Axon1988 on 28/5/2014 at 07:22

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Very true. I have so far spent about 8 hours on the game. Have explored about 5 maps, and sort of been rushing through them to test out the story line for Dez.

Here are a couple of other things that are worth mentioning:
* To find the BAR in Rostok is not easy. When you see where the original sign for the 100 Rads bar used to be, just turn left and then go around the corner of the shed there. Finding the entrance to Rostok is a completely different story.
* Bandages are a lot more rare now, so using medkits more is not uncommon.
* Stalkers will sell stash locations or info for a price. Chat to them on your PDA to find out more.
* Ammo, keep it all! Stash it along the way as you explore. As you will always at some point come back and it's just a pain when you run out of ammo. However this is focused on your main weapon. Your secondary (in my opinion) does not need as much ammo.
*Remember to attach ammo to your belt, or else you will get into a bit of trouble when in a fire fight.
*Vehicles:
Keep all fuel cannisters you can find.
Vehicles can turn over very fast, so be careful.
Most vehicles can be damaged very fast, so also be careful about driving into anomalies or anything really.
Stick to the roads! Vehicles can stall, so try not to get stuck and play around with gears.
Driving with manual gear shifts is much easier actually.
There will be some drivable vehicles on some maps, when you find a car, store it somewhere!
Don't keep the throttle down as it'll use much more fuel this way, rather "coast" the car. Gravity can be a handy thing.
I cannot state this enough, STAY AWAY FROM ANOMALIES when in a vehicle.
Helicopters will do a lot of damage to a vehicle very fast. So drive with evasion in mind. When you do get hit, get out of the car, run to the boot and fix the car. For now fixing a vehicle does not cost anything!
*When on foot, and a helicopter notices you, you will die fast. So look for shelter ASAP.
*Selling weapons can be worth it, so think mule and use that 50kg weight limit.

I'm not focusing on the story too much. Rather focusing on finding errors / bugs. So I have been playing with a different state of mind. And so far it has been amazing. Almost all maps have an underground area, and it's almost always a very large underground area. Go explore and enjoy how amazing some of these underground areas look!

I'll add more details when I can.

Dia on 28/5/2014 at 13:43

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Thanks for the tips, Axon! I'll probably be downloading it today when I have a chance. Thanks again.

zombe on 28/5/2014 at 18:45

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Having played it for a while ... a long while. So, in no particular order, my thoughts:

I strongly recommend waiting for a patch - that said, it is still fun when you are willing to get your hands dirty hunting for game-breaking-bug workarounds and such. It is very-very buggy (~early access stuff ... afaik they released the early access as some, more broken, build leaked) with lots of gameplay issues (your Google-fu needs to be strong).

* going from DX10 to DX9 solved nearly all crashes ... but, DX10 was quite broken anyway.
* various UI actions will crash the game
* ... repair / upgrade: using third party hotfixes to fix some of it.
* ... nearby contacts list still crashes: don't need to know anyway
* artifact merging: cannot use as the UI just does not work.
* over time your inventory gets polluted with undroppable garbage: regularly upping my carry limit to compensate.
* certain big event in the bar area is broken - game breaking. Need to get a third party bugfix installed before entering the area (event time, does not matter on earlier visits) - no ingame workarounds.
* need to use no-clip (frequently) and god mode every now and then to work around bugs.
* used memory scan based cheat tool to return money that gets lost when you get jailed (the wrong amount of money gets returned).

- The Good -
* surprisingly pretty
* quite big ... to say the least
* just awesome atmosphere
* reasonable amount of human opponents (few and logically local)
* the belt ...
* upgrading ... excellent money sink.
* sleeping bag ... quite useful.

- The Bad -
* all ingame cutscenes are just terrible (some deep in fan-wank territory) ...
* ... also broken. If you stand in the wrong place when it triggers then all hell breaks loose (pretty much always unrecoverably - so, save often as you do not know when you hit a cutscene trigger).
* not enough side missions to fill the absolutely pointless story forced traveling, a'la:
1. dude X sends you to C ...
2. you go A->B->C ... oh, you do not have a key - go ask dude X for a key ...
3. grrr ... C->B->A ... "give me the fucking key you shitstick" ...
4. A->B->C ... and the maps are huge and throughly explored at that point. It's really-really stupid.
* the chopter chase ... fuck that shit. Just shoot it down. Get a car as for a while you get sent around all over the place doing pretty much nothing along the way nor in any of the destinations ... it is just a forced game mechanic.

- The Ugly -
* all the artifacts you find in the wild are garbage compared to what you find by other means
* lack of merchants (the ones that sell stuff).
* empty space (missing anomalies / useless loot).

Areas so far:
* Gordon: the starting area :D ... the locations are there, but all look very different (true for pretty much all the maps). Nice underground area.
* Garbage: does not look even remotely like the original ... much better. Original had a massive f* war in here and lots of bland landscapes - not any more ;).
* Agroprom Res. Ins.: Mostly unchanged, but better. Somewhy the all important stash is not in a hidden location anymore.
* Great metal factory ... good luck finding the fucking Bar (follow the road and notice the two "Bar" signs ... too bad i arrived at night). The lack of shortcuts (especially exit) is rather silly.
* Construction site: nice, but with some gameplay issues.
* Dark Valley: failed the infiltration mission and opted to sneak-kill every bandit ... lots of fun. X18 is different, hard to say whether it is better of worse.
* Darkscape: let the pointless running around continue and escalate to new aggravating heights. And fuck Sin. Some nice places on this map and an awesome unmarked stash.
* Forest: skipped it entirely :/
* Lake Yantar: somewhy, i really like this map ... this map having one of the upgraders is an additional bonus.
* Great Swamps: another good map i highly enyoyed. PS: being mean to Military does not break any scripts ;).
* Dead City: lots of ridiculously powerful artifacts found in the pockets of the recently deceased.
* Army Warehouse: one of the extremely few "nice" cutscenes ... which unfortunately teleports you to where you normally would not be. Very jarring. Some good pocket-artifacts around - do not leave behind.
* Countryside: pretty.
* Concrete factory: pretty much unchanged. Lots of bugs. Cannot say anything good about it - you will see.
* Radar: annoying. Only rushed through the first time. Just returned to it ... so, dunno what follows.
* V.I.Lenin ChNPP: not been there.
* Pripyat City: not been there.
* Chernobyl: not been there.

... oh, and there apparently are artifacts with +10% bulletproof cap (+ other stuff and no negative stats). At least i got one.

Axon1988 on 29/5/2014 at 12:43

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My workaround for the pda crashing bug is whenever I use the PDA, to open all tabs from left to right and not to jump to a specific tab. That helps for me.

Otherwise I didn't get any crashes at Agroprom. In fact I have not had a crash related to levels / graphics / AI / scripts in a long time.

Then again I have tested this game a lot on alpha. So maybe it's that I just approach everything differently.

I'd like to mention that it's a really nice feeling to run the credits in the game and see your name among them. Feels good!

Axon1988 on 29/5/2014 at 12:57

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Well I really hope we get to a more stable release soon.
In all honesty the other members of the team deserve more gratitude. I only tested. People like Bradley gave up time with his wife to help out with development. And let's not mention Dezodor who worked on map editing, music, cinematics and engine optimization. Those two were the foundation, but they could not have done it without people like liquidbronze and Cromm who both added a lot to the atmosphere...

I wish I could actually afford to donate to them.