I'm trying very, very hard to so much as enjoy playing the first STALKER game, :Shadow of Chernobyl.

There single biggest problem facing me in respect to this game is that the combat doesn't make sense, stemming from the fact that STALKER is neither a FPS but what I like to call a First-Person RPG. In a FPS if you can see it and aim, you can probably hit it (some games have more advanced projectile physics), but in a First-Person RPG the stats on the weapon can greatly affect your ability to hit accurately. Some games, like Fallout 3, are more stat-heavy when it comes to combat, while other games, like System Shock 2, are more skill-heavy.

I mention this to demonstrate that once I realised what sort of game it was I conditioned my expectations appropriately, given how I've been able to identify other games with a similar take on combat that fall into the First-Person RPG category.

My problem with STALKER comes in just how frustratingly heavy the stat-based weaponry is in the game. The first pistol you get from Wolf is remarkably inaccurate and attempting to line up a target with the iron sight is even less accurate. Were it not for the fact that I'm a damn good Killing Floor player and used to aiming without a scope and, alternatively, with iron sights, I'd think that I simply suck at aiming. That's not the case here. From various distances I can actually aim better with the crosshair that, for some reason, is more accurate than using the iron sight. This plays out in the first mission to rescue Nimble.

Enemies do not seem to have anywhere near the same problem and this is all on the second difficulty (Stalker, I think). To be fair, when they are killed they drop the same weapon that I'm using so their ability to fire should be, all things considered, just as accurate as mine -but it's not, they're significantly more accurate.

It's really turning me off to the game and as a fan of both FPS and First-Person RPGs I find this to be terribly unfortunate. I really want to like this game, I just don't want to have my FPS skills all but removed because of how stat-heavy the game is in respect to combat. If there is a way around this, a particular way to approach the game, I'd definitely like to read about it. For my part I'll keep trying for a few more days and feeling incredibly dirty for all the save-scumming I have to do.

Addendum
People can talk about attempts at realism and have a real point with that. It's not realistic to have hit-scan-like accuracy on a piddly-ass pistol. I can get behind that notion entirely. Realism, however, needs to be balanced with game-like play in something that isn't meant to be a strict simulation because the player is going to come up against actions they should be able to do but cannot (cross 'invisible walls', swim, climb surfaces without a ladder, et al.). This means that a more strict notion of realism in respect to gun play is subverted by taking three point-blank body shots to kill a starving 'pseudodog'. Someone can, at that point, claim it to be some sort of mutated animal and, of course, again, this makes sense in STALKER...but for the purposes of gameplay we need to stop saying 'yes, but...' to excuse seemingly bad realism/gameplay balance.

A pistol is a short-range weapon. You're not going to be able to pick off guys at 100 yards with it. The stats on each weapon reflect realistic considerations behind each of the weapons, and once you recognize this it makes for good gameplay as well. Accuracy and recoil become very real considerations when choosing weapons, and your fighting style needs to match the kind of weapons you have available to you. If you've only got pistols/shotguns on you then you're going to need to get fairly close (hopefully staying in cover), while if you have a pretty accurate rifle you can fight well at range and will actually have a more difficult time up close. Something you'll also come across later on once you get long-range rifles is that bullets will actually drop as they travel, so for long shots you need to take this into account with your aiming. The STALKER games actually do a very good job of merging realism with good gameplay (in addition to having a pretty good AI for enemies), but it can take a little getting used to for those more accustomed to the traditional run-and-gun FPS games we see these days. Once you get past that acclimation period, though, you'll probably end up appreciating the way STALKER handles things.

Also, gotta disagree with Strijkbout about the utility of sniper rifles- the Vintar BC kicks some serious ass in just about any situation.

I got very frustrated with the terrible aim for the starting weapons when I first played STALKER.

STALKER COMPLETE makes the starting weapons suck less, and generally fixed all my annoyances with the game; I highly recommend anyone new to STALKER install it for a fun game.

As others have mentioned you want to get your hands on an assault rifle as soon as possible. The AKM-74/2 is a good choice here since it's reliable, easily acquired and uses a common ammo type; it can also can be fitted with a scope and so forth. I used a variant model of the AKM-74/2 on and off all the way to the end of the game.

Remember to unload your enemies' weapons (by right-clicking them in the inventory) if their guns have the type of ammo you are using. You'll often only get a few extra bullets this way but it all adds up. You can also remove scopes and other attachments from the right-click menu but they are not universally compatible (e.g. there are two different scopes, each only fitting specific models).

There is: it's called tactics. The game isn't stat-heavy at all. Weapons and armor have different characteristics and the differences are more like say in Counter-Strike rather than an actual FPP RPG like Borderlands - the key to winning is understanding the equipment you have at your disposal and making good use of it rather than just saying "okay, this weapon sucks, that's why I suck, I will just keep save spamming until I get my hands on some REAL weapons". You have to understand the characteristics of your weapons, your armor and the enemies' equipment, you have to get a feeling for these things and come up with the corresponding tactics. Yeah hitting an enemy with a pistol from a hundred meters is random and yeah, you will get hit by enemies if they just keep spamming lead at you and you're exposed. You have to understand the optimal range of the different weapons and balance it with your exposure and the ammo you have at your disposal. You can't hit an enemy from 100 meters? Try to make it ten, from there you will be perfectly able to make headshots. You die within seconds when getting too close? Well, use stealth and cover - both of which are extremely powerful in Stalker, especially since enemies will assume that you're somewhere near the point where they last saw you so often you can easily flank them and make a perfect shot without them even seeing you..

Although I'm not saying that you won't need to save and load a lot. You just want to keep that necessity rather low and understand *why* you have to load. I've died numerous times from one lucky headshot from a ridiculous range but I don't get frustrated by it, it happens, also to my enemies. Just understand that your enemies aren't just walking bags of loot that you kill to farm XP or gold, they are worthy opponents and each encounter is potentially tough unless you have indeed some epic equipment or enemies find themselves in a really crappy situation. I know that with comments like these I make people sometimes call me an "elitist asshole" (sic!) but frankly that's the main reason why I don't wanna use mods like those. It instantly makes it seem like the modders had very little appreciation for the original game and that's a really bad basis to convince me to apply their mod.

I'm glad that all of the responses so far have been serious, well-intentioned responses.

With that said, it seems that some people are missing my point because they are focused on disproving my point rather than looking at where I am coming from, why and working with that knowledge. I've explained my position fairly well and I am not going to over-explain or offer further details. What I will do is take a look at the general advice that I've seen given and infer two very important points: (1) the game takes a lot of getting used to and (2) the player starts out incredibly weak relative to their surroundings and given the game's mechanics.

When it comes down to it I can either accept that the game has a poor start and some important design flaws, working my way through until I get the hang of the game, or I can simply put the game down and come back to it later or not at all. In my current state of mind I simply don't have it in me to work through important design flaws. I hope to revisit the game at some point later in order to see the great things that other people see.

The key to the beginning portions of STALKER SoC is positioning, not aim. This is not necessarily a flaw, it's just a different kind of gunplay than the majority of FPSs (although SoC is certainlly filled with other flaws). At the very beginning, when you're forced to fight with pistols and shotguns, you should be thinking about how to get close to your opponents. I mean REALLY close. Flanking is often a good bet. When you're engaging them, don't count on killing them quickly. Expect fights to last a little while. Make sure you have a good amount of cover, and you have the ability to easily retreat into more cover if they start advancing. Later on, when you're dealing with submachineguns, the same rules apply. Think in terms of flanking and advancing. Don't expect to pop out and instantly headshot enemies. Play it safe. Also, be sure to fire in short bursts.

Also, keep in mind that iron sights are mostly a visual thing. They do increase your accuracy, but they don't "lock it" like most FPSs. In other words, moving around will still decrease your accuracy, and crouching will still increase it. In general, you want to "low crouch" by holding ctrl and shift whenever possible, as it makes you the most accurate. Also, your aim takes a moment to settle when you go into iron sight mode. So wait about 1 second before shooting.

If you want more info about weapon behavior, take a look at this: http://www.metacognix.com/stlkrsoc/WhatYouKnowThatAintSo.html

Also, please PLEASE at least give the base game a fair shake before installing Complete.

Good tips, but a key part of OP's problem is the disparity between how inaccurate guns are when the player uses them as opposed to when the NPCs use them, and unfortunately that's going to be a constant throughout the game, albeit one that gets mitigated by acquiring better and more accurate guns and by installing the Complete mod if one so chooses (well, in SoC, at least; installing Complete for CS still leaves the enemy with the ability to shoot the stinger off a wasp in a dark room).

I never really found that to be an issue, honestly. To me, it seems that the enemy is just as accurate as the player. And I've even tweaked the game to take out the hit_probability and hit_distance modifiers for enemy shots. In vanilla SoC, on the difficulty he's playing, even if enemy shots DO make contact more often than his own, they aren't doing damage half the time. And this will become even more true as the game goes on, and hit_distance starts to become a factor.

Shadow of Chernobyl is such a borked game :P

I'll admit that I could just have never noticed, since your relative weakness in the STALKER games is something I love about them, and I'm more likely to be irritated by things that give you an advantage than things that give you a disadvantage. Hence my dislike of Complete's "fish in a barrel" enemies.

Actually, I kept seeing a lot of definite misses on my part due to my missed shots going into a bit of wall or a protruding hill, which kicked up a lot of brown dust, making it very easy to confirm misses. The enemy, by contrast, almost never missed me, as I verified by running away and observing that almost no shots hit the rise in the road ahead of me and that I heard the wet sound of bullets hitting me far more often. Add in the way that the AI's accuracy never seems to waver due to darkness and you keeping your flashlight off, and the imbalance definitely starts to make itself felt.

Look, I played SoC many yonks ago when it first came out and liked it, I just played through it again modded a few months ago and fell in love with it, and when I saw that the series was being offered on GOG, I was all over it. My point is that while I do appreciate the series (or at the very least SoC, still working through the rest for the first time), I recognize that the ridiculous levels of marksmanship the AI is capable of is a design problem, and trying to address someone's concern over that by trying to, as OP mentioned, disprove the point raised as opposed to acknowledging that the concern is a legitimate one can be quite infuriating.

It's also infuriating when someone accuses a game that you love with false claims and that person has trouble liking that game due to his or her misconceptions. :P I'm just trying to clarify things and I've also tested things a lot and know that the AI does miss more often than it hits and wrong observations can be explained in a number of ways.

I just got finished getting my ass handed to me in a firefight that I absolutely should have won. The Obakon is a fairly good rifle at long range, or at least it was in SoC; now, it seems like even when aiming down the sights through a scope, each shot has an equal chance of veering off to the edge of the scope's FOV or hitting in a nonvital area that was nowhere near where I was aiming, despite me being prone and firing off single shots. The enemy, armed with the same weapon, stood in an upright position and leisurely fired on full auto from the hip while strafing and missed me twice, maybe three times, while the vast majority of his bullets had no trouble finding my face.

Distressed that my weapon had decided to have a much larger spray than the AI's, I spotted a pile of pipes behind the enemy encampment. I began rubbing my hands together in glee as I plotted to flank the enemy while a band of friendlies kept them distracted, blowing them away from the safety of cover with slugs and darts fired from the long barreled double shotty I keep on me for just such an occasion; after all, it has an almost perfect accurracy rating, which should make it easy to nail enemies at a few paces.

I got into position, delighted that the enemy hadn't spotted me, and I leveled the barrel right at the top of a dude's torso. The shot veered up and over his head to the right. I fired again, and this time the shot went just past his left ear. I kept firing like that for five minutes, and failed to hit a target that by all rights should have been dead six minutes ago. I tried a scavenged Vintorez, and was bewildered to see that this one had a comparable accuracy rating, yet the crosshair tightened up far more. Not that it mattered much, since I had yet another repeat of the shenanigans with shots at near point blank range coming nowhere near close.

At first I thought that the issue might be that my weapons had degraded, but then I remembered that degradation only affected the chance of the weapon to jam; at least, that's what it did in SoC, and I find it hard to believe that GSC would have turned around and have it start impacting accuracy in CS. Either way, I am far beyond the start of CS, and I am still experiencing a measurable imbalance between the AI and player accuracy to a degree that I never saw in SoC.

1) SoC is a FPS, not a RPG, at all, in any way whatsoever.

2) If you've ever done any real-world shooting, it's quite apparent that all the guns in SoC are unrealistically inaccurate.

3) The AI doesn't have some magically increased accuracy over the player, but it does have faster reflexes and tendency to expend lots and lots of ammo in the player's direction. Once you get a rifle with a scope, you can kill them from far enough away that they'll miss most of the time even though they keep shooting at you.

4) SoC is a FPS, not a RPG, at all, in any way whatsoever.