So I bought Shadow of Chernobyl recently, and I'm having

>>381166875
git____________________________________________________ gud

when they stagger they dont get invincible, thats when they are most vulnerable.

unless you have some sort of weird mod, there is no such thing as 'invincibility frames'

>>381166875
The starter guns are absolutely terrible and you should never go for headshots unless you're extremely close to them. As you get better weapons alter on you can get headshots more and more easily. Just keep doing chest shots on them until you're better armed.

Also, for whatever reason firing from the hip seems to be more easy for headshots than ADS for certain guns (when close, of course)

>>381167210
Are you absolutely sure? I played the game vanilla, couldnt stand the staggering, then played Complete 09 and that didnt fix it.

>>381167572
dont play complete, it fucks it up. jut do vanilla master, and get a proper rifle asap. shouldn't be too far into the game.

>>381168969
What does it fuck up? I dont feel any difference so far apart from visuals

>>381166875
The start of SoC is a bit rough.

Avoid ANY mods on your first playthrough, especially Complete, etc.

Look up how to grab the suit of merc armor at the rookie village if you want a leg up starting the game in vanilla, or just hold onto the chainmail suit before turning it in. After the start, damn near any gun better than the Makarov/Sawed-off can carry you to the end of the game (and that sawed off remains a good contender with slugs/darts).

>>381169490
>What does it fuck up?
A ton of minor balance stuff, eg carry weight and damage and drops, etc. Complete is more for the person that wants to play vanilla a second time. IMO the fewer "changes" to a mod, the worse it is. Not that anything is wrong with Vanilla, but rather that's just my experience with playing through STALKER almost bi-annually since forever. For some reason these are always targeted towards new players, but do dumb shit like fucking with the AI's sneak perception or effective weapon ranges, resulting in a frustrating start.

>>381166875
>>381169931
Also:

Don't let SoC scare you away from the series. CoP is super accessible compared to any game, and CS is very much a better SoC once patched.

Most people recommend starting with CoP and going to SoC/CS if you want something more rustic.

reckon ill buy this game
been wanting to get around to it for ages

>>381166875
just wanna give my opinion here as someone who waited for stalker anxiously and played it on release

the base game of stalker is trash and requires mods to be playable.

>>381170117
Can you recommend a clear sky patch please? one that fixes the awful stuttering?