I generally create a full save before going to a new area or starting a new mission, so that my quicksaves can be used for minor progress through an area. So when I encountered the money grubbing bandits I just reloaded the full save back at the previous base and went ahead & splurged on upgrades and items at the trader.
I usually play games on the highest difficulty, and I'd have to echo the above comments that grenade spam is definately a bit annoying on Master. What's funny is that I am often able to take what was an unplanned (by the devs) route into an area where there's a firefight and the AI will remain confused, often facing the wrong direction and 'waiting' to see me as I headshot them one by one. Using the side entrance of the military base for example... The 'task failed' messages happen more when doing things out of sequence of course, but since I spent most of yesterday evening trying to get Wolf's missions to iniliatlize in a way that they could be accomplished successfully I think resorting to dragging a dead body loaded up with profitable weapons is a decent way to earn money.
I'm debating the utility of playing this vanilla right now, given that dead space is on shelves in a few days and my gaming time is now what it used to be.
The mornings & evenings are definately great looking even in Dx9 with my lowly 9800gtx, and retreiving an artifact from its anomoly is one of the highlights of this game.
Suds, I think that one was done by Norman Chan, who is the resident shooter guy. I'm not sure he got it either.
Far better review from that European guy I linked to earlier that loved SoC, although I think he was a bit too harsh and journalisty about his criticisms.
It sounds to me like somebody is trying to play "Rambo goes to Russia part deux: who needs cover".
And I do know the game is actually set in Ukraine however it doesn't rhyme with rambo.
Not to be completely pedantic, but 'Russia' doesn't rhyme with 'Rambo' either. It does alliterate nicely however.
Back to the subject, I think I have finally decided that Oblivion Lost is just not for me. The mutants are just crazy hard in it and having to unload entire clips into a critter just to hope to down something just bugs me. It does lead to some really cool moments occasionally, but I liked Stols' mod package a lot more.
It's too bad these guys can't write an ending to save their life. Their skill with creating a world is pretty good, the specifics are what suffer.
If I could find a nice detailed explanation on the finer points of modding this game, I would totally start to undertake it, but the hardcore modding community is Russian, which leaves the English out in the cold.
I can't find anything really helpful for more than a small circumstance.
Learning to simply mod my own weapons and armor, change stats, upgrades and vendor stocks was quite an ordeal (mostly trial and error).
Yeah, I just beat CS, and that whole ending segment was pretty poo. Actually, the whole plot and everything seemed a lot more aimless than SoC. In that you were continually fed little bits of the story as you ventured further into the Zone, whereas in CS you spend a lot more time running around and doing stuff "just 'cuz." Still, some of the new tweaks and things it added were nice, and more Zone creepiness is always welcome.
I've resorted to just allowing myself to bleed through the fight and bandaging up later, but it is impossible to stay stocked with them. The fire fights have all been hard, mostly because of the gun's lack of accuracy when not upgraded, and the ridiculous accuracy of npc thrown grenades. By far my biggest complaint is the grenades.
Oh yes. I've just gotten to the Dark Valley, but by far the most obnoxious example of this is the entrance to the garbage. Going to spoiler this just in case...
So you're at the entrance to the garbage. You get a group of Stalkers to back you up, and there's a whole bunch of bandits guarding the entrance, in cover. So essentially there's you and allies on one side of a gate, and the baddies on the other. There's truck wreckage sort of halfway through the gate, meaning the only way through is two just larger than man-sized gaps either side of the truck. And the AI pushes you. Here's how it went:
First try: Run in with shotgun, die. Ok, too many bad guys, better let the squishies go first.
Second try: Squishees run in and die, I run in after and die. Ok, better attack with them instead of relying on them to do all the work.
Third try: Go in with my allies at my back. Get a good position behind the gate, get pushed into gunfire by the guy behind me, die.
Fourth try: See third try.
Fifth try: See third try, but with more swearing.
Sixth try: Hang back a bit and throw grenades in lieu of actually putting myself in danger. Enemies apparently get the same idea and hit me with four grenades at once.
Seventh try: As above but with more grenades.
Eigth try: Success!
Which wouldn't be so bad, if each "try" didn't imply a 40+ second load time :x
The main issue with Clear Sky seems to be the same old issue that was present in the original; the AI sucks at switching between "relaxed" "alert" and "combat". And now CS adds "patrol" into the mix to further decrease the chance of the AI actually doing what it was supposed to do in the first place. Its not that the AI is bad per-se, its just in an environment full of AI-breaking distractions. I assume the "territory control" problems people are bitching about are to do with AI not capturing points properly. I've been getting that a lot.
I've resorted to just allowing myself to bleed through the fight and bandaging up later, but it is impossible to stay stocked with them. The fire fights have all been hard, mostly because of the gun's lack of accuracy when not upgraded, and the ridiculous accuracy of npc thrown grenades. By far my biggest complaint is the grenades.
Oh yes. I've just gotten to the Dark Valley, but by far the most obnoxious example of this is the entrance to the garbage. Going to spoiler this just in case...
So you're at the entrance to the garbage. You get a group of Stalkers to back you up, and there's a whole bunch of bandits guarding the entrance, in cover. So essentially there's you and allies on one side of a gate, and the baddies on the other. There's truck wreckage sort of halfway through the gate, meaning the only way through is two just larger than man-sized gaps either side of the truck. And the AI pushes you. Here's how it went:
First try: Run in with shotgun, die. Ok, too many bad guys, better let the squishies go first.
Second try: Squishees run in and die, I run in after and die. Ok, better attack with them instead of relying on them to do all the work.
Third try: Go in with my allies at my back. Get a good position behind the gate, get pushed into gunfire by the guy behind me, die.
Fourth try: See third try.
Fifth try: See third try, but with more swearing.
Sixth try: Hang back a bit and throw grenades in lieu of actually putting myself in danger. Enemies apparently get the same idea and hit me with four grenades at once.
Seventh try: As above but with more grenades.
Eigth try: Success!
Which wouldn't be so bad, if each "try" didn't imply a 40+ second load time :x
The main issue with Clear Sky seems to be the same old issue that was present in the original; the AI sucks at switching between "relaxed" "alert" and "combat". And now CS adds "patrol" into the mix to further decrease the chance of the AI actually doing what it was supposed to do in the first place. Its not that the AI is bad per-se, its just in an environment full of AI-breaking distractions. I assume the "territory control" problems people are bitching about are to do with AI not capturing points properly. I've been getting that a lot.
I agree about the AI, and it affects all of the inhabitants of CS, human or otherwise. Since many tasks begin & end based on NPC 'trigger' events (mutants dying, talking to a certain person) about half of my 'tasks' have been affected in some way by buggy AI so far. Mutants not going where they're supposed to, humans not even showing up, I'm used to this from the last version. But since game outcome in SoC was based somewhat on your playing style, I'm really not sure how this is all going to turn out.
It's funny durng the same exact battle at the entrance to garbage I couldn't get the group of stalkers to back me up, every time I'd retry that mission from a save even minutes before they don't follow but they act as if they will. So I just wound up going the long way around from my previous save and attacking the bandits from another direction. That seems to have great effect at confusing the AI and making missions easy, but again I've no idea how this is going to affect game ending(s).
Anyway the atmosphere is nice and once I hit a peak with this game I may leave it installed just to return and goof off or check out mods. I can't say that I am surprised at how the game is right now and I'm sure it will improve either through patches or mods or both. It seems with STALKER games waiting for them to age & mature pays off in the game and with the cost of the hardware required to run it.
It's funny durng the same exact battle at the entrance to garbage I couldn't get the group of stalkers to back me up, every time I'd retry that mission from a save even minutes before they don't follow but they act as if they will. So I just wound up going the long way around from my previous save and attacking the bandits from another direction. That seems to have great effect at confusing the AI and making missions easy, but again I've no idea how this is going to affect game ending(s).
Yeah, i've heard people say that. They seem to have problems with that entrance; it was the group of stalkers which were supposed to reinforce the area (and thus capture the point) which never arrived for me. They were on the map, they just sat there doing nothing. I've also heard of people (presumably those who didn't capture the far outpost in the cordon) not getting any stalker backup at all and getting mugged by the bandits as a result. However buggy the game might be, its still awesome how the same scenario can play out in different ways for different people.
For instance, I bet some people shot the Freedom guy in the dark Valley who tells you to holster your weapon. Knowing that its possible to get your stuff taken, I thought there was a possibility he was going to mug me, but I decided that I couldn't win in a straight fight with them anyway, so I did what the nice man with the big gun said.
On that note, i'm completely in love with the Freedom faction. I'm joining them ASAP. In the original they were just the "not Duty" faction, in CS they have personality. Some of the loudspeaker conversations are actually pretty damn funny. And of course they have a barman called "Ganja"
Suds, I think that one was done by Norman Chan, who is the resident shooter guy. I'm not sure he got it either.
Far better review from that European guy I linked to earlier that loved SoC, although I think he was a bit too harsh and journalisty about his criticisms.
Yes, Norman Chan.
I don't know why they send me this magazine, I never paid for it and it just goes straight in the recycling bin.
So I'm definately getting annoyed with the grenades myself. Having 2-4 nades land near me constantly is getting old. Reminds me of playing cod4 or some of the counterstrike imitations that run on other game engines (tacops on 2k4's engine was nade spammy for instance). Interestingly enough I tried lowering the difficulty all the way down and back up to master and see little difference in how spammy they are with nades, although accuracy does go up a tiny bit (not enough to make the nade spam on lesser settings feel any better though). I also noticed that even when I'm peppering someone with high caliber assault rifle spray, from a distance using a scope, they will often still land the nade right next to me right as they're falling over dying....
My load times are only about 10 seconds but having to constantly reload in firefights does minimize the rpg aspect of this game a bit, as you might as well do it for other situations as well while you're at it.
dragging a dead body loaded up with profitable weapons
why didn't i think of that
Is there a limit to how much you can drag?
There's no limit but I have a strange bug where I can't drag bodies when I use a SEVA Suit. This is particularly shit since the military at the Cordon Base and Duty at their base like to respawn when I'm still in their range. Dragging bodies has also become quite a chore since they randomly drop and sometimes you make a mistake, take all the equipment on the body and it rockets outside the map or disappears into it. Very frustrating when you have been dragging that body for 15 minutes and then it disappears after you quickload -.-
So, do things like G36s and power armor exist in CS? I never once ran into those. The only F2000 was the one they flat out give you for the end, and I'm assuming no Gauss Rifles exist in CS either since you're given that "EMP" rifle that uses the same model.
This was one thing that bugged me in the original SoC and seemed even worse in CS, that lots of stuff is just unavailable until almost the end of the game. So you'll be stuck with the first good gun you get since nothing better shows up until it's almost too late to really use it. I did manage to find a PKM and Bulldog, but those were at the final stretch of the game.
I'm suprised Yahzee didn't rip on the game's faults more. I mean that's what he does. I guess like he said, there's something oddly compelling about the game which makes me inclined to overlook most of it's faults.
Incidentally, the Freedom guy is now saying i've done enough to join the faction, but he can't let me join yet. "Chalk it up to superstition" he says. I'm guessing what he's doing is waiting for me to be done with the story missions in the duty-infested areas before he lets me join so that I don't accidentally make the game a lot harder than it needs to be. That IS what he's doing, right?
Incidentally, the Freedom guy is now saying i've done enough to join the faction, but he can't let me join yet. "Chalk it up to superstition" he says. I'm guessing what he's doing is waiting for me to be done with the story missions in the duty-infested areas before he lets me join so that I don't accidentally make the game a lot harder than it needs to be. That IS what he's doing, right?
I think he is waiting for you to get your friend bar into the green for Freedom, at least that what it seemed for me with the bandits.
I'm suprised Yahzee didn't rip on the game's faults more. I mean that's what he does. I guess like he said, there's something oddly compelling about the game which makes me inclined to overlook most of it's faults.
Incidentally, the Freedom guy is now saying i've done enough to join the faction, but he can't let me join yet. "Chalk it up to superstition" he says. I'm guessing what he's doing is waiting for me to be done with the story missions in the duty-infested areas before he lets me join so that I don't accidentally make the game a lot harder than it needs to be. That IS what he's doing, right?
Right. I think until you're done in the area with the Duty base, you can only join the Loner faction.
I'm suprised Yahzee didn't rip on the game's faults more. I mean that's what he does. I guess like he said, there's something oddly compelling about the game which makes me inclined to overlook most of it's faults.
Incidentally, the Freedom guy is now saying i've done enough to join the faction, but he can't let me join yet. "Chalk it up to superstition" he says. I'm guessing what he's doing is waiting for me to be done with the story missions in the duty-infested areas before he lets me join so that I don't accidentally make the game a lot harder than it needs to be. That IS what he's doing, right?
Right. I think until you're done in the area with the Duty base, you can only join the Loner faction.
I'm suprised Yahzee didn't rip on the game's faults more. I mean that's what he does. I guess like he said, there's something oddly compelling about the game which makes me inclined to overlook most of it's faults.
The whole quicksave thing probably captured pretty much everything all at once.
I do like this game quite a bit, in terms of visual and audio atmosphere it's definately advanced over the original game and I think that having less anomolies (and them being less obvious) with more unfolding as the game progresses gives them more impact. I look forward to replaying this in a year when mods and/or game patches have addressed some of the more serious issues (grenade spam, AI that flips between being positively prescient and completely oblivious, bugged tasks and task triggers etc).
Also I installed the OP's CS mod pack, but aside from needing to edit the weight limit way down (I felt like I was playing crysis with the suit's speed mode engaged even carrying 70kg of weight) it did nothing to address the grenade spam, and many of the tasks were still buggy (I had to talk to the leader of the Stalkers in the middle of Garbage 5 times in a row before he registered that I had completed one of his tasks). It definately removed a lot of the other difficulty of the game (which I enjoyed) without removing the annoying aspects, so I'm currently looking at a small number of mods to apply by hand. I especially want to mod the crosshair again, it's not as bad as in SoC but it's still annoyingly obvious on my 27" lcd.
This was pretty easy. Just add the lines hit_probability_gd_[difficulty] = 0.50 to the w_f1.ltx and w_rgd5.ltx files. I believe that without this info being defined the game defaults to perfect accuracy. I experimented with accuracy of 0.2 but squads would blow themselves up on occation
2. No more dead stalker rookies after the rescue missions:
There are two script files you need to edit to make this change. They are located in the gamedata\configs\scripts\escape folder. esc_novice_stalker.ltx and esc_wolf_brother.ltx. Find the line
on_actor_dist_ge_nvis = 100 | walker@death %+esc_stalker_novice_fail =kill_npc% or +esc_wolf_brother_fail and comment it out or delete it. This bit of code was intended to kill the npc if the player leaves the 100 radius while escorting them, but it never stops taking effect. After this change they will not die when you leave them alone but they can still get killed by the enemy.
So there's a fix for grenade accuracy AND an explanation on why the early cordon missions would fail so easily when the dogs wouldn't move from their position 2 hillsides away from wolf's brother plus the fix. Now I just need a fix for reduction in the amount of enemies that choose to actually throw a grenade at once (I counted 5 at one time right before dying at one point last night).
Fleebhas all of the fleeb juiceRegistered Userregular
edited October 2008
God bless the modding community. I mean, really. Why couldn't/ didn't the publisher make these changes? The number of easy to spot and (apparently) easy to fix bugs just blows my fucking mind.
God bless the modding community. I mean, really. Why couldn't/ didn't the publisher make these changes? The number of easy to spot and (apparently) easy to fix bugs just blows my fucking mind.
After poking around the Freedom base for a while in Clear Sky it seems impossible to gain access to over half of the compound, particularly the parts that grant access to the long passage with the moving anomaly extending outside the base . None of the ways in from SoC seem to work because they are all blocked by wooden barricades. Does anyone know if this is actually the case and there is no way to get back there?
I know how to get there but I'm having a hard time finding the words to describe it best. I'll make a screen shot or two later if I need to.
You know where the second back entrance to the compound is right? It's over by that skeletal looking construction pile with the pipe pit. Look over towards the side of the main compound where it's got that underground garage and the HQ and there's this spot where in SoC that used to be filled with those graviational anomolies and one cheap artifact. Those are all gone but head over there anyways. There's a section of concrete wall that's just leaning against the wall and if you crouch down and kinda squish yourself through you'll get by.
Be careful. The area is highly, highly radioactive. For example in that building that takes you to the walkway you're talking about, the screen gets really really dark. In that section of the compound so far all I have seen are a bunch of electrical anomolies. There's an ok artifact in the electrical anomoly field, and at the end of that walkway that has the moving fire anomoly there's a stash there at the end under that ramp I believe, but there's nothing in it until you "find out" about it. I haven't really had a chance to explore a ton, because it's so radioactive. I think there is something else in that look out tower that's near the closed gated entrance.
I've got a question of my own though, the bandits are dead. Will they come back? There's a stalker or two that's just hanging out at their HQ, I've got some quests I need to take care of with the bandits but I'm kinda hoping they just walk away or something so I don't end up killing those stalkers.
This was pretty easy. Just add the lines hit_probability_gd_[difficulty] = 0.50 to the w_f1.ltx and w_rgd5.ltx files. I believe that without this info being defined the game defaults to perfect accuracy. I experimented with accuracy of 0.2 but squads would blow themselves up on occation
2. No more dead stalker rookies after the rescue missions:
There are two script files you need to edit to make this change. They are located in the gamedata\configs\scripts\escape folder. esc_novice_stalker.ltx and esc_wolf_brother.ltx. Find the line
on_actor_dist_ge_nvis = 100 | walker@death %+esc_stalker_novice_fail =kill_npc% or +esc_wolf_brother_fail and comment it out or delete it. This bit of code was intended to kill the npc if the player leaves the 100 radius while escorting them, but it never stops taking effect. After this change they will not die when you leave them alone but they can still get killed by the enemy.
So there's a fix for grenade accuracy AND an explanation on why the early cordon missions would fail so easily when the dogs wouldn't move from their position 2 hillsides away from wolf's brother plus the fix. Now I just need a fix for reduction in the amount of enemies that choose to actually throw a grenade at once (I counted 5 at one time right before dying at one point last night).
I'm trying to find the w_f1.ltx and w_rgd5.ltx files (or even my gamedata\configs\scripts\escape folder) to mod this, but my CS installation decided to be difficult. None of the files seem to be in the STALKER file under Deep Silver in Program Files... where else would they be?
You'll need to use the STALKER Clear Sky / SoC unpacker (or a mod that contains those files, but then you'll get the mod too). It's a bit odd at first, but just follow the instructions in the zip to install the unpacker, and it will create a subdir for itself and inside that an unpacked set of dirs for all game content. You don't need to move all game content out into the main game directories, just the files you want but you'll need to recreate the directory structure. For example:
Then go to %installdir%\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky\gamedata\fsgame.ltx & change this line to look like below:
$game_data$ = true| true| $fs_root$| gamedata\
(I forget which says false by default, but you'll want to make it true).
What that does is make the xray engine look in the gamedata dir FIRST for any files it can find, before going to the packed game files. So anything in its proper place (dir structure) will be loaded instead of the what comes packed with the game. This is the basis of modding STALKER it seems.
Now that I've now finished the game (yesterday) I should add that while these fixes (and one or two others that I use) sort of worked, grenades were still an issue in 2 places at the end and I wound up having to turn the game down from master to veteran to get through these areas:
both at the construction site (because of the open walls and sheer number of monolith throwing grenades my way) and in the catacombs just before the end of the game (due to the enclosed space). When taking the lower route in the last few rooms of that sequence I'd get grenaded with no indicator or speech to warn me the grenade was coming my way.
Also I found a few of the usb thumbdrive quests were a bit bugged:
I never did find the final sniper mod, I even tried branching the story and joining freedom for a bit until I decided to just finish the main 'unaligned' trunk of my gamesaves instead. I did get the Duty final machine gun mod and gave it to the tech, but even though it showed him receiving the mod it never allowed me to actually apply it to a gun (would always say that data was still required). So those 2 quests seem bugged still.
The machine gun mod came from the Hermit when he was underground in my second enconter with him.
The final scene of the game was far easier in comparison (mostly due to the grenade spam in the areas I mentioned in the spoilers) and the ending of the game was...interesting. I can see why people complained but the payoff this game did not come from the final boss fight/ending trailers for me, very much like SoC. I do think it would be nice of joining a faction added something to the ending or gave a slightly alternate ending, having just 1 ending this time and the shortness of the final level makes it seem like the developers might have rushed finishing the game to get it out the door.
Overall I think that Clear Sky achieves an even more immersive game from the FPS side of things: great looking game and mostly great sounding, aside from some buggy sound issues when there's background firefights going on (some of the gun sounds were obviously not playing back properly). The atmosphere of the game is still the reason to play, just like SoC, and the graphics update is great. The emissions were cool but a bit boring to wait through after a while (I'd browse the net etc on a 2nd PC until the final eye candy moments).
The RPG side of things really needs to be explored AFTER you've finished objectives in an area, and going to new areas is going to be safest through the main story arc. I did a lot of exploring outside of the storyline and I think this was the cause of most of my bugs, I wound up having to backtrack several times to get my PDA map to sync with my current missions, and even to get certain in-game missions to trigger properly. Many of the triggers seem to be related to you walking across a given position on a map, and not doing so can mean that later missions wind up being very buggy or missing entirely.
The difficulty lessens immensely once you start getting some real weapons and get the SEVA suit or at least the freedom one. I wish quickload worked after you died and would load faster than a 'normal' game load (all game loads seem to load at the same speed, regardless of whether you're loading an area you just died in or a different map entirely). I think this will be worth replaying in a year, but I almost wish I'd replayed SoC first as I have now got a game going in there as of tonight and think I might just let that sit a month or so as I'm in the mood now for a change. Good luck to everyone still playing, in the event I forget to check back to this thread anytime soon...
Posts
I usually play games on the highest difficulty, and I'd have to echo the above comments that grenade spam is definately a bit annoying on Master. What's funny is that I am often able to take what was an unplanned (by the devs) route into an area where there's a firefight and the AI will remain confused, often facing the wrong direction and 'waiting' to see me as I headshot them one by one. Using the side entrance of the military base for example... The 'task failed' messages happen more when doing things out of sequence of course, but since I spent most of yesterday evening trying to get Wolf's missions to iniliatlize in a way that they could be accomplished successfully I think resorting to dragging a dead body loaded up with profitable weapons is a decent way to earn money.
I'm debating the utility of playing this vanilla right now, given that dead space is on shelves in a few days and my gaming time is now what it used to be.
The mornings & evenings are definately great looking even in Dx9 with my lowly 9800gtx, and retreiving an artifact from its anomoly is one of the highlights of this game.
why didn't i think of that
Is there a limit to how much you can drag?
It especially irritates me since your enemies seem to have no problem dodging your grenades.
Far better review from that European guy I linked to earlier that loved SoC, although I think he was a bit too harsh and journalisty about his criticisms.
Woaaaa. That is a crazy awesome idea.
Way to think outside the metaphorical box!
Not to be completely pedantic, but 'Russia' doesn't rhyme with 'Rambo' either. It does alliterate nicely however.
Back to the subject, I think I have finally decided that Oblivion Lost is just not for me. The mutants are just crazy hard in it and having to unload entire clips into a critter just to hope to down something just bugs me. It does lead to some really cool moments occasionally, but I liked Stols' mod package a lot more.
Oo\ Ironsizide
I still haven't finished the game.
It's too bad these guys can't write an ending to save their life. Their skill with creating a world is pretty good, the specifics are what suffer.
If I could find a nice detailed explanation on the finer points of modding this game, I would totally start to undertake it, but the hardcore modding community is Russian, which leaves the English out in the cold.
I can't find anything really helpful for more than a small circumstance.
Learning to simply mod my own weapons and armor, change stats, upgrades and vendor stocks was quite an ordeal (mostly trial and error).
Oh yes. I've just gotten to the Dark Valley, but by far the most obnoxious example of this is the entrance to the garbage. Going to spoiler this just in case...
First try: Run in with shotgun, die. Ok, too many bad guys, better let the squishies go first.
Second try: Squishees run in and die, I run in after and die. Ok, better attack with them instead of relying on them to do all the work.
Third try: Go in with my allies at my back. Get a good position behind the gate, get pushed into gunfire by the guy behind me, die.
Fourth try: See third try.
Fifth try: See third try, but with more swearing.
Sixth try: Hang back a bit and throw grenades in lieu of actually putting myself in danger. Enemies apparently get the same idea and hit me with four grenades at once.
Seventh try: As above but with more grenades.
Eigth try: Success!
Which wouldn't be so bad, if each "try" didn't imply a 40+ second load time :x
The main issue with Clear Sky seems to be the same old issue that was present in the original; the AI sucks at switching between "relaxed" "alert" and "combat". And now CS adds "patrol" into the mix to further decrease the chance of the AI actually doing what it was supposed to do in the first place. Its not that the AI is bad per-se, its just in an environment full of AI-breaking distractions. I assume the "territory control" problems people are bitching about are to do with AI not capturing points properly. I've been getting that a lot.
Anyway the atmosphere is nice and once I hit a peak with this game I may leave it installed just to return and goof off or check out mods. I can't say that I am surprised at how the game is right now and I'm sure it will improve either through patches or mods or both. It seems with STALKER games waiting for them to age & mature pays off in the game and with the cost of the hardware required to run it.
For instance, I bet some people shot the Freedom guy in the dark Valley who tells you to holster your weapon. Knowing that its possible to get your stuff taken, I thought there was a possibility he was going to mug me, but I decided that I couldn't win in a straight fight with them anyway, so I did what the nice man with the big gun said.
On that note, i'm completely in love with the Freedom faction. I'm joining them ASAP. In the original they were just the "not Duty" faction, in CS they have personality. Some of the loudspeaker conversations are actually pretty damn funny. And of course they have a barman called "Ganja"
Yes, Norman Chan.
I don't know why they send me this magazine, I never paid for it and it just goes straight in the recycling bin.
My load times are only about 10 seconds but having to constantly reload in firefights does minimize the rpg aspect of this game a bit, as you might as well do it for other situations as well while you're at it.
Yahtze you whistle blowing baboon, you're one of us now.
Steam Name: Dr.Oblivious
If you can't live for the now, at least live for the future.
Must be why I love the game so much. I'm a masochist(play at master difficulty, etc), and rarely encountered bugs in this one or the previous one.
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
I am playing SHoC right now with Stollis's mod pack on Stalker difficulty and it seems a bit easy. More enemies would be nice.
Steam/PSN/XBL/Minecraft / LoL / - Benevicious | WoW - Duckwood - Rajhek
There's no limit but I have a strange bug where I can't drag bodies when I use a SEVA Suit. This is particularly shit since the military at the Cordon Base and Duty at their base like to respawn when I'm still in their range. Dragging bodies has also become quite a chore since they randomly drop and sometimes you make a mistake, take all the equipment on the body and it rockets outside the map or disappears into it. Very frustrating when you have been dragging that body for 15 minutes and then it disappears after you quickload -.-
I'm still playing though.
This was one thing that bugged me in the original SoC and seemed even worse in CS, that lots of stuff is just unavailable until almost the end of the game. So you'll be stuck with the first good gun you get since nothing better shows up until it's almost too late to really use it. I did manage to find a PKM and Bulldog, but those were at the final stretch of the game.
I've seen plenty of power armor, especially Duty, but especially Freedom.
I never asked for this!
NPC's are pretty accurate with grenades in OL, but for some reason I only occasionally get fully, truly borked by one.
So much worse in CS
Ohh god its worse
3ds friend code: 2981-6032-4118
I'm suprised Yahzee didn't rip on the game's faults more. I mean that's what he does. I guess like he said, there's something oddly compelling about the game which makes me inclined to overlook most of it's faults.
Incidentally, the Freedom guy is now saying i've done enough to join the faction, but he can't let me join yet. "Chalk it up to superstition" he says. I'm guessing what he's doing is waiting for me to be done with the story missions in the duty-infested areas before he lets me join so that I don't accidentally make the game a lot harder than it needs to be. That IS what he's doing, right?
I think he is waiting for you to get your friend bar into the green for Freedom, at least that what it seemed for me with the bandits.
Right. I think until you're done in the area with the Duty base, you can only join the Loner faction.
This is correct.
Also I installed the OP's CS mod pack, but aside from needing to edit the weight limit way down (I felt like I was playing crysis with the suit's speed mode engaged even carrying 70kg of weight) it did nothing to address the grenade spam, and many of the tasks were still buggy (I had to talk to the leader of the Stalkers in the middle of Garbage 5 times in a row before he registered that I had completed one of his tasks). It definately removed a lot of the other difficulty of the game (which I enjoyed) without removing the annoying aspects, so I'm currently looking at a small number of mods to apply by hand. I especially want to mod the crosshair again, it's not as bad as in SoC but it's still annoyingly obvious on my 27" lcd.
So there's a fix for grenade accuracy AND an explanation on why the early cordon missions would fail so easily when the dogs wouldn't move from their position 2 hillsides away from wolf's brother plus the fix. Now I just need a fix for reduction in the amount of enemies that choose to actually throw a grenade at once (I counted 5 at one time right before dying at one point last night).
Nice.
Hindsight if one had to guess.
Steam Name: Dr.Oblivious
If you can't live for the now, at least live for the future.
You know where the second back entrance to the compound is right? It's over by that skeletal looking construction pile with the pipe pit. Look over towards the side of the main compound where it's got that underground garage and the HQ and there's this spot where in SoC that used to be filled with those graviational anomolies and one cheap artifact. Those are all gone but head over there anyways. There's a section of concrete wall that's just leaning against the wall and if you crouch down and kinda squish yourself through you'll get by.
Be careful. The area is highly, highly radioactive. For example in that building that takes you to the walkway you're talking about, the screen gets really really dark. In that section of the compound so far all I have seen are a bunch of electrical anomolies. There's an ok artifact in the electrical anomoly field, and at the end of that walkway that has the moving fire anomoly there's a stash there at the end under that ramp I believe, but there's nothing in it until you "find out" about it. I haven't really had a chance to explore a ton, because it's so radioactive. I think there is something else in that look out tower that's near the closed gated entrance.
I've got a question of my own though, the bandits are dead. Will they come back? There's a stalker or two that's just hanging out at their HQ, I've got some quests I need to take care of with the bandits but I'm kinda hoping they just walk away or something so I don't end up killing those stalkers.
I'm trying to find the w_f1.ltx and w_rgd5.ltx files (or even my gamedata\configs\scripts\escape folder) to mod this, but my CS installation decided to be difficult. None of the files seem to be in the STALKER file under Deep Silver in Program Files... where else would they be?
%installdir%\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky\gamedata\configs\weapons\w_f1.ltx
&
%installdir%\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky\gamedata\configs\weapons\w_rgd5.ltx
Then go to %installdir%\S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Clear Sky\gamedata\fsgame.ltx & change this line to look like below:
$game_data$ = true| true| $fs_root$| gamedata\
(I forget which says false by default, but you'll want to make it true).
What that does is make the xray engine look in the gamedata dir FIRST for any files it can find, before going to the packed game files. So anything in its proper place (dir structure) will be loaded instead of the what comes packed with the game. This is the basis of modding STALKER it seems.
Also I found a few of the usb thumbdrive quests were a bit bugged:
The machine gun mod came from the Hermit when he was underground in my second enconter with him.
The final scene of the game was far easier in comparison (mostly due to the grenade spam in the areas I mentioned in the spoilers) and the ending of the game was...interesting. I can see why people complained but the payoff this game did not come from the final boss fight/ending trailers for me, very much like SoC. I do think it would be nice of joining a faction added something to the ending or gave a slightly alternate ending, having just 1 ending this time and the shortness of the final level makes it seem like the developers might have rushed finishing the game to get it out the door.
Overall I think that Clear Sky achieves an even more immersive game from the FPS side of things: great looking game and mostly great sounding, aside from some buggy sound issues when there's background firefights going on (some of the gun sounds were obviously not playing back properly). The atmosphere of the game is still the reason to play, just like SoC, and the graphics update is great. The emissions were cool but a bit boring to wait through after a while (I'd browse the net etc on a 2nd PC until the final eye candy moments).
The RPG side of things really needs to be explored AFTER you've finished objectives in an area, and going to new areas is going to be safest through the main story arc. I did a lot of exploring outside of the storyline and I think this was the cause of most of my bugs, I wound up having to backtrack several times to get my PDA map to sync with my current missions, and even to get certain in-game missions to trigger properly. Many of the triggers seem to be related to you walking across a given position on a map, and not doing so can mean that later missions wind up being very buggy or missing entirely.
The difficulty lessens immensely once you start getting some real weapons and get the SEVA suit or at least the freedom one. I wish quickload worked after you died and would load faster than a 'normal' game load (all game loads seem to load at the same speed, regardless of whether you're loading an area you just died in or a different map entirely). I think this will be worth replaying in a year, but I almost wish I'd replayed SoC first as I have now got a game going in there as of tonight and think I might just let that sit a month or so as I'm in the mood now for a change. Good luck to everyone still playing, in the event I forget to check back to this thread anytime soon...