Things That Would Make S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Perfect

Muzman on 30/4/2009 at 14:34

Quote Posted by catbarf

Here's my suggestion for making the game perfect: Make the Zone random.

Artifacts and anomalies shouldn't be pre-set objects. Making them random would keep the danger up even if the player's been through an area before, and the stranger anomalies could cut off whole areas (Remember the teleporter in the tunnel). It would make the Zone seem much more alive.

This point also known as "Copy AMK", which is generally excellent advice.

JohnnyTheWolf on 30/4/2009 at 17:38

Quote Posted by Koki

So I'd like to see anomalies expanded. CS did it nicely with the psychic anomaly, but it was still pure damage. Is it really so hard to come up with interesting anomalies? There is rain in STALKER, so how about a place where it never rains. Or always rains. Or an area where it's always dark, or never dark. And so on and so on. They don't need to be actually beneficial(like "A tractor which heals your wounds"), just, you know, neutral. Showing that the entire game world is not only about the player.

You mean, like Dark Valley and Yantar in vanilla SoC?

Koki on 30/4/2009 at 18:24

Quote Posted by JohnnyTheWolf

You mean, like Dark Valley and Yantar in vanilla SoC?

I was thinking dark-dark, not cloudy-dark, and not the entire map, but yeah!

steo on 30/4/2009 at 21:23

A lot of the points on the list are just generic 'make X better'. It's fairly obvious to any old sod who strangles poodles for a living that you can make something better overall by making any given aspect of it better.

A lot of the other points are just gimmicky and pointless:

'let the player use their fists' - Stalker has a knife, why would you need fists as well?

Babies and children? Abandoned orphans? How the hell are they going to survive in the zone?

etc etc.

It's a bit of a shame, because there were a few good points in there, but rather than knock out a list of as many things you can think of in five minutes time, you'd be better off coming up with a few, well thought out ideas.

TF on 30/4/2009 at 23:10

- they hold their promises, especially about Jupiter

snauty on 4/5/2009 at 10:01

I saw the first game quite in a fashion like Zelda - the Ocarina of Time. A hub world, places to go as soon you have upgrades, not because you leveled up, because you don't. Overworlds and dungeons, different environment suits, silent protagonist.

I'd like to see less military action in the zone. There hasn't to be any high class skilled tactical shooting at all. The zone should be a place where only freaks without a real life go. The scarred one came close, I'd like to see a game build further on this. There won't be any factions, but loners and some small loose groups. Only to these guys there's something valuable to get in the zone. Something to sell, something to cherish, something to fullfill dreams. Finding and obtaining artefacts should become more interesting. Some as important main-, some as sidequests.

There should be a hidden (meaning not obvious) Q&A of some sort in the first few hours of gameplay. The game would learn your wishes and fears and then implement them. As beasts or anomalies or dreams or visions. A standard character creation procedure which I have never seen used like this yet in any game.

Koki on 4/5/2009 at 10:22

Quote Posted by snauty

A hub world, places to go as soon you have upgrades, not because you leveled up, because you don't.

There's a difference?

snauty on 6/5/2009 at 13:02

Quote Posted by Koki

There's a difference?

yes yes. go find it. good boy. :)

Bakerman on 6/5/2009 at 13:52

So what is the difference between leveling up to unlock areas, or finding upgrades to unlock areas? And why should Stalker have the latter and not rely on leveling to ensure some sort of content progression rather than just dumping the entire world at the player's feet?

Personally, I prefer the upgrade route because it makes more sense in the logic of a game-world that tries to emulate the real world. Levels are a completely arbitrary construction - in real life, you don't say 'I'm a level 3 accountant! Suck on that, level 2 noobs!' However, in real life, if ou go for a stroll in Chernobyl without the right radiation protection, you get sick. It just makes more sense than slapping an artificial restriction on it.

From a gameplay perspective the difference seems to be less. You level up by grinding - and sometimes that's how you've got to get your equipment as well.

The Black Axe on 7/5/2009 at 06:23

Instead of playing the packaged STALKER with its patches, I played a modificatoin for it that adressed some of the problems that have been voiced in the list.

It's called Oblivion Lost and can be found here: (http://forums.filefront.com/s-t-l-k-e-r-soc-modding-editing/340033-s-t-l-k-e-r-oblivion-lost-kanyhalos.html)

It adds some new guns, removes that annoying add-on system for the scopes and grenade launchers, fixed the aiming system, sleeping, drivable cars (though slightly broken), random anomalies and other goodies.

I also took the Float32 mod which makes the engine more efficient and smoother (meaning that you can play with higher graphics :) )

It certainly made STALKER a more enjoyable game and slightly more random than it was before.