Pripyat part is bad...

[Qtael]

I finally got to Pripyat and the drop in quality between The Lesser Zone and Pripyat is so huge !

Stalker 2 is still my GOTY, but if i stop all the copium and look at the game realistically, it's a 9/10 game before SIRCAA, 7/10 after SIRCAA and close to Pripyat it's just an Indie game dev level quality of game design...

I am so sorry to be that negative but idk what can i say positively rather than, visuals looks great and the sound design is good ?!

Enemies should never ever spawn close to you !

They should be already in a pre planed places so you could see them and prepare for the encounter, or they should be in the real A-Life system where they walk around Pripyat for real and not in the 100m bubble

Walking around Pripyat and seeing some random mutants and Monolith spawning in the corner to just attack you for no reason with their 100 % perfect aim and bulletspongy armor is honestly one of the worst gameplay experienced i've had

I was exploring some abandoned building, was immersed, and than i see someone spotted me out of nowhere...i was like what is going on again ? The game decided to spawn a random zombie vs monolith fight right next to me but they all attack me...Nice, very fun !

Pripyat feels like a pre alpha tech demo of the environment with some basic AI code and spawners

I am at the point where i just dropped my difficulty to the lowest and i speed run the game cause there is no more immersive meaningful gameplay left to experience, also everyone is in an Exoskeleton and i have no idea who is an enemy or a Friend

Stalker is one of my favorite game franchise and i want only good for this game !

But i feel like my first impression was very much ruined by so many problems in the last 15 hours of gameplay or so

[Kryten]

agree. Same with the last missions..they feel rushed. Especially the spawning in the last mission where I fought through some facility was really immersion-breaking (had them spawn right before me at point-blank range in some situations)

[HiggsLP]

AI stupid? No queation about it.
But I had the best experience in war/shooter games (bf, doom, enemy territory).
SPOILERS
I was going into building, seeing colour peeling off the walls, some random stroller for kids rusting in corner hit the first chords in my soul.
And just when I was looting inside, the bullets started to ricochet around me, glass was shattering and then after some time, while I was crouching around, everything was quiet again.
Went on broken corner of house thinking, oh what a neat place for a sniper and found a well kitted ERM in corner.
Deleted rest of mutants and humans fighting around.
For me those moments elevetad the game from buggy mess to the best atmospheric game Ive ever played;)
Also the "sniper nests" were a nice touch also. Played the stalker side that time, lets see how it is on warden side this time.

I guess its about luck also, which part and spawns u stumble in...

[Belomor]

Same feelings, yeah
I played Pripyat on early patches and I guess it was even worse then. And also constant rain and bad optimization in this location.
In the end, I just gave up exploring Pripyat and quickly finished the game. Pripyat and everything after it really spoiled the impression of the game.