I want to like Anomaly but...

[Yomu]

As gorgeous and rich this mod is, there is one thing that completely ruins any sort of fun apart from exploring - The absolutely horrendous bullsh*t AI.

Now I'm very much aware that vanilla AI wasn't good to begin with but Anomaly devs took that and made it even more broken mess.

Stalkers: Even with Hardcore aim turned off they insta lock on to me in pitch darkness as soon as they see a pixel of my head, making any stealth gameplay (which is the essence of the word STALKER) impossible less than 1km away from them. I was trying to sneak into the Brain scorcher at 2 AM almost constantly prone in high grass without any noise yet patrols still spot me 90% of the time. Which brings me to the other problem - AI ignore transparent textures such as grass & trees. You basically have to keep hard terrain between you at all times if you want to actually stalk.

Mutants Completely silent aimbot homing missles are not fun. I'm looking at you Red forest chimera running at me at full speed with voice chat on Mute and one hitting anything less than an exo skeleton. Same as stalkers they insta lock on to you as soon as you enter their terriroty, ♥♥♥♥ camoflauge, ♥♥♥♥ any tactics.

I wanted to dive deep into this mod but sh*t like this makes it impossible to take seriously.

[::GH☢ST::]

Well I confirm all of it, I had bad experience with AI my self, so I'm back to COC for now, I have invested some time to make my self a COC soup of other mods that I like, and I keep a backup of it, in case I have to reinstall it.

[Cujo]

Originally posted by alesk:

That and the item bloat, the fact that there is not much to do in the game except for a poor rehashed story and repeatable quests which barely give enough rewards. And my personal favorite, the dynamic turn speed for weapons, making heavy rifles artificially turn very slow to be """realistic""". You stay in hobo phase for too long IMO unless you are somehow lucky with armor/weapon looting.

Sadly this is the fate with most COC modpacks unless you somehow assemble one yourself to fit your needs (which is time consuming) but that still leaves you with nothing to do aside from kill and fetch quests.

Do what I did and skip it. Go replay SHOC or COP (or even CS) with some mods and addons.

The mods and addons for anomaly make it much better of a game. I currently have 70-80 mods enabled that improve sound design, add more quests, nerf mutants a bit, and gives stalkers a dynamic interaction pattern. They no longer attack on sight but rather wait until they can confirm your identity to open fire. This also applies to other stalker squads so you don't see a group of elite bandits camping on a road and wiping everyone from 50 miles with a gauss rifle. Makes the game much more interesting.

In addition I have one that increases the enemy footstep noise sound and makes silencers work as intended. Stealth is less pure stealth and more "shoot and move" as the AI always will attack your "last seen" position and silencers don't update it if it's an insta kill.

So yeah. It's the most up to date CoC sandbox to date and it provides you tons of options to tailor your game. But it is not a railed story game like the others were. Some people don't like that, and that is fine.

[Yomu]

@Cujo

70-80 mods on top is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of modding and a compatibility nightmare. I just wish such glaring issues were fixed in testing before release. I'd appreciate a list of your mods for AI and mutant tweaks.

[Cujo]

Originally posted by 𝚑𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚔𝚒:

@Cujo

70-80 mods on top is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of modding and a compatibility nightmare. I just wish such glaring issues were fixed in testing before release. I'd appreciate a list of your mods for AI and mutant tweaks.

Sure - I gave it to another person so I have the whole pack uploaded to google drive. I use JSGME to allow myself easy peasy compatability checking and loading of mods. I have included a profile for JSGME with all the mods set up in the order that works, and a .txt document explaining each of the mods briefly.

Here is the link to the modpack itself:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k0-ZBvT7f-vvPINHy5IW2dcJLgwGt_61/view?usp=sharing

Here is the .txt file explaining each mod:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pG-zMeblg6KCjC1aS4-32Up9-DUtISYr/view?usp=sharing

And here is the dynamic stalker mod (added it after I made the pack of mods):
https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly/addons/anomaly-ai-extension

And if you don't know what JSGME is, here's that as well:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/call-of-chernobyl/downloads/jsgme

JSGME allows you to add mods to separate folders and use an application to add them to gamedata. With this method they can be deactivated at any time, and don't permanently overwrite anything. You can create mirrors of your files to revert to vanilla if you delete something, and profiles to add mods in specific orders.

If you need help with setting this all up feel free to message me.

[Yomu]

based and cheekipilled

[Xplosive]

the thing about anomaly is that it gets boring quick. it would be way more enjoyable if someone added in the story from CoP to give you a reason to stay in the zone.

this is the main reason why the misery+gunslinger repack is vastly superior to anomaly. sure, anomaly has some of the most adavanced features+performance tweaks but without any sense of purpose to it all it falls flat on its face.

anomaly is great for around 10 hours or so but by the end of it you have pretty much exhausted all the initial novelty of the mod and you just ask yourself whats the point in continuing to play the mod?

about the AI, after about 30 hours or so of playing anomaly in the last 2 years with a lot of addons, ive found that it has some of the best, most balanced AI ive experienced in any stalker mod. you actually can use stealth if you wear a disguise and you can even infiltrate enemy bases that way.

the mutants are similar to misery mutants in that they are pretty brutal. i dont see anything wrong with chimeras one shotting you. after all they are meant to be one of the most dangerous mutants in the game. ive found mutants in other stalker mods to be too much of a cake walk which gets rid of any sort of challenge.

[Yomu]

Originally posted by Xplosive:

the thing about anomaly is that it gets boring quick. it would be way more enjoyable if someone added in the story from CoP to give you a reason to stay in the zone.

this is the main reason why the misery+gunslinger repack is vastly superior to anomaly. sure, anomaly has some of the most adavanced features+performance tweaks but without any sense of purpose to it all it falls flat on its face.

anomaly is great for around 10 hours or so but by the end of it you have pretty much exhausted all the initial novelty of the mod and you just ask yourself whats the point in continuing to play the mod?

about the AI, after about 30 hours or so of playing anomaly in the last 2 years with a lot of addons, ive found that it has some of the best, most balanced AI ive experienced in any stalker mod. you actually can use stealth if you wear a disguise and you can even infiltrate enemy bases that way.

the mutants are similar to misery mutants in that they are pretty brutal. i dont see anything wrong with chimeras one shotting you. after all they are meant to be one of the most dangerous mutants in the game. ive found mutants in other stalker mods to be too much of a cake walk which gets rid of any sort of challenge.

The disguise system is not good practical stealth you can constantly rely on. Terrain needs to work, camo needs to work I've already explained how the awareness meter of AI is impossibly high.

As for mutants they're brutal because they're broken simple as that. Chimera encounters have one of 2 outcomes:

1. You never see or hear it coming until it pounces on you killing you instantly. Forgot to F5? Toobad. SuCh Is LiFe In ThE zOnE

2. You manage to see it in the distance, pray there's a big rock or something nearby that you can use to block its aimbot jumps that otherwise are near impossible to dodge on the open. Pray there's not more than one.

Reloading saves because of dumb luck is cheesy and unfun. The chimera in vanilla made distinct footsteps or some sort of audio cue to give the player a chance to know what's coming. It's can also be hunted unlike Anomaly where IT knows where you are at all times.

[Heresy]

Originally posted by 𝚑𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚔𝚒:

As gorgeous and rich this mod is, there is one thing that completely ruins any sort of fun apart from exploring - The absolutely horrendous bullsh*t AI.

Now I'm very much aware that vanilla AI wasn't good to begin with but Anomaly devs took that and made it even more broken mess.

Stalkers: Even with Hardcore aim turned off they insta lock on to me in pitch darkness as soon as they see a pixel of my head, making any stealth gameplay (which is the essence of the word STALKER) impossible less than 1km away from them. I was trying to sneak into the Brain scorcher at 2 AM almost constantly prone in high grass without any noise yet patrols still spot me 90% of the time. Which brings me to the other problem - AI ignore transparent textures such as grass & trees. You basically have to keep hard terrain between you at all times if you want to actually stalk.

Mutants Completely silent aimbot homing missles are not fun. I'm looking at you Red forest chimera running at me at full speed with voice chat on Mute and one hitting anything less than an exo skeleton. Same as stalkers they insta lock on to you as soon as you enter their terriroty, ♥♥♥♥ camoflauge, ♥♥♥♥ any tactics.

I wanted to dive deep into this mod but sh*t like this makes it impossible to take seriously.

Funny i have the exact opposite experience in ANomaly. The AI is too dumb, brain-dead and literally broken half the time. Sometime if you reload a save they wont aggro but rather just stand there and wait to be killed. They are nowhere even close to the AI from Misery or Autumn Aurora in terms of a challenge and they are actually fairly pathetic in Anomaly.

Also thats the only thing to really do in Anomaly is "explore" which you would of done half a dozen times had you played the normal games.....

Have fun in your lifeless sandbox lol..

[Xplosive]

@𝚑𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚔𝚒 if you actually feel mutants are broken in anomaly then that means you probably arent well equipped to take them on in the first place, especially high tier mutants. sounds like you are to use to unmodded mutants where they posed no real challenge.

let me ask you this: do you have an auto shotty + decent armor? it makes mutant encounters somewhat easier but even then low tier muants can sometimes wipe the floor with you. most people who play anomaly enjoy that aspect. mutant encounters should be dangerous even when youre properly geared. its what makes the mod somewhat immersive.

there are a lot of variables when it comes to the disguise system which you can alter to make it extremely reliable. you might want to disable most of them in the disguise options. you can actually make the disguise system similar to the hitman games where once you have it on, enemies wont detect you unless you do something suspicious.

as far as the ai shooting at you through bushes and the such, sounds like youre making the mistake of relying on bushes or tall grass to win engagements. i believe it can be altered with some AI addons but most people who play anomaly quickly get use to it. the rule of thumb when engaging enemy factions in anomaly is to always have hard cover. if they catch you by surprise you need to run away.

[Xplosive]

the ai in misery is challenging because it has xray vision. in anomaly they tried to eliminate that. you can atually add back in the xray vision ai in anomaly with an ai addon if you want that sort of challenge.

[Yomu]

Xplosive

I always carry a Saiga 12 for mutants and run medium armor usually without issues. The biggest problem with them is that they're DEAD SILENT, they literally make no noise as they run towards you. Have you ever had a dog chase you? Then you'd know what I'm talking about. They either purposely removed the mutant footsteps for some "hardcore" bs or straight up forgot to add them. I'm not against mutants being hard even with heavy armor. Make them deal great damage I don't care but give a second of warning to the player, that way you rely on skill and reflexes instead of rolling the dice.

I don't use the disguise system ever. I'm not saying it can't work but it's never the first thing that comes to forest warfare.

As for the terrain thing If you read my original post you'd see I mentioned that already. I know how it works and it's not realistic if the enemy can see through bushes but you can't. Making use of high grass for camouflage and stalking should not be a "mistake" in any STALKER game.

Sounds like you're just adapting to the bs instead of solving the problem realistically.

[Xplosive]

are you wearing headphones? if you find them dead siltent you need the addon that gets rid of mutant ambient noise. i belive its called SOUNDS SCAPE overhaul or something like that. it adds in mutant sounds from a distance.

like i said, if you find it too much of an issue, you can somewhat fix the terrain issue yourself but you will need to use of the AI addons. i believe it causes some AI issues though like making the AI too dumb. its probably the reason why the anomaly devs chose to allow the ai to shoot you through tall grass and shrubs.

[Yomu]

Originally posted by Xplosive:

are you wearing headphones? if you find them dead siltent you need the addon that gets rid of mutant ambient noise. i belive its called SOUNDS SCAPE overhaul or something like that. it adds in mutant sounds from a distance.

like i said, if you find it too much of an issue, you can somewhat fix the terrain issue yourself but you will need to use of the AI addons. i believe it causes some AI issues though like making the AI too dumb. its probably the reason why the anomaly devs chose to allow the ai to shoot you through tall grass and shrubs.

Yes I don't play Stalker with anything but headphones. Already got a pack of mods that work well enough. Unfortunately for the AI, I believe it will always be either too weak or too strong, it's just how they designed it to function.

[Heresy]

Originally posted by 𝚑𝚒𝚋𝚒𝚔𝚒:

Originally posted by Xplosive:

are you wearing headphones? if you find them dead siltent you need the addon that gets rid of mutant ambient noise. i belive its called SOUNDS SCAPE overhaul or something like that. it adds in mutant sounds from a distance.

like i said, if you find it too much of an issue, you can somewhat fix the terrain issue yourself but you will need to use of the AI addons. i believe it causes some AI issues though like making the AI too dumb. its probably the reason why the anomaly devs chose to allow the ai to shoot you through tall grass and shrubs.

Yes I don't play Stalker with anything but headphones. Already got a pack of mods that work well enough. Unfortunately for the AI, I believe it will always be either too weak or too strong, it's just how they designed it to function.

Its how all good AI is designed.... In order to be challenging and compete with a human the AI needs to cheat. Every single bot in every single game has aimbot. Most have x-ray as well and will trace your head through walls if you make sound. Its how they are all built.

[Boardalius]

try call of the zone. it's CoC but MUCH more polished