Full concept MODIFICATION of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat that touches every game aspect including textures, sfx, music, weapons, A.I., items, weather, mutants, difficulty and much much more!
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| Feb 2 2015 Anchor | ||
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Disclaimer: I get the idea behind Misery 2 changes in artifact properties - making it a hard choice deciding which artifact to keep and carry on each expedition is nice in theory. In practice, though, Ive found it unnecessarily complex and really tedious to try to grok each arty strenghts and weaknesses. Besides it, I find the original/vanilla scheme simple and elegant, making each artifact more unique and in-line with the source material (the novel Roadside Picnic, of which Im a big fan). So I spent this weekend making this little tweak and decided to share. So, what this tweak do exactly? It makes each arty "single-effect", just like vanilla. Take a look at this table to have an idea of what each artifact does and the "families of effects". Attention: Dont take into consideration the specific effect values, but only the hierarquy of each family. Download it from here: 4shared.com Obs: 1) I restored the vanilla descriptions for all artifacts; 2) Artifacts dont give any damage protection of any kind anymore; 3) Gravitational artifacts are back in full swing. A Gravi gives a carrying boost roughly equal a Titanium Frame, and a Goldfish gives twice it. 4) I adjusted some artifacts effects. The metric used was the outfits gear effects. I tried to keep the mid-tier artifacts more or less on par with the best equipable gear (so a Shell is roughly on par with a Camelback in regard to stamina regen) while making the high-tier artifacts really wondrous (so a Snowflake gives more than twice a Camelback). 5) All artifacts weight 0.5 kg just like vanilla. The containers weight are as follows: 5.0, 4.5, 4.0 and 3.5 for lead, improvised, module and adv. module respectively. This makes containers ligher overall, but still keeps it prohibitive to carry more than two or three of them. This coupled with single-effect artifacts keeps the choice of what to carry on each expedition hard. 6) Keeping in-line with Misery vision, the health-restore and radiation-cleaning family of artifacts are gone. The first changed to bleed-stopping and the latter were added to the chemical familty (so a Bubble is the best chem-protection now). 7) I increased the price of some artifacts, the mid- to high-tier ones. But only slightly: 1k to 2k. Thats it. If you use this, any feedback is appreciated. Edited by: lessavini |
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| Feb 2 2015 Anchor | ||
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IMHO, the main problem of artifact properties system is not it's complexity, but the fact that most properties are completely useless. The best electricity protection is "Svarog" detector or just the built-in bucket of bolts. So there are bleed-stopping and stamina regen left. The things that make Flame and Snowflake at least worth using them. Edited by: Caffeine_Zombie |
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| Feb 3 2015 Anchor | ||
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Yeah, I hear you. Right now I think protection effects as a whole are badly balanced. This is specially true with those with bonuses based on percentages: heat protection, psy-protection, etc. Ie: a 200% heat protection is good or bad ? Well, it depends on your suit/helmet. If what you got is a low-tier coat and mask youre screwed, while a CS3 with sci-helmet will see a significative protection, and a SEVA will be unstopable. In other words: protective effects are as good as your base suit. Perhaps if the overall granularity range between suits protection were smaller this would be easier to balance. As it is though, I dont see a simple solution. Meanwhile, drugs and one-time effects are too overpowered IMO. Hercules, Anti-rads, Anti-chems, etc. are simply wondrous in its effects without any significant drawback. And the high cost of these items do not really count, as you can find most of them free as loot (my recon never had to buy a single drug, by the way). About the Svarog detector, its the single most overpowered thing in the game and should be nerfed in some way. Dont have any idea how, though. Finally, about Gravitational artifacts, I dont see a Gravi being overpowered if it offers roughly the same carrying capacity as a Titanium Frame. I think a more artifact-oriented stalker (like a recon) will opt for the first, while others less-artifact oriented (as an assaulter) would opt for the latter. I think choice is always nice to have. And about the Goldfish, yeah it may feel overpowered at first, but I think its rarity would balance it out. In my current playthorugh as a recon I never encountered one naturally in any anomalies, and only got one by "cheating" Beard into finding one for him and then getting there before the other stalkers (Sledgehammer and Cray) and failing the mission while keeping the artifact for myself. This process surely is exploitable, but its so tiresome I doubt many players would like to use it more than once. Besides it, the way Misery ecology works the risk of Sledge and Cray dying is high (it already hapenned to me), and if it happens Beard ceases ordering artifacts from you. (now, I only did 2 playthroughs, if someone with more experience attests Goldfishes are easier to find, then yeah that would really be a problem). Edited by: lessavini |
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| Feb 3 2015 Anchor | ||
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Keeping in mind that the best fight is the one not fought, I prefer avoiding any sources of danger if that is possible. Surprise bullets from local eagle-eyed retards (who are able to shoot a squirrel from half a mile using rusty PM) are hard to avoid sometimes, as well as bloodsuckers squad coming from nowhere just behind you. So I have to wear some kind of armor most of times. Anyway, about those health-restore and rad-clearing ones. We have already got a lot of bleed-stoppers and chem protectors, don't we? As there are many funny attachable tools and most of them have their artifact "friends", how about making these "banned" arts an equivalent of armor plates? For example, something close to kevlar for Jellyfish and steel for Wrenched. I would at least think about keeping those Jellyfishes with me if things would go that way. About obtaining an artifact you want. All you need is one anabiotic pill, a bedroll (to wait till an emission) and some time for continuous F5 pressing. I've got a Snowball that way once when it was not spawning for days. Edited by: Caffeine_Zombie |
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| Feb 4 2015 Anchor | ||
We are on the same boat here, as I usually play a pacifist recon.
What you describe is basically the "artifact hunting mini-game". When you get an Svarog and an SSP this mini-game simply ceases to exist, and everything turns into a process of quickly dodging points and getting all arties on the way. In other words: a dull, acephalous process. Thats why, in my opinion, the Svarog detector should be nerfed somehow.
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If you got a SSP and a Svarog you just obviated the need for artifacts really. I aint bothered by this fact. On the contrary, I think it opens up choice for the player to pick the gear-path of his preference: 1) do I go straight for the SSP, knowing it will only help me with anomalies and Ill have to pay for another bullets/rupture-protection suit ? 2) or do aim for a suit that will protect me reasonably both from anomalies and bullets/rupture ? While option 1 above obviates the need for protection artifacts, option 2 wont. So, players who opt for the latter will find value in artifacts. And this dont count the whole mid-tier "suit path" like Sunrise, Heavy Coat, Wind of Freedom, etc. to which artifacts will also be useful (couple with some helmet, of course). I just think SSPs are cheap. They should cost a bit more, in my opinion.
Thats a really nice idea. This would give a function to these artifacts, while keeping them unique in a way (provided only them give damage protection). I will think about a way to implement this. If you got any more ideas, let them come!
What do you mean ? You reload every each emission until it spawns the artifact you like ? Is that it ? |
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| Feb 4 2015 Anchor | ||
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Lets start from the emission exploiting part, cause there would be something tldr for other points. And now let's talk about all the other things. Let's forget about protection at all. Have you ever mentioned that artifact hunting may be unprofitable even while you are using SSP-99? Yep, I'm mostly talking about fire anomalies and repair prices/repair kits cost. Here are suit's immunities, not protection, the lower they are, the slower it degrades. For comparation: And a couple of helmets: IHMO the suites & helmets other than eco are burning like paper and melting like disposable plastic cups in acetone. Edited by: Caffeine_Zombie |
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| Feb 6 2015 Anchor | ||
This is cheating. I totally respect if you prefer to play this way, but I prefer playing the game as intended by its designers. So my point remain valid: Goldfishes are rare, and anyone playing it square will have a hard time finding one.
This I agree with. I think the mod would benefit from having all arty costs revised. Thats why I think playing a Recon is the most difficult - because preying on bandits/mercs is much more profittable (and much less costly maintenance-wise) than artifact-hunting. The ideal, in my opinion, would be both activities having the same profitability so the player would be open to choose his preferable playing style. Right now picking Recon and going artifact-hunting is like self-imposing a "harder-difficulty mode".
I totally agree with this. And thanks for showing me those numbers. Indeed, the suits degrading rates need a rebalance, otherwise its not really useful to go arty-hunting with any other thing than a SSP. Do you have any suggestions on how to tweak this, or know some other tweak that already improves this ? THanks again for this find. Edited by: lessavini |
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| Feb 6 2015 Anchor | ||
To be honest, I totally agree with you. I've just told that there is a way, not really fair, but that's matter of taste.
I think that's about economy balance itself. Mostly about balancing early, mid and late game stages. There were a lot of complains all around there, such as "Jellyfish worth less than can of ham!!1", but I haven't seen any tweaks that make it better in general, rather than specific aspects.
Recon might be the best artifact hunter, at least because of his close-breathing suits specialization. Other classes are more NPC-hunting oriented. That's, of course, just my humble opinion. And, again, all that things was discussed many, many times.
It's my pleasure, I've found those numbers myself while being curious why my new shiny Sphere 8 helmet become mostly made of glue and adhesive tape after few scratches while old good SPP helmet is harder than my body armour. Armour immunities are kinda strange. Anyway, if you still want to do something with all that things - I've got some ideas. But I think that would be far away from current "vanilla artifacts" theme, so it better be discussed somewhere else. Edited by: Caffeine_Zombie |
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