the only game I have completed more than once....
I've burned out on Skyrim and FO4. And F:NV has been proven to be a crash fest because I am unfamiliar with its mod compatibility. I'm very reluctant to play F:NV vanilla, just because it's the only game I played that already had it's GOTY version released by the time I got to it, so there were a lot of mods that improve on things but just couldn't figure out what was incompatible. I don't know If I'll ever play it even if I owe it to myself, I've seen plenty of play-throughs and montages of it already so I'm that much less interested in it because someone has more funny/interesting/blissful moments than me.
So I gave another try to S.T.A.L.K.E.R CoP / CoC + AO 3.1 + OA and other little addons to spice it up. I remember beating the vanilla game a long time ago, it was okay but I wanted more after I beat the main mission. I tried Misery 2.2 afterwards and I got absolutely wrecked, finding stuff took too long because a lot of rare stuff was in pre-set locations, kind of like Morrowind. But when items blend in the environment I look up a guide and think to myself that I am completely blind or just incompetent and helpless. I don't remember getting far past the mid-point because AI was too frustrating, I didn't try modding the game values myself back then (I didn't know it was really easy apparently).
I played around with CoC before but not to extent that I am now. Either the item spawns are absolutely ****ed or I am really damn lucky on 1.4.22. It's absolutely raining with tools after you get past a certain point or you just get lucky. My current character is a Loner, guess what I found in the first stash right beside me. A Veles detector, that thing is the second best detector you can get in the game. I went to farm artifacts and emissions were pretty frequent which regen artifact pools back, and tried to visit as many anomalies as I could before any of the other factions could get the artifacts first, the problem I had with the AI is that is immune to environmental damage, they can walk around flames and not give one thus able to get some artifacts before you do. And then the guy just goes and announces he has a bubble or a goldfish.
I go out of my way to kill them because I think it was rightfully mine. But I do get a load of cash coming in and by the time I hit the high mark in reputation I'm a near unstoppable killing machine. Except when the AI can see in the dark perfectly fine without night-vision and able to head shot me 1 time out of 5. They're even deadlier with high rate of fire weapons, and they have unlimited ammo. They? They can take 5-8 headshots from a 7.62 at medium range without an exo. WHAT. I would tweak that but that's how the mod was supposed to be played.
I think it's my fault for not using the Gauss rifle or DMRs. Those have higher per-shot damage, headshots are much more deadlier to AI, especially with higher-grade AP version of the ammunition. The downside is they weigh twice as much as any other weapon of similar class once upgraded and you can't upgrade the Gauss Rifle or some of the other special weapons.
The spawn balance is fine, especially on weapons, but one playthrough I had 0 RPG-7's available for the entirely of the playthrough, not even the enemy had them as broken. I start this character I got 3 RPG-7's, 2 Gauss Rifles, 2 grenade launchers and some other rare weapons MUCH quicker, besides the Veles detector from the beginning gave me a really good head-start from the get-go. The enemy AI on CoC with some tweaks is pretty good, I just don't like the unfair weapon damage NPC v. Player.
I really like the achievement system, you can get really neat passive bonuses to trading and some gameplay mechanics, I wish they were more varied though.
I installed the artifact expansion addon, I really like it, brings more variety, because I got bored of carrying the same Goldfish + Bubble combo for god of deep pockets.
This all from my current experience.
) Sith Warrior (prime class) Juggernaut (subclass)
