Far too much loot in stalker mode


Maikleeps

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I have posted this before but it might have been overlooked:

I am currently playing v. 221 (edit per 26.04.15: v. 227) in stalker mode (new save game) and am wondering if the random allocation of goods has been changed? I feel reminded of earlier versions where there were so much goods to find. I've been in 5 cabins and in the Costal House (Jackrabbit Island) since starting the game and I am having already 20 items of clothes. (edit per 26.04.15: I am still finding many, many loot and it feels like I am not playing stalker) And not only clothes. But these are most representative. So why is this??? Has anybody else experienced this?

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I have been hitting ESC every so often just to check the little stalker icon is there sometimes... but I assumed lucky spells of loot were lucky spells of loot. I do find the loot pretty high on stalker mode but I haven't played as long as some on here have and they may remember very different loot table/chances so maybe can't comment properly from experience.

I can give my current in progress 10d stalker game, I have all the like 'tier 2' clothes i'd call them, like premium jackets and insulated boots, cargo pants, scarf all that sort of stuff and I find that tends to be the case a lot for me. From there it's pretty easy to work up to player-made items and stuffz. Also bullet numbers also feel maybe a little crazy to me like getting minimum 30-40 over 3 maps is how it seems when I play, but you can potentially get a hell of a lot more I hear.

But y'know, as I said, don't think I have the experience to fully put a bold answer one way or the other. So I'll just say I think it's a little high ^.^

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When you pause the game by hitting ESC I believe in the bottom left hand corner there is an icon for me corresponding to the difficulty you are currently playing on.

The wolf represents stalker mode, or the bird thing or y'know, there's other icons.. for other difficulties.. yeah :).

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I have posted this before but it might have been overlooked:

I am currently playing v. 221 (edit per 26.04.15: v. 227) in stalker mode (new save game) and am wondering if the random allocation of goods has been changed? I feel reminded of earlier versions where there were so much goods to find. I've been in 5 cabins and in the Costal House (Jackrabbit Island) since starting the game and I am having already 20 items of clothes. (edit per 26.04.15: I am still finding many, many loot and it feels like I am not playing stalker) And not only clothes. But these are most representative. So why is this??? Has anybody else experienced this?

I am a Stalker "newb" and just started playing that difficulty after the patches last week. I am still learning to play the higher difficulty BUT still want to explore like nothing has changed. If I can last a few days gathering supplies then I can usually last another 5 to 7 days (as long as the wolves don't get me). That said, I can definitely see supplies are not as common as on Voyager difficulty (never even tried Pilgrim). I have gone through the coastal sections of CH many times and only found one or two tools (like a knife and a can opener, a prybar and a knife or my run where I found only an lantern). I have yet to find an axe or a rifle after about a dozen restarts. Food is definitely more scarce. If the food was taken down another notch, I don't know that I could survive the first three days. A bad blizzard or a hungry pack of wolves can really consume your resources while you try to wait it out.

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When you pause the game by hitting ESC I believe in the bottom left hand corner there is an icon for me corresponding to the difficulty you are currently playing on.

The wolf represents stalker mode, or the bird thing or y'know, there's other icons.. for other difficulties.. yeah :).

Now that you say it, I found the wolf in in the bottom left hand corner of the pause menu. Never attached any importance to it as I always play in Stalker mode. So then, there seems to be far too much loot which makes my current run too easy.

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The question, whether there is "too much" loot is hard to answer and highly subjective. It mainly depends on the purpose you accredit to Stalker mode, I guess. ;)

If you want a nightmare-experience at a Kaizo Mario difficulty level due to extreme item scarcity, then you're right ofc. The rather generous amount of loot you can currently find doesn't add a lot to Stalker's difficulty.

However, I don't think that an extremely high difficulty is the current intention of TLD's Stalker mode - it's meant to be more challenging than Voyageur, but not at a Darksouls or Kaizo-difficulty level.

Don't get me wrong, I personally wouldn't mind less items in Stalker at all, but just think about the two main consequences:

A) the overall duration of Stalker runs would decrease (if you only find 10 bullets and 4 pieces of scrap metal alltogether, you're most likely going to survive for a shorter amount of time than if you find 100 bullets and 40 pieces of scrap metal).

B) the first days of the game would become harder as people would struggle to find their first rifle/knife/hatchet (or food in general).

While I personally wouldn't mind A at all, B is a really unfortunate side effect design-wise. The first 20 days in a run are already more difficult than the rest of the game (except the very final days maybe). Thus, making it even harder to get started is imo not a very good idea.^^

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The question, whether there is "too much" loot is hard to answer and highly subjective. It mainly depends on the purpose you accredit to Stalker mode, I guess. ;)

If you want a nightmare-experience at a Kaizo Mario difficulty level due to extreme item scarcity, then you're right ofc. The rather generous amount of loot you can currently find doesn't add a lot to Stalker's difficulty.

However, I don't think that an extremely high difficulty is the current intention of TLD's Stalker mode - it's meant to be more challenging than Voyageur, but not at a Darksouls or Kaizo-difficulty level.

Don't get me wrong, I personally wouldn't mind less items in Stalker at all, but just think about the two main consequences:

A) the overall duration of Stalker runs would decrease (if you only find 10 bullets and 4 pieces of scrap metal alltogether, you're most likely going to survive for a shorter amount of time than if you find 100 bullets and 40 pieces of scrap metal).

B) the first days of the game would become harder as people would struggle to find their first rifle/knife/hatchet (or food in general).

While I personally wouldn't mind A at all, B is a really unfortunate side effect design-wise. The first 20 days in a run are already more difficult than the rest of the game (except the very final days maybe). Thus, making it even harder to get started is imo not a very good idea.^^

I think you got me wrong: I have been playing many times now. And I always have been playing in stalker mode. So I know that it deserves its name because it is very challenging. What I am trying to say is: in my previous runs items were very rarely to find. And it was always annoying to got mauled by fluffy because there was only little fabrics (hence clothes) to find to repair my own clothes. But in the current game I survived 3 days (THREE). I harvested all clothes I could find (except the clothes I am wearing) and now I am in possession of 29 clothes (see screenshot). This is just an example. I have everything abundant. I am carrying 45 Kg. 10 Kg of which is just discovered food. Although I am playing in stalker mode I feel like I have found goods as I was playing in pilgrim mode. This is truly a bug.

56ce12ca1e159_29clothes.thumb.jpg.5d214a

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I see a test in the works. Start a game in Voyager, head straight to Coastal Village (do not gather anything along the way), gather everything in Coastal Village and inventory it. You also have to record how long it took you to gather it and what you consumed while there. The repeat the process in Stalker. Compare and contrast. We might have to do something like this a few times and see how the numbers pan out.

I can tell you without running the numbers it is a LOT harder to simply gather the materials in Stalker. There must be a wolves den in a cellar or something because that place is a wolfish Asgard. It took me between two and three days simply to gather supplies (albeit I am a Stalker Newb), and I get mauled by a wolf at least once. That and I have yet to even find a rifle in Stalker... so firing off a warning shot or killing one of them has not made matters any easier.

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I think you got me wrong: I have been playing many times now. And I always have been playing in stalker mode. So I know that it deserves its name because it is very challenging. What I am trying to say is: in my previous runs items were very rarely to find. And it was always annoying to got mauled by fluffy because there was only little fabrics (hence clothes) to find to repair my own clothes. But in the current game I survived 3 days (THREE). I harvested all clothes I could find (except the clothes I am wearing) and now I am in possession of 29 clothes (see screenshot). This is just an example. I have everything abundant. I am carrying 45 Kg. 10 Kg of which is just discovered food. Although I am playing in stalker mode I feel like I have found goods as I was playing in pilgrim mode. This is truly a bug.

Sorry for misunderstanding your post, I thought you wanted to suggest lower item numbers in general. ;)

I can't say much about a potential bug in the latest version as I've been on the same savegame since January and looted (almost) everything hundreds of days ago. xD

Your numbers seem a bit odd indeed, but statistic is a bitch - it's very hard to tell whether you're suffering from a bug or are just incredibly lucky. You could follow AmericanSteel's suggestion about 10 times for each mode, that might give you a somehow reliable answer to this question, but it would be a lot of work ofc.

Anyway, if you believe that your item abundance might be a bug, you should probably ask a dev to move this thread to the bug section of the forums. ;)

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I started a game in hard mode and went from lake map to pleasant valley, found dozen bullets, everywhere, but never saw a rifle. I read that it happened to many. Doesn't make me less pissed off.. If the purpose is to make the game harder, you failed :

It's just frustrating.. And no just a little.. Doesn't feel hard, appart the very begining! I got way more than i need to eat, i'm finding dozen sewing kits & first aids; so to be short : Hard mode needs to be fixed. I guess i'll stop playing until that happen.

The other thing i wanted to add is : why aren't we able to take the meat from human corpse? We should be.. This is HARD mode, remember.. That's how it is for real, so it should be the same in this game. I guess you thought about it, so why not? :shock:

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Thank you for your help Scyzara & AmericanSteel. I suppose it's got something to do with an "older" savegame before updating to Unity 5. I assume I will start a new game in stalker and will remember the good times when I had almost 29 clothes left for repairing :-)

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v.228

I again started a new game and I am pretty sure that there is too much loot in stalker. If this has been rebalanced it has become to easy. Having said that I only mean the items are too many. When my run was 16 hours old I was encumbered, my calories were at 2.500 kcal I had 20 clothes and plenty clothes to wear and I had plenty of food. I can't eat anymore because I am full. It is a great feast, I'm telling you!

I remember in earlier stalker runs I could hardly find food and this was a real struggle. I only want to know: Is this a bug or is it by design and has anybody else experienced that too?

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v.228

I again started a new game and I am pretty sure that there is too much loot in stalker. If this has been rebalanced it has become to easy. Having said that I only mean the items are too many. When my run was 16 hours old I was encumbered, my calories were at 2.500 kcal I had 20 clothes and plenty clothes to wear and I had plenty of food. I can't eat anymore because I am full. It is a great feast, I'm telling you!

I remember in earlier stalker runs I could hardly find food and this was a real struggle. I only want to know: Is this a bug or is it by design and has anybody else experienced that too?

As a stalker newb, I find v.228 to be difficult and supplies seem very spares. I died this morning after a week in the game as I ran out of matches and nothing to purify water. I died mounting my expedition into another zone.

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What you describe, AmericanSteel, is what I experienced in stalker. I suspect that something went wrong with my settings after an update. Hopefully the Hinterland team can look into that and have an idea to solve it.

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What you describe, AmericanSteel, is what I experienced in stalker. I suspect that something went wrong with my settings after an update. Hopefully the Hinterland team can look into that and have an idea to solve it.

I just got killed by wolves after a really good play session. Started out right by the dam, went in and killed fluffy with out a knife. The game allowed to to butch, skin and gut 'em with my bare hands?! Anyway, I stayed in the dam a few days to heal up and the proceeded to the lake. Made the house with a flag my base and started skirting the perimeter. Picked place clean and found a 100% rifle laying next to a corpse leaning against the back side of the house. The rifle was at 100%. I then loaded my 7 rounds and looted the remainder. Never once found a match. I then made it to the next to last fishing hut when a wolf chased me inside. I waited about 2 hours and sprinted to the last one. The wolf behind me and the wolf that appeared in front of me sandwiched me inside. I rested two hours and stepped outside to get jumped on by both wolves. Dead.

I have notices wolves tend to stay where they have you cornered now. I had a session where a wolf stayed outside of a fishing hut for 8 hours. I think I can recall one time in the past 8 play sessions where wolves will leave after they have you trapped in a fishing hut or a lookout. If you go into a house and wait an hour to two, they leave.

If this is the new normal for Stalker, then I think we need a few other options to start fires. For instance, let me break a flare down into homemade matches. You just keep the striker on top of the flare to start what you have. A standard flare should be able to make about 20 matches (because the head of the flare is different that the body) and about 5 uses of powdered accelerant. We could also use the inside casing of flare for one heck of a tinder bundle.

Two, we need to be able to make short throwing spears (ie a javelin) and or long spears (for thrusting). Something.

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