camp. No actual interesting stuff on the way back or anything, just literally run back and forth. Even NLC with all of its running around somehow kept it interesting for me.
• Some quests are so heavily scripted that you don't actually have any influence into what happens.
• Finally go to garbage and I get a quest that spawns me in front of two bandits with full assault weapons open firing on me. At that point I had to put the game down - not sure if i'll pick it up again.

This is why I don't play story mods anymore. Dialogues range from cringe to mediocre, plot ranges from cringe to tolerable, but quest design is almost always universally awful.

And of course the scripting, it either locks you solid on the given path or out of sequence action ruins the entire scrips order, softblocking you

Even NLC with all of its running around somehow kept it interesting for me.

NLC has a point to running around. It is designed so you will be pwned by anomalies or mutants while moving back and forth if you don't prepare accordingly and get careless. Of course, this gets tiresome after a while, but running through locations mostly devoid of threats is completely pointless

 

[V17]

Playing further, I do enjoy the little stories. But gameplay-wise, the quest design does not really get better. Still a lot of walking back and forth and quests that are just "go here and watch a cutscene".
Another weird-ass speciality is being knocked out in various ways as a part of the story. I'm only in Dark Valley, 4th map and 3rd chapter, and I've already been unconscious 4 times as a part of some quest. Apparently this goes on and you keep getting knocked out again and again.
Bonus points for another "get shot in the face immediately as the cutscene ends", unavoidable of course.