Question about Master difficulty

[F@n3Ambuscad@]

Hello, did you managed to finish the game on this difficulty? I would like some tips if it's possible. I played the stalker games multiple times but I never had the courage to go on this setting.

[Cujo]

It's not as bad as you might think. The real danger is anomalies. Fights come down to abusing the AI slow target aquisition. You find some cover, pop in and out and shoot them before they can lock on and return fire. Anomalies are dangerous bc you can't dodge them in the same way.

[Bandy]

'Master' basically means your headshots have meaning for you, but you need to inflict them before the AI headshots you. Give it a try, nothing to fear...

[Cujo]

Damage you do is unaffected, but the enemy AI is more accurate, so you have less time to do damage before you get lit up.

[marie pavie]

Originally posted by Crypt1cR1v@l:

Hello, did you managed to finish the game on this difficulty? I would like some tips if it's possible. I played the stalker games multiple times but I never had the courage to go on this setting.

You'll be fine. Just remember to crouch & shoot short bursts.

[Redrick]

Originally posted by Crypt1cR1v@l:

I would like some tips

Shoot the bad guys

[Bandy]

What do difficulties actually change in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games:
https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/7fxvt5/what_do_difficulties_actually_change_in_stalker/

[Thunder]

The game is easier on master

[F@n3Ambuscad@]

Thank you for the answers, for mods what did you guys used? I plan to use Sky Reclamation Project for this run.

[arsenicBumpnip]

Originally posted by Crypt1cR1v@l:

Thank you for the answers, for mods what did you guys used? I plan to use Sky Reclamation Project for this run.

I'm using SRP with a few of its optional addons; namely Alternative Ballistics Model, Less Grenade Spam, and More Reasonable Machinegun Nest Lethality (or w/e it's called) as far as things impacting gameplay are concerned.

The last one makes it so that MG nests like the one at the beginning of Cordon are no longer death beams while still being a major threat.

Less Grenade Spam, well, lessens grenade spam. I've never played the game without it, but I've heard that Clear Sky is pretty notorious for having nearly CoD World At War-levels of grenades, whereas my experience with LGS installed has been a pretty balanced experience in the sense that the AI still use 'nades to push me out of cover, but don't abuse them to no end like they did in, say, the OGSR mod for Shadow of Chernobyl.

The ABM mod makes some notable changes to weapon stats that overall makes stuff more powerful, but from my experience with it it still feels fully "Stalker-ey", e.g. it doesn't change the balance to "all guns have the accuracy of lasers and the lethality of a .50 cal" like some "realism" mods are known to do (*cough cough Oblivion Lost cough cough*), it just focuses on polishing out some of the jankyness present in the default stats (e.g. it corrects stuff like how an MP5 firing a pistol-caliber bullet somehow deals more damage than a VSS firing 9x39, how pistols and shotguns have unrealistically short effective ranges, or how silencers apparently utterly butchered certain stats when equipped). So far I've been enjoying CS's combat with ABM far more than any setup I've played ShoC with (Starter Pack, OL, and OGSR being the three notable ones).

Also I definitely recommend playing on Master! You certainly die a lot faster, but not so fast that fights feel insurmountable/unfair/etc. For me it's pretty much the perfect balance in terms of how many shots you can survive/how fast you need to react to threats/etc.

[Bandy]

The last one makes it so that MG nests like the one at the beginning of Cordon are no longer death beams while still being a major threat.

Less Grenade Spam, well, lessens grenade spam. I've never played the game without it, but I've heard that Clear Sky is pretty notorious for having nearly CoD World At War-levels of grenades...

That nest when you first step into Cordon is absolutely ridiculous, I tried at night in full stealth mode creep and could not get past. I simply walked to the other swamp exit and entered Cordon at the other entrance.

I certainly mod my games, but have not had a sense there is unbalanced grenade use in any of the STALKER games. Sure, we've all been killed by them, but I dish out as often as I take and think that's pretty fair assessment.

[arsenicBumpnip]

Originally posted by Bandy:

The last one makes it so that MG nests like the one at the beginning of Cordon are no longer death beams while still being a major threat.

Less Grenade Spam, well, lessens grenade spam. I've never played the game without it, but I've heard that Clear Sky is pretty notorious for having nearly CoD World At War-levels of grenades...

That nest when you first step into Cordon is absolutely ridiculous, I tried at night in full stealth mode creep and could not get past. I simply walked to the other swamp exit and entered Cordon at the other entrance.

I certainly mod my games, but have not had a sense there is unbalanced grenade use in any of the STALKER games. Sure, we've all been killed by them, but I dish out as often as I take and think that's pretty fair assessment.

Vanilla ShoC and CoP were both definitely fine grenade-wise. Like I said I haven't played CS completely vanilla before, I've just noticed people complain about it for that game in particular.

OGSR for ShoC is the only bad experience I've had with grenades, particularly because enemies will -always- use them asap if they have them, often to the exclusion of shooting at you even if they had a clear, close-range shot. It deadass had regular situations where I'd round a corner onto a heavily-armored enemy, start shooting them, and rather than shoot back they'd -switch to their grenade launcher in the middle of being hit repeatedly from only 30m away- just to one-shot me with a grenade. And it wasn't like these guys took more than ~5 shots to kill, they'd just make the switch -that- quickly after spotting you (and god help you if more than one of them has a launcher).

This in mind the mod also made all grenades far more lethal, to the point that a VOG was a one-shot from full HP even if you were on the edge of the explosion wearing a Beril suit, on top of also lacking a grenade indicator nor English versions of the "tossing a grenade!" lines like CS has (and most of the Russian lines are taunts rather than outright "grenada!" callouts, so especially at night you're basically down to getting lucky and hearing the pineapple drop in the grass near you in time to run away).