Stalker 2 just lacks so much as an open world

[martin.utikal]

There are parts of the game I love, like visuals, the atmosphere, the tension, the gunfights etc. but as an open world I think this game seriously lacks even behind games released 20 years ago. Or maybe its just not a game for me and I expected something else from it.

I really thought that famous A-life would mean, that when implemented, NPCs will have schedules, day night cycle, their own objectives and agenda, freely roam the map, Factions will dib into politics, will fight over territories etc. etc.

Right now the world is extremely dead and static. NPCs in the bases just stand, sit in one place alll day, or are doing one same animation 24hrs a day over and over. At best they are just brainlessly walking from point A to point B. In the wildeness there are no dynamic scenarios at all, all you can come across is just group A fighting group B (thats even with A-life expanded mod). Is it all just because A-life is broken right now, or are those things just generally missing in the game?

There are so many factions in the game, but they just seem pointless. You cant do specific missions for them, climb their ranks, or have reputation with them. Sure you can have green icons on map, which does absolutelly nothing, because you cant even get better prices at the factions owned vendors or maybe special items to buy or something. So what exactly is the point of factions here? They dont even seem to battle for territory among themselves or do some basic politics, have some agenda. Everything is just tied to the main missions. Or am I missing something there?

Game missing more mechanics, after 20hrs of gameplay it feels like I have seen everything this game has to offer in first two hours. Just go to a place, loot stashes and dead bodies or search for artifact, return to base, sell, repair gear and repeat. It would be nice to have more things to do, like above mentioned faction missions and politics, base building and running your base (finding NPCs vendors, trading, security, even maybe sending squads to hunt artifacrt or conquer other bases), setting up trade routes for example, factions figting over and concquerring territories, crafting, some minigames (there is guitar but that just sucks lol) etc. etc. Feels like you just do one thing in this game, which is shame for such a huge world. Or are there new mechanics later in the game and I just didnt get there yet? idk

The exploration itself is also lacking imo, there are way too many consumables to find and at the same time not enough other loot. It lacks variation very much. 90% of the things you find is just healing items, food and ammo, which gets old really quickly and it also eliminates the feel of danger from fights cause you can just heal endlessly + also eliminates the exitement from finding medkit, badage, bread or ammo, cause you just cant never run out. Sure this can be improved by mods like Mutant Loot and Project Itemization, but why those things are not in the vanilla game and you need mods for that? Still even with those mod the balance of exploration and economy seems to be broken.

I havent played the OG Stalkers so maybe I am just missing the point of the game, but feels like as an open world its lacking so many basic features and mechanics open world games had even 20 years ago (eg. Oblivion 2006). At least the life simulation should be there IMO, I really thought this will be a game with NPCs schdules, day-night cycles, objectives, dynamic events across the map, just a living immersive world you know. Right now world is extremely dead and static, NPCs are just props, just basic quest givers like in any generic open world. Its very dissapointing tbh. I mean whats even point to be able to talk to every NPC, if all you can do is just ask "Whats new in the zone?" where NPCs just drops two random filler lines about nothing, and it just doesnt have any purpose at all.

Is this just the missing A-life and could it be implemented, fixed along the way? I would like to say yes, but I kinda doubt it. More and more I am getting the idea that UE5 is just not suited for big open world games. The engine is just so performance heavy, there is just no power left to spare for this kind of simulation. Maybe its not even capable of such things. Idk its kinda scary that most new games are running in UE5, and I am honestly scared how Witcher 4 would look like when it will run on UE5.

I will just set the game aside for now, wait for A-life patches and some mods down the line to see, if the issues I mentioned can be adressed somehow. Maybe it will get better in time, or maybe this is just not a game for me, if not thats just not an issue what can youdo, well you can never please everyone. I am glad many people enjoy the game, but for me the open world and overall world simulation is just very poor right now.

[CadaveR]

Quite the opposite for me, sad you didn't enjoy the world.

[Spiritfarer]

About factions. There are some empty factions configs in game files, so its something did not implemented fully or cutted or something like that. I guess they had an idea, and had no enough time to implement it. There is something, prices are changing depending on reputation. But not much.
Well, you typed a lot, and i'd agree with everything. They'd better make this world smaller, but more dense.
Atleast we can say that its a good base for mods. Modders will fill this emptiness.
Or maybe half-year later it'll be a different game after 10-20 patches, who knows

[martin.utikal]

Originally posted by Spiritfarer:

About factions. There are some empty factions configs in game files, so its something did not implemented fully or cutted or something like that. I guess they had an idea, and had no enough time to implement it. There is something, prices are changing depending on reputation. But not much.
Well, you typed a lot, and i'd agree with everything. They'd better make this world smaller, but more dense.
Atleast we can say that its a good base for mods. Modders will fill this emptiness.
Or maybe half-year later it'll be a different game after 10-20 patches, who knows

Sure the base is good and its full of potential, but its unused potential right now sadly. Hope modders can fix it, but I dont know how modular an UE5 game could be.

[Adept]

You would be best off playing the old games with all of your points. IF they decide to fix this game one day it may be worth playing again. It is a dead and heartless game at the moment.

[Toombs]

Is worse than Shadow of Chernobyl,the game is efin empty,and the weather is a freaking nuisance , this is S.T.A.L.K.E.R JUNK 2.0

[Jeronimo]

That's the video game industry in 2024. It's all about making the least effort for maximal return. As long as players keep pre-ordering and buying half cooked games on day 1 nothing will change.

[martin.utikal]

Originally posted by Jeronimo:

That's the video game industry in 2024. It's all about making the least effort for maximal return. As long as players keep pre-ordering and buying half cooked games on day 1 nothing will change.

Thats what I feel about the game, like everything went into visuals and building a huge open world space, but there were no resources, time, will left to actually fill that world with quality content.

[2ugly]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCEYLShDXU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4&t=0s

Like I've said... they've focused far too long on looks, simplicity, greed, and lazyness.

[dylo]

Originally posted by Jeronimo:

That's the video game industry in 2024. It's all about making the least effort for maximal return. As long as players keep pre-ordering and buying half cooked games on day 1 nothing will change.

it's so true and yet no way to fight this system since no one will wait a month before buying a freshly released game to try it out by themselves in order to lower sales, it just doesn't work

[DeadlyMustard]

Agreed and I don't know how people are defending against this. Its completely lacking in its current state I can't be bothered to play on. Will probably come back to it in a year or two and see if it's any better then.

[martin.utikal]

Originally posted by 2ugly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHCEYLShDXU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJu_DgCHfx4&t=0s

Like I've said... they've focused far too long on looks, simplicity, greed, and lazyness.

Bro, preach that, I hate UE5, every game released in UE5 so far was janky, technical and performance mess and the worst all of the games ultimately feels the same.

Also I think UE5 is just not capable of running a proper massive open world game. I fear for what Witcher 4 would look like :(

[Mancubus]

Originally posted by martin.utikal:

There are parts of the game I love, like visuals, the atmosphere, the tension, the gunfights etc. but as an open world I think this game seriously lacks even behind games released 20 years ago. Or maybe its just not a game for me and I expected something else from it.

I really thought that famous A-life would mean, that when implemented, NPCs will have schedules, day night cycle, their own objectives and agenda, freely roam the map, Factions will dib into politics, will fight over territories etc. etc.

Right now the world is extremely dead and static. NPCs in the bases just stand, sit in one place alll day, or are doing one same animation 24hrs a day over and over. At best they are just brainlessly walking from point A to point B. In the wildeness there are no dynamic scenarios at all, all you can come across is just group A fighting group B (thats even with A-life expanded mod). Is it all just because A-life is broken right now, or are those things just generally missing in the game?

There are so many factions in the game, but they just seem pointless. You cant do specific missions for them, climb their ranks, or have reputation with them. Sure you can have green icons on map, which does absolutelly nothing, because you cant even get better prices at the factions owned vendors or maybe special items to buy or something. So what exactly is the point of factions here? They dont even seem to battle for territory among themselves or do some basic politics, have some agenda. Everything is just tied to the main missions. Or am I missing something there?

Game missing more mechanics, after 20hrs of gameplay it feels like I have seen everything this game has to offer in first two hours. Just go to a place, loot stashes and dead bodies or search for artifact, return to base, sell, repair gear and repeat. It would be nice to have more things to do, like above mentioned faction missions and politics, base building and running your base (finding NPCs vendors, trading, security, even maybe sending squads to hunt artifacrt or conquer other bases), setting up trade routes for example, factions figting over and concquerring territories, crafting, some minigames (there is guitar but that just sucks lol) etc. etc. Feels like you just do one thing in this game, which is shame for such a huge world. Or are there new mechanics later in the game and I just didnt get there yet? idk

The exploration itself is also lacking imo, there are way too many consumables to find and at the same time not enough other loot. It lacks variation very much. 90% of the things you find is just healing items, food and ammo, which gets old really quickly and it also eliminates the feel of danger from fights cause you can just heal endlessly + also eliminates the exitement from finding medkit, badage, bread or ammo, cause you just cant never run out. Sure this can be improved by mods like Mutant Loot and Project Itemization, but why those things are not in the vanilla game and you need mods for that? Still even with those mod the balance of exploration and economy seems to be broken.

I havent played the OG Stalkers so maybe I am just missing the point of the game, but feels like as an open world its lacking so many basic features and mechanics open world games had even 20 years ago (eg. Oblivion 2006). At least the life simulation should be there IMO, I really thought this will be a game with NPCs schdules, day-night cycles, objectives, dynamic events across the map, just a living immersive world you know. Right now world is extremely dead and static, NPCs are just props, just basic quest givers like in any generic open world. Its very dissapointing tbh. I mean whats even point to be able to talk to every NPC, if all you can do is just ask "Whats new in the zone?" where NPCs just drops two random filler lines about nothing, and it just doesnt have any purpose at all.

Is this just the missing A-life and could it be implemented, fixed along the way? I would like to say yes, but I kinda doubt it. More and more I am getting the idea that UE5 is just not suited for big open world games. The engine is just so performance heavy, there is just no power left to spare for this kind of simulation. Maybe its not even capable of such things. Idk its kinda scary that most new games are running in UE5, and I am honestly scared how Witcher 4 would look like when it will run on UE5.

I will just set the game aside for now, wait for A-life patches and some mods down the line to see, if the issues I mentioned can be adressed somehow. Maybe it will get better in time, or maybe this is just not a game for me, if not thats just not an issue what can youdo, well you can never please everyone. I am glad many people enjoy the game, but for me the open world and overall world simulation is just very poor right now.

OHHH reaallyyyyyy...i thought it was my imagination....worse bug-fest than Cyberpunk vanilla i have ever seen in a game .......and they want a nomination...for a beta stage game....

[martin.utikal]

Originally posted by Mancubus:

Originally posted by martin.utikal:

There are parts of the game I love, like visuals, the atmosphere, the tension, the gunfights etc. but as an open world I think this game seriously lacks even behind games released 20 years ago. Or maybe its just not a game for me and I expected something else from it.

I really thought that famous A-life would mean, that when implemented, NPCs will have schedules, day night cycle, their own objectives and agenda, freely roam the map, Factions will dib into politics, will fight over territories etc. etc.

Right now the world is extremely dead and static. NPCs in the bases just stand, sit in one place alll day, or are doing one same animation 24hrs a day over and over. At best they are just brainlessly walking from point A to point B. In the wildeness there are no dynamic scenarios at all, all you can come across is just group A fighting group B (thats even with A-life expanded mod). Is it all just because A-life is broken right now, or are those things just generally missing in the game?

There are so many factions in the game, but they just seem pointless. You cant do specific missions for them, climb their ranks, or have reputation with them. Sure you can have green icons on map, which does absolutelly nothing, because you cant even get better prices at the factions owned vendors or maybe special items to buy or something. So what exactly is the point of factions here? They dont even seem to battle for territory among themselves or do some basic politics, have some agenda. Everything is just tied to the main missions. Or am I missing something there?

Game missing more mechanics, after 20hrs of gameplay it feels like I have seen everything this game has to offer in first two hours. Just go to a place, loot stashes and dead bodies or search for artifact, return to base, sell, repair gear and repeat. It would be nice to have more things to do, like above mentioned faction missions and politics, base building and running your base (finding NPCs vendors, trading, security, even maybe sending squads to hunt artifacrt or conquer other bases), setting up trade routes for example, factions figting over and concquerring territories, crafting, some minigames (there is guitar but that just sucks lol) etc. etc. Feels like you just do one thing in this game, which is shame for such a huge world. Or are there new mechanics later in the game and I just didnt get there yet? idk

The exploration itself is also lacking imo, there are way too many consumables to find and at the same time not enough other loot. It lacks variation very much. 90% of the things you find is just healing items, food and ammo, which gets old really quickly and it also eliminates the feel of danger from fights cause you can just heal endlessly + also eliminates the exitement from finding medkit, badage, bread or ammo, cause you just cant never run out. Sure this can be improved by mods like Mutant Loot and Project Itemization, but why those things are not in the vanilla game and you need mods for that? Still even with those mod the balance of exploration and economy seems to be broken.

I havent played the OG Stalkers so maybe I am just missing the point of the game, but feels like as an open world its lacking so many basic features and mechanics open world games had even 20 years ago (eg. Oblivion 2006). At least the life simulation should be there IMO, I really thought this will be a game with NPCs schdules, day-night cycles, objectives, dynamic events across the map, just a living immersive world you know. Right now world is extremely dead and static, NPCs are just props, just basic quest givers like in any generic open world. Its very dissapointing tbh. I mean whats even point to be able to talk to every NPC, if all you can do is just ask "Whats new in the zone?" where NPCs just drops two random filler lines about nothing, and it just doesnt have any purpose at all.

Is this just the missing A-life and could it be implemented, fixed along the way? I would like to say yes, but I kinda doubt it. More and more I am getting the idea that UE5 is just not suited for big open world games. The engine is just so performance heavy, there is just no power left to spare for this kind of simulation. Maybe its not even capable of such things. Idk its kinda scary that most new games are running in UE5, and I am honestly scared how Witcher 4 would look like when it will run on UE5.

I will just set the game aside for now, wait for A-life patches and some mods down the line to see, if the issues I mentioned can be adressed somehow. Maybe it will get better in time, or maybe this is just not a game for me, if not thats just not an issue what can youdo, well you can never please everyone. I am glad many people enjoy the game, but for me the open world and overall world simulation is just very poor right now.

OHHH reaallyyyyyy...i thought it was my imagination....worse bug-fest than Cyberpunk vanilla i have ever seen in a game .......and they want a nomination...for a beta stage game....

Yeah lol, if GSC had balls they would just put an early access sticker on this game, cause thats all it is in this state right now lol

[За Монолит]

That's it, you haven't played the originals and are comparing the game to a AAA game that made their whole gimmick NPCs with lives.

The original Stalkers are different than Stalker 2 in the way of the open world aspect.

Stalker 2 REALLY does have a lot more to offer directly compared to the originals. There is a lot more action in The Zone and PLENTY of unmarked side-objectives to find, stashes and gear to loot, mutants to encounter, puzzles to unlock areas, beautiful sights.

Sorry you don't feel the same.

[ST Ry]

Originally posted by dylo:

Originally posted by Jeronimo:

That's the video game industry in 2024. It's all about making the least effort for maximal return. As long as players keep pre-ordering and buying half cooked games on day 1 nothing will change.

it's so true and yet no way to fight this system since no one will wait a month before buying a freshly released game to try it out by themselves in order to lower sales, it just doesn't work

Lol not true.

You fight by not buying. Then you purchase on deep discount when/if it gets fixed.

Don't worry about everyone else.