KK1001
Arbiter
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2015
- Messages
- 621
I'm going to get this out of my system and list what I think are the games glaring weaknesses. Some of them are objective and some of them stem from my desire for certain things in games.
1. Open world
This is sort of a running trend in video games recently. Assassin's Creed, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Batman, FF15, the upcoming Zelda, GTA, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, The Witcher 3, the list goes on and on. What's the appeal of an open world? For players, an open world offers freedom. The freedom to do, so the slogan goes, whatever you like, whenever you want. A player will have to consciously work pretty hard to run into invisible walls, and it seems at first glance that it is easier to become engrossed in a world that "feels" alive. For developers, the appeal of an open world is fairly straight forward: they can now advertise their game as an open world game. Everyone has seen the sorts of numbers that AC and GTA ship, and they want a piece of that action. Open world games seem big and full of lots of content. But unfortunately this isn't the case, almost without exception. Open world games are filled with wilderness (that the developers deemed boring enough to allow you to fast travel), monotonous fetch quests, whether it is collecting Riddler trophies, climbing tall buildings to unlock maps, or delving into cave #37 in Skyrim.
The open world in Metal Gear Solid 5 functions largely the same as it does in these other games. You have two big maps, populated with various outposts where the missions take place. Some trucks drive on the roads, and there are some animals, but otherwise the world feels pretty lifeless. The outposts and bases themselves are fairly well-designed. They offer at least 2 or 3 obvious routes of infiltration. Sneaking up on or through these bases feels pretty good, but you start unnecessarily far away.. As I've mentioned before, the open world breaks the AI and trivializes the game. I'll get into this in more detail soon, but it is clear that the AI was not meant to function in an open world. It is utterly incapable of pursuing you, engaging or spotting you from a distance, forming threatening search parties, or sending in reinforcements. The most the enemy will send is a single chopper (which Pequod downs in literally 2 seconds), or a few guys from the nearest outpost who will literally fucking walk all the way there. It is best to think of each outpost as surrounded by an impenetrable shroud 70m away through which you can safely escape each and every time. In real life, the Soviets responded with overwhelming force to Muhjahadeen attacks. Here, they let you take over base camps without much resistance at all. I found myself asking: how does the open world help the gameplay? I haven't really found an answer. I could imagine a game with better AI, more enemies, that it would be fun shaking off your pursuers by escaping into the mountains, hiding from them as they look for you, planning your routes in order to evade enemies as they try to close the noose around your location. But this isn't that game.
The mission structure doesn't even take advantage of the open world, either. You're in a cordoned off section of the map. Going outside of it results in a game over. In effect, the rest of the map may as well not even exist. Which leads me to ask: why not just fucking have various outposts of Camp Omega sized that are independent? If you aren't going to bother integrating the open world in any meaningful way (communication between maps, inevitable reinforcements from somewhere else, gameplay that revolves around evading patrolling or searching enemies that possess overwhelming force) why even fucking bother?
2. The AI
It's pretty bad.
- The combat AI is atrocious when it should be punishing, as this is still a sort of stealth game. It does not even execute basic pin and flank techniques, where one or two soldiers will fire at your location while others rotate around or behind you. Enemies will stand out in the open waiting for you to pick them off one by one, like in my shitty popamole games. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you have 1) regenerating health and 2) the ability to soak damage. You can engage enemies, take hits, run away and hide behind some rocks where you're practically invincible, rise and repeat. The deadly combination of large spaces in which to operate, shitty AI, weak damage, no reinforcements, and regenerating health completely destroys the combat and makes enemies nonthreatening and boring to fight against.
- The stealth AI is standard shit. It can't be unfair or it would be too frustrating for the average retard. But it goes further. Sometimes enemies will be literally 10m away from you shining a flashlight at you and they won't be able to see you. In general, it is passable. The problem more has to do with level design and the relative lack of enemies rather than any sort of inherent flaws with how the AI operates without alert levels. However, I will say that is is far too easy to fulton enemy soldiers. Tranquilizing guards should be a temporary solution. They are out for a little while, but they are still alive and will start alerting their friends that something is up. With the fulton, you can tranq someone and remove them from the game, removing any need to hide their body or act while they're asleep.
3. Clash of Clans and Far Cry nonsense
Upgrading Mother Base is not fun. I have no problem with unlocking things, provided they give you different tactical options or provide a needed answer to the way your enemy is reacting to your tactics. This mini-game literally consists of a player navigating a set of menus and hitting enter. Zzzzzzzzz. Boring. This wouldn't be such a problem if it were a side thing, but it is literally integral to the game. Unlocking further story missions requires having certain upgrades. How do you get these upgrades? Well, you wait around. A lot. You wait for upgrades to finish; you wait for your men to finish missions. To even get later upgrades you have to out in the field and collect containers, packages, and fucking plants. You spend more time fultoning people and things or holding R than you do fucking sneaking. Let that sink in for a second.
If you have fun doing this, you have shit taste and you are actively ruining games for everyone else. Go play Clash of Clans you stupid fuck. Stand in the line for the next AC like the rest of the plebs.
4. The Missions
There are a ton of main missions that should have been sideops, and a lot of sideops that exist only to pad the game and give you resources to upgrade your clan. Of the 50 episodes, 75% feel like filler or are literal repeats of earlier (and mostly boring filler) missions with amped up difficulty or special conditions.
5. The Boss Fights
They're bad.
1. Open world
This is sort of a running trend in video games recently. Assassin's Creed, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Batman, FF15, the upcoming Zelda, GTA, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, The Witcher 3, the list goes on and on. What's the appeal of an open world? For players, an open world offers freedom. The freedom to do, so the slogan goes, whatever you like, whenever you want. A player will have to consciously work pretty hard to run into invisible walls, and it seems at first glance that it is easier to become engrossed in a world that "feels" alive. For developers, the appeal of an open world is fairly straight forward: they can now advertise their game as an open world game. Everyone has seen the sorts of numbers that AC and GTA ship, and they want a piece of that action. Open world games seem big and full of lots of content. But unfortunately this isn't the case, almost without exception. Open world games are filled with wilderness (that the developers deemed boring enough to allow you to fast travel), monotonous fetch quests, whether it is collecting Riddler trophies, climbing tall buildings to unlock maps, or delving into cave #37 in Skyrim.
The open world in Metal Gear Solid 5 functions largely the same as it does in these other games. You have two big maps, populated with various outposts where the missions take place. Some trucks drive on the roads, and there are some animals, but otherwise the world feels pretty lifeless. The outposts and bases themselves are fairly well-designed. They offer at least 2 or 3 obvious routes of infiltration. Sneaking up on or through these bases feels pretty good, but you start unnecessarily far away.. As I've mentioned before, the open world breaks the AI and trivializes the game. I'll get into this in more detail soon, but it is clear that the AI was not meant to function in an open world. It is utterly incapable of pursuing you, engaging or spotting you from a distance, forming threatening search parties, or sending in reinforcements. The most the enemy will send is a single chopper (which Pequod downs in literally 2 seconds), or a few guys from the nearest outpost who will literally fucking walk all the way there. It is best to think of each outpost as surrounded by an impenetrable shroud 70m away through which you can safely escape each and every time. In real life, the Soviets responded with overwhelming force to Muhjahadeen attacks. Here, they let you take over base camps without much resistance at all. I found myself asking: how does the open world help the gameplay? I haven't really found an answer. I could imagine a game with better AI, more enemies, that it would be fun shaking off your pursuers by escaping into the mountains, hiding from them as they look for you, planning your routes in order to evade enemies as they try to close the noose around your location. But this isn't that game.
The mission structure doesn't even take advantage of the open world, either. You're in a cordoned off section of the map. Going outside of it results in a game over. In effect, the rest of the map may as well not even exist. Which leads me to ask: why not just fucking have various outposts of Camp Omega sized that are independent? If you aren't going to bother integrating the open world in any meaningful way (communication between maps, inevitable reinforcements from somewhere else, gameplay that revolves around evading patrolling or searching enemies that possess overwhelming force) why even fucking bother?
2. The AI
It's pretty bad.
- The combat AI is atrocious when it should be punishing, as this is still a sort of stealth game. It does not even execute basic pin and flank techniques, where one or two soldiers will fire at your location while others rotate around or behind you. Enemies will stand out in the open waiting for you to pick them off one by one, like in my shitty popamole games. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that you have 1) regenerating health and 2) the ability to soak damage. You can engage enemies, take hits, run away and hide behind some rocks where you're practically invincible, rise and repeat. The deadly combination of large spaces in which to operate, shitty AI, weak damage, no reinforcements, and regenerating health completely destroys the combat and makes enemies nonthreatening and boring to fight against.
- The stealth AI is standard shit. It can't be unfair or it would be too frustrating for the average retard. But it goes further. Sometimes enemies will be literally 10m away from you shining a flashlight at you and they won't be able to see you. In general, it is passable. The problem more has to do with level design and the relative lack of enemies rather than any sort of inherent flaws with how the AI operates without alert levels. However, I will say that is is far too easy to fulton enemy soldiers. Tranquilizing guards should be a temporary solution. They are out for a little while, but they are still alive and will start alerting their friends that something is up. With the fulton, you can tranq someone and remove them from the game, removing any need to hide their body or act while they're asleep.
3. Clash of Clans and Far Cry nonsense
Upgrading Mother Base is not fun. I have no problem with unlocking things, provided they give you different tactical options or provide a needed answer to the way your enemy is reacting to your tactics. This mini-game literally consists of a player navigating a set of menus and hitting enter. Zzzzzzzzz. Boring. This wouldn't be such a problem if it were a side thing, but it is literally integral to the game. Unlocking further story missions requires having certain upgrades. How do you get these upgrades? Well, you wait around. A lot. You wait for upgrades to finish; you wait for your men to finish missions. To even get later upgrades you have to out in the field and collect containers, packages, and fucking plants. You spend more time fultoning people and things or holding R than you do fucking sneaking. Let that sink in for a second.
If you have fun doing this, you have shit taste and you are actively ruining games for everyone else. Go play Clash of Clans you stupid fuck. Stand in the line for the next AC like the rest of the plebs.
4. The Missions
There are a ton of main missions that should have been sideops, and a lot of sideops that exist only to pad the game and give you resources to upgrade your clan. Of the 50 episodes, 75% feel like filler or are literal repeats of earlier (and mostly boring filler) missions with amped up difficulty or special conditions.
5. The Boss Fights
They're bad.
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