Is this game heavily focused on supernatural elements?

[+Hyp.r]

Bear in mind, the only other Metal Gear Solid game I've played (other than an hour or so in Ground Zeroes) was the Portable Ops games for PSP. I played the hell out of that game, and granted it was years ago, I don't remember much about anything like phantom girl and Nick Cage, Ghost Rider on his infernal steed. I always thought the games took like a Splinter Cell approach.

Whereas it is heavily invested in it's stealth and recon mechanics, but you can put up a fight should the mission go south. I've only played up until the point of getting to Mother Base so far, and I did some stealthing around the outposts on the way to the primary objective. Was also surprised to see some cybernetic super ghouls near the end of the mission.

I'm enjoying the game so far, but I didn't expect these supernaturals elements. So, I repeat; Is the game going to be heavily focused on it, or can I still enjoy a majority of the game by tactically taking down troops, and extracting them for the good of the mother base?

[!RJ_Truth]

I need to roll back something I said. You can have Cargo2 and EMN mines by time you do Missions 8 and 9. Missions 7 thru 10 open at the same time. If you do Mission 10 first, you can get the transportation specialist and develop Cargo2 before doing missions 8 and 9, which makes those missions easy peazy. Don't forget that you can move staff around to meet development requirements. You can also go ahead and do mission 11 if you know where to trigger it at as soon as mission 10 is complete. If you're doing sideOps along with it, one will open up that will take you through that area. The key to unlocking things early is getting motherbase built up quickly. The more you build up motherbase, the more staff you can have and get the unit levels built up and develop what you need.

This 3rd play through is just a reminder of what can be done. Going back to what I originally said. Rocket Launchers aren't needed and take up your back weapon when it's better suited for a sniper rifle. Though that's my play style. Feel free to come up with whatever method you want to use.

[MADG]

Well, just went through a mission where there's an encounter with the Man on Fire.
"No story", huh.

There's a bunch of encounters with the "supernatural" Cypher stuff. Well, I'm mid way through the game, there's no explanations yet.
Since the intro sequence, there's been three with bullet-sponge super fast zombie soldiers and now I had a very interesting encounter with the Man on Fire.

Still, I guess disappointment time is coming right.

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

Well, just went through a mission where there's an encounter with the Man on Fire.
"No story", huh.

There's a bunch of encounters with the "supernatural" Cypher stuff. Well, I'm mid way through the game, there's no explanations yet.
Since the intro sequence, there's been three with bullet-sponge super fast zombie soldiers and now I had a very interesting encounter with the Man on Fire.

Still, I guess disappointment time is coming right.

3 bullet-sponge super fast zombie soldiers? What are you referring to? Skulls? There's only 2 skull battles that I would consider bullet-sponges.

Hell I just did Where do Bees Sleep earlier and killed those skulls with hand grenades. They're far from sponges. Couldn't extract them yet because I didn't have what was needed to do so, but they're easily dealt with.

Not sure what's to be disappointed about at this point. Unless it's too easy for you.

[MADG]

Bullet sponges because if you keep shooting with a rifle, they will just absorb the bullets. Didn't mean "bullet sponges" as it is in some kind of gaming vocabulary, which it is what I suppose is what you thinking.

So far there's been three encounters, yes. Miller rescue, get the Killer Bee and that one time they jumped out of a truck.

Extracting them is an interesting idea.
Thing is, they apparently always know where you are and go all zombie-like moving at your direction, even though supposedly you didn't aler them. Never thought of doing it.

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

Bullet sponges because if you keep shooting with a rifle, they will just absorb the bullets. Didn't mean "bullet sponges" as it is in some kind of gaming vocabulary, which it is what I suppose is what you thinking.

So far there's been three encounters, yes. Miller rescue, get the Killer Bee and that one time they jumped out of a truck.

Extracting them is an interesting idea.
Thing is, they apparently always know where you are and go all zombie-like moving at your direction, even though supposedly you didn't aler them. Never thought of doing it.

Your 3 encounters of "bullet sponges" are not all bullet sponges. Only the 3rd one is. The first two can be done easily with pretty much any weapon, just be careful to watch out for miller, for some reason the skulls want him dead, so they'll go after him specfically if he's left unattended.

So I take it You've done Traitors' Caravan. That and Metallic Archaea are the only bullet spong skulls. The rest take decent damage like everything else. It just takes a few extra shots.

They don't always know where you are. If they are not in full alert running after you, then they can only sense where you are, so they move slow because they're not really sure. They're just kinda meandering towards what feels right. If they are on full alert, as in they saw you and they're coming to get you. You can loose them, but they'll never go back to meandering.

Extracting them is required later in the game. I won't spoil it for you. I'll just say there's a point to extracting them.

[MADG]

My man VarthDader. Isn't this something, now?

Is there any advantage to capturing Cypher's zombie soldiers before the need for it actually comes up ? Does it even "counts" if you do?

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

My man VarthDader. Isn't this something, now?

Is there any advantage to capturing Cypher's zombie soldiers before the need for it actually comes up ? Does it even "counts" if you do?

To clarify, are you referring to the soldiers being controlled by the Skulls?

In that case, early in the game, I say yes. Fulton as many of those guys as possible. They get an automatic medal for having served under extreme conditions the moment they agree to join you, which is pretty much immediately. The medal increases their stats just a bit, but over the long haul of everyone you fulton, you're actually raising your unit levels by a lot. Especially for missions like Traitors' Caravan or Code Talker where you can gain a lot of them in a single mission. Just be sure not to fulton more than 98, most say 99, but I'd say 98 just to ensure you're keeping space open for Code Talker in the Code Talker mission. If you don't, you'll have to walk him out of the hotzone and keep walking till it ends the mission saying you've got Code Talker now. You just can't put him on a chopper if you fulton too many men, but hey, 98 is still a lot of guys to fulton in a single mission. It's best to make sure that DD has the Tactical fulton when you do.

I'm not fond of people referring to these guys as "Zombie Soldiers" because I get them confused with Wandering Motherbase Soldiers and technically, there's no such thing as Zombie Soldiers. The cannon of it is that they're soldiers that are either controlled by the Skulls and go STN when you defeat all the skulls or in the case of Wandering Motherbase Soldiers, they've just plum lost their mind.

[MADG]

To me it's interesting that you want them to be called "Skull" soldiers specifically.

Have someone even called them "skull" soldiers in the game?
I remember Miller calling them, "Mist Unit". But "Skull" soldiers I honestly have never heard.

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

To me it's interesting that you want them to be called "Skull" soldiers specifically.

Have someone even called them "skull" soldiers in the game?
I remember Miller calling them, "Mist Unit". But "Skull" soldiers I honestly have never heard.

Ocelot (Maybe Miller, one of the two) is the one that said they were being controlled by the Skulls. I believe that was in 6 - Where do the Bees Sleep. Canon is that they're being controlled by the skulls. Not some kind of mindless Zombie.

It's not so much what I want them to be called. I just want them to be referred to as they are in the game.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

To me it's interesting that you want them to be called "Skull" soldiers specifically.

Have someone even called them "skull" soldiers in the game?
I remember Miller calling them, "Mist Unit". But "Skull" soldiers I honestly have never heard.

That's what they're called. They're called skulls. Armor skulls, mist skulls and camo/sniper skulls.

[!RJ_Truth]

Originally posted by Seamus:

Originally posted by kogarasumaru:

To me it's interesting that you want them to be called "Skull" soldiers specifically.

Have someone even called them "skull" soldiers in the game?
I remember Miller calling them, "Mist Unit". But "Skull" soldiers I honestly have never heard.

That's what they're called. They're called skulls. Armor skulls, mist skulls and camo/sniper skulls.

We weren't talking about the skulls themselves. That was about the soldiers that the skulls control. Like in Traitors' Caravan or Code Talker missions.

[Seamus]

Originally posted by VarthDader:

Originally posted by Seamus:

That's what they're called. They're called skulls. Armor skulls, mist skulls and camo/sniper skulls.

We weren't talking about the skulls themselves. That was about the soldiers that the skulls control. Like in Traitors' Caravan or Code Talker missions.

You may have been talking about puppets. He was talking about skulls. That's what the "mist unit" Miller refers to are.

[Figloalds]

It's doesn't have supernatural elements at all, just a little bit of shameless bullshet science.

[JtDarth]

Originally posted by VarthDader:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

It's less BUDB, and more the fact you're telling them they should focus on unlocking gear that they can't possibly unlock yet.

EMN mines alone mean waiting until mission like, 30 or something to be able to capture the required specialist.

The blueprint to the anti tank rifles you are suggesting to use over rockets, is found in one of the last main plot story mission locations.

Yet here you are telling a new guy to ignore the immediatly accessible equipment, in favor of midgame upgrades that won't exist yet to help them get there.

"Matter Of Opinion" one liners, won't change that. EMN mines and anti tank rifles ARE super great items that should be unlocked to make life easier. But that won't help people much in the long stretch before they even exist.

I'm going to revisit this post of yours after having spent the last 4 hours started fresh and recording everything I do along the way.

I'll stand by what I said about EMN mines. If you're at mission 30 before you get them something is wrong with your gameplay and development. I have only completed up to Mission 5, Over the Fence on this playthrough using my smurf acct and my R&D level is already 16 and it's not even fully staffed. It only requires Lv27 R&D which is quite easy to be had well before BUBD. The problem is in the Cargo Extraction2. It requires the Transportation Specialist which you can't get until 10. So 9 will have to be done with some form of explosive, so maybe your C4 would be nice to have the first you do it. Which would make sense why I hardly use it. Could use grenades too. Just combine them with the EMN mine and you have a sitting duck ready to be blown up. You can have the EMN mines before BUBD though. That's the easy part. I'll continue to record this playthrough and see what I actually have once BUBD becomes available as well as how I end up doing it. Not with Rockets. Everyone does rockets. I just wish you could get in them once you use an EMN mine and then you could just drive them off a cliff. LOL Doesn't matter much. You only need 1 to get through it and it's more important to extract all the specialists you get from that level than to completely destroy all of them.

You are off in your own mind when you can Develop what. I'm guessing that you blew through the game without doing what needed to be done the first time around. Things like Upgrading Base Facilities could have probably been done a whole lot sooner than what you did and as a result couldn't get your unit levels high enough to develop some of the better weapons. Hell, Brennen only needs R&D 37, some GMP and some CM. Pretty certain I can hit that before unlocking FOB. Just not sure how soon. I'll push it and see just for giggles.

You may have some right ideas, just don't let them be for the wrong reasons. So far, the only reason for explosives for Mission 9 is that you can't get the Transportation specialist until Mission 10, but after Mission 10, you don't need to use explosives again ever. If you don't want to. Although, who wouldn't want it. It's fun blowing stuff up.

Edit: To the OP, The reason I wouldn't recommend rocket launchers anywhere in this game is because it takes up the valuable Back Weapon Slot. A good sniper rifle is more important than a rocket launcher. Sure it's fun to play with various things, but after a while having to switch out weapons all the time becomes more of an annoyance. It's better to come up with a loadout that can encompass everything in SP with one loadout than to use multiple loadouts or swapping out weapons all the time or worse yet, air dropping them in just to shoot down a chopper when your sniper rifle is fully capable of taking down a chopper for you. Mission 9 is the only one it helps with even a little, but with a little outside the box thinking, you can do it without a rocket launcher.

I feel the need to add to this a bit. By the time I reached BUBD on PC I had completed one of the challenges that supplies you with a vehicle. In particular, one of the ones that you fight in the mission itself. You can deploy them without a transport specialist. I just used that on my pC playthrough. On console, I got away with spamming the FAKEL at them. Like 4 shots per vehicle, IIRC. You might even be able to use emplaced mortars or MGs to kill them, though I haven't tried that myself.

Part of the reason that I like MGS5 so much is that you really do get rewarded for odd strategies, and for coming up with ideas. I've encountered so many situations where I saw something and thought 'I wonder...' only to get a stupid grin when it actually works. The water pistol is actually shockingly powerful if you figure out how to use it correctly, and if you aren't trying for perfect stealth you can clear out an entire base firing only one unsuppressed pistol shot and a chokepoint. You can plant c4 somewhere and blow it up as a distraction to clear bad guys away from an objective, or you can even just say screw it and deploy with a tank.

[MADG]

Originally posted by Seamus:

You may have been talking about puppets. He was talking about skulls. That's what the "mist unit" Miller refers to are.

He knows. He's just trying to make a point.