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Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Because you don't want to murder people?
 

Perkel

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Because you don't want to murder people?

He is right though. MGS has ton of options but you can't really use them when the most easy way is just to shoot things.
IMHO Infinite Heaven mod is mendatory for MGS5. You need to lower down health to something like 10% and then you finally get to see what is game about and how it actually works.

In previous games Higher difficulties forced you to play game properly with "the boss" hard being actually what developers intended lore wise.
 

ADL

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Infinite Heaven is fantastic and is indeed mandatory. Makes the open world feel much better rather than half-baked.
 
Unwanted

†††

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I tried playing the prequel, Ground Zero or whatever, was the most ridiculous shooting ever, I could run around and take out 50-60 enemies on hardest difficulty without using any tactics. If the main game is like that... why even use stealth...
how can guys miss the point this hard...

anyways, in TPP enemies adapt to your playstyle. Eventually you will get fecked by trying to Rambo your way out (snipers, helicopers, tanks, bazookas, armor).
 
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I think in good stealth games, there has to be threat of quick death if you Rambo around. Hitman games were like that (havent played the latest ones), Thief, etc. If you can easily run around killing everything, it makes stealth feel marginal.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
I think in good stealth games, there has to be threat of quick death if you Rambo around. Hitman games were like that (havent played the latest ones), Thief, etc. If you can easily run around killing everything, it makes stealth feel marginal.
I agree for the most part, although there are scores and rewards which you can only get if you play it with stealth.
 

cvv

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Infinite Heaven is good but it's barely a band aid on a broken leg. The game is awesome but it has a Mt. Fuji of problems this mod doesn't even touch. As I said:

There are quite a few problems with the stealth mechanics a simple cone of view can't fix. Enemies are blind if you crawl, deaf to sounds that logically should alert them, a running horse in battle gear with one leg hanging out doesn't bother them, they don't see anything particularly interesting about a walking cardboard box and many, many other issues, including the often illogical and inconsistent "No Traces" requirements.

Ideally mobs should see everything you would see, hear everything you'd hear and react to shit like actual people. "Quiet" shouldn't be able to swoosh around them completely unnoticed. Night should be darker than a slightly cloudy day (Thief got that nailed ages ago). Time shouldn't play any role whatsoever in a stealth game. Unguarded FOBs shouldn't give any rewards and rewards for raids in general should be drastically lowered to keep the main game looting and fultoning meaningful. Is there a mod for all that? Thought so.
 

Child of Malkav

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I think in good stealth games, there has to be threat of quick death if you Rambo around. Hitman games were like that (havent played the latest ones), Thief, etc. If you can easily run around killing everything, it makes stealth feel marginal.
In Thief you can't "Rambo around". In Hitman you can.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
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I also installed Infinite Heaven but it stopped working after a while and I don't know why.
I installed instead Ultimate Phantom Pain mod. While it doesn't change nearly as much as IH it is very customisable and hasn't caused any issue so far. I put all enemies at maximum preparedness and the game is tough now. Every enemy now has armor, or NVG, or travel in pairs, there are some cameras here and there, occasionally helicopters and instead of jeeps, there are tanks APCs, though rare.
I do plan on getting IH working again.
 

DJOGamer PT

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Is this game good? I never finished MGS 1 after being too dumb to figure the trick of a giant robot that shot city-destroying missiles into my face, and then lost interest in the series. But I liked some other things about it.

Since every trailer for 5 is nothing but cutscenes, I tried clicking around in a 2 hour gameplay video. 8 of my 10 clicks landed on cutscenes, which is not a good sign. The other two looked like some kind of third-person action game.

Amazing gameplay, mediocre campgain, piss easy difficulty
That's The Phantom Pain
Still recommend it, but make sure to install the Hardcore Mod (you can grab it on Nexus)
If you want a demo of what TPP will be like try out Ground Zeros first - you get the backstory and some great level design

But since you've played MGS1 I would say for you to first play MGS3 Subsistence
It's genuinely the best game Kojimbo made

Also, if want to know why MGS gained the fame it had (specially in the early 2000s) and where the whole "Cinematic Game" genre originated from, then play MGS2
Or just watch this instead:

 

Silverfish

Arbiter
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Dec 4, 2019
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You're gonna get sick of the heli rides pretty quick, my man.

027df63973f39c1a-600x338.jpg


Will I, though?
 
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Sep 1, 2020
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I prefer the Ultimate Phantom Pain mod to Infinite Heaven, as it gives you control over the value of camo. I'm playing with guard sight x3, so increasing camo effectiveness to 600-800% is a necessity for realism.

Another great feature of UPPM is it contains a quicksave feature. It doesn't work perfectly as it's an experimental feature, but still invaluable for any stealth game. Its omission in the vanilla version is unforgivable. Getting good at stealth is about trial and error, why pretend it isn't?

I found that with the correct setup MG5PP is a stealth wet dream come true.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
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I prefer the Ultimate Phantom Pain mod to Infinite Heaven, as it gives you control over the value of camo. I'm playing with guard sight x3, so increasing camo effectiveness to 600-800% is a necessity for realism.

Another great feature of UPPM is it contains a quicksave feature. It doesn't work perfectly as it's an experimental feature, but still invaluable for any stealth game. Its omission in the vanilla version is unforgivable. Getting good at stealth is about trial and error, why pretend it isn't?

I found that with the correct setup MG5PP is a stealth wet dream come true.
The biggest problem, in my opinion, that this game has (from a stealth perspective) is the lack of feedback and information gathering systems and tools.
You never know how visible you are, how various factors like distance, stance, time of day, camouflage, terrain, vegetation, affect your visibility, it's all just a guessing game. Apparently the guide offers some values for each of these but if you watch tests recorded on YouTube they don't seem to hold up. Basically nobody knows with absolute clarity and with contradicting information and lack of mechanical transparency it's just one big coin toss.
About trial and error, yeah, they kinda are. However, simple things like the drone and sticky cameras in Splinter Cell Blacklist, the owl in Far Cry Primal, the scouting orb in Thief 2, the disguises in Hitman, the cameras and drones in Watch Dogs etc. allow you to gather information without exposing yourself. With that information you can plan better. And execute that plan perfectly. This whole process takes more time than usual but it severely cuts down the trial and error and by consequence, save scumming. Phantom Pain has no feedback system and no information gathering tools.
In Thief the sound propagation system allows you to tell whether there are NPCs in your immediate vicinity, their general direction, how close are they relative to you, what surface they're walking on. That's a well made feedback system. And that's just the sound aspect of the game. You also have a visibility gem supporting multiple states, not the binary crap in modern games.
I haven't played the previous MGS games but from what I've read they had a camouflage index, basically a light gem equivalent. Why did they remove that in Phantom Pain? Anyway whatever. It's a good game regardless and it also has elements of immersive sims so at least that's something.
 

ultimanecat

Arcane
Joined
Mar 19, 2015
Messages
631
It’s weird because Japanese games in general and MGS games in particular have never shied away from “gamey”, non-simulation systems, but in MGS5 it’s left up to practice just how hidden you are in any situation. Regardless, with the ability to mark enemies stealth in MGS5 is very often more a matter of breaking lines of sight entirely rather than relying on being less visible.

I haven't played the previous MGS games but from what I've read they had a camouflage index, basically a light gem equivalent. Why did they remove that in Phantom Pain?

To be fair, the camo system in MGS3 was clear but also meant constantly switching your camouflage in the menu. There was no penalty for doing it and it was instantaneous, and yet surfaces were varied and differentiated enough that it encouraged tediously switching every few steps. In MGS4 it was streamlined even further and you just switched to the optimal camo automatically after being on a surface for a few seconds. I think I prefer the MGS5 system, even if it’s not very functional, because it means actually thinking about the camo best suited to the mission.
 
Unwanted

†††

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This might not be exact, but I remember it this way (daylight):

prone -> invisible if you're more than 10m away from enemy, will cast suspicion in the 6-10m range
crouching -> as far as I know, camo only acts in this stance. You gain no benefit from being prone or standing. With good camo, range of detection will be less than 15m (but maybe you can get away with it), suspicion between 15-20, safe beyond 20m. With bad camo, all these distances increase of course (it's a binary, you either have the correct camo or not, forget progressive systems like 3 and 4)
standing -> suspicion between 20-30, safe beyond that
running -> you'll get spotted if distance from the enemy's sight is less than 40m

Hiding in/behind bushes makes you completely invisible. For some reason, this trick only works in Africa, Afghan bushes don't give any bonus. At night-time, all these distances decrease (remember to stay away from lights or daytime rules will apply). Black Ocelot camo is hilariously broken at night, making the game a walk in the park.
 
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