pokoko said:
The JuiceHead video video said that a lot of people are reporting that stealth is broken, what's the word on that? Then again, that video also said that some of the conflicting information might have something to do with people playing different difficulties, which seem to seem to have more variation between them than with most games. Of course, stealth is broken one way or another in pretty much everything, so it could be that people just have different expectations. Yes, I fully intend to play a stealth archer at first. Got to say that I love the art direction and environmental design but also that mutant animals look incredibly annoying. |
Stealth is not broken on Veteran difficulty, enemies have immense range on detection, and they respond quickly to noise as well. There are takedown kills with the knife, but getting in position is tough, especially in areas with lots of enemies. Almost all of my bigger fights end up with me running madly between rooms and cover, picking of targets with rifle or pistol, depending on the range, and healing between. Being unable to save while hostiles are actively hunting or attacking is also a factor that ups the difficulty a lot. Sometimes, I disengage and hide away so I can save the game. Bases are sometimes hard to clear, but I find encounters out in the wild to be simpler. I just (as in; less than an hour ago) had an incident where two factions had a huge shootout in/near a small building. None of them were hostile towards me, so I let them duke it out, and then took some loot. Mind you, NPCs take loot as well! Then, after the fight was over and the winners had gone, a third group arrived, drawn by the sounds of fighting, looking for loot. I ended up in an intense shootout with those bastards, but managed to take them down. Radiant events are amazing, even without the full system being up and running.
Some mutants are annoying, especially the levitating ones underground; they do a lot of damage and they can take a lot of punishment. Others are easier, but some have high HP. I use anomalies for some of them, things like dogs are easy enough regardless of tactics. Overall, the combat is a blast, and the resource management is immersive and fun. I've never come close to running out of anything though, as I'm a very conservative player type in games like this. Enemies typically don't carry a lot of ammo, but it can be found in crates and on shelves all the time.
After about 10 hours, I only just moved on from the official starting zone (Lesser Zone). Game's huge!
Repairs are a bit annoying, it's expensive as hell, armor can get beat up badly by anomalies and cost a fortune to repair. I'm currently running with the starting pistol, a hunting rifle for close encounters, and a scoped assault rifle (AKM 74S, available near the start of the game, it sits atop the Water Tower).
