My Feedback Thread - L.U.R.K. mod for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl

I have some feedback for L.U.R.K. 1.1 patch #1 and - finally - I have time to post it.

Background: I picked up STALKER SoC over a year ago but never got round to playing it (mistake!). I am not really a big fan of FPS games: I like the concept but the execution (play through "missions" one at a time getting from point A to point B) is usually terrible. Last one I played was Far Cry and I found it okay; nothing special. STALKER appealed to me because I like (a) atmosphere and (b) the "free roaming" aspect. I was actually thinking of buying Fallout 3 (urgh!) but STALKER looked way more promising (and cheaper). I played with Complete 2009 + Realistic Weapons for a while and it was going pretty well until I looked at L.U.R.K. I have a very cautious play style and prefer stealth, so L.U.R.K. was instantly appealing. Wow, was I right.

I started on veteran difficulty because master of anything I am not. Here is some feedback on various aspects. I picked some of these because they are topics people often mention and I wanted to add my opinion.

First off, I have to say L.U.R.K 1.1 is really amazingly good. It makes an already excellent game utterly fantastic. I like the concept because it suits how I prefer to play.

Graphics - Initially I had misgivings because Complete 2009 looks better, but after about 20 minutes I stopped noticing the difference. L.U.R.K. has much better graphics than the original game and the lighting/interface/gameplay more than make up for any mild advantage other mods may have in graphics.

Lighting - At first I thought daytime exterior was too dark, but I loved the realistically dark interiors. I nudged the gamma/brightness/contrast options slightly and I managed to get exterior and interior looking just fine. Complete may have better graphics but L.U.R.K. has greater atmospher due to the lighting. Also, I love the weather effects in L.U.R.K., particularly the rain.

HUD - Simply brilliant. At first I wondered where everything was, but after playing for 10 minutes I realized I didn't need all that clutter. Much better. Love the damage/bleed effect.

Enemies/AI - I dislike how NPCs can hit me very accurately with weapons that simply do not have the range to be that accurate. At short and medium range the balance is fine, as it is when NPCs have rifles at long range. The problem is basically bandits hitting me with pistols and shotguns at extreme ranges. I was trying to snipe a bandit last night and I could barely fix him in my scope and hit hit me with his sawn-off! Twice. Worse still are the head shots from bandits with crappy hand guns. I would say this was the biggest issue simply because it is a real immersion breaker.

Stealth - The stealth system is great. However, there are times when I feel like I am just invisible because the enemy walks right up to me and does not see me right there in front of him. When engaging multiple enemies at close range it seems as though they should be able to pinpoint my location better than they do; long range seems to work a lot more realistically.

Inventory/Weight Limit - I spend a lot of time dealing with inventory management but I think that is just because I am conditioned by years of playing RPGs to collect everything! The design goal is obviously to cut down on looting and carrying a gun for every occaision. My first game I killed a bunch of military and ran back and forth collecting guns and selling them to Sid. I ended up with 90k! Then it occurred to me that clearly the over-abundance of better weapons should be balanced by the inability to effectively loot them all. I started over with my own house rule that I would only sell artifacts. Now the game plays a lot better and the weight limit makes a lot of sense. It adds to the "survival" aspect because I am always looking to replenish supplies.

Weapons/Recoil - The recoil seems realistic to me, or at least well balanced. I noticed that the sub-machine guns have less recoil and that helps balance them with the assault rifles - otherwise assault rifles would be just too good for every purpose. I found myself instinctively shooting ARs in short bursts and it felt right to me. But personally I am prefer the old SKS. I took down 8 bandits in a row last night, head shot after head shot, and barely even noticed that it kicks like a mule. Learning how to use your favorite weapon better is a great gameplay element. I felt like Clint Eastwood shooting people's hats off their heads in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

NPCs - I feel that the allies need to be toughened up a bit, particularly the quest givers. I like how a quest to help some allies really requires me to take a very active role to avoid defeat, rather than being just one of the team and have victory seem like it might have happened without my help. However, my allies often get gunned down near-instantly and this can be very frustrating. They need to be a bit more durable. The loner camp near the military outpost at the start can get wiped out by the military very early on and it is annoying to get a "quest failed" notice because Wolf dies.

Artifacts - Lore or otherwise, I thought artifacts were a bit silly in the original game. I like how they are just loot in L.U.R.K.. Since I do not loot guns and ammo for sale, I still have a huge incentive to look for artifacts.

Blowouts, Driving Vehicles and Other Cheese - I liken this kind of stuff to houses and horses in RPGs: lots of people seem to want them but I do not. I do not undertand it so I am not going to comment, other than to say I am not interested.

Quests/Bugs - I noticed a few bugs with quests:

1. Bandits at the Car Park. Wolf's people often start fighting before I can talk to them. Even if I manage to talk to them and tell them to stay put while I go in, they often ignore me and follow me in. Oddly enough, this first quest is by far the buggiest I have found.
2. Kill the Stalker. Sid's "random" quests to kill the stalker are always completed the instant he gives me them, probably because the stalker in question has already been killed by the hostile environment. I stopped asking for these quests because it feels like cheating.
3. Sid's door was closed and would not open. Until I threw a grenade at it. I read that this is a vanilla bug, not necessarily L.U.R.K..
4. Respawn. This may be intentional, rather than a bug, but I noticed that the enemies seem to respawn really quickly in some areas. For example, the Car Park from the first quest is constantly being infiltrated by bandits. I can stand on the roof and they just keep coming.

Crashes, Lockups etc. - I have not had any problems likes this with L.U.R.K.. Overall, on max extreme settings, the game runs really smoothly. Much smoother than Complete, for comparison.

Difficulty - I have very little experience with FPS games and I find veteran difficulty about right. It is difficult but by no means impossible, and I like games to be on the hard side else I get bored really quickly.

Overall - For the scope of this mod I have to say it is amazingly well executed. I have had the same or fewer problems than I have had with so-called "stable" unmodded games. If the enemies were a little less accurate at long range with short range weapons, and the NPC allies died less easily, the mod would be perfect in my opinion.

Thanks guys.

I remembered one more thing while playing last night:

Enemies/AI - Many enemies have a rifle and a handgun. Sometimes - very often - they prefer to use the handgun, even at long range. This makes them significantly easier. I noticed that this seems to happen with respawns. The enemies that initially inhabit an area seem to use their weaponry as you would expect, but if you kill them and they respawn later on the respawns seem to favor their handguns. A good example are the military in the first region, both the patrols and the ones guarding the railway bridge. I wondered whether this was tied to their accuracy with handguns at long range: to the AI the handgun is the more accurate and, therefore, the better weapon. Or maybe the AI just sums the various stats and the handgun has a higher total than the AK-series. Of course, this does not explain why it only seems to be an issue with respawns. If the AI is not easily fixable then an alternative might be to not give all of them a handgun. (The enemy's supreme accuracy with handguns helps prop up the difficulty aspect, but realism/atmosphere takes a big hit.)