Trouble with progression and combat Thread - A.R.E.A. mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

I really like most of the changes made by the mod on survival and animations, the magazines and etc... but I need some help, sorry for the long text ahead, this is not a rant or anything, just want some help and tips.

The most "sucess" I had was with a Loner character in Cordon, I tried to follow Fanatics beginner quests but the Clean ATP was just too hard, Fanatic kept dying even when taking cover (sometimes he woulf just stand in the open sholting at the bandits) and even if I took my time the bandits would just grenade me. I didn't have any reliable weapon for long and medium range, just a Fort 17 and their aim was on point too, even with "Increased Weapon aim" disabled. I tried going on short range to see if I had more sucess but it was suicidal, stealth didnt really work well either.

I decided to ignore that quest for a while and tried exploring, found some banditis on the Factory at Cordon, had to reload some quick saves a bunch of times because Fanatic either kept dying or one of the bandits with an AK kept killing me, I couldn't even peek and blink and my guy was dead. Eventually I managed to clear it but it didnt have much useful loot and hardly felt worth it, even tried using a Swiss knife to dissasemble some of the jackets/overcoats but got nothing.

In the end I met a group of more than 6 boars charging at me (near the "Elevator" place, not even joking on the numbers, I counte, and there were even more groups of boars in the map that I had to ignore because it was just too unreasonable, they kept one shotting Fanatic at high health and my gun (again, only a Fort 17) didnt do enough damage, so I just gave up on that run. Why so many boars? Is this normal? Maybe some population settings were wrong or changed for some reason and I didnt notice? I didnt even managed to get out of Cordon.

I also dont really understand the Health and pain system very well, once I got hit by a boar, my guy's right arm dropped to 54 percent health, bleeding and suffering with pain. So, I used the sterile bandage to stop the bleeding and a first aid kit but it did nothing, the right arm health didnt go up (wasnt bleeding too) and the pain also didn't decrease with time even when I used the painkillers option from the First aid kit. I think the idea of the Body Health system is amazing and I used a similiar mod in Anomaly and in yhr GAMMA modpack fot it, but I am not sure how the one for this mod works, I am used to the one present in that Body Health System mod for Anomaly.

The main reason I wanted to try this mod was because it said it was focused on realism and a slow approach and while its really realistic at times, other times it just felt unfair for no reason (like the 6 boars at the end). Maybe I should try ignoring the tutorial quests for now or even try other faction like Clear Sky, what do you think? Also, why are some mutants so strong? I emptied a magazine into a cat and hes still alive, why? I know I am only using a weak pistols but its all I got in the start.

Thanks for reading this wall of text.

EDIT: On a new campaign I noticed that Grisha and Father George (Medic) are dead on the ground just 2 minutes after I spoke to them and went to talk with Sidorovich, I dont know what happened. I heard some gunshots but they sounded far so I thought it was someone shooting some mutants.

Edited by: djogloc

I don't know why you have so many boars, unless you didn't change anything. By default mutant spawn coeff is 0.5, and I recommend to leave it like that. On first day in the Zone mutants number is low because all smart covers aren't filled with entities and player has some freedom in movement. Maybe it's a random encounter or luckyness, it's a common thing in A.R.E.A.
What about health system, I will add an article in smartphone (PDA) in next update to make things more clear, althougt you can get any usefull info if you hover over body part or sensor in health window. For now on, if your character got injured and has pain, he probably has fractures. In that case, using medkit on part won't heal it, because fracture limit max HP (hit points) of that part. Also you have to know what medkit doesn't heal instantly, it will act very slowly. That way you should check if there are some fractures. Look at the sensor from right bellow in health window (a circle with a man with a cane). If it's blinking then there are some fractures. You can also notice visual bones fracture on that part blinking with blue color like in x-Ray. Each part has 3 bars uppon it: condition (HP), bleeding and fracture. First what you need to do when character get injured is to stop bleeding (2nd bar). Next thing is to fix fractures (3rd bar), if it's increased you should apply a special item on it, because greater is the fracture, more it'll limit max condition of that part. After it'll be restored you can use medkit to restore condition (1st bar).
Important is to know if character is fractured, that will constantly increase pain when moving. When pain will unbearable (red fast blinking), character can lose conscious and die. When a leg is fractured, run speed will be halved, and if both legs he can't run at all. Fracture of right hand restrict to hold anything in that hand, item will be droped instantly.
Health of body part is considered in perfect condition if it has blue color.

I don't know anything about other mods what bring health system, but in A.R.E.A. it was designed like that almost 3 years ago and nothing seriously changed in that time. It's A.R.E.A. own feature and we didn't guide how it was made somewhere else.

Grisha and George aren't key characters, so they can die, althoug they have more HP then usual NPC.

Edited by: DSurs