u/Flushestpoem4

Please GSC mod team, some through with something

Also as a more minor point, there are surely still gonna be plenty of locations that fit the old Stalker aesthetic. We haven't seen any updates to places like the Swamps or Burned Forest in the trailers, so I imagine you'll still find plenty of the dessicated, brown Zone around.

This is a Viva La Dirt League skit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XvzlHuqlXY

Thanks u/gwynnbleidd2

In the Stalker games, most anomalies are pretty expected, the Zone tends to just amplify existing hazards or the human perception of those hazards. A field of poppies will make you drowsy, a power substation will produce electric anomalies, an oil pipeline will sprout fire anomalies. All work within the bounds of the known and appear in predictable ways.

It works well for gameplay, but Stalkers anomalies always felt a bit boring compared to adjacent settings. Roadside Picnic, the Stalker Film, Metro, Into the Radius, all have anomalies that feel much more genuinely anomalous in my opinion. It leaves their settings and their Zones feeling much more mysterious, you can't point to the River of Fate or Hellslime or the Grinder and say why it exists with any kind of credibility, it's just the inscrutable, living Zone.

I don't know, I'm sure it's not for everyone, but I think the Stalker games could benefit from more weird, unexplainable phenomena, unlike the usual hazards from time to time. Imagine getting vivid flashbacks to meltdown in '86, or meeting the ghost of a forgotten stalker, or some weird malicious presence that lurks just behind your back in a Pripyat apartment.

Could just be overthinking it, but after watching the Stalker movie the first room in the Caspian bunker looks very similar to the one the Writer has his epiphany in. Neat reference if it's intentional.

At least for me this segment, where you're standing with the Children of the Underground defending Paveletskaya is the best static defense mission in the series, more than D6, Novosibirsk, and the Reich Heavy Squad.

I think the main reason it works so well is that it's just the essence of what makes Metro so interesting, undiluted. With most similar segments there's something extra added on top, whether it's moral complexity or minibosses or some wheel you've got to turn.

I think Defense just strikes at exactly what makes Metro so cool at its core. You're a handful of guys in a tunnel fighting a doomed stand against the Unknowable Depths, trying to hold out long enough for a few more people to make it to the neighboring line. The pacing is also just really well done. I feel like D6 and Heavy Squad throw enemies at you just slightly too fast. A new group appears just before you've finished with the previous one, and so you can't really stew in the environment. Defense has you stand around waiting just long enough between events that you really do feel besieged.

The rest of the level also just helps it along massively, being able to see the aftermath of the siege, passing through the wrecked station finally making it with the kid to the refugee caravan, it makes the failed defense feel that much more real.

I really hope we see more like it in the next game, maybe at Sevastopol. It's a segment where you feel like just another real, scared person in the Metro, not a protagonist, and I feel like we haven't gotten enough of those in the series. I want more moments where you're living within the routines of the Metro instead of seeing them subverted, and other than the first few levels of 2033 we haven't gotten much of that.

Whenever I Have more than one or two crew I tend to notice this happening. About half the time my crew will actually be in proper positions around the ship, and the other half they're all gathered around a single doorway or ladder blocking my path into the rest of the ship. Is there any fix for this, mod or otherwise? And are there any design principles when making ships that help NPCs navigate them?

Just tried out gamma and I'm loving it so far, but my only major gripe so far is it has that "extremely heavily modded" look that you see whenever someone decides to turn Skyrim into a souls-like. Like it's too crisp and contrasted to actually be real.

the updated textures and models themselves are beautiful, but the lighting feels all wrong, shadows are too long and there seems to be a film grain effect that turns itself on and off on a whim. Are there any good mods that'd help without conflicting with the Gamma modpack?

Meat-golem Danse is making me think Maxon has a point about the Institutes abominations...

Not sure if it's descriptive enough, but it's been a very persistent crash regardless of what mods I add or remove. Usually during fog or rain, or when I'm going into a settlement the games audio will cut out for a moment, cut back in, and then the game will crash. It seems like a more specific issue than just overloading on mods or fallout being fallout, but I haven't been able to find anything on it. Is there any fix for this? Thank. I'm on Xbox series x if it makes a difference.

Also, Meat-golem Danse, for your enjoyment.

Didn't think he'd come up again after completing his quest, but I found him both zombified and in a completely new exo-suit. He and a few other zombies were hanging out just by the place you meet Scar for the first time. Is this a scripted encounter if you save him or did he manage to somehow get both an exo suit and zombified by the a-life?

By any metric. Vibes, performance, animations, sound design, customization. Which do you prefer?