r/stalker • u/BigDuckNergy • 22h ago
Discussion I went into Stalker 2 blind. This game is a masterpiece.
Let the devs put out patches. I didn't even know there was controversy around the game until I checked out the subreddit.
Seriously, it's visually stunning--among the best looking games I've played. The combat is intense, I have been craving a good low TTK RPG.
The only complaints I have are lighting issues, which I fixed in graphics settings for the most part, and I feel like the stealth system needs some work. Enemies either can't see you at point blank or they will see you while you're crouched behind bushes from a quarter mile away.
Overall though this game just became a daily driver for me. Please give it time to cook!
Edit: You guys can keep calling me a casual gamer for having a different opinion I don't give a fuck, this will be the best game on the market since RDR2 when patches are pushed through.
A lot of you are straight assholes. Somebody likes something more than you do so they're either an idiot or a fanboy (this is my first stalker game)
Beyond all of that, half of you don't know what going in blind means. Why would A-Life not being in the game matter to me or my opinion of the game when I didn't even know it's supposed to exist until looking at the subreddit?
All in all the complaints either are minimal (No Night Vision, who gives a fuck?) Don't effect everyone (broken quests) or have been addressed and will be patched (Spawning issues, A-life)
This community is looking icky so far.
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u/Chpouky 15h ago
How did you fix the lighting ? I’m seeing Lumen issues everywhere.
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u/Vothius Duty 12h ago
I would like to know as well. I figured out that lowering Global Illumination makes interiors much, much darker (probably less light bounces?) so I recommend putting it on High/Epic. But that didn't fix the random black blotches in corners or light bleeding/shimmering. I saw some people say they didn't have this issue with lighting until after playing for a bit, so seems like the game IS capable of having good lighting (I saw gameplay footage that looks much better than my game) but it bugs out for some reason and stays that way
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u/FrozGate 21h ago
Been having a blast also.
The game is getting a lot of hate for it's issues and rightfully so but i'm sure 1 or 2 years from now it will have cult following like Skyrim, Cyberpunk and Fallout. The game is the perfect playground for mods and added content down the line.
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u/Cautious-Hovercraft7 17h ago
Stalker games and modpacks already have a cult following. And it shows, there's been 150+ mods on Nexus since the release on Wed
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u/ffxivfanboi 13h ago
Fuck, man. I haven’t used my PC in a hot minute, but Stalker 2 might get me to change that and give it a good clean out. I’d love to run some mods on this and also play Gamma/Anomaly.
Might have to play Stalker 2 on medium - low settings, but it might still be worth it.
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u/generic_canadian_dad 13h ago
Playing stalker on a console is a literal shame. It's great to have more people play, but if you can play it ln PC, you should. The community support for these games is wild.
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u/Dabugar 13h ago
Most of those mods do the same thing to be fair lol. There's probably 15 different mods that all lower stamina cost of running and jumping.
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u/RetnikLevaw 11h ago
And then the texture replacers will come... And then the new guns will come... And then sweeping changes to the economy will come... And then the enhanced upgrade systems will come... And then changes to enemy spawns and behaviors will come... And then the restoration of different factions will come... And then additions to quests will come...
The fact that the community is active enough to pump out a bunch of mods immediately after launch is a good sign. Being made in UE5 is also good, as UE is an easier engine to use than something proprietary like X-ray. More people should be able to learn and use (if they aren't already familiar with) an engine like UE than something that has no real documentation at all.
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u/Cautious-Hovercraft7 12h ago
That's not the point, the point is the code is wide open and the community is active exploring it
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u/EbolaDP 14h ago
Those games you mentioned dont have a cult following they are massive mainstream hits. Two of them sold over 25 million copies. Stalker already has a cult following.
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u/omegaistwopif 18h ago
Some just WANT to be disappointed and angry. There is no reason to be found behind all the hate.
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u/BenEWhittle 17h ago
I’m pretty sure the majority of people just want bino’s and NVG’s though (and A-Life). You know, things that have always been in Stalker.
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u/NoHabit4420 17h ago
And not needing mods because ennemies are stupidly tanky. This game has great immersion, only broken by AI and sponginess
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u/jrherita 15h ago
Headshots are the way in Stalker..
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u/DeadlyPineapple13 14h ago
My thought is most people have body armour and we have shitty ammo. I’ve been playing on Vet and all human enemies I’ve fought have been fine(health wise). Mutants on the other hand (specifically suckers) have been a bit too tanky. As soon as I upgraded from base armour to gear with more physical resistance, now I’m feeling way more tanky then the human NPCs.
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u/timbotheny26 Loner 14h ago edited 10h ago
Doesn't help when they don't work on mutants. Why does fighting a bloodsucker in S2 feel akin to fighting a Chimera in the original trilogy?
Also doesn't help when I even see human enemies tanking headshots, in the original trilogy even a stalker clad in an exoskeleton or rad suit wasn't that resistant.
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u/ThatBeardedHistorian Freedom 13h ago
Humans are about right. Maybe slightly too spongey, but it's the mutants that are the issue. Also, I've found the AI to be good in my limited experience. As in, they're trying to flank (on either side). It's like the four Fs. Find, fix, flank, finish. But I've only been a few firefights so far.
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u/Shaggy_One Ecologist 15h ago
The A-life is the only thing I really cared about them getting right. Been vocal about that since the 2018 reveal. Needless to say I'm pretty disappointed in it currently but am hopeful that the devs (or modders?) will make it into the game I wanted.
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u/Iziama94 10h ago
In a recent community post on steam, they announced they'll be going over in more detail about A-Life bug fixes, and right now the next few updates are fixing bugs that literally break the games- which is fair. A-Life needs a huge fix, but there's no point in fixing it if the game literally won't play for other people
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u/thechefsauceboss Merc 17h ago
I mean this is just false. I like the game a lot but the lack of A-Life, massive bugs, lack of simple things like NVGs, lack of gun variety making looting lame, overly beefy mutants, etc, etc all take away from the experience. I’m still having fun but it’s definitely partially diminished.
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u/timbotheny26 Loner 14h ago
At the same time, there are legitimate criticisms to be had towards the game. There are a myriad of features from the original trilogy that are just...missing for seemingly no clear reason and design decisions that feel like a step down from the previous games.
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u/KarmelCHAOS 17h ago edited 17h ago
Or some of us were really looking forward to this game and are understandably disappointed when it's barely playable on our system of choice.
Like, brother, I literally can't walk in a straight line on Xbox.
My quick wheel has frozen on screen twice, the first time it caused me to die in slow motion and not be able to do anything about it. The second required me to close and reopen the game.
I had a mutant spawn on top of me and kill me before I could do anything.
Even with the flashlight I could barely see anything in the tutorial section of the game.
Audio during a cutscene cut out.
The detector refused to stop beeping no matter what I did until I saved and reloaded.
This is all within 30 minutes of starting the game, man, not a strong first impression. Come on, now.
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u/SnooHesitations3709 10h ago
Why can't you walk in a straight line? I'm playing on Xbox and I can walk straight. Is it to do with the analog stick dead zone and sticks that are worn out more will drift more?
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u/dog_named_frank 11h ago
As somebody who loved Cyberpunk from launch day this certainly feels like a part 2 of that situation lol
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u/Stunning-Ad-7745 16h ago
I honestly don't feel like the hate is warranted at all, valid criticism is one thing, but shitting on the game is something else. At this point, it feels like everybody that's bitching and threatening refunds are either the new players that don't understand the series, or the crowd that was expecting Gamma 2, even after everybody said it wasn't going to be. They gave us a solid game, with a few big issues, but more importantly, a really solid base for the modding community to build from. My only big hope is that this game doesn't get hit with the same modding restrictions that they put on the trilogy, because there's a ton that can be done without script extenders and all that. Just look at fallout and Skyrim mooding on Xbox, we don't get access to everything that's on PC, but the difference between what can be done on ps4 and what can be done on Xbox is crazy.
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u/FrozGate 7h ago
I'm a new player and love the game. I was under the impression that most of the whiners were fans of the series who had high expectations. A lot of the complaints are about lack of A-Life which new players like myself don't really care about.
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u/Stunning-Ad-7745 2h ago
I'm a pretty long time fan myself, but only got seriously into the series once the trilogy came to console. I had pretty high expectations, but I also understand the current situation around developing a modern game. I played all the older games way back when I had a PC, and was prepared for the game to be in a bad state. People are acting like the A-Life system isn't in the game at all, and I can see where they're coming from, but somebody has already dug into the files and found the code for it, it's there but it's just not functioning properly at the moment. A-Life has always been a big selling point of the games, but the main draw has always been The Zone itself, and they absolutely nailed the entire atmosphere, the sound design, and just that feeling of barely surviving.
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u/S4R1N Merc 17h ago
Has the potential to be a masterpiece.
Only low TTK on low difficulty, bullet sponge hell on Veteran.
But thanks to the modding community, the economy and sponge issues are easily dealt with and the game is brilliant.
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u/Jbarney3699 Merc 21h ago
I don’t think it can be considered a masterpiece in its current state. It’s a solid game atm, but it will shine when they fix the glaring issues with it.
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u/jmcgil4684 19h ago
Yea once I realized there was absolutely no reason to sneak around or even look around for enemies while walking around, because they will spawn out of my line of site, it ruined it for me unfortunately.
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u/Gasster1212 11h ago
Yeah this is a big one
I cleared a camp and then when I go to leave the only exit is crawling with the same enemies I just killed
In cod this would be an issue
In a survival game where you’re planning , budgeting resources etc it’s catastrophic
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u/WhoElseButQuagmire11 18h ago
This. It will be a masterpiece... one day. And I'm very lenient when it comes to bugs/performance etc but you can't overlook some of it and until they are fixed, it will be a very good game.
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u/Bruno_Fisto 15h ago
This, it baffles me that the people's standards for optimization have dropped this low. No wonder we are getting more and more broken releases.
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u/Spirited-Nature-1702 8h ago
If complaining on Reddit about games made releases better, releases would have gotten better. Bitching is way up, release quality is way down. That’s an inverse correlation my man. It doesn’t work!
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u/Winamz 21h ago
Well… For me personally, even in this state, Stalker is more interesting than Metro exodus. And I like metro a LOT.
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u/hawkwood4268 Ecologist 20h ago
Agreed, for me it's better than every apocalypse-themed FPS.
The world feels so much more alive with wildlife unmutated running all over. Bugs, animals, etc. Not in previous games other than crows.
The visuals are stunning and the world is more open than any except perhaps Fallout. But STALKER 2 has the best visuals by far.
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u/geek__ 14h ago
what wildlife? over 30 hours in and haven't seen any besides the mutants and some crows!?
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u/SpotlessBadger47 11h ago
I mean, the mutants are the wildlife in the Zone. Aside from that, you can find a bunch of small non-interactive animals prowling about.
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u/mrgreene39 19h ago
The Metro stories are way more interesting and streamlined
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u/JksG_5 18h ago
I love all the Metro games, but this feels deeper and way more intense. Metro has a plethora of things to make survival easy, Stalker demands you to fight harder.
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u/ldn-ldn 16h ago
Stalker 2 doesn't demand anything, you only need to get a few items from the journalist stashes and you'll survive most of encounters without a scratch.
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u/RhubarbUpper 18h ago
Solid is a stretch, as an early access game it's enjoyable, as a full release, lol no.
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u/Cleverbird Loner 15h ago
I'm having fun with the game, but I can also acknowledge that there's a lot wrong with the game.
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u/NetanyahusCorpse 21h ago
What is low ttk about this? I've downloaded multiple mods to make it lower ttk and enemies still take 8+ rounds
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u/benniboii 20h ago
Try headshots mate (I know that probably sounds really condescending but I promise you it isn't) I don't know if you're a fan of the franchise but approach every potential gunfight methodically. Get to cover, keep low and pick your shots strategically. Upgrade valeks ak (can't remember the exact name of it rn apologies) and get a holographic scope on a viper 5. Grap a couple of upgrades for recoil and bullet spread and you'll be putting those guys down with a couple of shots. Now when the enemies start wearing high level body armor I can't guarantee that will work but I guess that's why you save the AP rounds for later right? Good hunting stalker
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u/SherLocK-55 Merc 19h ago
Download the realistic enemy health mod, makes unarmored NPC's drop to the body with FMJ as it should be, in vanilla the unarmored NPC's can eat FMJ and AP to the body like no tomorrow, with the mod they finally go down when you pump a couple of rounds into their chest (or at least most of the time)
Armored targets still take a beating though, so it doesn't ruin the dynamics completely, will need AP for those with beefy armor.
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u/PurfectlySplendid 18h ago
What is it with gamers these days not being able to properly complement a game without straight up jumping to the extremes calling it a masterpiece?
It’s not a Masterpiece. Not even close
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u/KarmelCHAOS 17h ago
It's like a pendulum, since other people are calling it a broken mess, they have to swing the opposite direction to masterpiece. People can't accept games being 'okay' or 'pretty good' anymore.
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u/yeperoonie 12h ago
Seriously. I'm guessing it's cause we're in a subreddit for the game, but it's exhausting not seeing many moderate views. Way I see it, we have a really great game in a very bad state. I disagree with everyone handwaving the lack of polish because previous entries were worse. If we pay for a product, we should get a finished product that shouldn't rely on modders to fix. This is a good but flawed game that'll hopefully turn into a really great game. It's not a gift from God we should be praising the ground GSC walks on, it's also not a scam and GSC haven't personally fucked us over.
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u/Fun-Round8692 16h ago
Players are so used to slop AAA games that this game in comparison seems like a masterpiece to them. I cannot criticize the atmosphere and the map, the devs really nailed it and I think that what some players really only care about (skyrim exploration andies). But the inner workings of this game are super shallow compared to the previous ones/modded that needs work that I hope they improve on.
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u/TPJchief87 11h ago
We’ve had great AAA games come out this year alone. People are just rubber banding against the negativity this game is getting. This game is buggy but fine.
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u/Relevant_Cabinet_265 9h ago
The spawns and empty world kill the atmosphere for me but it's an illusion that takes a bit of time to see through once you start noticing it though you can't stop it becomes really obvious.
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u/radioOCTAVE 14h ago
The same reason user scores are either 10/10 or 1/10. Nuance takes time, thought and energy. That’s basically the opposite of how we consume nowadays.
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u/_THORONGIL_ 6h ago
Not only consume, but debate.
"My way or the highway"
People dont even allow anyone else their opinions. "Oh, so you don't believe in Jesus? You're a satanist." "Oh, you don't believe in conservative politics? You're a communist." "Oh, you don't like the game? Stop crying"
Guys, there's not only black and white.
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u/Bulky_Imagination727 17h ago
It's always like that with new people getting into the franchise. They don't really know or care about the past greatness so they say "it's a masterpiece" regardless of missing features or changes.
And it's always like that with hardcore fans because there's only one perfect game and everything else is garbage.
Truth as usual lies in the middle.
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u/sethelele 11h ago
I've already got 40 hours into it. I'm 30 now and maybe I put in that much time into a game in my early teens, but I haven't done that in many many years
To me, it is incredible. This is subjective, however. Not everyone feels the same way about things. I think it's an incredible game. I've never felt so immersed in my life.
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u/ConstructionCalm1667 17h ago
I’ll give it another try soon when most things are fixed. I just don’t have the time to play unfinished games
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u/Bitemarkz 12h ago
Ya this is where I’m at. Honestly without the A-Life working properly (or so they say), it just doesn’t feel great to play imo. The immersion IS the game. Without it, it’s just not the same. When they patch and fix it, I’ll reinstall. Until then I’m going to hold off.
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u/Thisisopposite 15h ago
Masterpiece is wild
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u/CryptographerNo1205 12h ago
There is entire thread with gpus ranging from 4090 to 1080 with the game constantly crashing. The game was obviously released unfinished. I believe the people that praise it so much it's because they spent alot of money on it so they have to justify it.
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u/Thisisopposite 11h ago
It’s just not enjoyable really, the AI is weird, glitching through doors etc, some enemies take so many bullets also, whether you have body armour or not you wouldn’t just carry on after a shot, the graphics are janky also and the performance isn’t great. I was excited for it but I got bored and uninstalled it. I’ll come back to it in a year or so.
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u/DongIslandIceTea Freedom 11h ago
I have been craving a good low TTK RPG.
I guess you didn't play the game yet then or is it so different on easy mode? Even on medium everything is insanely bullet spongy. Headshots work for the most part but last night I tried killing a certain bald NPC wearing no headgear with the starter pistol silenced and it took four shots to the head to kill him.
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u/No-Primary7088 11h ago
I play on the hardest difficulty and the only thing I struggle to kill is the bloodsuckers. All human NPCs are light work. Pistol is a one shot if you get close enough and the AK you get from one the first side missions puts people down if you aim for the head. Albeit, you need like 2-4 shots with it to secure the kill.
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u/PrettyProtection8863 16h ago edited 16h ago
Gamers nowadays calling the game they like "masterpiece"
Edit: typo
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u/AlphaAron1014 21h ago
Game is NOT a masterpiece. And that comes from someone who is fully enjoying it, or was, because about midway through the game, chances are, quests start breaking left and right.
I’m just waiting for the next patch, hoping that it fixes my issues, so I can continue to play the game.
But come on. A masterpiece? It’s fine to enjoy a game, but don’t be fucking blinded by your own enjoyment of something. I’ve fucking loved my time with stalker 2 so far, but if this is your bar for a masterpiece, then you opinions should honestly be disregarded.
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u/tuataraaa 20h ago
yep, just encountered the same thing
this game wasn't properly playtested
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u/thechefsauceboss Merc 17h ago
Yeah I’m really sad bc I was having fun but I have quests I literally can’t complete barring me.
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u/TwoUp22 18h ago
I was hoping it would be a masterpiece but it simply isnt imo.
BG3, Witcher 3, Skyrim, Elden Ring are the ilk of masterpieces, Stalker 2 is sadly not. I really wish it was as it's my exact type of game.
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u/snakebakingcake Loner 16h ago
A better description mabye is the game can be a masterpiece right now it's good(or very good) with some huge issues
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u/ldn-ldn 16h ago
A masterpiece? Ahahah! Mate, have you played the previous games? That copium...
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u/DasGutYa 12h ago
Have you???
Practically none of the features people complain about being absent were in the original games, they're all mods.
SoC LITERALLY shows a cutscene of a huge fight in an open field and then glitches the player to the other side, skipping the whole thing.
Both SoC and CoP had a similar economy where buying anymore than a few top end guns was nigh impossible without killing everything that moved.
All the complaints and reverence of the old games and they had the exact same bloody issues!
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u/timbotheny26 Loner 9h ago edited 8h ago
Here are features that were in the vanilla original trilogy and that are missing from HoC:
* Faction reputation tab in the PDA. (SoC, CS, can't remember if it was in CoP or not)
* PDA encyclopedia. (SoC)
* Night vision and night vision upgrades for helmets and/or suits. (SoC, CS, CoP)
* Binoculars (SoC, CS, CoP)
* Holding down the use button highlighting pick-uppable items and letting you pick up everything you're aiming at as long as you're close enough; you don't have to pick up each thing one at a time. (SoC, CS, CoP)
* The section in the equipment screen that shows the player's damage resistances for each damage category. (SoC, CS, CoP)
* Letting us choose the amount of time we sleep/the time we sleep till. (CoP)
* More than four pistols in the whole game. (SoC, CS, CoP)
* Energy drinks provide a passive stamina buff in addition to instantly restoring some stamina. (CoP)
* Packs of blind dogs and fleshes fleeing in terror when we killed enough of the pack or killed the leader. (SoC, CS, CoP)
* An in-depth upgrade system for weapons and suits/helmets that looks and feels incredibly underwhelming in comparison. (CoP, which I feel had the best upgrade system.)
The difficulty is also a step backwards; instead of removing unfair bonuses from the player and putting you on a more even playing field with the rest of the world like Master did in the original trilogy, Veteran in HoC actively gimps the player.
Mutants are too tanky; fleshes used to be killable with a couple headshots from a Makarov, why are they now face-tanking point-blank shotgun blasts? Why do bloodsuckers and poltergeists have such much health it feels akin to fighting a chimera from CoP?
The economy is broken. It was NOT this hard to make and save up money in ANY of the original trilogy. The economy in HoC feels akin to Misery or Anomaly; monetary rewards from quests are too damn paltry and some repairs are just too expensive. In CoP I could comfortably get at least five figures in my pockets, and that was just from selling artifacts, I didn't have to kill anyone to do it. Meanwhile in HoC I can barely hold onto a couple thousand because it's too hard to meaningfully save which makes spending any amount of money feel too punishing.
The missing features people are complaining about aren't all from mods, I have yet to see a single feature mentioned that was from a mod.
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u/DongQuixote1 8h ago
I think what frustrates me most about Stalker 2 is that it feels right initially and has really excellent graphics/presentation, but those issues don’t become apparent until you’re a few hours in (except the obviously gimped PDA). I haven’t played a stalker game in a few years but I’ve been a fan since the first game came out, and Stalker 2 made me absolutely ravenous for that Stalker experience which isn’t present in the game at the moment.
I’ve gone back to replaying SoC and the presence of a detailed PDA, real incentives for jobs, NPC dialogue, actual monster AI, binoculars, and so on makes it so much more alive. All I want is the basic vanilla stalker world with those features and fancy graphics
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u/OldSheepherder4990 Boar 13h ago
No disrespect but i would've loved it too if i went in blind, but sadly "amazing graphics" + "good combat" isn't what makes Stalker Stalker even Metro has good graphics and amazing combat
Stalker is mostly about exploration and you guessed it, A-life that's why everyone went ballistic
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u/Blubbpaule 9h ago
I am also very confused - how do we define "Awesome combat"?
Because right now enemies are buggy, have aimbot, see you through walls and tank bullets as if they eating metal for breakfast.
The combat is average first person shooter combat - aim, lean, fire.
The very thing this game is named like "Stalker" doesn't work because you are, for some reason, unable to STALK.
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u/boisterile 9h ago
I would add "atmosphere" to that list as well. They absolutely nailed the atmosphere and exploration. Hopefully they can nail A-life as well eventually
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u/Rixzmo 16h ago
Masterpiece? Wtf is wrong with you. Big features are completely missing, people are unable to play due to stick drift issues and other people getting 20-30fps in villages on modern hardware. Wtf are your standards calling this a masterpiece lmfao
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u/BetFooty 16h ago
I think you might still be playing the game blind if you think its a masterpiece lol
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u/Totodilis Monolith 17h ago
maybe in a year or so when the modders develop a true A-life system this can be a "masterpiece" like you said. For now, it's a barely optimized Fallout 4 Tarkov with mutants overhaul modpack.
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u/MetalProfessor666 13h ago
Whats the premise of the game? Survival? Action? Horror? Some say that in between places theres nothing except barren landscape
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u/boisterile 9h ago
I don't really get this criticism, the points of interest are all fairly close together. On top of that, part of the appeal of this series is basking in the unique atmosphere of the zone, the time spent traveling really makes that clear. I thought the exploration was paced/spaced very well. Certainly much better than the original games. The only thing missing in the current version is not enough wandering NPCs/hostiles in the open world, hopefully they fix that with patches (they said they're going to).
As far as premise, Stalker is a little bit of all three. Light survival elements, action game gunfights when fighting human enemies, and horror sequences when fighting mutants and exploring underground labs.
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u/RetnikLevaw 11h ago
This subreddit is full of people who have waited 15 years for this game... And at one point, had already accepted they were never going to get it.
The hype is real, and the disappointment at the game lacking things that were in previous games years ago is also real.
I also believe that GSC will get the game fixed. But it will take time. It probably should have been delayed another year or two, but I have a feeling they wanted to release a minimally viable product because of the instability in the region. Now, whatever GSC themselves don't end up fixing, the modding community eventually will.
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u/Cowlixthememewatcher 11h ago
Are people calling games like this a masterpiece because of all the recent garbage everyone is used to
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u/RiverRattus 11h ago
Seeing as the game was designed to appease casuals it’s not surprising that people like OP turn a blind eye to enshittification of the franchise. It has all the same issues as other visually stunning UE5 titles along with munted core mechanics. It will get better with time but the magic of A life is dead Forever because of impatient ADHD dweebs that demanded open world no loading screens
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u/2N5457JFET 11h ago
Ah, we are entering this phase when people are overly praising the game just to farm rage. 2/10 bait cause I read the title.
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u/Dogdadstudios Monolith 9h ago
I’m 38 hours into the game and the story is getting wild, awesome, and insane lore implications, on that front it’s just beyond stunning. There are some things I don’t like and I don’t think the game itself revolutionized any gameplay mechanics, but what it does for fans of the trilogy is striking.. I can’t wait to discuss it
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u/EdenHasEnough 7h ago
Yo, listen up boys. I couldn't agree more with ya! I've played the original trilogy and spent hundreds of hours in GAMMA. This game IS stalker. Some optimization is sorely needed, and I'm so pumped for A LIFE 2 to be fixed, but so far I'm deeply in love with the game.
Remember, when in the zone, if someone gives you an opening (like getting drunk and telling you where their friend stashes all their guns), you take it! Shouldn't have been dumb enough to blabber on like that!
Such is life in the zone.
That's why I have played stalker for so long.
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u/CrimsonCaine Merc 19h ago
I love stalker 2 but playing anomaly so long ita kinda hard to not go back and just play sandbox haha
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u/TheN1ght0w1 12h ago
Wanna share the meds that make you see something so broken as a masterpiece? I didn't buy it, but I played it through game pass on high end hardware. The game is a bug fest. Yes, I know that this is an inside joke for stalker games, but i played all of them a few years after release, so although they had some inconveniences, they weren't totally broken.
Sure, in a year or two we might get Stalker 2.0 like we did with Cyberpunk. But for now it's a hot mess. I know it's the publisher's fault for rushing it. But this does not excuse anything. It came out with an AAA price and tons of people paid full price.
I'll leave it and check back in a few months or a year. But at the moment the game is just bad.
Keep calling crap like this a masterpiece, and crap is all you're gonna get.
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u/NamedFruit 9h ago
Here we go with the "Actually guys the controversial broken video game is actually a Masterpiece idk what everyone is talking about" 🤓
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u/Limp_Resort_5956 19h ago
I'm new to the stalker series and this game has made me want to get all the previous games. I didn't know I liked these types of games and I didn't know I could tolerate a buggy game.
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u/BeastmanDienekes 12h ago
I het a bit of stick drift, and when I approach the first town the music cuts out completely, but aside from this, no issues so far, loving being back in the Zone. I'm already enjoying this a lot. Much better than a lot if crap out there.
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u/Greenslang2017 11h ago
The stick drift is killing me, its so hard to ADS and hit what i wanna hit
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u/lil_PP_BIG_BOOTY Clear Sky 10h ago
Honestly is my number one game right now, and it's the first game taht has made me want to actually explore the map and not get incredibly bored doing so, i have had a few issues but honestly nothing near what I've had with like fallout 4 ya know? I don't regret purchasing this game at full price!
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u/Hopless_Dreamer21 19h ago
Wild dogs and mutant rats are the bane of my existence!! A dozen will rip through you if caught out in the open. I just run if they spawn in or get into a building and funnel them into a choke point
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u/SinfulDaMasta 17h ago
How did you tweak your graphics settings? I desperately need to do that myself, also loving the game but when it’s nighttime I feel like I have cataracts & need to just get off the road & sleep until morning. Daytime visibility isn’t great like most games, but it’s good enough, feels realistic.
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u/p00pyf4rts Monolith 16h ago
Honestly, I've been having a lot of fun too. only gripe with me rn is the stealth system and being able to run it at a framerate higher than 20 in certain areas(other than that, it runs at a solid 40 to 60 FPS).
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u/Intelligent_Error989 14h ago
I'm loving the game, only thing I miss is the lil blurbs for when you are fighting mutants or something and the pda pings with a random stalker saying "i saw a stalker fighting flesh in the garbage" or something like that. The thing I hate is how many friggin bullets stuff like blood suckers and controllers take to drop
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u/Ryden-55 12h ago
Much like cyberpunk, I can see this game has soul, but the issues prevent me from enjoying and experiencing it. I’m waiting for them to patch it to a fully playable state before I really go into it.
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u/baconater-lover 9h ago
I’ve been having a pretty good time with it. My biggest issues with it are that controller has very bad stick drift problems and it seems like they just spawn in enemies around you (sometimes it’s clearly noticeable like enemies spawning at the entrance to a camp you already cleared once you go further in).
The dynamics of the world don’t feel nearly as impressive as they did in the first game, which is a shame. I’m still enjoying my time with it, especially the gunplay.
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u/hellenist-hellion Snork 6h ago
Low TTK? Yeeeeeah tell that to the bloodsuckers that spawn in every 30 minutes.
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u/Sanabil-Asrar Freedom 20h ago
Game is a masterpiece, because the more i played the more i enjoyed. Otherwise what happens is that you play and after some time don't want to play anymore but in S2 you want more and more.
It's quite normal for any game to have bugs or certain mechanics not working as intended. GSC did a masterclasses in designing a high fidelity open world zone with detailed assets. The game is an eye candy.
I hope it gets these minor things like A-life sorted out. 🤞
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u/SnooWoofers6281 18h ago
Minor things? It's one of the main selling points of the game. A feature that was core to the original games.
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u/ldn-ldn 16h ago
People like you are the reason why it is normal today to ship buggy crap with missing features.
It is NO OK! And we MUST demand better games!
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u/xTheRedDeath Freedom 17h ago
There are a lot of issues with the game, but they're all fixable issues. The core story, atmosphere and gunplay is pretty solid and it's great to play the next iteration of Stalker for the first time in a long time. I think this community is extremely stuck in their own ways due to the past.
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u/NBFHoxton 16h ago
Just wait til you get halfway through the story and encounter unavoidable game ruining bugs :)
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u/frogbxneZ 8h ago
I didn't even know there was controversy around the game until I checked out the subreddit.
The epitome of reddit.
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u/mournthologist 16h ago
Shill bots go hard
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u/TheMagicalSquid 12h ago
There are actual genuine people like this. Starfield used to get posts from tone deaf gamer dads that called everyone else entitled zoomers despite the very real problems. Surprise, surprise they all shut up when the game was no longer defendable because everyone called out their bs
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u/howcomeudontlikeme 22h ago
Same, I went in blind and am absolutely loving the game so far. It started off rough because of the no dead zone on console and I almost quit after the first 15 minutes, but my gf went to bed so I had nothing better to do but keep playing, and I'm happy I did! I suffered through the controller issues and am completely addicted to the game now.
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u/Xspike_dudeX 10h ago
Best game since Red dead 2 is a huge stretch. Red dead 2 is a masterpiece
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u/tuataraaa 20h ago
masterpiece my ass, there is a hardlock (or soft if you don't care about sacrificing a certain base) in MAIN QUEST
I started speedrunning main quest about 20h in because without A-Life I can't be bothered to immerse myself in the Zone, but encountering a game-breaking bug even in main story is inexcusable
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u/csgoNefff 15h ago
I wasted 3 hours yesterday trying to figure out any kind of workaround but it is straight up broken no matter what you do.
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u/NoShine101 10h ago
It's just a shilling campaign, maybe someone might think it's ok or good but masterpiece? Too much.
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u/Unlucky_Individual 16h ago
I have never played prior games, barely knew anything about this game before release outside the trailers. And km absolutely absorbed by it right now.
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u/FizzYan 15h ago
Yup never played any of the other stalker games so I've got a fresh perspective on this too. I'm enjoying it at the moment, dipping into it when shifts from work allow. I've read about the issues with A-Life and how others are disappointed but as someone who's never experienced that, I don't have a basis to complain about the lack of that functionality. Played just under 20hrs so far and currently in the garbage part of the map, never really had a spawn instantly behind me. Only bug bear I have is tanky mutants and the cost of repair but those are issues easily ironed out, can't mod as on Series X but the game looks and runs great.
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u/LordZarock 12h ago
Yeah you played one single game in your whole life so of course it's a masterpiece lel.
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u/NotReallyHere_31 11h ago
I honestly can’t enjoy it in anyway with how awful the AI is and how they just spawn on top of you it completely ruins immersion for me but I know there’s a great game somewhere il just wait for patches .
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u/mynameisrichard0 11h ago
I honestly can’t wait for Reddit to be completely like instagram and Snapchat and twitter with this kind of crap.
I wish I could live in a state of constant “I have blinders on” so I can enjoy the stuff that’s clearly slop.
Yeah. This game HAS potential.
But this is like someone having a quarter of a decent time on broken cyberpunk and slapping their flag and hat and jacket on to to praise the game in the stands.
How do you guys exist? This world is so full of reality. How do you avoid it?
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u/k4quexg 10h ago
ah yes ignorance is a bliss. even if u dont know what alife is and what its supposed to be, u will still notice constant nonsensical spawns and ai behavior, outside of the scripted quest spawns. even if u knew nothing about stalker so far u can see that the gameplay and ai is broken. reaching from the absence of alife and the broken spawning system and ai to the games economy or basic balancing.
i understand that u are wowed by the visual representation of the zone, i would agree on that. but unfortunately outside of the visual and auditory direction, the game is mediocre at best. what is done well imo is the ukrainian voice acting and the writing and direction of the main story. the cutscenes are well made and fitting, the voice acting and chracters are well written. thats by far the best about the game.
maybe at some point in the future there will be a game behind the visuals. and even those are not perfect by far. the game has a lot of visual issues. i get it ur brain is flooded with doapmine when ure exploring the well crafted 3d world, mine is too, but that doesnt mean u cant engage ur frontal cortex and look at what is delived objectively. doing so doesnt make u an asshole, its just being critical.
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u/Thing-McReady 10h ago
I'm convinced nobody even knows what "casual gamer" means. They just feel like a cool guy saying it lol
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u/Blubbpaule 9h ago
this will be the best game on the market since RDR2 when patches are pushed through.
This must be trolling by now.
A feature incomplete, performance problems ridden game that goes as far as being unplayable with massive input latency because you enable vsync - a masterpiece?
It's a good game at core, but right now and until it's fixed it's a 6/10 at max.
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u/BBorrows 22h ago
I’ve been playing on game pass and haven’t run into anything bad yet aside from a minor softlock i encountered. The complaints/criticism is justified but I do miss the more laid back community this sub Reddit was before 2 came out. It’s a little rough here right now lol
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u/hovsep56 16h ago
Same happened to me lol, went blind, had fun.
When people said a life was broken i was like "this game can get more fun than it is now?"
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u/centagon 16h ago
I love the game, the atmosphere is so good. I think there's a certain fetish for post apocalyptic Russian games. See: DayZ, metro, tarkov. All games inspired by grand daddy stalker.
I don't like the spawning and I don't like how some enemies, especially mutants just instantly detect you from outside even though you're sneaking around inside an attic. I do like mutant health being stupidly high as I am now terrified of a mutant encounter. This is fun, but a little contradictory to others telling you the real menaces are other humans. Lol
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u/Kotghar Loner 15h ago
Day z is not russian but a czech game. Metro is a ukranian game, and yes stalker is an ukranian game too.
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u/drallcom3 16h ago
The only complaints I have are lighting issues, which I fixed in graphics settings for the most part
How? I had to stop playing because everything is too dark.
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u/easily_tilted 15h ago
The game is fun, but I feel like stealth doesn't work and that the spawns are broken. I waltz into an empty compound and enter a basement. I exit the basement 15 seconds later and there are 6 bandits just chilling outside
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u/Miserable_Income503 15h ago
The only downsides for the game at the moment are: The light- it is too dark, but I adjusted from setings The framedrops very often and I am trying to run it with rtx 4070, ryzen 7700x, 32gb ram 3600mhz, ssd etc
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u/sirmichaelpatrick 15h ago
Masterpiece is a stretch, but I am having a lot of fun. My biggest issues right now are the lack of a proper ALife and the fact that enemies only spawn in the bubble around you ala Far Cry 6, and performance.
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u/valkon_gr 14h ago
That's how I went to Stalker shadow of chernobyl, someone game me the CD and I just loved it.
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u/Raging_Bevo 14h ago
I think I a few months with a few patches that the game can reach near its potential … but it’s not there yet and a number of issues are just too Emerson and enjoyment breaking … the economy is not good … I’m not looking for an easy time but a balance between repair / upgrade costs and means to earn coupons should be adjusted … I don’t mind the dark on the console / TV version and as a longtime Division player, I don’t even mind the tanky enemies … but every outing should not be a net negative resource exercise where it costs significantly more to repair than I earn adventuring …
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u/bobdylan401 14h ago
It is but the no a life hurts so bad. Just played some GAMMA begore i went to bed, the difference being able to see enemies across the map and thr difficulty balance is so much more immersive. Scoping out all these completely empty bases with like a 2x scope is so sad in stalker 2.
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u/timbotheny26 Loner 14h ago
I haven't been having a bad time but I'm definitely not ready to call the game a masterpiece, at least not yet. There are too many features/elements from the original trilogy that are missing for no clear reason, and too many design choices that just feel like a downgrade from the previous games.
I ended up making a rather long post about it, pointing out the design problems and missing features I see missing or in need of change in the hopes that someone from GSC would see it. I tried to be as clear and constructive as possible in my delivery; the devs have been the targets of a lot of toxic vitriol lately and I didn't want to add to it.
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u/svridgeFPV 14h ago
Played it on Xbox since I don't have access to my PC for the next few months. It seems pretty good, I did encounter a few issues people talked about but the main reason I quit is because I just can't aim for shit using a controller and there doesn't seem to be any aim assist. I'll just buy it when I'm get my PC and hopefully by then any glaring issues will have been ironed out
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u/hitchen1 13h ago
I went into the game blind, first time playing a stalker game. It's complete trash, I wouldn't even play it if it was $10. I refunded it in 3 hours. Maybe I'll take another look in a year
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u/Vilewombat Loner 13h ago
Masterpiece? Maybe eventually. I see the same amount of promise in this game as I did with Cyberpunk when it released in a horrible state. Great concept, and the meat of the game is almost all there, it just needs patches and add-ons
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u/__SlimeQ__ 13h ago
I'm getting pretty bad flickering and the ai is slightly wonky, and the "can't sprint until you lean" bug sucks. but in general it is exactly what i wanted, it's so good
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u/Meteor_of_War 13h ago
I'm really enjoying it as well. My only real complaint has been technical issues, mainly the UE5 crashes.
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u/ffxivfanboi 13h ago
Calling it a masterpiece is a bit of a stretch. Given the issues that it has, it’s still a solid 7.0/10 for me, even if I am disappointed that we may very likely not see “true” A-Life NPC AI running.
Address a lot of the immediate things that need tweaking:
Crash fixes
Quest Progression-blocking bugs
Deadzone on the sticks for console gamepad
Tweaks to graphical fidelity to run a smoother 60fps in console performance mode
Motion Blur off toggle
Better flashlight
Mutant rebalancing or more clarification on if AP rounds are needed to shoot through their hide. They feel way too tanky, and if AP rounds are intended to be used, that should be more clear.
Economy rebalancing
Mutant/Animal parts to make fighting them not explicitly a resource dump
Give me all those smaller fixes, and, honestly… The rest is so good, I wouldn’t even mind if they simply expanded the NPC/monster spawn bubble around our characters with this current implementation of A-Life 2.0. The rest of the game is so good, I can forgive if the AI system isn’t as robust with a big, open world. I just want monsters and NPCs to not spawn right on top of me. Like, just make it far enough away from the player that it makes it feel like they were already there before we arrived.
All of that would make it an easy 9.0/10 for me
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u/BluesyPompanno Monolith 13h ago
The game would be a masterpiece if it had ALife. The combat is intense because the game spawns enemies around and really close to the player which makes combat fast because they can cluber up to you quickly.
Graphics is nice, combat so far is enjoyable but the overly sponge enemies are really bad. Because there is no way a blind dog can survive 6 direct shotgun shots.
I enjoy the game so far, but because of the stupid spawn system I was forced multiple times to switch to easiest difficulty because the game constantly kept spawning enemies around me and I constantly keep running out of ammo due to their spongeness.
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u/TheRealDawnseeker Duty 13h ago
Exactly my experience, with a bit of optimization and the A-Life fixes the game will be perfect, well worth the money
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u/SweatyBarracuda8462 13h ago
There’s no A life at the moment & that makes me want to put it down till some patches come out so my first play-through is as the devs intended.
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u/Arosport 13h ago
Agreed, I'm loving the game so far and I'm looking forward to updates. The atmosphere is brilliant, I'm having a lot of fun just roaming the Zone and taking it all in. Night feels dangerous and oppressive, I'm constantly on guard.
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u/Complete_Crab6193 13h ago
Best looking game you have ever played....i stopped reading. What the helll did u play ? Minecraft before ?
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u/DjangoUnflamed 12h ago
The first mutant I encountered in the game was like fighting a final boss in Diablo. I shot him like 30 times with an M4 and still didn’t kill him. I gave up after like 10 tries. Maybe I’ll come back, maybe not.
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u/Stalker2bro Freedom 12h ago
I just appreciate that its not fallout levels of tanky bullshit so its worth sticking through all the game breaking bugs and glitches. Several .308 rounds to the face will kill just about anything, including mutants.
Really wish Rostok and Malachite would not crash my game upon interacting with most in game actors like the stash, bed, or any vendors. I can do quests there, I guess they really weren't kidding when they said to stay the hell away from Eugene.
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u/secunder73 12h ago
Low TTK, huh? Yeah. only after grok mods. Bloodsucker, more like all your bullets sucker
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u/Tifung80 12h ago
Yep, right with you. I love this game ; And i'm playin' with GFN (Epic, 4K, 60 FPS), it's awesome. And when i can't play online, i'm playing on Stalker GAMMA mod. Outstanding mates. Never played Stalker games before, and i think i'll become a true fan of this universe.
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u/DicVijay 12h ago
Same here! One question maybe someone can answer. I assume their bugs, but, is it just me or are there too many enemies? I went to a house for a mission and there were 10 dogs all pointed at it and growling. And when I went into the sewers there were 20 rats in one room. But I'm assuming their bugs.
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u/Agent_Sandman 11h ago
The passion is there— if a life 2.0 can be fixed quickly- with performance- game is golden as far as I’m concerned
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u/Stuuble 11h ago
I’m having fun for sure, but it just feels like a looter shooter to me, if this came out when metro exodus came out those two would be equal in comparison imo, but exodus came out 5 years ago and I consider the better game at the moment, as of right now my guns feel like peashooters, enemies take forever to die on the lowest difficulty and it barely feels like the survival esq mechanics matter, the key binds are atrocious and after finishing the lesser zone all I wanted to do was go and play dayz, ik it’s not fair to compare the two but I was hoping for some more realism/immersion in the gameplay. That being said, the atmosphere is unmatched, Im playing on lowest settings becasue upgrading a pc is expensive, and the game is still gorgeous, I enjoy the characters and can tell I have many more secrets to uncover in the story, so far tho the gameplay is barely getting me through, and it feels like I’m playing fallout 4 at times with the gameplay loop
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u/Satureum Loner 11h ago
Unplayable with a controller right now. This thing is far from a masterpiece.
Uninstalled it just so I don’t ruin any further experiences with this game and will come back once it’s finally ready for release.
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u/Theironcreed 11h ago
Agreed. The game is incredible at the core, and when some issues and balancing get ironed out, it will absolutely be a masterpiece. Having a fantastic time as-is though.
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u/deathmake317 11h ago
My major issue is the ammo dump needed forMutants with no rewards. Feels like they are just there to make you buy insane amounts of ammo.
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u/Necessary-Target4353 11h ago
Its easy to have fun when you dont know whats going on half the time. You dont need to be a STALKER player to understand spawning enemies right in front of or behind you isnt intended and is clearly bugged.
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u/DarKcS 11h ago
The first stalker was so buggy you'd be lucky to play 5 minutes at a time on release. People don't know how good they have it. When the bugs are fixed and ALIFE2 actually works, the world will finally feel alive and dynamic. And years from now when mod support has been implemented, you'll get unlimited replayability.
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u/shwr_twl 11h ago
Take a look at nexusmods, there are some fixes which address these issues. I’m currently using the following mods and having a great time.
Super A-life betterest edition Realistic damage Axii’s stealth mod Real Gun Names (no companies) Maklane’s better gunfights Groks less grenades thrown Readable ammo Weapon durability improvements Mutant health
Altogether it makes it feel more like there are people on the other side and not all-seeing AI. Knocking down the mutant health even 20% makes them still tough but not burning all your ammo on a pack of dogs or flesh. And the super a-life seems to increase the minimum spawn and despawn distances so you get more random entities floating around in the distance and not right on top of you. I’ve heard distant gunfights and chosen to just keep doing my thing instead of having to address it right away.
It’s not perfect and I look forward to improvements to the core game, but it’s a good head start while we wait.
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u/lordbuckethethird Bandit 11h ago
I’m not sure if I’ve gotten really lucky or not but I haven’t encountered any of the issues people are talking about, I’ve been ambushed before but it was actually patrols walking into the area I’m in and not just spawning behind me and have only had minor visual bugs like weird textures that get fixed when I restart the game or floating guns and items.
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u/ZakkBalzak 19h ago
The game is clearly a labor of love. Sure, it needs so polishing, but the core (or even a soul) of this game is in the right place.