Thrik

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

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The design and the technical side of this game continues to amaze me like no other game I can think of.

In Dishonored, I was able to do well, but I feel that was in large part due to the relatively "overpowered" toolset at my disposal. In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the areas felt very carefully designed to create paths for sneaking through the level (though, it has been a long time since I played that game, so I might be misremembering). The sneaking in Phantom Pain feels much more "organic" than in any game I have played before. I find myself actually adapting to changing situations instead of simply reloading every time a guard gets suspicous and comes to investigate a disturbance (I still tend to reload if I cause a full on alarm during a mission, though). Moreover, you don't have to be a professional press conference demo player to successfully adapt to these new situations. The indicators that tell you when a guard sees you or is suspicious and about to investigate, and the reflect mode that is triggered when you do get spotted are all very clever design choices.

The controls are simply fantastic, and I have never felt that they are to blame when I fail. The movement feels very precise and firm (if that makes sense). And you are not automatically sticking to covers all the time, thank God.

The quality of design shines in other areas as well. I enjoy scouting out the base and tagging enemies, but I don't necessary want to do that again when I restart a checkpoint. And I don't have to. I also enjoy gathering resources and fultoning enemies to expand my base, but after a certain point that started to feel like a bit of a chore. Shortly after, I got the combat deployment ability that helps me gather resources. And so on.


I got the D-Dog yesterday and he is fucking awesome. I looted an enemy base with his help, and once I was satisfied with the haul, I ran to the hill close to the base and started practicing my sniping skills just for fun. When I left the scope view and rotated the camera, I noticed that the dog was laying next to me, perfectly calm, like a spotter or something. DOTY.


The biggest source of frustration for me is still the checkpoint system. I understand the reasoning behind that though, and should probably just change my thinking regarding alerts and stuff. I also dislike boss battles in general.

I don't care that much of the story, especially the extremely bleak and brutal direction they seem to be going for. Still, I'm glad that this is a Metal Gear game and not, say, Battlefield or Tom Clancy game. At least it has a lot of character.

 

Oh and speaking of characters, Ocelot is super cool in this one.

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Oh and speaking of characters, Ocelot is super cool in this one.

 

I hate my opinion on this, but every time I see/hear Ocelot I think "oh hey, it's Troy Baker." That guy is so incredibly noticeable since he's in everything.

 

I also love that it's got loads of crazy shit. The man on fire, the giant fire whale, it all adds to the game making it less of a boring military game, and more like an awesome Japanese game. 

 

There are so many mechanics. I don't even know what half of them do. What the hell is Heroism? Why does it go da-dum when I murder a guard? 

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Today I got my first S-rank! On episode 5! After needing to restart 3 or 4 times, but anyway!

 

I really like that, even when you fail, it feels like you have made some advance, be it on marking enemies or just knowing the layout of the terrain and the patrol routes better. After my 3 or 4 failures on episode 5 (spoiler in case you don't want to know any details and hasn't played episode 5 yet),

I just realized I was approaching the whole thing from the wrong direction (literally). Tried from the other side and it was much easier, just sailed into the barracks, got the prisoner, fultoned the fools that came into my way and got out of there just before the soviets realized the prisoner was missing and started a search.

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I can't wait to go back and S-Rank all the missions. I've played 20 missions so far and got 5/20 S, with most being A/B and one E that is mocking me.

I also like the idea of completely limiting myself and going back with nothing but a distraction item, and procuring all my weapons from the enemies. I've done that in a few side ops (although you have to start with a pistol and a primary, but I just choose the worst ones). It's a lot of fun.

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Legendary Bear mission talk, not spoilery but just in case

 

Finally got D-Dog and after a few missions figured this would be the perfect situation for him.  He found the bear way before I did and I got the drop on the bear and unloaded a full clip of the stun SMG into him.  The whole mission seemed relatively easy but I literally unloaded the full 220 tranq darts into him and couldn't get him to go down.  He was really flagging toward the end so I assume you just have to give them time to wear him down.  Ah well, I tried the stun arm initially but it didn't work, maybe I need to hit him in the face and not the butt since I think someone else here got that to work in one go.

 

Really fun, but need to upgrade my Medical Team dramatically so I can get the tranq sniper rifle finally.

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Worth noting that there's a difference between STUN weapons and ZZZ weapons (as there is a difference between enemies who are in the STUN state, the ZZZ state and the --- state). Some kinds of STUN also last longer than others.

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I try to sneak a mission.  Then when I get caught I just missile launcher everything until I run out of ammo.  Then I do an air drop for more ammo.  It makes it really hard to fail.

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I've played about 40 hours now and all I can think about is playing more or watch other people play. I've been trying to mix up my tactics so that the missions don't get stale and the wealth of ways to take on a mission are just staggering. Right now my current favorite tactic is to put C4 on something and then explode it to make everyone turn in the other direction so that I can sneak in from behind and subdue them. I'll basically circle a base planting C4 and exploding as needed. I realized I'm not using the "knock" function enough, trying to use that more.

 

Also D-Dog is definitely my favorite buddy. Senses the units and targets from really far away, and you can pet him! Haven't used the walker at all on any missions, but thinking of doing it soon. I'm still sticking to the default machine gun and then a sniper rifle for my primary. Also, fulton-ing vehicles is THE BEST. I love doing the "destroy armored vehicle" missions, fulton-ing the tank and then seeing the soldiers come back to its previous location completely oblivious. 

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The only time I really fail missions in this is when I sneak all the way to the middle of the base then trigger an alarm when surrounded on all sides. There have been a couple of really frustrating missions that seem designed to really hurt you if you try and stealth. One I ended up just Rambo-ing in and having no problems, and the second I just got really stubborn with and managed to win, even with the cheat-y enemies they send at you in a cut scene. So I guess I'd say I love the game except when they try and script storyline stuff, because they fail at that pretty hard.

 

Edit: Oh, I just finally got a silenced sleep dart sniper rifle. It makes going back to old missions a breeze.

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I can't wait to go back and S-Rank all the missions. I've played 20 missions so far and got 5/20 S, with most being A/B and one E that is mocking me.

I also like the idea of completely limiting myself and going back with nothing but a distraction item, and procuring all my weapons from the enemies. I've done that in a few side ops (although you have to start with a pistol and a primary, but I just choose the worst ones). It's a lot of fun.

 

I'm super jealous of your efficiency. I was mostly doing A/B for the first few missions, then I got my first S rank on episode 4 (I think that's the one):

 

On the mission where you need to eliminate the commander, I just brought a sniper rifle and took him out with one bullet. Then I walked a few feet to get out of the hot zone, and that was it.

 

After getting the S, I had an inflated sense of my own abilities, which was pretty quickly put in check by missions 8 & 9. 

 

Not a fan of having to take out a couple tanks, then having to do it again with a time limit. I hope I get back to just sneaking again pretty soon.

 

I ended up getting a D on both. Now I feel like the worst mercenary soldier.

 

But at least I have a dog buddy.

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I have played about a dozen hours and made it to story mission 10 this evening. What is the deal with enemy soldiers adapting to your way of playing and giving you a different challenge? I don't feel like anything has really changed in the enemy AI yet, is it more prevalent later in the game?

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I have played about a dozen hours and made it to story mission 10 this evening. What is the deal with enemy soldiers adapting to your way of playing and giving you a different challenge? I don't feel like anything has really changed in the enemy AI yet, is it more prevalent later in the game?

 

There's definitely something going on, as I didn't see folks with shields until Mission 12, when others had them appearing as early as mission 5. On the other hand, pretty much everyone in my game is wearing a helmet at this point, even after doing missions that are supposed to reduce Helmet supplies.

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So.. um, have you guys studied the medical platform of the mother base? One upper floor door marked with blue light in particular.

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Yup

 

What a weird and important thing to hide. When I was first building platforms, I explored everything, but there was nothing worth finding so I gave up. Only heard about this because I was in a chat channel with some friends when someone stumbled on it.

 

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I'm not sure how to get quiet out of the brig, can anyone help me out? I am just jamming through side ops because I got to a very difficult story mission and want her as a buddy...

 

The skulls are protecting the truck that I have to steal/airlift cant remember the number right now

 

Do I have to go back and play through a mission a certain way or do I just keep doing side ops?

 

So far played it for about 25 hours and it's the best, gameplay wise, metal gear has always been (although I do like the super stripped down sneaking of MGS1 a lot still). But surprisingly/disappointingly light on story. It has a Peacewalker vibe but without the cool cutscenes.

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Play more main story missions. The mission that you're on has been the crappiest so far for me, but I believe you get her either right after that, or one more mission in.

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I've been reading that she is a good way to finish that mission so you must be able to get her beforehand.

I don't have the vehicle recovery fulton either-- have to find an expert in a mission to develop it. That's another thing that can't find...need more intel.

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There seems to be a way to get Quiet before the mandatory mission where you get her.  If I'm remembering what I read (which might have even been in this thread):

 

There's a side-op mission for a blueprint that takes you to the same power plant as the side-op where you get Quiet.  If you take that blueprint side-op, you do the battle with Quiet there instead.

 

So maybe the people suggesting that got access to her early, and thus had her unlocked by then.

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I've been reading that she is a good way to finish that mission so you must be able to get her beforehand.

I don't have the vehicle recovery fulton either-- have to find an expert in a mission to develop it. That's another thing that can't find...need more intel.

There's a transportation specialist being held prisoner in the mission where you have to destroy the four Walker Gears in Africa.

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Sweet thanks!

 

Also, as of right now at 23 hrs in, that door on the medical platform is marked red and is inaccessible to me, just fyi. (Maybe iot has to be developed to a certain level before it unlocks?)

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