Misery or vanilla?

[Khatangher]

Good day stalkers,

As the title implies, I'm wondering whether I should play misery or vanilla.
I'll be playing SoC and Clear sky first, so I'll have some feeling of Stalker before I start CoP.
I know misery is brutal, and I love the sound of it.

The thing is, I read that misery takes away from the story. So I'm wondering how much the misery takes away, will it ruin the feeling of the story or is it more like one scene missing?
Please don't spoil the story btw
Since I'm also streaming the playthrough, I'm not looking to play misery after vanilla. It's going to be one of the two

[ZastavaArms_Tavish]

The story isn't really something you'd care about missing out on.

[Khatangher]

That's an opinion, might be true though.
So is the story in misery and vanilla the same, eventhough they might both suck?
Or do I miss out on a lot in misery

[arottweiler]

Misery is a fantastic piece of work but it's insanely hard to the point of being too hard. When I played it I had to make a few tweaks to the config files. Nothing too major and I didn't go near any of the combat settings which are one of the best features. The enemy is much tougher and the AI is beefed up which makes it more challenging than vanilla.

[Khatangher]

I feel you, from the sounds of it its just more insane. I'll go misery on this one, thanks for the input

[Bugscuttle]

would love to see what you think about/how you handle Clear Sky. Going through it for the first time atm...

[Idi Amin]

Misery is more for sandbox play, with increased challenge to make up for the lack of story based gameplay.
However if you do play it, look up a mod called les miserebles which is a balance patch for Misery.

Also there is a mod which adds in ALL locations of the 3 games, and has a Misery add on with a les Miserebles mod fix.

[Martial.Lore]

I have over 2000 hours playing Misery so I can say with authority that if you are prepared to be patient, and play as if you were in the Zone for real, you will have a great time. Misery looks great and adds some mechanics that turn it into one of the deadliest survival sims out there. And, in many ways, that is how you need to look at it: Misery is a survival game with a deadly dangerous AI.

But it is not asking too much to start off with it. You will die a lot in the early game as you get used to the gameplay and start to build up your game knowledge and experience, but you won't look back in regret for having jumped straight into the deep end of the pool.

My fellow stalkers here will accuse me of bias in my opinion because I haven't played any other mods except Misery and haven't even played vanilla, and I would be the first to agree with them. I was just lucky that I found my gaming nirvana on my first campaign.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

Misery.. Either you hate it or love it.

For me though.. I dislike the mod. Its a great mod yes but i don't like to play it cause it is simply unbalanced economy-wise. Grinding upon hours for Ru's to repair weapons.. Every weapon you find is garbage... Like not useable. Thats just BS. Also you are literally a bullet and nade magnet. Thats really frustrating. Patience? Staying behind cover in a firefight because the game feels like you are running around with 1 HP just to get thrown nades ar that will 100% hit you and so on.

It's just not how i like to play stalker. Look im all into difficulty and simulation really and Misery is doing a lot of cool things but things said above ruins it for me which is really sad.

And recommending it to someone unfamiliar with the game, how the game works and the gameworld is just insane guys. Misery is a russian mod. Its weird, theres no tutorial and there are tons of items for sifferent things etc. OP will get overwhelmed by that stuff.


TL; DR: not recommended for first play through. Will get you frustrated most likely.

[GrayDimtriFox]

If you go vanilla, Try a mod that makes the graphics in HD(forget what its called), it'll add more creatures and change some of the gun mechanics to feel little more realistic. I do agree with previous post on how Difficult Misery is. I enjoyed it for what I played, but not recommending to first time players. Also if you enjoyed the first two games and want to play those areas in CoP, than look for the mod Call of Chenobyl. You also have the option to play with the standard story or alternate one. Also gives you a third option where you can play without one, Enjoy the "Zone" freely, and there is still quest to keep you busy on your trips in the "Zone". Happy hunting Stalker.

[PsyWarVeteran]

ALWAYS play vanilla first.

[Khatangher]

I guess it is really a taste kind of thing. I personally love the idea of every enemy being OP, feeling like every corner could be death waiting for me. I think it will bring an kind off immersive horror vibe to the game, where I have to think about my actions more carefully. Which is what I'm looking for. And thanks to these answers, I'm also prepared for some unfair scenario's.

Call of Chenobyl sounds interesting, but I'm assuming Misery and Chenobyl don't go together.
But I'll play the first two games first before I look into that one

[GrayDimtriFox]

Unfortunately they are not Compatible together. Another mod for the future as well would be CoP Complete, stays vanilla but with a texture overhaul. Adds the ability to Spawn guns, Bad guys, Monsters, Other neutral or friendly stalkers as well(it has some bugs though).

[vrle.junior]

Misery removes the intro cinematic,with explanes whats going on,and why are you in the zone in the first place,pushes some of the story elements a bit to the side (cuz of the survival aspect of the mod),im not sure if it removes the ending cinematics,since there is a series of slides at the end that differ based on what you did trough out the game,different endings basicly.So misery does remove a lot of the story.

[Martial.Lore]

Originally posted by vrle.junior:

Misery removes the intro cinematic,with explanes whats going on,and why are you in the zone in the first place,pushes some of the story elements a bit to the side (cuz of the survival aspect of the mod),im not sure if it removes the ending cinematics,since there is a series of slides at the end that differ based on what you did trough out the game,different endings basicly.So misery does remove a lot of the story.

I could be wrong but, as far as I'm aware, only the opening cinematic is different.

[Idi Amin]

You want les Misrebles fix for Misery, half of the features in Misery are poorly programmed, time consuming, outright bad and annoying.