Recent reviews by SirBlargsALot

If you were looking for stalker game play turn back you will not find it here. Unfortunately for a game relying heavily on the stalker series it contains so little of the same feeling outside of the map and locations. My primary complaint about this game is that it gives tons of missions which is good... many of these missions take place in and around an enemy factions spawn location or the quests for both sides take place in the same area. Even if you aren't trying to PvP all servers have it on by default in all locations and you will bump into enemy faction players while just trying to do quests and if you don't shoot first most likely they will. For a game designed around PvP it is sad to see PvP killing it so completely, gear score is a mess, zones don't restrict or lower high gear score players, and there are no options to complete the beginner missions to get decent gear without PvP. If you want the feeling of stalker game play download the gamma mod and enjoy an actual hardcore survival game. Also to all PvP players that will say skill issue, I don't think having an AR that kills in 3ish hits vs an smg that takes a full mag to kill has anything to do with skill but to each their own.

I wanted to wait a while after the economy update to allow for the promised backtracking but I've waited long enough. Before the update the grind was slow but doable if I went to lower br to grind some money which I didn't mind much. Now if I make any SL it's a few hundred for a good game.
There are many reviews that go in depth on all the issues that you read up on so I'll only point out a few of the worst things I've noticed.
1: While being review bombed they (Gaijin or Steam) hid the recent reviews so any new players would only see the "Mostly Positive" from all reviews. Now recent reviews have been brought back and it shows "Mixed". In my opinion hiding recent reviews for anything outside of mass bot reviews should be against Steam terms of service and the bad reviews coming in were 100% Gaijin's fault.
2: After the economy update a bunch of scummy premium vehicles began to be pushed (not exactly new but with a bad economy this became much worse).
3: I am now at the point where I either pay for a bunch of SL (something that will be a recurring issue) or I just don't get to play, so I guess I'm done with this game for a while.

This is my first review and unfortunately it is more of a warning. Firstly what I played was actually a lot of fun however everytime I started enjoying the game something would happen.

1: Due to the servers both players and AI teleport around, you'll suffer phantom damage from an enemy that has run away from you only to teleport back after you have lost half your health.

2: pvp is abysmal due in part to the servers as well as the learning curve for new players, sometimes you'll have the drop on someone only to find out that the server needed a second to figure out that they have moved on while other times you'll drop and be shot in seconds due to multiple people dropping feet apart from each other. All in all don’t go in expecting to figure out how to play in a few hours as most of your time will be spent replacing lost equipment.

3: While I understand this is primarily a pvpve game it unfortunately suffers from bad servers, unbalanced drop locations, a serious learning curve problem for new players, and a highly toxic pvp community.

In its current state I can not recommend this game, I do however believe that it can fairly easily be improved in many ways.

1: The servers need to be fixed, this just has to happen or no other changes will help.

2: Drop locations and animations need to be fixed, I say fixed because even though I'm sure it's no accident a new player dropping in a match is easy to find, it really makes pvp unfun when your location is announced to nearby players seconds after entering the map.

3: a small pve mode should be added with reduced rewards, this could be handled in many ways but I think the best would be to send a group of 5 or more to retrieve items from a map filled with AI, as objectives are fulfilled guaranteed rewards (some money, ammo, or low tier weapons/armor) would be given to the group on extraction. This would help new players learn what they can and can't take on with what guns and give them something for their time. It would also provide a more relaxed way for more experienced players to replace low tier but necessary equipment such as ammo.

4: Lastly common community events such as number of extractions, kills in pvp/pve, or even large raid style missions would help bring players back as at this point there really isn't much past drop on map take damage from teleporting enemy then die in pvp

I hope this game improves but for now just move on to something else, the 2 hours I spent were enough to see the glaring issues

Endless mods