Misery 2.1.1 My Review/ Suggestions Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Well, I'll try to make this review as less wall of text as I can(well, probably not)...

I've seen some users report that misery is too hard and some others saying that it's "actually too easy". Well, I believe that there are two kinds hardcore players: Those that keep dying reloading unil they get lucky, or use some cheesy tactics to win, and those who try to die less and less, while role-playing.

For the first one there will be the short term reward of bashing his head against unsurmountable odds many times until he comes out on top.

For the second one, there will be the long term reward of dying very few imes or not only once, wich I believe it's the max reward one can get from hardcore settings.
Misery stands divided between the two categories as of now. It provides a good challenge that rewards well for playing cautiously in many situations, quick thinking rewarding you in other occasions, all leading to the "no death" ultimate reward, but then it's rough edges appear, the other head of the chimera, shows itsel fsaying: "You played very well, but now it's time to reload!".

I believe every misery player knows what I'm talking about, so let's talk about some changes:

*These changes are proposed in a scenario where the player is not taking cheesy advantages like getting the AKM godly stash in the beginning of the game and is really trying to stay alive.*

1 - Time Scale

Misery does a very good job when forcing you to plan your moves: Equipment, terrain, scouting, however it doesn't give you enough time to be cautious because of food comsumption rate and price. It becomes a contradictory section of the challenge specially at the beginning of the game where you have to be extra cautious. Caution means time and time means money in Misery. Also, too many items too choose from, comparing sell prices and repair prices can take some time that we don't have.
I propose that the day/food consumption becomes 2 times slower. Rushing players will mostly find death and cautious players would actually have the time for cautious approach.

2 - Bloodsuckers

To be honest, they need their sounds again. Right now there is no way you can prepare against them, and they rarely come alone. getting their sounds back will reward the player for his awareness, giving him a chance of survival.

3 - Snorks, Cats, Pseudo-Dogs

They simply have too much power in all areas. They are fast, deadly, resilient AND attack in groups. Climbing on rocks is always the best solution for this, but won't always work with snorks and will resultin your death 99% of times if there are little to no rocks around(jupiter, looking at you). Also rocks shouldn't always be the best option because the game becomes like a shooting gallery, moving from rock to rock.
Pseudo-dogs and Cats should reward the player for his reflexes + his awareness. They are fast and deadly so they should have less health allowing the player to kill even 2 rushing mutants if he has good and quick aim. More than 2 would require climbing, of course. This should give us a more direct approach than going from rock to rock. Their speed(snorks included) should be adjusted so that they take longer to reach a player running with a light backpack.

The only other way I can think of balancing is to make them less roamy and more predictable. They are hard to balance.

4 - Pseudo-Giants

They are OK, no changes needed.

5 - Dual chimeras

Fun, but overkill. It will be the certain death of the player that travels lighly. I believe 1 unexpected chimera already is a brutal challenge. But I could be wrong.

6 - Boars

Less speed it's the only way I can think of. They are massive so they should be slower. Also they can kill you at lightspeed even if you run. I prefer to fight 2 snorks or 2 bloodsuckers than 2 boars.

7 - 2 Poltergeists at Kindergarten

Can't think of any solutions without nerfing their psy damage radius. Here it's either use a shotgun or 95%chance of death with "WTF" written on your headstone.

8 - Controllers

They are pretty balanced for beign a high tier mutant. But their ability to "mind-punch" you even if you arehidden behind a bush could be taken away. The rule is that they have to see you to do that, so it would makemore sense and it would be more fair in open areas.

9 - Pripyat Tunnels

I know it's not misery's fault but if they could give your temmates 3x more health or even better, if possibleremove their friedly fire. They keep killing each other when firing at mutants. With higher eye rang it's evenworse because they keep firing at a wall and take too long to actally hit the mutants and stop firing, wichincreases the chance of friendly fire considerably.

10 - Escorting Strelok and the others

Same here. That section is already hard enough and having to babysit 4 Artificial Dumbness bots it's brutally frustrating. Give them 3x hp to compensate the fact that they like to stay in open areas without cover, while eating monolith bullets.

Well those are mostly mutants but what about gunfights?

They are mostly well blanced, the only bad things is that they don't misfire and can see you too easily though thick bushes and at night. Nothing too terrible, only if you're trying a no/few death approach then it becomes a pain.

Recon class:

Recon class is interesting, allows for more stealth occasions, but they lack too much long range power, wichwouldn't be bad if the game had more interior action. He needs more HIGH prof. armour options too. Sci-suitsand their crippling stamina simply aren't worth the risk. I believe he is a bit underpowered because he rarely meets the conditions favorable to his abilities. Night is too dangerous. He's fast but mutants can still get to him. I believe that he should benefit from good speed/regeneration while using medium protection armour as high proficiency, let sci-suits be medium prof for all classes, and increase low tier artifact prices a bit so that that the danger of using such suit actually pays off.

Well, that's my WoT that even a armor pen: V couldn't pass through
Hope that this could be of some use to the Devs, or inspire them to have better ideas.
Also, english is not my native language so please disconsider any translation errors.

Edited by: Gordyne

Maybe it's just me, but any game I could reasonably expect to make it all the way through without having to reload would just be too easy. Maybe it would be nice if a character in appropriate armor for their class could run JUST fast enough when carrying 10 Kilos below their max weight to run and be able to fire while retreating from a pack of mutants. IRL you could not outrun a cat, dog, or boar for very long and anything bigger than a house cat could shred you. I think you want to play a puzzle game with no combat and just traps you can avoid if you're clever. FPS are about shooting and shooting means sometimes getting hit and dying. Your character is an agent. The walls of every clandestine agency are covered with stars representing their fallen. The most frequent way to leave service is by dying in the field. I don't fault you for having a play style that prefers the least combative solutions wherever possible, but the Zone doesn't favor the weak. If you are unprotected and spend long facing one direction something can and should eat you. Two things that might make the game more playable for you would be an animal companion (cat, dog or crow) that could alert you to danger, or a simple proximity alarm (infrared) that would alert you something cat size or larger is within a stones throw of you. It would be a royal pain to try and keep an animal companion alive, so it would have to flee once alerting you until danger was gone. That would take some serious programming to make happen. An IR detector with silent proximity alert might be simpler.

"FPS are about shooting and shooting means sometimes getting hit and dying."

But that is exactly what I want. Shoot and retreat is not an option now, retreat is barely an option now and stand and shoot is next to impossible.
I don't think you realize but we are actually in agreement here

"least combative solutions wherever possible, but the Zone doesn't favor the weak. If you are unprotected and spend long facing one direction something can and should eat you."

I like combative solutions too. I'm only ponting out moments that none of them work. Moments in wich even the perfect combination of awareness, reflexes and planing results in the player efforts being completely in vain.

"Your character is an agent. The walls of every clandestine agency are covered with stars representing their fallen."

If I understand that right, you're saying that the player is fated to die just for "realism" or to show that the game is hardcore?
If this is what you meant, it's not accurate from a realism standpoint, because the major would gather information and would assume it's suicidal going in
without backup. Agencies wouldn't send someone to a mission tha has 99% probability of death.

If it's because of: "It's hardcore then you MUST die!", then sorry but this is just a lame excuse for poor balancing, even my little sis could put 6 snorks after you and call it hardcore. Every situation must have it's counterplay if the player is prepared, aware or reacts in due time(depends on the situation), unless he really does something out of his league.

If it's none of those then dismiss what I said.

Even if they implemented all my proposed changes, finishing it without dying(and without cheesing) would still be very hard.
Also, no need for animal companion, just make player awareness more rewarding for seeing danger befor it comes.

Edited by: Gordyne

I agree with Gordine overall. The Misery 2 mod is spectacular (I cant see myself going back to vanilla or any other mod) but some parts are exagerated and could be adjusted. And I totally agree with the idea the the mod should reward planning and realistic behavior from the player, instead of cheesy-tactics (like the ones used by the "Ironman /no-die mode" video player I linked the other day), and for this to hold true the difficulty dial should go down a bit so you rely more on smarts and less on reloads.

The only point I disagree is the animals speed. I think they are nice right now. In real life most animals are much faster than your average human being.

The only two points I would add:

1) NPCs detection range. I think its too far, resulting in problematic behaviours for A-Life, like quest-important NPCs going out of their way to fight some mutant 200 meters away (and dying in the process) or hostiles shooting you from too far, from a distance anyone would probrably have difficulty defining friend or foe in first place, or simply bizarre behaviour like NPC aiming at targets wihout line-of-sight / behind walls.

2) Economy and gear effects balancing. I play as a Recon and I feel the economy and gear effects are really unfair to him. First because artifacts are almost useless in its effects and selling value. Second because the paraphernalia needed for artifact hunting tend to be very heavy, nullifying the Recon mobility and exploration advantages.

P.S: about the friendly fire, I witnessed it right now on the tunnel to Pripyat. Perhaps a solution would be to make all NPC teams (even those roaming in the wilderness) immune to friendly fire between themselves ?

Edited by: lessavini

They don't call them suicide missions for nothing... Agents can and do accept missions with strong likelihood of failure. They endeavor to accomplish the mission at all costs or die trying. They don't go off task constantly trying to save the innocent or keep every ally of the moment alive. They don't spend more time in the bush trying to sneak past a few bandits or a checkpoint than they have supplies (food/water) to survive. I don't know what it is that you are unable to retreat successfully from. You dash for cover, fire and dash, hide in a bush (where virtually no mutants will enter), lob a grenade, dash for next cover. You need to be familiar with the habits of each type of mutants and what they can and can't climb, see though, won't enter or come too close too and use those to your advantage. If you are being observant enough you can spot trouble well before it spots you in most cases. If you are not equipped to handle a few bloodsuckers chasing some dogs around, avoid it. You can tell the bloodsuckers are there by the way things run away or chase after them. I've limped back way overburdened across open areas full of mutant swarms including bloodsuckers and psi dogs and made it to the trader to cash in my loot dozens of times. It's impossible to design a game, let alone modify an existing game, so that is perfectly meets every players style and ability with exactly enough difficulty to make it challenging, but not too challenging. I not only want it to be challenging to stay alive, I want it to be random enough that playing it over is still challenging. Misery is as close to that as I've ever found. You can change your run and jump speed as long as your system can handle the load if you just want to be able to sprint away from trouble. Run speed is in effectors, jump speed in creatures actor file.

Im with Jasper in this specific point of fauna behavior - I find its one of the more "alive' and random features for me, and I love it when some animal gets me off-guard and I have to run for my life.

Though I think Bloodsuckers should have their sounds back. Otherwise it strays too much on the "unfair" / reload-intensive / trial-and-error side of the spectrum, insteado of the realistic/planning ahead one.

I can't ever remember (unless I've got music blaring in background) not hearing dogs before I see them, I thought bloodsuckers make a sound just before jumping out at you ( Start blasting and stop them half the time before they scratch me), even spawns of new NPC's break squelch on the radio when they appear, even if out of sight. There are tons of subtle auditory and visible clues that you are or soon will be in trouble if you aren't observant. Cats are, of course the exception which makes it exciting and is why I pick the sneaky bastards off in the distance every time I see them. Of course, I do the same with everything else that poses a potential future threat. I almost never loot them, because you'll get raped every time while you're bent over. Giants can eff you up without ever making a peep, but aren't exactly hard to avoid if you are properly scanning your surroundings. The right pairs of corrected artifacts can give you significant benefits and leave you less likely to bleed out as well as better protected against some anomalies and with greater stamina. I'm not a fly on the wall, but I have a feeling we will start seeing less important NPC's dying out of turn and hopefully less cats being ignored until they have finished eating you. Part of the fun is being scared for your virtual life and being surprised more often is a good part of that. Maybe there should be a separate set of subtle sounds at night, but subtle is the key. Just enough to alert you, but not steady here I am crashing through the bushes in this direction trail of sounds. Cats are normally primarily nocturnal, maybe radioactive silent critters should be primarily be active during the day. I'm not normally out at night and can't even say what the sounds are LOL. Chimeras are supposed to ne nocturnal, but you find them out wrecking havoc during the day. Shoot them from a distance preferably from safe vantage and while they are hunting someone else. The friendly fire in the tunnels does suck. My memories of vanilla tunnel travel were that it was much harder to get through (yourself) alive and the NPC's were not as rabidly trigger happy. I remember them much more passive which may be why they rarely shot each other. Now they just spray away over a tiny mouse that is running away into a wall somewhere.

Snorks can kill you in any bush they want, and most rocks.
As for pseudo dogs and cats, their HP is just overkill. you either have rocks or you are dead, and in some places even if you want to, you won't find anything to protect you from the pack. It's either fail horribly or win easily. That is predictable and boring for me.

"I don't know what it is that you are unable to retreat successfully from."

Bloodsuckers: 2 hits, no room for reaction.
Snorks: They chase Flesh, kill it and go after you. Nearly impossible unless you have a good shotgun, leaving weapon choice very limited.

Most of my points are to show tha there is too much luck involved, even when playing correctly, knowing mutant behavior and preparing accordinly.
And by luck I mean, you die, not second nor first chances.
Yes, we could have a way to cancel mutant looting, died many times because of that.

Of course, all my points would be invalid if Misery declares itself as the trial- error kind of difficulty as said before. But I think it's a very primitive way of difficulty.

"Im with Jasper in this specific point of fauna behavior - I find its one of the more "alive' and random features for me, and I love it when some animal gets me off-guard and I have to run for my life."

Well, I'm with him too, because I don't remember stating otherwise...
Just that those moments should give you more chances of escaping alive.

Oops, I just noticed - I reduced all animals detection range in their respective files. So, yeah, I think I may be already playing a "reduced difficulty" version of the mod. In which case, I agree mutants capabilities should be reduced overall. BTW Gordyne, have you tried editing the creatures files for reducing their perception ? I did and it feels better now. IMHO, of course.

Jasper wrote: even spawns of new NPC's break squelch on the radio when they appear, even if out of sight.

Thats interesting. Never noticed it.

Any time you hear the radio break squelch it means enemies have appeared nearby, either that or it's a really frequent coincidence

I have reduced mutant stats to the suggestions in my review. It's much more fair now, still extremely challenging and fun(and frustrating if you're counting deaths, lol).

I just posted this because Trojanuch asked. And to point out some things they may have missed, who knows.
I'll be trying their next patch without my personal changes, as they said they'll try to make it more fair.

Can we enable the mini map in free play so we can look for friends more easily? Basically all I do in free play is traveling with my fellow stalkers so a mini map would be really helpful! Also, would anyone be kind enough to make an English version of the radio communication, or a subtitle at least?

What radio communications? All I ever hear is garble and static ... maybe I've been playing so long it's just background noise. Actually I think it is just background noise for emersion and to tip you off new parties have spawned.

TheBlackCat, I endorse your idea. In fact, I think a mini-map would be useful even before freeplay, showing just friendlies for when we ant to stroll with them. And e rationale doe this is sound too - friendlies in the zone would be wise to share GPS positions for safety and mutual help, right ?

Yep Hope they'll bring it back in the next release, I personally would like a square mini map (don't ask, I don't know why). Jasper, I think they talk Russian on the radio, and why not make some English lines for it so the game can be more lively? And I hope that there will be repeatable missions in free play, like killing bandits, hunting for animal parts, or defense missions in some particular areas.

Later in the game, after you return from Pripyat the first time it gets plenty lively. Monolith, plenty of bandits and mercs and Duty or Freedom, unless you walked the tight rope and became balanced, to loot ( I mean help ... kumbaya) so you don't need missions to keep you busy. You wander the neighborhood and kill everyone that shoots at you :-) Do you want them to put mutants on the mini-map too so you can see them approaching to violate your corpse while you are trying to figure out which ones on the mini-map are least likely to watch you die so they can loot your corpse? We might need a zone veterinarian to tranq and humanely GPS/RFID tag all the mutants as they spawn so they show up on your screen. See this is why we really need some genius to import a net throwing gun. Think of all the paper training and interrogations you could do if you capture them alive. Yes, it would be useful and make life easier. That's why it was removed. You may be right, they may be speaking Ukranian, but I think with all the 1000's of hours I've played this game I would have picked something intelligible out by now. Your in the exclusion zone, what language do you expect to hear? I prefer it for the immersion and it makes it easier to ignore after I glance around to see where they spawned. They are your enemies, they will lie to you if you let on that you are listening I'm just having fun with you guys except for the Net Throwing Gun it would be utterly Awesome Google.com Someone will have to start a Zone Newpaper, I'm not training my Chimera by hitting it with porn.

Well not very lively in Pripyat, so we'll need to come up with something there. And I think the only radio frequency you can hear is from your friends, unless the bandits change their frequency to mess with you, also fun! And I've found an add on that enabled the mini maps, but it just displays vendors and friendly, gonna try that this afternoon

Dont know if its coincidence, but I was strolling around Zaton when I heard the radio speech and then a team of stalkers just popped up in the distance.

Perhaps the radio indicates a newly spawned people, whatever the faction ?

It would take some experimenting, but I would bet it's just enemy appearing. It definitely means NPC's have spawned nearby.

I had some interesting play through with my modified Recon and Assaulter. Not sure if you guys would enjoy it but I sure had a lot of fun in the holidays.

First I must admit I dislike the artifact system all together so I changed their stats quite a bit, it's gotten so messy I'd rather not post the files. The general concept is still pretty simple, artifact price now higher to ensure a profit for the deadly risk player have to undertake, radiation lvl is reduced slightly, with Purified water radiation removal increased. Given myself the sense that I will need to drink water from time to time to keep myself alive.

My Recon now has the Pistol and SMG hipfire ability. Camera jerking has been removed, recoil has been increased to compensate. Works like charm when firing while moving, especially handy in fire fights where magical grenades are flying. My assaulter class is changed in similar fashion except the recoil has been massively increased, so hipfire only works at very close range, still have aim down sight to hit something at mid range. Did give my assaulter certain ammo for extreme penetration. Hell it works better than I excepted. I am always the wall spammer in the FPS multiplayer game, love the high penetration ammo.

Just finished it. Found Pripyat a real let down in Misery 2.1.1. Super-Poltergeists + super-Monolyths ( + friendly-fire) meant Lab X-8 and final evac mission were a test in pacience where I simply reloaded dozens of times until success. It could have been the game most exciting part but ended up being the most frustrating and anti-climatic.

P.S: I also ended up applying an artifact tweak, so it makes more sense for my Recon to risk his skin on anomalies.

Edited by: lessavini

I used an exoskeleton for the Pripyat missions, along with 2 fireballs and it was a breeze, I also gave Strelok the documents so he can fight better the real frustrating mission for me was the one in X-8 lab

Edited by: theblackcat3112

Im a Recon, so exos doesnt make sense for me (I go with the SEVA). I also gave Strelok all 3 documents, but the final run was simply impossible to do without losing friendlies. Strelok was the last one to die by the way ( I feel I can save him if I try a half a dozen reloads or something ). Perhaps cleaning out the monolyth stronghold before going on the final evac mission helps ? I think Ill try this later..

*Edit* 01/11/2015

I just noticed the Heavy coat has better anomaly protection, and less damage prot, than the Sunrise bodysuit. Shouldnt it be the other way around ? I mean, the Sunrise is the most favored stalker suit for a reason, right ?The way it is now, it doesnt make sense for an artifact-oriented stalker to buy the Sunrise. Instead its more lucrative bypass it entirely in favor of the Heavy coat. In my view, it should be the other way around - combative stalkers should favor the Heavy coat, while artifact-oriented ones should favor the Sunrise. Right ?

Edited by: lessavini