Vintage Story! It's hard core Minecraft for adults. It's never on sale so don't wait for that. It's been really fun so far, both genuinely and in the Dwarf Fortress "fun" way. I'm coming up on my first winter with no tin for bronze, no warm clothing, only a single (but decent) harvest in my cellar and no livestock except for two boars without a sow to breed them with 😅
Haha, sounds familiar. I picked up vintage story a few months ago and immediately fell in deep. I haven't played in a while but I saw 1.22 came out and its calling me back...maybe just a few ~~hours~~ days...
I would add that calling it hard core Minecraft might set the wrong expectation. It's derived from Minecraft (I think it originally started as a Minecraft mod with a different name before spinning off) but since then it's gone in a completely different direction to Minecraft. If you go into Vintage Story expecting it to be like Minecraft you're probably going to have a bad time because your Minecraft knowledge doesn't really transfer over. Minecraft is a lot more adventure focused while Vintage Story has gone the other route, it's taken survival as the central focus and the adventure is largely built around survival.
And it does survival very well because it actually turns it into a motivation to go and explore. If you just sit around you are going to die. If you don't set up a farm and cellar and collect food for the winter, you are going to die in the winter. If you don't find different types of crops your farm will run out of whatever nutrient you're using and you have to start refreshing the soil. If you don't find warm clothes you're going to freeze in the winter. Your
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I would add that calling it hard core Minecraft might set the wrong expectation. It's derived from Minecraft (I think it originally started as a Minecraft mod with a different name before spinning off) but since then it's gone in a completely different direction to Minecraft. If you go into Vintage Story expecting it to be like Minecraft you're probably going to have a bad time because your Minecraft knowledge doesn't really transfer over. Minecraft is a lot more adventure focused while Vintage Story has gone the other route, it's taken survival as the central focus and the adventure is largely built around survival.
And it does survival very well because it actually turns it into a motivation to go and explore. If you just sit around you are going to die. If you don't set up a farm and cellar and collect food for the winter, you are going to die in the winter. If you don't find different types of crops your farm will run out of whatever nutrient you're using and you have to start refreshing the soil. If you don't find warm clothes you're going to freeze in the winter. Your survival also depends on the variety of food, if you eat only one type of food you'll have less health (more variety in food means more overall health). You get so many external motivators to go out and explore simply because if you don't do it you won't survive. And in that sense I actually find exploration in Vintage Story a lot more rewarding that in Minecraft.
I would also add that Vintage Story has a modding scene and some of the mods IMO are kind of a must-have QoL updates. I haven't tried the most recent update so I don't know if some of those things have been improved or not. The mods I recommend are Auto Map Markers (because you want to mark down whatever resource you find because you're probably going to need it. This mod automates that), better prospecting (I would recommend first trying out vanilla prospecting before using this mod. This mod makes prospecting less annoying) and Carry on (at the start you don't have a lot of storage space so being able to pick up chests and move them around is very useful).
Thanks for the mod suggestions! At the moment I only use farseer (I like pretty vistas). Not being able to move chests was annoying but I managed. Auto map markers sounds useful!
BeamNG. They call it a physics engine - mostly a driving simulator. There are different types of trials and a career mode plus the entire game is a big sandbox. I'm trying to setup a race now where you use a map editor to configure settings.
I rediscovered Tales of Maj'eyal and have been burning through so many dead characters trying to remember how to play and catch up with the changes since I last played like 7 years ago.
While there is a certain degree of resource management, there are very few true consumables you have to worry about saving for later. Most abilities and items are more based around cooldowns. That and the detailed talent trees give it a delightfully tactical edge over a lot of other traditional grid roguelikes to me.
Monster Hunter Dos! It's so fun to play an old ps2 game with online fan servers. For a Monster Hunter game, it's HARD. You start with no armor, no money, and have to earn everything by the skin of your teeth. Even the smallest wildlife poses a real threat, crabs zoom across the map to singlehandedly harass you while gathering mushrooms.
Luckily, there's a whole community out there to assist. Online hubs are full of people happy to help you out and tell you how to survive. You begin to have an actual safety net, a single loss isn't sending you into poverty. You start to feel competent, and even confident in your hunting skills. Then a Diablos pounds you into the earth & reminds you why this game is known for being difficult.
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
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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.
Oh man, are you playing vanilla Anomaly? It's a solid place to start and all, but the rabbit hole goes deep when it comes to modding. STALKER has a huge modding scene, especially in Eastern Europe, and there are tons of plug-and-play modpacks out there. If you're into the game and want a more elaborate, more refined experience there is a metric ton of content out there, whether you want more survival/scavenging stuff, a vanilla+ experience with just better graphics or a classic unhinged STALKER Soup.
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.
Making your own custom modlist is definitely the most satisfying thing, although I recommend using some kind of vanilla+ mod pack as a baseline just to save time. Last year when I was playing and modding STALKER Anomaly I used the now-defunct HACR, but it lives on spiritually as Null Point. That should be a good moddable baseline. Back then when I was hanging out in the HACR Discord I put together this document of some mods I liked that I added on top of the pack. I haven't played or updated that document since last winter though and there's been some new cool stuff.
Otherwise there are tons of YouTube videos out there that list like, Top 10 X-type mods for STALKER Anomaly, those are a good way to find new stuff. ModDB is full of nice mods, although unfortunately a lot is moving to Discord now. Hang out in the STALKER G.A.M.M.A.
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Making your own custom modlist is definitely the most satisfying thing, although I recommend using some kind of vanilla+ mod pack as a baseline just to save time. Last year when I was playing and modding STALKER Anomaly I used the now-defunct HACR, but it lives on spiritually as Null Point. That should be a good moddable baseline. Back then when I was hanging out in the HACR Discord I put together this document of some mods I liked that I added on top of the pack. I haven't played or updated that document since last winter though and there's been some new cool stuff.
Otherwise there are tons of YouTube videos out there that list like, Top 10 X-type mods for STALKER Anomaly, those are a good way to find new stuff. ModDB is full of nice mods, although unfortunately a lot is moving to Discord now. Hang out in the STALKER G.A.M.M.A. Discord server, that's (unfortunately) a place where a lot of new cool shit gets posted. There is an engine mod on there that gives true Picture-In-Picture scopes with negligible performance hit, if you care about that stuff.
Also, make sure you know your way around some kind of text-comparison program like WinMerge or your favourite code editor because you're going to have to merge some scripts and make your own patches if you're building your own custom modlist.
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.
I almost forgot! You may already be using them, but you're going to need a version of the modded exes as many mods depend on them. They are already baked into the PiP engine mod if you go digging on the GAMMA Discord, but if you don't then grab them here. Use the MT-Test version if you don't use the PiP exes, it has more performance. (I can't live without PiP anymore though).
But there is a ton of stuff you can add, an entire Toxic Air/Gas Mask system like in Metro is available if you want and so much more. If you like having companions around the TALKER mod lets you hook up AI to get dynamic dialogue.
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 e
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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.
Yes well, development on official Anomaly versions is extremely slow, and so Demonized releases his modded exes on a much faster development cycle.
Yeah, the modding landscape is very messy. A lot of presumed foreknowledge, very user unfriendly and also very scattered. Nexusmods for Anomaly is largely unused, ModDB is a mess and a lot of stuff is now scattered across various Discords, sometimes with important patches and additions buried deep inside threads with absolutely zero discoverability.
I would personally recommend some weather mod, I find vanilla weathers pretty underwhelming in comparison. There are a bunch though, Melancholy Weathers is close to a 1.0 release. But I have that opinion about most things Vanilla Anomaly. It does its intended job extremely well, which is to be a stable and unified platform for modders (compared to the mess of Call of Chernobyl-based mods that preceeded it), but it's fairly lacking without add-ons. Although I may just have been ruined at
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Yes well, development on official Anomaly versions is extremely slow, and so Demonized releases his modded exes on a much faster development cycle.
Yeah, the modding landscape is very messy. A lot of presumed foreknowledge, very user unfriendly and also very scattered. Nexusmods for Anomaly is largely unused, ModDB is a mess and a lot of stuff is now scattered across various Discords, sometimes with important patches and additions buried deep inside threads with absolutely zero discoverability.
I would personally recommend some weather mod, I find vanilla weathers pretty underwhelming in comparison. There are a bunch though, Melancholy Weathers is close to a 1.0 release. But I have that opinion about most things Vanilla Anomaly. It does its intended job extremely well, which is to be a stable and unified platform for modders (compared to the mess of Call of Chernobyl-based mods that preceeded it), but it's fairly lacking without add-ons. Although I may just have been ruined at this point, I have played and modded Anomaly a lot.
Another thing I forgot was the Mod Configuration Menu. A lot of mods will also depend on that for configuration. It's so easy to forget all these absolute bedrock foundational mods, sorry! Here is another must-have: Beef's NVGs.
Final recommendation (for now) is Dark Signal Audio packs. These are some of the best sounds you can find for Anomaly. They work fine with the other audio mods from that sheet I linked, you can futz with the load order in MO2 to decide which should overwrite what.
Let me know if there is something else specific you're looking for, I can go back and sit through my stuff and refresh my memory. But I think the absolute best way to get a baseline grasp of what exists out there is to download some modpack(s) and look through their mod list. Even if you decide to build from scratch yourself later rather than use something as a baseline, it will help clue you in into what mods exist.
Melancholy Weathers is a weather addon for Stalker Anomaly.Currently it features 40+ weather cycles and over 400 custom skyboxes, all handmade from scratch b...
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.
Yeah, Discord replacing forums and places like ModDB is definitely terrible. I hate it too.
For me I kind of approach modding in reverse, almost. I tend to first canvas as much as I can and put together a collection that I like, and then I will playtest and if I run into specific issues I'll look for further mods that solve them as I go. For me it saves me time because I know right off the bat there's going to be things I want to change, and I don't need to play vanilla first to know that.
Also a note about that document I linked: it's very very far from being comprehensive. It was made to save me time on the Discord because users kept asking about mods to add onto the baseline HACR pack. So I have omitted a ton of essential mods (as you could tell) simply because they were already in HACR base. But it's something at least.
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.
No problem at all, I love Anomaly and modding it (as you can tell) so I will happily talk your ear off about it if you give me half a chance to. And I'll be happy to give further help or tips in the future if you want to, too.
Enjoy diving into the rabbit hole, I'll keep an eye out for future weekly threads to see what you end up with!
Using what I know of the original version and the little I know that changes in this one, doing some slight powerlevelling in Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age.
Still, a bit annoying you can no longer get phoenix downs from Lohen in the Westersand, and best ways now are either a chest in the far corner of the first area of the Estersand, or the rarest drops and steals from an enemy that isn't easy to chain, the cockatrices.
Also glad now FFXII TZA allows resetting jobs. With how long the game can be, making a permanent mistake early on could be... tilting.
I really want to get to FF XII some day. I never got around to it, but the Gambit system intrigues me so much. I loved the tactics system in DA: Origins, I even installed mods to make it even more advanced and had a lot of fun setting up programming for characters to be sort of self playing pianos.
Not familiar with DA: Origins, but being as old of a game and the first from the company (afaik) with such a function, you may notice every once in a while the limits of it. Still, having to cycle between gambits, battle speed and active/wait modes, it gives quite an unique spin on real time strategy. But that if either you are exploring earliest, doing powerleveling, or hunting optional bosses. Usually gambits carry you through most of a normal playthrough if you're smart about them.
I haven't actually been playing any games for the past week, so I don't have all that much to talk about. Today was the first time I actually sat down and played anything, which was some random Ninja Gaiden 2 survival mode on Xenia Edge emulator and then a couple of fights on my ongoing playthrough of moddedNinja Gaiden 2 Black. The latest custom moveset mod from ShowR18 dropped the other day and so I played around a bit with the new toys.
Otherwise I want to get back to my first playthrough of Darkwood, which I only just started last week. Game is incredible, absolutely top notch horror and atmosphere - without a single deliberate jump scare. Some of the best sound design you'll ever hear, and some just
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I haven't actually been playing any games for the past week, so I don't have all that much to talk about. Today was the first time I actually sat down and played anything, which was some random Ninja Gaiden 2 survival mode on Xenia Edge emulator and then a couple of fights on my ongoing playthrough of moddedNinja Gaiden 2 Black. The latest custom moveset mod from ShowR18 dropped the other day and so I played around a bit with the new toys.
Otherwise I want to get back to my first playthrough of Darkwood, which I only just started last week. Game is incredible, absolutely top notch horror and atmosphere - without a single deliberate jump scare. Some of the best sound design you'll ever hear, and some just brutal, oppressive survival horror. I am not easily spooked, but this game gets to me. Almost to the point where I am not sure I will finish it, actually. The convergence of gameplay design and audiovisual design during the nights in your hideout make for some of the most tense moments I've ever experienced in gaming. It's similar-ish to the powerlessness you feel towards the xenomorph in Alien Isolation, but this might honestly be scarier.
Darkwood - a new perspective on survival horror. Scavenge and explore a rich, ever-changing free-roam world by day, then hunker down in your hideout and pray for the morning light.
Enjoy! The intended experience is playing on Hard (semi-permadeath, you have limited extra lives) but I recommend playing on Normal. I started off on Hard but restarted on Normal because I still have a faint hope of actually finishing the game and I think it's a little too difficult to pull that off on a first playthrough on Hard (and I'm not going to start over if I lose my save after 15 hours).
But keep that in mind when playing. The tension and stakes are just so much higher when you have limited extra lives. It definitely does heighten the experience.
Rain World is brutally uncompromising, but there's a certain kind of satisfaction in that.
If you're interested in recommendations based on Animal Well, some games with similar puzzle style would be Tunic, Toki Tori 2 and Outer Wilds (be careful with spoilers for those kinds of games)
I'm about 20hrs in now and still early in the second zone. I'm a big fan of the combat (playing as a wizard). The world is beautiful, NPC design is great, scenery is gorgeous. I'm not sure about the story so far (not that it's bad). The one definite downside so far is the performance. I had to use Optiscaler to force FSR4 upscaling (I have a RX9070) and FSR4 frame gen just to get over 100FPS.
Believe it or not, I've been so busy with life, that I only just started playing Deltarune. So far I'm liking it, despite of the 240p resolution (uh) and the 30 FPS cap (uuuuuuh)
back on my long way away from my mmos. champions and star trek online. its the summer event. Lost some elite qued content. I don't think I messed up on any objectives but ill admit there is one where the team splits up to three locations and I did not check how the others were doing or if someone covered them and there was someone who came to mine after I was there and I have a scitorp that can handle a section alone. I mean I was doing it alone for a bit so not sure why the guy came over. if it was not elite its fine for one of the sections to fail but in elites all objectives have to be met. anyway its also the summer festival. in champs my characters need to be respeced and its an rp thing around my main to which is going to take time.
I started playing car mechanic simulator VR so i'm learning how to take appart every part of a car to find their issues. Right now the floor is full of engine parts since i'm trying to find what the client said made a noise XD
It's surely much simpler then a real car since i could disassemble the whole car in an hour and put it back together in around the same time i think XD
I watched a guy who worked as a mechanic for a couple years play it and he said it was very accurate to a real car but without the wires and tubes. I got it on sale for like $2. I just checked and it's still on sale.
I recently played through To the Moon, it's just a few hours long and it's really just a story with some superficial gameplay elements taped on top. It's really sad, I cried.
I saw there are a couple sequels and I intend to get to them eventually.
Dude, I sobbed like a god damn baby playing that game lmfao. My ex was seriously concerned seeing her grown ass husband crying uncontrollably in front of the computer. I think she thought my mom died or something lmao.
Everspace 2. It's giving me Freelancer vibes and isn't as weird as Chorus. Pretty good for what it is. A little video gamey... I still haven't used my "ult" on my ship just because it doesn't feel right. The AI is pretty basic too.
I'm still having fun though. I'll stick it out for now.
It's worth sitting through as "homework" for the later games, in my opinion. It has some great moments still, and the story is interesting. But yeah, a bit too much clunky combat in similar-looking forests.
Trying to be an asshole cop on my second run in Disco Elysium. So far no apologies, I've punched Cuno and chosen fascism. Trying to build up my Physical Instrument to knock out Measurehead.
I'm not sure I have the strength to be mean to Kim though.
Esta entrada fue editada (jueves, 4 de junio de 2026, 7:30)
The fascist quest is actually quite interesting. I was definitely surprised by it, although I shouldn't have been given the general level of writing in Disco. It's a shame so few players will actually get to see it.
Got gifted xbox360. Modded it and been playing games from that era that I've skipped. AC1 was great, AC2 is okay. Tried MGSV and was like "Wow! AI in this game is incredible!". But FPS was abysmal so I got Steam key and now playing on Bazzite. Game is great! Definitely recommend.
Are you planning on giving Ninja Gaiden 2 a spin? You have a chance to experience the original Chapter 10 staircase fight, where there are so many enemies on screen at once the game slows down to full-on bullet time time dilation because there is too much game for the hardware to handle.
I am seeding a popular xbox360 rom archive, and Ninja Gaiden 2 already has been downloaded, unpacked, and transferred to xbox. I have heard it is a great game. I will pick it up later on after I finish a few games higher on the list.
That's awesome, do you know if it has the DLCs included? Survival (part of the Mission Mode DLC) is my favourite part of the game for quick access mindless action.
In general NG2 is an incredibly unique game. To this day there is nothing quite like it, you will either love it or hate it - and probably both in equal measures. It was unfortunately rushed out and released in an unfinished and unbalanced state due to some internal issues at Team Ninja, and you see this particularly in the later levels and the higher difficulties. But when it hits and it's delivering fights against groups of humanoid enemies it really delivers a feeling of "what if cocaine was playable?" that no other game matches.
Will be interested to hear your thoughts, and let me know if you want any tips. It doesn't really play like any other action games.
Maestro
in reply to BurntWits • • •itsworkthatwedo
in reply to Maestro • • •Goodeye8
in reply to Maestro • • •I would add that calling it hard core Minecraft might set the wrong expectation. It's derived from Minecraft (I think it originally started as a Minecraft mod with a different name before spinning off) but since then it's gone in a completely different direction to Minecraft. If you go into Vintage Story expecting it to be like Minecraft you're probably going to have a bad time because your Minecraft knowledge doesn't really transfer over. Minecraft is a lot more adventure focused while Vintage Story has gone the other route, it's taken survival as the central focus and the adventure is largely built around survival.
And it does survival very well because it actually turns it into a motivation to go and explore. If you just sit around you are going to die. If you don't set up a farm and cellar and collect food for the winter, you are going to die in the winter. If you don't find different types of crops your farm will run out of whatever nutrient you're using and you have to start refreshing the soil. If you don't find warm clothes you're going to freeze in the winter. Your
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And it does survival very well because it actually turns it into a motivation to go and explore. If you just sit around you are going to die. If you don't set up a farm and cellar and collect food for the winter, you are going to die in the winter. If you don't find different types of crops your farm will run out of whatever nutrient you're using and you have to start refreshing the soil. If you don't find warm clothes you're going to freeze in the winter. Your survival also depends on the variety of food, if you eat only one type of food you'll have less health (more variety in food means more overall health). You get so many external motivators to go out and explore simply because if you don't do it you won't survive. And in that sense I actually find exploration in Vintage Story a lot more rewarding that in Minecraft.
I would also add that Vintage Story has a modding scene and some of the mods IMO are kind of a must-have QoL updates. I haven't tried the most recent update so I don't know if some of those things have been improved or not. The mods I recommend are Auto Map Markers (because you want to mark down whatever resource you find because you're probably going to need it. This mod automates that), better prospecting (I would recommend first trying out vanilla prospecting before using this mod. This mod makes prospecting less annoying) and Carry on (at the start you don't have a lot of storage space so being able to pick up chests and move them around is very useful).
Maestro
in reply to Goodeye8 • • •ButtermilkBiscuit
in reply to BurntWits • • •Apeman42
in reply to BurntWits • • •I rediscovered Tales of Maj'eyal and have been burning through so many dead characters trying to remember how to play and catch up with the changes since I last played like 7 years ago.
While there is a certain degree of resource management, there are very few true consumables you have to worry about saving for later. Most abilities and items are more based around cooldowns. That and the detailed talent trees give it a delightfully tactical edge over a lot of other traditional grid roguelikes to me.
Tales of Maj'Eyal and T-Engine4 | Topdown tactical RPG roguelike game and game engine
te4.orgNelDel
in reply to BurntWits • • •Monster Hunter Dos! It's so fun to play an old ps2 game with online fan servers. For a Monster Hunter game, it's HARD. You start with no armor, no money, and have to earn everything by the skin of your teeth. Even the smallest wildlife poses a real threat, crabs zoom across the map to singlehandedly harass you while gathering mushrooms.
Luckily, there's a whole community out there to assist. Online hubs are full of people happy to help you out and tell you how to survive. You begin to have an actual safety net, a single loss isn't sending you into poverty. You start to feel competent, and even confident in your hunting skills. Then a Diablos pounds you into the earth & reminds you why this game is known for being difficult.
Essence_of_Meh
in reply to BurntWits • • •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
... Mostrar másI'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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •Essence_of_Meh
in reply to Coelacanth • • •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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •Making your own custom modlist is definitely the most satisfying thing, although I recommend using some kind of vanilla+ mod pack as a baseline just to save time. Last year when I was playing and modding STALKER Anomaly I used the now-defunct HACR, but it lives on spiritually as Null Point. That should be a good moddable baseline. Back then when I was hanging out in the HACR Discord I put together this document of some mods I liked that I added on top of the pack. I haven't played or updated that document since last winter though and there's been some new cool stuff.
Otherwise there are tons of YouTube videos out there that list like, Top 10 X-type mods for STALKER Anomaly, those are a good way to find new stuff. ModDB is full of nice mods, although unfortunately a lot is moving to Discord now. Hang out in the STALKER G.A.M.M.A.
... Mostrar másMaking your own custom modlist is definitely the most satisfying thing, although I recommend using some kind of vanilla+ mod pack as a baseline just to save time. Last year when I was playing and modding STALKER Anomaly I used the now-defunct HACR, but it lives on spiritually as Null Point. That should be a good moddable baseline. Back then when I was hanging out in the HACR Discord I put together this document of some mods I liked that I added on top of the pack. I haven't played or updated that document since last winter though and there's been some new cool stuff.
Otherwise there are tons of YouTube videos out there that list like, Top 10 X-type mods for STALKER Anomaly, those are a good way to find new stuff. ModDB is full of nice mods, although unfortunately a lot is moving to Discord now. Hang out in the STALKER G.A.M.M.A. Discord server, that's (unfortunately) a place where a lot of new cool shit gets posted. There is an engine mod on there that gives true Picture-In-Picture scopes with negligible performance hit, if you care about that stuff.
Also, make sure you know your way around some kind of text-comparison program like WinMerge or your favourite code editor because you're going to have to merge some scripts and make your own patches if you're building your own custom modlist.
Proton Drive
drive.proton.meEssence_of_Meh
in reply to Coelacanth • • •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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •I almost forgot! You may already be using them, but you're going to need a version of the modded exes as many mods depend on them. They are already baked into the PiP engine mod if you go digging on the GAMMA Discord, but if you don't then grab them here. Use the MT-Test version if you don't use the PiP exes, it has more performance. (I can't live without PiP anymore though).
Also visually Screen Space Shaders, Atmospherics and Weather Expansion are used by many. I also really like Arrival.
But there is a ton of stuff you can add, an entire Toxic Air/Gas Mask system like in Metro is available if you want and so much more. If you like having companions around the TALKER mod lets you hook up AI to get dynamic dialogue.
GitHub - BasadoBased/TALKER-Delta: Immersion and roleplay-focused expansion of the TALKER mod for STALKER Anomaly.
GitHubEssence_of_Meh
in reply to Coelacanth • • •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 e
... Mostrar másI'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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •Yes well, development on official Anomaly versions is extremely slow, and so Demonized releases his modded exes on a much faster development cycle.
Yeah, the modding landscape is very messy. A lot of presumed foreknowledge, very user unfriendly and also very scattered. Nexusmods for Anomaly is largely unused, ModDB is a mess and a lot of stuff is now scattered across various Discords, sometimes with important patches and additions buried deep inside threads with absolutely zero discoverability.
I would personally recommend some weather mod, I find vanilla weathers pretty underwhelming in comparison. There are a bunch though, Melancholy Weathers is close to a 1.0 release. But I have that opinion about most things Vanilla Anomaly. It does its intended job extremely well, which is to be a stable and unified platform for modders (compared to the mess of Call of Chernobyl-based mods that preceeded it), but it's fairly lacking without add-ons. Although I may just have been ruined at
... Mostrar másYes well, development on official Anomaly versions is extremely slow, and so Demonized releases his modded exes on a much faster development cycle.
Yeah, the modding landscape is very messy. A lot of presumed foreknowledge, very user unfriendly and also very scattered. Nexusmods for Anomaly is largely unused, ModDB is a mess and a lot of stuff is now scattered across various Discords, sometimes with important patches and additions buried deep inside threads with absolutely zero discoverability.
I would personally recommend some weather mod, I find vanilla weathers pretty underwhelming in comparison. There are a bunch though, Melancholy Weathers is close to a 1.0 release. But I have that opinion about most things Vanilla Anomaly. It does its intended job extremely well, which is to be a stable and unified platform for modders (compared to the mess of Call of Chernobyl-based mods that preceeded it), but it's fairly lacking without add-ons. Although I may just have been ruined at this point, I have played and modded Anomaly a lot.
Another thing I forgot was the Mod Configuration Menu. A lot of mods will also depend on that for configuration. It's so easy to forget all these absolute bedrock foundational mods, sorry! Here is another must-have: Beef's NVGs.
Final recommendation (for now) is Dark Signal Audio packs. These are some of the best sounds you can find for Anomaly. They work fine with the other audio mods from that sheet I linked, you can futz with the load order in MO2 to decide which should overwrite what.
Let me know if there is something else specific you're looking for, I can go back and sit through my stuff and refresh my memory. But I think the absolute best way to get a baseline grasp of what exists out there is to download some modpack(s) and look through their mod list. Even if you decide to build from scratch yourself later rather than use something as a baseline, it will help clue you in into what mods exist.
Melancholy Weathers EA9 - Addon for Stalker Anomaly
PIPNIK (YouTube)Essence_of_Meh
in reply to Coelacanth • • •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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •Yeah, Discord replacing forums and places like ModDB is definitely terrible. I hate it too.
For me I kind of approach modding in reverse, almost. I tend to first canvas as much as I can and put together a collection that I like, and then I will playtest and if I run into specific issues I'll look for further mods that solve them as I go. For me it saves me time because I know right off the bat there's going to be things I want to change, and I don't need to play vanilla first to know that.
Also a note about that document I linked: it's very very far from being comprehensive. It was made to save me time on the Discord because users kept asking about mods to add onto the baseline HACR pack. So I have omitted a ton of essential mods (as you could tell) simply because they were already in HACR base. But it's something at least.
Essence_of_Meh
in reply to Coelacanth • • •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.
Coelacanth
in reply to Essence_of_Meh • • •No problem at all, I love Anomaly and modding it (as you can tell) so I will happily talk your ear off about it if you give me half a chance to. And I'll be happy to give further help or tips in the future if you want to, too.
Enjoy diving into the rabbit hole, I'll keep an eye out for future weekly threads to see what you end up with!
Auster
in reply to BurntWits • • •Using what I know of the original version and the little I know that changes in this one, doing some slight powerlevelling in Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age.
Still, a bit annoying you can no longer get phoenix downs from Lohen in the Westersand, and best ways now are either a chest in the far corner of the first area of the Estersand, or the rarest drops and steals from an enemy that isn't easy to chain, the cockatrices.
Also glad now FFXII TZA allows resetting jobs. With how long the game can be, making a permanent mistake early on could be... tilting.
Coelacanth
in reply to Auster • • •I really want to get to FF XII some day. I never got around to it, but the Gambit system intrigues me so much. I loved the tactics system in DA: Origins, I even installed mods to make it even more advanced and had a lot of fun setting up programming for characters to be sort of self playing pianos.
Also I like the Ivalice setting.
Auster
in reply to Coelacanth • • •2fm
in reply to Coelacanth • • •Coelacanth
in reply to BurntWits • • •I haven't actually been playing any games for the past week, so I don't have all that much to talk about. Today was the first time I actually sat down and played anything, which was some random Ninja Gaiden 2 survival mode on Xenia Edge emulator and then a couple of fights on my ongoing playthrough of modded Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. The latest custom moveset mod from ShowR18 dropped the other day and so I played around a bit with the new toys.
Otherwise I want to get back to my first playthrough of Darkwood, which I only just started last week. Game is incredible, absolutely top notch horror and atmosphere - without a single deliberate jump scare. Some of the best sound design you'll ever hear, and some just
... Mostrar másI haven't actually been playing any games for the past week, so I don't have all that much to talk about. Today was the first time I actually sat down and played anything, which was some random Ninja Gaiden 2 survival mode on Xenia Edge emulator and then a couple of fights on my ongoing playthrough of modded Ninja Gaiden 2 Black. The latest custom moveset mod from ShowR18 dropped the other day and so I played around a bit with the new toys.
Otherwise I want to get back to my first playthrough of Darkwood, which I only just started last week. Game is incredible, absolutely top notch horror and atmosphere - without a single deliberate jump scare. Some of the best sound design you'll ever hear, and some just brutal, oppressive survival horror. I am not easily spooked, but this game gets to me. Almost to the point where I am not sure I will finish it, actually. The convergence of gameplay design and audiovisual design during the nights in your hideout make for some of the most tense moments I've ever experienced in gaming. It's similar-ish to the powerlessness you feel towards the xenomorph in Alien Isolation, but this might honestly be scarier.
Save 80% on Darkwood on Steam
store.steampowered.commysticpickle
in reply to Coelacanth • • •Coelacanth
in reply to mysticpickle • • •Enjoy! The intended experience is playing on Hard (semi-permadeath, you have limited extra lives) but I recommend playing on Normal. I started off on Hard but restarted on Normal because I still have a faint hope of actually finishing the game and I think it's a little too difficult to pull that off on a first playthrough on Hard (and I'm not going to start over if I lose my save after 15 hours).
But keep that in mind when playing. The tension and stakes are just so much higher when you have limited extra lives. It definitely does heighten the experience.
Suck_on_my_Presence
in reply to BurntWits • • •I absolutely adored Animal Well, so I went looking for something similar and I found Rain World.
But Christ on a trampoline, this game is hard as hell. And I have noooo idea what I'm doing yet.
Fun!
KubeRoot
in reply to Suck_on_my_Presence • • •Rain World is brutally uncompromising, but there's a certain kind of satisfaction in that.
If you're interested in recommendations based on Animal Well, some games with similar puzzle style would be Tunic, Toki Tori 2 and Outer Wilds (be careful with spoilers for those kinds of games)
MagnificentSteiner
in reply to BurntWits • • •Avowed
I'm about 20hrs in now and still early in the second zone. I'm a big fan of the combat (playing as a wizard). The world is beautiful, NPC design is great, scenery is gorgeous. I'm not sure about the story so far (not that it's bad). The one definite downside so far is the performance. I had to use Optiscaler to force FSR4 upscaling (I have a RX9070) and FSR4 frame gen just to get over 100FPS.
Avowed on Steam
store.steampowered.comCarlos Solís
in reply to BurntWits • •Patient Gamers reshared this.
HubertManne
in reply to BurntWits • • •dindonmasker
in reply to BurntWits • • •DonutsRMeh
in reply to dindonmasker • • •dindonmasker
in reply to DonutsRMeh • • •DonutsRMeh
in reply to dindonmasker • • •dindonmasker
in reply to DonutsRMeh • • •Christian
in reply to BurntWits • • •I recently played through To the Moon, it's just a few hours long and it's really just a story with some superficial gameplay elements taped on top. It's really sad, I cried.
I saw there are a couple sequels and I intend to get to them eventually.
MaliciousMarmot
in reply to Christian • • •Phunter
in reply to BurntWits • • •Everspace 2. It's giving me Freelancer vibes and isn't as weird as Chorus. Pretty good for what it is. A little video gamey... I still haven't used my "ult" on my ship just because it doesn't feel right. The AI is pretty basic too.
I'm still having fun though. I'll stick it out for now.
Drasglaf
in reply to BurntWits • • •Coelacanth
in reply to Drasglaf • • •Vritrahan
in reply to Drasglaf • • •SmoothOperator
in reply to BurntWits • • •Trying to be an asshole cop on my second run in Disco Elysium. So far no apologies, I've punched Cuno and chosen fascism. Trying to build up my Physical Instrument to knock out Measurehead.
I'm not sure I have the strength to be mean to Kim though.
Coelacanth
in reply to SmoothOperator • • •The fascist quest is actually quite interesting. I was definitely surprised by it, although I shouldn't have been given the general level of writing in Disco. It's a shame so few players will actually get to see it.
But yeah, being mean to Kim sucks though.
Shrouded0603
in reply to BurntWits • • •mavu
in reply to BurntWits • • •cyberpunk 2077
finally got to it and it's awesome.
imetators
in reply to BurntWits • • •Been playing MGSV Phantom Pain.
Got gifted xbox360. Modded it and been playing games from that era that I've skipped. AC1 was great, AC2 is okay. Tried MGSV and was like "Wow! AI in this game is incredible!". But FPS was abysmal so I got Steam key and now playing on Bazzite. Game is great! Definitely recommend.
Coelacanth
in reply to imetators • • •imetators
in reply to Coelacanth • • •Coelacanth
in reply to imetators • • •That's awesome, do you know if it has the DLCs included? Survival (part of the Mission Mode DLC) is my favourite part of the game for quick access mindless action.
In general NG2 is an incredibly unique game. To this day there is nothing quite like it, you will either love it or hate it - and probably both in equal measures. It was unfortunately rushed out and released in an unfinished and unbalanced state due to some internal issues at Team Ninja, and you see this particularly in the later levels and the higher difficulties. But when it hits and it's delivering fights against groups of humanoid enemies it really delivers a feeling of "what if cocaine was playable?" that no other game matches.
Will be interested to hear your thoughts, and let me know if you want any tips. It doesn't really play like any other action games.
sadie_sorceress
in reply to imetators • • •