Economy balance in the zone

[Elhazzared]

As things stand now, even after the current patch, nothing has been solved, merely made slightly better.

So the problem of the economy situation is that the player just doesn't has the money to run his gear. Repair costs are derived from guns/armor value. That means that the better the gear the more expensive it is to maintain. Now this wouldn't be a big problem so long as the gear didn't significantly increased in cost as it got better but it does and to make it worse upgrades make gear more expensive which makes it more expensive to repair as well. This goes to the point of being ridiculous like wear and tear upgrades are actually downgrades because even if your gear gets damaged a little bit less, because the upgrades add to the gear value it ultimately makes the repairs more costly thus completely negating the value of the upgrade.

On top of that we have missions that pay poorly and mission value is based on the area which is forces the players into dangerous areas just to get paid a bit better in hope they can at least deal with repair costs.

We also don't have high value items. We have artifacts that are worth a decent amount but anomally fields are far in between so artifact hunting is not a reliable way to make money. After that guns can be worth a bit assuming they are not on the red but still at best they are yellow and not worth much for their weight. From there we got pdas or notes, food, drinks and mecial supplies all of which are worth next to nothing and certainly not worth their weight. There is basically no items that are worth a good amount of money.

Then we have mutants. They are worth nothing to kill they soak a lot of ammo (less now but still a significant amount) and worst is not the ammo but rather the damage the player takes to armor that needs repairing and of course, the damage to gun from shooting the mutants.

Last we have a very poor carry weight capacity which doesn't helps with making it back with enough to try and cover expenses.

Now yes, I am playing on veteran, but I've played the OG stalkers, I've played misery for CoP back in the day and I've played gamma too. I know all about harsh economy and how to make it work but Stalker 2 just doesn't gives the player enought o cover their bases unless they stick to cheaper weapons or use weapons as discardable and same thing for armor which removes the point of getting better gear or upgrading gear. This is just not balanced. The player should, even on veteran always be coming home with more money than when he left assuming he didn't take extreme levels of damage to the gear.

So what we need is making mutants worth killing, items that are worth selling like jewelry or maybe more guns attachments that sell for a decent amount. Missions must pay much more and there shouldn't be much of a difference between the pricing in an early zone to a later zone because with upgrades to gear, it becomes expensive to run anyway. Repair costs need to be based on the BASE cost of the gear, upgrades to the gear may increase it's value for sale, but not for repairs.

Maybe not everything in the list needs to be done but a lot of it needs to be done before economy is stable... Again, a Stalker should ALWAYS be upgrading gear and still should always come back with more money than when he left. If this is not happening, economy isn't working right.

[Talon Rose]

I went into the final mission with 100% everything, including a Diamond Exo, fully upgraded.
*Half-way through* (boss rush area) I was below 50% exo due to the laser sniping enemies. My guns were 20% durability and jamming more often than not before I fought Scar.

Here's the fun part.
Whatever durability my exo had MELTED to a room with 2-3 gauss firing nerds shooting from complete darkness, lasering off 60% of my hp per shot (medium diffficulty) and I had 0% dura.
They couldn't kill me.

So I realized, armor is worthless.
Because if you have high bars, you are supposed to have good this defense and that defense, right?
Well, it still damages armor.
Damaged armor gives less defense.
But the strongest weapon in the game couldn't one shot me.
So armor doesn't matter besides artifact carrying spots.

Atrocious.

[Some Kitty Cat]

*Looks at the 25K I just made selling some weapons, some low end armour and a bunch of artifacts*
Uh okay.
Personally I feel with the recent patch money making and the repair costs feel pretty nice. Especially artifacts give a fair amount of money now imo and i can repair my stuff without worrying that Id break into my bank too much.

[selewi]

ask the wish granter to be rich

[SuCu]

Selling the extra supplies and ammo actually stacksup to a decent amount, specially that machine gun ammo which weighs and sells for a lot.

[simon]

Publicado originalmente por Elhazzared:

Snip

Literal definition of a skill issue. Its so easy to make money and the repair costs and wear to equipment have been reduced. If you cant make more money than you spend now then its a you problem.

[Baron01]

I only played 4 hours or so on the patch but repair costs were made a lot more sensible. The costs are cut by 40% to 50% it seems. I have not done any quests yet so I will have to check how those repeatable quests that were complete joke before fare now.

Guns still wear way too fast, which is now less of money issue but it is problem with long stretches on the road or long missions. Wear & tear either need to be reduced or we need repair kits for repairs on the road.

Artifact price increase is negligible in the big picture, it seems they added 20% to 60% on top of their value. Legendary ones that cost 60k before are now 70k (20% increase). The most common ones were 7.5k and they are now 12k I believe (60%). However, you still only get roughly 1/3 of their value back as coupons so unless you are lucky or save scumming, the payout is rather small and long in between.

The patch removed the exploit used to get full value back, which means you either are able to get by or will be forced to use mods.

[Pain]

Publicado originalmente por Baron01:

I only played 4 hours or so on the patch but repair costs were made a lot more sensible. The costs are cut by 40% to 50% it seems. I have not done any quests yet so I will have to check how those repeatable quests that were complete joke before fare now.

Guns still wear way too fast, which is now less of money issue but it is problem with long stretches on the road or long missions. Wear & tear either need to be reduced or we need repair kits for repairs on the road.

Artifact price increase is negligible in the big picture, it seems they added 20% to 60% on top of their value. Legendary ones that cost 60k before are now 70k (20% increase). The most common ones were 7.5k and they are now 12k I believe (60%). However, you still only get roughly 1/3 of their value back as coupons so unless you are lucky or save scumming, the payout is rather small and long in between.

The patch removed the exploit used to get full value back, which means you either are able to get by or will be forced to use mods.

gear is actually one of the gates in the game. Using mid tier gear in the early game will be expensive. thats why you want to use weaponry appropriate to the level or just use a mod to make the game what you want. But you cant complain if it becomes too easy if you do.

[Talon Rose]

I don't get why I mouse over an artifact that says 60K and it sells for *less than half*.
Show me the sale value. Can I BUY a thunderberry anywhere?
No?
Then don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gaslight me about it lol.

Anyway, if people need it to manage with the game I can write up a super basic cheat engine tutorial because it's just easier than yellow\red walking across a map selling small change.

[Elhazzared]

Publicado originalmente por Talon Rose:

I don't get why I mouse over an artifact that says 60K and it sells for *less than half*.
Show me the sale value. Can I BUY a thunderberry anywhere?
No?
Then don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gaslight me about it lol.

Anyway, if people need it to manage with the game I can write up a super basic cheat engine tutorial because it's just easier than yellow\red walking across a map selling small change.

There are mods to make things easier on the economy, it's more about providing the developer with feedback.

[Baron01]

Publicado originalmente por Pain:

gear is actually one of the gates in the game. Using mid tier gear in the early game will be expensive. thats why you want to use weaponry appropriate to the level or just use a mod to make the game what you want. But you cant complain if it becomes too easy if you do.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post as nothing you are talking about is relevant to what I posted.

I'm way past mid-game and I'm still using Fora-221, its unique version, and M860 as my main guns. I was using Lummox AK for very long time with a TOZ.

Economy balance changes help but they feel like quite & dirty fix rather than a long-term solution. GSC also adjusted wear & tear system but I do not think they reduce wear nearly enough. Overall cost of running your character were reduced but many factors have not been addressed at all: 1.) how players make coupons; 2.) how expensive and/or rare ammo for advanced weapons is and 3.) how mutants are still complete money sink.

Is the situation better? Yes, it is.

[Pain]

Publicado originalmente por Baron01:

Publicado originalmente por Pain:

gear is actually one of the gates in the game. Using mid tier gear in the early game will be expensive. thats why you want to use weaponry appropriate to the level or just use a mod to make the game what you want. But you cant complain if it becomes too easy if you do.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post as nothing you are talking about is relevant to what I posted.

I'm way past mid-game and I'm still using Fora-221, its unique version, and M860 as my main guns. I was using Lummox AK for very long time with a TOZ.

Economy balance changes help but they feel like quite & dirty fix rather than a long-term solution. GSC also adjusted wear & tear system but I do not think they reduce wear nearly enough. Overall cost of running your character were reduced but many factors have not been addressed at all: 1.) how players make coupons; 2.) how expensive and/or rare ammo for advanced weapons is and 3.) how mutants are still complete money sink.

Is the situation better? Yes, it is.

I am sure someone will likely mod in something like the mutant hunting system in anomaly which would make mutants not a waste of time, the collar quests already confirm, that mutants can have inventories.

[Talon Rose]

Publicado originalmente por Baron01:

Publicado originalmente por Pain:

gear is actually one of the gates in the game. Using mid tier gear in the early game will be expensive. thats why you want to use weaponry appropriate to the level or just use a mod to make the game what you want. But you cant complain if it becomes too easy if you do.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post as nothing you are talking about is relevant to what I posted.

I'm way past mid-game and I'm still using Fora-221, its unique version, and M860 as my main guns. I was using Lummox AK for very long time with a TOZ.

Economy balance changes help but they feel like quite & dirty fix rather than a long-term solution. GSC also adjusted wear & tear system but I do not think they reduce wear nearly enough. Overall cost of running your character were reduced but many factors have not been addressed at all: 1.) how players make coupons; 2.) how expensive and/or rare ammo for advanced weapons is and 3.) how mutants are still complete money sink.

Is the situation better? Yes, it is.

I *really* advise you to upgrade to at least a SPSA (slow reload, but fires very fast if you need) or a SAIGA. You're going to be forced to fight infuriating battles against spongy enemies in the last 33% of the game very often.
Maybe less horrible now with the mutant hp nerf, actually, but still.

[Baron01]

Publicado originalmente por Talon Rose:

I *really* advise you to upgrade to at least a SPSA (slow reload, but fires very fast if you need) or a SAIGA. You're going to be forced to fight infuriating battles against spongy enemies in the last 33% of the game very often.
Maybe less horrible now with the mutant hp nerf, actually, but still.

Believe me, I'm itching to start using SPAS-12 or Saiga. I actually have both of those weapons in my stash but I could not upgrade them until recently. I'm also hesitant to invest into generic SPAS-12 when a unique one is given as a reward for the arena quest line, which I'm currently working on.
Another reason for not upgrading to those weapons before the patch was fear of how much will my repair costs escalate as even SPAS is significantly more expensive than M860 and Saiga will be on another level. This issue should be now diminished as repair costs are more reasonable.