Which difficulty setting?

[Francis_Mallman]

Hi,

So, I’m 57 now, and my reflexes and my eyesight have both declined.

The normal setting feels too difficult for me, but I’m reluctant to begin anew on easy because I fear it will be too easy.

Has anyone here struggled on normal and lowered the difficulty? Thoughts on this?

[KuroCat]

Go with Stalker (Normal)). It's fair and challenging. Have fun :)

[krugg.the.gamer]

I'm in a weird spot with that on most games... I can't even do easy, because it's still ingrained into my mind that if I do I won't get a proper ending. (grew up on nintendo) Games these days, if you don't play on hard or higher you don't even get all the mechanics... so I usually default to hard and just bang my head against a wall until I get good enough to muddle though. lol.

[GrenadeMagnet6]

I'm around your age, and playing on Stalker (Regular) difficulty. I'm taking it easy in the game, just learning it before playing a serious game (played 25 hours so far).

I would suggest getting a mod that lowers the toughness of the mutants, as the mutants are _very_ tough to kill with the starting weapons, even on lower difficulties. I'm still in the starting zone of the game, and ran into a Bloodsucker yesterday that was almost impossible to kill. I probably put well over 70 rifle rounds into it, and my guns were also upgraded. I also had to run and dodge a lot, and use health-kits, bandages, energy drinks, and also maneuver to reload my gun, so it was a complicated affair trying to finally kill the pursuing single Bloodsucker.

The once you have the mod continue play on the Stalker/Regular difficulty.

I cannot suggest which mod to use, but research here on the Steam forums which mods are being used to lower mutant difficulties and they should provide links to the mods.

The mods are easy to install and remove, and the mod pages on Nexus provide installation instructions for each mod. Just note the mods have a risk where some upcoming patch could break the save games. But it would have to be some major change by the developers for that to occur (likely a low risk, but a risk nonetheless).

[Francis_Mallman]

Oh that mutant situation is a game breaker for me almost. I had a heart attack last year and I’m ‘not allowed to get upset or frustrated or angry anymore’. LOL. The mutants could literally kill me. LOL.

[Cryptic]

My dad is the same age and plays. He was playing medium at first and dropped it to rookie. No shame. He enjoys these games but isn't hardcore into it for the survival aspect. He enjoys the visuals, the story, the atmosphere, etc. more of a cinematic experience for him.

[SpidersInABirthdayCake]

Originally posted by Francis_Mallman:

Hi,

So, I’m 57 now, and my reflexes and my eyesight have both declined.

The normal setting feels too difficult for me, but I’m reluctant to begin anew on easy because I fear it will be too easy.

Has anyone here struggled on normal and lowered the difficulty? Thoughts on this?

You can change difficulty at any point in your save. I started on Stalker and after about half way through my playthrough I bumped it up to Veteran. It's a punishing shooter as far as damage taken is concerned.

[Elzquiem]

The default difficulty is demanding but not unforgiving if you are well prepared. So while I'm definitely younger than you, I can share tips that should ease your life in the game if you have trouble with motor skills.

• First and foremost, check your options and sensitivity settings. If you are uncomfortable when moving/aiming, you should tweak options until it feels right.

• When starting a new game, do not hesitate to just do quick trips to only loot stalker stashes, and flee when a threat is detected. In the Zone, only survival counts, and it's better to run away to live another day, than die trying ;

• Save often: from time to time with hard save, and often with quick save, to avoid losing lot of progress in one go ;

• Upgrade Skif's pistol to max, it's a surprisingly good weapon against humans ;

• Listen for teamfights that break out in the open : if no mutants are involved, you usually can loot all the bodies and find something that will help you gear up ;

• A-Life is bugged/broken right now, so stealth and spawning will mess you up. If an hostile NPC see you behind your back, just run to get into cover if you intend to pick the fight, so you can scout your surrounding, or just run away if it's mutants ;

• Mutants are bullets sponges and bloodsuckers are demanding. In your case, they will probably overwhelm you, due to how fast they are, so you can either compensate by tanking and having more heal/bandage (be warned in that case that repair cost is scary), more ammo to spray on them, or just run away. Nothing is gained by killing mutants, it's just pure survival, and fleeing is still the best, and ressources-free, way to solve such encounter in the wild ;

• All munitions are not equal: some are armor-piercing and some are effective on the flesh. Use those accordingly against your opponents, especially if you cannot headshot efficiently.

• Against low intelligence entities, use anomalies to your advantage, so they will basically suicide on them. Bloodsuckers are sadly an exception, but they can still be hit by some anomalies that will help you track them (chimical/fire anomalies) ;

• If you have motor issues and still forced to fight, you might need to consider new gun playstyle. If reflexes and tracking is out of the question (close-combat rifles, shotguns, etc), invest instead into a weapon/snipe that support a x4 scope (The AKM is cheap and can be mounted with one). If you notice hostily entities, try to get the advantage by picking them off in cover from a huge distance and by taking your time. I still have decent reflexes (I always use a shotgun for quick shots) but I'm way more at ease and proficient when I have the time, and the scope, to aim. 90% of my humans encounters are finished before they know what they hit them. Against mutants, just run whenever possible or use the terrain to gain advantage so they can't reach/hurt you. However, if you are in a quest where you are forced to defeat such foes, you will be out of luck. In that case, just prepare a better gear/heal sources and prepare to tank.

• Bloodsuckers love to take you from behind. If you are forced to fight them in a tight space, put your back into a corner, or try to find a choke point : they will be forced to attack you head on.

• Finally, if it's too much, just put the game on easy, progress a bit until you get better gear or protection, and then switch back to another difficulty. Try to see first if the easy difficulty solves your issue, or is too easy. As I said, you can always switch back later, and worst case scenario, fleeing is almost always an option in the game. If combat is not your main fun factor, why would you let the difficulty spoil the fun of the game for you ? You can always try to install mods if the easy mode is too easy but be warned that configuring mods can be a hassle.

[Darmspoeling]

Originally posted by Elzquiem:

The default difficulty is demanding but not unforgiving if you are well prepared. So while I'm definitely younger than you, I can share tips that should ease your life in the game if you have trouble with motor skills.

• First and foremost, check your options and sensitivity settings. If you are uncomfortable when moving/aiming, you should tweak options until it feels right.

• When starting a new game, do not hesitate to just do quick trips to only loot stalker stashes, and flee when a threat is detected. In the Zone, only survival counts, and it's better to run away to live another day, than die trying ;

• Save often: from time to time with hard save, and often with quick save, to avoid losing lot of progress in one go ;

• Upgrade Skif's pistol to max, it's a surprisingly good weapon against humans ;

• Listen for teamfights that break out in the open : if no mutants are involved, you usually can loot all the bodies and find something that will help you gear up ;

• A-Life is bugged/broken right now, so stealth and spawning will mess you up. If an hostile NPC see you behind your back, just run to get into cover if you intend to pick the fight, so you can scout your surrounding, or just run away if it's mutants ;

• Mutants are bullets sponges and bloodsuckers are demanding. In your case, they will probably overwhelm you, due to how fast they are, so you can either compensate by tanking and having more heal/bandage (be warned in that case that repair cost is scary), more ammo to spray on them, or just run away. Nothing is gained by killing mutants, it's just pure survival, and fleeing is still the best, and ressources-free, way to solve such encounter in the wild ;

• All munitions are not equal: some are armor-piercing and some are effective on the flesh. Use those accordingly against your opponents, especially if you cannot headshot efficiently.

• Against low intelligence entities, use anomalies to your advantage, so they will basically suicide on them. Bloodsuckers are sadly an exception, but they can still be hit by some anomalies that will help you track them (chimical/fire anomalies) ;

• If you have motor issues and still forced to fight, you might need to consider new gun playstyle. If reflexes and tracking is out of the question (close-combat rifles, shotguns, etc), invest instead into a weapon/snipe that support a x4 scope (The AKM is cheap and can be mounted with one). If you notice hostily entities, try to get the advantage by picking them off in cover from a huge distance and by taking your time. I can do reflexes find (I always use a shotgun for that purpose) but I'm way more at ease and proficient when I have the time, and the scope, to aim. Against mutants, just run whenever possible or use the terrain to gain advantage so they can't reach/hurt you. However, if you are in a quest where you are forced to defeat such foes, you will be out of luck. In that case, just prepare a better gear/heal sources and prepare to tank.


• Bloodsuckers love to take you from behind. If you are forced to fight them in a tight space, put your back into a corner, or try to find a choke point : they will be forced to attack you head on.

• Finally, if it's too much, just put the game on easy, progress a bit until you get better gear or protection, and then switch back to another difficulty. Try to see first if the easy difficulty solves your issue, or is too easy. As I said, you can always switch back later, and worst case scenario, fleeing is almost always an option in the game. If combat is not your main fun factor, why would you let the difficulty spoil the fun of the game for you ? You can always try to install mods if the easy mode is too easy but be warned that configuring mods can be a hassle.

TLDR

[Francis_Mallman]

Originally posted by Elzquiem:

The default difficulty is demanding but not unforgiving if you are well prepared. So while I'm definitely younger than you, I can share tips that should ease your life in the game if you have trouble with motor skills.

• First and foremost, check your options and sensitivity settings. If you are uncomfortable when moving/aiming, you should tweak options until it feels right.

• When starting a new game, do not hesitate to just do quick trips to only loot stalker stashes, and flee when a threat is detected. In the Zone, only survival counts, and it's better to run away to live another day, than die trying ;

• Save often: from time to time with hard save, and often with quick save, to avoid losing lot of progress in one go ;

• Upgrade Skif's pistol to max, it's a surprisingly good weapon against humans ;

• Listen for teamfights that break out in the open : if no mutants are involved, you usually can loot all the bodies and find something that will help you gear up ;

• A-Life is bugged/broken right now, so stealth and spawning will mess you up. If an hostile NPC see you behind your back, just run to get into cover if you intend to pick the fight, so you can scout your surrounding, or just run away if it's mutants ;

• Mutants are bullets sponges and bloodsuckers are demanding. In your case, they will probably overwhelm you, due to how fast they are, so you can either compensate by tanking and having more heal/bandage (be warned in that case that repair cost is scary), more ammo to spray on them, or just run away. Nothing is gained by killing mutants, it's just pure survival, and fleeing is still the best, and ressources-free, way to solve such encounter in the wild ;

• All munitions are not equal: some are armor-piercing and some are effective on the flesh. Use those accordingly against your opponents, especially if you cannot headshot efficiently.

• Against low intelligence entities, use anomalies to your advantage, so they will basically suicide on them. Bloodsuckers are sadly an exception, but they can still be hit by some anomalies that will help you track them (chimical/fire anomalies) ;

• If you have motor issues and still forced to fight, you might need to consider new gun playstyle. If reflexes and tracking is out of the question (close-combat rifles, shotguns, etc), invest instead into a weapon/snipe that support a x4 scope (The AKM is cheap and can be mounted with one). If you notice hostily entities, try to get the advantage by picking them off in cover from a huge distance and by taking your time. I still have decent reflexes (I always use a shotgun for quick shots) but I'm way more at ease and proficient when I have the time, and the scope, to aim. 90% of my humans encounters are finished before they know what they hit them. Against mutants, just run whenever possible or use the terrain to gain advantage so they can't reach/hurt you. However, if you are in a quest where you are forced to defeat such foes, you will be out of luck. In that case, just prepare a better gear/heal sources and prepare to tank.

• Bloodsuckers love to take you from behind. If you are forced to fight them in a tight space, put your back into a corner, or try to find a choke point : they will be forced to attack you head on.

• Finally, if it's too much, just put the game on easy, progress a bit until you get better gear or protection, and then switch back to another difficulty. Try to see first if the easy difficulty solves your issue, or is too easy. As I said, you can always switch back later, and worst case scenario, fleeing is almost always an option in the game. If combat is not your main fun factor, why would you let the difficulty spoil the fun of the game for you ? You can always try to install mods if the easy mode is too easy but be warned that configuring mods can be a hassle.

Terrific post! Thank you!

Thanks everyone! I wasn’t expecting this much help!

[ImHelping]

I played the older games on max, and even after the patches enemies are more spongey on Normal in stalker 2 than they ever were in the old games.

Even my most recent CoP replays reminded me of this fact, where I would use the rusty cheap pump action and mocked as "The worst rifle?" IL-86 most of the game until it was endgame exo-armor cultists spam.

Now, with penetration stats being far more MMO tiers direct, a fun gun with 1 penetration will never compared to an awkward gun with 2 or more. (No, "Just use AP ammo/slugs idiot!" does not work, get your head out of the new vegas gutter. slug ammo double barrel or AP ammo AKM doesn't even compared to buckshot/standard ammo with 2 pen on the gun)

Also: Don't mistake "Guns killing bandits wearing jorts and no helmet good!" for "Overpowered". Don't get used to headshot landed sound effect meaning you got a kill, get used to it meaning you landed a headshot, keep shooting without the strongest guns, and sometimes even then once everyone and their grandma has power armor.

[Biscuitism]

Start with Stalker, go to Rookie if you need to.

[txfeinbergs]

Originally posted by Francis_Mallman:

Oh that mutant situation is a game breaker for me almost. I had a heart attack last year and I’m ‘not allowed to get upset or frustrated or angry anymore’. LOL. The mutants could literally kill me. LOL.

You sound just like me. I am 55 and have a history of getting really pissed off at games. The wife tells me I am not allowed to do that. I use WeMod to address that situation and it has been great. I was even able to complete Black Myth Wukong with it.

[livin']

Originally posted by Francis_Mallman:

Oh that mutant situation is a game breaker for me almost. I had a heart attack last year and I’m ‘not allowed to get upset or frustrated or angry anymore’. LOL. The mutants could literally kill me. LOL.

having one of the shotguns with more than 2 shots helps alot for mutants

[Pheex]

Originally posted by GrenadeMagnet6:

I'm around your age, and playing on Stalker (Regular) difficulty. I'm taking it easy in the game, just learning it before playing a serious game (played 25 hours so far).

I would suggest getting a mod that lowers the toughness of the mutants, as the mutants are _very_ tough to kill with the starting weapons, even on lower difficulties. I'm still in the starting zone of the game, and ran into a Bloodsucker yesterday that was almost impossible to kill. I probably put well over 70 rifle rounds into it, and my guns were also upgraded. I also had to run and dodge a lot, and use health-kits, bandages, energy drinks, and also maneuver to reload my gun, so it was a complicated affair trying to finally kill the pursuing single Bloodsucker.

The once you have the mod continue play on the Stalker/Regular difficulty.

I cannot suggest which mod to use, but research here on the Steam forums which mods are being used to lower mutant difficulties and they should provide links to the mods.

The mods are easy to install and remove, and the mod pages on Nexus provide installation instructions for each mod. Just note the mods have a risk where some upcoming patch could break the save games. But it would have to be some major change by the developers for that to occur (likely a low risk, but a risk nonetheless).

This is the way (at least for now). Use means to tweak the game to your desired difficulty; mods can do exactly this.

Either that or play on Easy, or play on medium with something like WeMod, although this can make the challenge go away too much possibly.

[Capt.PegLeg]

Originally posted by livin':

Originally posted by Francis_Mallman:

Oh that mutant situation is a game breaker for me almost. I had a heart attack last year and I’m ‘not allowed to get upset or frustrated or angry anymore’. LOL. The mutants could literally kill me. LOL.

having one of the shotguns with more than 2 shots helps alot for mutants

Yup, fully confirming that. I almost never walk around with a rifle because of those damn Controllers or Bloodsuckers. Shotgun make quick work with mutants.