Psy dog is ridiculous

[花筏]

I hate that this game currently has no A-life, blood sucker just appeared out of nowhere, and not even one

Speaking of psi dogs, they can continuously spawn shadows, an absurd number of them. Although each one only needs 1 hit to be cleared, but when in the chaos, you can't even tell which one is real. You can only switch to an automatic rifle and indiscriminately spray bullets.
Except for the part where the illusions cause damage. The fakes in the original games couldn't lower your health; they only simulated pain as a distraction. Only the real ones could hurt the player. That's the part of the new psi-dogs I don't like.

[Flanker1Six]

As others have noted in this thread THE REAL PSI DOG GLOWS BLUE JUST BEFORE SPAWNING THE FAKES, AND HOWLS. That's how you may ID him (at the risk of offending someone in this day and age of gender indeterminacy) from the clones.

Get/jump up on anything for a height advantage ( you may wish to install a jump/climb mod from the Nexus if you don't already have one installed).

Apply grenade launcher vigorously! .)

Nerf their health to YOUR satisfaction with Grok's Modular Mutant Health mod from the Nexus, so they're not so bullet spongy!

https://www.nexusmods.com/stalker2heartofchornobyl/mods/23

Good luck!

[Baron01]

My approach to deal with pseudo dogs is to either A) blast them with Saiga if I get jump on them or B) watch for a dog that is not running straight at you, the real one is handing in the back and even hides.

If you aggro pseudo dog from range, you want to have AR/SMG with large magazine at single-fire mode--each bullet clears one copy of the dog. Kill any clones that are attacking you and look for suspicious dog avoiding you/running away. Once you identify the real dog, swap to shotgun (Saiga is my prefered shotgun choice) and go ballistic on the target. You need to kill it as fast as possible as it will shortly after getting damaged start summoning more copies and it will swap position with one of them, at which point you need to identify the real one again. Do not bother with grenades, it is waste to time as they take way too long to detonate and deal pitiful damage on top.

[JonnyCigarettes]

I think they're fine honestly. The enemies in Stalker all need different approaches, and some are really hard. The Zone isn't the Zone unless there are things that make you think 'Oh ♥♥♥♥' and run.

[𝕊𝕋𝕌ℝ𝕄-𝕂𝔸𝕋]

Originally posted by lockwoodx:

Originally posted by Mike:

If the devs listened to everything that is said in these forums STALKER 2 would be COD where everything dies in one hit, everything is easy to kill. Like can we juts not have hard/challenging enemies in games anymore?

they are fine the way they are, and they are a fun challenge to overcome and learn how to deal with. The solution to a problem for modern gamers is always "nerf this" or "nerf that"

In the previous 3 stalker games there was a hidden stat that literally gave the player a chance to miss even point blank shots. It was called bullet register and they simply wouldn't if you failed your rolls. The bullet register eased as you progressed thru the game until guns finally felt good by the end.

But no... it must be the people calling for nerfs that are the problem. LOL

I agree with those points of view; I, too, love a challenge and don't want it too easy. I also love the way STALKER 1 was made, it's my #1 game of all time. (over 30 years, not bad going).

However, hitting them isn't the issue being discussed; It's the fact that compared to the older games, the Spy-Dog, or Pseudo Dog, to be correct, spawns waaaaay too many phantoms to realistically manage the situation. It also depletes your emergency survival items, before you've even gotten out into the open country.. In reality, there should be NO ONE left alive, or in possession of any ammo or medkits, because the Pseudo Dogs have taken over and emptied everyone's supplies!

It's literally griefing you as if it's hacked the server.. See; The Pseudo Dog was challenging enough in the older versions; It still ran fast, disguised itself amongst its phantoms, lunged at you with ferocity.. and you still had a challenge to hit the 'right one'.

It's just that I think this particular instance, there are too many spawns and being able to teleport into other phantoms is a little unfair.. because it causes the MAIN CLUE TO THE RIGHT DOG - being the blue glow, occurring in multiple Dogs due to the teleport..

Seriously, you run out of ammunition, bandages and medkits, before you've even left home.

Having said that, I still do like them and will, no doubt eventually learn to master combat with them, time will tell.

[prawns]

How to fix psi doge:

For 5 or so seconds after (real dog) taking damage, psi dog illusions glitch slightly (maybe flicker a little or appear semi transparent). The real dog thus sticks out like dogs… arch artifacts

Tactic would be throw grenade and hope to dmg real dog, look for non glitchy dog, buckshot non glitchy dog

[Firefly]

Originally posted by 花筏:

I hate that this game currently has no A-life, blood sucker just appeared out of nowhere, and not even one

Speaking of psi dogs, they can continuously spawn shadows, an absurd number of them. Although each one only needs 1 hit to be cleared, but when in the chaos, you can't even tell which one is real. You can only switch to an automatic rifle and indiscriminately spray bullets.
Except for the part where the illusions cause damage. The fakes in the original games couldn't lower your health; they only simulated pain as a distraction. Only the real ones could hurt the player. That's the part of the new psi-dogs I don't like.

The overwhelming difficulty is like the thumping panic sound effect. It's all for show. Just keep your cool and cheese.

Bloodsucker: walk backwards and a little sideways, shoot and heal when needed.

Psy dogs: let them corner you, heal and take buckshots, when you see blood splatter, go for that dog.

When you're indoors, retreating, regrouping, then advancing again is a very viable strategy. New enemies won't spawn in an area you cleared and there's no time constraint.

[SIlverblade-T-E]

There is a mod that reduces their INSANE STUPID UNBALANCED NUMBERS!!
Sigh, sorry for rant but it's yet another BROKEN issue with this game :(
the PsyDogs can spawn FIFTEEN copies !!

Either the illusions should do no or little damage, like the original games
Or there shouldn't be that many of them

Letting the original teleport between that many clones and the clones can do real damage, is totally broken

[𝕊𝕋𝕌ℝ𝕄-𝕂𝔸𝕋]

hehehe I share your pain, Silverblade;
To be fair, I've only encountered them briefly on one or two occasions, and dealt with them by running away. Cowardly, I know, but an over/under double-barrel shotgun ain't gonna do squat while I was still a Zone dweeb :)

But there are some excellent tips mentioned here in this thread, to recap:
________________________________________________________

* Look for blood spatter,

as only the real Pseudo Dog sheds blood. (I noticed this in my experience with them, it's a good tip). EDIT- just popped back to add: I killed my first Pseudo Dog like a pro. The Blood-spatter tip is great, good job guys!

* Listen for howling,

(although in the heat of the moment, it is pretty hard to locate the origin of the Dog's location this way).

* Single out a blue aura around the Dog,

(however, this glowing appears on most of them, when they spawn phantoms, but sure, worth a try).

* Use shotgun with magazine feed installed,

Saiga -12 excellent choice, already magazine-fed, my favourite too, (single-load shotguns - forgeddaboudit you're dead already). Side note;- Early game Shotgun that you get a magazine feed upgrade for during the questline, is the M-80 Cracker, best choice for early game shotgun).

* Use explosives.

(grenades can be cumbersome in target acquisition, but better than nothing until you get your grubby little hands on a grenade launcher/Rifle attachment (VOG-25 or M-209) Old school terminology.

A couple more suggestions might be to use expanding ammunition, since that does more damage to flesh than regular ammo and will be more lethal if/when you hit the damn thing. The only downside is early on it's pretty rare, so an alternative might be to use a rapid-firing SMG with a large magazine capacity- A good choice might be the AKM 74-u, (shortened AK 74-s) because it and its ammo is widely common early on in the game, and it uses 5.45mm assault rifle steel core ammunition, which is more powerful than the pistol rounds that SMGs use.

Finally; In all fairness, as it is right now, the best tactic until you get better equipment, is to just run away, using energy drinks, because if you try to stay and fight, you will find that your medical supplies, along with ammo will deplete at an alarming rate and you will be overwhelmed and die, or at best, out of coupons because you had to re-buy all your supplies and pay for repairs. (unless you use mods, huehue). Once you get the fire power, you can wade right into the pack and start blastin' until you see blood!!!

Tragic, I know, but hey- it's STALKER, you're not supposed to win, you're supposed to be absolutely defeated, oppressed and crushed by the sheer and utter despair and ruin that is the 30km exclusion zone, around the worst ecological disaster ever to have happened in modern times.

[Omnifarious]

The games honestly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, they completely missed the mark and don't understand that there is a huge difference between hard and fair and just tedious and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Psydogs in the originals did the same ♥♥♥♥ but their clones couldn't harm you, now all of a sudden its just a nonstop stream of clones doing damage while you try to figure out which ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the eye height grass is creating them.

Meanwhile in this garbage ass game you got aimbot humans, dogs that never stop cloning themselves while running full speed in water that slows you to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crawl, a flashlight thats useless and you have to stop to shovel the equivalent of a thanksgiving meal down your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ throat every 10 minutes because evidently you need 120,000 calories a day no matter what you're doing.

At this point I've installed so many damn mods to undo or fix all their dumbass decisions that I might as well just go play the originals again.

[IceFoxX]

Originally posted by Omnifarious:

The games honestly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, they completely missed the mark and don't understand that there is a huge difference between hard and fair and just tedious and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Psydogs in the originals did the same ♥♥♥♥ but their clones couldn't harm you, now all of a sudden its just a nonstop stream of clones doing damage while you try to figure out which ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the eye height grass is creating them.

Meanwhile in this garbage ass game you got aimbot humans, dogs that never stop cloning themselves while running full speed in water that slows you to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crawl, a flashlight thats useless and you have to stop to shovel the equivalent of a thanksgiving meal down your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ throat every 10 minutes because evidently you need 120,000 calories a day no matter what you're doing.

At this point I've installed so many damn mods to undo or fix all their dumbass decisions that I might as well just go play the originals again.

Psydogs simply skill issues. Or just blindly shooting at it without looking at it in a relaxed manner and killing the right one. A small crate or other elevation is enough to prevent them from reaching you, so it's no problem if every single one deals damage.
Regarding the calories... yes then you should not take ammunition for a war (there are reasons why the transportation of such things is a challenge in real life), because ammunition quickly accumulates weight. And then there's the protective equipment + weaponry, which all adds weight.
Imagine if they had gone even further in terms of realism, that you not only had to consider the weight but also the space. As clothing and rucksack only offer limited space...

Typical case of a player choosing the wrong game or simply expecting something other than Stalker

[Forest®]

Originally posted by darkwind:

Yeah it needs to be nerfed, originals didn't spawn in such numbers, you could recognize the real one and if I remember correctly fakes didn't deal damage but they suck stamina.
Right now it's just not fun we don't need too many mutants that need to be avoided.

IIRC the real one was white and the clones were grey. I literally spent 500 rounds of shah's best friend's ammo and was not able to kill it, I decided to reload and just ignore it.

[Forest®]

Originally posted by IceFoxX:

Originally posted by Omnifarious:

The games honestly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, they completely missed the mark and don't understand that there is a huge difference between hard and fair and just tedious and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Psydogs in the originals did the same ♥♥♥♥ but their clones couldn't harm you, now all of a sudden its just a nonstop stream of clones doing damage while you try to figure out which ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in the eye height grass is creating them.

Meanwhile in this garbage ass game you got aimbot humans, dogs that never stop cloning themselves while running full speed in water that slows you to a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crawl, a flashlight thats useless and you have to stop to shovel the equivalent of a thanksgiving meal down your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ throat every 10 minutes because evidently you need 120,000 calories a day no matter what you're doing.

At this point I've installed so many damn mods to undo or fix all their dumbass decisions that I might as well just go play the originals again.

Psydogs simply skill issues. Or just blindly shooting at it without looking at it in a relaxed manner and killing the right one. A small crate or other elevation is enough to prevent them from reaching you, so it's no problem if every single one deals damage.
Regarding the calories... yes then you should not take ammunition for a war (there are reasons why the transportation of such things is a challenge in real life), because ammunition quickly accumulates weight. And then there's the protective equipment + weaponry, which all adds weight.
Imagine if they had gone even further in terms of realism, that you not only had to consider the weight but also the space. As clothing and rucksack only offer limited space...

Typical case of a player choosing the wrong game or simply expecting something other than Stalker

Skill issue my ass.

You have to laser aim kill it before it can spawn any clones or you are spending hundred + rounds to kill it.

My favorite is when there are two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ psy dogs, that is BEYOND ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, I don't die, I just waste like 20-30K in resources to kill two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ dogs all for the reward of, having them be dead.

It's annoying as hell and not fun.

[BudlikyCZ]

I just hate them. I just found the one in the lesser zone with the tower there and I thought my game was bugged. I spent half of my ♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard earn ammo. And the best part during that ♥♥♥♥ of a encounter he teleported and multiplayed almost after every single hit. ♥♥♥♥ this enemy.

[okda]

The whole this game is ridiculous

[-SIBERIANWOLF-]

not want to sound elite or smt but i finished the game and it was hard at times but it feels soo good to have finished it with all the bugs and this difficulty i like wehn i have to fight for the success and it wasnt to hard sometimes you just have to chees in stalker it was allways like that and strangly the bug added to the "fun" at times atleast
(♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hell played it with my nvdia 1080 on 30-60 fps with the performance mod and it was hard but fun e.g. out runnend one of the big fockers in the swamp after the 10th death)