Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

[ERYFKRAD]

MGS5 game world is empty because of the same reason MGS5 is an incomplete game.

Cipher?

 

[Average Manatee]

Nope, been caught in them.

Well, you have to watch your placement, you don't need to be fully inside them (maybe you exposed an arm or whatever), you can stay a bit behind, the bush acts like a wall, it's better explained in this short video (activate subtitles):

Maybe that bush works, but this doesn't. Just got spotted at normal prone range, seems to have no effect on visbility. And this looks like it should be way stronger than the stuff in that video.

If concealment is unreliable then it can't be relied upon. I've literally never been able to do what that video showed (not that I've tried often).

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Finished my first mission of the main questline yesterday - rescuing that maimed dude in the russian camp. I don't know who he is but I gather he's someone important to Snake and appeared in previous MGS games? It kind of lacks power when you have to sit through a long sentimental cut-scene and you don't even know who the fuck the guy is, but I should probably just respond to the image of a maimed solider who I'm sure was quite a brave soul, though I had to rescue him and haven't seen any actual evidence of that. I'm starting to see the kinks of this game. At first I approached the camp all stealthy and shit, then when I was spotted I ran. Several times. Then I realized I didn't really have to. I can just point my gun and they all fall down. This isn't hardcore shit. Vanilla game difficulty seems designed for people who have never even picked up a gamepad and played a video game before. Hopefully this is only because it's the beginning game.

The first encounter with The Skulls was moderately interesting but also too easy to do what I needed to do - run away and avoid them. So far not digging it as much as Ground Zeroes because of the dramatically lesser difficulty. I think I need a pep talk here to continue.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

This isn't hardcore shit.

Download the Hardcore mod if you want some actual difficulty. Otherwise you'll get bored even before leaving for Africa.

EDIT:
The Hardcore mod increases enemy awareness, decreases available ammo, makes silencer wear faster, incraeses the cost of motherbase drops (and chopper), increases weapon damage, increases time before the auto-heal kicks in and makes camo more useful.

https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidvtpp/mods/269/

 

[Jack Of Owls]

This isn't hardcore shit.

Download the Hardcore mod if you want some actual difficulty. Otherwise you'll get bored even before leaving for Africa.

I might just do that. That Infinite Heaven mod or whatever it's called seems way too intricate and confusing to configure. I kind of want something simple that just ramps difficulty up to something less ridiculous but doesn't change too many things or confuses the fuck out of me with so many options to tick.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I kind of want something simple that just ramps difficulty up to something less ridiculous but doesn't change too many things or confuses the fuck out of me with so many options to tick.

Get the OSP mod, go in naked.
I don't find having guns and being able to shoot back fair ground, so that's what I did.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I kind of want something simple that just ramps difficulty up to something less ridiculous but doesn't change too many things or confuses the fuck out of me with so many options to tick.

Get the OSP mod, go in naked.
I don't find having guns and being able to shoot back fair ground, so that's what I did.

That's an interesting idea but maybe too hardcore for me. Plus I don't think a character like Snake would allow himself to be so defenseless, and that's strictly me speaking coming from the role-playing school of PC gaming. One thing I tend to do now in gaming that I didn't care about before is avoiding The Kill. Every chance I got in my play through of recent AC games I'd knock adversaries out instead of killing them. Sometimes I'd hear conversations between two soldiers or guards about how disgusted they are that their commanders are forcing them to kill or oppress innocents so I got into the habit of trying to go for no-kills of all small fish and saving the slaughter for the real bastards. Maybe it's old age creeping in. I just don't like to indiscriminately kill anymore. At least MGS allows no-kills which is very cool. In Sniper Elite 4 not only are you forced to kill EVERYONE but are presented with a slow-motion gore-shot of their tongues being blown out their asses to remind you that you just killed that poor dumb German soldier whose biggest sin was that he was born with a swastika over his crib.

 

[Ereshkigal]

JackOfOwls try this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634320005 it's a very balanced challenge for those getting into the game. You can't choose to play as a normal soldier yet but try the rest of the rules. Also getting rid of markers and enemy presence makes playing the game more challenging as well.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

JackOfOwls try this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=634320005 it's a very balanced challenge for those getting into the game. You can't choose to play as a normal soldier yet but try the rest of the rules. Also getting rid of markers and enemy presence makes playing the game more challenging as well.

Thanks for the mod pointers, guys. Yes, that's a great tip about removing a lot of the hand-holding elements from HUDs. I was playing AC: Origins about a month ago and enjoying the game but something felt really off about it, that really deterred from the experience. Then the game became so much more enjoyable once I selected the Minimum on-screen HUD configuration (default was Full). I no longer felt like a drooling mental defective led on a leash and shown to go here... then there. Or at least I didn't feel as much of a retard because some game designs unfortunately make it that if you don't use certain hand-holding features, you can't find your mission goal.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

That's an interesting idea but maybe too hardcore for me. Plus I don't think a character like Snake would allow himself to be so defenseless, and that's strictly me speaking coming from the role-playing school of PC gaming.

As long as you can toss a punch you're not defenseless. That's coming from the barbarian school of gaming.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

That's an interesting idea but maybe too hardcore for me. Plus I don't think a character like Snake would allow himself to be so defenseless, and that's strictly me speaking coming from the role-playing school of PC gaming.

As long as you can toss a punch you're not defenseless. That's coming from the barbarian school of gaming.

Is that an actual mechanic in Metal Gear Solid V? Melee fighting? I'm still discovering lots of things about the game and I know that you can grab from behind or charge someone and put them in a lock but it would be cool to actually fight hand-to-hand or whack them with whatever's nearby be it chair or wooden commode seat cover a la Yakuza.

 

[ultimanecat]

If the Hardcore mod lets you modify values, I’d give it a try and set enemy sight to 150%-200%. I also raised enemy hearing to 150% but be aware that you can’t sneak up on enemies unless prone with it that high, and enemies will generally be able to hear you in the next room of a building if you aren’t prone as well. You can also set your health to 50% or below to make combat more lethal. Infinite Heaven also has a setting to place all enemies in a persistent alert phase; you can set it for instance so that enemies are always in the phase where they know an intruder exists but haven’t seen you for a while and are more agitated.

Also keep in mind that early on you’re fighting low-skill soldiers with low AI and no prep. As the game goes on their recognition/reaction times and movement speed increase and they can have equipment meant to counter your playing style. Ultimately it’s subtle and not a night-and-day thing but it’s a built-in feature. You can set these values as well in Infinite Heaven.

There’s not a huge incentive to go non-lethal, since you can still S-rank the missions easily without the non-lethal bonuses. If you are consistently killing everything you may end up with the cosmetic changes to your model signifying that, but as far as I know it has no gameplay significance other than preventing you from having a 100% chance to Fulton injured ones. I personally find it a bit more interesting to limit myself to non-lethal weapons as much as possible and going loud and lethal when I’ve fucked up bad enough to have the whole place coming down on me (instead of reloading), but that’s personal preference. Not much is going to change the core gameplay, though, so it’s all very much a case of whether you can find a way to play that’s fun and challenging for you. For instance, I don’t go full OSP but I never call in supplies once I’ve started unless the mission calls for explosives and I can’t carry enough. Later on you might choose not to use certain buddies since they can make the game significantly easier. Ultimately if you don’t like it then there’s nothing wrong with putting the game down - it has problems and nobody will say it’s perfect. It is, however, a sandbox MGS game, which means that many of the criticisms for both sandbox and MGS games apply, but also many of the aspects people praise.

If you try out Infinite Heaven and need help configuring it or want me to post my .ini, let me know.

 

[Ereshkigal]

Is that an actual mechanic in Metal Gear Solid V? Melee fighting? I'm still discovering lots of things about the game and I know that you can grab from behind or charge someone and put them in a lock but it would be cool to actually fight hand-to-hand or whack them with whatever's nearby be it chair or wooden commode seat cover a la Yakuza.

You can use a series of CQC moves... on the top of my head:

-With your prosthetic arm equipped instead of the pistol, you can run towards enemies and unleash a powerful punch by pressing R2 or whatever key you have for shooting
-In normal stance while standing, press the same button (from now on, R2) in succession to make a combo (3-hit if you're behind the enemy, 5-hit if you're not). Both this and the running punch described above will leave the enemy unconscious for several minutes
-If you prefer, while you're in the middle of that combo you can press the aim button instead (think R2 + R2 + aim) to disarm and hold up the enemy. From there you can interrogate him or tell him to lie down (they will remain like that until another enemy discovers him or youd get discovered). You can also disarm him, release quickly the buttons to drop the weapon and he'll try to use a pistol, where you can try to disarm him again. This is useful for OSP missions where you're in need of a pistol.
-Aiming to them from behind will result in the same hold up pattern described. Be wary because the AI in this game is adaptative, and if you try that too much they'll start countering that by slowly reaching to their knife and counter-attack you. It's easy to spot anyways, and you can always immediately press the interrogation button after holding them up, if the interrogation options don't appear, he's about to strike.
-If you deploy at night, you can use the weapon's flashlight to blind them for a moment.
-When hiding behind a corner/rock/obstacle, you can produce noise to have the enemies' attention. When he's about to get to you, tap the R2 button to make an awesome knockout movement. Or you can maintain the button pressed to hold them.
-If you're inside a container, you can do something similar, pressing R2 when they come to investigate. If they see you entering a toilet, use the quick dive button instead (try this too when inside a box).
-Pressing R2 while simultaneously pressing a movement key will result in a knockdown animation. These tend to be short knockouts, the enemy will wake up quickly, but are useful if you're about to be discovered by another enemy and don't want to sit out the whole brawl animation. The neat thing with this is that you can use it up to 4-5 times in a row to knock down several enemies at once.
-If you're holding an enemy and have a wall/obstacle nearby, you can throw the enemy towards to it by facing the enemy to the wall and using direction + R2
-A personal favorite, if you're running towards an enemy you can use the quick dive button to knock him out briefly. He won't be unconscious but you can aim a gun to hold him down. Very useful if a close enemy discovers you and you want to avoid the alert quickly. If the lad is far from you and you don't want to get any alerts, you can quickly shot him once with a lethal weapon before he gives the alarm, it will give you a couple of seconds to react without killing him.
-If you're above an enemy (on a roof, stairs, whatever), you can use the quick dive button and fall above him. Depending on height, it will render him unconscious or not, but you have a few seconds to react, and it's funny.
-You have an enemy on your shoulders and another fella discovers you? simply use his colleague and throw him towards the enemy
-When prone, you can also press R2. If facing down, Snake will knock them down with the arm, use that time to hold them up. Alternatively when facing up, snake will use his leg (useful after a failed hold up when the enemy strikes you with his knife)
-Some prosthetic upgrades can let you electrocute the enemy, use your arm like a rocket and more.
-Not really CQC, but there are no rules about running over enemies with vehicles, keep it in mind.
-Or calling a supply box on their heads...
-You can fulton a guy, and then shoot the balloon. They'll fall unconscious.
-If an enemy is a level above and needs to go down a ladder, you can get their attention by producing noise, then wait down there in the ladder (they won't see you). Watch what happens when their feet meet your head.
-Another non-CQC move, but too funny not to mention, you can plant C4 in the enemies' backs. Can be useful to solve some objectives as well.
-If a soldier is driving a vehicle, you have a few options; use your horse or another vehicle and hit them to the sides with a well timed bump. Or shoot to the tyres. In missions where you have to catch an objective moving in vehicles, you can use this tactic, they'll have no other option than to traverse the map by foot.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

-If a soldier is driving a vehicle, you have a few options; use your horse or another vehicle and hit them to the sides with a well timed bump. Or shoot to the tyres. In missions where you have to catch an objective moving in vehicles, you can use this tactic, they'll have no other option than to traverse the map by foot.

Of course you could also have the horse plant horse poop on the guy's path if it's a truck or a Jeep.

 

[Average Manatee]

-If a soldier is driving a vehicle, you have a few options; use your horse or another vehicle and hit them to the sides with a well timed bump. Or shoot to the tyres. In missions where you have to catch an objective moving in vehicles, you can use this tactic, they'll have no other option than to traverse the map by foot.

Of course you could also have the horse plant horse poop on the guy's path if it's a truck or a Jeep.

That works?

I just parked my horse in the middle of the road and ran up from behind to fulton it while they stopped and yelled at the horse.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

If they drive over the horse poop the vehicles spin out of control so they're stunned for a bit.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

If they drive over the horse poop the vehicles spin out of control so they're stunned for a bit.

I seem to remember an old MS-DOS racing game where you raced against AI or other players in split screen, and you could toss buckets of feces from the vehicle at one another to slow them down or something. I know it sounds like something only a scat fetishist would code for a tiny niche audience or as a novelty game but it was actually an AAA release for its time, I believe. I remember my brother being really into it. This reminded me of that.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Okay, after much jumping through fucking hoops and wondering why I just kept getting an infinite loading screen on startup, I finally got the latest Infinite Heaven mod installed. This game cries out to be modded so let the fun begin! Already was able to disable several nag screens at startup so it's looking promising, boys. I'll look up some documentation on what are some fun options but if anyone has IH settings that they really like and recommend feel free to post them. Later.

 

[†††]

Okay, after much jumping through fucking hoops and wondering why I just kept getting an infinite loading screen on startup, I finally got the latest Infinite Heaven mod installed. This game cries out to be modded so let the fun begin! Already was able to disable several nag screens at startup so it's looking promising, boys. I'll look up some documentation on what are some fun options but if anyone has IH settings that they really like and recommend feel free to post them. Later.

Disabling Helicopter rides in mission beginning is the most essential. Fuck "muh immershun", Kojima.

 

[Average Manatee]

150% enemy day/night sight and 50% player health is a good "this is what normal should be like" difficulty setting. You can reasonably still fight your way through if spotted on a mission but can't simply run past whole groups of soldiers eating bullets to heal up later in 10s. Bump it up to 175%/25% if you want to be a bit more hardcore, though keep in mind that at that point certain missions are definitely not balanced.

If you ever want to play around with any of the overpowered high-tier stuff, set all your materials to the max allowable. Otherwise the only way to get them is to grind the online crap endlessly. The whole "realism" aspect of building up resources to unlock higher tier stuff clearly goes out the window when a slightly better rifle costs 2 million GMP and 50 thousand of some materiel. It's clearly set up to force players to pay real money to unlock everything. Even with this you'll never actually unlock everything since that requires the online currency to purchase additional FOBs.

Unlock weapon customization if you want to play around with weapon parts. For some reason its locked behind post-game content.

Turn on vehicle reinforcements and patrols if you want to see more cool stuff running around.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

It's clearly set up to force players to pay real money to unlock everything.

Only if you rush through the game but want all the stuff anyway.

Unlock weapon customization if you want to play around with weapon parts. For some reason its locked behind post-game content.

You can get that shit pretty early iirc.

 

[Average Manatee]

It's clearly set up to force players to pay real money to unlock everything.

Only if you rush through the game but want all the stuff anyway.

Unlock weapon customization if you want to play around with weapon parts. For some reason its locked behind post-game content.

You can get that shit pretty early iirc.

I did a huge amount of side ops before finishing the game. Probably ~80% of them all. I didn't unlock the side op to unlock weapon customization until after the final sahelanthropus fight and still had 3-4 tiers of shit on every development screen left to unlock at that point (though the top tier or two was clearly also locked behind needing to shell out for FOBs).

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I did a huge amount of side ops before finishing the game. Probably ~80% of them all. I didn't unlock the side op to unlock weapon customization until after the final sahelanthropus fight

Pretty sure the "save the weapon smith" side-ops are pretty early on, maybe you missed it?

still had 3-4 tiers of shit on every development screen left to unlock at that point (though the top tier or two was clearly also locked behind needing to shell out for FOBs).

Yeah those last couple tiers are pretty out there cost-wise but they are just piling it on, why pay for shit when you have played the game to death already anyway. Just saying the game in no way requires you to invest any money to get to the "stupid fun shit".

 

[Average Manatee]

I did a huge amount of side ops before finishing the game. Probably ~80% of them all. I didn't unlock the side op to unlock weapon customization until after the final sahelanthropus fight

Pretty sure the "save the weapon smith" side-ops are pretty early on, maybe you missed it?

Looking online it seems that side ops in the same place can block it, so maybe one of the side ops I already did was available and blocked it? I dunno. If that's the case then the system is broken if repeatable missions that have already been done can block new missions, so manually unlocking it is reasonable. Point is that I didn't even know that weapon customization existed until I was 90% done with the game and it really feels like I missed out.

Yeah those last couple tiers are pretty out there cost-wise but they are just piling it on, why pay for shit when you have played the game to death already anyway. Just saying the game in no way requires you to invest any money to get to the "stupid fun shit".

Still no reason not to just up the money and resources to 10x. It's not like the game is a survival simulator where resource management and starvation is an issue. If you want to unlock cool things like, say, an underbarrel flash round launcher for your rifle (req both weapon customization and some fairly advanced grenade launcher tiers), you'll probably want to avoid the grind. You can get a decent amount of GMP from missions and side ops but materials are simply not obtainable in good quantities outside of multiplayer crap. Picking up cases of 100 or extracting giant containers that have only 750 is a joke compared to the tens of thousands needed to develop your base, whereas MP can deliver 5k+ of all material types in one mission.

 

[sullynathan]

I unlocked and did the side op for weapon customization relatively early