User blog:ElessarTheOnly/Oh no, they did it again

tl;dr: The new version 1.4007 of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha is not the expected best-ever release. Again, the developers concentrated on fixing things that weren't broken while sticking with the old (and some new) bugs.

Installation
Installation went flawless for me, the only hickup being the hieroglyphs in the first install popup. The installer allows you to select various installation options. You should read the descriptions carefully as some options only make sense on certain hardware or with other options. Most options can be disabled, uninstalled or activated later on in the launcher. I installed just some basic options to keep the game as close to the previous versions as possible.

When clicking on the desktop icon a Launcher comes up instead of the game. Here you can start a new game or load a saved game. The added value of the launcher is a Mod manager where you download, uninstall, activate or deactivate various mods (including the ones from the installer options selector). Additionally you can change (some of) the graphics settings, being color-coded for their impact on the frame rate.

For the further reading it should be noted that I am playing with an AMD GPU on Master level.

The first few minutes
During the intro I had the russian and the english voice-over simultaneously. That already made me wonder what the testers did in the past year. Together with Sido giving his intro speech in Russian and me understanding nothing I saved, exited to the Launcher, deactivated the Russian voice acting and reloaded the game. A lot more comfortable then fiddling with the gamedata...

Otherwise it still feels like Lost Alpha. A few things are different, some icons look different, some items are renamed (Meat stew instead of Rat pie, for political correctness?), some "rebalancing" in item properties, mission names and trader prices and assortment.

I started the game in Full dynamic lighting (DX11) as I somewhere read that this is the recommended mode and the graphics are optimized for that mode. Everything went fine until Agroprom, where the well-known crashes started - "The application has made an erroneous API call that it had enough information to avoid. This error is intended to denote that the application should be altered to avoid the error". I simply love that message and switched back to Static lighting as in all the versions before.

The inventory view
The inventory view looks quite the same, though there now are additional slots for a second long weapon and a helmet. I really appreciate the second long weapon slot but consider the helmet slot unnecessary.

Most annoying is that the handling of inventory items is fubar again. Not only the stacking doesn't work as expected and the auto scrolling is still erratic, now even the sorting of items is not stable. The root cause seems to be the feature that the item list always displays loaded weapons first. So instead of going through the list of the ten looted Akm 74/2s you can just right-click the first one over and over again to unload them all. Nice idea, but why does the inventory re-sort all items when you add or remove items?

As already mentionend some inventory icons have changed. Why the heck? The Petrol can looks photo-realistic now, while other icons (from the Weapons pack?) look like hand-drawn in low-res. Just another example of fixing things that ain't broke.

ALife
The IMHO most important new feature in v1.4007 is the improved ALife, that is more random NPCs and mutants. On one hand I like that feature, as it adds to the vibrancy of the zone and gives a nice chance for obtaining loot (a group of randomly spawned Bandits fighting randomly spawned Boars, noone survives and you can collect the loot).

On the other hand it is quite annoying to run around in a Leather jacket with just a Sawn-off Double-barrel Shotgun and suddenly getting attacked by four Boars or Pseudodogs. No chance to survive, so reload and play it again, Sam.

What really sucks is the fact that these additional NPCs (and sometimes even the "scripted" NPCs) spawn in a really stupid manner. So don't try to hide in the railcars in the middle of the Wild Territory in Great Metal Factory or the toilets in the Service Station, you may end up with a bandit or merc spawning right on your lap and instantly killing you.

The funniest encounter I had was a bandit spawned in a closed railcar. Of course he was wasting ammo like there was no tommorrow, and of course he was able to see and hit me through the railcar's walls.

General gameplay
Changes in the gameplay are subtle. Most notable is that chances to get hurt are much higher. Before v1.4007 I generally ended up with piles of Bandages and Medkits, now I am even buying them. Reason is of course the AI seriously hitting you with a totally worn PMm from a mile away, the lack of proper armor early in the game and the fact that you cannot outrun Boars and (white) Blind Dogs anymore.

Aquisition of advanced weapons is a lot easier, while proper armor is much harder to get. Generally a lot of occasions where you get a freebie are removed, like the Stalker suit in Strelok's Hideout and the UAZ Jeeps in Darkscape.

The hit/damage properties have also changed. Snorks are not so bullet-spongy as before, while Bloodsuckers are harder to kill.

What else has changed?
Just some mixed observations:
 * The economy has changed again.
 * Traders and other NPCs pay differently for item categories, making it even harder to decide whom to sell to.
 * Sido is not so overly expensive as before, most times even cheaper than friendly stalkers.
 * Traders (Sido, Petrenko) buy even really deteriorated weapons and have some advanced items for sale (like a Chaser 13 before Save Fox).
 * Getting decent armor is really hard, you will be running around in the Leather jacket for quite some time.
 * The Train-Car anomaly field has moved to the strange structure south of the Dark Valley Underground.
 * Most NPCs have different weapons again, most notably the snipers at Bridge Checkpoint and Garbage.
 * Weapon (and ammunition) stats have changed - again. I am not sure how much is due to the PRM Weapon pack, but nobody needs more weaponry.
 * Same with artifacts. Names and properties have changed, hopefully no new ones.
 * The AI-controlled mutants are not really bound to their Gulags, they will chase you for a much longer distance or flee from you until they hit a level border.
 * Dumb_mutants.jpg On the other hand mutants have become much dumber and are likely to fall prey to anomalies.
 * Ugly bug: The box in Veles' living room with your equipment is now locked until you get back with the first load of documents. Basically a good idea, but retaking your equipment is buggy, I have lost the Research journal and a Tools for rough work that way.
 * What hasn't changed: Seriy (and most probably Hermit) will not speak to you...

Conclusion
As I liked to say about the EPs: "Guide is wearing a funny cap, but Hermit still won't talk to you".

Why the heck didn't the developers concentrate on fixing the old bugs instead of redoing the optics and fiddling again with the game properties? v1.4007 introduces even more unnecessary stuff like new ammo, weapons, armor and changes existing stuff like artifacts while keeping the old bugs and introducing some new ones. This didn't work in v1.4005 and equally doesn't work in v1.4007.

Of course the devs do not care two hoots about this wiki, but I can't fight the feeling most of the changes are just about making this wiki outdated and unreadable. So many changed names and properties need to be included, keeping us busy the next years and rendering the pages unreadable with tons of redirections and version markers.

So, will I keep playing Lost Alpha? Of course! But which version? I don't know yet...