Awesome Mod For An Amazing Series, But A Couple Big Oversights? Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

So firstly i played the first Stalker game a year or so ago and loved it. On the hardest difficulty straight up. It took a little bit of getting used to, but loved it. You actually *had* to peak around corners/use cover well in firefights to not instantly die and the AI actually tried to use the terrain - flanking, falling back for better cover/angles, general moving around in what actually seemed like strategical patterns. It made for some awesome firefights but unfortunately the game was a little short. Plus once you get used to the combat it (especially with later guns) eventually did get easy even on the hardest difficulty.

Then i saw this overhaul (including difficulty) so i figured i'd give this stalker game a go. But theres a pretty big oversight i've seen in the early stages so far and another kind of a problem.

The first, major oversight, is the fact your inventory makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, covered in salt, after being heated up to near melting temperature. Twice. To begin with. You have hundreds of random little different things that do all random little different (but important) things, but they are also all arranged randomly in many little places of your inventory.

Where is the categories? Where is the basic, general, auto/manual sort? It kind of has its own sort but it more puts everything together space wise than actually sorts properly or at all seemingly. Such simple things to implement and especially after (having to) look at each of the 50 items i got within the first 2hrs at least 10 times over now, to see what each does and if i need them on me etc, i would have thought this would have been a no-brainer since the early stages. Categories and/or sorting of both your inventory and containers.

Need a drug? scroll down to either the medical rows or better yet medical category. Boom, easy. Instead of swimming through the same 50 items every 2min. It's insane lol. And you would think sure i'll get used to it and the items icons after having played for a decent amount of time, but there is just so many different items that i doubt it in this specific case. Even it were true it'd be after hours and hours of needless tediousness and aggravation until then, lol.

Which kind of also ties into the second problem. Hunger and irradiated meat from hunting - 1 piece of which can take up to and probably more than half your life off in rads. First of all when i got those 50 items back to my stash, i autosaved then actually spent 20min looking at my inventory and then auto loaded, made a few changes then auto saved again, looked at my inv some more then auto loaded, made some changes then auto saved. Repeated for an hour or so. Fark, that.

I did that so i wouldn't waste an hour or 2 especially at the start, getting alot of hunger early while trying to sort out my gear, extra gear, inventory, personal stash, things to sell, etc. Especially when the majority of your food again takes half your life off and can only be replenished via important healing items or important (at least early) currency.

I'm all for more difficulty but give us a few more enemies each fight, make them a bit tougher, bit more accurate, items even a little bit more scarce, etc. Don't make some artificial difficulty by draining one bar when we refill the other (lose life when we eat meat) That's just cheap and not fun.

With the inv such an eyesore and so such a time waster, needing to sleep, and losing half your life when you eat, it really actually puts you on a timer in this game. Thats probably one of the biggest things i hate in a game, being put on a timer to finish the game basically. Especially in an awesome post-apocalyptic setting like this with crazy awesome dangerous creatures, much harder difficulty, alot to explore, etc.

Because you can only eat so much food, because you can only lose so much life from food, because you only have so much healing items (and rad reducing items) and so much currency that you can afford to put towards healing/doctors, that you literally are on a timer.

Yes this a big rant but i was hoping for the awesomeness of the first stalker game, enhanced because of this mod, and i was so close to getting it too haha. Cause the rest of it so far is awesome. But then the extreme inventory/containers eyesore/mess and terrible hunger/life drain systems happened. -.-

I'd like to know your guys thoughts on this, is it just me? Am i just a dirty dirty noob? Is it fine for everyone else or gets better later?

Cheers.

Edited by: Whiskiz

You know you don't ever have to eat radiated food, right? Everything has pros and cons. Game play is about making choices rather than spray and pray. Use the right tool for the right job. Choose complementary items which counteract each others negatives giving you what you need. Or, choose to pay more and eat healthy. Virtually every item you see in inventory which in 2.1.1 has only an immersion factor has one or more uses in 2.2. I'm not sure why there is no sorting system for the inventory, perhaps we lacked someone with the skills to manipulate the original coding of the UI. Much of it is hard coded.

To put it simply, you need to avoid activities which you are, as yet, unprepared for. Don't wander fire anomalies when all you have is a rain coat, don't get into firefights unnecessarily when you have poor armor, etc. Then you manage your expenses to live within your means. Cooking food reduces the amount of radiation too.

It's ironic you don't think the AI has good enough aim ... many complain they are too eagle eyed and never miss LOL.

Strategic use of the quick access belt slots can save you rummaging through your pack for a bandage, medkit, etc. They work best with single use items and only work for items with a 1x1 square size.

Lastly, Do not use Autosaves or Quick saves as they will ultimately corrupt your saved games and break your play through. In my profile comments are two different methods of using the same quick save/load keys to make quick HARD saves which do not become corrupted.

Happy Hunting Stalker!

Awesome feedback man, thanks. You misunderstood me on a few things though.

"You know you don't ever have to eat radiated food, right?"

So you never have to hunt to get meat to cook and eat? You can completely survive the entire game with using your currency for food and whatever else you find? Hm, kk.

"Game play is about making choices rather than spray and pray. Use the right tool for the right job"

I understand this concept. This isn't one of my problems. I'm one of those people that play on the hardest difficulty only and every item i get i save, in case i need later and end up finishing the game with 100's of items haha. Better to be safe than sorry, use your stuff wisely and only get into situations you can handle, etc. I also know for example i could eat meat then for the rads i could use purified water or whatever that reduces rads, but since items like that arent infinite or even abundant, its not really a long term solution. Nor is buying everything with currency when its all so pricy and you need to buy important gear which is even more expensive.

"I'm not sure why there is no sorting system for the inventory, perhaps we lacked someone with the skills to manipulate the original coding of the UI. Much of it is hard coded."

Ahh k, well, if you could implement some sort of inventory sorting system i can guarantee you it would make it much more new-player friendly. I don't mean as in dumbing the mod down or making it easier, i mean it would fix a pretty big problem and eye sore and save alot of time for people that haven't played this 30 times through already and are used to it. Making it nicer to bring in more people and less of a headache in general is always good.

"To put it simply, you need to avoid activities which you are, as yet, unprepared for. Don't wander fire anomalies when all you have is a rain coat, don't get into firefights unnecessarily when you have poor armor, etc. Then you manage your expenses to live within your means."

Again i understand but this isn't one of the problems for me. For example early on there is a quest to go through a fire anomaly to get to a crashed chopper site and instead of just running in and burning to death then complaining here, i instead waited until i had 3 "flesh hides" from skinning enemies that each give "thermal +24%" resistance. 3 slots giving 72% fire resistance. I know about using things wisely and being prepared but even still.

"Cooking food reduces the amount of radiation too."

Sorry, i forgot to mention i was even cooking the food first, but each piece of meat can still take half a life bar off you with rads. Even after i bought a multi fuel stove and some kerosene.

"It's ironic you don't think the AI has good enough aim ... many complain they are too eagle eyed and never miss LOL."

Haha again this isn't one of my problems, i never said the AI doesn't have good enough aim (although it is pretty easy if you use your lean out of cover, at all ) i said i would prefer increasing it a little or any other number of things instead of taking off one of our resources when we fill the other (taking our life away when we fill hunger with even cooked, animal meat) i mean i don't think it needs to be changed but i would prefer it to be changed over the radiated meat balance.

"Strategic use of the quick access belt slots can save you rummaging through your pack for a bandage, medkit, etc. They work best with single use items and only work for items with a 1x1 square size."

There are only 4 slots though, so can only be used for maybe stimpacks, rad packs and medkits? There is way more items so this does not help at all.

"Lastly, Do not use Autosaves or Quick saves as they will ultimately corrupt your saved games and break your play through. In my profile comments are two different methods of using the same quick save/load keys to make quick HARD saves which do not become corrupted."

Ok thanks for the info, i will definitely look at your profile comments then to do quick hard saves, cheers

Edited by: Whiskiz

I know there are a great many hoarders out there, but this causes problems. The game protects you from selling game critical items. Every item on the map consumes finite resources. The more items, the poorer performance and ultimately it will cause CTD's.

You should actually sell everything you don't expect to need in the immediate future. The only real exceptions I make is AP ammo, under barrel launcher ammo, and one or two mines. I have never first gone to Pripyat with less than 500,000 Rubles in my pocket. I only eat healthy food and only use AP ammo personally. In 2.2, you can literally play all the way through without buying anything except upgrades and even that is probably feasible. You can thrive using only the items you find and/or loot. In 2.1.1 you have to buy at least one suit for the tunnels, but that's about it.

Depending on your class, and your proficiency in managing your radiation exposure, you can alternatively eat no 'imported food' and still survive quite well.

Keeping 1000's of rounds of ammo in calibers you never plan on using, one of every weapon, etc. only has a down side. Knowing the consequences, if you choose to 'collect' something like one of every weapon, it is still your choice.

I have to assume, if inventory sorting were possible on this xray engine it would long since have been done. IDK if open xray allows this or not. It definitely was not something skipped to increase the hassle.

Regarding the quantity of mutants/NPC's, they consume more than half the entire CPU load in the game. There is 4X the amount of AI in Misery than in the vanilla game, and that is just if you stick to the default 300m switch_distance. Unlike the original game, the smart terrains are repopulated promptly maintaining a significant population at all times..

"I know there are a great many hoarders out there, but this causes problems. The game protects you from selling game critical items. Every item on the map consumes finite resources. The more items, the poorer performance and ultimately it will cause CTD's."

Hm, interesting and unfortunate. It's not that people are afraid of selling critical items Its that a great many players are naturally hoarders, especially more so coming into a game with not only max difficulty but an increased difficulty mod with the description being for only the most hardcore playstyle etc on a game thats a realistic post-apocalyptic survival game and finally that is oldschool (meaning relatively challenging to begin with) So that makes a want player want/need to save everything even more - What if you come to a fight or a map where you need say multiple stimpacks and a medkit and maybe a drug to stay alive, but you sold half those medkits and all the drugs instead?

Thats always the fear and how people see it - getting to a point you can't pass because you are out of health potions (medkits/stims) Especially again with the above circumstances. I had even started my gun collection the first few hours in, i had like 5 different assault rifles all taking different ammo even though i didnt have ammo for most of them yet haha. A shotgun and some random pistols too. Kept every single drug, utility item, medicinal, repairing etc etc.

Will definitely take that into consideration though and maybe that will help make it even more of a challenge, not keeping everything. Especially when i chose the 400m "switch_distance"?

"Keeping 1000's of rounds of ammo in calibers you never plan on using, one of every weapon, etc. only has a down side."

You always plan on using it, it just never ends up happening or never needs to happen haha. You plan on needing/using everything eventually, that you will need to at some point, but it just never works out that way and so you take a "better safe than sorry" approach to it.

"The only real exceptions I make is AP ammo"

It's interesting you save AP ammo but not high tissue damage rating ammo for big bad mutants, etc.

"I have never first gone to Pripyat with less than 500,000 Rubles in my pocket"

Ah so you can definitely afford to always eat healthy if you wanted to, you get alot more currency later on. Good to know.

"I have to assume, if inventory sorting were possible on this xray engine it would long since have been done. IDK if open xray allows this or not. It definitely was not something skipped to increase the hassle."

I definitely didn't think it was skipped or anything, just that maybe you guys hadn't thought of it, didn't think it was a problem having been so close to the game and being so used to how it is now. Thats a shame if it is hardcoded but all good, cheers for letting me know if so. Maybe inventory management won't be so bad when not hoarding

Thanks for the heads up - on auto hard saving, on the resource use, on inventory sorting and/or lack thereof and all the feedback in general. Much appreciated.

I'm excited to see 2.2 release, i was actually thinking about waiting for it but i saw its been in the works for a long time now and wasn't sure if it was coming out any time soon.

Edited by: Whiskiz

There is unfortunately no predicting if key members will have time at any juncture to implement a fix or polish something when it is most convenient and timely, so no way to estimate. We thought we would finish more than a year ago.

What I suggest is once you are past the stage of having no idea what your progression will be weapon wise, like I always know I will graduate to a G36 or similar 5.56 assault rifle with either an integrated or added grenade launcher and one of a couple fastest firing Sniper rifles, I sell every weapon after I find a better one. I never use pistols and rarely use shotguns (other than very early on) so there is no reason for me to care about shotgun or pistol ammo. You can always find grenades, so other than a small stash, I sell them all. When I am playing without buying anything (which will always be my default after 2.2 is completed) I save all Cat IV or V ammo regardless of caliber for when I need it later. I save food, a few stimpaks ( I rarely need them), only a couple radiation meds (again I rarely get irradiated).

Money is never tight past the first couple hours unless you adopt a strategy which squanders your resources. You almost never need a mechanic to fix your stuff if you take care of it properly in the first place. There are plenty of materials to be found/looted. Same goes for outfits. If you don't use an outfit for something besides what it is designed for, the wear is much lower and repairs always manageable. If you use the wrong one it will be severely worn, even though you may survive.

There are a lot of items to learn the mechanics of and best way to gain from them. I'm for a much more limited inventory space (it's only a backpack after all) so you have to choose carefully not only for carry weight but space consumed. This would largely eliminate not having your inventory organized, be more realistic, and all your items would fit on a single screen in inventory.

jasper34 wrote:

I'm for a much more limited inventory space (it's only a backpack after all) so you have to choose carefully not only for carry weight but space consumed. This would largely eliminate not having your inventory organized, be more realistic, and all your items would fit on a single screen in inventory.

My long-time favorite mod for Shadow of Chernobyl (called "AMK Soljanka" – it's all in German) does exactly that: It attributes every item in the game a "size" value, and the limits you with a maximum size your backpack can hold. In that mod, the backpack size changes depending on the outfit you're wearing.

I agree that it's a pretty neat idea that I would welcome in Misery (either in this or some similar form of implementation). Even though it'd ruin my current playstyle of lugging 80-100 kilograms back to base after an extended firefight as an Assaulter .

Edited by: BlueSpark4

2.2 will partly change that too. You'll still stay out until you have broken 300 kilos down into 100+, but no longer have to haul a few kilo weapon worth less than 1000R back to sell.

Whiskiz , I never have problems with cooked meats I pop mkv tabs water , ciggies, or rolled tobacco. Play the game , stop whining , figure it out.

A little perspective, I almost never carry more than 1 stimpack and one medkit. I have never needed more. I almost always find more than I use and come back with extra to sell. If your play style gets you wounded so often you need a half dozen medical items to limp back to base, you might want to rethink your strategy. Do you think any soldier wades into a battle gets himself shot and then keeps getting himself shot instead of retreating, taking cover, evading until he is safe? It isn't Monty Python... your goal is to survive. Adopting a style which constantly gets you shot and wounded is contrary to a survival mindset IMHO. You are, of course welcome to do so But, if you are carrying so much it is getting you wounded so you need to carry more which gets you wounded more so you need to carry more ....

Interesting feedback. Based on the given info I would assume Whiskiz has not yet reached Pripyat, perhaps staggering in the first zone like we all have been.

First of all, yes there are tons of little items all over the inventory. Most of us have to spend the first few hours just read everything and come to the forum to ask more questions about things we just read. They have put serious amount of efforts into creating new items, at least we can respect that and read them, figure out what each one of them does.

After few play through players will have much easier time when it comes to inventory. Me for example, I sell almost 90% of the loot on every raid. I had big problem with hoarding before, always thinking every piece has its unique use and I better keep it just in case.

The reality for Misery is, a lot of the items has effects that overlapping each save few drugs. Not everything is useful or irreplaceable except few quest related items. Players like Jasper and I can easily go by without using majority of the drugs, kit and all the misc stuff. Once you had enough hours put into misery you will understand these items are created for players to use at choice, not truly required to progress in game.

The things that is truly essential especially at beginning stage is money. With enough money you can avoid a lot and a lot of hardship like rad meat, poor condition weapons, shortage of ammo, lack of proper protection gear etc. Jasper can get half million before Pripyat, because it is doable and pretty simple once players like us learned where to look and how to save. It will take a bit reading and time on exploring, but the reality is acquire massive amount of money is pretty straight forward and simple.

How do I do it? Sell things, sell every single piece of loot to the proper vendor(their prices are different), only keep the thing I really can't live without. For beginning stage, first weapon of choice for the economic reason should be a shotgun, not the best assault rifle you happened to find during traveling. Shotgun ammo are the cheapest when it comes to price/damage, they are readily available and easy to obtain. So every raid I head out with 50+ buckshot, spent maybe 15 or 20, came to base with 10K+ worth of loots, repeat the same process few times I could afford just about anything I need from vendor.

I am sure there are bunch of other tips out there where you can find in other topics. Just few short ones here: Never pay for repairing weapon, not worth it. Never reduce your own health for any reason unless you have free ways to replenish it. Never pay for gears you don't need, you can find almost everything out there.

My only problem with the mod was its visual effects, like bubbling of the head when moving and blurred vision when firing powerful weapons etc. Gave me headache and motion sickness. I hated the fact hip fire raise up my screen. I just fixed them all myself.

Edited by: DesertEagleV

As many of you probably already know, 2.2 will make all items but bad ammo have at least one use. You should still sell everything you don't need. When you are comfortably money wise, keep one of the most likely items and any repair items like oils, sewing kits, etc. Those things and AP ammo for my favorite shooters I keep, that is about it.

I will add one thing on repairs, if you don't have the materials to make a repair yourself, but only need a few percent to bring your shooter or armor up to 100% condition, using a mechanic is cheaper than buying the stuff.

jasper34 wrote:

As many of you probably already know, 2.2 will make all items but bad ammo have at least one use. You should still sell everything you don't need. When you are comfortably money wise, keep one of the most likely items and any repair items like oils, sewing kits, etc. Those things and AP ammo for my favorite shooters I keep, that is about it.

I will add one thing on repairs, if you don't have the materials to make a repair yourself, but only need a few percent to bring your shooter or armor up to 100% condition, using a mechanic is cheaper than buying the stuff.

I got a question I've had for a while. In 2.1.1, what is the exact percentage of condition that going to a mechanic for repairs is more expensive than repairing the item yourself? It must be some kind of quadratic or exponential equation determining repair price increase as an item degrades in quality. I know that in 2.2 it won't matter as much since you can now dismantle weapons to get the parts you need, but I bet we'll still be using the mechanic's repair service quite often.

Mechanics prices are slightly affected by your relationship with them, but primarily on the base price of the item. Generally, lacking spare parts from 2.2, it is most economical to use the mechanics when even the lowest priced repair item (oil, glue) costs more than they ask (assuming it is not in your inventory). There is no set percentage. 2.2 will also bring our "condition note" which will tell you the precise percentage condition of every item in your inventory to help choose the most efficient item(s) to use to reach the desired condition. IMO if something is damaged less than 5% mechanics are a pretty good deal. If you have an item beat to heck that you really want now, it will be situational what the most economical method is. If you have a plethora of a repair item and meet the conditions for its use, I would use it. Hoarding only has a psychological benefit, zero game play benefit and is a performance and stability killer.

The other factor is really patience. Can you wait a few forays time to acquire enough parts to fix your shooter up better, or do you really just want it now.