Vela wrote:

Thing is I know I'm only like a quarter of the way through the game, Ive done all side ops available, churning through deployment missions, up to I think mission story 15 or near to it, it it is just fatiguing.  I reckon Ive dropped about 50 hours into the game so far. 50 hours would be more put together than my MGS1, MGS2, MGS3 first time play throughs, but it doesn't feel like progress. Oh sure, it's an open world, but even open world games like GTAV at least give a sense of progression. Fuck it feels bad to even be typing this out. Every franchise I love eventually falls apart. 

Your experience exactly mirrors mine.

I think side-ops are dumb and realised after 2 or 3 that they were a time sink, and ended up finishing the main bulk of it in around fifty hours. Dunno if it's a problem that can be properly solved because I know folk like Ian have happily sunk quadruple that into the game, you can't really accommodate both points of view without casualties.

If you do go back (after researching the Convoy mission which is infamously annoying but actually very easy to complete) I'd advise ignoring everything but the main missions, you'll have it finished in less than half the time you've already spent on it.

I know no one is forced to do them, but I've heard of more people burn themselves out on them than with other games of its ilk. The problem I was alluding to was allowing the player to sink in more hours than it takes to finish the whole game, thus risking losing the player before they finish the game. I think that freedom should be there, but there should also be some closer curation of the content - ushering the player towards logical conclusions like the level design does. As it stands I felt early on that they were a post-game time waste, and largely superfluous to my needs, but for others they've been a honey pot that has seen them sick of the main experience. They're absolutely not varied enough, and this is what... my third favourite game of the year? I don't mean to dictate other people's experience, I just think the game would have been better if it had either a real ebb and flow between the main/side ops OR it had better signposted the almost vestigial nature of 90% of them to avoid player burnout. They're the one element I can't square with the rest of the experience.

Actually it's like Deus Ex HR. It punishes you like in boss encounters if you develop non lethal or stealth traits instead of powerful weapons.

It makes me fucking angry I now need to grind for resources to get a couple of weapons to smash the shit out of those cunts.

But you still have to face the ghosts.

But you can't get the truck out when they are there.

I already have that ability but with ghosts around you are unable to futon things away.

You can definitely do it, because I did. 

They have terrible awareness and speed so you can just run away and then run back.

I had to drive the truck away slightly, then do the thing, then maybe run off.

I will try it then and see how it goes. Still going to exploderate the tanks first if I can't fulton them away.

Well thankfully that level is finished now. What an absurdly shit encounter.

Already got that soldier.

I haven't gotten to that part yet (not complaining about the spoiler) but if that's true it sounds a bit like Buscrad's Marrain from a China Mieville short story.

This story was original published as "Buscard's Murrain" in The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Taking, as the title suggests, the form of an encyclopaedic entry on a disease, the story describes a strange disease known as Buscard's Murrain (also, "Wormword"). The disease is contracted entirely via uttering of a certain word (which the story gives but never reveals its proper pronunciation). The disease causes insanity and the need to repeat the word over and over to large crowds. This sometimes causes spectators to repeat the word and thus becoming infected themselves.

And yeah, for mission that was giving me grief as above, I disabled the tanks with mines/c4, then stunned the truck driver, then bolted on the horse and did about 30 laps around the local trees and hills, I couldn't shake the ghosts. Then I decided just to bolt back to the truck, fulton it but accidentally got in the truck, and then fultoned it properly. 

It was a proper benny hill scene.