I dont understand the fuss the economy.

[Simplistic Views]

Stalker is intentionally a unforgiving game. We'll start with that. This is given.

I am playing stalker difficulty, the "recommended" experience. So, i'm judging it based off of this. Loot abundance, your health, and enemy health are affected by this. Rookie is baby mode, and veteran is probably where I feel a lot of the issues are coming from for those saying its "too difficult / hard" Go figure for those of which fit that, but maybe i'm missing something.

For the economy...

I personally found no issues, somewhat makes sense. I left the lesser zone with no less than 30k in my pockets before venturing to slag heap. You trade for less and buy for more as the trader has to make a profit just as much as you do. People also forget that there is a functional world outside of the zone, which means supplies can make their way to the zone. Food, water, meds, ammo, guns. You name it. Its either smuggled (think the beginning of the game) purchased from factions that have mainland contact, looted off corpses (such as off) aforementioned factions or even found from past. Theres tons of military-ish locations around the zone, no doubt something was left behind. So... things are cheap. Thats about where the sensibleness ends though here as the prices make the gameplay a bit boring and loopish for some. But for a looter/shooter fanatic like me this scratches the itch perfectly.

Some complain about how traders have infinite coupons; which I also thought was weird until I realized how quickly that might become annoying when you have to repeatedly sleep in your bed until the trader's cash reset just to sell the rest of your loot. Tit for tat.

Something people forget though is that artifacts sell for a ton of money, and they respawn. You can farm them ENDLESSLY. They take about a day or so to respawn and you can go back. The moment you get a better detector other than the echo and it gets vastly easier to locate them without running in circles. (The bear literally has a radar that points you in the direction.) Artifacts is what gives the zone popularity from the outside world. People want to buy them / research them / use them (if they can figure out how to get them out) but ultimately there is outside influences that seek them. So, there is cash to be made for them. And... thats excactly right.

Selling broken / destroyed weapons when they're in extreme abundance just makes sense that they dont sell for anything. Everyone (EVERYONE) has a gun. Why would they want yours? Nobody is using melee weapons like apocalypse games normally have a trope of. But you have to remember that profit has to be made, everyone is in squalor. Good equipment costs money! So they charge you abundantly for fresh unused gear.

Suits costing a lot of money? See aforementioned. I've never purchased one, never needed to. I've looted them around the map, found them with ease (by just exploring) and gathered my equipment over time. You HAVE to find those stashes as they contain so much useful stuff, and by just looking around locations you're already at you can find even more. (Like suits!) You can actually often find better suits around the map than what the traders are even selling.

I also never struggled with ammunition. Matter of fact, I have too much of it. Waaay too much of it. By being economical and intentionally aiming for the head of bandits and mutants you can save a TON of ammo. Not to mention using the correct ammo the first time. Using your best weapon at all times (like the AKs in the lesser zone) when ammunition for it is not always abundant depending where you're at... you will run out. I have also noted that depending on where you are you will find a lot of specific calibers, and that seems to be the caliber that fits best for that zone. For lesser zone, its primarily your PTM and the Viper. (9mx18 and 19) For slag, its the AKMs and still the PTM. Etc etc.

Repairs are a nightmare. But I noticed that they only truly get expensive when you dont repair at all. I dont actually know, but the price for repairs feels almost quadratic with a curve. Heavily damaged items feel waay more expensive per % than it does when its hardly damaged at all. Perhaps i'll do math on this one and track it. But I suppose it does make SOME sense, replacing an entire upper receiver is expensive. Replacing gas rings is cheap. But always repair. And repair often. Cheaper that way. Better gear is also more expensive to repair.

Reputation is a life saver, and helps so much. If you kill everyone you meet (You practically can, and actually can. The majority of characters in the game can be killed even some story ones.) then of course nobody is going to like you. Of course they're going to charge you more. On the other hand... if they do like you... they charge you less and pay you more for gear. Techs, guides, and doctors work the same way.

Again, I left the lesser zone with 30k coupons. purely by selling excess consumables and guns. and side questing. I never sell ammo, I never buy suits, I never buy weapons. I only buy attachments from traders and put all my excess money into upgrades

[Commander359]

Originally posted by Simplistic Views:

Originally posted by Commander359:

You are equating situations that are incomparable. Would I want to buy a broken car? No, but I am a relatively comfortable civilian in a non-hostile environment. Would someone in a apocalyptic wasteland want to buy a cheap broken car if they were confident they could fix it and actually sell it as a functioning vehicle in an environment where vehicles are a rare and life-saving commodity? Absolutely.

However, I am glad we can agree that prices need to come down. Cheers for that.

if you're going to continue off my car example at least make it make sense. in-game. the average person in the zone wouldnt know how to fix a car from a dead state unless its something really minorly broken like just replacing a dead battery. anything more and now you require tools, and evenmore so depending now you require equipment. thats why technicians are in the game and why everyone goes to them. people in the zone are supposed to be crafty, but they're not technical. thats why only certain factions have vehicles in the zone

if a gun is extremely damaged its supposed to be the equivalency of a gas piston or an entire upper/lower receiver mangled with barely enough function to get by with.

And yet most red quality guns in stalker 2 will still fire (albeit they jam alot). More-so to the point, you are right in that a technician is needed to fix most guns and, as it so happens, pretty much every settlement with a merchant also has a technician. You cannot tell me that the merchants couldn't have a deal with them to fix those weapons in the first place. Rostok apparently has something like this going on, but it should be something that all settlements do if the player is willing to lug the weapons and armor to them. Mind you, the guns should barely sell for anything, but they should sell.

Would I expect a merchant to buy a completely mangled and irreparable gun? No, but we have yet to find such a thing in stalker 2.

[Serpiko82]

Not being able to sell red-condition guns is a lesser problem. They wouldn't be "value per weight" efficient anyway.

If anything, I wish the condition shield when looking at guns on the ground would ALWAYS appear, not just when below 10%, so we immediately know if a gun is worth picking up without having to pick it up first and checking inventory later. QOL improvement.

[Baron01]

@OP

Why writing wall of text when you have literally no clue and very little time in the game to actually back what you are writing?

I left the lesser zone with nearly 50k coupons, it has no bearing on the economy situation.
We can start with the clearly broken quest rewards that are no in line with the ask. If you are doing quest to kill 6 - 8 bandits/fake traders/whatever and the reward is 1100 coupons, you will be hard to press to break even even on expended ammo unless you hit all headshots. This does not include any kind of medication and later repair costs due to wear and tear of your gear. It simply does not make any sense, game-wise, to do any side quest that are specifically designed to make coupons (pay attention to dialogue options asking about them "I need money") when you are barely making any if not losing some. If there is some kind of unique weapon/armor as a reward, sure do the quest but otherwise you can as well not bother.

The economy woes are also not visible before you acquire some advanced weapons, armor suits and upgrade them. Getting better gear and upgrading it is a key character progression. Answer to this imbalanced economy can not be suggestion not to use or upgrade your gear. This is extremely noticeable on weapons--if you use starting weapons such as AKS or Vector-5, you will be able to repair them for cheap even if they are quite worn out. Situation will dramatically change if you move from the starting 5.45x39mm gun, ie. AKS, to let's say Fora-221. The gun is slightly better, more controllable and lots of nice (expensive) upgrades. The issue is that every 10% of durability that you burn through very fast costs over 3k coupons to repair now. These repair costs escalate very fast. Trying to repair AS Lavina or Veteran, along of feeding them very expensive ammo, will cost your eye-watering amounts every time you come back to the base.

I try to deal with this crappy economy by hauling a lot of loot back to base and selling it at normal prices. I only do the exploit to sell for a full price for artifacts as I think it fits the lore of the game (artifacts are the most valuable things in the zone).

[Reep]

just need repair prices downed a smidge i think

[Simplistic Views]

Originally posted by Prussian Wolf:

"You shouldn't use your best gear" - you mean a sawed off shotgun? Like you're assuming I'm using some super expensive thing to do quests that don't pay anything - no. The quests give no money, you can't even make a FRACTION of what it costs to do them. Anything that requires killing mutants is just worthless as mutants are tanky as hell. - I play as stalker as well btw, for this very reason. On Veteran mutants take 25% more damage to kill, on top of already being tanky.
As for repairs? The examples I gave are things at 80%. Like to be clear, it way, way worse for things that are actually damaged, I'm just talking about normal wear and tear after playing for a short time. It's ridiculously high.
"Nobody moaned in fallout 4 as badly when they were getting basically no caps for missions when everything was uber expensive in comparison." - Never had this problem in Fallout 4, and I've never heard anyone else say it.
People made mods for this sort of stuff day one, not because everyone needs easy mode or whatever, (again, I play the OG games, Gamma, stuff like that) but because the game is just stupid in this regard.
The many issues of the game should be fixed. Not ignored because some people are willing to put up with them.

Ok... so basically you admit I'm right but you don't care, and you're saying I should just play a mod. How about they make the game better instead?

"You shouldn't use your best gear" - you mean a sawed off shotgun? Like you're assuming I'm using some super expensive thing to do quests that don't pay anything - no. The quests give no money, you can't even make a FRACTION of what it costs to do them. Anything that requires killing mutants is just worthless as mutants are tanky as hell. - I play as stalker as well btw, for this very reason. On Veteran mutants take 25% more damage to kill, on top of already being tanky.

"basically you admit i'm right but you dont care" ????

what kind of god complex do you have here? i get you're the "I have to be right" type of person. but if you're going to nitpick everything I say please at least put quotes, formatting isnt hard, takes two seconds, makes your post much easier to read. you're also pulling specific sentences away without the entire context of everything else said. politician tactics. if you gave me solid reasons i'd drop everything, but you've yet to convince me. its a discussion not a "I'M RIGHT, YOU'RE WRONG." type conversation.

anyways...

I mention to mod it because you're basically asking to sell worthless equipment. A stalker could probably maintain their weapon in a basic context, but everyone is living in absolute destitution. but for the sake of gameplay you have to have at least a bit of imagination. just a tad. nobody wants a broken weapon unless its all they had, and equipment in the zone is plentiful just not in good condition. you will not find a single person in the game who doesnt already have a gun. no reason they would want to buy yours unless its already in a state better than the average gun (yellow shield or better.. go figure.) your broken gun is the same as everyone else's broken gun. that doesn't sell. Justify it please. I could only feasibly see it being sold to a tech for spare parts at even more meager prices.

as omni man would say.... "think mark. think"

As for repairs? The examples I gave are things at 80%. Like to be clear, it way, way worse for things that are actually damaged, I'm just talking about normal wear and tear after playing for a short time. It's ridiculously high.

Something we agreed on, but I still dont think cost should change. I just think the rate it decreases is abysmally high. Why is it that walking around the zone breaks my equipment so much? Not even being hit, not even using my weapon, and i'll still have to spend 1k to fix it. If they're protraying a "dirtiness" factor maybe I should be given the option to clean it to prevent wear and tear? Even then, thats just too much. 1/3rd of my costs is just from moving around and it degrades. I think the devs could add a solid mechanic for that that'd make the game more immersive. Maybe i'll try and make a suggestion or something if there is a way.

As for the costs, i think it just depends what suit you're wearing or equipment. Basic clothes (like the bandit armor) should be cheap to fix. Its awful, and its literally just civillian clothes. Tailor it and you're on your way. Ballistic vests however are more complicated. If its a kevlar (soft) vest thats even worse to repair. If its a plate carrier then whatever, replace the plate and go on your way... but it's still a whole plate. Its expensive. Weapons would be the same way, cheap AKs? Cheap, parts are plentiful. Should still be somewhat cheap. A modded AR? Not so much. Western equipment in an eastern world. This does need a rebalance.

Cheap gear needs to remain cheap to operate. This specific point I will not argue.

"Nobody moaned in fallout 4 as badly when they were getting basically no caps for missions when everything was uber expensive in comparison." - Never had this problem in Fallout 4, and I've never heard anyone else say it.

I believe thats exactly why i said that... but whatever. it was a thing, nobody complained. but thats because of all the loot bloat you could sell to make up for it, here you dont have that. but you still have farming loops for coupons that do make up for it. I'm probably mistaking the specific fallout too but thats not an issue. premise remains the same

People made mods for this sort of stuff day one, not because everyone needs easy mode or whatever, (again, I play the OG games, Gamma, stuff like that) but because the game is just stupid in this regard.
The many issues of the game should be fixed. Not ignored because some people are willing to put up with them.

[/quote]

This stalker game supposedly has had the best initial release of the previous games, the problem is that this one has gotten so popular that eveeery little bug is getting pointed out. Which, actually is a good thing for the devs. Most people who play older stalked games often heavily mod it anyways, I havent but this is to my understanding. I've found no personal need to as I am not "willing to put up with it" I just literally had no issue. Different mindsets and experiences.

As for the complaint regarding it needing to be fixed... the devs actually are if you took the time to research it. Its been a week! Give them time, It would be the worst move of any studio if they just released and left it as is. See more below.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1643320/view/4455843903878203415?l=english

[Simplistic Views]

Originally posted by Baron01:

@OP

Why writing wall of text when you have literally no clue and very little time in the game to actually back what you are writing?

I left the lesser zone with nearly 50k coupons, it has no bearing on the economy situation.
We can start with the clearly broken quest rewards that are no in line with the ask. If you are doing quest to kill 6 - 8 bandits/fake traders/whatever and the reward is 1100 coupons, you will be hard to press to break even even on expended ammo unless you hit all headshots. This does not include any kind of medication and later repair costs due to wear and tear of your gear. It simply does not make any sense, game-wise, to do any side quest that are specifically designed to make coupons (pay attention to dialogue options asking about them "I need money") when you are barely making any if not losing some. If there is some kind of unique weapon/armor as a reward, sure do the quest but otherwise you can as well not bother.

The economy woes are also not visible before you acquire some advanced weapons, armor suits and upgrade them. Getting better gear and upgrading it is a key character progression. Answer to this imbalanced economy can not be suggestion not to use or upgrade your gear. This is extremely noticeable on weapons--if you use starting weapons such as AKS or Vector-5, you will be able to repair them for cheap even if they are quite worn out. Situation will dramatically change if you move from the starting 5.45x39mm gun, ie. AKS, to let's say Fora-221. The gun is slightly better, more controllable and lots of nice (expensive) upgrades. The issue is that every 10% of durability that you burn through very fast costs over 3k coupons to repair now. These repair costs escalate very fast. Trying to repair AS Lavina or Veteran, along of feeding them very expensive ammo, will cost your eye-watering amounts every time you come back to the base.

I try to deal with this crappy economy by hauling a lot of loot back to base and selling it at normal prices. I only do the exploit to sell for a full price for artifacts as I think it fits the lore of the game (artifacts are the most valuable things in the zone).

Sorry what? I have nearly 60 hours and nearly half the acheivements. I even have more playtime than you. What are you on about? Check my profile before you make these weird claims stating I havent played enough. I'm literally playing it right now.

I've already agreed several times quest rewards should be improved. Read please. Not skim.

I never need (or even used) the trader exploit, and I make money just fine even mid-to late game wearing exosuits and the best weapons I have. If you struggle, take the time to artifact farm. Those hypercubes sell for so much money and even more if you have green reputation with people. I dont even sell my artifacts, I keep them.

[Avitus]

Vendors shoud pay the price for a weapon/armors with 100% what is written in the tooltip. for a 100% Suit you can get 40.000 as per tooltip but the vendor give you fkng 6000....

[Baron01]

Originally posted by Simplistic Views:

Sorry what? I have nearly 60 hours and nearly half the acheivements. I even have more playtime than you. What are you on about? Check my profile before you make these weird claims stating I havent played enough. I'm literally playing it right now.

I've already agreed several times quest rewards should be improved. Read please. Not skim.

I never need (or even used) the trader exploit, and I make money just fine even mid-to late game wearing exosuits and the best weapons I have. If you struggle, take the time to artifact farm. Those hypercubes sell for so much money and even more if you have green reputation with people. I dont even sell my artifacts, I keep them.

I have indicated I only respond to the opening post as I do not have time reading everything.

You have given background that clearly pointed out you are basing your opinion on an early areas of the game and basic weapons and armors. You are just adding more arguments, obviously made up just to support position. You must be the special snowflake that found magical way to make it in the game while everyone else must be a sucker that does not know how to play the game.

I just give you latest example how broken the game economy is: I got a quest to bring some psi-parts to a technicians. In order to acquire those parts, I had to kill burer. I have used my Fora-221 to kill him using AP ammo. I have lost 6% durability in killing the single burer, not shot 1 bullet on anything else. It cost me 1276 coupons to repair the gun. That is not including cost of ammo. This is one encounter. if you count cost of ammo into the final amount, it would run you so deep into red numbers it is crazy. The reward was entry level suite you can find for free in Lesser Zone and I was supposed to pay 40k coupons for it to the technician. /facepalm

Hunt artifacts? Duh...I'm sure Hypercubes or Compasses spawn in every anomaly. What am I supposed to do with those 7.5k common artifacts that sell for 2.5k? It is very likely that my repairs from just walking around anomalies and potentially fending of random spawns will be more than the proceeds from selling it. If you are save scumming to get those rare anomalies, you are not different to people using exploit to sell for full price.

And to be clear, I can absolutely live with the current state of the game and have usually over 250k coupons. However, the hoops I have to jump through to be able to just play the game are not fun. Slowly walking to nearest trader with inventory full of weapons and armor just to get penny for it. Running back and forth between PoI and trade to sell everything I can pick up. Find and grab any artifact I run into. Sure, I do all that but it is not all that fun especially if the world around me is so stale and boring.

[Fox Tail]

Biggest issue with economy in this game is the repair cost and how you can only sell guns if they have 30%+ durability. It RNG if you'll make a profit after a fight like oh dam this guy dropped a GP37 oh it broken can't sell it. And then repair cost are absolutely insane, I did the poppy field quest picked the gun reward go repair the gun and 35k just to repair the dam thing like what the actual ♥♥♥♥! it cost more to repair gear then does to just buy a new one who actually decided this? This especially retarded when game gives you a broken gun you need to repair to use as a quest reward, like it an iconic gun from a quest just give some NPC 35k to fix it as well to use it then 5k every time you do use it. And armor ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at one point my armor cost me 100k to repair. I don't like using money glitches in games, but this first game I had to use a money glitch in cause cost to repair my gear makes playing this game literally unplayable. Devs either need to fix these prices or someone needs to make a mod that removes the durability system.

[Gerbilios]

the fact that repairs ramp up from manageable to insane within the 1st 25% of durability is damn annoying, especially because even with anti-wear mods it drains pretty quick, doesn't make me wanna use better gear but instead savescum with my gopnik supreme early game AK

[Prussian Wolf]

Ok. I'm not going to quote your insanely long reply, but it's quite telling you immediately jump to attacking me personally and then make up points that I didn't make - for example saying I want to make money selling broken equipment, that's not a claim I made.

And I'll just throw this out - "This stalker game supposedly has had the best initial release of the previous games"... No. I cannot even sit and play the game because it gives me a memory leak fairly quickly.

[Swaggaccino]

It doesn't really make a lot of sense to trade in sometimes 5 or 10 broken guns which can be used for parts to build 2-3 working guns be worth LESS than the value of restoring one gun back to 100% for you. Also the rate at which guns wear down is so incredibly quick it just makes for a frustrating experience.

[Myztkl©-Kev]

repairing a red gun for 15000 coupons just to turn around and sell it for 3000 is broken, I don't care what anyone says lol. Inventory says my armor is worth over 50k and the vendor gives me less than 10, that's broken lol. My armor costs like 15k to repair 15%, I made less than 5k in the time it took to take that 15% of damage.

[Swaggaccino]

Originally posted by Simplistic Views:

Sorry what? I have nearly 60 hours and nearly half the acheivements. I even have more playtime than you. What are you on about? Check my profile before you make these weird claims stating I havent played enough. I'm literally playing it right now.

I've already agreed several times quest rewards should be improved. Read please. Not skim.

I never need (or even used) the trader exploit, and I make money just fine even mid-to late game wearing exosuits and the best weapons I have. If you struggle, take the time to artifact farm. Those hypercubes sell for so much money and even more if you have green reputation with people. I dont even sell my artifacts, I keep them.

"I rushed the main quest missions and suddenly the game is giving me far more valuable items than at the beginning"

You aren't proving his argument wrong. There's ZERO incentive to do the side quests at the beginning (other than exploring for fun). Hell there's ZERO incentive to explore because you risk damaging and losing all of your gear due to wear and tear so you absolutely NEED to rush the main campaign ASAP if you want an easier adventure. Hell not even easy, FAIR. I can't imagine doing some of these later missions with early game armor and weapons that jam every 5-10 rounds.

That's called a broken game economy that needs to be addressed.

[Myyrä]

Originally posted by Myztkl©-Kev:

repairing a red gun for 15000 coupons just to turn around and sell it for 3000 is broken, I don't care what anyone says lol. Inventory says my armor is worth over 50k and the vendor gives me less than 10, that's broken lol. My armor costs like 15k to repair 15%, I made less than 5k in the time it took to take that 15% of damage.

It's not broken, it's just basic economics, vendors buy low and sell high even in real life for a good reason, they need to make profits for certain things like food, bills etc.
The inventory price just shows the general worth of the item, it doesn't say how much they're going for.
Also, never repair and sell weapons/armor, you're only getting a loss at that rate, just sell the yellow or better items.
Even better, do not repair and upgrade "low level gear", just use it until it breaks or you can squeeze some money out by selling it when it's still sellable (there's also a vendor at rostok that buys "red gear", so if you want to you can just dump broken gear into your personal stash and sell to him eventually).