Anomaly is the most overrated Mod ever

[IIIIlllIIIII]

Really.

Has modding gone too far? I see videos popping up where Anomaly looks like Escape from Tarkov. And where this game has become so much surival that we are not so far away from pissing and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ in this game. I played so much Misery since it came out and people always hated it. Anomaly is based upon that and its praised like jesus himself. Whats up with all that ? I played it, and i really can't see whats so good on it. I dont say it's bad either. Just another CoCMisery Spinnoff.
Everywhere the circlejerk.

Did i became a zombified stalker after all those years ?

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TL DR why did i made this post few years ago:

"So the motivation of this thread back in the days were several posts on /r/stalker and their circle jerk about anomaly. Some people asked for advice for different mods for vanilla games, like Misery and such, and people just told them go play anomaly instead.

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That led me to the creation of this post here. I personally find Anomaly good, as i do find misery good and all other mods for these wonderful games."

[Heresy]

SamzySmashy님이 먼저 게시:

PsyWarVeteran님이 먼저 게시:

People tend to follow the herd, tried and true fact.

Misery, Anomaly, CoC (and its other countless variants) etc. I can only tolerate those type of mods a couple of days. What's the point of roaming an empty Zone without a goal or doing the same things over and over when there are many great story mods with actual purpose?

The whole "you make your own goals / adventures" arguement is pretty absurd too. Who would prefer make-belive over actually well thought out missions that are tailored by the creator instead of dozens of fetch quests and other similarly "factory made" side missions?

And finally, every single freeroam / ""HARDCORE"" mod is piss easy, every single one. If you know how STALKER works and disregard the pointless variable changes and item bloat many of these mods add, you can get the best equipment after two days at most.

Give me a good story mod, not the same thing over and over with a different coat of paint.

I do think they have their appeal but admittingly most of it is say, getting to play as Monolith or Military for me.
I do plan to play Story mods, I'm just unaware of any of them. (Aside from Reborn for Clear Sky.....which is Reborn.)

Heresy님이 먼저 게시:

ANomly effectively makes all the other free roam mods obsolete. COC should be uninstalled and burned lol. It has basically nothing to offer anyone who has played through all 3 of the orig games tho and is rather boring or pointless.

How so?

Because anomaly contains everything in COC and just has more optional features and or item bloat or mechanics (some of which pointless).

The free roam mods offer nothing really in terms of exploration or story. It does have that one benefit of getting to play the different factions i guess. But what for ? All the other factions quest lines are half baked and or none existent.

[Redrick]

Yep overrated. Ditto for all the reasons already mentioned. I acknowledge the skill and ingenuity and contribution of the modders who built the sandbox mods especially the latest generation ones, but I need content. Simple as that. Give me a story mod any day of the week.

[Tazor]

I love Anomaly. It's my favorite mod. Do you have a suggestion for a better free play mod? Judging by what you said I think Dead Air is also a big no no for you. I don't want more mods that enhances the main STALKER games, already finished them countless times.

I tried COC. It looks like ♥♥♥♥. The gunplay feels like ♥♥♥♥. Armor feels useless. No main story line. It is extremely unstable crashing constantly (Anomaly did not crash once for me). Addons to improve COC? Forget about it. The crashing becomes so bad it makes the game unplayable even with a few of them.

So what better free play mods than Anomaly are out there? It feels like you are just bashing Anomaly without providing a better alternative.

[mr bruh]

One more advantage that Anomaly has is that the mods are actually updated , for CoC it took me a long time to actually get the game running since half the mods were not up to date

[UmbralPenumbra]

mr bruh님이 먼저 게시:

One more advantage that Anomaly has is that the mods are actually updated , for CoC it took me a long time to actually get the game running since half the mods were not up to date

I don't know what you're on but I'm still on 1.4.22, which I probably installed in 2018 or something

[Air]

Anomaly isn't really stalker. The engine overhaul has way too many programming inconsistency with the original game, even just Call of Pripyat, for example, but especially compared and contrasted with Shadow of Chernobyl. AI are generally unresponsive, combat is really floaty feeling. Don't get me wrong, there is a ton of insanely crazy stuff people have done with it, case in point this particular version of Provak Weapon pack combing several different mods, but for sure it not to be taken seriously it isn't a complete game. https://youtu.be/2MbUnS9bM-M

[MrMuffinz]

I don't think it's overrated.

I think it's a mix of "thing became popular so now I dislike it" and the fact that it's gotten a lot of attention especially after 1.5.1 came out. Popularity = more people talking about it.

A game being free can do that as well.

Though your post seems to be more about Anomaly being a bed for a bunch of ridiculous unfitting mods, rather than Anomaly itself, but that's kind of the point. It's so moddable that you could keep it as vanilla Anomaly as you want with some improvements like better sound and animations, or turn it into "we have Tarkov SP at home".

As for why I like it, I think it's BECAUSE it's like a middle ground between CoC and Misery. It's not open world Call of Pripyat, but also not pain simulator. It's very fair in that while it's unforgiving, you can still take down pretty powerful stalkers from the beginning with some well placed shots, without your gun jamming ever click, or dying in a single shot.
The economy also isn't awful to the point where selling an artifact or gun will maybe afford you a piece of bread lmao. It's still rough, but more manageable.

I'm also a fan of games where you "start from dirt" and with time can work your way to the top of the food chain. This game really scratches that itch for me. Along with the 4 storylines that will make you more famous in the game world, you can increase your rank and reputation in the Zone through those missions, random NPC quests, and tracking down high ranked stalkers, to become the #1 stalker.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

MrMuffinz님이 먼저 게시:

I don't think it's overrated.

I think it's a mix of "thing became popular so now I dislike it" and the fact that it's gotten a lot of attention especially after 1.5.1 came out. Popularity = more people talking about it.

A game being free can do that as well.

Though your post seems to be more about Anomaly being a bed for a bunch of ridiculous unfitting mods, rather than Anomaly itself, but that's kind of the point. It's so moddable that you could keep it as vanilla Anomaly as you want with some improvements like better sound and animations, or turn it into "we have Tarkov SP at home".

As for why I like it, I think it's BECAUSE it's like a middle ground between CoC and Misery. It's not open world Call of Pripyat, but also not pain simulator. It's very fair in that while it's unforgiving, you can still take down pretty powerful stalkers from the beginning with some well placed shots, without your gun jamming ever click, or dying in a single shot.
The economy also isn't awful to the point where selling an artifact or gun will maybe afford you a piece of bread lmao. It's still rough, but more manageable.

I'm also a fan of games where you "start from dirt" and with time can work your way to the top of the food chain. This game really scratches that itch for me. Along with the 4 storylines that will make you more famous in the game world, you can increase your rank and reputation in the Zone through those missions, random NPC quests, and tracking down high ranked stalkers, to become the #1 stalker.

Good and valid point, really like that one. And i guess you are right about my point i'm trying to make.

[n0mad23]

I'm playing on Anomaly for the first time - last time I played the STALKER series (4th time) was in 2017, and after completing the 3 games I gave CoC a try. I looked at some of the maps I hadn't seen before and was bored to tears. Uninstalled directly after.

In Anomaly, I'm currently finishing up the 3rd story line. Anomaly has kept me interested enough to keep playing. That it's set a decade after the end of CoP, and enough of the landscape is different (talking about places that were once hot and anomaly filled are now not) to make me find new safe pathways as many of my old favorites are gone.

Balancing was my biggest concern going in to play it, and while there's room for improvement, there have been some good choices made imo. Some of the story missions could use some tweaking and fixing, too - but they've been the exception to the rule.

The game is so configurable (in just about anyway you can imagine) with its options, Want more mutants in your landscapes? Turn that up. Want Emissions and/or Psi-Storms with horrifying frequency? Can do. Only want to see those storms every few days? Not a problem. Fast travel bother you? Does me, and mines turned off.

While there does seem to be a weird push by many modders to bring EFT elements into Anomaly (those EFT hands are better than what you'd have otherwise) I personally am relieved it hasn't gone to levels of customization like in EFT. I've had a rough time getting into EFT specifically because the STALKER series has left such an imprint on me over the last 14+ years (I was tracking SoC way before its release because of Nvidia showcases), and every time I've played Tarkov, there's a part of me looking out for anomalies and mutants. Does anyone really think EFT would be here without STALKER being the source of inspiration?

Do I think Anomaly will hold my interest or imagination as the original games have? lol - yeah, it's a mod. I am thinking that it I enjoy as I have through the final story line, I'll consider doing another play-through, but this time with Escape from Pripyat installed. Probably would have gone with that route had I known about it before diving into Anomaly.

Funny enough, a good half dozen of my Steam friends are now playing one of the STALKER games since the Summer Sale specifically as I've recommended playing them before giving Anomaly a try.

[n0mad23]

Cleaner-996-314님이 먼저 게시:

UZB-76님이 먼저 게시:

Whats up with all that ? I played it, and i really can't see whats so good on it. I dont say it's bad either. Just another CoCMisery Spinnoff. Everywhere the circlejerk.

But story mods are always interesting and I'm always looking for the next big one to keep me going. Imagine a story mod using Anomaly's Monolith engine with the scope of something like Stalkersoup. Sign me up.

Me, too. I'd be jumping on that myself.

[Martial.Lore]

I am intrigued to see how the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 devs balance the storytelling with the free roam elements of the series.

I think that the Metro devs went too far in the linear storytelling to the point that Exodus became a snoozefest, easily one of the most boring games I've ever played because the open world format just didn't support the linearity of the gameplay.

At the same time, I have reverted to my Misery game (I largely play Misery for the post-campaign freeplay, roaming the city to enjoy gunfights with Monolith patrols, etc.) because Anomaly is just too large and relatively empty.

I don't like fast travel in games because what's the point of not playing the map, and while I love having all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. maps in one place, it just becomes a chore in Anomaly to travel from one far-flung location to the next, especially when heavily burdened with loot.

Misery hits the sweet spot for me. But this, of course is no more than my personal preference and I don't expect anyone else to feel exactly the same way.

[Heresy]

Martial.Lore님이 먼저 게시:

I am intrigued to see how the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 devs balance the storytelling with the free roam elements of the series.

I think that the Metro devs went too far in the linear storytelling to the point that Exodus became a snoozefest, easily one of the most boring games I've ever played because the open world format just didn't support the linearity of the gameplay.

At the same time, I have reverted to my Misery game (I largely play Misery for the post-campaign freeplay, roaming the city to enjoy gunfights with Monolith patrols, etc.) because Anomaly is just too large and relatively empty.

I don't like fast travel in games because what's the point of not playing the map, and while I love having all the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. maps in one place, it just becomes a chore in Anomaly to travel from one far-flung location to the next, especially when heavily burdened with loot.

Misery hits the sweet spot for me. But this, of course is no more than my personal preference and I don't expect anyone else to feel exactly the same way.

Yeah im back to Misery myself as well. There is no other version of stalker that scratches the same itch or mortality in a world that doesnt care about you. You have to want to play it and be in the mind set to take things slow and be fully immersed or you will just get destroyed. Thats the best part about Misery is it demands so much from you and no other game offers that satisfaction of just surviving for more than 5 minutes lol.

[XanDer-XTX]

I've playing Anomaly lately and I'd say it's great for what it is. Something that I can complain about is the amount of survivalism elements were added onto it. I get it that it tries to be realistic as possible but there are too many things that are completely unnecessary and it only adds complexity to the game.

If Anomaly was like the vanilla game, in terms of easiness and less pointless stuff, it would be superior than CoP. Not to mention the lack of objectives, makes the mod less interesting.

[MrMuffinz]

XanDer-XTX님이 먼저 게시:

If Anomaly was like the vanilla game, in terms of easiness and less pointless stuff, it would be superior than CoP. Not to mention the lack of objectives, makes the mod less interesting.

Then just play Call of Chernobyl?

[DeadSerious]

Anomaly with mods is masterpiece. I can't stop playing. Especially modpacks like minotaur's, Escape from Pripyat or DeadAir Evolution 3.0. With Agressor Reshade on top of it. It is very challenging and absolutely immersive experience.