Design

[A.G.]

Looking at the series I see the different design goals Kojima set with the development of his games:

MG1: Create an action game on a limited system. Birth of stealth genre was the result.

MG2: Create a serious game. Detailed and clever gameplay and mature, real-world storytelling.

MGS1: Create a cinamitc experience. Cutscenes, voice acting and music were taken seriously and changed how games were made in 3D.

MGS2: Reflect on the on the concept of game promotions and player expectations. The most complex theme tackled in gaming.

MGS3: Expand game design into functional outdoor settings. First fully functional outdoor environment in gaming.

MGS4: conclude the story and refine controls. Wrapping everything in terms of story and gameplay. Probably the least experimental but did feel like a culmination of the first 5.

MPW and MGS5? Base building? Just seems like a sharp turn away from more artistic and experimental approach other games had. The last two didn't really break new ground IMO.

[Cerberus_0408]

I think MGS5 tried to incorporate not only base construction, but also open-world elements. It might seem to be a change from the general MGS feel and probably didn't fit in like a glove. But I would still give Kojima the credit for at least trying something different.

[A.G.]

I think he actually got it right with Ground Zeroes. It was a good balance of open world style but retaining his level of detail. It felt more concentrated with a wide range of options of tackling the mission. And the flow adjusts depending on what path you take.

[fgdj2000]

MGS5: Create a Sneaking Sandbox where no two players will have the same experience, where each player has a unique story to tell.

[A.G.]

I don't think the unique story part worked. At least not well. One thing that bothers me is the change in soldiers as you expand your base. All enemies start to wear armor making traditional tranq gun useless.

[fgdj2000]

Well, I think it was great, because a. it kept me on my toes, b. it counterbalacd abusing the tranq gun (and other strategies like sniping, nighttime infiltrations) too much and c. you could use combat deployment missions to temporarily get rid of some of these upgrades.

[Cerberus_0408]

Dec 25, 2016 17:46:12 GMT -5 A.G. said:

I don't think the unique story part worked. At least not well. One thing that bothers me is the change in soldiers as you expand your base. All enemies start to wear armor making traditional tranq gun useless.

Again, this is where I happen to disagree. The increase in difficulty is expected, naturally, as you improve your base and weapons etc. To fight low-level enemies with hi-tech equipment is simply unrealistic. Generally speaking, you would in any game anticipate enemies to become smarter as your own weapons are upgraded. It's sad that tranquilisers are rendered useless but that's just the way things work in a game, otherwise sh*t just becomes boring.

[A.G.]

That should not impact replaying earlier missions. Upgrading soldier difficulty should happen by chapter, not overall. For example, I may want to play an earlier chapter with just my tranq. Why would the game deny me that? I don't find armored guards being interesting. That immediately makes me not want to replay the game.

The system is flawed.

[Cerberus_0408]

So what, you find armoured guards EARLIER in the story? Well, yeah I suppose that sucks. But dude, it's worth remembering that in the MGS series in general, armoured enemies appear on a heightened alert level. So you could have triggered the alarm multiple times (I don't know for sure since again, I haven't played MGS5, so this is just a hypothesis). So the player COULD sometimes be at fault for triggering the alert.

But on the other hand, a challenging gameplay system does provide significant replay value in some cases.

[fgdj2000]

@ Cerberus: It's not exactly like that in MGS5. Basically the more you (ab)use certain tactics, the more the enemies will adapt. For instance, using many headshots will cause them wearing helmets; many nighttime infiltrations will cause the guards using flashlights and nightsight; use sniper rifles too often and the guards will position snipers of their own. However, you can send troops on a PW strategy minigame to destroy enemy shacks and therefore they lose their helmets for a few missions.

@ A.G.: Well, you can always use the chicken hat
Honestly, upgrading the soldiers from earlier missions added replay value, because you have to tackle them differently. And I had always a little issue with the tranq gun, because since its introduction it was always too powerful. The point of MGS is to sneak by guards, not knocking them out and casually walking past them. But since you seem to like scripted and simple game mechanics and don't seem to like to experiment, I guess I can see why you wouldn't like these dynamic elements in the game.

[fgdj2000]

Dec 24, 2016 13:56:57 GMT -5 A.G. said:

MPW and MGS5? Base building? Just seems like a sharp turn away from more artistic and experimental approach other games had. The last two didn't really break new ground IMO.

I'm sorry, but Metal Gear was never an artistic series. The reasons why Kojima "invented" stealth mechanics in the first place were the limitations of the MSX2. Now, I don't deny that there are artistic elements in the games, like all the forth wall breaking. I do agree that among AAA commercial games, MG is probably the one that truly touches the art category, maybe next the earlier Zelda games. And I like that Kojima always put a new spin of the game mechanics with each game.

However, it still is a commercial series, not an "arthouse" series. If you want to know what an art-game truly is, play the Team Ico Trilogy (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian), Brothers, Journey, Okami, Flower or even the Dark Souls series (incl. Demon's Souls and Bloodborne). I can recommend especially Shadow of the Colossus. But Metal Gear never really was an art-series. It is unique among AAA commercial games in that it is the only series I know that has been under the supervision of one person all its life, and that it definitely touches into the art category more than any other "commercial" game series I know, but it isn't really art, it's craftsmanship.

[Cerberus_0408]

"MGS being a commercial series vs arthouse series"

Once again I can't agree on this. Kojima makes a specific type of game, and people worship him for it. It can be argued that his games are all that well made, or not. But the ambition, the stories, the characters, the odd sense of place, for some reason they draw people in. They're not gameplay-centric games; even if they have some decent gameplay within, that's not the reason why you're playing. Now you can argue that to each his own, but the fact is, they ARE sort of art-house, and fans of Kojima like them that way, so they can have them.

[A.G.]

Dec 26, 2016 3:57:41 GMT -5 fgdj2000 said:

@ Cerberus: It's not exactly like that in MGS5. Basically the more you (ab)use certain tactics, the more the enemies will adapt. For instance, using many headshots will cause them wearing helmets; many nighttime infiltrations will cause the guards using flashlights and nightsight; use sniper rifles too often and the guards will position snipers of their own. However, you can send troops on a PW strategy minigame to destroy enemy shacks and therefore they lose their helmets for a few missions.

@ A.G.: Well, you can always use the chicken hat
Honestly, upgrading the soldiers from earlier missions added replay value, because you have to tackle them differently. And I had always a little issue with the tranq gun, because since its introduction it was always too powerful. The point of MGS is to sneak by guards, not knocking them out and casually walking past them. But since you seem to like scripted and simple game mechanics and don't seem to like to experiment, I guess I can see why you wouldn't like these dynamic elements in the game.

It's really not a dynamic element. It's needlessly difficult. Plus it forces that mechanic on you instead of letting you pick. If I want a challenge I should be able to select a difficulty setting. Period.

[fgdj2000]

A difficulty setting would have been nice, that's true. However, you can pick wht you want. You can send troops on combat deployment and destroy armories and supply transports. It's needlessly cumbersome, I give you that, but not that much. Also, there's always the Chicken cap, that also resets the balance of power system from what I've read (I never used it).

Also, the there are only a couple of armored guys at any given time (unless you play specific side ops), the helmets where never a big issue, since you can still shoot guards in the face (literally! ) and shields can also be circumvented. flashlights and night vision goggles are also not a big issue, really, so I don't get what you're so upset about. These are little spices that, well, spice things up and keep the sneaking from getting too monotone, imo.

[fgdj2000]

The only time MGSV truly dropped the ball design-wise are the bosses. While Quiet and even Eli are pretty decent (not as good as some of the others from earlier games), the skulls where just awful. I think they were ok in the first encounter as a sort of FROG-unit supplement, but then they were literally the only bosses in the game. The snipers were the only time that they were implemented well, because you actually could sneak arround them and that would make things different later in the mission, but 1. that was nothing MGS3 didn't do better and 2. the actual fight itself (if you chose to engange them) was really just a re-skin of the Quiet fight earlier.
I liked that they didn't turn Skull Face into a boss, because that helped the message that something was missing. That with his death, you still weren't satisfied. Otherwise I would have liked some more colorful characters.