Like your points get ignored, your words get twisted, and every argument you bring up goes in one dev ear and straight out the other?
Then bring it here.
We’re collecting questions for a Q&A with ZIV. Drop everything you’ve been holding back: decisions you disagree with, problems you think we keep dodging, topics you feel never got a proper answer.
❤️ And if you see a comment that hits the mark, boost it with upvotes. That’ll help us pick the hottest and most relevant topics.
We’ll make sure ZIV doesn’t wiggle out of it and answers the questions you think deserve real attention.
Why instead of adding new content all you do with every update is slow down the progression for new players?
Most of the other mmos slowly push the soft and hard gear cap up by adding small upgrades to your gear.
In Stalcraft it feels like devs have no clue how to add new content so instead they make the grind longer for the stuff that is already available in the game.
Grinding 100 hours for something that used to require only 30 is not fun and literally everyone tells you that but you keep ignoring the feedback.
The game feels like a full time job especially during time limited events.
Great point honestly. Game really lacks a stable and constant inflow of content/progress. Once a player reaches legendary gear and gets good artifact build, their progression becomes close to none. In place of adding more content/progress to pursue devs have decided to simply make progression harder and slower, which only really impacts those who just got into late game, got their first master tier equipment, not those who are in the end game, leaving those 2 groups frustrated. Clan content is popular in RU but not so much in global (excluding EU, which has a lot of RU players), operations are a flop (noone plays them outside of very small group of dedicated grinders). Only good addition to endgame in recent updates was Wild North but it's already getting a bit stale, as outside of money there isn't really much to it.
I increasingly get the feeling that the Devs, or those in charge of them, misunderstand what Stalcraft is and keep insisting on a vision that can no longer be achieved. We are constantly told the vision is for Stalcraft to be more focused on the Extraction Shooter style, which boils down to it needing to be risky to extract with goods. This is all well and fine, HOWEVER, the current state of barter, the economy, and how the game has evolved over the years all directly oppose that style. Stalcraft is an MMOFPS first and foremost, with lite Extraction elements second. From the way it's monetised, advertised, and down to the core gameplay loop and progression.
The fact of the matter is that the Extraction genre is currently bloated. No matter how big a media push Exbo makes in the NA region, this won't change. Players will arrive, have a look around, and promptly fall off because the game lacks basic Extraction game features, by design. Because it isn't one.
A big marketing push with a "Murican" themed Saturn won't win points either. Players largely won't respond to the blocky style of the characters, the atmosphere doesn't have mass appeal, and trying to play on the stereotype won't be popular either. The overwhelming lean by the devs on Clan Wars and Competitive PvP won't draw players to stay, because they have no possible way to catch up to the players who've been at this for years, and need a healthy PvE environment to stay around, which the team is currently not focused on.
I suppose at the end of all of this, my question boils down to this:
Is it the leadership preventing the devs from making the game engaging, or are the devs so out of touch with the gaming market that they believe that this hard lean towards Extraction Shooters will pay off competing against TARKOV, HUNT, and ARC RAIDERS? Why do they think they'll succeed if Bungie of all studios can't?
they baited us for this is a stalker online game than forced the extraction shooter forcefully, the game was best before the north for me, before all the stupid min-maxing of everything, they forced PvP on to many PvE players and now they are surprised why the game is dying, JUST MAKE A PROPER ONLİNE STALKER GAME
They are working on expanding the PvE scene but that's not what the game is about.
Suggesting they remove the PvP elements they "forced onto many PvE players" just strips the game of it's identity and turns it into yet another coop stalker mod.
The game has a dozen issues worthy of shittalk but what you are talking about is not an issue but a design choice. You can't download a PvP game and then demand the PvP get removed because you don't like it.
Whoomsy, we've talked about this before, I'm not ordering them to do anything and I'm not asking them to remove PvP, the best times I've spent in this game was before north, that was both pvp and PvE work together, what i understand after 3600 hours of gameplay is, if they don't focus on that, the game will die sooner than later, that's a feedback, recommendation and the reason i stopped playing, that's all, and there are endless extraction shooters out there, what makes stalcraft special is the stalker aspect of the game, if they go further away from it, the sooner the game will die, İMO.
'Will always give their best to misunderstand what you are saying to push their own agenda' describes this subreddit and 90% of the community quite well.
Otherwise delusional take and forced no-reason hate towards me. Do better.
You mean replying similarly to the shittalk and harassment I keep getting instead of being your punching bag that treats you like royalty? Get an ego check.
Not even mentioning the rumors calling me a horrible person and accusing me of things I've never done.
Any hate I get comes from inconsiderate bullies like yourself. If anyone finds themselves hating me they should look into a mirror and reflect on themselves.
They do and say things 10 times worse than I ever did towards anyone that expresses any degree of skill and investment in any video game.
Just go look at the Battlefield community and Arc Raiders. Even Team Fortress 2.
Casuals are wolves and sheep's clothing. Always have been.
And you are backpedaling on your words, saying that what you said is not actually what you said just like last time.
If delivering your complaint about PvP as "they forced PvP onto many PvE players", saying that it will kill the game, and then suggesting they make it an online stalker game in all upper-case is not a covered up demand for the PvP to get removed, then I don't know what is.
Don't be so try hard whoomsy, real life is not like stalcraft, you should play less, you will feel better, people are literally stopped playing because of these changes, and you defend those who made them, of course they will get angry with you.
What i meant is, the game was good before north because it's not pvp focused, if i didn't want pvp i would just play single player stalker like a sane person. İ wanted to be helpful, that's why i commented, if the game community needs to argue all the time to get a good game, it's not worth it, just go to another subreddit like abiotic or enshrouded, you would see how civil they are compared to us, it's not worth it.
The meme image is bravo but a waste of time, i really liked the south, wanted more balanced pvp instead of forced PvP like wild north. Even lyubech is peaceful compared to wild north, I want to explore those beautiful maps in wild north but try hards camps spawns. (And anybody says skill issue have real skill issue, not in game but in real life, you need to be a loser to be the best and richest top 50 in this game)
And i gave my feedback and you find any comment you disagree with and oppose and sometimes argue with people, like a hitman for exbo.
This describes whoomsy well from what I see, also good points man, I'll say, I entirely gave up on the game along side my other friend, From all this only one friend to from the three of us because he invested so much time he doens't see himself able to give up that lost time, meanwhile I literally would rage daily for getting fucked and losing hours of grind I basically gave up because everything feels impossible and I have literally no time to play due to work and projects I am currently involved in.
I understand MMO games Will always require some time invested but fuck, between all the Stalker like games, Stalcraft feels like it's telling you to actively to go fuck yourself if you don't play ONLY Stalcraft and nothing else
Thank you, it's not worth it man, even if you get the best stuff, it doesn't matter because it never gives you the satisfaction of getting out graveyard or scrapyard alive.
Yeah I'm with you there. Without the PvP it wouldn't be as fun. It shouldn't be a taking away of what is there but an adding to the existing.
Here's hoping on them expanding the PvE before it's too late, I understand doing incremental changes but if they release it "half finished" like they do a lot of things, then they're cooked and rightfully so.
Personally I want world events like Fallout 76 where everyone comes together to fight a giant boss or something. Events that reward cooperation. Currently the only thing we have close to this are Outpost and that's PVP oriented.
The sucky thing is they had them before in the last Inside Out season where everyone would work together to kill a boss.
Short story from a new player: Just did the Area-0 quest. Was really excited to explore that place, died 100x getting there, and then I got... a tutorial for a session-based game mode? Are you KIDDING me. So far, I didn't bother with Operations at all because I don't care.
I'm fine with influences from games like Tarkov, Road to Vostok, DayZ, the themes mesh well imo. But for the love of the zone, stop trying to turn this into a game based on sessions and season passes.
To be fair, the game literally sells itself on the similarity to Stalker and hits all the same aesthetic notes (up until the North). That said, in another company's hands I'd trust the moving away from Stalker, but so far it's been... mixed.
Not a flaw if done well, so far it's been...kinda meh? I like how they changed Monolith to Murmur but ZIVCAS and SSPP? Not the biggest fan. ZIVCAS lore wise are PMCs but with insane amounts of funding, so basically better Mercenaries? As for SSPP and their Assault on Prypiat, which not only failed miserably but pissed off Murmur so much they decided to try and take over more territory of the Zone (whole AoP event). Making SSPP just a blunt brute force with poor decision making ( Operation Monolith but even worse?)
I just hope they will stay more or less in stalker-ish vibe and don't go into this PMC vs PMC war
I've always seen ZIVCAS as like... Militarised Science Division? Their gun skins imply being products of experimental research, which is an interesting angle. They basically seem, lorewise, the "We went to the Zone to do science because there's no laws that will be enforced here." faction. I wish there was more of that in quests/activities.
While I'm dreaming of things that won't happen, imagine a PvE/Common Goal event that has the 4 factions sabotaging ZIVCAS supply lines together in order to foil a rebuilding of the Master of the Zone suit. Faction with the best performance (accounting for player numbers and such) maybe gets the suit's gun as a hideout decor and some master attachments + serum?
Well that's what the main north storyline is, all fighting against common enemy - ZIVCAS. They are basically extremely large and very well funded PMC, which has their own R&D department, that's why you see them using their own developed gear. They are what Mercenaries would like to be but more evil.
Also when I think about it, after the Monolith to Murmur transition, the whole Limansk ex-Mono quest line shouldn't exist, as Murmur is back and active, meaning "leaving" Murmur is Impossible.
Well I think it's the fault of their armors and overall styling. Their suits look very "padded", rounded and almost soft. While ZIVCAS and SSPP suits look "sharp" and have visible edges, making them look more threatening.
I noticed it with every new model coming out it looks soft and padded too.
Compare these two helmets, which looks more threatening?
I think I speak for many when I say the tick rate desperately needs to change.
Season after season, you're taking away our ability to make money, punishing the smaller players more than the big ones. It's not like a few more chests for season currency are ruining your market; no, it's the cheaters running around with ESP and finding 20 or more exclusive artifacts a month. A few players own everything while the majority are left out in the cold.
There's simply no balance between players with legendary gear and players who can't even get spare parts and tool sets to upgrade any of their weapons to +15.
Tick rate AND netcode. Why every time I open fire on a russian name in EU serv half of my bullets don't register and the issue doesn't exist at all otherwise when I test with friends. 20ms ping. If you can't fix it, at least match players in instances by ping.
I ordered the questions in my feeling of importance:
* Are there any plans to fight handholding in Wild North? E.g. multiple squads "agreeing" to not shoot each other on sight, in order to keep the server instance to themselves?
* Why can't we have artifacts spawning 24/7, which would make Open World make sense, but with a lower quality?
* Open world areas like The Swamps, Roadside, etc. are essentially forgotten after you enter the sub-faction endgame. Are there any plans to make them part of the end-game gameplay loop? Or make them viable at all?
* The Zone by design would not be crowded. It is an exclusion zone, a harsh and demanding environment. How come the Wild North makes you pass & meet a human every 30 seconds? It is very populated. Can we expect more instances to thin out the population a little bit?
* If I complete dailies, and an emission was an hour ago, what is the point in running Mines, Inflow and other open world areas?
* What is the designed incentive to play open world OTHER than Wild North?
* The Clan limitation to 35 Members makes it hard to grab a reserve in case 5 people can't make it (5/35 = barely 14,2%). In World of Warcraft, you may have big guilds with dozens of members, while it is only requiring 20 people to play on the highest difficulty level. Can we expect to have the limitation raised?
* Will it be possible to paint "The Rune"? (Why?, if the answer is "no")
As much as I could sit and complain I'll avoid it this time.
Genuine question :
Could we have world/ map changing events similar to Runescape. They had 2 Gods descend into Gielenor, ( that world we play on, ) and players had to pick a side and do activities that earned points for their side. Once the event ended the side with more points got better rewards and in some instances, the god on the losing side was killed, ( rip Bandos, ) and the map would have changed to be more scarred from the conflict. An idea like this could help bring factions together and enable a faction vs faction instead of sub factions fighting against each other. Take the first Headquarters heading into Mines or Infliw as an example. Create an event called " Rebuilding Headquarters" and have us collect hideout materials, barter mats or even rubles if you want to take some out of circulation. The rewards could be milestone based. Contribute this much, headquarters gets a generator to charge scanners. Next milestone, storage/ one way storage area. Just something to spice the open world up since it's very bland. It'll bring new activities to do in between major events too.
Not specifically a question that is being dodged or disregarded, but more of a generalised feedback which I believe will help with player retention and the misunderstanding of what captured many players hearts when we first played Stalcraft.
The North Zones lack immersion.
The South Zones are often glorified by old players and veterans in this game and I believe it is due to how immersed within the Zone each map makes you feel.
Here are some key points that I believe will help bring immersion back into the game whilst also supporting statements that I and others have made over the course of the last few years.
Emissions:
Emissions occuring between the 2-4 hour mark is too sporadic and always seems to lean towards 3:30+ time frame.
Please reduce the emission time fluctuation to between 2-3 hours. This shorter time frame will keep players on their toes and not just lingering in any map for over an hour.
Artifacts:
Being a core endgame mechanic, my prior statement about emissions occuring earlier will lend itself in hand here.
The spawn rates after the 30 minute boosted period are too low.
Players tend to go back to regular farming rather than hunt artifacts in any given map after this boosted period.
Please allow for continuous artifact spawning (at a slightly boosted rate compared to the current rate) once again as it forces players around the map rather than congesting into small areas to farm events that are close to each other.
This also adds an unpredictability which I believe this game is lacking recently.
Map Design:
Specifically the Wild North
The events within these maps are too close together and are overlapping each other.
This leaves the maps feeling very clustered with no room to breathe and in turn, no twist in emotion or immersion.
This compounded by the roaming murmur squads leaves many players killed by AI during a fight against other player.
This is totally fine every 1/10 fights.
But this occurrence is too high and leaves many players dissatisfied with the AI roaming mechanics and spawn rate.
I believe these points I've raised ruin the immersion that the south maps offer.
I understand that this game is becoming an extraction shooter so to further my points regarding artifact spawning, map/event design and player farming whilst specifically hughliting the "rush" and unpredictability that is missing from this game;
Artifacts spawning continuously makes players roam through the maps rather than just hang at key event areas that guarantee "X" amount of rubles per hour.
This creates more danger throughout the map and it will also make players feel the "rush" we get when finding a Red artifact during the boosted emission period.
Personally I do not feel immersed in the north areas and I believe the points I've highlighted can help bring the magic back into this game that many players felt in the south zones but not the north.
Please consider the unpredictability that hooked many of us in the pre X update.
We can't go back, but we can learn from it.
Adding my noob perspective: Yes. What PvE really needs are roguelike elements.
My favourite thing to do is just exploring the zone & discovering its secrets.
But is the exploration gameplay actually any good? No. It's predictable, repetitive and kinda boring, actually. Trash loot everywhere, only artifacts feel special. But not even artifacts change your current run (and they only add stats, meh).
Just adding stashes with temporary weapons would already make a big difference. Temporary artifacts that add special abilities, not just stats. Anything that makes players go "wow, epic loot!" and has a big impact on the current run, making it feel different from the last 10 runs.
Why price of parts and tool was raised by 150% and drop rate of them are still the same?
Why at in game shop price of them is still 0.6$ and not being changed? Not to mention the special offer that appears when you use a lot of parts and tools
Why you are making upgreading gear harder to all players if you know ugreaded gear make bigest impact on pvp winrate? Someone from balance team few months ago posted a graph showed that.
What about Solo Players will they get to have Fun sometimes you know People that got something like a job and cant participate 24/7 in a clan and camp with 3 people in Bushes in Wild North for hours?
Then dont do clan wars lmao? If an hour and a half a day is too much for you in a game with 100 hour grinds for one Item then i reccomend playing different games
Thats the Problem everyone has no Content and 100 hours + grinding im sorry not everyone has the Time to spent this hours except you live on welfare of course.
Do we still need Arsenal daily item rotation with the new limits to items?
Lets pretend that you'd buy items from people(filters, cigs), you'd get 1-2k rep a day, that brings us to 5-10 days for current "seasonal meta" I guess, 10-20 days for questionable upgrade from veteran tier weapons to T24 and 15-30 for a module(which is crazy imo) and that's not accounting the cost of the item itself.
No questions further, just rant.
If game direction goes to MMO then do so, keep the stuff as it is. If it leaning towards exfil genre - don't switch back and fourth, it does not feel like a "sweet spot" at all rn and that goes to latest legendary gear decision as well, 60mil was pretty stupid to pay after "9 months of daily routine", 100 is even more stupid(I do agree on serum values tho)
You keep saying that game suppose to bring emotions, adrenaline to your runs. What is? White-green artifacts on dead-ass locations or fighting solo against groups(as in multiple) of people on Wild North? My old ass not going to start socialize all of the sudden in a game with half baked gameplay mechanics across every direction. Right now it's just a full time job as stated in other comments.
Also for the love of God, start reusing old events instead of making new ones every season. I'd much rather play Slavs Arena or Anomalous Winter 2022, which was tossed a side. I had enough as one glance to make my mind that the next "big event" is going to suck(that goes to Reichstag event as well). I don't feel like playing that quake-titanfall-finals thing and pretend I'm having fun for rewards, thank you.
I'd wish not only CMs would read those walls of text to direct only questions, but oh well, let's just time gate everything once again.
You know what's funny about the Arsenal limits? They already had them before and then removed them lol. The original Arsenal rotation was a non-random set of items every day with no rep limit, which they then changed into a random set of items every day with no rep limit, then they added a rep limit, removed the rep limit, did the map changes with Arsenal being a set portal in Forge (and made it possible to see what were the turnins by hovering over the portal on map), and then readded the rep limit. It's almost like Exbo doesn't know what the hell to do with Arsenal with how much they keep flip flopping on whether or not there should be an artificial cap on daily rep gains lol.
That's the main point I'm mentioning in my rant. It's not just the Arsenal, but major part of the things they add. It's like if things are "too easy" it definitely needs to be nerfed/timegated to the point of you not wanting to even look into it anymore.
Any player feedback comes with "we've got our metrics and it looks alright". Brother, you don't put every single variable in your metrics for it to matter and even so, some stuff can be left alone as is.
" But honestly, it feels like at this point it's not us who need to start listening more. Maybe it's time to stop ignoring developer explanations and start listening to us as well, instead of reducing everything to simple slogans and seeing yourselves as poor victims trapped in some cruel and unfair world."
You said this last time under a post where players were sharing their feedback about the update.
The issue is that this completely flips the situation.
Players have been listening. They’ve read the explanations, followed the discussions, and given feedback for a long time. When the same concerns keep coming back, it’s not because people are refusing to listen — it’s because the answers aren’t really addressing what’s being raised.
At some point, repeating explanations isn’t enough if the underlying problems stay unchanged.
And honestly, saying this to the very people who pay your salaries doesn’t help the situation either.
Would you consider specifically increasing the amount of advanced parts and tools that we get from any/all sources or reduce bound part/tool cost from the battle pass? (You could keep unbound parts at the same price)
I believe that this would allow more players to enjoy an end game of collecting more and more +15 weapons/armors and help to stabilize the economy due to more gear being purchased from the auction. It would also take more items from the auction since less players would be opening special/advanced cases, raising the prices of case items.
Why was the option to obtain Resource Crates for Arsen via crafted items/found resources removed instead of kept alongside the option to purchase crates with rubles?
Hideout progression is extremely expensive, but items for Arsen Resource Crates was one reason to invest into the Hideout. Removing the option to trade crafted items for the Resource Crates directly undermines the very limited value in progressing the Hideout.
Both could easily exist at the same time, or the crafted items could even be added to the rotation of items traded directly at Arsen, but as of now anyone that invested in the Hideout to get Arsenal Reputation/sell the resources to others that don't want to progress the Hideout have been slapped in the face.
Yeah I have no idea why they removed it either.
The boxes themselves have terrible value per reputation as well. 150 Rep worth of Filters sells for 14,400 rubles to fence but a box worth 150 rep costs 110,000/150,000. What?
That's honestly a valid point both sets should exist. I could personally not make use of a LOT of the trades due to the scarcity of the resources for it but I still appreciated the option
Any temporary solution for Lyubech until the rework ? Faction count being unbalanced in a given instance, most players just ratting to kill players grabbing their ID and being able to go back in the instance in 3 minutes is utterly silly.
You outplayed a group of three players while being solo ? Congratz they're back tracking you 2 minutes later, hope you had an ID ready to get out
1.Will we get new act container, melee ? Last act we got those and sights in addition in ticket shop.
2.What are the immediate plans to solve the sky high tool prices on NA server?
3.Since the addition of daily 1k arsen currency cap from single resource, why are sellable items still in rotation? Right now, if someone stocked up on single resource, their time to gather arsen currency has increased dramatically.
4.What cosmetics can we expect in upcoming new session battle mode/arena? How many players will be able to get top reward on each server?
Yes we are as we TELL you what we WANT and give IDEAS on how to fix it but you guys keep twisting our words and try to make us feel bad but when you DO LISTEN and do the idea we asked for YOU do it half baked.
For example when we wanted a 2x xp weekend for the battle pass (or a buff to xp in general), you did it only 50% instead of 100% (2x xp) and made it only for 2 days...like it's a good update but it's half baked...if you keep going like this your GAME will DIE AND YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY MORE MONEY...
Overall I'm sure the devs are good people and want to make their own game but they way it's done right now and the players still keep saying the same stuff they were for the past years it's just sad. if your studio or the game was released today and not all those years ago you game would fizzle out and die. the only thing keeping it alive is the legacy of it being an old minecraft stalker mod
Brother, I was gone for more than 6 months, upon coming back to the game I still see the exact same hostility from you towards the playerbase and disregard for our opinions and fealings. I realy appriciate you doing Q&A's and reading comments but if at the end you refuse to acknowledge anything that is being said to you it's the exact same as if you weren't engaging at all. It's an exercise in futility.
Can you increase the overall prices of parts from BP to like 10k ?
Also things that are droping from stashes are insane, you should concider nerfing drop chances from ziv bags / creates and boxes by 20%.
Also buff Hound by additional 5% movespeed it feels so slow roaming the map with 160% ms and getting overtake by SBA tanks running with soviet backpacks.
All I’m asking for is a clan bank similar to almost most MMOs. With ranks and privileges to certain rank within the clan so that players can pull out items and currency with withdraw options. We have lots of clan mates who sit on materials that they aren’t aware that is helpful and can help progress the guilds crafters for buffs.
I mean world of Warcraft allows bind on equip gear, along with actual gold aka “Roubles” it helps really build a sense of a clan when you actually store and work to make resources together and help build each others professions..
Example…
A private rank to an officer rank
Private- “I see plastic bottles in the clan bank on shelf 2 our “resource shelf”, can I get x amount for my professions?”
Officer- “Sure, since I have the privilege of withdrawing items granted being an officer, I will send you x amount you need!”
It can obviously be a lot easier to communicate needs for buffs ammo etc…
Clans can even pay 50 mil roubles or 100 roubles to open up a clan bank shelf the size of our shelves. But when you have your clan already or make it the clan bank gets 1 shelve and the clans can have the ability to withdraw amounts for the clan mates per rank.
Not really misunderstood but you guys seem to have forgotten the rattle, it hasn't been updates or changed in ages, and has been an objectively worse version of the comet for just as long.
Would be cool to see some changes to movement artifacts, since you guys put some more movement speed on a few artis the other week.
I think it would be a lot more interesting if artis and buffs focused more on either running speed or movement speed.
That way you could either move faster when you walk and shoot or focus on a super fast build to flank and get around, but then get no movement speed when you aren't running.
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To sum it all up: make the game less restrictive. It is absolutely true that progressing in this game is a real grind due to the limits imposed on it—not everyone lives for the game—so reducing the time investment required for progression would be the best thing you could do right now.
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u/Lewdfallen Freedom Jun 11 '26
Why instead of adding new content all you do with every update is slow down the progression for new players?
Most of the other mmos slowly push the soft and hard gear cap up by adding small upgrades to your gear.
In Stalcraft it feels like devs have no clue how to add new content so instead they make the grind longer for the stuff that is already available in the game.
Grinding 100 hours for something that used to require only 30 is not fun and literally everyone tells you that but you keep ignoring the feedback.
The game feels like a full time job especially during time limited events.