USS Specialization Gameplay Suggestions Thread - MISERY mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

Hello All,
Been watching this mod grow over the past 6+ months and after recently looking back at the USS Specialization page, I thought I would provide some balancing/gameplay suggestions. The Specializations seem to be almost lacking in comparison to all the other new stuff that has been revealed. Picking your Specialization is supposed to be like picking your class in a RPG, is it not? Well, I have some suggestions to add as a result, to flesh out the Specs and put them on par with other gameplay additions. I honestly don't think any of these things will ever get implemented in MISERY, but I thought I would put them up on the forums in case the MISERY team is interested in them/another modder would want to add something similar to thier CoP mod. Enjoy.

P.S. was originally going to add this as a comment on the Specializations page, so read it as a footnote criticism to the original news page (link here for reference)

"Only problem I see with these different classes is balance. Sniper seems to have the most useful perks atm, what with controlled breathing affect masks as well as hunting being a big new mechanic in the mod. I think Recon should get some sort of mask/closed breathing bonus as well, since the Recon class is an up-in-your-face type of character, and as a result would need masks to protect himself from whatever environment he stumbles into (I at least imagine Recon as the careful adventurer/planner of his tactical moves). Not to mention that you have the Recon class pictured with a gas mask on
A few other things to balance the 3 different classes out: Recon's Stealth affecting passive stealth as a whole, not just when sleepingRecon getting some sort of bonus whenever using a Suppressed weaponRecon getting a bonus when using a light weapon/carrying light equipment (the philisophy of the Recon class is hit-and-run with CQC/suppressed weapons and stealth, correct? Encourage it with more gameplay mechanics, not just a couple small bonuses and RP!)As mentioned above, give Recon a Closed Breathing/Mask bonus. Should be able to see more clearly when wearing such masks. To balance this, make the Sniper's bonus to masks less than that of the Recon class, but the reduced weapons sway greater/1st shot with any weapons more accurate than usually maybe. I imagine a Sniper STALKER as the boonie hat-wearing type (over the mask-wearing type), especially as an American SpecOps unit.

As Assaulter, should get a slight accuracy bonus when using heavy weapons on top of the recoil bonus. Less recoil=more accuracy, but what if you like to use single fire mode/bursts over full auto?
A bonus when wearing heavy armor, maybe the armor can consume slightly less weight when worn since the Assaulter is "trained" to use such armor.
Some sort of bonus when using helmets over masks/breathing apparati? Would be interesting to have, just to make playing an Assaulter more unique over the other 2 classes, who would theoretically have mask bonuses.
Faster weapon switch to knife.
Better grenade throw, slightly farther (and maybe a 10% faster animation? He's an ASSAULTER after all ).
Can handle weapons w/grenade launcher attached with a little more finesse, when paired with the grenade throw bonus this could be called "Grenadier training".
And to balance things out for the Sniper class, you could have a slight magnification bonus when using all sights (0.2 magnification bonus, includes iron sights, red dot, etc.). This is semi-realistic, seeing as how many snipers have beyond average vision and extreme-range weapons/accuracy training. They can use their innate abilities/training to hone in on whatever they are aiming at, kind of like a tunnel vision or focus that one gets with such training.A slightly faster aim time on many weapons, but not all (exclude shotguns and Heavy weapons).Is less effective with grenade launchers.
These are my suggestions, however they do change the classes from a set of 3 similar but focused archetypes to 3 completely different playstyles. Balances/fleshes out each character more and gives them more small bonuses from one another. If people think these added perks make the game "too easy" (even though picking one class means you lose the possible bonuses of the other 3), more cons could be added. Please let me know if you guys think these added bonuses are a little too Call of Duty-ish, I tried to make the bonuses rather small and realistic over CoD's added range quick reload One Man Army. I think this would make MISERY more fun and further differentiate each class from one another, but I would like to see what other people think. Let me know."Sincerely,Supercohboy

Hmm, I like a lot of the ideas you have. I guess I just dislike the whole premise of classes. Yes...I understand it adds a class system, but why can't a sniper train to run faster. I would like (even though it would be complicated) to have, say, 20 points that you can use on skills that the major "trained" with before entering the zone. Then you can be an assaulter who can run as fast as recon but you are even worse at sniping than before. I guess that is why I go into the game configs myself to fix such "problems". I can see a few problems with my idea being unrealistic but it seems like it could be polished pretty easily.
Nah, I don't see it as too "call of duty"ish. Call of duty would have made it so recon can sprint forever while assaulter has +50% resistance to bullets. Ha!
The only thing I disagree with is the less carry weight of worn heavy suits for assaulter. Maybe durability could go up but I disagree with carry weight change.
I hope that the devs can add at least some of these ideas before the mod is released.

Glad to see someone likes a few of my suggestions! While I agree that it would be cool to customize your own character with a point system or something to that extent, it would be a nightmare to implement, beyond a few small stat changes. And the devs came up with this U.S.S. Specialization system so that they could, with as little hastle as possible, allow the player to pick their own path as a STALKER. I assume they went with presets, 1. for the sake of balance (It would be OP for someone to have reduced heavy weapon recoil and scope aim sway on a L85A2 LMG w/scope as an example) and 2. so they could mold the environment around these different playstyles. It has been confirmed that stashes and a few other gameplay characteristics will change slightly based off of which Spec you choose. If they let you create your own character with each game start, it would be a lot harder to mold the environment around the choices you made. Sure, they could set up some sort of algorithm to do it, but math can screw up sometimes and it would be frustrating to roll a bad set of stashes/quest rewards, etc.

Not to mention that the game wouldn't really be STALKER anymore if it let you customize your beginning character in that sort of way. Right now, the MISERY mod is trying to add onto vanilla, and by allowing you to create the ultimate soldier it would take away from the survival/adaptation aspect of the game.
Some of what I'm saying is a bit contradictory to a few of the suggestions I've already mentioned, but bottom line is that I would like to see more differentiation/balance between the 3 Specs. That's all, it would be nice for the game to be very different when playing each one, yet would stick with the same hardcore formula and thereby prevent the bonuses [one does get with each Spec] to not take away from the hardcore gameplay by adding overly powerful perks. Long-winded sentence, sorry. Apparently I'm a better writer at 6AM than I am at 9PM xD

Simply put, custom stats would be cool, but this isn't the mod to do it with imo. If you are interested in an RPG take of CoP, why not make it? I would certainly be interested in playing a hardcore, or alternatively cheesy, RPG rendition of CoP's world and story. First good reference points that come to mind are Wasteland (and the sequel, in dev atm) and the classic Wizardry series. For hardcore RPG references, I'd take a look at the non-magic stuff in Oblivion and possibly some of the non-over-the-top stuff in Fallout. I feel like I'm missing on some great survival RPG set in more modern times, but I can't think of it.

At any rate, thanks for reading my post and providing input, I do truly appreciate it!

Supercohboy wrote: Glad to see someone likes a few of my suggestions! While I agree that it would be cool to customize your own character with a point system or something to that extent, it would be a nightmare to implement, beyond a few small stat changes. And the devs came up with this U.S.S. Specialization system so that they could, with as little hastle as possible, allow the player to pick their own path as a STALKER. I assume they went with presets, 1. for the sake of balance (It would be OP for someone to have reduced heavy weapon recoil and scope aim sway on a L85A2 LMG w/scope as an example) and 2. so they could mold the environment around these different playstyles. It has been confirmed that stashes and a few other gameplay characteristics will change slightly based off of which Spec you choose. If they let you create your own character with each game start, it would be a lot harder to mold the environment around the choices you made. Sure, they could set up some sort of algorithm to do it, but math can screw up sometimes and it would be frustrating to roll a bad set of stashes/quest rewards, etc.
At any rate, thanks for reading my post and providing input, I do truly appreciate it!

Well, if you think about it choosing actually makes a lot of sense, I mean come on your Ukrainian Special Services which basically means that you get to choose your gear according to your mission, but since you would want to blend in your not gonna go entering the zone as an Assaulter with a rare modernized M4 carbine (with all the bells and whistles), you would want to enter with some weapon that blends in and won't attract attention.

Edited by: DarkMajor21

DarkAssassian wrote:

Well, if you think about it choosing actually makes a lot of sense, I mean come on your Ukrainian Special Services which basically means that you get to choose your gear according to your mission, but since you would want to blend in your not gonna go entering the zone as an Assaulter with a rare modernized M4 carbine (with all the bells and whistles), you would want to enter with some weapon that blends in and won't attract attention.

I have never mentioned the Assaulter class coming in with a ridiculous weapon, my only suggestions have been made regarding U.S.S. class balance. The only suggestions I've made are geared towards changing the passive abilities each Spec has. The starting weps are just fine in the iteration officially posted by MISERY. I only made an example out of qwerty's suggestion [custom classes], regarding a L85A2 with scope. I did not suggest that the Assaulter start with that weapon, I did not suggest that weapon even be included in the game. I merely stated that custom classes would be OP and would take the immersion out of this mod.
Just some clarification.

Edited by: Supercohboy

Hmm, I agree that the point system would not be easy to implement, if possible at all. But my point was that in a real military not all soldiers have the same stats as a third of the rest. And for the supersoldier thing, well, I believe that everyone would pick different "perks" (lol) for their character. Look at the poll, each class had 1/3 of the votes (about). And maybe to further the realism (even though my idea most likely won't be implemented anyway) each perk has a negative effect where it would be realistic (just like the artifacts in ShoC).

Someone wrote: I have never mentioned the Assaulter class coming in with a ridiculous weapon

Speaking of ridiculous weapons. I feel like the Russian military sending an agent on an extremely important top secret mission into a highly dangerous area with a WW2 gun is highly ridiculous. An AK-47 and a stalker suit like in the original game would fit in just fine. I mean nobody even cares when you have a gauss rifle!

qwerty2316 wrote: Hmm, I agree that the point system would not be easy to implement, if possible at all. But my point was that in a real military not all soldiers have the same stats as a third of the rest. And for the supersoldier thing, well, I believe that everyone would pick different "perks" (lol) for their character. Look at the poll, each class had 1/3 of the votes (about). And maybe to further the realism (even though my idea most likely won't be implemented anyway) each perk has a negative effect where it would be realistic (just like the artifacts in ShoC).

There's a downside to learning to control your breathing or distributing your weight to cut noise or carry more?

qwerty2316 wrote:

someone wrote: I have never mentioned the Assaulter class coming in with a ridiculous weapon

Speaking of ridiculous weapons. I feel like the Ukranian military sending an agent on an extremely important top secret mission into a highly dangerous area with a WW2 gun is highly ridiculous. An AK-47 and a stalker suit like in the original game would fit in just fine. I mean nobody even cares when you have a gauss rifle!

The Mosin Nagant is still in use in Finland as a sniper rifle. AK's are less powerful, less accurate, and don't fit the Sniper. Assaulter does start with an AK. Recon uses a "light precision carbine" ("poof"-run-"poof" -- as opposed to sniping -- "BOOM"-move a little-"BOOM")

I wanted to throw in my suggestion regarding the different specializations.

Since each of the three have their trade of special talents, I figure perhaps with the new repair feature that each get a specific bonus to repairing certain items/weapons/suits.

For example, since Assaulter is more of rifle specialist he would get maybe a 5%-10% better repair rate using an item to fix a rifle.

Or better yet, they get a increase % bonus in repairing something that they have a medium-high proficiency for their class. Making it easier to maintain and salvage certain guns/gear they specialize in from the Zone. Since I'm not sure if such a idea is already been made or intended for a later version of misery.

Alternatively, perhaps high proficiency items the Class specializes with have 20% better durability ?

IIRC, high profiency items already implement a better durability rating.