Still playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Anomaly. Before anything else, I’d like to get one thing out of the way: I’m an idiot. Descriptions for (most?) Anomaly mods aren’t as bad as I thought they were, it’s just that ModDB has no indicators there’s anything beyond the initial sentence or two if you browse the site with JavaScript disabled. So yeah, that was a fumble on my part but also why the heck does ModDB show all of the text on normal mod pages but doesn’t for Anomaly addons?!

I was expecting to write something like “I didn’t do too many changes since last week, mostly just started using modded exes and made some further gameplay options tweaking” today but… yeah, no. While my mod list is far from the behemoths I tend to play with in something like Bethesda titles, my Anomaly collection grew way faster than anticipated. Here’s my current mods list if anyone’s interested:

Full mod list

- Arti and RavenAscendants Mags Redux - detailed magazine and ammo management. - Blindsides Weapon Reanimation and Rebalance - dependency for other stuff. - Boomsticks and Sharpsticks - dependency for other mods, improved weapon animations are a nice bonus. - Dark signal weapon soundscape - dependency for other mods. - Food, drug and drinks animations - should be self explanatory. - FDDA Enhanced Animations - Food and Drinks - animation improvements for the above. - He’s with me - prevents friendly factions from attacking your companions, even if they are from opposing force. Not sure if I’ll stick with this one but it’s on for now. - HTS Bars - hunger and thirst status bars. For whatever reason base Anomaly doesn’t show them even though both are tracked and affect gameplay experience (I don’t mind the latter but I like to have information about such things). - Inventory Anrifreeze - lazy loading for in-game containers, helps with the hitching when opening things with lots of items. - Ladies and Sister Stalkers - female player character. - LASS Population Addon - adds female stalkers to the NPC pool. - MSBS Grot - cool gun that doesn’t really appear in games often. The only titles I can think of that use it are ARMA 3 (technically it’s a fictional gun based on bullpup version of Grot) and Girls’ Fronline (just a 2D art). - Tactical Movement Speed - change movement speed depending on weapon status (holstered, lowered, drawn, aimed).

I’m sure this list will grow as I spend more time with the game but even these additions make for a fun return to the zone. I’d like to once again thank @Coelacanth@feddit.nu for their help with figuring out a good starting point with modding Anomaly. I still need to check your base list and your alternative LASS population addon but I’ll get there.

As for the game itself, once I got my bearings it turned out to be somewhat easier than I initially thought it would be. I’m currently playing on medium difficulty and progression settings (with previously mentioned custom tweaks) so I might have to play around with those a bit more. I don’t mind though, it’s suppose to be fun not feel like a punishment.

---

Besides that, I decided to give The Elder Scrolls Online another go. Its latest update included difficulty setting, a feature intended to tackle one of my main issues with the game (everything being a cakewalk).
I quickly started to regret my decision thanks to a launcher issue which prevented me from downloading files with speeds above 5MB/s. Anything higher would leave it in a perpetual cycle of downloading at max speed for a few seconds followed by freezing for a couple minutes. Thanks to that I got the “pleasure” of experiencing internet speeds I didn’t have to deal with in years. Can’t say I missed that.

Thankfully, things were better once I finally got into the game proper though I can’t say much yet as I only played for 2 or so hours last night. There are 3 new difficulties available and bumping it even by 1 makes a noticeable difference in combat. I’m not sure yet if I’ll stick with that (I didn’t want to go too crazy before checking out the new balancing and remembering how to play) but it’s a good sign.

One thing I’m not fond of is the fact that one of the skills I use with my Nightblade adds permanent passive movement speed increase as long as it’s equipped. I’m sure it’s cool for people who like to sprint everywhere but for me, someone who likes to act like part of the world, seeing my character move like I’m watching a video at 1.5x speed is a little jarring. Looks like I’ll have to keep (un)equipping it if I want my experience to feel right. Oh well…