This game's kinda... Like it's cool, but boring

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Let me preface this by saying, I only ever played on Veteran, and eventually I got half decent at the game. I progressed past the point where you infiltrate that military outpost to find Solder, and I tried both routes, helping the cops once, and helping Richter once. I feel like the combat is exhilarating, but the game gets incredibly stale very fast because all you do is go here, find medkits, alcohol, energy drinks and bullets, so that you can then go over there to find more bandages, beer, water and canned food, oh, and bullets, so that you can then go to a third place to find sausages, bread, maybe a grenade, and more bullets.

The armor and masks seem relatively trivial, and the artifacts don't provide you with cool super powers or anything, at best they reduce radiation or improve carry weight or give extra stamina or bleed resistance. I want to get into this game but that's the problem is that there's nothing to get into... The whole game is just shooting things, looting things, then walking somewhere else for 20 minutes so you can shoot more things and loot more things. The looting is incredibly unrewarding because you're not finding anything special. One could metaphorically compare bullets, alcohol, beer, medkits, bandages and food/water to firewood; The gameplay loop is a wood stove, and all you're doing is getting more wood to keep the fire going. I realized that very early on, and as a result, the game began to seem irredeemably and incorrigibly boring and stale. I even found a cool gun with an ACOG scope on top of a water tower during my second playthrough, but that didn't even help, because the overall gameplay loop was still exactly the same, exactly as stale and boring, just with a cooler gun.

I received the game for free so I don't feel super regretful, I had some livestreams playing the game and it seemed good for a while. But the fact that I've only played it for 17 hours and I already feel this tired and bored of it is a scathing indictment of what Stalker 2 has delivered to its players. The viewership for the game was consistently bad, but I think that's because in the end, you're spending more time walking from place to place than actually fighting; And what's worse, the fights are utterly meaningless, because you're only finding sausages and bandages whenever you loot the location you just fought your way through. There is literally nothing I like about this game, except for the combat. I feel like the devs totally failed to deliver an experience here that could appeal to anybody other than those who find joy in watching paint dry.

If you actually enjoy this game, then buddy, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what you find fun. Maybe you've got weed or alcohol augmenting the experience, lord knows I used to make bad games seem good by staying intoxicated while playing them, but a sober mind with no substance use patterns to lean on? No way in hell is a sober person enjoying this game... I mean, how COULD you? I'm not trying to be a jerk, or to troll anybody, I'm just genuinely confused about how a sober person could possibly find this game fun. It feels like going to work. It feels like waking up for school. I genuinely don't believe anybody sober could possibly enjoy this game, unless they have the personality of a literal cinder block.

I want to understand why it's good, please MAKE ME UNDERSTAND why it's good >_>

[Nite69]

it gets better the further ya get in the story, its a long story too, it uses every zone across the map so nothing is added for no reason

[ẹvo۱vtÿőИ™]

It's ok buddy. This game, like many other cool things in life, is not for everyone.

[PostNutClarity]

I have a cat.

[ẹvo۱vtÿőИ™]

Originally posted by PostNutClarity:

I have a cat.

Name, or it didn't happen!

[n0mad23]

Sounds like you never even made it to Garbage. Yeah, not for you. It's OK, plenty of games around for everyone to enjoy something.

[WhiteSnake76]

Gues this is not a game for you...
I enjoy it a lot, found lots of special weapons, and get really frightened sometimes, and sometimes i know where a big mutant is, and i am not happy to go into its area.
Currently i am in Pripyat and i got the feeling there could be something lurking around every corner.
Oh, i get shot at by a sniper on the boulevard of Pripyat, and i know what building he must be in, but have not spotted him yet

[Booker T-Witt]

"If you actually enjoy this game, then buddy, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what you find fun. Maybe you've got weed or alcohol augmenting the experience, lord knows I used to make bad games seem good by staying intoxicated while playing them, but a sober mind with no substance use patterns to lean on? No way in hell is a sober person enjoying this game... I mean, how COULD you? I'm not trying to be a jerk, or to troll anybody, I'm just genuinely confused about how a sober person could possibly find this game fun. It feels like going to work. It feels like waking up for school. I genuinely don't believe anybody sober could possibly enjoy this game, unless they have the personality of a literal cinder block."

Wtf kind of take is this? lol because people have different taste and preferences than you, they must be on drugs? So if something isn't good for you it can't be good for someone else? They have to have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ personality? like what? This game is extremely popular too, so apparently a lot of people don't have the refined taste and personality that you do. And you say you're not trying to be a jerk, while saying such ♥♥♥♥♥♥ things in the same paragraph. It's honestly kind of comedic. Why take you seriously when you disrespect so many people in one swoop simply because their preferences are different than yours?

[carnagefiend]

Who goes out into the zone to find loot?

I came back to the zone to find artifacts. I wandered the land to drink vodka in the fetid corpse of the USSR. I mindfully comb through the wreckage of an orphaned community, noting dearth of life and culture. I gazed across the industrial zones, reminiscing on behalf of the workers and livelihoods that would never return.

I stopped for a moment and listened to the rain while inside a train car.

I noted the sloshing mud under my boots when near a swamp.

I stopped to watch the wind whisk up a column of leaves.

You're not enjoying the game because you're abusing it. It's not a looter shooter. You found a stash because someone tucked away supplies for later. The vodka wasn't placed there for YOU, it was there because someone left it for themselves.

Maybe the person with the personality of a cinderblock is the one playing it like it's a whack-a-mole. My suggestion? Stop looting. Enjoy the scenery. Don't pick up that double-barrel. Don't loot the entire stash. Double down on hunting artifacts. This game requires you to play a role. So play it, you'll have your own fun.

[LittleMissMurder]

I think the game reveals its hand too soon. You're exposed to a bloodsucker of all things as the first enemy you encounter. It may have been sheer luck, but I found a SEVA-D suit very early on, and that made progress a LOT easier. There is little in the way of struggling to improve your kit, like ferinstance in the way a fantasy RPG would. Decent weapons and armor are too easy to come by.

Once you get a good suit of armor, an automatic shotgun and an accurate assault rifle with scope, the mutants don't pose much of a challenge and humans are ridiculously easy to take down. The game turns into a bit of a grind fest and if I'm honest, if it weren't for weight and stamina mods I would have set the game aside. As it is now, exploration is a rewarding exercise instead of that groannnn-look-at-all-this-♥♥♥♥-I-have-to-cart-back-to-base-at-2mph vibe. Right now all I'm looking for are upgrade schematics and the rarer artifacts. It's what keeps me from ploughing through the main quest, but on the flip side the game has few surprises anymore.

Mods are your lord and saviour. They can streamline a lot of the tedium without outright cheating, allowing you to experience the whole zone and follow the main quest at your own pace.

[Who?]

you read all the Fanboy name in all threads over and over again

[Poot]

Originally posted by Discipline Before Dishonor:

Let me preface this by saying, I only ever played on Veteran, and eventually I got half decent at the game. I progressed past the point where you infiltrate that military outpost to find Solder, and I tried both routes, helping the cops once, and helping Richter once. I feel like the combat is exhilarating, but the game gets incredibly stale very fast because all you do is go here, find medkits, alcohol, energy drinks and bullets, so that you can then go over there to find more bandages, beer, water and canned food, oh, and bullets, so that you can then go to a third place to find sausages, bread, maybe a grenade, and more bullets.

The armor and masks seem relatively trivial, and the artifacts don't provide you with cool super powers or anything, at best they reduce radiation or improve carry weight or give extra stamina or bleed resistance. I want to get into this game but that's the problem is that there's nothing to get into... The whole game is just shooting things, looting things, then walking somewhere else for 20 minutes so you can shoot more things and loot more things. The looting is incredibly unrewarding because you're not finding anything special. One could metaphorically compare bullets, alcohol, beer, medkits, bandages and food/water to firewood; The gameplay loop is a wood stove, and all you're doing is getting more wood to keep the fire going. I realized that very early on, and as a result, the game began to seem irredeemably and incorrigibly boring and stale. I even found a cool gun with an ACOG scope on top of a water tower during my second playthrough, but that didn't even help, because the overall gameplay loop was still exactly the same, exactly as stale and boring, just with a cooler gun.

I received the game for free so I don't feel super regretful, I had some livestreams playing the game and it seemed good for a while. But the fact that I've only played it for 17 hours and I already feel this tired and bored of it is a scathing indictment of what Stalker 2 has delivered to its players. The viewership for the game was consistently bad, but I think that's because in the end, you're spending more time walking from place to place than actually fighting; And what's worse, the fights are utterly meaningless, because you're only finding sausages and bandages whenever you loot the location you just fought your way through. There is literally nothing I like about this game, except for the combat. I feel like the devs totally failed to deliver an experience here that could appeal to anybody other than those who find joy in watching paint dry.

If you actually enjoy this game, then buddy, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what you find fun. Maybe you've got weed or alcohol augmenting the experience, lord knows I used to make bad games seem good by staying intoxicated while playing them, but a sober mind with no substance use patterns to lean on? No way in hell is a sober person enjoying this game... I mean, how COULD you? I'm not trying to be a jerk, or to troll anybody, I'm just genuinely confused about how a sober person could possibly find this game fun. It feels like going to work. It feels like waking up for school. I genuinely don't believe anybody sober could possibly enjoy this game, unless they have the personality of a literal cinder block.

I want to understand why it's good, please MAKE ME UNDERSTAND why it's good >_>

Try Far Cry 5 it sounds more your kinda game and I'm not taking the p.

Also try and encompass the idea that people think differently to you, see different things, think different things.

Finally, I am being polite, your not. Why are you trying to insult someone because they don't agree with you ?

Are you a lefty ?

[Rotorhead]

What can I say, 240 hours in and I'm having a blast, especially with A-life now being in play, the zone gets very feisty very quickly. Of course if this is not your bag, maybe you don't like exploring or something, well there is always tetris.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Originally posted by Poot:

Originally posted by Discipline Before Dishonor:

Let me preface this by saying, I only ever played on Veteran, and eventually I got half decent at the game. I progressed past the point where you infiltrate that military outpost to find Solder, and I tried both routes, helping the cops once, and helping Richter once. I feel like the combat is exhilarating, but the game gets incredibly stale very fast because all you do is go here, find medkits, alcohol, energy drinks and bullets, so that you can then go over there to find more bandages, beer, water and canned food, oh, and bullets, so that you can then go to a third place to find sausages, bread, maybe a grenade, and more bullets.

The armor and masks seem relatively trivial, and the artifacts don't provide you with cool super powers or anything, at best they reduce radiation or improve carry weight or give extra stamina or bleed resistance. I want to get into this game but that's the problem is that there's nothing to get into... The whole game is just shooting things, looting things, then walking somewhere else for 20 minutes so you can shoot more things and loot more things. The looting is incredibly unrewarding because you're not finding anything special. One could metaphorically compare bullets, alcohol, beer, medkits, bandages and food/water to firewood; The gameplay loop is a wood stove, and all you're doing is getting more wood to keep the fire going. I realized that very early on, and as a result, the game began to seem irredeemably and incorrigibly boring and stale. I even found a cool gun with an ACOG scope on top of a water tower during my second playthrough, but that didn't even help, because the overall gameplay loop was still exactly the same, exactly as stale and boring, just with a cooler gun.

I received the game for free so I don't feel super regretful, I had some livestreams playing the game and it seemed good for a while. But the fact that I've only played it for 17 hours and I already feel this tired and bored of it is a scathing indictment of what Stalker 2 has delivered to its players. The viewership for the game was consistently bad, but I think that's because in the end, you're spending more time walking from place to place than actually fighting; And what's worse, the fights are utterly meaningless, because you're only finding sausages and bandages whenever you loot the location you just fought your way through. There is literally nothing I like about this game, except for the combat. I feel like the devs totally failed to deliver an experience here that could appeal to anybody other than those who find joy in watching paint dry.

If you actually enjoy this game, then buddy, I'm worried about you. I'm worried about what you find fun. Maybe you've got weed or alcohol augmenting the experience, lord knows I used to make bad games seem good by staying intoxicated while playing them, but a sober mind with no substance use patterns to lean on? No way in hell is a sober person enjoying this game... I mean, how COULD you? I'm not trying to be a jerk, or to troll anybody, I'm just genuinely confused about how a sober person could possibly find this game fun. It feels like going to work. It feels like waking up for school. I genuinely don't believe anybody sober could possibly enjoy this game, unless they have the personality of a literal cinder block.

I want to understand why it's good, please MAKE ME UNDERSTAND why it's good >_>

Try Far Cry 5 it sounds more your kinda game and I'm not taking the p.

Also try and encompass the idea that people think differently to you, see different things, think different things.

Finally, I am being polite, your not. Why are you trying to insult someone because they don't agree with you ?

Are you a lefty ?

Naah... I lost a lot of subs on Youtube because I told people why they should vote for Trump in November. RFK's plans for the health standard (less processed food, etc), Elon's government efficiency plans, Trump's desire to restore net neutrality and revoke section 230 protections from social media companies if they continue to act as publishers rather than platforms, etc. Not a lefty.

But I have to ask, those who stand in defense of the game, do you smoke pot or drink alcohol while playing it? There's no expectation of honesty, I mean this is just a steam forum, your business is your business, and I'm only asking in jest. But if you did by chance partake in marijuana or imbibe alcohol each time you played Stalker 2, then you'd be confirming my bias and affirming what I said to be true. Sure, perhaps I sound like a jerk, I will grant that. But if you do roll up, toke a bong, take a shot of whiskey or drink a beer every time you play this, then you can't call me wrong, because at that point, you don't know if it's Stalker 2 that you enjoy or the mental state associated with intoxication.

If I was smoking weed again (it's been 8 months now since I last did), then I would definitely love Stalker 2. Absolutely, I would definitely love it. The rest of the world would fall away, and I'd be very immersed in the game, the vibes, the feelings, the music, the horror, the atmosphere. Marijuana actually enhances focus rather than reducing it, contrary to popular belief. Alcohol literally makes peeing feel fun, so no arguments there. But I just genuinely can't see what everybody else sees with this game, and I have to wonder why. It seems so LIMITED. Like... There's literally nothing here but atmosphere, and I feel like if you can't tune into that atmosphere, then you're not left with good gameplay to fill in the cracks. It feels VERY stale to me. Maybe I've been spoiled by games like 7 Days to Die, or The Long Dark, or Project Zomboid, games with depth and mechanical richness which offer much more in the gameplay loop than simply fetching fuel for a wood stove metaphorically speaking.

I truly feel like I just, can't, get it. And I feel like there has to be a reason for that. I'm a normal person, I'm not a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, I'm a jerk sometimes yeah, but I also know fun when I see it. This game, just... Man it's missing something, it's missing ten things. I feel like this must be an entry level video game for people who don't play video games, as though a gamer with developed standards and expectations couldn't enjoy the mechanical shallowness of it. The world is big, and unique, there's no copy/pastes of assets, indeed, credit where it's due. It's a wonderfully handcrafted world. But it's wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle, that's the vibe I got from this in my 17 hours of playing it. There was nothing to grip me, and I want to feel like I'm missing out, because then the problem would be with my perception and not the game, then I could perhaps return to it and finally enjoy it. But I can't >_> I want to understand it, please make me understand why it's fun lol

[Booker T-Witt]

Originally posted by Discipline Before Dishonor:

Originally posted by Poot:

Try Far Cry 5 it sounds more your kinda game and I'm not taking the p.

Also try and encompass the idea that people think differently to you, see different things, think different things.

Finally, I am being polite, your not. Why are you trying to insult someone because they don't agree with you ?

Are you a lefty ?

Naah... I lost a lot of subs on Youtube because I told people why they should vote for Trump in November. RFK's plans for the health standard (less processed food, etc), Elon's government efficiency plans, Trump's desire to restore net neutrality and revoke section 230 protections from social media companies if they continue to act as publishers rather than platforms, etc. Not a lefty.

But I have to ask, those who stand in defense of the game, do you smoke pot or drink alcohol while playing it? There's no expectation of honesty, I mean this is just a steam forum, your business is your business, and I'm only asking in jest. But if you did by chance partake in marijuana or imbibe alcohol each time you played Stalker 2, then you'd be confirming my bias and affirming what I said to be true. Sure, perhaps I sound like a jerk, I will grant that. But if you do roll up, toke a bong, take a shot of whiskey or drink a beer every time you play this, then you can't call me wrong, because at that point, you don't know if it's Stalker 2 that you enjoy or the mental state associated with intoxication.

If I was smoking weed again (it's been 8 months now since I last did), then I would definitely love Stalker 2. Absolutely, I would definitely love it. The rest of the world would fall away, and I'd be very immersed in the game, the vibes, the feelings, the music, the horror, the atmosphere. Marijuana actually enhances focus rather than reducing it, contrary to popular belief. Alcohol literally makes peeing feel fun, so no arguments there. But I just genuinely can't see what everybody else sees with this game, and I have to wonder why. It seems so LIMITED. Like... There's literally nothing here but atmosphere, and I feel like if you can't tune into that atmosphere, then you're not left with good gameplay to fill in the cracks. It feels VERY stale to me. Maybe I've been spoiled by games like 7 Days to Die, or The Long Dark, or Project Zomboid, games with depth and mechanical richness which offer much more in the gameplay loop than simply fetching fuel for a wood stove metaphorically speaking.

I truly feel like I just, can't, get it. And I feel like there has to be a reason for that. I'm a normal person, I'm not a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, I'm a jerk sometimes yeah, but I also know fun when I see it. This game, just... Man it's missing something, it's missing ten things. I feel like this must be an entry level video game for people who don't play video games, as though a gamer with developed standards and expectations couldn't enjoy the mechanical shallowness of it. The world is big, and unique, there's no copy/pastes of assets, indeed, credit where it's due. It's a wonderfully handcrafted world. But it's wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle, that's the vibe I got from this in my 17 hours of playing it. There was nothing to grip me, and I want to feel like I'm missing out, because then the problem would be with my perception and not the game, then I could perhaps return to it and finally enjoy it. But I can't >_> I want to understand it, please make me understand why it's fun lol

Op I think you should take a look at yourself and your worldview and maybe consider reshifting how you see your opinions vs those of others. First, you don't HAVE TO LIKE THE GAME, you're allowed to not like or think it's fun. But just because you personally don't think its fun, doesn't mean other people who enjoy it are below you, which it is how it definitely comes off. Second, instead of victimizing yourself, like oddly explaining why you lost subs and say it was about politics, consider that maybe it's your demeanor. Like you kind of come off like a ♥♥♥♥ dude, consider humbling yourself, you're no better than the people you're talking down to.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Originally posted by Booker T-Witt:

Originally posted by Discipline Before Dishonor:

Naah... I lost a lot of subs on Youtube because I told people why they should vote for Trump in November. RFK's plans for the health standard (less processed food, etc), Elon's government efficiency plans, Trump's desire to restore net neutrality and revoke section 230 protections from social media companies if they continue to act as publishers rather than platforms, etc. Not a lefty.

But I have to ask, those who stand in defense of the game, do you smoke pot or drink alcohol while playing it? There's no expectation of honesty, I mean this is just a steam forum, your business is your business, and I'm only asking in jest. But if you did by chance partake in marijuana or imbibe alcohol each time you played Stalker 2, then you'd be confirming my bias and affirming what I said to be true. Sure, perhaps I sound like a jerk, I will grant that. But if you do roll up, toke a bong, take a shot of whiskey or drink a beer every time you play this, then you can't call me wrong, because at that point, you don't know if it's Stalker 2 that you enjoy or the mental state associated with intoxication.

If I was smoking weed again (it's been 8 months now since I last did), then I would definitely love Stalker 2. Absolutely, I would definitely love it. The rest of the world would fall away, and I'd be very immersed in the game, the vibes, the feelings, the music, the horror, the atmosphere. Marijuana actually enhances focus rather than reducing it, contrary to popular belief. Alcohol literally makes peeing feel fun, so no arguments there. But I just genuinely can't see what everybody else sees with this game, and I have to wonder why. It seems so LIMITED. Like... There's literally nothing here but atmosphere, and I feel like if you can't tune into that atmosphere, then you're not left with good gameplay to fill in the cracks. It feels VERY stale to me. Maybe I've been spoiled by games like 7 Days to Die, or The Long Dark, or Project Zomboid, games with depth and mechanical richness which offer much more in the gameplay loop than simply fetching fuel for a wood stove metaphorically speaking.

I truly feel like I just, can't, get it. And I feel like there has to be a reason for that. I'm a normal person, I'm not a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, I'm a jerk sometimes yeah, but I also know fun when I see it. This game, just... Man it's missing something, it's missing ten things. I feel like this must be an entry level video game for people who don't play video games, as though a gamer with developed standards and expectations couldn't enjoy the mechanical shallowness of it. The world is big, and unique, there's no copy/pastes of assets, indeed, credit where it's due. It's a wonderfully handcrafted world. But it's wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle, that's the vibe I got from this in my 17 hours of playing it. There was nothing to grip me, and I want to feel like I'm missing out, because then the problem would be with my perception and not the game, then I could perhaps return to it and finally enjoy it. But I can't >_> I want to understand it, please make me understand why it's fun lol

Op I think you should take a look at yourself and your worldview and maybe consider reshifting how you see your opinions vs those of others. First, you don't HAVE TO LIKE THE GAME, you're allowed to not like or think it's fun. But just because you personally don't think its fun, doesn't mean other people who enjoy it are below you, which it is how it definitely comes off. Second, instead of victimizing yourself, like oddly explaining why you lost subs and say it was about politics, instead of considering maybe it's your demeanor. Like you kind of come off like a ♥♥♥♥ dude, consider humbling yourself, you're no better than the people you're talking down to.

Where did I victimize myself?