All of the games in this series are buggy, finicky messes that take a lot to get used to. The shooting doesn't feel good at all, and SoC and Clear Sky both take a very long time to really get going. All these things considered, these games should have been niche titles that sold incredibly poorly.
I consider all three to be good games, but there's just so much that should detract the ordinary person from liking them.
So how did these games get so popular?
cheeki breeki
DON'T BE A JERK! HOLSTER YOUR WEAPON!
-Top tier atmosphere
-Interesting lore
-Was in development for almost a decade = lots of hype
-Slavic mentality and environments = super popular in eastern Europe. STALKER literally is a phenomenon there.
That being said, OP is a faggot. The first game never felt weird or clunky to me. More like a mix of Far Cry and System Shock 2, with hint of Fallout. The gunplay feels damn satisfying thanks to bullet physics.
>The first game never felt weird or clunky to me
>The gunplay feels damn satisfying thanks to bullet physics.
Yeah bullets literally disappearing and dice roll accuracy is so satisfying and not clunky or shitty at all
>the games are casual filters, so they should not sell well!
wew lad. Even Demon's / Dark Souls debunked that myth years ago. People aren't such weak bitches you think they are, most just become that way since modern, western AAA devs treat their customers like morons.
Plus, STALKER is a pure PC exclusive series, which is one of the reasons it's not suffering of the console cancer shit. Instead of being yet another "cinematic" action rollercoaster ride, they instead provide calm atmospheric, engaging experiences, for more matured and thinking players.
>Yeah bullets literally disappearing
only applies to CS
>and dice roll accuracy
Bullets always go roughly where I aim. You need to learn to aim. It's not much different from Counter-Strike, except you got literal ADS at your disposal.
If you are still missing your targets with late-game guns, while doing the Low-crouch and aiming with a scope, you're lacking some literal GIT GUD.
>implying landing a clean headshot with an AK, from a long distance, using nothing but ironsights, isn't satisfying as fuck.
The atmosphere and gunplay is what made the series so damn popular.
To bad stage 3b is flawed due to the awful "stealth".
>The atmosphere and gunplay is what made the series so damn popular.
And modding community kept it alive to this day.
>To bad stage 3b is flawed due to the awful "stealth".
The stealth is fucking fine. People are just too used of this annoying "binary" AI in modern """Stealth""" games, where the AI is half blind and completely deaf.
Plus, 3B ain't for "stealth". It's all about packing tons of Endurance artifacts, and sprinting across the entire Zone, not giving a fuck.
have older version for your education.
>The shooting doesn't feel good at all
Because its the only after apocalypse game that done right.
>Fear and reward makes exploring exciting.
>You‘re not god. You can easily die if you‘re careless
>Good balance between lawful and lawless
>Atmosphere
>Map design thats actually not boring. (Holy shit i still remember that underground filled with bloodsucker)
>NPCs that are not completely retarded
>Most importantly, you feel like you in the game
>To bad stage 3b is flawed due to the awful "stealth".
"stealth" in STALKER isn't sneaking past enemies, it's more like being a little bitch. You shoot them before they notice you, then you hide until there's a good opportunity to return fire. I find it more fun than being a exogod.
>stealth is fine
No it isn't, it's flawed. Light doesn't matter to the AI, it's just a hit detection wether or not the AI can see you and if you're in their low AI range. You also got the fact that the AI is omnipotent because the developers made it so the AI always gets your current location instead of getting the location they last saw you at. You've also got the fact that bushes barely do anything for as the AI can see trough them while you can't.
...
> OP complains that the bullets are random and dice rolls and the guns are unsatisfying
> in a game where none of the guns are hitscan, bullets have drop and travel time, and your success depends entirely on how well you can aim and adjust to guns bullet velocity
> in a game where, outside of some of the handguns, every gun is deadly and viable
I see someone lost at the first bandit camp in the Cordon in SOC and came to Sup Forums with their butt in tatters.
Get past Agroprom and Rostok and you'll be singing a different tune. And hopefully have learned how to aim.
>You also got the fact that the AI is omnipotent because the developers made it so the AI always gets your current location instead of getting the location they last saw you at
Wrong.
The AI in STALKER is NOT all-knowing and auto-seeking. They indeed DO seek into your last KNOWN position, but they can track you with both vision AND hearing. If you keep making noise, they will know this.
Countless times I've sniped a couple guys in a squad, sneaked away from the scene through back exit, and witnessed the surviving morons circle around my previous shooting position. The mill building in Cordon, with direct line of sight to the military controlled bridge, is a great example of this.
>You've also got the fact that bushes barely do anything for as the AI can see trough them while you can't.
This is also bullshit. The NPCs are literally fucking BLIND when it comes to bushes! I've literally sat behind one, clearly seen the enemy close in, but these fucks don't even realize to attack me.
In other words, you are just noisy elephant in an antique shop, and thought that since all you need for "stealth" in other games is to press Crouch, it would work in STALKER.
I bet you've never sneaked in and out of the Aprogrom base, grabbing the case without killing or alerting anyone?
>It's not much different from Counter-Strike
It's extremely difficult.
>late-game guns
Even those miss sometimes, though they're miles above earlygame trash.
>with an AK
Sadly, all vanilla AKs are earlygame trash. There's not even a single AKM-47 with muh 7.62x39.
You're just making assumption out of thin air. The AI in STALKER is all-knowing as long as you're in their range which I claimed in my last post.
>It's extremely difficult.
sounds like you're just very bad. Even my wife cleared vanilla just fine on her own, beating the Car Park with the puny Mak and Sawnoffs like a boss.
>Sadly, all vanilla AKs are earlygame trash
your face's trash. The full-size AK74 is the first game even a total rookie should be able to beat the game with, especially when coupled with a scope and AP rounds. The Rapid AK especially is just a beast.
>AKM-47
my inner /k/ommando cries.
Plus while a popular round, it's not that common in Slavic countries anymore. It would also be yet another pointless cartridge to choose from.
I'm making my STATEMENTS out of 8 years of playing and modding STALKER games. From actual experience in other words.
The enemies in STALKER are not all knowing, and they are super easy to trick. Similarly, they can end up tricking you if you're not careful.
Damn, I haven't seen these many wrong statements and shit opinions in one thread in a long time.
You're still to stupid to even understand what I'm talking about, having a discussion with you is pointless.
>he thinks he hot shit because he didn't get seen sneaking into aprogrom base
Come an user, that's child's play.
>sounds like you're just very bad. Even my wife cleared vanilla just fine on her own
You're in every fucking STALKER thread defending it. You should remember me then, I posted the pictures of how inaccurate the guns are.
>The Rapid AK especially is just a beast.
It's OK, but it degrades fast and you can't repair guns because lol nope.
I think the gun I liked to shoot the most in SoC was the unique Deagle chambered for 9x39 ammo (lol realism). Felt pretty good to one-hit exos. Most ARs just made me annoyed with how inaccurate they were.
there are a lot of hardcore misfits and what the games have to give is a completely unmatched setting, atmosphere and feel
Probably because it's the only moddable semi-open world FPS on the market.
you're a complete faggot and should go kill yourself
To bad all the mods ends up becoming bad because every mod maker is completely retarded.
More like you are having problems forming understandable statements, or don't want to admit being wrong / finding proof for your own claims.
I can prove that the NPCs in STALKER are not all knowing hacks in the first 5 minutes into SoC if I wanted to.
>Come an user, that's child's play.
if it was, everyone would do it. After the Car Park mission in Cordon, the Institute mission in Aprogrom is the 2nd most complained / "impossible" task for rookies.
>Most ARs just made me annoyed with how inaccurate they were.
Nah, you're just whiny little bitch who can't even shoot.
Beat all 3 games at least twice, SoC four times. I never said I hated them, I'm just surprised such a niche game series was so popular.
Please do that then user.
That is correct, but that does not invalidate anything I've said.
>Nah, you're just whiny little bitch who can't even shoot.
Stalker fanbase at its finest.
>Please do that then user.
sigh... fuck it.
brb.
casual bitches at their finest.
>The shooting doesn't feel good at all
But it does, gunplay is fucking TOP.
Also even normies sometimes get a grasp of good taste and its a testament to STALKER's timeless quality
Gunslinger when?
>never
Casual? SoC isn't even hard.
STALKER does an amazing job at both bringing casuals in and keeping them in and being a good casual filter at the same time, seriously I don't know how it does it, only true plebs end up disliking it though
>I bet you've never sneaked in and out of the Agroprom base, grabbing the case without killing or alerting anyone
I did and it was fucking intense, it was very dark too so I had to use my flashlight sparingly.
ahhh that reminds me I have to finish downloading that standalone stalker mod
It was atmospheric as fuck with good gameplay. It also did the same thing RO2 did, which was make me feel exhausted after going through particularly tense shit.
>it's Dark Souls with guns and you're going to die no matter how good you are unless you're really good and know the spawns and AI
>Very atmospheric with gothic, creepy, and melancholy visuals and audio
>Gun play because the enemies will flank you and if you make the wrong move on that chessboard its cheeki breeki iv danke for you
>At the time of its developement it included a lot of cool features like leaning which fo 2003 was pretty unique
>You will never have the same experience twice
>You will get lost in side quests and roleplay as a stalker because the main quest ends the game so shortly
>Artifact system and the potential for it
>Modding community is well alive
>There hasn't been a game like it since
Honestly my biggest complaint is the artifact system, I feel like some should provide more benefits. But for the most part they work pretty well and building your character is fun, it won't be until your 2nd or 3rd playthrough when you start using them strategically. For example you cant repair armour in the first game but if you get enough of a certain artifact some anomalies can heal you and repair armour. I feel like they could have done this with bullet protection artifacts where bullets heal you at the expense of constant radiation.
All in all if you like atmosphere, unforgiving gameplay, or a nuclear wasteland that isn't a rip off of a 1970's movie then STALKER is for you and you should give it more patience.
ARUJIJA UBRAL!
>>it's Dark Souls with guns and you're going to die
It's an FPS with a quicksave button.
Yo user, wheres ma proof?
Its an FPS but its unforgiving like Dark Souls is what he's saying. I do agree that its not like Dark Souls because Dark Souls is a memory test with no skill involved in terms of going through areas, you memorize the enemies and the safest way to beat them you only die if you press the wrong button or mistime something. Stalker is different you need to scout ahead and carefully plan an escape route with your stamina bar in mind because you may end up coming across a controller or blood sucker.
YOU SEE COMRADE DO NOT OF FEAR RADIATION BOOLETS WILL HEAL YOU
>Its an FPS but its unforgiving like Dark Souls is what he's saying.
I've played a lot of FPS and Stalker isn't really anywhere near the hardest. Fucking Call of Duty on Veteran is harder, at least certain missions, because AI respawns infinitely, has godly aim and aimpunches the everloving shit out of you, and you can't quicksave. The first Far Cry is harder. The second Far Cry, even, is harder, though it's not really a good game. Serious Sam is harder. Halo:CE on Legendary is harder. I mean fuck, even if you use savegames sparingly Stalker isn't terribly hard, AI is not very smart or accurate, though occasionally it will headshot you (which I don't mind, really). Stalker is just an average PC FPS difficulty-wise.
>>You‘re not god. You can easily die if you‘re careless
This is the big one.
All the shit that the NPCs are scared of will also fuck YOU up.
It's why Stalker's setting holds up where everything else falls flat.
I got all three for $8 on steam ahaha
Well unlike call of duty on veteran where every enemy manages to 360 noscope you in 0.01 seconds from across the map STALKER manages to be fairly punishing while keeping difficulty fair at the same time
its called good game design
>I've played a lot of FPS
Also, I want to clarify: I'm not bragging, I'm not very good at FPS or video games in general. At anything, really. But I have some experience.
Stalker combat is pretty hilarious because in the earlygame your guns are absolute shit but so are enemies' guns so both parties have problems hitting each other and you can basically run in circles around bandits (que Benny Hill music) and so can they. Which is kinda-sorta realistic to an extent, but doesn't make for a super-fun gameplay. Later you get better guns, but AI still kinda sucks. They're good at randomly headshotting you in close combat if you let them, though.
I actually like CoD on Veteran (well, the last I played was MW3), it was really frustrating in some missions but passing them felt good. Had to actually think about flashbangs and such in some of them. More than I have to think playing Stalker, anyway.
But it does make for good gameplay and I'm not even sure what you're saying because enemies are generally pretty accurate from the get go unless you're pissed because you cant snipe/get sniped with shotgun shells from across the map. Just fucking run to the military checkpoint in cordon and get yourself a weapon upgrade and stop this hurr guns cant shoot shit meme already.
Furthermore long engagements DO make for good gameplay, in fact, they make for astounding gameplay in '''''''''''''realism'''''''''''''' based shooters, and are very rare in games, the only games where you experience intense gun combat that can go on for more than just the 30 seconds it takes to clear a route, at least in my experience, are STALKER games, ARMA games, and Fallout 4
By comparison in call of duty veteran you just restart the checkpoint and get good at knowing where every enemy will pop out of, I mean sure it can be fun but its dime a dozen
Oh and the AI is great. The gunplay is great too. sounds like you just don't like the games but these 2 aspects are the main reason for its popularity and massive cult following right after atmosphere and before mods.
But yeah the games are by no means some landmark of difficulty in any way, but whatever difficulty is there is very well designed. Comparison to call of duty is like comparing the difficulty in DeS to the one in DaS2, DeS is just a perfectly designed game with a fair challenge while DaS2 just throws enemies at you for every, single, waking moment of your game experience. And I'm not even going to imply any is better than the other but I prefer the well paced experience.
Have fun
fucking rendering as we speak. Here's a sneak-peek while at it: soldiers being fucking morons, as I expected.
What's the point of that picture?
these rooftops I gunned & grenaded their comrade from a moment earlier.
I'm trying to get this 2GB FRAPS recording fitting into < 3MB Webm as we speak.
>fraps
>low quality
Opinion discarded.
fuck of shit face. This is the best you're getting now.
Haha, come an user. Buy a computer that can at least run STALKER in 1920x1080, I mean you've been playing this game for 8 years surely you should've saved up enough money by now.
>how to trigger the Sup Forums neckbeard army: the thread
go fuck yourself with a cactus, chimpanzee.
My PC is fucking fine and runs the game flawlessly at 1200p, but I definitely ain't recording at full resolution with fucking FRAPS.
>59.9 FPS
>All of the games in this series are buggy, finicky messes that take a lot to get used to.
So are Bethesda games and yet people gobble them up like crazy
PRO TIP TO NEWFAGS, FROM A NEWFAG HIMSELF
DONT AIM DOWN SIGHTS WITH PISTOLS. HIP FIRE THEM, ITS SOO MUCH BETTER.
How stupid are you to even use fraps you monkey? Come an user you said 5 minutes. Hard to capture footage that supports your claim?
why don't you have nvidia shadowplay or something similar?
I can go from recording a game to uploading a 3mb webm in a few minutes.
Threadly reminder that more games don't have AI like stalker because retards with complain about (gasp) the enemies being more than slightly mobile paper targets.
And you have to remember even switching fucking weapons in SOC made noise.
They make noises in all 3 of the series.
Pro tip for newfags, don't fall for "Vanilla SoC is fine" meme, since it's really not.
I´m just waiting for gunslinger to never come out, so i can start playing CoP.
Not him but what should one use?
I tired OBS and it has problems with lots of games like stuttering or plain failing to detect a video stream.
I can't use Shadowplay because it's tied to the shitty Gefoce experience crap which breaks all my custom nvidia inspector settings for games.
Fraps works for me in all games, be it open gl or d3d.
>AI like stalker
What's so great about its ai?
Shadowplay.
Nothing, it's a meme at this point.
Yes it is
I remember going through most of the game with that gun(Rapid AK). Up untill the fnfal and g3 were made available. Also if you explore at all in this game you can find some good shit. Like that pistol that fire fucking sniper rounds.
...
Fuck you
No, I enjoy an AI that's hilarious, do tell, I'm starting with these games.
One of my favorites is FEAR 1 along with UT:GOTY AI.
KYS
>Shadowplay.
Like I said, not an option because Jewvidya doesn't like to give me controls over settings.
Also funny enough when I did use it a year ago it woudn't run when I had no internet connection.
>go to yanov
>screwing around
>hear gunfire
>battle between duty and freedomfags
>most men down
>3 vs 2
>at long range freedomfag sniper suddenly switches to his shitty pistol
>rushes and get killed by Dutyfag with Groza
>the other are strafing then and now while barely attempting to shoot while Dutyfags start raining fire
>one attempts to use a frag, he can't move so he gets killed
>final freedomfag gets killed
I like the game but the AI isn't good. You need tweaks to make battles actually interesting.
>playing with enemy highlighting
OK
Fuck you
The devs hyped the AI up to hilarious levels, but failed to implement half the shit they hyped. Also FEAR 1 AI's is just a trick with level design and sound.
Do you mean vanilla as in not updated at all?
If so then you are right.
If you are talking about v1.006 then you aren't right.
Play unmodded before mods for the best experience
KYS
sounds like pretty good AI with some flwas desu
Also maybe the freedomfag sniper ran out of sniper ammo
still better than 99% of games out there desu desu senpaitachi
same for FEAR1
>enter area
>XR_3DA.exe stopped working
>savegame corruption
>bugs here and here
ZRP-less Stalker SOC is a death sentence
Shadowplay sucks
Hey man that really hurt my feelins
At least the devs didn't parade around with their AI like it was something to be hyped about and showed every faggot who thought the FEAR AI was something mind blowing amazing how simple it was designed.
why, I use it to record my desktop when I need to make a webm of a video and it cant be downloaded/the source has slow downloads, but what's the problem with it?
>Just installed the game
>enter thread
>ask about the particulars of the game, specifically ai
>edgelord russiaboo says to fuck myself
Worse than call of duty audience
Just finished with lab x-16 in SOC. Should I skip clear sky when i;m done and go straight to COP? I hear bad things about CS
No, CS is still a good game.
meme game series
just play Far Cry 3 or 4
>better graphics
>better gunplay
>better detection meter
>adjustable HUD in settings
>better plot
>better protagonists
>better antagonists
>better music
>better weapon customization (can even paint your weapon)
>better weapons (bows and flare guns)
who said 5 minutes and where?
I actually went and recorded brand new footage just because you kiddies started complaining, so now you better sit tight and wait for my shit to render and upload. If not, I will find you and jam a thorny, wooden dragon dildo smeared in Tabasco up your anus.
>muh all knowing AI at its best
Honestly the people who complain about STALKER gunplay are people who couldn't make it past the first area or people who rushed through the game and failed to even notice that there is ricochet and bullet drop and that bullets are 100% physical objects and not hitscan.
worse by far is deus ex1 fanbase, closely followed by souls and witcher fanboys
no CS is fine just by far the buggiest, almost bethesda tier buggy, get ZRP for it and maybe don't use DX10
>sounds like pretty good AI with some flwas desu
The AI can't be pretty good if it has flaws.
NPCs don't run out of ammo. It's like in Fallout, you have to stick one round of ammo in their inventory and that gives them infinite shit. NPCs have erratic weapon behavior where they tend to switch weapons for no absolute reason and get killed.
There are odd behavior issues where the fighters hold their fire in combat while getting hit. You see them firing one or two rounds and they spend the rest of the fight dancing around until they fall.
Also
>fight ends as two enemies are heavily wounded
>NPCs move on to execute them
>they are stuck in holding position anim
This bug fucking triggers me, especially since Alun's tweaks for CoP don't fix it
Quality.
why wouldn't the dev advertise A-life?
Don't fall for "le CS is bad" maymay. Just patch it and you should have a good time with it. IMO CoP isn't that better, except for being the most stable and bug-free game of the series.
every game ever made has flaws, does that mean no game ever made is good?
I don't deny the game is good, but most people circlejerk over how good Stalker's AI is when it's not necessarily the case.
Stalker's major points aren't the AI. It's mostly the lore and atmosphere.