Death Stranding
Discussion
Holy hell is this game a grind. I’ve got a day off from work today and felt like having a game, after playing it a bit over Easter. But I had a bit of an epiphany after getting to Port Lake City (or whatever it’s called, just before the first forced mini boss fight).
The micro management in this game is off the scale. Get caught in the rain and your cargo just gets slowly destroyed, meaning you have to spray it (?) constantly. Found a bike after however many kms of slogging and can barely use it because of the terrain.
The game actively punishes you for playing it. If you carry a reasonable amount of stuff it turns into a tightrope walking simulator where you have to juggle the trigger buttons, or plain just walk to your destination.
Often you encounter unavoidable BT areas which you have to stealth through, slowing you down even more, all the while the baby you’re carrying is losing “health”, your cargo is getting trashed by the rain, etc.
The “game” is basically like working for Royal Mail in the apocalypse.
I’m only on Chapter 2 (next mission is getting on a boat), so maybe it becomes less of a slogfest soon, but knowing Kojima - I doubt it. MGSV was nowhere near as gleefully punishing as this. I can either do the next mission, or if I want to try and up my stars with different locations I have to carry like 50kg of s
t for 36 likes, for 3km across rocky mountains with unavoidable BTs.
How does anyone actually enjoy this game?
The graphics and music are great, though.
The micro management in this game is off the scale. Get caught in the rain and your cargo just gets slowly destroyed, meaning you have to spray it (?) constantly. Found a bike after however many kms of slogging and can barely use it because of the terrain.
The game actively punishes you for playing it. If you carry a reasonable amount of stuff it turns into a tightrope walking simulator where you have to juggle the trigger buttons, or plain just walk to your destination.
Often you encounter unavoidable BT areas which you have to stealth through, slowing you down even more, all the while the baby you’re carrying is losing “health”, your cargo is getting trashed by the rain, etc.
The “game” is basically like working for Royal Mail in the apocalypse.
I’m only on Chapter 2 (next mission is getting on a boat), so maybe it becomes less of a slogfest soon, but knowing Kojima - I doubt it. MGSV was nowhere near as gleefully punishing as this. I can either do the next mission, or if I want to try and up my stars with different locations I have to carry like 50kg of s
t for 36 likes, for 3km across rocky mountains with unavoidable BTs.How does anyone actually enjoy this game?
The graphics and music are great, though.
Edited by Durzel on Tuesday 6th April 10:27
It's been a while since I played it but:
Just hold both grips all the time and you have no balancing issues.
The rain is only damaging the container initially, once the container is damaged it will then impact the actual cargo, it's falls and such that'll instantly damage the cargo, so you don't need to be constantly repairing the containers.
There's stuff coming that makes things less arduous, but you are right that it's a Postman Pat Simulator in a world of nightmares. My personal advice would be not to get too invested in side mission type stuff, I found I totally burnt myself out doing far too much side stuff and ended up losing interest in continuing the 'story' side of it, ended up putting the game down for about 2 years before I completed it at some point during the enormous blur that was 2020
I did the same with MGSV interestingly, both in terms of too much side stuff, and completing it finally last year...
Just hold both grips all the time and you have no balancing issues.
The rain is only damaging the container initially, once the container is damaged it will then impact the actual cargo, it's falls and such that'll instantly damage the cargo, so you don't need to be constantly repairing the containers.
There's stuff coming that makes things less arduous, but you are right that it's a Postman Pat Simulator in a world of nightmares. My personal advice would be not to get too invested in side mission type stuff, I found I totally burnt myself out doing far too much side stuff and ended up losing interest in continuing the 'story' side of it, ended up putting the game down for about 2 years before I completed it at some point during the enormous blur that was 2020
I did the same with MGSV interestingly, both in terms of too much side stuff, and completing it finally last year...
Cheers. Maybe I'll have another crack at some point.
It irritates me a bit that you can't see stuff that would obviously be massively useful until you can craft it yourself. The courier bit I just did, by the end of it the mission result page said I did it in 1.6x the shortest distance, when I pretty much went directly as much as you could do on foot/bike. This suggests to me that there are probably zip lines that would've taken me straight there.
I've been trying to do standard orders, but seeing it ask me to carry 50kg or so across mountainous terrain, through BT areas I can't bypass, just sucks the fun out of it.
It irritates me a bit that you can't see stuff that would obviously be massively useful until you can craft it yourself. The courier bit I just did, by the end of it the mission result page said I did it in 1.6x the shortest distance, when I pretty much went directly as much as you could do on foot/bike. This suggests to me that there are probably zip lines that would've taken me straight there.
I've been trying to do standard orders, but seeing it ask me to carry 50kg or so across mountainous terrain, through BT areas I can't bypass, just sucks the fun out of it.
Yeah I think best bet is if the fun is being sucked out by the side tasks, just push the story on a bit.
As you mention zip lines, possible minor spoiler... you can manufacture them yourself probably fairly soon, I ended up making a bloody great backbone of ziplines and could blast across vast parts of the map fully overladen with hundreds of kilos of cargo barely having to walk at all and could fulfil missions / get about really easily.
Doing loads of side missions didn't really get me much beyond better 'stats' I think, there's no real actual tangible reward, there's some better gear and things maybe but you can find stuff in random lockers etc. anyway, and all it does is make it easier to do more side missions... I'm sure it's some sort of meta reference to materialism / the rat race, who knows
The 1.6x distance is that it's 60% longer than a literal straight line, it's not a case that it's 60% longer than the theoretical 'best route possible', it's literally that it's 60% longer than the straight distance between the two points, so for many jobs it'd be likely impossible to get 1.0x. I feel like the best I ever saw was about 1.1 or 1.2 and they were very conveniently placed straight line type jobs.
Rain wise you can also use the weather forecast thing in the menu screen and pass time at those weird toadstool creations people use and wait for the weather to pass, you do get more comfortable being 'around' BTs so the areas where they permanently are become a bit less of an imposition, it's always a bit stressful though, I remember the first time I was caught up with a BT was fking intense, full on nightmare world ending st with all the blackness etc.
As you mention zip lines, possible minor spoiler... you can manufacture them yourself probably fairly soon, I ended up making a bloody great backbone of ziplines and could blast across vast parts of the map fully overladen with hundreds of kilos of cargo barely having to walk at all and could fulfil missions / get about really easily.
Doing loads of side missions didn't really get me much beyond better 'stats' I think, there's no real actual tangible reward, there's some better gear and things maybe but you can find stuff in random lockers etc. anyway, and all it does is make it easier to do more side missions... I'm sure it's some sort of meta reference to materialism / the rat race, who knows
The 1.6x distance is that it's 60% longer than a literal straight line, it's not a case that it's 60% longer than the theoretical 'best route possible', it's literally that it's 60% longer than the straight distance between the two points, so for many jobs it'd be likely impossible to get 1.0x. I feel like the best I ever saw was about 1.1 or 1.2 and they were very conveniently placed straight line type jobs.
Rain wise you can also use the weather forecast thing in the menu screen and pass time at those weird toadstool creations people use and wait for the weather to pass, you do get more comfortable being 'around' BTs so the areas where they permanently are become a bit less of an imposition, it's always a bit stressful though, I remember the first time I was caught up with a BT was f
king intense, full on nightmare world ending st with all the blackness etc. Edited by SturdyHSV on Tuesday 6th April 16:10
RobGT81 said:
SturdyHSV said:
ended up putting the game down for about 2 years before I completed it at some point during the enormous blur that was 2020
It was only released towards the end of 2019 so you probably only put it down for a few months. Possibly effected by timefall. wow, 2020 really was a confusing blur!SturdyHSV said:
Yeah I think best bet is if the fun is being sucked out by the side tasks, just push the story on a bit.
As you mention zip lines, possible minor spoiler... you can manufacture them yourself probably fairly soon, I ended up making a bloody great backbone of ziplines and could blast across vast parts of the map fully overladen with hundreds of kilos of cargo barely having to walk at all and could fulfil missions / get about really easily.
Doing loads of side missions didn't really get me much beyond better 'stats' I think, there's no real actual tangible reward, there's some better gear and things maybe but you can find stuff in random lockers etc. anyway, and all it does is make it easier to do more side missions... I'm sure it's some sort of meta reference to materialism / the rat race, who knows
The 1.6x distance is that it's 60% longer than a literal straight line, it's not a case that it's 60% longer than the theoretical 'best route possible', it's literally that it's 60% longer than the straight distance between the two points, so for many jobs it'd be likely impossible to get 1.0x. I feel like the best I ever saw was about 1.1 or 1.2 and they were very conveniently placed straight line type jobs.
Rain wise you can also use the weather forecast thing in the menu screen and pass time at those weird toadstool creations people use and wait for the weather to pass, you do get more comfortable being 'around' BTs so the areas where they permanently are become a bit less of an imposition, it's always a bit stressful though, I remember the first time I was caught up with a BT was fking intense, full on nightmare world ending st with all the blackness etc.
Thanks, that's helpful.As you mention zip lines, possible minor spoiler... you can manufacture them yourself probably fairly soon, I ended up making a bloody great backbone of ziplines and could blast across vast parts of the map fully overladen with hundreds of kilos of cargo barely having to walk at all and could fulfil missions / get about really easily.
Doing loads of side missions didn't really get me much beyond better 'stats' I think, there's no real actual tangible reward, there's some better gear and things maybe but you can find stuff in random lockers etc. anyway, and all it does is make it easier to do more side missions... I'm sure it's some sort of meta reference to materialism / the rat race, who knows
The 1.6x distance is that it's 60% longer than a literal straight line, it's not a case that it's 60% longer than the theoretical 'best route possible', it's literally that it's 60% longer than the straight distance between the two points, so for many jobs it'd be likely impossible to get 1.0x. I feel like the best I ever saw was about 1.1 or 1.2 and they were very conveniently placed straight line type jobs.
Rain wise you can also use the weather forecast thing in the menu screen and pass time at those weird toadstool creations people use and wait for the weather to pass, you do get more comfortable being 'around' BTs so the areas where they permanently are become a bit less of an imposition, it's always a bit stressful though, I remember the first time I was caught up with a BT was f
king intense, full on nightmare world ending st with all the blackness etc. I had another blast last night, into Episode 3, and am not feeling so jaded about it now. Bit of a second wind.
The Epic Games Store Free Game thread has rather morphed into a Death Stranding discussion thread, so I an directing people there to here.
A lot of people on the PC platform started playing it over Christmas as it was an Epic Games Store freebie. I've clocked up over 120 hours since getting it.
A lot of people on the PC platform started playing it over Christmas as it was an Epic Games Store freebie. I've clocked up over 120 hours since getting it.
I thought that Monster Energy had been replaced very recently on the standard game. I know the Director's Cut replaced it from the beginning but I just noticed it today in the standard game.
Anyway, a little googling suggests it's because I recently delivered beer to a Distribution Centre.
See
https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Timefall_Po...
I think I will get Sam to drink too much in order to see the "drunk Sam" animations.
Anyway, a little googling suggests it's because I recently delivered beer to a Distribution Centre.
See
https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Timefall_Po...
I think I will get Sam to drink too much in order to see the "drunk Sam" animations.
ArsE82 said:
I'll have to give this another go I think. I put about two hours in last year and to be honest, something about it really creeped me out (I'm a grown man)! I recall trying to sneak past some creepy black floaty things <shudder>
Me too. I got to that point and couldnt figure out how to get past it, maybe it was inevitable. I think I made my first delivery and then havent picked it up since. Is it worth running it on the ps5 as opposed to ps4? TimmyMallett said:
Me too. I got to that point and couldnt figure out how to get past it, maybe it was inevitable. I think I made my first delivery and then havent picked it up since. Is it worth running it on the ps5 as opposed to ps4?
You can either creep past them, which is very tedious, or deliberately let yourself get captured (which can be a little disconcerting the first few times) and then when you get dragged to a mini-boss battle you leg it. Run away. When you get to the edge of the tar lake the encounter will end and the area will be clear for a while. As you get more proficient and gain some weapons, you might choose to fight the mini-boss rather than running away, as they are a great source of Chiral Crystals.
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