Anomaly vs. Base game for returning player

[TheDapperHobo]

I played Call of Pripyat a few years back and just picked it up again. Should i go back and play base game then Anomaly or am I safe to jump straight into Anomaly?

[Heresy]

I really try to get into the stand alones but its just not for me. I like all the upgraded graphics and guns and all the meaningless crap as well. There is just no direction tho. Even in "story mode" as a stalker trying to play through with some kind of goal just isnt the same.

Its just a big sandbox playground really for you to do whatever you want which is the catch because there is nothing really at all to do. If you are familiar with the maps, the underground labs and everything else then there is no reason to explore or do anything at all in Anomaly. Could just be my problem but i simply get bored out of my mind if theres nothing to do.

So if you wanna have some mindless fun in a very good sandbox that can be altered with many different settings and modes then go for Anomaly. If you actually want to play a video game with a start middle and end then play COP and SOC again.

I have beat cop and soc each at least 5 times and have hundreds of hours in stand alone mods from COC to COM to now Anomaly. I still feel like going back to replay the base games rather than play Anomaly because there is actual substance, weight, progression and meaning to your actions. With Anomaly you can customise your game to include a long grueling hobo phase or none at all and immediately get a kit with exo skeletons, all the guns you want and whatever.

Its just too boring to explore zones that you already know every inch of with nothing new or exciting.

The end result of Anomaly is always the same for me as well and comes down to either raiding Rostok, Freedom Base, Militairy Base in dead city, Monolith base or yanov station depending on your faction. Once you get enough gear to take on one of these places you will and it will be difficult to raid because each of these places has 20+ NPCs to kill. Once they are dead thats it and the game becomes fairly bland after that. On the other hand raiding bases full of 20+ NPCs might also lead to alot of crashes.

Its hard to know what you want from your stalker experience. If you want a casual mindless friendly exploration of the zone or to play a real game is the question. I will still play Anomaly but outside of its built in main story and unless you play as a loner, there just isnt any content.

On the other hand ive been trying to spice up Anomaly with Ironman runs with 1 life. The problem is that mode doesnt really work in stalker with its randomness, silent mutants and hostile environment. It sure is something different tho and keeps you on your toes.

[я люблю котят]

Call of Priypat, then feel the water and decide if you want to go with Anomaly too. With 1.5.0 [BETA 3.0] just released - it's not really that bad and aimless as people think it is.

Ironman Anomaly runs are my favourite, and the randomness adds to the challange.

[Ray tracing is faster]

Start by deciding what type of mod you want to play. Story or freeplay? If you want to play a story mod, don't play Amomawy since it's primarily a freeplay mod that lacks good writing and quest design.

If you want to play freeplay, I recommend Call of Chernobyl by stason174 instead. Similar to Amomawy but without Misery which is a huge benefit, with more active A-Life, much more quest content, much improved level design thanks to MLR 8.3 (opposed to the useless MLR 6.2 used in Amomawy). It also runs much better.

[Λρ • DieMauer]

Originally posted by Heresy:

I really try to get into the stand alones but its just not for me. I like all the upgraded graphics and guns and all the meaningless crap as well. There is just no direction tho. Even in "story mode" as a stalker trying to play through with some kind of goal just isnt the same.

Its just a big sandbox playground really for you to do whatever you want which is the catch because there is nothing really at all to do. If you are familiar with the maps, the underground labs and everything else then there is no reason to explore or do anything at all in Anomaly. Could just be my problem but i simply get bored out of my mind if theres nothing to do.

So if you wanna have some mindless fun in a very good sandbox that can be altered with many different settings and modes then go for Anomaly. If you actually want to play a video game with a start middle and end then play COP and SOC again.

I have beat cop and soc each at least 5 times and have hundreds of hours in stand alone mods from COC to COM to now Anomaly. I still feel like going back to replay the base games rather than play Anomaly because there is actual substance, weight, progression and meaning to your actions. With Anomaly you can customise your game to include a long grueling hobo phase or none at all and immediately get a kit with exo skeletons, all the guns you want and whatever.

Its just too boring to explore zones that you already know every inch of with nothing new or exciting.

The end result of Anomaly is always the same for me as well and comes down to either raiding Rostok, Freedom Base, Militairy Base in dead city, Monolith base or yanov station depending on your faction. Once you get enough gear to take on one of these places you will and it will be difficult to raid because each of these places has 20+ NPCs to kill. Once they are dead thats it and the game becomes fairly bland after that. On the other hand raiding bases full of 20+ NPCs might also lead to alot of crashes.

Its hard to know what you want from your stalker experience. If you want a casual mindless friendly exploration of the zone or to play a real game is the question. I will still play Anomaly but outside of its built in main story and unless you play as a loner, there just isnt any content.

On the other hand ive been trying to spice up Anomaly with Ironman runs with 1 life. The problem is that mode doesnt really work in stalker with its randomness, silent mutants and hostile environment. It sure is something different tho and keeps you on your toes.

Thats the reason why i prefer Misery 2.2 with TAZ.

[Heresy]

I have over 200 hours in stock Misery 2.2 but its kinda hard to play after Anomaly. The stuttering gets to me know after all this time.

I miss the AI from Misery tho no other mod comes even close. Maybe ill try it with TAZ

[Ray tracing is faster]

TAZ is hard to play after playing STCoP 3.2. The latter is probably the best weapon mod we're gonna get for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., not counting future versions of course, unless Gunslinger or the full EFT Weapon Pack actually comes out.

Misery is just a hardcore concept that is not well thought out whatsoever, as the focus of Misery gameplay ends up being sorting through your 100,000 inventory items with no filters and using them to repair things. Misery = junk item collecting simulator

The only well done "hardcore gameplay" mod is NLC 7 but that's not a CoP mod.

[Heresy]

I enjoy inventory management and i like the rng of the available loot in Misery. After 1 or 2 playthroughs you know every single junk peace by name and wether its worth hauling or not and exactly which vendor to sell to for most profit.

Other than that the repair mechanics are very straight forwards and are in fact a nice touch as you can repair near broken guns very early on to 100% condition. I once found a FN FAL Para within like 15 mins of Misery and repaired it as soon as possible lol. Then spent 5000 RU per round hahah naw but it was expensive ammo.

All the other clutter such as cooking, tents, coooking in tents and tents with cooking while in a sleeping bag should be completely avoided and laughed at because they are pointless traps intended for noobs and extreme casuals that do not help your playthrough in any way.

Misery does have the longest and best Hobo phase and thats why its still played alot. Although once you know where all the important stashes are, where to farm, you can have alot of money within 1 hour of play.

I guess i also have to move on to another mod. Am bored of all my current versions of stalker. I wish that standalone mods could just be in 1 downloadable file. Rather than in 10 parts with 5 random patches and or updates that need to be applied in order then translation update then gun mod update . Its like 15 files by the time you are ready to play...

[Ray tracing is faster]

Originally posted by Heresy:

I guess i also have to move on to another mod. Am bored of all my current versions of stalker. I wish that standalone mods could just be in 1 downloadable file. Rather than in 10 parts with 5 random patches and or updates that need to be applied in order then translation update then gun mod update . Its like 15 files by the time you are ready to play...

A lot of the ones listed here are (this is an updated curated list):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GgBFCRIbc7TQ5DwWHvWaridX1G64PYoWItkLyr3pBPk/edit#gid=0

ModDB's hosting servers are limited and usually responsible for the multiple downloads. There's also this group on ModDB that repacks rarer, as well as newer and more cutting edge mods and translates the ones that need it. Essentially most of the newest and most innovative mods are not normally uploaded to ModDB, so we've taken it upon ourselves to do that.

https://www.moddb.com/groups/c-consciousness

[Heresy]

Originally posted by GND Jester:

Originally posted by Heresy:

I guess i also have to move on to another mod. Am bored of all my current versions of stalker. I wish that standalone mods could just be in 1 downloadable file. Rather than in 10 parts with 5 random patches and or updates that need to be applied in order then translation update then gun mod update . Its like 15 files by the time you are ready to play...

A lot of the ones listed here are (this is an updated curated list):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GgBFCRIbc7TQ5DwWHvWaridX1G64PYoWItkLyr3pBPk/edit#gid=0

ModDB's hosting servers are limited and usually responsible for the multiple downloads. There's also this group on ModDB that repacks rarer, as well as newer and more cutting edge mods and translates the ones that need it. Essentially most of the newest and most innovative mods are not normally uploaded to ModDB, so we've taken it upon ourselves to do that.

https://www.moddb.com/groups/c-consciousness

How is Oblivion Lost remake and how is NLC 7? good job on repacking these with english and all thats exactly what im looking for.

Also do you guys plan on eventually uploading Goldsphere to moddb?

[Ray tracing is faster]

Goldsphere will definitely go to ModDB once it's hand translated. The creator of it is even helping with the translation a bit.

Soon we're going to upload an English OGSR (unofficial expansion of OGSE 0693) with an optional OGSE Weapon Expansion Project ported to it (adds 130+ guns mostly from New Arsenal 6 with more PiP scopes), New Arsenal 6 itself, Dollchan 7, and more. Probably AMK 1.4 as well, and I'm also gonna see if I can create a mod pack for CoP containing Massive Simulation Overhaul (Misery's version is dumbed down from the main one), Atmosfear 3, Absolute Nature 4, Absolute Structures, and STCoP 3.2. There's a lot going on.

Oblivion Lost Remake is the most atmospheric S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experience I've played so far, and overall it's in my top 2 S.T.A.L.K.E.R. experiences in my 11 years of playing the franchise. It's basically what GSC intended for SoC, back when it was still S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost (e.g. Build 1935). Expanded story with a different ending, much better level design, vehicles, all the usual cut mutants return.

But the devs go above and beyond when it comes to some of its atmospheric design cues, definitely inspired by the Tarkovsky film. It follows perhaps the most well known GSC Oblivion Lost design documents to the word, unlike Lost Alpha which just became its own re-imagining with poor writing.

While it's one of the best balanced mods, it is weak when it comes to weapon selection. Just the old Oblivion Lost guns so vanilla + some of the cut ones like the RPK-74 and a few others, all low quality and mirrored. I will make a weapon addon for it that ports NA6/NLC guns but this cannot have 3D scopes sadly.

NLC 7 is one of the most intelligently designed mods and actually has, from a software engineering perspective, the best version of X-Ray engine with significantly improved reliability, error handling, and logging unlike every other X-Ray fork. Its gameplay mechanics are among the most advanced and most well thought out in the series, e.g.:

- The ultimate inventory system with a perfect artifact container system (not terrible like Misery's), cleaning your mask with water, and a lot more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP7LdwPuRuQ

- 3D scopes (not dual rendered), can toggle illumination and change reticles on the Kobra like in real life:
https://streamable.com/0ydhk

- Weapons can use multiple optics unlike most SoC based mods.

- Custom repair kits but not obnoxious like Misery repairing, no collecting junk items.

- An economy that revolves around trading artifacts by tier.

- Two of the same types of artifacts (e.g. Jellyfish) do not always have identical properties.

- Flashlight has different modes, e.g. wide close range beam vs more narrow longer range beam.

It's pretty hardcore like how in some places you gradually take damage unless wearing face protection, like in the Metro games. Hell, by default you can only save at campfires, but there's an addon that lets you save anywhere (but never save near Sidorovich's bunker, it can cause him to disappear and break the game).

There is a HUGE caveat for you and me and most of us here though: no proper English translation, only a broken English machine translation. For a mod so complex, this means you'd have to follow a guide (YouTube playlist) unless you understand Russian. And there are untranslated PDA minigames which are in Russian (they reveal stash locations), and in X-18 you have to solve a Russian anagram to advance.

[Heresy]

Oblivion Lost Remake 2.5 is also totally standalone right?

On the NLC 7 page it mentions not to install on C drive? why is that?

Ill prob download and try OLR 2.5 as its not very large and all in one file. I have no issues with machine translation i can usually figure it out. However the install for NLC 7 looks a little more complex.

Those little changes tho you describe in NLC 7 is what i was really looking for . Guess i will have to play them both ! My eye has been on Goldsphere for a very long time tho and i hope it gets completed eventually.

[Ray tracing is faster]

OLR 2.5 and NLC 7 are both completely standalone thankfully. Just extract the archive and then they're good to go. It's OLR that can possibly have issues working on the C drive, although I never had an issue.

There's also a new version of OLR coming out in the future (I'd guess 2021) which will have unrestricted A-Life, or close to it. That's going to be pretty crazy.

For NLC 7, run XR_3DA.exe instead of the launcher. After playing just a little bit of NLC 7 it becomes obvious that those creators are some of the most professional S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mod devs out there, and that they have a far better understanding of firearms than other modders.

I found the movement speed too slow in NLC 7. They can be changed in gamedata\config\creatures\actor.ltx and gamedata\config\system.ltx but let me know if you want me to just send you my versions of those files with vanilla-like movement speeds.

[Heresy]

Thats true Alpha where the A-life could beat the player to end game like was originally planned. that would be epic. I always thought the human A-life was the best AI ive ever seen even to this day. To give them pure freedom would be insane. I could only imagine the rng of pure OG stalkers near end game. I hope this is one day reality.

[Ray tracing is faster]

Oh here's some kind of hint for the X-18 anagram in NLC:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/456765862775488513/610519663494955034/Screenshot_2019-08-11_13.16.11.png

[Heresy]

So if OLR is the second best version you ever played, what is the best?