Death Stranding (first title from Kojima Productions)

Looks like I spoke too soon. I reached a boss where I'm having to swap weapons/items pretty often. Things are not going well. Lots of random putting my weapons away for no reason, tossing grenades automatically, etc.
It seems like if the controls worked better, this wouldn't be so bad. As it stands, Sam keeps putting his guns away at random and I keep getting into firefights empty handed.
 
Looks like I spoke too soon. I reached a boss where I'm having to swap weapons/items pretty often. Things are not going well. Lots of random putting my weapons away for no reason, tossing grenades automatically, etc.
It seems like if the controls worked better, this wouldn't be so bad. As it stands, Sam keeps putting his guns away at random and I keep getting into firefights empty handed.

how far are you? I found my issues got worse as the game progressed, basically at Mountain Knot now.
 
how far are you? I found my issues got worse as the game progressed, basically at Mountain Knot now.

I just completed Episode 4 (Unger). During that fight I was constantly doing things I didn't want to do. Usually in the form of putting my gun away, dropping all of my cargo for no reason, or having the menu pull up by itself. I stopped even trying to use grenades as Sam would just drop them at his own feet and get insta-killed 1/2 the time.
It look 5-6 tries, but I finally managed to win by killing an enemy, running like hell (just in case Sam would put his gun away) and then slowly going back and repeating. The fight took forever, even though it should have been 5 minutes and complete on the first try. What a mess. I've never had a game's controls go haywire like this before.
 
I just completed Episode 4 (Unger). During that fight I was constantly doing things I didn't want to do. Usually in the form of putting my gun away, dropping all of my cargo for no reason, or having the menu pull up by itself. I stopped even trying to use grenades as Sam would just drop them at his own feet and get insta-killed 1/2 the time.
It look 5-6 tries, but I finally managed to win by killing an enemy, running like hell (just in case Sam would put his gun away) and then slowly going back and repeating. The fight took forever, even though it should have been 5 minutes and complete on the first try. What a mess. I've never had a game's controls go haywire like this before.

Yeah, it gets worse sadly, especially the run/boost button and menu (at least for me) nothing like boosting off a ledge for no reason and having the menu pop up mid air.
 
There’s a guide on the steam forums of a way to fix it by using steam input and increasing the input delay. It’s a big bug with the Xbox one controller and I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t been patched yet.
 
I just completed Episode 4 (Unger). During that fight I was constantly doing things I didn't want to do. Usually in the form of putting my gun away, dropping all of my cargo for no reason, or having the menu pull up by itself. I stopped even trying to use grenades as Sam would just drop them at his own feet and get insta-killed 1/2 the time.
It look 5-6 tries, but I finally managed to win by killing an enemy, running like hell (just in case Sam would put his gun away) and then slowly going back and repeating. The fight took forever, even though it should have been 5 minutes and complete on the first try. What a mess. I've never had a game's controls go haywire like this before.
There is where I am right now. I hate it not because of your reasons but for the annoyance of being stuck in 3rd person in a tight map. God how I would have loved to pay extra $ to be able to play this portion of the game in in first person.
 
I can't seem to find anything about input delay, but some posts mention that you should have the Xbox controller configuration enabled. I remember that messed with some other games earlier, so hopefully I don't have to toggle that setting every time I play this. I'm about to try that.
I've noticed that motorcycle boosts seem "sticky" now. Basically, once I hit boost - it just keeps boosting until I either hit something or keep mashing other buttons. I don't recall that happening earlier.
What a weird ass game.
 
Seems there's a new patch for the game and a beta patch for Steam that claim to alleviate issues with DirectInput and this game. Tough for me to tell if it's fixed or not. It doesn't usually happen until it does.

I've noticed that I occasionally seem to have non-plot related missions that have I've seemingly accepted at some point. I have zero idea what to do with them, so I'm just bailing on them. I'm thinking either the game went ham with the extra button presses in a menu, or the game is just being esoteric again.

At this point I'm wishing the game would just end. I'm too far to walk away, but I'm not enjoying myself much anymore. Things perked up with chapter 3, but I'm bored again. It's like the worst parts of RDR2 over and over.
 
Seems there's a new patch for the game and a beta patch for Steam that claim to alleviate issues with DirectInput and this game. Tough for me to tell if it's fixed or not. It doesn't usually happen until it does.

I've noticed that I occasionally seem to have non-plot related missions that have I've seemingly accepted at some point. I have zero idea what to do with them, so I'm just bailing on them. I'm thinking either the game went ham with the extra button presses in a menu, or the game is just being esoteric again.

At this point I'm wishing the game would just end. I'm too far to walk away, but I'm not enjoying myself much anymore. Things perked up with chapter 3, but I'm bored again. It's like the worst parts of RDR2 over and over.

side quests? all i have found is deliveries, either main quest or just basic, the goal to get every town to 5 stars.

Doesn't actually take that much either if you have the bridges truck, take premiem deliverys and just book it through everything but BT's.
 
side quests? all i have found is deliveries, either main quest or just basic, the goal to get every town to 5 stars.

Doesn't actually take that much either if you have the bridges truck, take premiem deliverys and just book it through everything but BT's.

They're just deliveries, but I don't know where they came from. I've had this happen a few different times. They aren't from other players and they aren't from undelivered goods or robots. They're just there. I don't think they're required...but I can't really tell. At least twice I was able to decline or or abandon it and they just went away. With another, it only seems to give me the option to reset the mission in some way. It's asking for me to collect 4 items near a waterfall, but I don't see anything anywhere around there to actually collect.

I have zero plans to get everyone to 5 stars. At this point, I'm just wanting to get as far as I can as quickly as I can and move on.
 
They're just deliveries, but I don't know where they came from. I've had this happen a few different times. They aren't from other players and they aren't from undelivered goods or robots. They're just there. I don't think they're required...but I can't really tell. At least twice I was able to decline or or abandon it and they just went away. With another, it only seems to give me the option to reset the mission in some way. It's asking for me to collect 4 items near a waterfall, but I don't see anything anywhere around there to actually collect.

I have zero plans to get everyone to 5 stars. At this point, I'm just wanting to get as far as I can as quickly as I can and move on.

the waterfall one just appears after meeting Mama. Sounds like the email quests, open your menu and check messages, any in yellow are a quest, details are in there.
 
Ok so I finally installed this and checked out DLSS in this game, for myself. I have a 32 inch, 1440p monitor and an RTX 2060

My impressions of DLSS are a bit different than Digital Foundry.

The first thing I noticed immediately: Right at the beginning of the game, the main character is wearing a rain jacket. And it has blue striping on it, which has a metal flake glittering effect. DLSS blunts the sparkling effect of the glitter/flake. and overall, the dots of the flakes seem lower resolution.
Also, DLSS does not do a very good job of rendering the rain. If you turn off DLSS, it is raining quite heavily, with big drops of water. And it sort of affects your ability to look at stuff. With DLSS on, the rain drops are much thinner and overall it seems more like a misty sort of sleet effect. Rather than big rain drops. And as a side effect, you can see stuff better.
Also, DLSS overall, is not very sharp. Much like with the that glitter/flake effect, it seems to blunt the little details of everything. And the overall net effect is that everything is visibly softened. It reminds me a lot of H.264 compression.

Fidelity FX CAS does a much better job with how it handles the rain. It still has a softness to it, because it forces you to use TAA. But overall, I think it looks better and overall more clarity, compared to DLSS. Even though it has some visible aliasing from the rendering resolution drop. The glitter/metal flake effect is kind of a wash, in the end. It looks different with Fiedelity FX. But not strictly better, than DLSS.

And finally, I think that running at 1080p with FXAA actually looks better than both. FXAA in this game is much sharper than TAA. It must be configured to only to edge detection, because this FXAA implementation does not blur or smear details. However, its not great edge detection, so you still have some light aliasing. The aliasing is comparable to 1440p with Fidelity FX CAS (which drops vetical and horizontal rez to 70%). but the image is much sharper, due to FXAA. Rather than TAA. And there is also a touch more fine detail on textures and the alpha textures in the grass and whatnot, with 1080p + FXAA Vs 1440p DLSS and Fidelity FX.

So in the end, I'm kind of suprised at the Digital Foundry video. as it seems to have completely missed mention some of this stuff, such as rain, or visual FX such as the glittering effect.

Earlier in this thread, there was a preview article which talke about that issue with DLSS (the rain, too) and now I really understand what they meant.

I will try to get some pics tonight. Hopefully this game uses Ansel, for low compression images.
 
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Also, anyone here running this game on a non-super RTX 2060, with 6 cores CPU or more? I'm curious about your performance. I'm still using a 7600k quad core.
 
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Crap, got caught.

Hold on while I equip my grenade...

Why won't he throw the grenade?!?

Fuck.
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Whenever I get grabbed more than once (or if I can't get my stuff easily), I just go back to my last save. Unless it's a looooooong way to go, it's usually faster just to start over.
Combat is so clumsy, it's easier to just drive past everything at top speed and hope for the best.
 
Never had any issue with combat, been a very easy game so far. Only time I died was trying to drive a corpse of a Mule I hit with a truck (and killed, that shocked me) to the incinerator passed the craftsman. Hit a BT, sunk immediately, spawned the boss monster, and had no blood bags to power my grenades, it was a slow death but it got me eventually.
 
The game is better if you just let things happen if they happen, IMO, because even on the hardest difficulty it's not overly hard. You can always reload saves, which is easier, but it ramps up the challenge if you just let it happen.

Also, one big aspect to the game that makes it so easy are other players structures showing up. I opted to turn this off after the Episode 4 boss battle because I felt like this just made the game far to easy since you don't have to worry about carrying around as many tools.
 
I've had a number of cases of thinking I equipped a grenade only to realize I dropped it. I'm not sure if this is user error or wonky controls--or a combination of the two. It certainly is an issue I haven't experienced in other games.

I've lost most appetite for Standard Orders. For the most part, they all feel like rote grinding. The ones connected closely by roads are palatable, for example Lake Knot City to the Craftsman or Engineer. However, the ones to Junk Dealer, Film Director and Weather Station are incredibly annoying due to the headaches of MULEs, persistent timefall/BTs, and gorges/terrain where (near as I can discern) there is no fast travel option at my current stage in the game. Mind you, headache != hard... rather, they are irritating and I feel little desire to rinse and repeat. Timefall Farms is another one, although I am hopeful I will have a highway close to that location at some point. A habitual completionist, Death Stranding is the first game I have no desire to max my relationships with NPCs/factions in.
 
The bridges truck really is a god send for completing orders, it did not take me many trips to get everything in that area to 5. The director only got maybe 5 deliverys from me, Junk dealer a little more but theres a fairly effective route between him, the artist, and south knot. also i have noticed less BT's in every area I five star, my map at this point is practically BT free apart from some obvious ruins.

basically only try 5 starring once you have the truck, the weight it can carry is fantastic, the upgraded range models can usually do 3-4 deliverys before charge becomes an issue, and you can boost at will past mules.

premium deliveries, full loads, and a couple loops of the map. Its not for everyone but the relaxing pace of the game, I put in maybe an hour a evening.
 
I just got access to the truck. Is it OK on terrain to the junk dealer and film director? I've been quite irritated by that stretch of land between those two preppers and the Distribution Center South of Lake Knot - both the multiple MULE camps as well as the gorges in that terrain. I haven't gotten to South Knot City yet (that's my next order....) so perhaps there's a cleaner route from the south that I'll soon have access to. Or as you said maybe I can just drive the truck on that terrain and boost past the MULEs.

When boosting the truck on rocky terrain, does cargo get damaged? I've had cargo damaged when my bike hits serious bumps.
 
Are you guys all on controllers that are having issues? I opted for K+M and haven't had any of this happen yet.

I do USUALLY play these type of games with a controller, but it just felt wonky to me.
 
Are you guys all on controllers that are having issues? I opted for K+M and haven't had any of this happen yet.

I do USUALLY play these type of games with a controller, but it just felt wonky to me.
Mouse and keyboard... I haven't had the issues others have described, but I will say that I've had some annoyances in terms of adapting myself to the controls. Biggest one is the lack of 'auto-equipping' during a fight, then getting knocked around and not having your grenade equipped when you come to.
 
The rogue input bug is specific with using an Xbox controller / xinput. You can resolve it by using steam input instead.
 
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I think they fixed the controller input bug with the patch today. Either that or the Steam Beta update did the trick. I've had no issues with random commands happening twice (or not at all) this evening.
The fact that Horizon is a buggy mess has kept me going with this game. If I had something better waiting, I don't think I could keep playing much longer. At this point, I'm just going to blow through to the end and never touch it again.
 
I have about 47 hours in. I think I may be near the end of the story (I haven't bothered to check guides etc. just the feeling I get).

I have enjoyed the game up to this point for the most part. I think it is worth playing.

I would say my main complaint is that the combat feels very cumbersome and it takes too long to unlock weapons, so you spend most of the game trying to run away from everything to stop from losing all your sh*t... I only feel like now I am starting to unlock enough stuff to actually fight stuff and I may be almost done the main story line... Probably a few more hours left going back and finishing the plethora of side quests beyond what I have already done, build some roads etc.

Also, performance is decent with DLSS enabled, everything maxed at 4k with HDR. Looks nice, runs smooth. FPS is usually 80-100 FPS. Turning DLSS off drops to 60-80 from what I remember. DLSS looks good in this game, so it makes sense to have it turned on I would say. I haven't circled back to Shadow of the Tomb raider (first game I used with DLSS), but that game looks kind of bad with DLSS, it is nothing like that, much better.
 
I wonder what you found hard about combat, I've unlocked bolas and guns, haven't hit rockets yet (chapter 6 is where i am at) and I still just hop off my vehicle and run around swinging my fists, never once lost a fight. sometimes I'll pop a bola round off if someone has the counter attack block.

Have not tried fighting the terrorists yet, but with corpses causing void outs and not wanting to shlup to the incinerator I just run past em.

Trucks made combat super easy, steal the mules if you don't have bridges trucks, load the cargo into the truck, and fight with nothing to lose.

The AI is really stupid. frankly the game is super easy, I use it as a relaxation break.
 
I feel like everything in the game is there to slow you down. To be an obstacle and get in your way. Nothing is overtly challenging, but everything instead forces you to be deliberate. Enemies are idiots, but you can't jut kill them...or that's yet another thing you have to go deal with. Instead you just run around mashing X or try to avoid them. Ditto with BT's. It isn't hard to just crouch walk past them. Nor is it hard to hit them with grenades. Both both force you to slow down. This game is long and monotonous enough as it is. The last thing I want is for the same things to keep getting in my way. It isn't fun sneaking around or mashing X to punch idiot enemies.
 
I feel like everything in the game is there to slow you down. To be an obstacle and get in your way. Nothing is overtly challenging, but everything instead forces you to be deliberate. Enemies are idiots, but you can't jut kill them...or that's yet another thing you have to go deal with. Instead you just run around mashing X or try to avoid them. Ditto with BT's. It isn't hard to just crouch walk past them. Nor is it hard to hit them with grenades. Both both force you to slow down. This game is long and monotonous enough as it is. The last thing I want is for the same things to keep getting in my way. It isn't fun sneaking around or mashing X to punch idiot enemies.

Thats fair, I haven't found it slow me down much, more like do I want a small change of pace and to smash a few guys or vaporize some BT's. Every area with them can either be sped through or with a small detour moved around.

Heck I just 'fought' the boss where you pick up Mama for transport, which is basically run away as fast as you can, had the level 3 speed legs equiped and just ran and jumped for a few seconds and it ended, was pretty anti-climactic actually.

I can completely see that the game is not for everyone, but for what it does it does it well. I'm enjoying it more than I did MGS5 which I never finished, I do kind of want to go back but I feel like that game is way worse than this for boring grind and delays.
 
I've made it to chapter 5 and my earlier euphoria (entering chapter 3 with vehicles, roads, etc.) is wearing thin. I'm OK with the story and pacing, and still believe the visuals and sound are world class, but some of the fundamentals actually harken to 20 years ago, if you look past the gloss:

1) Combat with humanoids is 1993 Doom-era in terms of sophistication. The MULES mostly just stumble around, take awkward pauses, and sometimes just stand there and look at you. Complex terrain, line of sight and cover? Forget about it. Smart AI that takes its time or coordinates to flush you out? Nope. The Chapter 4 "battlefield" event was painful--it truly was Wolf3D/Doom with 2020 visuals... I'll just stand here and let the soldiers come single file 'round the corner. Don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting Far Cry 5 or Crysis 3 here... but... maybe at least on par with the original Far Cry? Or one of the early Mass Effect games? Or heck Borderlands or Borderlands 2? Is that too much sophistication to ask?

2) The vehicle dynamics also harden to early 1990s driving sims and racing games. Fine-grained controls seem largely absent. There is what feels like the most primitive of physics models. Riding the bike feels a bit like mid 1990s motorcycle sims like Kawasaki Superbike Challenge, only much prettier. Again, I'm not looking for F1 2020 here... just something closer to that than to Nintendo or Sega era sophistication.

3) Repetitive mini cut scenes have steadily devolved from "cool" to "okaaaay" to "how do I skip this?" to "I will punch the screen if I see this again" I only recycle large amounts of materials now because I can't stand that "thank you for your support" advertisement cut screen that pops up. And yes I furiously click to speed it up but you can only cut out so much. Ditto all the short transitions when turning in packages; entering, leaving or upgrading a structure; claiming material, entering a BT area. There's a road I built from South Knot going northward; it intersects the edge of BT territory such that each time I drive on the road, I have to deal with that 5 second pause. So now I just go off-road at that section to avoid the irritation.

To balance the ranting, I just got zip-line access and that's definitely cool. It doesn't offset the above but I still am enjoying it.
 
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I don't mind the BT pause, but I absolutely hate that it happens TWICE each time, once as you gasp, then once for the BB scanner animation, thats just poor design.
 
I don't mind the BT pause, but I absolutely hate that it happens TWICE each time, once as you gasp, then once for the BB scanner animation, thats just poor design.

Ah, yes! That is indeed annoying. The initial gasp is sometimes particularly annoying when on a bike... the first time it happened I wasn't sure whether BTs were nearby or my bike got stuck in mud.
 
For better or worse, I am starting this game. Went with this over Horizon Zero Dawn, will give that a try after they patch it. Hopefully it isn't too dreadful. Setting looks interesting, gameplay bland. Suppose I'll see how it stacks up.
 
The weirdest thing about the BT/rain pause is that it makes your vehicle stop on a dime. Personally, I want to blow by that shit at 100 MPH and never look back.
 
I don't mind the BT pause, but I absolutely hate that it happens TWICE each time, once as you gasp, then once for the BB scanner animation, thats just poor design.
There's a setting you can adjust if you haven't done that already. I find it a bit less annoying after the first go around.
The weirdest thing about the BT/rain pause is that it makes your vehicle stop on a dime. Personally, I want to blow by that shit at 100 MPH and never look back.
The game explains this as the same reason that stuff like planes and drones cannot fly: electricity is disrupted. Cut the power on an electric vehicle while leaving it 'in gear', same thing happens to a large degree.
 
I think the main thing that I've found annoying with the game is the ridiculous scale. Hop around a few corners but you've magically made it across 1/3 of the US?

I get that there's probably no good way to represent the real scale, but it's silly to the point of breaking immersion when the people inside structures who receive your character shower praise about how difficult it must have been to throw the cargo in the bed of the truck and drive around the corner!
 
I think the main thing that I've found annoying with the game is the ridiculous scale. Hop around a few corners but you've magically made it across 1/3 of the US?

I get that there's probably no good way to represent the real scale, but it's silly to the point of breaking immersion when the people inside structures who receive your character shower praise about how difficult it must have been to throw the cargo in the bed of the truck and drive around the corner!

Lol its so true, the engineer and craftsman route come right to mind.
 
I think the main thing that I've found annoying with the game is the ridiculous scale. Hop around a few corners but you've magically made it across 1/3 of the US?

I get that there's probably no good way to represent the real scale, but it's silly to the point of breaking immersion when the people inside structures who receive your character shower praise about how difficult it must have been to throw the cargo in the bed of the truck and drive around the corner!
IMO the game would have been better paced/etc if the game world was much larger, but instead of being more 'open world' basically have the game be linear.

The best moments of the game is when you are traveling to new places, and the challenge that provides. I can imagine this game being better where you literally traveled across the US and things moving in a linear fashion.
 
Game's pretty linear in my mind... you do pretty much have to go East to West based on the premise, after all.
 
While I'm venting, I also dislike the mechanic of fast travel minus all gear.

I can understand packages not coming through as that would break one of the fundamental parts of the game. However, gear is inexpensive to rebuild, which means I'm starting to accumulate large amounts of the same stuff in various private lockers. It makes me want to rename the game to Clutter Quest: A Norman Reedus Story.
 
Game's pretty linear in my mind... you do pretty much have to go East to West based on the premise, after all.

there is a lot of backtracking and back and forth, I think what he means is no back tracking just a longer/larger journey across the US.
 
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