S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart of Chernobyl

So I assaulted a base which I completed fine but I am always encumbered. It’s annoying af. So finally got out of it and started making my way to meet diode but because it was a bandit base now every bandit on the road starts shooting me. After dying maybe 5 or 6 times, I barely made out of there and ran to the next objective.

This game is quite hard for a shooter. And it is not that it is good hard like Doom Eternal, it is cheating af hard because AI shoots you from miles away. I am not sure where I will get it from but I desperately need a sniper rifle because shooting through the foliage is really difficult and most of the times I can’t see shit.

Anyways, I think I will continue but I don’t know, it’s just not a good time. The gunplay is really shit. I am assuming after modding my gun and such it gets better but right now it is a fight in futility. Atmosphere is good but the jank is getting to me as I have no clue what I am doing and which faction I have sided with except wardens. Everything is random, distances are huge with no fast travel, gunplay is some of the worst I have seen etc.

Seems people who enjoy this like punishment.
 
So I assaulted a base which I completed fine but I am always encumbered. It’s annoying af. So finally got out of it and started making my way to meet diode but because it was a bandit base now every bandit on the road starts shooting me. After dying maybe 5 or 6 times, I barely made out of there and ran to the next objective.

This game is quite hard for a shooter. And it is not that it is good hard like Doom Eternal, it is cheating af hard because AI shoots you from miles away. I am not sure where I will get it from but I desperately need a sniper rifle because shooting through the foliage is really difficult and most of the times I can’t see shit.

Anyways, I think I will continue but I don’t know, it’s just not a good time. The gunplay is really shit. I am assuming after modding my gun and such it gets better but right now it is a fight in futility. Atmosphere is good but the jank is getting to me as I have no clue what I am doing and which faction I have sided with except wardens. Everything is random, distances are huge with no fast travel, gunplay is some of the worst I have seen etc.

Seems people who enjoy this like punishment.

Sounds like the game isn’t for you.
 
The struggle is what makes it fun. Currently I am roaming far east. My guns are breaking down and am nowhere near someone who can repair. I am picking up half broken weapons with a little bit of ammo to just get by.

Just got out of a huge gunfight, only for a Bloodsucker to hunt me down then an emission happened. After it is all said and done, I will end this journey with a huge repair bill. Then I will go do it again.
 
So I assaulted a base which I completed fine but I am always encumbered. It’s annoying af. So finally got out of it and started making my way to meet diode but because it was a bandit base now every bandit on the road starts shooting me. After dying maybe 5 or 6 times, I barely made out of there and ran to the next objective.

This game is quite hard for a shooter. And it is not that it is good hard like Doom Eternal, it is cheating af hard because AI shoots you from miles away. I am not sure where I will get it from but I desperately need a sniper rifle because shooting through the foliage is really difficult and most of the times I can’t see shit.

Anyways, I think I will continue but I don’t know, it’s just not a good time. The gunplay is really shit. I am assuming after modding my gun and such it gets better but right now it is a fight in futility. Atmosphere is good but the jank is getting to me as I have no clue what I am doing and which faction I have sided with except wardens. Everything is random, distances are huge with no fast travel, gunplay is some of the worst I have seen etc.

Seems people who enjoy this like punishment.
Not into pain or frustration. What I did early was read up about the issues that were bugging me the most and focused on fixing those FIRST. Makes the game a LOT more fun overall.

Weight and always being broke were big issues early. See: loot whore.. lol. So I went after the Weird Water artifact immediately. Adds 40kg to your carry weight and fixes radiation related issues. You get used to the slightly drunk effect. Was a long trek and was a bit of a bitch to farm.. but paid off in spades. And again.. make more frequent trips to base to unload excess loot into your stash. Upgrade your weapons and armor to weigh less and increase your carry weight. Sell excess to traders you have with good rep with for more credits. Same for repairs.. wait until you get to a tech with good rep or u get raped with repair costs. Using dropped yellow condition weapons off enemies is one way to save on repair costs and ammo.

Getting shot thru stuff and the hyper accurate AI pissed me off as well. Get the Weird Ball artifact... it's just outside Zalissya. Standing still to take ranged shots it absorbs a LOT of damage. Then close fast and finish with a shottie.

I had to drop so much excess loot coming out of the swamp last night I was pissed. But no way I was returning to that suckhole. Getting gang raped by 6 bloodsuckers, blind doggies and feral pigs at the same time while stuck hip deep in mud really took the fun outta the place. That sagia shottie even with no mods but the extended magazine is worth it's weight in gold and saved my backside a lot! I'd put that on your get it now list as well.

The Cocksucker ain't the most accurate ranged but at least with that sniper scope you can see targets way off. With the 50 round mag you just spray them down till they are dead or laying down injured. I'm having to the the cu-de-graw a lot more up close and finish with the pistol. Don't care.. if they laying on the ground moaning they are not shooting at me. You can get the EMR and SVDM early and fairly easily if trying to snipe is your gig.

Even with the HUGE repair cost from the swamp (over to 75k credits) I still managed to come out in the black. Have over 460k credits socked away.. loot whoring FTW! Farming all stashes in the zones and dead bandit bodies slows the pace of the game as well. Do the side quests.. most are pretty easy and yield decent rewards and again.. loot the bodies of the people u k33l!!. Make more trips to home base if u get heavy. There is no clock on the main mission, work this shit on a pace to your liking.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2.jpg
 
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Much further in the game now (already set on my ending path).... this is the loadout I have been running. Diamond Exo-suit + what is loaded and in inventory. Seems to be a great balance for me... :)

1737347432991.png
 
Great you guys give me hope. I will try my best to learn as I go along. I don't have an artifact on me and the first one I found, am not sure what I did with it as it is no longer there (maybe I swapped out and sold the suit with artifact on it).
 
What the fuck are you supposed to do with 3 bloodsuckers reaming you in a closed area? I just got to this point in the main mission and I've tried a dozen or more times, they're just too fucking fast and destroy you in seconds. That fucking yell that messes up your vision and movement is some bullshit. I tried spamming them with grenades but they just shrug that shit off. I had to rage quit for the night, seriously...

EDIT: Apparently you're supposed to sneak past them. I didn't even realize that was an option with them...
 
Blood suckers? I thought everyone in the game was blood suckers. The spawning dogs gave me a run around for many times until I learnt that I could run back and let the AI take care of the fucks. This is still very early on the game. Seems it is a big ass game tbh. With the amount of times I have died, it will take a fucking long time. I am assuming you never get fast travel in this one?
 
Blood suckers? I thought everyone in the game was blood suckers. The spawning dogs gave me a run around for many times until I learnt that I could run back and let the AI take care of the fucks. This is still very early on the game. Seems it is a big ass game tbh. With the amount of times I have died, it will take a fucking long time. I am assuming you never get fast travel in this one?

Bloodsuckers are the invisible assholes who move super fast and then just spam attacks when they get close. Not to mention the mind-fuck scream and just knocking you down entirely and maiming you as you try to get back up.

You get fast travel but it's a paid service from "guides" that are only in certain large bases.
 
What the fuck are you supposed to do with 3 bloodsuckers reaming you in a closed area? I just got to this point in the main mission and I've tried a dozen or more times, they're just too fucking fast and destroy you in seconds. That fucking yell that messes up your vision and movement is some bullshit. I tried spamming them with grenades but they just shrug that shit off. I had to rage quit for the night, seriously...

EDIT: Apparently you're supposed to sneak past them. I didn't even realize that was an option with them.
Not nearly as bad as a pseudogiant. Compared to those, I'd take 3 bloodsuckers any day.

What's worse than a psuedogiant? Two pseudogiants. I encountered two in the Bloodsucker Village of all places. They should rename it Pseudogiant Village, imo. I hid up in the tower there and waited for Monolith soldiers or other mutants to spawn and soften those big boys. They did eventually go down one by one. My reward? My life. Although I guess I could have ran. Definitely cheaper to run in that scenario.

You can outrun bloodsuckers, but your carry weight must be in the green and energy drinks help.
 
LOL at the Bloodsucker comments!
Give me 5 Bloodsuckers over a squad of Monolithians or Granite-3 anyday.

Wonder how many of you are playing at Stalker level?
 
I'm playing it at the easiest setting :p Wasn't having fun at normal difficulty.

Oh yeah,I hate Bloodsuckers,hate them. I'd rather fight that psi mutant that takes your weapon away from you.

I'm tempted to mod the game but it feels like cheating. Besides Nexus Mods, any other sites for Stalker 2 mods?
 
Blood suckers are annoying, but not terrible for me now. My strat is oddly to back myself into a corner so they only can come at me from the front. Then I just unload into them. Encounter is usually over pretty quick and they don't do alot of damage if you have a suit or artifacts on with physical protection. Quick mags help on ur guns too...
 
I think it's built into the game bloodsuckers get their knockdown after the annoying scream. Just like when you are attacked by humanoid enemies one or more will toss a nade accurately from 300m. But after that.. their asses are mine.

Making the bloodsuckers come right at you is a good strat if there is cover available for your backside. If they catch you in the open.. as soon as you see their cammo distortion:
predator-jungle-2181815601.gif


:D
 
Much further in the game now (already set on my ending path).... this is the loadout I have been running. Diamond Exo-suit + what is loaded and in inventory. Seems to be a great balance for me... :)

View attachment 704938
2 Springs.. does that actually benefit weight? I don't carry unused artifacts with me.. may need to change that.

I tried to farm night star for about an hour and a half straight last night.. no bueno. I gave up.. lol. I need to ditch the "stick" artifact locator. It gives you range instead of direction which is frustrating when close up in an anomaly field.
 
2 Springs.. does that actually benefit weight? I don't carry unused artifacts with me.. may need to change that.

I tried to farm night star for about an hour and a half straight last night.. no bueno. I gave up.. lol. I need to ditch the "stick" artifact locator. It gives you range instead of direction which is frustrating when close up in an anomaly field.
Yes, you can stack artifacts for benifit. I've reached max carry capacity tho, that's why my last artifact is RAD and Chem protection.

Get the best detector, will pay for itself in no time. Shows exact location and even anomaly location.
 
I'm playing it at the easiest setting :p Wasn't having fun at normal difficulty.

Oh yeah,I hate Bloodsuckers,hate them. I'd rather fight that psi mutant that takes your weapon away from you.

I'm tempted to mod the game but it feels like cheating. Besides Nexus Mods, any other sites for Stalker 2 mods?
I think I need to move to easy setting or I will never finish this game.
 
Honestly, I am ok with the difficulty just not the cheating AI stuff. Like they can shoot you or rush you meanwhile the same gun you pick up from their corpse is utter shit. If that was the gun then how were the stats so high when AI was holding it? They can shoot from a mile without sights whereas, you can’t shoot worth a damn with full durability guns if distance is high. Their shots punish you through a fence but yours don’t. Etc etc.

This makes for a janky game. But oh well, enough complaining, will try to get good first and see how far I get before turning the difficulty down. I also learnt that you can load a body with items and carry it to the base as that is a more efficient way of carrying loot. lolwtf
 
Honestly, I am ok with the difficulty just not the cheating AI stuff. Like they can shoot you or rush you meanwhile the same gun you pick up from their corpse is utter shit. If that was the gun then how were the stats so high when AI was holding it? They can shoot from a mile without sights whereas, you can’t shoot worth a damn with full durability guns if distance is high. Their shots punish you through a fence but yours don’t. Etc etc.

This makes for a janky game. But oh well, enough complaining, will try to get good first and see how far I get before turning the difficulty down. I also learnt that you can load a body with items and carry it to the base as that is a more efficient way of carrying loot. lolwtf
Legit complaints tho. I'm constantly adjusting my kit to counter the AI humans uncanny ability to see and hit you (thru walls and earth even!) with absolute shit guns.
 
Few more crashes. I was so happy to come across a trader in the old ship after lugging a ton of stuff all over the place.

I switched to using FSR. TAA is just so blurry. So far FSR seems fairly decent, certainly a lot sharper.
 
Ok I will try FSR. I haven't used that since last time when it was artifacts galore in Avatar and Farcry 6.
 
Legit complaints tho. I'm constantly adjusting my kit to counter the AI humans uncanny ability to see and hit you (thru walls and earth even!) with absolute shit guns.
The unreal AI vision is why it took me forever to get the 20 stealth kills steam challenge... their aim and sight is ridiculous... lol. Once you get a suit with a lot of physical protection it becomes less of an issue, but annoying nonetheless if your goal is to try and get around them for something else.
 
I finished my first playthrough a couple of weeks ago and was overall very impressed. I ran into some of the bugs we have all talked about including the "enemy NPC instantly respawns into infinity in the same spot" bug. No they weren't zombies, either.

I think the amount of content in this is VERY generous. I am going to let the patch and mod scene evolve a bit and when the time comes I return to this it will be glorious. :)
 
Got out of SIRCAA last night, thoughts below not really story spoilers but more about the gameplay and feel.

After playing the game to that point and doing a LOT of free roaming and side missions, SIRCAA felt too scripted. And the game immediately after really leaves you little choice but to go after the main story goals. Hopefully that loosens up a bit after I get to the Chemical Plant.

After leaving loaded with loot in SIRCAA it really sucked IMHO there was no closer location to offload the loot you just collected going through the whole "pick a side" ordeal. I left a shitload of loot in a pile there. And still had to walk and fight fairly encumbered all the way to Wild Island. Luckily the loot box there was still present even though the base was abandoned. I did a save just prior so I can start at that point and get the alternate ending. Hopefully I don't forget and overwrite it. :p
 
Got out of SIRCAA last night, thoughts below not really story spoilers but more about the gameplay and feel.

After playing the game to that point and doing a LOT of free roaming and side missions, SIRCAA felt too scripted. And the game immediately after really leaves you little choice but to go after the main story goals. Hopefully that loosens up a bit after I get to the Chemical Plant.

After leaving loaded with loot in SIRCAA it really sucked IMHO there was no closer location to offload the loot you just collected going through the whole "pick a side" ordeal. I left a shitload of loot in a pile there. And still had to walk and fight fairly encumbered all the way to Wild Island. Luckily the loot box there was still present even though the base was abandoned. I did a save just prior so I can start at that point and get the alternate ending. Hopefully I don't forget and overwrite it. :p
You're not alone with your complaint about there being no storage during that entire series of events. I actually called defeat and loaded a save prior to kicking that whole thing off just so I could come in light the second time. Wasted a couple of hours of progress because of that. I guess I could have tossed the loot, but nah.

Devs should have simply given us access to our storage there, plain and simple.
 
Ok I will try FSR. I haven't used that since last time when it was artifacts galore in Avatar and Farcry 6.
Oddly enough, it seems to vary for me whether it looks blurry or not. I think it may have to do with Fullscreen Windowed vs Exclusive? I had it in Windowed mode so I could more easily recover from a freeze, but then realized that HDR doesn't work in a window for some reason.
 
Oddly enough, it seems to vary for me whether it looks blurry or not. I think it may have to do with Fullscreen Windowed vs Exclusive? I had it in Windowed mode so I could more easily recover from a freeze, but then realized that HDR doesn't work in a window for some reason.
On the freezes.. especially during shader compile. I found if I launched from the Steam page in fullscreen and the compile failed.. I was able to alt tab out and stop the process. Any other way required a full 3 fingered salute reboot.
 
DLAA and DLSS Quality (if you need it) looks quite nice and sharp enough. You can always adjust to preference as well. I never tried anything lower than DLSS Quality, so YMMV.
 
On the freezes.. especially during shader compile. I found if I launched from the Steam page in fullscreen and the compile failed.. I was able to alt tab out and stop the process. Any other way required a full 3 fingered salute reboot.
What works for me is hit the "Windows" key, then click "New Desktop" and open the task manager in the new desktop to kill the process. Then you can avoid the reboot as well.
 
What works for me is hit the "Windows" key, then click "New Desktop" and open the task manager in the new desktop to kill the process. Then you can avoid the reboot as well.
I usually just end up signing out and that kills it, but that's not much different than just doing a reboot.
 
Found the Cuirass Exoskeleton and was yoked for a split second. Then did some reading to find it appears to be the only Exo that does not have an option to add a sprit module. Instead you get an option for 10% more carry weight. Wore it for a bit and don't know if I can get used to no sprinting.
 
Found the Cuirass Exoskeleton and was yoked for a split second. Then did some reading to find it appears to be the only Exo that does not have an option to add a sprit module. Instead you get an option for 10% more carry weight. Wore it for a bit and don't know if I can get used to no sprinting.

Don’t waste any money on it at least, you’ll get the diamond exo soon enough.
 
Found the Cuirass Exoskeleton and was yoked for a split second. Then did some reading to find it appears to be the only Exo that does not have an option to add a sprit module. Instead you get an option for 10% more carry weight. Wore it for a bit and don't know if I can get used to no sprinting.
You can upgrade it to sprint.
And like w35t said, wait for the Diamond.
 
The Cuirass Exoskeleton is literally the only one that cannot be upgraded to sprint.. lol. Guess they figure it's too easy to get?
That sucks. Diamond all the way then. Mine all came with a 17.5kg weight mod on them, maxed out it was like 25.6 iirc w/ sprint and 5% stamina.
 
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