Don’t Think, Just Jam
I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.
While I prefer the “classic” approach I actually do the same for some specific titles (mostly Bethesda games). As long as it works for you, that’s what matters. Modding is suppose to be about fun after all.
No worries about the doc, I want to use it as a starting point, nothing else. You helped me plenty enough with figuring out the basics of Anomaly modding, time for me to do some legwork on my own.
Man, the rise of Discord had such a tremendous negative effect on online communities it’s not even funny. I hate it.
I’m not against replacing vanilla weather, I simply want to familiarise myself with the original before doing so - just like with gameplay additions. I get your pain though, when I start modding I tend to go pretty hard myself so going back to vanilla experience can be difficulty.
I don’t have anything specific in mind, I usually just play something, take note of what bothers me or should be expanded on and then start looking. That or just browse at random until something catches my eye. I’ll probably just start with checking out the mods you linked alongside your personal list and go from there. I haven’t really modded Stalker since CoC so I don’t have a specific vision in mind like I do with other games I play, I’ll just figure things out as I go.
I’ve seen couple mentions of modded exes but didn’t pay much attention to them (mostly due to no info beyond “they exist” when I saw them). Now that I checked the repo it makes more sense. You’d think technical improvements like this would be included in the base package but I guess they have their reasons for not doing it.
One thing I’ve noticed about Anomaly mods is: their mod descriptions suck. There might be a sentence or two about what a mod does but most of the ones I checked have no specific details about features and lack any info about requirements. I thinks some of it has to do with ModDB treating Anomaly addons differently than “normal” mods, giving them less space to work with but regardless of the reason, searching through mods is much more of a guess work than I’m used to. Looks like previous modding experience spoiled me quite a bit in that regards.
I actually checked the weather mods you mentioned but decided to skip them exactly because of the limited descriptions. Like, I don’t know if Atmospherics is a replacement or an addition to existing weather types and I don’t want to replace the vanilla weather if it’s the former (it’s too early for that). Seems like I’ll have to dig deeper to figure out what I’m interested in.
Once again thanks for tips and recommendations, they are extremely useful.
Appreciate the links, I’ll check them out once I’m ready to for more changes. I will most likely stick to a fully customised mod list as I tend have rather particular (dis)likes and going with packs can be more annoying than helpful (still find them useful as a reference point though).
Thanks for the pointers, looks like my journey is about the get started for real.
Mostly vanilla, just some custom settings and basic mods (LASS, UI bars to see hunger & thirst, additional quest templates). It’s my first time trying it so I don’t want to go too deep into modding until I work out a solid baseline for what does or doesn’t work for me. I’m sure I’ll create a customised monstrosity soon enough.
Is there anything in particular you’d suggest to check out? Can be anything as I’ll pick and choose anyway but it would be nice to know something that’s tried and tested to start with.
I’ve been having a hard time committing to playing anything recently. After a lot of staring at my library I decided to give S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly a shot. It’s a game I wanted to try for a long time now so this seemed like a perfect time to do that.
Long story short, it’s been a pretty enjoyable experience so far. Slow methodical pace, disempowerment and not having to care about saving the world is right up my alley and something I wish more games focused on.
Initially, the game felt somewhat clunky (and still does to some extent) but I was able get used to the flow, new additions and changes pretty quickly. It’s a modded Stalker experience, not like I expected a flawless and perfectly polished product.
There are only two issues that really stood out to me for now. First: player status UI could use some work. Information about bleeding, how hungry or thirsty I am etc. should be provided in clear an straightforward manner instead of leaving me guessing based on vague bars, icons or audio/visual effects. I understand that some of it is intended as part of the experience but it makes no sense to have players guess about some stuff then provide food descriptions with exact numerical values for satiety or radioactive pollution changes.
Second: lack of a proper manual, in game or otherwise. I shouldn’t have to scour the web to find out that I need to have and use the compression thingy to pick up a sleeping bag off the floor or how to set/pick up your personal stash. Again, I get that figuring stuff out is part of the experience but some of these things are not intuitive.
I’m still early into the game (about 10 hours) so I’m sure there will be other things I’ll have to get used to, most of the new stuff however was easy enough to figure out on my own. None of the issues are experience ruining, game work well (as long as I don’t screw up mod installs) and gameplay is good old Stalker with changes I’d like to see in more games. I like it.
To be fair, that’s not an issue isolated to gacha games. Plenty of modern titles take old style unlocks (skins, bonus characters etc) and turns them into small, often paid, DLC. It sucks but it’s a wider problem within the industry.
Oh, absolutely. I assume people who play exclusively gacha games do so due to the combination of F2P, regular content updates and excitement from pulling for characters/gambling but that’s just a personal guess. I don’t have any hard data to confirm it.
As for folks playing them regardless of genre, that’s not really exclusive to gacha games - there’s plenty of people who play whatever catches their attention, myself included. Strategy, racing, shooters, adventure games… if it clicks with me I’ll play anything (gacha or not). There’s too much fun stuff out there to limit yourself to a single genre, in my opinion.
My main game is the already mentioned Girls’ Frontline (the first one), which is thankfully old enough to come out before the modern monetisation practises and psychological tricks became the norm. There’s no limited pull currency, no need for character dupes (can be replaced by a resource that is so easy to get I can’t even spend it all), no character specific events to push the new and shiny unit etc.
It does have skin gacha for most (but not all) character skins but even then you can use farmable resource for that + getting duplicate costumes turns them into “Black Cards” which can be exchanged for specific outfit. It’s still a bad system and a black mark on an otherwise extremely free-2-play friendly game.
I feel like the most important part of playing gacha games is the ability to just walk away if a title ends up being monetised in a way that affects your enjoyment or well being (for those with lack of self-control). There’s plenty of fun to be had for free, no need to give into FOMO and suffering through predatory balancing decisions when there’s so many options on the market.
So do I, I’m just saying that many wonder “why people play gacha games” without realising (or caring) that there’s actual “game” part outside of the monetisation itself.
I can butt in on this a little bit. The problem with statements like this is that they treat “gacha” (the monetisation and unit recruitment system) as a genre when gacha games are too varied to be locked under this single umbrella (at least for a conversation like this). To name a few, you have games like:
All of them play differently, offer different challenges and the impact of their gacha systems can be all over the place. Sometimes there are limited character pulls which have serious effect on gameplay (most of the modern titles), other times characters are super easy to obtain and improve as most of the monetisation comes from character costumes etc (Girls’ Frontline, Azur Lane for example).
Besides that, many of them have engaging stories, which combined with offering lots of content and being able to play them for free makes the whole thing even more appealing.
Not that the aspect of “oh cool, I unlocked new character” doesn’t play any role or that there’s nothing predatory about most of the games using this mechanic, it’s just that “gacha” mechanics aren’t always the sole or main factor keeping people playing.
TL;DR: They are just free games that can, but aren’t always, predatory with a specific gameplay mechanic. Often offer enough value for free players to have fun with them.
Last week I mentioned wanting to play Project Wingman campaigns in VR so I did just that. I started a new campaign on hard, as usual, and with the “Budget Cuts” modifier (less ammo, more damage to everyone and reduced handling) for additional challenge. Difference in ammo counts was a bit shocking at first (I didn’t expect it to go THIS low) but it’s still doable and fun. Each mission requires more precision and patience, other than that, it’s not that different.
I also tried playing one of the missions on the “Mercenary” difficulty (without the modifier) to give it another shot but… yeah, it’s just not for me.
Since I’m in a flying mood I decided to try a little experiment as well. I set up my flight-stick as a controller for PCSX2 and started playing Ace Combat 04 with it. It was alright.
It obviously isn’t as fun as playing a game created with HOTAS support in mind - controls feel a bit stiff and the cockpit view is rather limited but I don’t hate it. That said, I’m not the biggest Ace Combat fan (never grabbed me as much as PW) so I’m sure someone more dedicated could have more fun with this setup.
I only did 2, maybe 3 missions so far so I’ll play a bit more before deciding whether I want to continue or not. At the very least, playing it like this is an interesting experience.
The seasonal event is done so I’m back to playing the Brooklyn expansion for Division 2. I don’t have much to write about it since I only jumped back in last night and spent the session exploring the map. It’s small but pretty cool.
I should be able to finish it this week and then I’ll move on to something else for a bit - I’ve had my fun with TD for now, I think.
Besides that, I’ve been doing some VR flying in Project Wingman, this time using UEVR instead of native implementation. I only did two missions so far (Cold War from the base campaign and Express Lane from the DLC) but boy is flying in VR so much easier. I wish I had even slightly newer hardware to make better use of it but even as is, I can get it to a playable state so fun is still had. Maybe I’ll just do another full playthrough, only in VR this time…
That’s pretty much how I played too so I guess there’s no hidden technique to make it work easily. Guess I’ll have to play around with it some more. Thanks!
How do you feel about the controls on the Deck? I tried playing the classic version last year and had to put it down after a few minutes due to hand strain. One of the very few games it ever happened to me.
I managed to find a workaround for my Easy Anti-Cheat issue so I’m back to The Division 2. Well, kinda.
I once again ended up installing the first game and spent some time alternating between the two to compare them - it’s something I do pretty much every time I’m in the mood for TD.
As much as I like TD2, I refreshed my realisation that in many aspects I still prefer the first game. I actually made a simple list last night of what I like about each game and it turned out way more one sided than I thought it would.
TD1:
TD2:
There are also some things I keep going back and forth on, mainly: gunplay and skills. Which game I prefer for these elements depends on how I feel and what I’m looking for at the time. This week, the first game comes out on top as well but, again, it’s more of a temporary decision compared to everything listed above.
Anyway, this is just a simple comparison without much thought put into it. I’m sure I could get more into details of specific systems and add a ton of conditions on when one is better than the other but it was a fun time waster after finishing a day with both titles.
If only there was a way to play the first game on the updated engine…
Was it a specific mechanic, the whole theme of the expansion or something more specific like how it was utilised with the difficulty you play on? I’m pretty sure I like all of the expansions for that game but I’m also a rather casual player when it comes to 4X games so I’m curious about your experience.
I should really give survival another shot. I played it maybe 3 times so far and while I did like it, it never managed to stick with me beyond that - I’m not sure why. Guess it’s as good of an excuse to reinstall the first game as anything else.
I actually know it exists thanks to a few cross-posts between it and [email protected] but I keep forgetting to check it out. Thanks for the reminder!
Noted! Don’t be surprised if I’ll come knocking.