Is A-Life finally working?

[diesoon]

Please, only people who know what's up.

[Nite69]

Not fully no, they did improve it on 1.1 but still has problems, enemies are still spawned too close to you, some areas spawn too often, some don't spawn at all

[diesoon]

Originally posted by 0x41414141:

No. Same thing as when the game launched but with an expanded radius for the spawn bubble. NPC behaviour is still simplistic AF and well below what was seen in CoP/CS. At least they don't spawn 30m away from you on your back, now they spawn 150m away.

Such a shame, because the rest is pretty good.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by diesoon:

Is A-Life finally working?

Heeeeeell no.

[iansarmy1]

No, enemies will still spawn right in front of you, and their behavior is usually braindead.

[Dae]

No, A-Life 2.0 is not working and likely never will be what they were marketing for over a year prior to release, theres a reason the feature was removed from the store page 5 days before launching without warning or announcement till a week or so after launch.

What you see now is what you get.

[Nite69]

Originally posted by Virake:

Originally posted by diesoon:

Please, only people who know what's up.

not like in the original games, if that's your actual question. the current system is in line with what was they described in the pre-release interviews.

Originally posted by iansarmy1:

No, enemies will still spawn right in front of you, and their behavior is usually braindead.

this is not true, at least the first part.

in front your right, but beside you or behind you that still happens, because the stealth idicator pops up outta nowhere sometimes when not even moving

[AsPi4o]

Nope, won't work as intended for a long time I assume (if ever will). A-Life is one issue, but NPCs are stupid AF as well. Better play the first game, it even has the shadows from the flashlight lol

[durundallives]

modders are working on making NPC's less brain dead, so there is some hope. AI however is not related to A-life. A-life is still very much a cheap facsimile of what earlier games had in place. Its a poor mimic that folks have made numerous youtube videos about comparing between games. I suggest you find one if you want to really see what I mean.

who knows what will be possible once the modders get their hands on proper modding tools, but for now the best option we have is to keep reminding the devs of how far off the mark they are on those features

[Nyarlathotep]

The fair question is if it exists in any shape or form which it doesn't.

I was starting to doubt my self because many fellow OG fans turned to white knights were saying that even the trilogy had non functional/similar A.life experience.

I just finished trilogy (for the XXth time) with some texture refresh and I just verified what I was remembering. S2 doesn't have A.life, is just an after patch glorified spawn bubble.

I won't ever go to the details of comparing it with an overhaul like Radiophobia 3 (recommended!) which I replay right now and I have much more fun.

[SirBrutal]

it will probably be another 6 months to 1 year before it's close to functional . . . but I don't think it will ever be what they imagined.

[pasha27]

A-life is possible only after very good optimization of the game. At this stage of optimization, the presence of a full-fledged A-life in the game leads to a drop in fps to an extremely low level on top video cards (there is no talk of playing on mid-range video cards and consoles at all). Whether the developers will be able to do this is an open question. I assume that over time they will reach the level where A-life will work fully at least by region. That is, NPCs will have a full imitation of life within the boundaries of the regions of the world. I do not think that given the size of the open world and the fact that the game is made on the Unreal 5 engine, it is possible to get a general A-life throughout the entire world.

[Deranger]

And remember: SoC (the main game for me as I missed CS and CoP until 2016) had no A-life. It had something different to the shooters of its time, but it did not have A-life and was limited by maps (and completed, if you got past all the bugs of the original) as opposed to the modern ability of open world environments (which is pretty much why some elements of GSC A-life are not going to work the same; open world is not like a game with loaded zones).

It is still very limited, the NPCs can go from being really sneaky/clever to very dumb and blind (no idea why), and you can see how groups spawn/despawn at the more extreme ranges (about 80-100m? but your usual combat range is much less that 50m). The game does not really allow for a "full living world" with NPCs doing their own thing across a HUGE map (7.1km of 3 games v 65km in S2?), because it is a huge map and not a tiny part of it each time (loaded zones in OG SC trilogy, most the time the majority of the world is offline to you as opposed to what people "want" of A-life in SC2. A-life doing its own thing in a 65km map is going to be a HUGE task and probably cause a mountain of new issues (what is the end goal of Factions/NPCS? - too much and you end up with a world evolving in a negative way for example).

And due to the fact Stalker OG is 3 different games (with ups and downs of their own) plus the inclusion of players who went for Total Overhauls of the game (Anomaly/Gamma/Misery etc.), then there is NO way they can keep all this on board (I never really went for the total overhauls, each to their own, but Overhauls are Overhauls and to expect the new devs to make THEM games instead is a bit naive).

But many wanted different games and some have turned quite hostile because they fail to understand GSC made Stalker 2, not Gamma/Anomaly/Misery/Others plus cherry picking of which elements of all them people wanted (which will vary and so completely silly to expect this level of catering to hundreds of different player types).

They will never get A-life 2.0 right (yes it is definitely not right now) as there are too many DIFFERENT expectations of A-life that everyone perceives differently.

I got my monies worth out of this game so far anyway. Much more than my money wasted on Fallout 4 or the Metro series (not for me, I don't like the boring FO series or on-rails linear story games; each to their own).

[ShadyLurker]

Originally posted by Virake:

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep:

glorified spawn bubble

you are completely clueless.

This weirdo fanboy is in full cope mode lol

[Vi'ir Jul K'hane]

I fought at least 30 Monolith in Pripyat the other day. Every time I turned a corner another squad spawned. When I killed a squad and turned a corner, the killed squad will have respawned.

[Dae]

Originally posted by Vi'ir Jul K'hane:

I fought at least 30 Monolith in Pripyat the other day. Every time I turned a corner another squad spawned. When I killed a squad and turned a corner, the killed squad will have respawned.

Working as intended.

Originally posted by ShadyLurker:

Originally posted by Virake:

you are completely clueless.

This weirdo fanboy is in full cope mode lol

Now that the honeymoon phase is over the reviews will speak for themselves and no amount of downplaying on these forums will hide it.