s2-lore-discussions

[gusty lotus]

Those revolver bullets look .357

[raven holly]

rhino uses 9x39

[jagged hull]

however they look the game still thinks its a 9x39 gun

[pine kite]

DLC will definitely come it may just be a while with how much the base game needs improvement

[raven holly]

Combat became a bit better since they stopped enemies from being perfect snipers through all the leaves from afar. But yeah maybe they could fight better, that's part of a-life for me

[jagged hull]

about the combat specifically, i find that it feels a bit too sluggish compared to the older games. the tagging is far too intense, you cant move around at all. ai is also pretty boring

[raven holly]

wym by tagging?

[jagged hull]

slow down when being shot at

older games had a bit of this but in 2 its a bit too intense and the fact that they took away the ability to heal or reload while running makes the combat even slower

[raven holly]

yeah that's true, I guess I am fine with it coz feels more 'realistic'. but yeah feels a bit boring as well. just hide behind cover and try to take everyone one by one

[gusty lotus]

Point number 4, If I could stay in a area and explore like in Valheim before moving on to the next area, that would be nice.

[raven holly]

haven't played Valheim, but wym? you can explore little zone for a long time for example

[jagged hull]

honestly no other aspect of the combat is realistic they should just focus on what is fun

if they want to punish being shot at they should just increase the damage the player takes. thats also one of my criticisms, you can tank far too much damage. i guess a master difficulty mode could solve this

[pine kite]

Yeah in the old games it was very sharp but short

[raven holly]

I also feel like you tank a lot but maybe the problem is me picking up falcon & yaniv exo even before sircaa lol

[gusty lotus]

You start of in lesser zone and the game basically boils down to "follow the main quest or we are going to have a problem.". I can't jump a fence, become mates with chemical plant and explore burnt forest and then later loose chemical plant because I didn't choose ward.

[raven holly]

A minor thing I would add, not really that important but would be really nice for replayability in my opinon. Maybe with a mod
But basically randomize loot (coz when you learn where you can get falcon in malachite, it becomes very easy and you don't even try anything else)
Also maybe randomize door codes

But yeah about loot, e.g. you can get like pszd by duty, smth like this, up-left from rostok. But you need to solve a multiple-stage puzzle and fight several burers, I spent like 20+ min on it. While with falcon you just need to know where to climb and do a bit of parkour and that's it. And falcon is noticeably better

[jagged hull]

yeah exos are unreasonably strong, but that goes for all armor pretty much.

[raven holly]

I mean the moment you are let out of lesser zone, you can go to burnt forest & chemical plants etc.

[jagged hull]

i personally plan to main the duty psz suit from now on since thats the closest to the x7 suit

[raven holly]

wouldn't falcon be closer since it has better stats? also why do u want closest to x7 suit? or is it just for the looks

[jagged hull]

closest looks-wise, yes. idc about the stats

[raven holly]

about tanking, it's funny. When I get shot at, I feel bad not because of health. Health idgaf, it's little and you always have tens of medkits lying around, it's hella easy to heal
But the repair prices... every time I get into anomaly or get shot, I'm like "damn that will be expensive"
And honestly that's stupid lol

[raven holly]

it's the one I talked about, that you get by solving puzzle with burers? or I guess u can also buy it at cement factory

[jagged hull]

i hate how when you get shot at in the wish "granted" sequence in sircaa your armor gets destroyed

[raven holly]

yes lol

[jagged hull]

just the regular mid tier duty suit, i think we are talking about the same one. also about the armor damage, same goes for phantoms which dont exist. hopefully they fix that

if you look at the x7 suit its literally just a PSZ5 suit thats reskinned to be brown/gray

it looks good for skif though, hes the only protagonist smart enough to wear a respirator lol

[raven holly]

I also like x7 suit. I lowkey hate exos and x7 is the strongest non-exo, I wish you could find it before point of no return lol

so I might steal your idea about the duty armor lol. I lowkey hate duty as well tho' hmmmmm

[jagged hull]

i hope one day there will be a main character that canonically wears an exo. i feel like everyone so far has armor that realistically no player would wear at the endgame

[raven holly]

lol yeah that's hillarious. strelok literally got to c-con in a sunrise suit with akm-74u

[jagged hull]

yeah im not a fan of the red highlights on the armor but it still looks pretty good and its nice to have something to wear consistently through a run and not switch around

[pine kite]

Deggy seems most likely to wear an exo out of the 4 main characters so far

[jagged hull]

that would be scar for me. degtyarev has turned into a glorified cop he doesnt need battle armor

[raven holly]

I checked, we've been talking about different armor but it makes sense now. It's really very similar to x7

you've been talking about PSZ-5D Universal Protection and I about PSZ-9D Duty Armor which is more like Duty's Bulat

also just made me think only now, how X7 has no helmet on icon but it's a suit like exo/seva that also covers helmet slot lol

[jagged hull]

it has a respirator in the icon

[raven holly]

PSZ-5D Universal Protection also does but it doesn't cover helmet icon

[jagged hull]

the psz5d also has that but an open head slot but we can ignore that

[raven holly]

but yeah I wish for such an important endgame gear they would be a bit less lazy then just a different color of some other armor that is not even good, midgame at best

[jagged hull]

yeah true but the patch at least looks very good

[raven holly]

what patch?

[jagged hull]

X7 patch

[jagged hull]

all of the other main characters have outfits with unique details like scar with his entirely unique suit and strelok with his helmetless seva, skif gets scammed and gets gear thats equivalent to a duty recruit lol

[raven holly]

somewhere on the icon? #📸┃screens_and_videos message

[mossy maple]

If ccon is dead who reframed Scar with Marshall memories?

[vapid spire]

That what I've asked before. It probaly was some project x scientist still loyal to c-con.

[gusty lotus]

Was there monolith back in scar's days of working for clear sky?

[mossy maple]

Yes, I think Monolith became violent since Clear Sky. But he was not reframed directly after the events of the game, since Marshall was a former member of the original Spark. The original Spark was destroyed by Warden AFTER Call of Pripyat

[analog tree]

Maybe some MDST guys. DLC in Limansk should explain that

[raven holly]

Correct. And yes I also asked the same question, it's very confusing. There's no clear explanation as of now

[vapid spire]

Where they just keeping scar in a stasis pod the whole time? Cause this Marshall guy joined spark after CoP which took place a year after CS.

[mossy maple]

I hope it's not a left over it would be too stupid lol

[raven holly]

yeah and that's confusing as well

[mossy maple]

Maybe they have some kind of pods to preserve the agents before they are sent back to the zone again

[little gazelle]

so having now finished a pure Ward run. i saw a thing or 2 in the ending cinematic

||we see as skif looks on the keys to his new home, then it turns into green pixels and static before we zoom out to see that there's a screen, showing what he sees. and then it zooms further out and we see other screens and i swear i saw one that looked like it would be Sidorovich's view from his desk always having his arm up on it. does this imply that these screens, are showing the remaining C-con Agents that Korshunov was looking for? does it mean that Sid and Skif are agents too? or is this just now that they've connected fully to the Noosphere that they're now able to see what everyone sees, survilance everyone?||

[vapid spire]

How did skif see through c-con agent's eyes again? Like is an agent implanted with a camera or does it have something to do with the noosphere?

[pine kite]

The latter seems like the most sensible interpretation

And at least to me ||Agatha's final line before the game fades to credits is intended to drive the idea home that working with the institute can give you (and Skif) the things you want right away - but it has the cost of handing them control||

[ornate venture]

der_adler_02 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[serene meadow]

Yes, in this ending noosphere is the surveillance tool, so everyone who is thinking and have eyes is C-Con Agent now

[fathom veldt]

*supervisory board agent

[serene meadow]

Yes, right

[ornate venture]

intimiderp has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[worldly cloak]

Hello

[fallen vapor]

Which ending do we like best and why?

[gusty lotus]

None of them,because it messes with what could have been a great end game.

[fallen vapor]

Finally, someone who gets it!

Although if I had to choose an ending, I’d go with the ||Strelok ending just because it doesn’t change the zone too too much.||

[gusty lotus]

And you get to shoot Faust in disguise.

[fallen vapor]

All my homies HATE Faust…..

[gusty lotus]

No one likes controllers... And if they are going to start looking like us I am out.

[analog tree]

a world changing ending is what an ending should be. why spend 100hours for nothing

[fallen vapor]

Why walk outside your house in someplace, USA and get hit by several fire based anomalies?

[analog tree]

that's just one of the endings, and it's a surprising twist. it's smth new, instead of some generic slop ending.

[fallen vapor]

Yes, it is something new and it was my first ending. I just don’t like the premise of it, but that’s just me.

[jagged hull]

the final twist in that ending recontextualises the story in a pretty interesting way

[gusty lotus]

And then you start a new game and canonically that meens nothing. This is the same copium I saw back in the day with ff12. I will do what I did then. Dodge everyone hyping up the game and play the game a 1000 hours.Probably change my steam review to good:"They finally finished the game. 7/10.". Probably go play BL3.

[analog tree]

Elaborate your nothing burger

seriously, what did you even say

[fallen vapor]

Interesting way as in a whole new setting to explore?

[radiant harness]

are you mad that the game doesnt have like, new game + or smth?

[analog tree]

he said a bunch of sentences, but they mean nothing

[radiant harness]

tbf you also used a lot of words but meant nothing

[fallen vapor]

What about me?

[radiant harness]

who are you

[fallen vapor]

the guy who started the conversation

[radiant harness]

you know?

as always

sam hyde was right

youre wrong

[sage crown]

Anyone figured out how Kaimanov was faust?

[fallen vapor]

No, still hate the fact he was though.

[fallen vapor]

ok, next question….

[sage crown]

I'm trying to figure out how,like was he Faust all along?And how did he do it?Did he use his psi powers or smth?

[fallen vapor]

I would assume he used his psychic powers and played us like a fiddle…. That at least makes the most sense to me considering his controller abilities.

[sage crown]

He probably was Faust all along, considering the fact that he didn't want us to kill any monolithians,and he somehow knew about the monolith device that could heal strider

[fallen vapor]

Also valid

[sage crown]

Also pretty sure the project y (Kaimanov/Faust's) ending is canon?

[analog tree]

Doc's house is surrounded by what looks like psi-devices, probably causing induced illusions. In SoC, they didn't exist.

[fallen vapor]

Probably, as much as I hate it

[sage crown]

That's also another thing I thought about

[analog tree]

why do u hate it

[sage crown]

So I'm guessing we just don't care about Skif anymore? We're just gonna be a completely random stalker?

[fallen vapor]

The zone loses it’s novelty. It was a one of a kind place. I mean, it still can have some specialty as being the place where it all started…

[analog tree]

you realize we will never get stalker 3

[sage crown]

Since Skif is in the C-Consciousness pod

[fallen vapor]

I care - enough to see that he gets to an ending.

[analog tree]

he finished the job, set the zone free. he can exit and carry on his life. probably

[sage crown]

Agreed, also we will not get S3 but we should get multiple dlc's if gsc locks in

[fallen vapor]

That’s in the realm of possibility?

[sage crown]

We should get a limansk dlc or smth

[fallen vapor]

fr fr

[sage crown]

In the description of the Iron Forest it says Smth about it not being accessible YET

[fallen vapor]

Planned DLC location for sure

[analog tree]

it's going to be free DLC

no way GSC doesn't offer Chernobyl in a Chernobyl-base game. It's like selling a Call of Duty game without Shipment

[pine kite]

Well every game so far has had a different main character

[sage crown]

I don't think a dlc counts as a game

[analog tree]

DLC is going to take place before ending. like cyberslop

[pine kite]

Well the way a lot of DLC works is it adds on to the existing main game rather than being after the end, but I guess we will see

[sage crown]

My question is are they gonna add co-op

[ornate venture]

alvaroabc has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[sage crown]

Co-op fits in this game a lot more than multiplayer

[little gazelle]

it really doesn't

like Multiplayer modes can make use of there being factions waging war against each other and just Co-op would just take some of the atmosphere out of the game. even if 2 feels a bit different than the older titles.

[pine kite]

The sense of solitude when you're out there on your own is still pretty key

[little gazelle]

i feel like a lot of people state things as if there is no difference between if some feature fits a game and if they just think it would be fun

[sage crown]

How about they just add both?

[little gazelle]

they've said that they do not want to add Co-op so like.

like Multiplayer was quite literally, promised.

as there is benefits you got from either pre ordering the game or buying the more expensive editions. the other game also had a PvP multiplayer iirc.

[sage crown]

I pre ordered the game,so what kind of benefits are they gonna add?

[little gazelle]

there was a bit about how the skins would carry over.

can't really remember what else but it was listed.

[mossy maple]

Nobody will play the multiplayer lol

[little gazelle]

not really interested in PvP in Stalker myself either.

[sage crown]

Same

[little gazelle]

well apparently people did play it in the older games. idk how exactly it worked back then.

[mossy maple]

Yeah but every fps game had a multiplayer back then, even half Life

[sage crown]

There was PvP in older games?Mods I'm guessing?

[little gazelle]

not mods. built in thing.

[radiant harness]

yhea and all the ones you said were good, even Stalker

https://tenor.com/view/what-the-fuck-man-stressed-problematic-gif-15976565

tourists didnt even play CS capture the artifact

[mossy maple]

Yeah no it's full of ruzzian cheaters

[radiant harness]

skill issue

you da kinda person that needs SBMM because you aint got no friends

[mossy maple]

I have no idea what SBMM means

[little gazelle]

that seems mean lol.

Skill Based Match Making, it's a system that will match you against people on around the same skill level as yourself. meant to prevent people from being steamrolled.

or in case of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 i think, meant to pit you against people with cosmetics to push you into buying cosmetics yourself. least i think that's how it was.

[mossy maple]

Ah. I dont play multiplayer games 🤷‍♂️

[mossy maple]

He is pissed for no reason at all lol
🚬 😔

[analog tree]

not my reaction

[heady marten]

It was awful.

[radiant harness]

sore loser at the LAN Party

[heady marten]

You would probably say the same about Tarkov and cheaters.

Skill issue.

The oroblem all modern pvp have a massive cheat issue, and many devs refuse to do anything about it, like steam... because uts a money earner.

[radiant harness]

the solution is, servers

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1114209874767781938/1283914169149820951/caption.gif

give me the vote perms

[heady marten]

No it was rubbish, and it's sad the people like dismiss people arguments as a skill issue.

[radiant harness]

sounds like someone is mad that they cant bhop

[heady marten]

No, because cheating is still a massive is issue.

Back in the day on vs 1.6, the old UK2 servers, cheating was a massive issue...

And IP bans, by passed with VPN's and amd sometimes people getting banned for being so good.

It will beca cheaters paradise, and divert money and resources away from making the game better

[heady marten]

Sounds like an arrogant fan boi... Who really doesn't have a clue, but thinks he knows best.

[radiant harness]

sore loser doesnt know how to rocket jump, leaves the lan party crying

2025 colorized

[heady marten]

So why do you think that insulting others, is good form of discussion?

Your resorting to insults coz your fan boi aguements are shyte?

[radiant harness]

if you wanted a good civil discussion shouldve told me at home yesterday when I was in your mothers bed

[heady marten]

Just crying skill issue, is pathetic...

[heady marten]

You what?

[heady marten]

Do you think that is funny or something?

[radiant harness]

yes

very

[heady marten]

Nope it's sad and pathetic, and it makes you look like a c*nt in front of everyone.

[radiant harness]

https://tenor.com/view/risitas-yes-giggle-gif-13898844

[heady marten]

It doesn't bother, I am scran grabbing and will be saving it to highlight how poor the moderators are....

Please continue.

So not is the game still broken for many... but the discord moderators can't even debate, without acting like children

[slim monolith]

Ah yes, mods being mods lol good to know this server keeps reaching new lows

[heady marten]

Can't argue points, so insult members of the community

Don't like pvp... must be a skill issue, so attacking the person, not the argument

[slim monolith]

Countering valid arguments rationally is hard to come by these days, especially on discord

[radiant harness]

yes I do know

they jealous of my sick, bhopping skills

you wont catch me in the computer cafe

[heady marten]

They're...

You're a disgrace to the S2 servers

[radiant harness]

You'll never be catching these sick moves brother

[slim monolith]

The only thing that's sick here is the state the game's in. Bloody train wreck since launch

[heady marten]

Damn right... I'm not into vomit.

But whatever floats your boat.

[radiant harness]

yhea but, we aint talkin bout that

and about how bad Rog is at HLDM

he stinks

I saw him and he was throwing ratlings in the pit

[heady marten]

You ain't talking much at all.

Just throwing insults at community members, because you can't debate like an adult.

Nothing sick about you, apart from your turn ons.

[radiant harness]

https://tenor.com/view/j-jonah-jameson-spiderman-spiderman2-not-funny-not-funny-didnt-laugh-gif-18346794

I can turn serious, but only when your mom tells me to

[little gazelle]

Stern mommy voice your weakness?

[heady marten]

Got some proper weird people moderating this place...

[radiant harness]

dont worry brother, we also got weird people talking in the server

[mossy maple]

Average mods powertrip

[analog tree]

STOC Gaming is crazy lad! Respect for the man! Though revoke his moderator role 💀

[plain pelican]

Vasim is just based lmao

[pine kite]

It's really only power tripping if he muted you or something, otherwise it's just regular trash talk

[jagged hull]

vasim is a closeted tarkov fan

[vocal surge]

duty and the ward are the best the rest suck 🗣️

there is no debate this is just true

[mossy maple]

duty is like the least relevant faction of stalker 2 wdym ?

[light herald]

A ghost exist in zone? , in lesser zone i found vlad vivid's pda and it seem the statue eat him

It is a mystery anyone know who killed Vlad vivid ??

[sage crown]

Anyone ever thought about how or where the Monolithians get their gear?

[plain pelican]

Yeah but no answers

[sage crown]

It's the Monolith, just gives them gear using wishes

[plain pelican]

[fossil depot]

WTF even happened here?

[sage crown]

I asked this question

[lucid flare]

It's mentioned in COP that the spetznaz think they have a contacts outside the zone supplying them with blackmarket weapons. They also have anything from converts weapons from old stores and the failed UN and military missions. Oh and basically the entire clear sky faction which was pretty well armed with f2000s and so on.

[heady marten]

Used to be funded by C-con, designed and developed.

Have no idea, where in S2 they get their equipment from... As C-con is gone, along with their funding and development.

[slender rock]

most likely old caches from before strelok killed off c-con

[heady marten]

Maybe, who knows.

[fathom veldt]

you so suck at your job that even mutants started doing your job

what a hell happened to this chat

[fathom veldt]

huh? who is that?

[heady marten]

People don't know the lore and refused to listen.

Is what happens people when you look to deeply into things and creat your own head cannon.

Because devs that couldn't keep their own lore coherent.

[fathom veldt]

yes i agree, duty sucks

[heady marten]

Duty is the best.

Only faction not run by nutjobs or evil bustards.

[fathom veldt]

your sarcasm is on another level

[heady marten]

It's true.

[jagged hull]

stoc gaming. he is vasim

[sage crown]

God damn it, Dooty is not good, they still haven't sold me the shield of duty exoskeleton

I've been checking their vendor every 20 minutes to see if he sells it, I've been doing every single job for them, but nope, just Cuirass

[knotty basin]

@radiant harness

[analog tree]

It's OK to like Tarkov. Just like it's OK to like skat

[mossy maple]

Lol Tachenko was a big ass liar, and that cost the lives of a lot of his men

[vocal surge]

you smoke weed and do nothing

man i hate freedom \

[mossy maple]

^ know nothing about the lore

[vocal surge]

this guy is such a genius its almost like i was making a joke

[mossy maple]

Go hunt your mutants Dutyoid

[sage crown]

You're jealous we got Rostok

[uneven magnet]

Why did Fausto need the scanners in order to activate the Signal? Why did he steal Skif's scanner? I don't understand, he didn't need it to activate the Signal and return monolith

[pine kite]

Needed an activated alpha artifact to be delivered to X-11 for it to work

[heady marten]

Not really... nothing around it.

It's boring

[heady marten]

Would have made sense, if it was special artifact...

But no, it was one you could collect 10 to the dozen

[ornate venture]

jonwas has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[heady marten]

Tarkov pvp is a disaster...

Not tried the pve though. Heard its good

[analog tree]

In PvE, the bots spawn on top of you. Average PvE raid is 50 scav massacre

[heady marten]

Big in the game the devs have yet to correct, along with a bucket ton of other stuff.

[heady marten]

No different from stalker

[uneven magnet]

I think that the STALKER 2 story compared to the STALER SOC is very poor and simple ... I'm playing for the second time trying to change my perspective of the game but it is not happening...

[analog tree]

Ok, this is pure troll. SoC story is just "find some guy" and then find out the Zone was made in a lab. That's it, folks! SoC has 0 characters and depth

[heady marten]

And it's full of holes, and not coherent soc's story.

How can you spend 80 million on making a game, and not get your own lore coherent

[analog tree]

You and your holes again. Get some gals and you'll stop talking about them. What's so incoherent about S2's story again? Remind me

[heady marten]

Go do one.

[analog tree]

Woah is Roggotron telling me to kill myself?

[heady marten]

🤣

[analog tree]

Get some mods in here

[heady marten]

Nothing you say is even remotely correct

[analog tree]

i asked you a question

[heady marten]

And I told you go do one...

Then you cried like a baby claiming I was telling you go kill yourself.

You absolute wet wipe 🤣

[analog tree]

actual adult btw

[heady marten]

And? Doesn't make you correct.

[analog tree]

Tell me again about the plot holes

[heady marten]

Go do one. If you already know them, then why v are you asking me to tell you again?

[analog tree]

I don't know them

[heady marten]

But you just cried like a baby, claiming "your plot holes again"

So you do know them, otherwise you wouldn't have said that.

[analog tree]

All bark, no bite. As usual

[uneven magnet]

You were discovering the zone and his mysteries through the eyes of Strelok that suffered a brainwash and was seeking for his purpose and trying to remember who he was ... And while you advanced in the zone and started remembering you were discovering the reality of the zone. In STALKER 2 there are a lot of plot holes and things that do not make sense

[sage crown]

Stupid Dooty enjoyer and supporter got wolfed

[analog tree]

SoC has holes too. Even for that basic ahh story. Main problem is that the story is told through lore dumping on your PDA

[heady marten]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Says the cry baby who just accused me of telling him, to go kill himself...

Because I told him to go do one...

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

[analog tree]

You don't want to have a discussion about the plot holes, fine

Roggy is taking this too seriously

[heady marten]

Not with a sad pathetic troll no.

[analog tree]

Too scared this "troll" might fill the holes you pretend there are

[heady marten]

No... your a lying scumbag. As shown above by claiming I told you to go kill yourself.

And you wouldn't know a coherent story if it punched you in the face.

[analog tree]

why you so mean roggy? So offended all the time. Bro can't take a joke, you 14?

I troll a little and you call me a scumbag liar. It ain't that deep, lil bro

[heady marten]

But your not joking... your being an as*hole.

Always have been.

I would rather be diagnosed with cancer than debate with you.

Adios

[analog tree]

Did you girlfriend cheat with me in a parallel universe? Nothing warrants the hate you have for Hydeous

[pine kite]

The degree to which SoC has a narrative is some guys deliver fairly barebones exposition and then you go to pick up sheets of paper for them. Always file your documentation properly friends.

[analog tree]

Exactly! Here I thought i missed the story of SoC. It's just lab raiding until you kill C-Con

[pine kite]

It works because it's mostly just trying to establish the setting but it's very minimal to the point where it would be generous to say it has characters

[analog tree]

Yes. SoC's story existed to facilitate exploration and immersive the player

[pine kite]

Clear Sky is the closest the trilogy had to a real plot, with an antagonist and clear goals and some characters that actually have some personality and more to them than you initially see. And then CoP barely has a main plot and instead is mostly a vehicle for the side missions.

And to be clear I like all those games, it's just... That's what they were. Plenty of lore but thin on story

Personally at least I don't find lore to be a replacement for having a story either

[uneven magnet]

STALKER 2 plot holes:
. Why did Fausto need the scanners? All the arc about that is in vane
. Has been 10 years since stalker cop and nothing major has changed, it still being ex monolith searching for his purpose and Fausto seems to started to miss the Monolith a few months ago but what they did all these 10 years? so unrealistic ...
. In the trilogy, monoliths were acting hostile against stalkers because they were being controled but why were they were still acting hostile after the events at Duga? No one was controling them
. Why did Ward could not go to the Generators? If in the end, they ended up going there without nothing super special to protect them
. WTF was doing Degtearev in Pripyat all these years? Its unbelievable that he waited 10 YEARS!!!! for Skif to investigate the helicopter with the info of the lab with the program STALKER, he knew about that helicopter and he was less than 500 meters away ...
I can keep writing and writing but I am in work right now but STALKER 2 at the script level is extremely poor

No one did a shit in 10 years in the zone, it's like all the zone were frozen for 10 years

[analog tree]

1. Faust needed the Scanner to activate the visiograph in Clear Sky base (with the Alpha actually)
2. New anomalies and mutants + new faction: Spark, SIRCAA, Ward. Faust needed SIRCAA to conduct the experiment, so he waited lmao
3. The old monolith programming was activated with SIRCAA botched experiment, the fanatics not needing direct control from somebody. (Though Faust was the general)
4. The Ward teleported to the Generators (inside the lab) pay attention smh
5. Deggy was indeed a sleepy head...

Bascially the premise was SIRCAA's meddlings. That's what started the game and that's why nothing ever happened before. The moment smth happened, even Strelok showed up

[uneven magnet]

Why did Strelok could open a portal with his PDA? 😂💀

[analog tree]

I do agree, details are not explained properly or glossed over, but if you look hard enough you will find some explanation

[heady marten]

Make up bs to justify it.

[analog tree]

Someone wasn't paying attention to the story, or just not using common sense

[uneven magnet]

1- And why did he activate the visiograph? They didn't need it for all
2-

[heady marten]

Yes SoC was a bit thin on the ground, but it still made sense though.

And it shouldn't have been so hard for the devs to keep their own lore coherent.

CoP was a mess, and I hated that game...

That is the point we should have seen the start of the rise of noontide... And ex monolith being killed in revenge, memory gone not understanding why they are so hated.

But nah, of course we had to fight monolith again... In fact, I stopped playing, when they appeared again, just got so bored of fighting them.

[analog tree]

you just hate to hate. very hateful man

[heady marten]

What the visiograph showd is that Clear Sky, where being mislead by C-con, and basically fell for the trap, that ultimately increased the numbers of monolith.

[analog tree]

CoP wasn't a "mess". It's actually faithful to the previous games

[pine kite]

My point is SoC makes sense because there's so little that needs to be explained. It's easy to make like ten paragraphs of story make sense

[heady marten]

Yup, they kept it simple and it worked wonders. The game became a cult classic

S2, they tried to be clever, turn it into game of thrones, and it became a mess full of retcons

[analog tree]

Not for its story

[pine kite]

I agree that they got a bit too ambitious and the result is messy and muddled, but I respect the ambition and some of the results at least

[heady marten]

What is this pathetic bs?

Once again, proving how pathetic you are.

I dislike one of the original three games, and come out with this bs?

You add nothing, to any debate or discussion

[heady marten]

I respect the ambition...

But personally, I would have preferred a coherent story, that moved on from monolith and the same old.

I was very interested in finding out how the zone would have changed, becoming more wild and dangerous as a result of C-con being killed, and nothing holding back the zone.

Instead, we just got the same, with same people and the same enemies.

[analog tree]

You call everything a mess. That word lost its meaning already

[pine kite]

IDK I do see where you are coming from there but I also feel like they did make some notable changes to the world over the gap between games.

[heady marten]

More bs.

Please, keep going 🙂

[heady marten]

The ward faction, and Duty, moving to the cement factory, and the map changes, that I agree with, as it matches the real world better.

The rest is meh... literally, no new mutants or enemies...

Monolith main enemy faction... again...

They had some amazing mutant ideas, that they dropped in previous games...

[pine kite]

Yeah I definitely feel like the ball was dropped there a bit. There was a cool concept in the art book too but it was cut 😔

[heady marten]

They can save it, they have the money to, and dlc will bring in more...

But they need a big pair of balls and conviction to do it.

[pine kite]

We did get the psi deer but it's barely used in the game, which is a shame

[heady marten]

Yeah, I actually liked that one. But that is it...

[pine kite]

They definitely do have the chance to improve a lot of things if they are willing to put in the effort

[heady marten]

And I would hand money over to them hand over fist.

But they need to make the right choices though, expand the map, and make the world more dynamic.

And allow players to properly free roam, and not have so much locked behind mission progression.

The game is so much better, before SIRCAA

[raven holly]

agreed, the world feels a bit better pre-sircaa
a-life is still working weird and post-sircaa you can feel it more

[heady marten]

I saved everyone at Zalyssia, but the defenders kept despawning and disappearing.

40 attempts later and boom, still no luck, despite saving them over and over again.

So I have up, and Zalyssia is still empty, no guards, or defenders.

Had the same problem saving Soldor at the Sphere, just couldn't get the mission to help him handed in.

😦

And A-Life is not working at all...

It's just a garbage spawn simulator.

[pine kite]

Most bugged mission in the game. I guess it was an enlightening look at what a seemingly simple mission can look like in a game before it's ready for release

[heady marten]

I also hate the way it was done.

Defenders not using cover, attackers just placed as blobs on the map, no tactics, or anything.

Just shoved there with no thought.

What's the point in defensive positions, if the defenders ain't going to use them, or the AI is not smart enough to use them...

It's awful

[raven holly]

If you start the game on 1.2, it seems to be better now. I only got a minor issue with weapon "Partner" not spawning (one of side quests), had to replay

[raven holly]

Oh yeah, my defenders just followed monolithians for like 100m and then all died there somehow. Have all corpses there. It's so stupid

[heady marten]

I don't really want to start a new game again.

Our in 400 hours, I don't feel like doing another 200, only to have to start again.

£50 on this absolute mess...

Yet I am still giving the devs a chance

[raven holly]

Oh wow, 400 hours is quite something. I have a bit over 100 and it already feels like too much. I just wanna finish the ward playthrough and that's it

Was also excited about getting an artifact hunter achievment but idk now. Got all common artifacts pre-sircaa tho

[analog tree]

If S2 is this trash, don't give it the time of day. Find games that are worth your time and investment.

[heady marten]

Oh look, the brainless head spam turns up again talking rubbish.

I said I hated the story, I don't like how basic it is many areas..

But t there ate things I do like.

So why do you keeping popping up and embarrassing yourself?

[gusty lotus]

About 250 hours on my original playthrough. Farming flash drives and the faust fight is why i don't restart.

[heady marten]

There is still a couple I need to get, despite nearly having a 100 in my inventory

[analog tree]

I gave you good advice. No point in consuming yourself on a game that doesn't respect your needs and preferences. What's so embarrassing about this?

[heady marten]

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Because its utter BS, like everything else type.

You even tried to accuse me off telling you to go kill yourself...

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[raven holly]

let me guess, some common ones? they are really hard to get actually, despite the name. it's funny

[heady marten]

Yeah, bubble is one of them... and a couple of others like night star

[raven holly]

basically to get the legendary art in each anomaly type is like 10%. And there's only 1 such artifact for each type. So e.g. compass has a 10% chance of spawning in a grav anomaly

[analog tree]

I was ironic... lmao. We are not in a court of law. This is a discord server, no defamation intended.

[raven holly]

A common artifact is 40%. But there's 9-10 common artifacts for each type. So it's 4%
Buuut it becomes even worse. Coz after sircaa, the uncommon & rare artifacts become more common... coz well you're further into the story... but the common arts are now 20%
So basically 2% per individual artifacts
Good luck with that lol

[heady marten]

Yeah, it's just a roll of the dice, but it's fine, gives me a reason to keep exploring

[analog tree]

@heady marten I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me

[raven holly]

2% means that if you re-load 50 times, there's still a 37% chance that you will not get this specific artifact even after 50 reloads. That's more than a third
A 14% chance that you will not get it even after 100 re-loads
Probability theory is a b** lol

I would really advise to get all common artifacts pre-sircaa if you want the achievment, or well just cheat it. It's pure grind anyway (save 80-150m before the anomalous field and reload until you get the needed one)

if you just wanna do it the "pure" way with no reloads, it might happen you need 1000+ hours to get all common artifacts after sircaa lol

[heady marten]

I don't do no reloading, don't like cheesing games, if it comes out comes, of not, try again after next emission.

Do missions, in the meantime or whatever.

I would be hoping that Duty gave out special monster hunting missions... but nah.

But you never know, something for a later update.

[heady marten]

That's fine by me...

Especially as world will get bigger and more developed over time.

Of they do it right. That is.

[raven holly]

Fair point

[raven holly]

And now that they've let artifacts travel in the anomalous fields, it made cheesing even harder. Extra 1 min to catch an artifact is not a lot in a normal gameplay. But if you need to reload 50 times, and instead of doing it in 1 min, it now takes you 2... Well that's really annoying

And the achievment doesn't mean much anyway since it's very easy to cheat with ue tools, at least on PC, so I would advise strongly against trying to get this achievment the fair way, it's gonna be extremely frustrating

[heady marten]

I hate achievements... never had them for most of my gaming life...

Is just something that youngsters have been hoodwinked into thinking is important, IMO.

Just not interested in them.

I just wanna be a stalker, do missions, collect artifacts, kill mutants...

[analog tree]

cry me a river

[raven holly]

yeah fair, in rare cases it can be a fun challenge, but in most it's just grind and that kills any pleasure. I too get "hoodwinked" into doing them (hey, that's a new word), would like to stop

[analog tree]

proving my point, Roggy hates everything

[heady marten]

It only becomes a grind of its you're goal.

But I collect artifacts around doing other stuff.

Just wish I could explore the underground bases more freely... but most of the time, they get locked behind you.

[gusty lotus]

Cyberpunk's achievements wasn't bad. Actually nice doing multiple story playthroughs.

[sage crown]

I'm nearly done with every achievement, missing a few hard ones like BOOM and kill a guy from 75 Mt with a headshot without aiming, rest are discover the whole map, find every artifact and that type of stuff

[heady marten]

My friend has an OCD, he cant stop playing a game until he completes all the all the achievements as well...

But for me, they are meaningless.

[sage crown]

They ARE meaningless,I do it for flexing if I'm gonna be honest

[radiant harness]

it's actually based to act with complete resentment over achivement hunters

I like to throw, random, unobtainable achivements to try and trip them up, it makes me especially more amused if they start crying in a forum

[heady marten]

See, that is meaningless to me.

If someone come upto me and said, I got 100% on this game, my automatic response, and?

No digs at you. It's just that I just don't get, I have game, I play it.

[fathom veldt]

duty hunts mutants? what a good joke, nowdays their purpose is only to mix cement

[heady marten]

And what useless faction do you like?

I mean, I was pointing the game need more depth for the factions...

But hey ho.

[fathom veldt]

it was about story :)) not about factions

[torpid wyvern]

go spend 30 USD on red faction guerilla, old game but it holds up very well.

absolutely entertaining, AI is not perfect but pretty good compared to most games imo

[pine kite]

Well on my new playthrough I have started taking notes on just a our everything story related. We will see what I can piece together as I go that I missed or glossed over on my first playthrough

[fathom veldt]

best way is to record conversations

[crimson plank]

hey guys, how did scar get marshall’s memories planted into his brain at the generators if spark and topol and all that were AFTER the c consciousness and stuff was destroyed

[outer mirage]

Scar's brain was washed by the M.O.S.T. agents, most likely Lebedev of Clear Sky. To put it briefly, the same people who orchestrated Project Shining set up all this mess with Subtle Matter and everything else.

[heady marten]

Yeah, but Subtle matter is retcon, to justify bringing monolith, and C-con back, because the dev's were to lazy to come up with a new antagonist, and thought that fighting monolith again for the 4th time was an amazing idea.

[outer mirage]

I'm not sure how you can call it a retcon when we never knew anything about it and had close to zero info. The return of Monolith as a faction might have been a lazy decision, but all the work with Subtle Matter, the C-Consciousness, Strelok, and Kaimanov was far from lazy.

[heady marten]

Subtle matter was never a thing in SoC... Subtle matter was a mcguffin created to explain why Strelok didn't kill C-con at the end of SoC.

C-con and Monolith, should have been left in the past and the story moved on... what did we get? Monolith for the 4th time, C-con again, and Stag, and Ward as the only new things in stalker. And the ISPF... or whatever they are called.

[crimson plank]

if clear sky were mdst agents, why did they fight the monolith at the cnpp?

[heady marten]

It was trap set by C-con for Clear Sky, there is a visiongraph in the Clear Sky base that was used to communicate with C-Con. C-con entrapped Clear Sky and wiped them out.

Clear Sky who weren't killed, were brainwashed into Monolith

[crimson plank]

so c-con double crossed clear sky? this game’s lore keeps getting crazier

[heady marten]

In Clear Sky, yes.

But STALKER 2, just retcons a lot of lore, just to have the likes of Monolith, and C-con back again.

[radiant harness]

I mean, the Clear Sky being a double agent is something that Stalker 2 introduced

[outer mirage]

But Strelok killed them in the ending of Shadow of Chernobyl. It’s strange to say that the Subtle Matter had to exist in Shadow of Chernobyl, when nothing was explained to us there. Even stranger to call it a MacGuffin when the Noosphere has always been one—it’s the reason the Zone was formed, the source of all its miracles and horrors. And now it turns out that the megaconsciousness of the C-Consciousness couldn’t remain a shadow in this informational field and survive in some form.

[radiant harness]

it was a fan theory before, Stalker 2 loves to integrate fan theories

[outer mirage]

Regarding the shootout in Limansk and at the Chernobyl NPP—the regular Clear Sky fighters knew nothing about the connection between their leadership and the C-Consciousness. I can only imagine their faces when they were told, "We're storming the NPP, Monolith won’t shoot at us, they’re friends." Clear Sky failed, and you could say the C-Consciousness "punished" them and took matters into its own hands. I don't think their relationship was at the highest level, nor was the trust between them.

[heady marten]

That's because, IIRC, Subtle matter didn;t exist during SoC... It was made up for S2, to bring the same old back.

[outer mirage]

Well, its a new game with new things, why bother

[heady marten]

The noosphere and subtle matter are two differnt thing... Noosphere has been in from the start, Subte matter was introduced in S2, as a magical mcguffin.

[heady marten]

Ward, Stag, ISPF, Skif... only new things really.

[outer mirage]

So what’s the problem? Just because we didn’t know about it doesn’t mean it couldn’t exist. The devs expanded the old lore with new details—what’s the issue? That it sounds strange and unfamiliar? Yet nobody seemed bothered when Shadow of Chernobyl ended with "the Zone disappearing," only for everything to be back in place in Call of Pripyat. As they say, "THIS IS THE ZONE, BRO," weird stuff happens here. I thought that’s exactly why people love S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[pine kite]

I enjoy the inclusion of weird sci fi elements so I have enjoyed it personally

[heady marten]

Lack of coherent writing, from a studio that can't get it's own lore right after spending 80 million or so.

Then what's the point in a story driven game, if the actual story is an incoherent mess, just because the dev's, couldn't think of a new antagonist.

Sorry, but that ain't good enough. I don't care if it is the zone, shyte writing, shyte writing.

The story is like the rest of the game, a mess... Seriously, how bad you have to be if you can't keep your own lore coherent between games.

[gusty lotus]

This got me thinking. Do you think they have a lore bible on this game?

[vital pollen]

they just blindly used the wiki and copied its mistakes and fanon

obviously not lmfao, s2 is the obvious result of lack of any lore direction and by extent lack of any research about what was written before them

i mean we got an interview with the dev that directly said they just checked the wiki to consult on past games whenever they were not given enough material by management, and we've got a ton of stuff that was fan interpretations creeping into canon becuase of that

[gusty lotus]

Jesus... So I can keep the vo on Ukrainian seeing that there isn't much to follow then.

[vital pollen]

I mean, no, the new bits are consistent with each other, and the new lore/canon S2 is building is aight on its own, it's just that the reliance of source material and coherence with past entries is beyond poor.

[next talon]

Can someone explain to me on who that guy was on the trailer back in 2021 that currently is now Strelok instead?

[vital pollen]

always been strelok, looks changed to not reveal identity

[next talon]

ahh gotcha thanks

[gusty lotus]

If I had to guess, anti balding propaganda but big Rogaine. That or a self insert.

[sullen terrace]

pretty sure they just gave strelok hair and look a little younger as to not spoil his reveal in the story

[plain pelican]

It was still a lead theory that he was Strelok lol

[jagged hull]

cant get its own lore right

i still dont know what inconsistencies you mean apart from small shit thats mostly inconsequential/stemming from the map being reworked. or is it the stuff that was never made fully clear and youre just mad that stalker 2 doesnt match your headcanon

[heady marten]

Go no idea.

But bi think they tried to be too clever, when the game didn't need to be a game of thrones.

[heady marten]

Well, that's because v you've been told and still don't get it.

So explaining it to you, is a waste of my time.

[jagged hull]

oh the c-con is dead thing?

i think many people have already pointed out how youre just completely wrong on that

its fine to not like the story of the game the issue is that youre making it out to be about the competence of the devs when very clearly they are pretty good writers

[heady marten]

No, not really. They died...

But GCS, went with a bs retcon. Just to bring the same boring old shyte back...

Because coming up with a new antagonist was far too difficult for them.

That's what you don't get.

And even then, it doesn't make sense.

[jagged hull]

most people dont like that monolith was brought back but again you try to tie it to the devs being incompetent

[heady marten]

Well who the feck brought em back?

Wasn't us was it?

We brought the game, we didn't spend yesrs making it?

Spending 80 million or so on the mess.

Of course it's the devs, and it was their fault the game is in this mess, especially the one's in charge.

[jagged hull]

you dont get it do you

[heady marten]

🤣

[jagged hull]

bringing back or not bringing back the monolith is not a matter of incompetence, its just a creative choice. they specifically chose to bring back nearly everyone from the old games and finally end their stories. that was a deliberate choice and not something they resorted to after they ran out of ideas

which of course can clearly be seen since a huge amount of new concepts have been brought to the game, like subtle matter/shining zone. but ofc you ignore all of that because they brought back monolith

[heady marten]

It is incompetence of you have to sacrifice all the lore you built up over the years...

Retcon the shit out of it, just to have the same enemies we had before.

Subtle matter =Retcon BS, to bring back C-con

Which then has the problem of, if C-con is around, then why did monolith go away?

Shining zone = retcon

Retcon, after retcon.

[jagged hull]

do you know the definition of retcon?

[heady marten]

Do you understand the word coherent?

[jagged hull]

ofc i do

[heady marten]

Doesn't seem like it.

[jagged hull]

subtle matter and the shining zone by definition can not be retcons. theyre literally adding extra elements to the story. its like calling ward a retcon, since ward wasnt a thing in soc

what is a retcon is IPSF but i doubt that you would want to criticise that

Which then has the problem of, if C-con is around, then why did monolith go away?

probably because strelok destroyed the systems that make monolith a thing and our friend skif turned them on for his other friend faust just so you can be mad at this and show how much youtube shorts you watched when playing the game

this is like, the main plot point of the game. idk how you can ignore that- wait no i actually do. you can ignore that because anything after soc is a retcon

gsc is bad because they moved pripyat to be north of cnpp........... awful company. burn grygorovich

[heady marten]

No, strelok didn't. There was no thing... C-con controlled them directly, if needed be, like at the of Clear Sky...

Otherwise it was brainwashed in psi-fields, such as the brain scorcher, that brainwashed them, or the TV, like at the end of Clear Sky.

And when in SIRCAA they turned the Wish Granter on, nothing should have happened. Strelok had to touch it at the end of SoC for it to do anything, as if you leave it alone, you get the true ending.

As the wish granter was nothing but a trap...

[dull sequoia]

Fighting the Monolith for the 4th time is the least of the problems Heart of Chornobyl has.

[heady marten]

Not saying that one is more important than the other, just talking about the lore.

[jagged hull]

i mean skif didnt only help sircaa turn on the wish granter he got the azimuth station back online, which not only was the backend for the pda system that monolithians used but is also a node in the x network. and ofc in sircaa the alpha artifact finished the connection. as for them being controlled - when faust was there, its pretty obvious how it done. the signal that the alpha artifact sent out was sent to other psi devices which turned monolithians back into mindless goons, and without faust its also pretty obvious that without any leaders they would just go back to what they were made to do - protect c-con in X7

anyways i dont know why im writing all this because everything is a retcon. nevermind that the word has a definition - you can use it however you like

[sullen terrace]

is monolith being in the red fortress before fausts signal intentional, or a bug?

[jagged hull]

no clue id lean towards it being a bug

[heady marten]

Pripyat too

[jagged hull]

pripyat isnt meant to be accessed before the signal so yeah

[sullen terrace]

pripyat is probably bug, since you're not supposed to be there until after thr signal

[pine kite]

It's a bug I assume since there was a similar one fixed this patch where they appeared elsewhere in cooling towers too

[jagged hull]

whats interesting is that in cooling towers near some big warehouse there was a constant flow of monolith spawns and they sometimes dropped x-18 suits in full condition

idk how that could happen no other enemies do that in the game

[heady marten]

So what, skif turned on the wish granter?

What part of, it was trap do you not understand?

It never controlled anything, it was lure to draw stalkers to their demise.

Turning on the wish granter would never had brought monolith back.

[sullen terrace]

i want the monolith seva suit to be added to somewhere around the map

[jagged hull]

oh so you just ignore everything else he did alright. idk why i bother, everything is a retcon anyway. actually come to think of it soc is a retcon too - irl theres no such person as strelok, or c-con and theres no second chernobyl disaster

[sullen terrace]

faust activated the psi emmitters around the map when the noontide assault in sircaa started

[jagged hull]

yeah skif is just half of the story faust has been working for a long time to bring back monolith

[heady marten]

I'm not ignoring anything.

You are not understanding basic English.

I'll make it easy for you

Wish granter = trap = does not control monolith, does not bring monolith back.

[sullen terrace]

you can find emmiters scattered around the map, some of them are active, and some are near corpe(s), presumably a failed transport to the buyer

[jagged hull]

who told you this. who told you that the wish granter is trap

[heady marten]

And, who controlled them then?

Because C-con died

[jagged hull]

monolithians genuinely believe in protecting the zone they dont need anyone to control them. theyve already been brainwashed

[heady marten]

The fecking game since 2007..

[pine kite]

I believe this is the one that was fixed this patch

[sullen terrace]

computers still run even if theres no one at the keyboard, you don't need to be actively typing commands for a program to run

[jagged hull]

who in the 2007 game told you this. was it c-con? could they have any reason to omit part of the truth?

[jagged hull]

nah rogga believes that c-con were in the heads of every monolithian this doesnt count. ignoring that in cop half of monolith was still around

[heady marten]

They don't, they was brainwashed to think that, as part of the illusion of the wish granter.

This is what I mean, you tell me I don't what I am talking about...

But you don't know stalker lore basics 101.

[sullen terrace]

haven't played COP, but are monolithians in COP still under absolute control, or are they willingly following monoliths old orders since its all they know?

[jagged hull]

its hard to say there are the same emitters from hoc in pripyat and outside of pripyat the only monolithians you can see are strider's guys

[heady marten]

Yeah, we know, and it was boring and wrong back then too

Because the devs can't follow their own lore correctly.

Hate CoP... never completed, saw monolith again and thought, well this is shyte.

[jagged hull]

its safe to say that the emitters did most of the heavy lifting, question is, how did they end up not working anymore? maybe the ones in pripyat are still meant to work

[jagged hull]

this is 100% your headcanon btw none of this is mentioned in soc or cs

[heady marten]

🤣

WTAF!!!

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

[jagged hull]

just think critically for a moment whats the point of making them pray to the monolith when the second c-con is dead all of that just goes away and everything is back to normal

[heady marten]

🤣

[jagged hull]

monolith's only objective wasnt to protect c-con, they are meant to protect all of the secrets behind the experiments c-con did. it would be in their interest to design a system that can function even if everything goes to shit for them

[heady marten]

The point is, to spread the rumour of the wish granter being real, to act as a diversion to keep everyone away from C-con, so they could concentrate on holding back the noosphere.

Which is why you get the moral choice at the end of SoC, do you join them in the 8th pod knowing all they have done, or do you rejection the illusion and go on to kill them?

How fecking embarrassingly wrong can you be.

There are bucket loads of youtube videos that show this.

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

[jagged hull]

what youre saying is that monolith shouldnt even exist since everyone would just go to the wish granter

[heady marten]

No you absolute numpty, do you have any idea what you are talking about?

Why are you asking such stupid questions, if you think you know so much?

I told you earlier, the brain scorcher, the TV's and other high psi fields were used to create monolith 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[jagged hull]

ok listening back to the representative conversation in soc and this is what he says regarding the wish granter

"when a stalker attempts to reach the zone's center in order to fulfill some wish, we aquire control of his consciousness and program him to a specific mission"
where does this say that the wish granter kills people lol

ah wait i forgot you are the expert and you know everything. the c-con is lying

[heady marten]

The fecking ending of SoC in the the cutscene where Strelok dies in multiple ways, if don't take the true ending path

[jagged hull]

the ending cutscenes are all real?

[heady marten]

WTF are you talking about?

[jagged hull]

like when thousands of coins start falling from the sky the c-con just willed them into existence. or when strelok turns into stone. cool theory bro

[heady marten]

Go watch the youtube videos of all the endings of SoC.

Or at least go play the fecking game at least once

[jagged hull]

so what youre saying is that when the wishes are granted this is what really happens to strelok?

[heady marten]

Are you telling me you didn't understand that strelok died on those cut scenes?

[jagged hull]

he effectively died since his brain was wiped and he became an agent

[heady marten]

And that the wish granter was feeding him an illusion as it killed him?

[jagged hull]

like to him thats the end of his existence and the birth of c-con agent number 242

thats generally how mindwipes work. and again no matter what you are saying this is the opposite of what c-con says, mr youtube video watcher

[heady marten]

You can't be alive under a ton of rubble you idiot.

[jagged hull]

so yeah i guess that means you agree that c-con spawned thousands of coins from the sky and that they have the power to turn people into stone

[heady marten]

Go watch the ending again, come back and apologise

[heady marten]

No... the coins were an illusion...

It was actual rubble from above burying him alive.

[jagged hull]

oh so they can just move stuff with their minds thats cool too

they have some pretty cool powers this is pretty cool thanks for showing me this

[heady marten]

It shows you in the video you blithering idiot 🤣

[jagged hull]

i think its you who is the blithering idiot

[heady marten]

This is hilarious....

Funniest thing ever

[jagged hull]

its pretty easy to see that every single one of these endings is just a hallucination, and if not then its just crazy that c-con can turn people into stone lol

[heady marten]

🤣

[sullen terrace]

all the SoC endings where you go to wish granter are illusions

[jagged hull]

again i have no idea why you are telling this to me when c-con is saying the opposite thing lol

[heady marten]

Yes, but it's more nuanced than that.

For example... the coin one.

Strelok sees the coins falling as his wish is granted. The wish granter is feeding him this illusion, this is part of trap.

But, what's actually happening as shown in the ending, is that he is being buried alive by rubble falling from above.

Thus is hand twitching after being buried in rubble and dying. As the camera pans out.

The wish granter was a trap, that you had to touch for it to do anything... seeing as the door to the true ending was 10 feet away.

[jagged hull]

its cool if this is your interpretation but i have yet to see any source to any of your claims (just in general, not about this topic in particular). and no, "go watch youtube" doesnt count

[heady marten]

The source is the fecking wish granter ending cut scene you nupmty...

Go to you tube and watch it now.

[jagged hull]

watching the cutscene again doesnt change anything i just dont believe that c-con can magically turn people into stone or something. its all just an illusion and there is a dialogue from the representative that completely goes against this interpretation fo yours

but ofc you will just keep ignoring that since you must at all costs have a reason to call gsc incompetent and unfamiliar with their own story, when it is obviously the opposite

[vital pollen]

Every other plot twist of hoc is direct contradiction of information stated in past games, from Stingray-7 to clear sky being in cahoots with C-Con

[jagged hull]

the clear sky thing is hardly a plot point but this is somewhat correct, not sure what you mean by stingray-7 tho

by partially correct i mean that they thought this up just for stalker 2, but i dont think that theres much in CS that points to CS the faction being an independent group

[vital pollen]

You search a new helicopter in Pripyat that was apparently looking for the Foundation entrance, which is absurd considering how incompetent hoc paints the military.

And even more absurd for Deg to miss it despite not finding the reason of the crashes in the first five.

[jagged hull]

yeah true its a bit stupid lol

i think the ending of the game is rushed the search for the foundation shouldnt be just 1 mission to take 1 item or something

[vital pollen]

If GSC were at least a bit familiar with their own stories, they would not keep unintentionally introducing fan terms into the game, say hello to portable psy emitters, archanomalies and superemissions

It’s a game written off the wiki and it shows

[jagged hull]

i mean superemission might be a fan term but wasnt the official term for it just big-emission, seems like a nitpick tbh

[vital pollen]

There was a gradation of emissions of different intensities, the Great Emission is just a specific one that happened in 2011.

[jagged hull]

isnt the term super-emission used 1 time in the game, seems like a nitpick as well

[vital pollen]

Quite a few I think, and number is irrelevant. We’re talking about devs general competence in regards to past entries canon and lore.

[pine kite]

You're the one who decided to use it as an example so it seems relevant enough

[jagged hull]

tbf this has been a problem since soc things get switched around constantly, was it fang or ghost that had 2 graves?

[jagged hull]

this is the key issue for me people just look past how rushed the stories of the original trilogy are

[vital pollen]

Fang had a decorative grave in AW and a stash grave in Pripyat, yeah.

[jagged hull]

the trap in streloks hideout is a good example. didnt work for strelok the first time, didnt work on doctor, worked on strelok for the second time

[vital pollen]

That’s not a consequence of it being rushed, just devs not coordinating their efforts. Either way, you would expect more from a new team that did not have a say in the trilogy, not less.

[vital pollen]

What are those points? I ain’t talking about poor writing in general, all stalker games are full of those. We’re talking about coherence with past entries and how devs viewed canon and retconned just about every plot point they did not like or understand.

[jagged hull]

what other examples of retcons do you have since 2 of them were just nitpicks. oh i guess the map but thats obvious

[vital pollen]

Every single bit lol. S2 paints coupons as first introduction of digital money despite money already being digital in the trilogy. SIRCAA is painted as the inventor of emission protection despite CoP helis already having protection against emissions.

[jagged hull]

my point is that the past entries werent coherent either. ofc you can expect gsc to do more but a lot of people view the games with rose tinted glasses

[heady marten]

Is like talking to a climate denier, that despite all the evidence, the research, visible observations... it's still a hoax because I'm right.

[vital pollen]

Coherent with what? The fact that you avoided a trap in Agroprom underground the first time is not incoherent with anything, it’s just poor writing.

[jagged hull]

ok the sircaa thing is 100% intentional they constantly take credit for themselves lol

[vital pollen]

And again, the standards for new devs should be HIGHER, not lower. It’s a 15 year old franchise, they had more than enough time to study everything there is in the old games and continue with it.

[pine kite]

I just get the feeling they wanted to continue with some things and not others

[vital pollen]

Old games having minor inconsistencies with each other (none of which you named so far btw) is not an excuse for a multi-million company to do such a shit job with past games lore.

[jagged hull]

i mean thats just one example, pripyat location is the other obvious one, markedly different maps in CS, the appearance and disappearance of a unified loner force between CS and SoC

[vital pollen]

That’s what I’m saying — rewriting lore as they please, taking the bits they like, throwing away or overwriting stuff they don’t.

[jagged hull]

i would agree with this but all of what ive seen and heard from you is minor stuff in a 60 hour long story. theyre not majorly consequential and not every single detail can be correct, especially when the development of the game was so chaotic

[vital pollen]

Loners in CS are explicitly explained why they’re unified at that time against bandits and military lol, again not a retcon. I know you’re likely getting the Pripyat argument from Anomalous but he’s wrong, there are no hints towards CNPP location in CoP.

[vital pollen]

Of course it was chaotic when every time a dev brought up a question of continuity they were shooed off with “we’re making a new game”. The reason they’re all minor is because you said you’re ignoring the biggest retcon of all, the map, in the very beginning. And before you say it, no, most of the changes to stuff such as AW and BS location have nothing to do with irl geography.

[jagged hull]

theres just no space for the cnpp north of pripyat

[vital pollen]

There is though. If we go by early intro, that’s exactly where it is, as Deg’s radio goes dead within 5 km from CNPP just as he comes to Zaton from the south.

[jagged hull]

isnt the start somewhere on the northern edge of the map?

[vital pollen]

It is, yes, which is why Anomalous assumed Deg came from the north and which is why he assumed Pripyat should be to the north of CNPP in CoP. But we have developer materials fully exploring their intentions, which specifically says that he passed Cordon, Rostok and Warehouses on his way.

[jagged hull]

i mean just the map overview makes the argument, theres just no space for the cnpp directly north of pripyat

[jagged hull]

AW and BS location changes dont affect the story much zaton is much more of an issue since it was meant to be an area closer to the center

[vital pollen]

It quite obviously does. There is an entire story of Barrier and its location being one of key points why exactly da freedom took over the Warehouses. All of it is gone now in S2 map. Zaton is just as bad, yes.

[jagged hull]

the omission of the barrier is problematic but if the barrier was there i dont think there would be much to criticise

[vital pollen]

Either way, there are hundreds of retcons, from small stuff that you would call nitpicks to large pieces of worldbuilding. And 95% of those would be easily avoided if devs actually studied past games instead of relying on the wiki as well as at least tried to make stuff coherent instead of “we’re making a new game”.

[jagged hull]

i think this following the wiki argument is odd when the massive map changes exist

idk personally i dont care too much about the more minor changes since in my opinion there wasnt much to work with in the older games

[heady marten]

Yup, incompetent, lazy, wasters.

As I have said all along...

80 million and one new mutant.

[jagged hull]

keep cooking mr wish granter kills everyone and has telekinesis

[vital pollen]

It’s following wiki in any question of “what happened in past games?” and blindly copying its mistakes while at the same time being completely ignorant about how their map changes will affect the existing stories.

It’s possibly the worst they could have done it. Should have just gone with a reboot.

[jagged hull]

i think its a soft reboot since every past protagonist is painted as a lunatic which kinda implies the stories about them were just made up

[heady marten]

Says the idiot, that doesn't understand the coin ending in SoC

[jagged hull]

idk what else to tell you c-con says otherwise

[pine kite]

Soft reboot really seems like the best way to think about this game to me. A lot of very similar events happened but they couldn't have happened the same way

[heady marten]

I don't want you to tell me anything. As its always inherently wrong.

You have two people now, who have played the game since release in 2007.

I assume @vital pollen has too.

Telling you, that are wrong on so many things, and you refuse to listen.

The definition of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, living in denial.

Yet here you still trying to claim that you know best, and everyone else is wrong.

Even to the point of not getting what the bad ending of SoC shows you. With one ending showimg strelok getting killed under a pile of rubble, whilst he is under the illusion of failing coins, created te wish granter.

This the wish granter, does kill stalker that make it there.

Of which there is very of few, if any, as it is the "last line of defence" to C-con.

[heady marten]

what ever they decided to do, it was wrong and poorly executed.

[jagged hull]

"when a stalker attempts to reach the zone's center in order to fulfill some wish, we aquire control of his consciousness and program him to a specific mission"

[heady marten]

Stop posting that, it's a retcon.

As Strelok clearly dies in some of the badvendings in SoC.

[jagged hull]

its actually not retcon, its future con, since it happens after the bad endings

[heady marten]

WTF are you talking about?

[jagged hull]

nothing just trolling. the quote is from the conversation with the representative in soc btw

[heady marten]

So? Your still wrong. You are too stupid to even understand the quote properly

[vital pollen]

What’s your argument? That monolith is not a psy illusion in soc?

[heady marten]

That Monolith/Wish Granter can kill stalkers, that make it to the centre, as it is trap set up by C-con as the last line of defence, to keep people away from, so they can concentrate holding back the zone.

The coins falling is the illusion that strelok sees, the reality is he is being buried in rubble

[vital pollen]

I mean yeah, it is a psy illusion that acts as another layer of protection. We do not know how exactly it works though.

[heady marten]

And that brainwashed monolith, also spread the myth of wish granter, to reinforce the myth, as part of the illusion.

[heady marten]

Not debating how it is done. Just what it does...

Which is, it's a trap set by C-con, to lead stalkers to their demise.

And numpty here, doesn't understand that the coin ending results in Streloks death... he thinks it's all an illusion... and the gaming rubble is an illusion too.

He just doesn't understand.

And for the wish granter to work... You have to touch it, as per all wish granter endings, because the door to the real ending is like 10 feet away. Edit - This is wrong

[vital pollen]

Unsure about touching as Doctor says it’s dangerous to even get close to monolith.

[heady marten]

But in SoC, the door the real ending was just round the back of it.

If it was just getting near it, you would never have been able to get to the real ending.

And all the cut scenes show strelok touching it before the illusions kicked in.

But that could have been an over sight of the devs

[jagged hull]

???? literally no watch the endings yourself

[vital pollen]

I know from gameplay standpoint you can literally do tricks around wish grantee and then head back to the true ending. But the texts suggest otherwise:

At the same time, as I understand it, approaching the Monolith is deadly dangerous – at least, last time we avoided going under the sarcophagus above the destroyed reactor. And the Monolith, apparently, is located right there.

[heady marten]

It could be, doesn't say for certain, just that, that is how he understood it and avoided it.

But we do know that Strelok did have to touch it, as per the cut scenes. EDIT - This is wrong

I mean, the wish granter has an omnimous over powering presence, that calls for stalkers across the zone to come to it.

If I was anywhere near it, my "just nope" alarm would be ringing, and I would be on my way back Rookie Village, nice and safe.

[fossil depot]

Isn't it like...just a hallucination to the relevant stalker either ways? Like, the 'Wish Granter' is an actual block (since they did move it to SIRCAA), but when it was at CNPP, the stalker approaching it would just be a radioactive zombie at that point meeting a fateful end?

Along with half the Monolith in that place due to their proximity to R4.

[jagged hull]

no, not as per the cutscenes could you please take 30s to look them up before spreading even more of your drivel

[heady marten]

Shut up.

You are making yourself look like a twat.

And it's entirely up to you, if you want continue down that path.

[jagged hull]

aight just disregard anything that might make you look wrong

[heady marten]

But I am not wrong .

[jagged hull]

one sec

[jagged hull]

#📸┃screens_and_videos message here you dont even have to look it up

how can you be so confidently incorrect is crazy

[heady marten]

🤣

[jagged hull]

inb4 "you have to go to the wishgranter to start the cutscene"

And all the cut scenes show strelok touching it before the illusions kicked in. (edited)
[4:16 PM]

your words, not mine

[heady marten]

Too stupid to see that the coins were an illusion, created by the wish granter... when really they were nuts and bolts as shown in the first 10 sec of the video...

Falling from higher up in the old sarcophagus of the reactor.

The other rubble buried him, by the end.. as the end of the video.

Killing him... as per the shacking hand out the end.

No please, just shut up and go play star dew Valley, it's more your level.

[gusty lotus]

Lads, cut the shit. The game no longer have lore. What are you going on about?

[heady marten]

That's how much of a mess it is.

[jagged hull]

where does he touch the monolith?

[heady marten]

So moving the goal posts now.

First it was Strelok didn't die, it was all an issulsion...

Now you nit picking? On one cut scene. She he doesn't, but all the others he does.

Feck me...

[jagged hull]

actually he doesnt touch the monolith in any of them

[heady marten]

That's actually full on BS.

[jagged hull]

bro do you need me to do this again

do i need to send each and every one of the endings one by one or can you look them up yourself

[heady marten]

Nope, you are actually right on this one. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day.

He doesn't touch the wish granter, but does address it.

But everything else, you have talked about is so fecking wrong and embarrassing.

But, then, I can admit when I make a mistake. You just bury your head.

[jagged hull]

i am making a mistake because i dont ignore what cop or hoc says?

[heady marten]

You don't even know what the wish granter is.

You don't even get that monolith were brainwashed to think the Wish Granter was more than it was, to reinforce the illusion that it was real and people could get their wish granted, only to find out it was a trap.

You can't even see in the your own video that Strelok dies, under a pile of rubble, and that the coins where an illusion created by was granter, as it killed him, burying in rubble... which you hysterically denied.

Not to mention everything else, everyone else has said, proving you wrong.

And you think, me not remembering a cut scene 100%, as I haven't completed the game (SoC) for 15 years, some how means it's a win for you?

Apart from not touching the Wishing Granter, nothing you have said has been remotely correct.

Seriously, stop.

[jagged hull]

you dont know what the wish granter is, denying any and all proof that it is part of the system used to control monolithians

you dont see that everything in those videos is an illusion, cherrypicking the one where the cause of death isnt mystical

not to mention everything else everyone else has said, proving the only thing that you are interested is blaming the devs for not making the game you like

what do you say to the wish where strelok just goes blind and doesnt actually die?

feel free to spam your laughing emojis i dont mind

[heady marten]

🤣

What ever your education level is, I would ask for refund.

[jagged hull]

ask a refund for stalker 2 or something idk it will never be what you want since you have primed yourself to not like anything after cop

[heady marten]

Just another huge slice of BS.

I wouldn't have put in 400 hours if I didn't like anything about it. Would I?

[jagged hull]

forgive me for getting this impression since every single message you have ever sent has been negative

bemusing how you could still think that ski just turned on the wish granter after so much time but thats neither here nor there

[heady marten]

No. Your full of BS.

[ornate venture]

dirtynerox has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[ornate venture]

dthchm_marci has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[ornate venture]

kolbaska0666 has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[fathom veldt]

discussions are very fun 😄

[crimson plank]

which ending do u guys think is canon

[ornate venture]

supersickguy has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[crimson plank]

frick i forgot about that

anyway i kinda want it to be the spark ending just to mess with everyone

[mossy maple]

Everyone knows that Skiff ending is canon. People saying it's not are just copying because they had a non-canon ending

[heady marten]

Personally, none of them. They are c all bad in their own way.

[heady marten]

You that's what I have seen other people say.

So it means that Skif goes to the zone, because his house gets destroyed...

The destroys the homes of millions of people world wide... Go figure.

[crimson plank]

i interpreted that ending as skif letting the zone do what it wants since all of the other endings are about who you want to control the zone but this ending is about letting the zone do what it wants

and faust showing up in that ending kinda symbolizes how his ideals of embracing the zone got to skif

[heady marten]

And that's destroy millions of people's homes all over the world...

Turning the world into an anomaly filled nightmare

[crimson plank]

true but at the game asks a lot of questions about what truly is home and the zone to skif so by the end i feel like it is saying skif truly believes the zone is home now and he is letting the zone expand and do the same for others perhaps

[heady marten]

I am sure all the mums will be happy their children are ripped apart in whirlygigs, or dodging flash bangs on the way to school.

Good vote winner that is.

[crimson plank]

actually i hope they pull elder scrolls: daggerfall type shenanigans and make it so every ending is canon

[mossy maple]

You just didn't pay attention if you think everything Skiff has done is for his appartement lol

Skiff had nothing before the zone. His apartement burning was just a reason to get out and start a new life in the zone

Do you really think he would have done all that just for a cheap 20m² postsoviet appartement ?

As for the ending we really don't know what happened. The scene at the duga could be the zone expanding or simply the second failed carribean experiment.

[mossy maple]

I dont know if a dragon break would fit in stalker hahaha

[crimson plank]

it would be like a noosphere break or something lol

or skif, korshunov, strelok, and scar ALL got in the pod together

[heady marten]

Queue, 1970's pawn music

[crimson plank]

gsc just listen to me on this idea 🙏

[mossy maple]

And even if the zone expands we don't know what it would imply. As Kaymanov suggested maybe the zone is hostile because it was born in a hostile environment ? A place that knew only pain and suffering : CNPP accident but also the xlabs experiments (like cmon X5 is horrible and inhumane)

[pine kite]

Even Kaymanov admits he doesn't know what would happen for sure, but he trusts humanity to overcome the hardship and make a better future out of it in the end

[heady marten]

People forget that the scientists that made up C-con, didn't go in with malice, they wanted to make the world a better place, and ended up holding back the zone, as they over estimated themselves... Oh, and one run away, leaving the pod empty.

So the environment wasn't hostile, it just is what it is... A Skif's ending basically turns the world into one giant zone.

Unleashing the zone upon the world, was probably the crappiest thing you could have done.

[mossy maple]

Tell that to the victims of the xlabs

[pine kite]

They wanted best for everyone, which clearly only they knew and were qualified to decide, and tried to achieve with unethical experiments

Kaymanov's whole objection was that he could see they were not qualified to dictate morality for humanity

[mossy maple]

Human experiments, wanting to control the mind of people and to delete human emotions, what good people !

Maybe they wanted what's best but instead they inflicted pain and suffering to a great number of human beings and animals

[heady marten]

And that is the moral choice you have to make at the end of SoC when you learn the truth.

Do you join them and help them in their fight to hold back the nooshpere... Or you ignore the request to join the illusion and ultimately kill them...

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think they were not involved in the x-lab experiments, but other scientists were. One of which you meet in S2, the drunk one involved with teh psi-necklace quest

IIRC

[mossy maple]

It's all the same network. Yeah different people worked on different things but it's all the same group MDST (or MSDT I don't remember lol)

CCon is like the final step

[heady marten]

So the scientists that entertered the pods, may not have known anything about the experiments at all... Not saying for sure, but that is the impression I get...

Not played the original games for 15 years, so struggling to remeber the finer points.

[mossy maple]

I feel like it would be unlikely because the xlabs worked together. They even had a headquarters (X8) that you can visit in CoP

You can see that every experiments are connected : https://stalker.fandom.com/wiki/Laboratory_X8_(location)

[heady marten]

Oh yeah, I know. I know they were all connected and all part of the same group.

It's just that I don't think Skif and the scientists are any different. How many people have you killed by the time you get the final part of the game?

To say that the zone will be better because Skif got in it, and it will be nice? You killed hundreds of people for various reasons... to me, killing 100's of people, is not exactly peacful.

[mossy maple]

Never said that Skiff was a peaceful sane man

[heady marten]

But some people are suggesting that the expansion of the zone around world might be peaceful, because it's Skif...

And even Kaymanov suggested it was born out of violence, hence the way it is.

So how is Skif's story no different? He's killed hundreds of people by the time you get to the end of the game.

No way is the zone going to be peaceful... The world is going to be one giant disaster burger.

[fathom veldt]

you are discussing a story with a man who did not finished any of paths

[heady marten]

And? What's that got to do anything? Doesn't invalidate any of the points I make, does it?

[mossy maple]

Yeah that's a bit paradoxal freeing the zone of violence is only reachable through more violence. The same problem goes for Kaymanov/Faust and all his talks about "freedom blabla" yet he used agents, he manipulated Skiff and lied to Strelok to achieve his goals

[jagged hull]

well for faust/kaymanov this isnt some ideological thing they think theyre working towards something good for everyone so the questionable things along the way dont really matter

[mossy maple]

There is a theory saying anomalies are nothing but the physical representations of human thoughts.
Maybe the exclusion zone and xlabs have seen horrors beyond human comprehension and therefore most (not all) of the anomalies are harmfull. Like a lab dog will always be more violent than a free dog. Unleashing the zone expansion could also mean exposing anomalies to idea like love, friendship and happiness? We cannot know for sure

[clear cipher]

Isn't that the point? It's just freedom for the Zone and Faust who organized it, it's not freedom for people. And maybe Skif gains freedom by merging with the Zone. It's their journey, and Kaimanov's words are more like just words aimed at convincing you, but don't have to be true. People will become something else only later, having learned about the true, free Zone. Btw, I didn't read the previous discussions, sorry

[mossy maple]

I feel like its the only ending that could end well (or really really bad).
Wards ending is just a dystopian future.
Spark is just living in a dream.
And Strelok ending is kinda useless, it's just a matter of time before the knowledge of the noosphere is used elsewhere

[jagged hull]

i feel like im getting the message that humanity in general has these bad traits when facing the unknown so i doubt that the other zones in the world will be much better

[mossy maple]

Interesting way of seeing things ! I think ultimately we will need future DLCs or games to know what happened

But I doubt there will be a next game

[clear cipher]

I would definitely like a new ending in a future DLC, not because I don't like the ones we have, but for the sake of a broader view. I think Kaimanov was in HoC as a mask for Faust and a reflection of his views, where he uses manipulation and charisma to convince the player to accept his beliefs. And since all the endings show Skif giving in to other people's beliefs, it would be interesting to see an ending of true freedom or something like that

[mossy maple]

I would be mad if the true ending was locked behind a dlc hahaha

[clear cipher]

Well, not necessarily the "true ending" (although many do it as DLC thing), but a Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty-style ending could reveal some interesting things

I mean, there are many options, they could make the true ending part of a free update or something. Or they might not make the true ending at all. We'll see.

And some DLC can just make some ending canonical and develop the story, like CoP and the destruction of C-Con by Strelok, and then Strelok's survival in CoP for HoC

[slow light]

Kaymanov ending = true ending

It's absurd to think a true ending would be locked behind updates or DLC

The PL ending was not true where 2077 was concerned

[pine kite]

There are people who cope thinking the Strelok ending might end up the canon one but yeah I don't see anything but the Skif ending being canon. Though this is assuming we ever see anything past the end of this game anyway

[mossy maple]

And for CP2077 it's different. Maybe there is no canon ending and your character fate does not matter at all in this universe. But with stalker 2 ending it Impact the whole World so we need a canon official ending

[heady marten]

Rape, murder, torture, theft, hate, abuse, greed, jealousy, war...

These are part of being human too, whether we like it or not.

And these will always manifest, if what you said was true.

The last thing the world needs, is a global zone. Nothing good will ever come from it.

[heady marten]

I wouldn't, I hate all the endings...

[heady marten]

But again, all of Cyberpunk 2077 endings are awful.

The whole point about Cyberpunk, is about saving yourself. You can't beat the corps, or the major powers. It's about saving yourself, as spoken by Mike Pondsmith. In 2077, you can't, every single one you die in some way. Apart from one where you lose all your friends, because you chose to live. Which doesn't make sense, as all your friends were crying for you to get better, and when you do, they screw you off, It's utter BS

What's the point in having multiple endings of non of them are within the ethos of the game.

[mossy maple]

Bro wants a peaceful and happy ending in universes like cyberpunk or stalker

They are all grey nothing is perfect or utterly wrong. An ending where everyone is happy and healthy wouldnt be interesting

Go watch Teletubbies idk

Cyberpunk 2077 is more about fighting against impossible ods rather than simply "saving yourself"

[heady marten]

Then you don't know what Cyberpunk, was about then.

There should have been away to do that, that is what the whole point of Cyberpunk is.

To save yourself.

And no, I don't necessarily need a good ending in stalker either, I just want better ones...

I think an ending with the expansion of the zone would have been better, gets even more wild, which would have fitted better with future dlcs, and potential map expansions.

I wish people would stop assuming they know what I am thinking.

[heady marten]

So your saying the guy who created Cyberpunk is talking shit?

[mossy maple]

He made the ttrpg not the video game and no I am not saying he is talking shit

And I'm not saying that Cyberpunk 2077 is NOT about saving your self. I'm suggesting that it is more than that

Anyways it's a stalker server not cyberpunk

[heady marten]

https://youtu.be/xYxt7cwDk4E?feature=shared - It's about saving yourself.

And Cyberpunk 2077, doesn't give you that choice... and when it did in PM, it doesn't make sense at all.

And the best ending for S2, should have been the zone expanding to tie in with dlc better and new areas of the map.

[clear cipher]

Because...? Even if this is true, why is it so at this stage, before it is officially stated?

[slow light]

Common sense

[fossil depot]

What...even...happened here?

[clear cipher]

But technically any ending is open for continuation, if there is enough desire. Spark ending: there are more zombies in the Zone. Ward ending: the Group screwed up and a new Zone appeared in some part of the world. Strelok ending: Strelok's supermind makes the Monolith shoot stalkers even more furiously

[fossil depot]

Strelok sealed off the Zone, why would he just randomly get people murdered?

The ones inside are dying either ways due to lack of any means to survive.

[mossy maple]

I don't get how he did that while the ccon couldn't ?

[clear cipher]

If people find a way around the lockdown, he still has the Monolithians at least

[mossy maple]

I did not do that ending so I may be missing information

[fossil depot]

But what are you talking about?

[mossy maple]

Why ccon never sealed the zone from the beginning ?

[fossil depot]

In Strelok's ending, the Zone literally has a massive energy barrier around it; NO ONE is ever getting in or out.

[clear cipher]

We will find a way... At any cost...

But it's just a question of writer's desire, as I said

[fossil depot]

Because they're researchers; the explosions and the desolation were enough to cause isolation; what was left was fulfilled by anomalies and mutants. They saw the Zone itself as a natural defence to anything.

Problem is that they didn't account for the simple fact that humans are extremely adaptive, so they had to set up the Kaymanov Emitters (Scorcher). When that didn't work either, they created the Monolith to lure people and turn them into the Monolith as the final vanguard.

Strelok, meanwhile, has seen it all and learnt from the mistakes of the Group, and unlike the Group, whose focus was research (which distributes resources and leaves nothing for an energy barrier), Strelok's entire focus was solely on cutting the Zone off. Leaving him free to use the entire energy of the Zone to erect a barrier.

[fossil depot]

Short of another plot hole, I doubt that. You're not getting past energy barriers; they're unbreachable for a reason.

OTOH...a mix of all the endings could allow Space Anomalies to enable travel between the Zone and the outside world (due to Skif's ending), so maybe...

[fossil depot]

Also, personally...I wanted a happy ending in Cyberpunk 2077. Maybe even STALKER. Nothing wrong with wanting happy endings regardless of universe.

[clear cipher]

Oh, I don't think there's a plot hole. There's always the Group and Agatha, who have Generators all over the world and know about the noosphere. They could find a way, I think.

Or they can just ignore it and continue some experiments and a new Zone will arise in a new part of the world.

[fossil depot]

Problem is that there's just one noosphere, the entirety of which is broken due to the existing Zone (like a black hole distorting everything around it)...trying to mess with it elsewhere would be far worse consequences.

[clear cipher]

And I never said the consequences would be good! Isn't that the point of games?

[fossil depot]

Well, I mean...the trilogy had the Zone being anomalous (rather than merely dystopian; Terminator: Salvation is actual dystopia) while the outside world was doing much better thanks to the artifacts.

So...not really the point of the games, at least back then. S2 kind of messes that whole thing up, so...who knows?

Actually, you know...I read somewhere that the Monolith was supposed to be an alien device to evolve humanity...so I'm going to say that it'd be far more interesting if the aliens went extinct and the 'Wish Granter' was merely manipulating SIRCAA (and the Group and everyone before and after) before being damaged and falling to the planet surface or something.

Kind of like Dead Space, but without the necromorphism and entire undead moons.

[clear cipher]

Well, I don't really understand what you're trying to say, like for me it's always been a bit of a dystopian place of violence and danger. It's just that if you take all the games as a single universe, the original trilogy was a certain cross-section where the Zone was just a mysterious place, and violence seemed to be part of that nature. HoC reveals details that preceded the formation of the Zone, reveals players from outside the Zone and all that, so it seems like a change of mood or something (for some)

[fossil depot]

The Zone was never dystopian for me; any 'dystopian' feel was from the original 1986 disaster and abandonment of places; the Zone itself was merely anomalous and dangerous, but not dystopian. And it's said in-game or somewhere (I don't remember exactly) that, at least during the trilogy, the Zone's artifacts are progressing the outside world much faster and better (improving human QoL).

[clear cipher]

Isn't this something like Roadside Picnic? Maybe the original Stalker plot was more inspired by this and it was in the early builds? Anyway, that's my theory, but now we have a "living" Zone that manipulates Skif through Faust/Kaimanov and other stuff, so it's kind of the same?

[fossil depot]

Yea; I don't know where I read it, but that's what I read about the Monolith just being alien.

And I thought Skif was being manipulated by SIRCAA?

[pine kite]

Well in roadside picnic the going theory of the exclusion zones is they were sites of alien visitations, though they don't know for sure

I believe the original original monolith members thought the wish granter was like the rock that originally brought life to earth. But I forget if that was ever in the game or not

There's a lot of ideas that float around but were cut from the stories of the games at some point or another, i can't always remember what some things are

[clear cipher]

SIRCAA is manipulating? Well, maybe Ward/Group/SIRCAA is doing it partly, like they are trying to pull Skif over to their side, but pretty much everyone is doing the same, it's just that according to my theory, the "Zone" itself is doing it initially.

[fossil depot]

Probably, but the games changed the Monolith to just be an illusion of human creation, so...

...though at least the rock itself is real, even if man-made.

[pine kite]

I guess imo I feel like HoC draws more on the book and other science fiction, in a very loose sense, because we see more of scientists actually researching the zone and trying to produce new innovations based off their studies, and there's at least some very loose relations mentioned between the new physics of the noosphere and conventional physics in some places. At the time of SoC they are mostly still trying to get even the most basic grasp of what's going on with very spartan facilities.

That's in more of a vibes way than actual content way though

[fossil depot]

I mean...the Zone is not just a force but an entire state of nature...so yea, they're not making break-throughs anytime soon beyond small things here and there (like the Gauss Rifle).

[clear cipher]

Of course, I didn't mean that Stalker was always a dystopia, but I meant that a certain note, a motive, was present for me. Like, in the post-apocalyptic scenery (not the setting, which is important) there is a semi-organized society in which morality is low, and secret forces are trying to influence ordinary life. Very distantly, but still, something similar to this is there. Although the idea of ​​programmed agents and brainwashing to the state of zombies sounds quite dystopian in the abstract.

[fossil depot]

Well, I agree with most of what you said there, except for morality (human invention that fails at the first sign of trouble; Zone's just typical Darwinism that only makes people better and hardened to handle things).

And yes, the original research was definitely dystopian, NGL.

[pine kite]

Yeah. The original goals of the noosphere research are pretty grim, and you can see it there still in the ward ending

[clear cipher]

By the way, I don’t remember whether C-Con told Strelok at SoC what they wanted to achieve?
I don't remember exactly, they wanted to separate the bad from humanity or something like that? (I don't remember the exact wording). It seems to me that even if everything went well, they would not have succeeded.

[heady marten]

The heart of chernobyl artifact apparently..

Which is stupid, as it means he could of got into the pod at the end of SoC and controlled everything as he had it on him all the time.

The games story is fecking stupid.

How to feck up your own lore, by GSC

[jagged hull]

no, not because of the artifact. the artifact just makes it so he doesnt need 7 more people

[heady marten]

So he could have used it at the end of SoC... like I said idiot.

[jagged hull]

or 6 if a variometer is used

[jagged hull]

i dont think he wanted to get into the pods at the end of soc thats kinda the character development that he had

or he just didnt know

[clear cipher]

But in SoC he literally didn’t remember who he was and besides, he literally didn’t know at that time what kind of artifact it was?

[pine kite]

In his own words, it wasn't his concern at the time he was there originally

[heady marten]

I think it was just an artifact, that was made more to be than what it was.

So another S2 retcon... that makes it the whole thing worse.

Another example crap story telling.

[jagged hull]

bro you do not know the definition of retcon

[pine kite]

Like I forget where you pick it up but Strelok literally writes down "I had it back then but protecting the Zone wasn't on my mind at the time" because... Yeah, he changed over the 10 years between the games

[mossy maple]

For you guys adding lore = retcon

[heady marten]

Yeah, because they had to come up with the excuse to fill the blatant plot hole it creates.

[clear cipher]

Didn't it say somewhere that he gave it to the Doctor? So during the trilogy he didn't have time for these things and he learned about the features of the artifacts after CoP?

[heady marten]

No, if you change what something is, into something else, that's a retcon.

It was just an artifact back then...

[pine kite]

tbh the timeline of his visits to the center with the new lore are very weird, that is one thing I will agree was handled messily. But yes he gave it to Doctor at some point.

But also suggesting that someone shouldn't have changed in a ten year time skip seems simply insane to me

[heady marten]

As someone pointed out yesterday, the devs clearly don't know their own lore, and seem to making it up on fly.

Using wiki, which has many errors, rather than playing the games in the years they had to do research and get it fecking right.

Is not fecking hard, it's story writing 101...

Get your lore and story consistent

[clear cipher]

But what's strange about this? The first time he and his team found the Heart, got into the CNPP, found out that the Wish Granter was a fake, found an armored door and left. The second time was the CS and the third time was the SoC

[pine kite]

Personally I think dogmatic adherence to lore strangles creativity

[clear cipher]

I don't even know what lore was broken

[pine kite]

The exact timeline of everything is a little unclear to me now but it's something I plan to try and sort out definitively with my second playthrough

[clear cipher]

I mean, that's the last thing people think about, because there's nothing weird about it. People complain about Scar and the map, but here's what's wrong

[heady marten]

No it doesn't.

Keeping it coherent does stifle creativity, it just keeps it making sense.

Which enhances the lore, making it better.

[heady marten]

Just goes to show how much you know then.

[clear cipher]

By now you're only showing that you don't like some plot decision and that's it. First show what lore it contradicts exactly

[pine kite]

I mean at this point we are just getting to fundamental approaches to creative work, which you cannot really prove right or wrong either way, but that's the position I approach things from. You shouldn't retcon things for no reason, but there are tradeoffs to be made. Also I don't have nearly as broad of a definition of what a retcon is in the first place.

[heady marten]

The whole reason though that it was done, was to justify bringing Monolith back again... for the 4th time and C-con... because its obvious that at the end of SoC Strelok killed C-con, that resulted in the zone becoming more dangerous and wild, as no one was holding back anymore.

[pine kite]

If you took them at their word I suppose. But there is nothing to prove that to you other than the fact that they claim it

Emissions become less controlled but not much can be said with certainty beyond that

[heady marten]

I think I heard it mentioned in CoP at some point... it's been 15 years since I play the games.

What's funny @clear cipher Jealous I have been playing this series for so long?

[clear cipher]

Make a clearer statement(for me, I'm silly), did you play 15 years ago, or have you been playing for 15 years?

[heady marten]

Does it matter? I've been following stalker since it was released in 2007.

[clear cipher]

If you say so...

[heady marten]

Yes I do, because I have been gaming for 46 years.

Atari 2600, Amstrad CPC 464, Amiga A500, First PC was a dx2-66, that I upgraded with an AWE32 sound card and 2MB GPU...

So why the f*ck wouldn't have I been playing stalker since 2007?

[clear cipher]

And I didn't even question your words lol. Like I said, if you say so...

At this point you've only shown that you don't like a certain plot decision, and also shown that you don't like it when your words are questioned (which wasn't the case, but so be it). If you want to talk about something, we can move to another sub or something like that. If not, you can point out a specific lore knowledge that was violated (in the situation with Strelok or in general)

[heady marten]

If you say so, is a very common phrase used to indicate that someone is telling lies or talking bs.

[clear cipher]

I apologize if this gave that impression

[heady marten]

No problem.

No. I don't like certain bits, I hate all of it.

And big reason for this, is because of the inconsistencies and plot holes between games.

[clear cipher]

As I said, point out the direct violations, knowledge of S2 and what it contradicts in the original trilogy. Before that, we were talking about the Heart of Chornobyl and Strelok, so I talked about that when I talked about "certain"

[heady marten]

C-con died in SoC

The artifact.

How the feck did monolith comeback after the death of C-con?

And if you machines? Then why when you break machines again in S2, monolith don't return back too noontide, especially in areas where you destroyed the emitters.

Subtle matter, that was a mcguffin to bring c-con back from the dead...

But if they didn't die, then how f did noontide come to be...

Map changes

To name but a few

[clear cipher]

So, C-Con is dead

What's with artifact?

Let me remind you that the Monolithians continued to operate even after the death of C-Con (the final mission in CoP, where Degtyarev, Strelok and the military escaped from Pripyat, and the entire section with Pripyat after all)
In S2, the Monolith returned after the activation of Network X and a certain "Signal". It is not explained what the nature of this signal is, but it is known that Faust's agents placed devices (I don't remember what these things were called in the game) on the Sphere and the Wild Island. I assume that the activation of Network X led to these devices creating a "Signal" that put Noontide into a state similar to when they were controlled by C-Con.

I don't really understand what you want to say here, so I can't answer.

Subtle matter is a conspiracy theory that they want you to believe. You can't trust anyone who talks about it. In fact, I believe that if Subtle matter exists, it is not at all what Faust and others say.

And C-Con still dead

And what exactly is wrong with the map? It certainly looks funny in comparison to old maps, but it's not fatal.

[pine kite]

The devices you are thinking of are called emitters colloquially. Some of the more technical documents in the game have an official designation that I can't remember off the top of my head

[heady marten]

Let me remind you, that I stopped playing CoP when I can up with monolith again.

Because it flew in the face of what happen in SoC... Not to mention you wipe most of them out in SoC. It was bs then and it's bs now.

So Monolith shouldn't have been in CoP either.

The HoC artifact, was nothing in the previous games, it was just an artifact, but was retconned into something more in S2.

Everything that you talk about the signal in S2, is a retcon.

Stalkers/people were brainwashed in high psi fields like the brain scorcher, and become monolith. C-con had control over the monolith, if needed, as like end of clear sky, calling shots for the monolith guy. It was done through psi fields, they created.

There were no Psi emitters in SoC... but psi fields were created by stuff like the brain scorcher.

And even if the x-network was brought back, who was giving instructions on what to do? As no one was in the pods, and the wish granter was just a trap.

And no, c-con, was retconned to be alive again in subtle matter.

Never said I had an issue with the map, just pointed out that it was a massive retcon... I like the new map... I just don't think it is big enough.

And... If you destroy all the emitters in S2 that you come across, why didn't the revert back to noontide? In which case, why bother with the emitters in the first place?

[clear cipher]

Man, if you have a problem with CoP lore, then I feel like you shouldn't have a problem with S2, in meaning, like, you literally just don't like decisions that weren't even made by S2 writers, but by the original writers. I feel like you just don't like Stalker lore at all maybe. Also, I have no idea when you stopped playing CoP, I never knew that information, so this isn't a reminder to me.
Also, there's no information anywhere about the exact number of Monolithians, so, well, there could be a lot of them, and Marked One killed (as far as I remember these calculations) about five hundred people?

So, if you have questions for the CoP lore, then this is not even a question for the S2 writers

HoC artifact didn't even appear in previous games, except for one cutscene, it wasn't "just an artifact", it was an unknown artifact. But now we know what it is.

You stubbornly use the term retcon, although I don't see where it is used. In "high psi fields" stalkers did not become Monolithians, but zombies, although the concept of the Signal does not contradict this. The Scorcher is turned off, but the psi fields remain, zombies still appear, Noontide needs even less psi influence to become a zombie. In fact, it is a question of technical specifications, under what conditions C-Con created Monolithians. However, I assume that this requires specially tuned psi fields and psi antennas. So why can't emitters replicate these functions?

So, for some reason you claim that the emitters cannot repeat the functions of the psi antennas and psi fields of the C-Con, although this literally depends on the decision of the scriptwriter and cannot be a retcon or a contradiction in principle?

[clear cipher]

(2)

Faust is literally a controller, so he could feed the Monolithians specific instructions into their brains on what to do.

And C-Con is deader than dead, the game specifically plays with the narrative that they are alive, but there is no evidence that the Subtle Matter (and C-Con in it) exists, other than a literal "Trust me bro"

Well, I think it's a non-critical retcon. I can say that during the old maps, many areas were physically inaccessible, and the old maps only showed areas that were relatively safe to be in. The old maps were "rough" and the S2 map is accurate.

[clear cipher]

For the same reason why zombies don't become normal outside the Zone or psi fields

[heady marten]

https://youtu.be/m45zGBxPaf8?t=755 - High Psi-fields - Such as the Brainscorcher were also used to recruit agents on their way to the zone centre... He even states that as soon as the experiment started they subordinates everyone around them to do their bidding. Monolith etc.

This is how they recruited for monolith, along with the TV's, as the end of CS.

FFS!

[clear cipher]

He definitely said that the Brain Scorcher was just one of those fields, so... And TVs were, kind of, used for agents, at least we see that with Strelok and Scar.

[heady marten]

Well, if Faust could mind control monolith, then why the BS story to turn everything back on again, if Faust didn't it, as he could do it himself?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu5Rvd7du_E - Keep/Control/Destroy - C-con options S2 - C-con, very much retconned to being alive again after SoC. With Subtle matter being the new magical mcguffin being the excuse.

[heady marten]

Then how did Noontide appear then, if removing the network/psi/C-con meant that still remained monolith, because removing them from such things means they don;t return to normal?

[clear cipher]

Faust doesn't control the Monolithians directly, like C-Con. And C-Con didn't control all the Monolithians at once, I suppose. They just broadcast orders to their brains. The whole idea of ​​the Signal is to cover all of Noontide at once. Faust isn't a magical wizard who can turn a bunch of people with his power, obviously his powers have a limited range and maybe aren't even strong enough to control the full functions of a Monolithian. As we remember, usually the controllers turn stalkers into zombies, and Faust, I suppose, needed an active faction.

The thing about the Representative is how lifelessly it responds to all of this stuff. Aside from the Spark ending, it doesn't answer any questions that don't involve things about the Zone, Subtle Matter, and other specs. Also, the Representative is literally stored on Faust's flash drive. Like, yeah, it's literally a chatbot whose purpose is to convince you that C-Con is alive, woooooh

Of course, I may be wrong, but this is my interpretation and I don’t see any serious refutations to this.

[clear cipher]

The game doesn't give any explanations for this, frankly speaking (or I haven't seen them). I can only assume that the emitters do the crude and isolated work of the C-Con fields, like they were activated once, Noontide's consciousness changed forever and that's it. Maybe the C-Con fields were more refined and technically advanced, so the Monolithians were able to return to their adequate state.

[real leaf]

Speaking of Faust, only now (in my 2nd playthrough) I managed to NOT miss Dvupalov's recording in Faust's room in X5, and he is reading a bit from Goethe's Faust to him :')

[heady marten]

Fine... So when you break it all the equipment again, why don't the revert back to noontide? Shut down Duga? Destroy the emitters?

Who is controlling them, as no one is in the pod. As you said, Faust can't control them directly, like C-con.

And wy does turning the Wish Granter back on, bring monolith back? When the Wish Granter was trap the lured Stalkers 2 there demise... Built by C-con, controlled by C-con, that you destroyed their connection too in SoC, (also in the video, in teh room with the flame polite's)...

Seeing as teh wish granter never controlled monolith at all.

So why did monolith come back at the point?

[jagged hull]

its not an instant process as cop showed but that doesnt matter to you ofc

[heady marten]

And what? CoP set 1-2 years after SoC, sure we would have seen some signs by then? No...

Or was it just the fact the CoP was BS and just brought monolith back, because like S2, they couldn't think of anything new? Ultimnately taking nothing of events in SoC into account.

[clear cipher]

As I said in the other message, there is no explanation for this. My guess is that the purpose of the emitters was to create a single, powerful effect on the minds of former Monolithians, so that they would become Monolithians forever. Like zombies. Only high-functioning, fanatical, and religious. The detail is not very well written, as is how the Monolithians react to Wish Granter being in SIRCAA.

Like I said, the idea was to put Noontide into the Monolith state. If we take the S2 lore as truth, then you don't need someone to be in a pod, you just need to affect them with a psi field. The pod is a kind of control panel for Network X, Wish Granter is a control panel for the Monolith faction, but the Monolithian state is achieved through psi influence. The question is, what is the difference between a "normal" psi field that turns people/Noontide into zombies (like that guy on the roof of Wild Island) and a psi field that was used by C-Con or made by emitters.

[heady marten]

The emitters were tiny little farts on the grand scheme of things... I mean the brain scorcher would surely have been powerful enough to do this, if this idea was correct?

And yeah, $80 million or so to make, and they can even get the story cohernt and making sense, let alone tie it on with the SoC smoothly.

[clear cipher]

Well, the SIRCAA must have completely shielded the room with the Wish Granter, because we can see that this stone definitely has a psi influence on Skif himself, but not on Nootide, that was nearby. Besides, Dalin said that they used minimal power. SIRCAA had complete control over the Wish Granter at that moment.

[jagged hull]

safe to say that if the wish granter does anything monolith had the chance to turn it back on it the chaos.

[heady marten]

Not it's safe. We have established that the wish granter was a trap to lure stalkers to their demise.

It's the biggest know peace of lore in STALKER.

[jagged hull]

read bro please read

[heady marten]

An what if they did? It doesn't control them... As I said... "IT IS A TRAP"... It doesn't control monolith at all.

[jagged hull]

now read what i wrote again but slowly

[heady marten]

It's hard to understand when your sentence structure is so shit.

[jagged hull]

now thats not the only thing skif, reconnecting to the generators sent out a signal which turned back noontide into monolith

[clear cipher]

What is the point of this message? The Brain Scorcher covered an entire area and emitted a constant psi field, and was also part of a much larger system. The emitters made a short and direct impact, which is only needed to turn Noontide into a Monolith.

[heady marten]

And the emitters covered a tiny area.

Yet Monolith, were converted all the place where the were no emitters.

[clear cipher]

Regarding the area of ​​influence, it is not stated directly. In addition, it is unknown where the other emitters were located. On the way of Spark, Scar shows a whole carload of them, so they could have been located approximately anywhere

[jagged hull]

its good that nearly every monolithian was in one spot which does indeed have an emitter

and there is another one of those emitters in the sphere which likely has a much bigger range since a facility that seems like its meant for some communitcation

[jagged hull]

or ig in two spots, some were on the raid on sircaa and the other were in the shelter

[heady marten]

But who was controlling them from where? Who was giving them instructions?

[jagged hull]

likely faust

[heady marten]

From where and what with?

[jagged hull]

even the ingame characters figured that out my man

[heady marten]

From where and what with?

[clear cipher]

The game says that the stalker Spirit escaped the Signal, although I don't remember, he seemed to be in the Spark bunker at that moment, which is next to Yanov. It is not clear here whether the Signal covered the entire Zone or Spirit was just lucky to be far enough away

[jagged hull]

with what? his brain. from where? idk somewhere nearby?? does it matter much hes a person that has legs and shit

[jagged hull]

good catch, iirc he was shielded from the signal by the bunker. this probably means that the signal covered much of the zone

[heady marten]

Oh so his brain... So he didn;t need to be in a pod, like C-Con... OR use any equipment, he just controlled them... If that was the cases then why did he need to turn it all back on then?

[clear cipher]

Yes, of course, it is probably implied, but I just wanted to point out that it is not written clearly enough.

[jagged hull]

brother he is literally a controller how can you just ignore this. as to why he would need them to actually be monolithians, he believes in the feeling of unity and sense of purpose that being brainwashed gives so he wanted to give this to noontiders and eventually to the whole zone. which is why he took over duga, he wanted to turn everyone in the zone into a monolithian

its noted in the laboratories that he specifically prefers to use charisma over his mutant powers which is why he doesnt just constantly raise armies of followers to do his bidding when he can get the tech that c-con left behind to do what he needs

[ornate venture]

skiprat has been warned

Reason: Bad word usage

[slow light]

[heady marten]

But he doesn't use the tech that C-con left behind, because he doesn't get in the pod, Strelok does. That is the only way to do it.

Oh yeah, but it's S2, and everything go retconned... And a guy, that wants to bring monilith, back doesn't for years, because he doesn't want use his power...

[jagged hull]

actually retrieving the alpha and restoring the nodes for transferring whatever the power from the generators were the prerequisites for bringing back monolith so if faust wanted a faction that didnt disappear once he stumbles over a rock and hits his head he cant just use his controller abilities

and ofc no one knows how to get the alpha without a carribean experiment

[heady marten]

But he would need to get into the pod... that is the only way to connect to control

Just as strelok had too

And strelok had to use the HoC in order to do it.

[jagged hull]

when faust died the monolithians just returned to x7 as they were programmed to do and did basically nothing up until the end of the game. thats what they do when no one is telling them what to do.

the monolithians are BRAINWASHED they dont need people to tell them what to do they genuinely believe in what theyre doing

if they cant function independently in any way whatsoever whats the point of the brain scorcher? if they cant exist without c-con, it would make sense that the brain scorcher isnt needed since c-con is the beginning and the end of monolith

[clear cipher]

Well, except that Faust didn't die and the Monolithians don't do anything special before or after Duga, they, as always, just rush to the Center, to their old bases🤓

[jagged hull]

i mean before duga they kinda went after people like skif and richter, and the duga operation is not something a monolithian on his own would think up. as for faust dying, to monolithians he is dead, it is my interpretation that after the battle in duga he basically stopped seeing skif as the enemy and instead someone who has goals similar to his

they also attacked the sphere and zalissya which doesnt make sense for a monolith that only cares about protecting the center of the zone, so i would assume faust initiated that to cause chaos and reduce the chance of a unified front against monolith to take back duga

[clear cipher]

Oh yeah, I agree in general. Although I'm not sure they were after Skif (and I don't even remember about Richter). I think they were just creating chaos in the Zone and attacking random places like Zalissya to distract Ward forces and stuff.

[clear cipher]

In fact, the Sphere is needed because they created current maps of the Zone's anomalies, it just makes their life easier in general

[jagged hull]

skif and richter were attacked right after leaving sircaa, remember the cool cutscene?

[clear cipher]

Well, I thought it was just a random encounter between the Monolith and them, I didn't think it was specifically a hunt, although who knows

[heady marten]

Nah you don't say.

[jagged hull]

ok then what does the brain scorcher actually do? does it any way change the people it affects?

[heady marten]

The point of the brain scorcher was to brainwash people. And they never acted independantly, they were told to guard this area, defend here, attack there. The goal was stop people from getting to the centre of the zone.

[clear cipher]

I don't even know what you guys are arguing about

[jagged hull]

so they are brainwashed. what stops them from still completing their objectives once theyre not directly controlled. like if you gain consciousness, you have a gun in your hands, a squad of people like you and a faint memory of a voice telling you to do something what is stopping you from just doing what you did before since you dont know who you are, where you are, and what you are doing

[jagged hull]

he thinks monolith members immediately become free once c-con is not in control

[heady marten]

I have never said that at all, so why lie?

[jagged hull]

it is in essence what you argue. that monolith cant exist without c-con. the fact that you dismiss that in cop they still could be defending the center of the zone means that you think they become free quite quickly

[clear cipher]

Well, I already suggested above that Monolithian is a state of consciousness. It is probably maintained by psi fields. It can be assumed that they, from time to time, need to enter these fields to maintain this state. But if they are outside the psi field for too long, they become normal. Besides, I remembered that Monolithians attacked the barrier in the Warehouses in SoC, so they certainly do not need to be under the psi field all the time. Of course, it is stupid that they stopped being the same after the death of C-Con. But such are things in life. So I assume that they need to enter the C-Con field from time to time.

[heady marten]

I have said that in CoP we should have started seeing former member of monolith wandering around, no memory and confused, the beinging maybe of noontide and the repercussions towards monolith by stalkers..

But I have never said instantly. But then in CoP the brainwashing had ben constant for years for many monolith, either from the events of CS, or those turn monolith before.

The Monolith in S2, would have been under the influence for a short time, not reinforced by massive psi-fields like the brain scorcher...

And once again... Faust was not in the pod to control them, yes he has powers, but not that powerful.

[jagged hull]

he was designed as part of a super soldier program for use in warfare so yes he would be quite powerful if he was meant to lead military units

[heady marten]

I know, like I said, he had powers, but not that powerful

[jagged hull]

besides we see very well that internally in noontide there was a rift between people who wanted to go back to the old days and everyone else i dont think they needed much of a push to be full on monolithians again

fausts followers regularly walk straight into emissions they have a fair amount of brainrot already

[heady marten]

Strider an his lot, didn't want to be monolith again, the guy tried to kill himself at SIRCAA, when they turn the mcguffin on, to being back monolith... That faust never even setup 😂

[heady marten]

But not striders

And all the BS debate, mental gymnastics, all to bring monolith back for the 4th fecking time.

[jagged hull]

look fact is monolith is back and has been destroyed for the last time most likely. its you who has to adjust to the reality that we live in, not me

[clear cipher]

Monolith are cool guys, meeting them for the fourth time is a great idea

[heady marten]

Nah, I just call it for what it is, Shyte unoriginal garbage, where the devs, as pointed out to you yesterday just, just didn;t care about keeping the story consistent.

They thought they new best and spent $80 million or so, on a turd burger of a story...

6500 bug fixes and counting, bearly and deepth to the mechanics, every NPC carrying 700K, no dynamic economy, on top of an economy that doesn't make sense...

[heady marten]

Please don't get into game development

[jagged hull]

if the economy is giving you any trouble your 45 years of gaming or whatever are letting you down the game is piss easy

[heady marten]

I didn;t say it was giving me trouble? Where did I say that.

I said it was shit and doesn;t make sense.

[jagged hull]

its a bad story if you ignore all of the good parts

[heady marten]

there are no good parts.

[jagged hull]

and its an unoriginal game if you ignore all of the original elements. so in essence you are right

[heady marten]

It's an unoriginal story.

The game and the series deserve better.

[clear cipher]

So what's the point of following the game at all if it's so bad? Do you enjoy following bad games or something?

[jagged hull]

actually the story structure is pretty unique not alot of games have these winding paths where its essentially 2 or 3 stories in one. very few games do this, especially shooters

[heady marten]

Like I said, I play the original SoC and loved it, being waiting years for the zone to be open world, so I can just simply wander it and explore.

And I can do this for the most part, but as I said, the depth of mechanics isn;'t there. Everything is about as basic as it comes, there is no dynamic anything.

[heady marten]

Wow!! Winding paths?

You can get all the game endings from about 4/5 choices in game, and that is it. There is nothing winding about it.

[jagged hull]

if you ignore the 2-3 sets of tasks you can have at any point of the game, sure. its leagues above most games anyways, cyberpunk 2077 has none of that and its hailed as one of the best rpgs and ofc stalker 2 isnt even trying to be an rpg

[heady marten]

Cyberpunk 2077 is hailed, becasue far to many people don;t know better. Yes the I love walking around Night City, the atmosphere is great, but the rest of it is a mess now.

[jagged hull]

im still struggling to think of what story stalker 2 copied to get its own and im coming up with nothing, the main notes of it are somewhat unique to the game im not sure what you are talking about

[heady marten]

Stalker the Film and Road Side Picnic (Book)... So the stalker games are not original in any sense.

[clear cipher]

You have the right to like what you want, of course, but for now you're just arguing about things, and you've already started repeating yourself when I (and not only me) made counterarguments to your statements from above. The state of the game is a separate topic, but regarding the lore, everything is explainable. You insist on some things, and when S2 tries to explain it, you call it a retcon, although it doesn't under the definition of such. So I don't really understand what you want to achieve in general.

[jagged hull]

stalker the game took a few concepts from each and completely transformed them wdym. the concept of a zone where everything is messed up isnt exclusive to these 3 pieces of media, its basically a genre of media at this point. ofc roadside picnic and stalker the movie basically started it, and stalker transferred the concept into gaming

[heady marten]

It took a lot from them... but it did add to it, when it created SoC... Then went and ruined it S2 😄

[jagged hull]

yeah ruined it by "retconning" the story by adding to it lol

just so you dont forget your concept of how monolith is run is 100% just your headcanon since nothing is confirmed fully in soc lol

[heady marten]

just by telling a shit story in general.

[heady marten]

It's not my headcannon... That was the Lore of STALKER.

And I have got people like you, who doesn't understand the ending of SoC, when the wish granter killers Strelok... 🤣 🤣 🤣

[jagged hull]

crazy how a psi device has telekinesis and can move objects. or turn people into stone.

there are 2 people that tell you about this. doctor and the representative. doctor says that no one returned from the wish granter so theyre probably dead. the representative says that they use psi fields to turn people who go to the center of the zone to get their wish granted into agents. theres no other explanations in the game. thats all the info we are given. and you are extrapolating into your own headcanon, and trying to push it as some truth

[heady marten]

#📸┃screens_and_videos message - Streloks buried under a pile of rubble, he's alive...

The illusion, in that whole ending, was the wish granter making the falling debris look like coins to strelok as it buried him 😄

[jagged hull]

oh so when he asks to be immortal he is indeed turned into a statue. like if you place a camera in the wish granter chamber, does strelok actually become a statue

[heady marten]

Yes, it kills him...

[jagged hull]

besides in one of the endings he just goes blind. he doesnt die. in one of them, he merges into the monolith.

[jagged hull]

so yes, he does turn into a statue. weird how no other stalker ever asked to become immortal and left a statue there as well.

[heady marten]

I never siad he died in all of them... My point is that Wish Granter can kill as shown by the SoC ending... and you just dont get this.

[jagged hull]

all of this shit is just an illusion. a show of absolute power by c-con, before the stalker is incapacitated and dragged to the tv hallway or just given an x18 suit and a g36

[heady marten]

Yeah, dragged away after being buried by tons of rubble, cruched and pulvarised... Yes, very useful.

[jagged hull]

for all we know he just hallucinated that while knocked out on the ground. you know how when you go to sleep and have dreams you dont actually live those dreams

[heady marten]

No, hallucination was the rubble looking like gold coins...

As it buried him alive.

[jagged hull]

that still leaves the question of how the rubble was disturbed. something had to affect this rubble. are you implying that these psi-devices also have telekinesis?

or was it a monolithian in the rafters of the building pushing stuff around. i could accept that tbh

[heady marten]

don't be silly...

[jagged hull]

i assume you just dont want to answer that. the most likely answer is that these cutscenes are all inconsistent because the point of them wasnt to kill strelok or make him into an agent, it was just to do the "wish granted, you get 1 million ugandan dollars" bit but with an even worse outcome. but ofc other games expanded on that so we have to live with these oversights

[heady marten]

I don't have to answer, I understand what the cutscene shows...

[jagged hull]

i can agree with the sentiment that the wish granter can kill, as we see tons of dead stalkers in the brainwashing hallways, so its safe to assume not everyone is fit to be an agent and withstand the brainwashing/psi influence of the wish granter

[jagged hull]

let me correct you, you dont want to answer because then it would mean that the wish granter is a retcon.....

[heady marten]

Brainwashing hallways? At the end of CS?

They are not dead, they are captured CS members, being brainwashed into Monolith or in Streloks case, and agent, who's programming goes wrong and is tasked with killing himself.

[heady marten]

Man, you do say some of the most Stupid things ever.

[jagged hull]

where do death trucks get their name from?

[heady marten]

Where they are brainwashed...

[queen bridge]

Gotta say, it’s been pretty entertaining watching a grown man argue on the internet for hours in the most childish manner possible.

[heady marten]

No fecks given

[clear cipher]

Nah, I was good

[jagged hull]

ok since you dont want to answer i will answer a) c-con packs random dead bodies into death trucks just cus. b) they use death trucks to dispose of failed brainwashing attempts and to insert agents into the zone

[heady marten]

Death trucks are called death trucks, because of the tiny number of agents that make it out alive.

[jagged hull]

there are literal rotting corpses in those trucks what are you on about

no way their skin starts falling off within the hour that it takes to get from generators to cordon lol

[heady marten]

https://youtu.be/m45zGBxPaf8?t=793 - Once again, at the correct time - Death Trucks are used to send agents out into the zone. And they get their name, due to the number of them don't make and die on the way.

[jagged hull]

how does this disprove what im saying? there can be a few live ones, theyre just mixed in with the dead

besides anything that can kill the ones in the truck first has to go through the truck, which means that the truck would have to be damaged severely for the "passengers" to sustain harm

just like with any cargo. a shipment doesnt get destroyed without the vessel for it taking damage. but i guess in the magic wonderland of the exclusion zone anything can happen right? including accelerated rot of a dead body

[heady marten]

"Death trucks are called death trucks, because of the tiny number of agents that make it out alive"

Again.

I gave the answer... and you just ignored it.

[jagged hull]

just like you ignored the rotting corpse sitting in the truck that the camera focuses on lol

[heady marten]

It's why Sidorivich was so surprised in the intro to SoC, "We got a live one."

[jagged hull]

again i dont see how any of this conflicts with death trucks also carrying a lot of dead bodies lol

[heady marten]

The rotting corses are nothing, that is not why they are called death trucks. FFS!

[jagged hull]

stalker 2 also basically confirms this but RETCON RETCON

[heady marten]

That's becasue it is a fecking retcon in S2

[jagged hull]

and the intro cutscene confirms this but also RETCON RETCON

[heady marten]

Death trucks got there name, from the small number of agents that make it out alive

[jagged hull]

and not by the rotting corpses in those trucks?

[heady marten]

No

[jagged hull]

you are aware this is just your definition that you made up just to make yourself feel correct?

[heady marten]

No it's not.

[jagged hull]

ok sure then send me a source for this definition

[jagged hull]

also i love how you misquoted this lol i watched the clip

[heady marten]

Mosquited?

[jagged hull]

in response to "what are death trucks": "The transports we use to send our marked agents into the zone. They infiltrate the stalker community and carry out <...>"

the end of his answer to the question is "unfortunately almost half of stalkers die during transportation, the zone is very unstable." the words death truck arent even mentioned lol

[heady marten]

Yes... That is what C-con used them for. But Death Trucks was the knick name that stalkers gave them, because of the number that failed to get out alove.

[mossy maple]

artefacts detectors in clear sky are also RETCON. I think it's better to consider that SoC is in another universe than Clear Sky and CoP

[jagged hull]

TRUE

[mossy maple]

Lihacc you're my bro

[jagged hull]

we are all bros

[jagged hull]

we are just gonna ignore the elephant in the room that is the long dead rotting corpse then

[heady marten]

And the retconned the whole of the map for S2, which I don;t have a problem with, as it made it closer to the zone in real life.

[jagged hull]

besides stalkers arent a good source of this info lol its not like they went to x7 to find out about the death trucks

[vapid spire]

I really don't like where they put army bases and the brain scorcher area.

I think they messed with a few CoP areas to.

[heady marten]

Messed with a lot of it.

[vapid spire]

I don't remember CoP areas as well as SoC and CS areas.

[heady marten]

I bet it's another S2 BS retcon

As I don't remeber X-7 being in the other games, IIRC... Not played them for a while.

[jagged hull]

yes i also dont remember generators being a map in the older games but here we are.

X7 is the monolith war lab from build stalker but in less words

sad how they changed the generators from a desolate place to just the outskirts of pripyat, ending up with a relatively busy area overall. i liked the feel of older generators where it was completely desolate as it should be

[heady marten]

Not a map yes, but you can see them from CNPP, but you can't access them 😄

[jagged hull]

the generators in SoC are right next to the cnpp theyre not a separate map. and its just the generator "balls" attached to a random building or something not a separate complex. a result of the generators map being cut

thank god for that the game didnt need 30 more mins of pointless combat tacked on at the end

[heady marten]

So Death Truck, more S2 mcguffins

[jagged hull]

s2 devs are truly to blame for realising the plans of soc devs

[heady marten]

awwwwww, poor you.

[jagged hull]

as for how s2 confirms death trucks carrying dead bodies, in a cutscene a character opens the bed of the truck and a dead body with a stalker tatoo falls out of it. wonder how he got there

[heady marten]

Yeah, whatever. I am really not fussed... I have no intention of getting that far, as soon as the PNR started, I just stopped... To much like the end of SoC, when it's just wave of monolith after monolith... To do it again... Seriously fecking lazy.

[jagged hull]

it would be much better if the monolith were instead another faction that is still functionally the same

[heady marten]

And that wasn't a dig at you

[heady marten]

I would have prefered something more interesiting...

Something slipped through during an a big emission and hid in the dark places corrupting and mutating stalkers into a new kind of mutant... or something... Or something simular to what you said....

Anything, just something different

[jagged hull]

i was sarcastic btw it doesnt matter what colour the clothes of the enemies you kill are if the ending is still a combat gauntlet

[vapid spire]

Like they kinda were a seperate map in SoC. You only get to them if you don't join c-con

[jagged hull]

yeah ig cnpp is split into southern and northern part but thats still the cnpp

[vapid spire]

What does it matter if they're treated as two maps.

[jagged hull]

im sure youve seen the old generators version it was very different to what is in soc now

at the time the northern part of the cnpp was still there

[vapid spire]

Not everything from a 2007 game is gonna be the exact same as a 2024 game.

It's just like how there is more stuff in the back of the cordon now.

[heady marten]

It's still awful and lazy.

[jagged hull]

oh im not comparing s2 to soc im talking about build stalker vs soc

[analog tree]

SoC on these nuts bro

[fossil depot]

gets popcorn and wonders how many disasters will happen here.

[pine kite]

already uncountable

[fathom veldt]

mortal stlaker combat :))

[fossil depot]

Thanks for ruining it even more, you both... 😆

[heady marten]

What do you mean?

[fossil depot]

That was for Advisor and Timecop... 😆

[heady marten]

Fair enough

[jagged hull]

RETCON

[fossil depot]

This whole place is a disaster, both in continuity and retroactively. 😔

[fathom veldt]

this place is made of people 😉

[fossil depot]

True, true. The real disasters. 😔

[exotic sigil]

Guys,what cop ending does stalker 2 confirm?

[fossil depot]

I thought CoP had only one ending (Degtyarev completing his mission) with the rest of the slides changing on what you've done through the game?

[dull sequoia]

Obviously at least Strelok and Strider need to survive for Heart of Chornobyl to take place.

Additionally, if you don't complete Bloodsucker Lair, Skadovks gets overrun by bloodsuckers and everyone is killed. In Yaniv, Trapper is also presumed to be dead if you don't complete Night Hunt.

[knotty basin]

I did that one game by accident. I thought I could take care of it in free-play and instead got the ending where the Skadovsk was overrun just like you say.

[dull sequoia]

Ouch. Usually, I avoid mutants as much as I can, but I murder every single bloodsucker I run into, even if they are just chillin' far away, unaware of my presence. I hate them with a passion.

[proper temple]

Zulu also had to survive since he's mentioned multiple times in SO2

[knotty basin]

I used the gas one time but didn't like how it made it difficult to return, so in all my other games I skipped the gas and used a shotgun.

[dull sequoia]

He is mentioned, but in the past, no? I could be wrong though.

[dull sequoia]

And the mission is classified as completed if you don't gas them and just pump them full of lead?

[knotty basin]

Completion is about killing all the Bloodsuckers in their lair by any means.

[proper temple]

In Kopachi there's a side quest were you help two duty guys who are on mission from Zulu

[dull sequoia]

Interesting.

[dull sequoia]

Cool, I'm glad Zulu didn't get shafted, like a few others from past games have.

[dull sequoia]

Will Grouse remain at Skadovsk forever and not get killed by Tremor that way?

[fossil depot]

Right, but my point is that CoP has one core ending, with the others dependent, but I guess Degtyarev didn't help Beard or Sultan, so there's that (S2 says that Sultan and his men left, so Beard technically won, but then they came back and took over and Skadovsk isn't doing as well as CoP's ending slide would suggest about it getting as popular as the 100 Rads).

Other than that, the Bloodsucker Lair's canon, as is helping Hermann and Ozersky; Zulu, Strider, the 'Man Of Balance' achievement from Yaniv, helping out Trapper, as well.

I suppose Cardan and Nitro got helped too, considering the Gauss Rifle's now relatively well-known and there's actual functioning vehicles in the Zone (considering Cardan and Nitro were trying to make vehicles that worked normally) by the Ward.

Also, Snag is alive, so guess Degtyarev killed the Sultan's guy who was there to kill Snag...and I suppose Degtyarev helped the military without a single death, seeing as how the Ward and SIRCAA don't mess with him for most of the game.

I think the Oasis is also canon, as is the Iskra team but there's no indication of who guarded the Yaniv laboratory for Hermann after Black's team went rogue, but I guess the mercenaries who're the only friendly ones in CoP might be the ones who do it.

And technically, the Gauss Rifle's now wide-spread, so the whole mission to assassinate those mercenaries in Kopachi didn't go so well (or was that Pripyat? I keep mixing up Uncle Yar's mission and the Pripyat mission).

[dull sequoia]

Good points! Bloodsucker Lair needs to be canon for Nimble to survive as well, since he is also aboard the Skadovsk. I would have liked to see both Cardan and Nitro. Cardan is mentioned in a dialogue with Lodochka, if I remember correctly, but that isn't enough. Those two were cool characters.

[knotty basin]

Tremor has to do what he has to do.

[fossil depot]

Yea, but I bet both of them had enough of the Zone and there's plenty of other technicians at this point for them to not matter.

Plus, knowing Agatha's benefactors, they might just...'ask' Cardan to make worse versions of the Gauss Rifles and weaponize the Zone, which I presume the man doesn't want to be a part of.

Like, it made sense when he was originally employed (it's his job) and when he helped Degtyarev (the Zone's dangerous), but now...they'd turn the entire Zone into a massive Gauss Rifle, Starkiller-Base-style.