Let's talk about the gunplay.

[Strum]

I might remember wrong haven't played the old stalker games in ages but, one thing I remember was either it was a bullet spunge aka easy difficulty or insanely fast time to kill.

I play on Hard in this game and i feels like I shoot and shoot and nothing dies even when I spray a whole mag in their chest its like they don't care about.
It feels like my guns have no impact or that enemies don't react to getting hit in any way like get stunned or anything they just stand there and take it.

Does this change ? Is it because im playing on Hard that guns have the opposite effect from the original games where as harder = more dmg taken by everyone.

Thoughts ? or am I too demanding of the game ?

[rob_ot2003]

mod it

[Baron01]

Gunplay is perfectly fine. Each gun feels different and handles differently. What you are complaining about are balancing issues.

I agree with you the fights feel too prolonged unless you are hitting headshots. You should be fishing for headshots against humans. If you can not go for headshots, you should be using AP ammo. Small skirmishes are not an issue because you usually have time to line up headshots using cover. When it comes to larger, often story/quest based encounters, where you are attacked by easily 8+ enemies who rain grenades at you, this becomes an issue as killing normal grunt with body shots even on Stalker difficulty (medium) takes time.

Mutants are the crux of the problem. Flesh takes 2 headshots from shotgun on Stalker. Bloodsucker is much worse, it is usually 5 or 6, buckshots to kill it. I though you can not stagger it to prevent attacking you but I actually managed to break it out of stealth once, most likely hitting headshot. However, dumping shells into its body wont prevent it from attacking you.

I now runs away from mutants whenever I can because it is simply not worth the ammo to kill them.

[Aldourien]

Originally posted by Strum:

im playing on Hard that guns have the opposite effect from the original games where as harder = more dmg taken by everyone.

Veteran decreases bullet damage by 25%.

[Vengorin]

The tougher mutants are typically sponges and i get why ... im still using the ak74-s with normal rounds and 1-2 head shots most humans.

[Mike]

The better guns you get the the less sponge things get just like in the OG games. The original games (no mods) enemies were spongy as well, its just peoples memory is stuck on stalker mods rather then the OG games. In fact end game STALKER usually has the tankiest enemies because by that point your going up against Monolith soldiers with EXO suits.

If you take the starter pee shooter in CoC and try to kill a flesh if will take like 1-2 mags, but once you got better weapons TTK got a lot smaller.

If the original stalker game came out for the first time with modern audiences, they would be complaining about the same thing.

[Sersa]

I played the originals for the first time this year (my first time with the game was Anomaly) with the community fixes and I remember that things died faster. Not in 2 bullets, but faster. Here, in the first area at least you can 1 tap people if you aim the head which is how it should be but body shots are a bit lame. I feel that you can tank a lot too though, but I would prefer to be a bit less tanky and kill enemies a big faster.

My main complain for now are mutants and shotguns. Found a classic double barrel toz, 100% durability, no sawed-off and hear some fleshes nearby. I run to one of them, dodge their new jump attack (which is really cool that the classic "they can't do ♥♥♥♥" mutants now can feel dangerous), unload both shots against its face half a meter away and it doesn't die... If you have big packs of boars and fleshes and a shotgun with 2 buckshots can't even kill 1 before reload, its just garbage. Same goes with bloodsuckers. They used to be sneaky and squishy bastards. Here, they are made of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ concrete. I just cheesed one with a piece of wood and started unloading buckshot and it wasn't dying. Same with an AK, mag after mag with the guy in front of me like it was a pea shooter.

[Pain]

Originally posted by Sersa:

I played the originals for the first time this year (my first time with the game was Anomaly) with the community fixes and I remember that things died faster. Not in 2 bullets, but faster. Here, in the first area at least you can 1 tap people if you aim the head which is how it should be but body shots are a bit lame. I feel that you can tank a lot too though, but I would prefer to be a bit less tanky and kill enemies a big faster.

My main complain for now are mutants and shotguns. Found a classic double barrel toz, 100% durability, no sawed-off and hear some fleshes nearby. I run to one of them, dodge their new jump attack (which is really cool that the classic "they can't do ♥♥♥♥" mutants now can feel dangerous), unload both shots against its face half a meter away and it doesn't die... If you have big packs of boars and fleshes and a shotgun with 2 buckshots can't even kill 1 before reload, its just garbage. Same goes with bloodsuckers. They used to be sneaky and squishy bastards. Here, they are made of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ concrete. I just cheesed one with a piece of wood and started unloading buckshot and it wasn't dying. Same with an AK, mag after mag with the guy in front of me like it was a pea shooter.

Anomaly is not really, comparable to the originals. It's a standalone Xray engine port spliced into existence with the code of the original 3 games. It's a gross miscalculation to compare the original games to ANOMALY.

[Mike]

Originally posted by Pain:

Anomaly is not really, comparable to the originals. It's a standalone Xray engine port spliced into existence with the code of the original 3 games. It's a gross miscalculation to compare the original games to ANOMALY.

This. I played CoC unmoded straight from a fresh steam installation for a few hours before this games launch and unless it has a head shot enemies and mutants alike eat bullets for breakfast lol.

The last time I played Gamma or anomaly the TTK is super fast because those mods are designed to be very high risk and high reward where you can die in 1-2 hits and so can the enemies.

[Strum]

Originally posted by Aldourien:

Originally posted by Strum:

im playing on Hard that guns have the opposite effect from the original games where as harder = more dmg taken by everyone.

Veteran decreases bullet damage by 25%.

This should be mentioned in the Difficulty option, why woulden't something like this be mentioned.

[Darkwave Dahlia]

There are no sniper rifles, tho.

There's no need apparently.

Distance means nothing when the enemies spawn out of thin air and don't care you're watching ...

God ...

[Strum]

Originally posted by Mike:

The better guns you get the the less sponge things get just like in the OG games. The original games (no mods) enemies were spongy as well, its just peoples memory is stuck on stalker mods rather then the OG games. In fact end game STALKER usually has the tankiest enemies because by that point your going up against Monolith soldiers with EXO suits.

If you take the starter pee shooter in CoC and try to kill a flesh if will take like 1-2 mags, but once you got better weapons TTK got a lot smaller.

If the original stalker game came out for the first time with modern audiences, they would be complaining about the same thing.

I just remember guns being inaccurate as hell, like you could see the tracers going anywhere except you were aiming.

[NetshadeX]

I just set the game to rookie difficulty for added realism. Enemies go down with a burst to the chest which is how it should be. Mutant are still hard but manageable

[Mike]

Originally posted by Strum:

Originally posted by Mike:

The better guns you get the the less sponge things get just like in the OG games. The original games (no mods) enemies were spongy as well, its just peoples memory is stuck on stalker mods rather then the OG games. In fact end game STALKER usually has the tankiest enemies because by that point your going up against Monolith soldiers with EXO suits.

If you take the starter pee shooter in CoC and try to kill a flesh if will take like 1-2 mags, but once you got better weapons TTK got a lot smaller.

If the original stalker game came out for the first time with modern audiences, they would be complaining about the same thing.

I just remember guns being inaccurate as hell, like you could see the tracers going anywhere except you were aiming.

Yeah you are right but that also lead to getting more body shots then headshots, and they ate body shots in that game just like they do in this game.

[ImHelping]

Call of Pripyat even on master (the first two are fever dreams basically at this point) flesh drop real fast to the basic AK, and your first rusty pump action along with less ♥♥♥♥ strafe speed turned you into the doom guy vs bloodsuckers. For less repair cost too (if still overpriced). Knife was not entirely useless either outside of modern 'but muh stealth takedowns' ,even if the big gamble was wacky enemy hitboxes. I used guns on dogs because that ended up with too many tight circle chases with neither of us stabbing or biting eachother.

You were still made of paper without real body armor. But even I could go the whole time pre-endgame with the sunrise suit, a basic pump action, and my lost love the IL-86 legit just fine.

Even ignoring some of the most aggressive "Spawn in plain view" I have seen in ages/ever. Stalker 2 even on normal is subscription MMO levels of enemy health compared to the old days on big boy mode.

"Aim for the head-" "They are already dead. A bunch of them. Also sometimes boars will bully bloodsuckers in the distance. Also one time I kited a wild psudogiant to death shooting it in the crotch with a makarov a hundred times. just to say I did.

Ignore trolls saying "oooh be careful landing headshots on the invisible naughty boy" YOU DIDN'T NEED TO before. Headshots were a pleasant bonus dealing with mutant spam for me then, not an expectation.