Does anyone else feel like the way they balanced enemies and firearms makes the guns feel rather...dissapointing?

[DragynDance]

I am up to the point in the story where I am exploring Pripyat, and I am still using the very first stock AK I've ever picked up, because every time I try anything else, it feels like a downgrade. The older games, and the mods always made human enemies well armored, and mutants big, fleshy bullet sponges, but Stalker 2 swapped that for some reason, now humans run around the zone basically in their underwear, and mutants are armored to hell, causing this weird disconnect where the only thing that matters for a firearm when going against humans, is the mag capacity, and the accuracy. And you get all the attachments for an AK nice and early, leading you to having a 45 round mag, one shot head shotting machine with a scope, with cheap ammo that can be found EVERYWHERE. There is no point to change, because every other firearm is a downgrade to it.

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by Mike:

Nope, I have chosen to main the unique Predator shotgun that holds 8 shells instead of 6 and I'm loving it. I'm also playing vet diff and everything feels pretty balanced to me given their threat to the player of course.

Humans get killed by mostly any head shot, but take more hits if they have good armor, just like in the OG games. Mutants are a threat and proper weapons/ammo types need to be used to get them down quick and just like in the OG games certain enemies were designed to be endurance fights or mini bosses like the Psudogiant/chimera.

Also in the base game there were some weapons that were plain worse then other guns and I'm sure thats the case here too, but I feel the devs did a better job of balancing weapons so the player cane build around the ones they want and still have a decent time at killing things.

Yeah, I dunno, maybe you are using really weak guns or missing a lot then? Not at all how things have been lining up for me. I use a AK and a Saiga, and the saiga blows away mutants, even suckers, in less then a mag, and the AK one taps nearly every human enemy, save for the once in a blue moon exosuit guy who dies in like three instead. Been using the same two weapons all the way to Pripyat, the Saiga I got in slag heap I think, but I've had this AK since the start of the game.

[Mike]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

Originally posted by Mike:

Nope, I have chosen to main the unique Predator shotgun that holds 8 shells instead of 6 and I'm loving it. I'm also playing vet diff and everything feels pretty balanced to me given their threat to the player of course.

Humans get killed by mostly any head shot, but take more hits if they have good armor, just like in the OG games. Mutants are a threat and proper weapons/ammo types need to be used to get them down quick and just like in the OG games certain enemies were designed to be endurance fights or mini bosses like the Psudogiant/chimera.

Also in the base game there were some weapons that were plain worse then other guns and I'm sure thats the case here too, but I feel the devs did a better job of balancing weapons so the player cane build around the ones they want and still have a decent time at killing things.

Yeah, I dunno, maybe you are using really weak guns or missing a lot then? Not at all how things have been lining up for me. I use a AK and a Saiga, and the saiga blows away mutants, even suckers, in less then a mag, and the AK one taps nearly every human enemy, save for the once in a blue moon exosuit guy who dies in like three instead. Been using the same two weapons all the way to Pripyat.

Sure try that on s Chimera and I bet you you won't "blow them away". Also maybe I misread Are you complaining that the game is too easy with certain guns?

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by DragynDance:

Yeah, I dunno, maybe you are using really weak guns or missing a lot then? Not at all how things have been lining up for me. I use a AK and a Saiga, and the saiga blows away mutants, even suckers, in less then a mag, and the AK one taps nearly every human enemy, save for the once in a blue moon exosuit guy who dies in like three instead. Been using the same two weapons all the way to Pripyat.

Sure try that on s Chimera and I bet you you won't "blow them away". Also maybe I misread Are you complaining that the game is too easy with certain guns?

More like a complaint that the enemy balance is really off, leading the gun variety to feel rather lackluster. And no, it blows chimeras away too.

[Mike]

Originally posted by DragynDance:

Originally posted by Mike:

Sure try that on s Chimera and I bet you you won't "blow them away". Also maybe I misread Are you complaining that the game is too easy with certain guns?

More like a complaint that the enemy balance is really off, leading the gun variety to feel rather lackluster. And no, it blows chimeras away too.

Have you tired other weapons or are you basing this off of only using these 2 weapons out of the tons of others? If so how can you talk about overall balance when you have not tested other weapons to see hoe effective they are?

Maybe you just so happen to choose the best weapons in the game without knowing because most complaints have been saying the complete opposite lol. I do know that in the OG games there were certain guns that made the games a cake walk so this is not new to this franchise and if I'm not mistaken the AK has always been a pretty mid ranged/balanced weapon that can get you through the entire game.

Thankfully I RP in these games so the weapons I use will be determined on what I fine cool/interesting, regardless how good other weapons may end up being.

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by DragynDance:

More like a complaint that the enemy balance is really off, leading the gun variety to feel rather lackluster. And no, it blows chimeras away too.

Have you tired other weapons or are you basing this off of only using these 2 weapons out of the tons of others? If so how can you talk about overall balance when you have not tested other weapons to see hoe effective they are?

Maybe you just so happen to choose the best weapons in the game without knowing because most complaints have been saying the complete opposite lol. I do know that in the OG games there were certain guns that mad the games a cake walk so this is not new to this franchise and if I'm not mistaken the AK has always been a pretty mid ranged/balanced weapon that can get you through the entire game.

Thankfully I RP in these games so the weapons I use will be determined on what I fine cool/interesting, regardless how good other weapons may end up being.

I played the OG games, and I played anomaly and gamma extensively. I like to RP too, and thats exactly the basis of my argument. Everything feels like a downgrade according to the starting AK you get right at the beginning of the game. I like DMR's, but this game's enemy balance highly discourages them, because it throws swarms of weak humans at you, or a handful of incredibly spongey mutants. In Gamma, I had weapons for a variety of situations I'd swap between, I had attachments I'd swap on the fly, canted sights, and several types of ammo I'd swap between for the siutation after scoping out an area I wanted to go to with the binocs. All of that tacticallity is gone in this game, it is a very, very basic shooter with the enemy design encouraging a weapon that can quickly swap between multiple targets without having to reload.

[jeffy]

play it on a harder difficulty mode.............

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by jeffy:

play it on a harder difficulty mode.............

Do you get a difficulty harder then veteran after you beat the game or something? I'm currently in pripyat on veteran. Even if there was a higher difficulty, I'm not even sure that would fix the issue, because I think the core of the problem is armor. Armor balancing is whack and all over the place, for the player and the enemies.

[k4Qu]

Originally posted by JohnMac:

The short answer is, they didn't balance anything.

this the balance is so bad that most systems are non functional. tbh idk if there is a single system that is actually working in the game.

[Loot]

I've had guys tank 3 5.56 to the head. Meanwhile, those same guys go down to one 9mm from starting pistol. Lol
That pistol is goat, but everything else feels like a waste of resources.

[Lens007888]

Originally posted by JohnMac:

The short answer is, they didn't balance anything.

Will have to agree on that, guns are all over the shop and certainly don't match the graphs, also the npc's that spawn seem to be able to inflict massive damage at long range with a shotgun!

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by Lens007888:

Originally posted by JohnMac:

The short answer is, they didn't balance anything.

Will have to agree on that, guns are all over the shop and certainly don't match the graphs, also the npc's that spawn seem to be able to inflict massive damage at long range with a shotgun!

Eh, the NPC damage is inconsequential, I'm used the harder mods that made getting shot basically mean death, and I also played with all of those crazy advanced first aid mods and crap. The silly thing is, once you get an armor suit better then sunrise set, you basically become unkillable except through bleeding, you'll still bleed every time you get shot and have to bandage it, but actual bullets won't do damage to you anymore and it's very silly.

My main concern is the way the players guns feel, because no matter how tanky or not tanky the player is, I prefer to play like I still die if I get shot, and I often refuse to just use a medkit in combat, in the older games a first aid kit animation took like six seconds and was a heal over time after, lol.

[LazyAmerican]

You can't be serious....if anything the human enemies got buffed into bullet spoonges in this game....same as all mutants really too. Humans shouldn't be taking more then 3-4 rifle rounds to die.

[DragynDance]

Originally posted by LazyAmerican:

You can't be serious....if anything the human enemies got buffed into bullet spoonges in this game....same as all mutants really too. Humans shouldn't be taking more then 3-4 rifle rounds to die.

The mutants mostly just got armor buffs, not so much HP buffs, if you use AP stuff on them they still die pretty quick. Buckshot also works great just because of their tendency to get in your face, and close range pellet does nutso damage. Humans are definetly not tanky though, unless you're bodyshotting them? I don't even try to bodyshot enemies, so I honestly have no idea how tanky they are to bodyshots. I either headshot, or miss and only use semi auto weapons. With headshots, humans die in one hit, with the occasionally guy taking 2 or 3 shots.

[TheBonfire]

All about the Kharod with the 5.45 mod.

[Dovahgolz]

If you get weapons like the DINIPRO and RAM 2

You can kill leeches in less than 1 magazine for ram 2

And you can one shot at the human head with the dinipro

Just move forward in the story