Death Stranding (first title from Kojima Productions)

jobert said:
I guess for the same reason you couldn't restrain yourself from vomiting out your useless post.
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Just as long as you remember 'you don't like to tell people how to spend their money' the next time you go and tell people how to spend their money đź‘Ť
 
staknhalo said:
Just as long as you remember 'you don't like to tell people how to spend their money' the next time you go and tell people how to spend their money đź‘Ť
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I think you need to brush up on your basic reading comprehension skills. I didn't tell you how to spend your money anywhere in my fucking reply. All I essentially told you was I thought it was silly that you were being that dramatic about $10.
 
jobert said:
I think you need to brush up on your basic reading comprehension skills. I didn't tell you how to spend your money anywhere in my fucking reply. All I essentially told you was I thought it was silly that you were being that dramatic about $10.
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Your free to think pointing out it's a separate build and Steam entry when it could have been an (even a paid) update for the existing one, and that as pointed out a good majority of these types of updates have been given for free, id 'drama' if you want. I call it 'an observation'. Sorry you took that critical observation of the game/update model/studio/publisher/whatever so personally.
 
staknhalo said:
Your free to think pointing out it's a separate build and Steam entry when it could have been an (even a paid) update for the existing one, and that as pointed out a good majority of these types of updates have been given for free, id 'drama' if you want. I call it 'an observation'. Sorry you took that critical observation of the game so personbally.
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I'm pretty sure they didn't do that just to aggravate you. I'm no expert on game development but I would venture to guess that they had reasons for making a separate build for the improvements that they did. And again this is not uncommon as there's been other devs do the same thing for sometimes very minuscule visual improvements.
 
I too think $10 is a bit steep. It seems within reason for this to be a free update. That being said they already did some free missions with a small Cyberpunk 2077 tie in mission. Although those missions were more of the same.

How long are the Director's Cut missions? Seems like you'll be done with them in 30-60 minutes?

The new equipment seems nice but the real reason for it is the dying player base. The game relies on online connections and other people to build structures. But with less players, you'll have less usable structures. Playing 100% on your own would be too slow and difficult. It is true at times I felt like I was encountering too much help from other players. But 100% offline would have been brutal for a first play through. I see this new content as something that keeps the game reasonably easy to play as there will be less player made structures going forward. Therefore I don't see it as something extra, but really a gameplay necessity for new players going forward.
 
I'm glad I never bought the original version...this new Director's Cut seems much improved (quality of life improvements) and the definitive version of the game...developers seem to be releasing new versions a year or so after the initial release- Doom Eternal did almost the same by adding in ray-tracing 1 year later
 
polonyc2 said:
I'm glad I never bought the original version...this new Director's Cut seems much improved (quality of life improvements) and the definitive version of the game...developers seem to be releasing new versions a year or so after the initial release- Doom Eternal did almost the same by adding in ray-tracing 1 year later
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The longer you wait the better you end up in today's gaming market. Seems like every time I start a game within a few weeks or a few months there ends up being an enhanced or special edition. Plus all the kinks are usually worked out if you wait long enough...
 
M76 said:
What's wrong with being a walking simulator?
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This game pretty much is a walking/climbing simulator, but made it work good enough. Add in minor horror elements, an interesting premise (good backdrop but kind of falls flat with massive exposition dumps spread out unevenly), kind of interesting gameplay and it works. I liked it, but seems to be very hit or miss. Just an okay/average AAA experience, IMO.
 
Flogger23m said:
This game pretty much is a walking/climbing simulator, but made it work good enough. Add in minor horror elements, an interesting premise (good backdrop but kind of falls flat with massive exposition dumps spread out unevenly), kind of interesting gameplay and it works. I liked it, but seems to be very hit or miss. Just an okay/average AAA experience, IMO.
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I'm just asking, because a ton of Kojima fans got awfully mad at me when I said the game was a walking simulator. I didn't mean it as a negative, actually the bit that you have to keep balanced while walking in the game is the part of the gameplay that I actually like so far.
 
M76 said:
I'm just asking, because a ton of Kojima fans got awfully mad at me when I said the game was a walking simulator. I didn't mean it as a negative, actually the bit that you have to keep balanced while walking in the game is the part of the gameplay that I actually like so far.
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It can get tedious and repetitive though. The story is decent enough, but again, sometimes lingers on and then has massive exposition dumps. If you make it to the ending you'll see what I mean. The credit sequence jumps between interactive gameplay, to cutscenes, to credits rolling, and back and fourth a few times. Around 2/3rds of the way through the trips become much longer in the snowy mountains and it becomes more about planning your route. In my case, I planned where I could drive and inched my vehicle up for most of the trips. Oddly fun, but then you do have to cross the same general areas a few times.

I enjoyed it overall. Walking simulator, or climbing/off road driving simulator is a perfectly good way to describe this game. Aside from that, there are small bits of clunky and quirky combat but it is mostly walking. Suppose it was unique enough to be fun, but doubt they can make a sequel without it being very stale.
 
M76 said:
I'm just asking, because a ton of Kojima fans got awfully mad at me when I said the game was a walking simulator. I didn't mean it as a negative, actually the bit that you have to keep balanced while walking in the game is the part of the gameplay that I actually like so far.
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I believe this is because the term "walking simulator" has been used to describe a game like "Firewatch" or "Gone Home" ; a linear narrative adventure without much in the way of gameplay elements save to move forward, read text and/or watch cinematics, and maybe make a few "choose A or B, or if you read every letter or not" style choices to determine the ending. In the minds of some, it is a pejorative for a lack of gameplay mechanics and an assumption of pretentiousness among other issues. Death Stranding making walking itself an in-depth gameplay mechanic on the other hand is novel so, while technically accurate, thanks to its history and contemporary usage of the term "walking simulator" may be perceived as a reductive critique of Death Stranding.

Flogger23m said:
It can get tedious and repetitive though. The story is decent enough, but again, sometimes lingers on and then has massive exposition dumps. If you make it to the ending you'll see what I mean. The credit sequence jumps between interactive gameplay, to cutscenes, to credits rolling, and back and fourth a few times. Around 2/3rds of the way through the trips become much longer in the snowy mountains and it becomes more about planning your route. In my case, I planned where I could drive and inched my vehicle up for most of the trips. Oddly fun, but then you do have to cross the same general areas a few times.

I enjoyed it overall. Walking simulator, or climbing/off road driving simulator is a perfectly good way to describe this game. Aside from that, there are small bits of clunky and quirky combat but it is mostly walking. Suppose it was unique enough to be fun, but doubt they can make a sequel without it being very stale.
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As far as the exposition dumps, cinematics, and general "weirdness" that's just par for the course when it comes to Kojima. He crafts oddly compelling plots, usually with a message, and weaves them into the mechanics as well. Like many auteur film directors, people either love his stuff or say "meh, I don't get what's the big deal". Death Stranding being the first big property for him post Konami and Metal Gear, its noteworthy he managed to structure and build an entirely different sort of game, with a theme that would only become more relevant with the advent of the COVID19 Pandemic. The traversal itself, along with the asymmetric "strand system" cooperation, all are in service to this dynamic. I'm not sure if Kojima himself will plan a direct sequel, but I am guessing that there will be others inspired by elements like the cooperative shared building environment and active route planning/traversal in their own games.
 
RanceJustice said:
I believe this is because the term "walking simulator" has been used to describe a game like "Firewatch" or "Gone Home" ; a linear narrative adventure without much in the way of gameplay elements save to move forward, read text and/or watch cinematics, and maybe make a few "choose A or B, or if you read every letter or not" style choices to determine the ending. In the minds of some, it is a pejorative for a lack of gameplay mechanics and an assumption of pretentiousness among other issues.
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So far that is a perfectly accurate description of this game. Walk forward make some A B C choices, and of course the extreme pretentiousness which is kind of the brand of Kojima. Unexplained things without any setup whatsoever, plot contrivances, and things that plain seem out of place get a free pass because of Kojima, when if anybody else tried to do these they'd be called out, but not our sacred cow. So far after 3 hours I think I've watched more cinematics than the time actually spent walking.

Death Stranding making walking itself an in-depth gameplay mechanic on the other hand is novel so, while technically accurate, thanks to its history and contemporary usage of the term "walking simulator" may be perceived as a reductive critique of Death Stranding.
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This is the kind of free pass I'm talking about. Calling the walking "in depth" is a bit of a stretch. Holding down two buttons so you don't fall over on rough terrain is not in-depth, and far from enough to make the gamplay satisfying in of itself. I'm not saying it is a bad mechanic (contrary to other contrieved kojima mechanics in previous games) just that it is not enough, surely there is more to the game, right?


BTW what good does holding your breath? The BCs or whatever they are called never go away, so you can hold it until you go green, or you can try to run. The latter always worked so far, the former only got me in deeper.
 
M76 said:
So far after 3 hours I think I've watched more cinematics than the time actually spent walking.
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Go further in the game and trips will take up to an hour at times, with not much cinematics between missions. But that is what I am referring to. Big exposition dumps, then at times it kind of fades out at can feel a bit repetitive going back and fourth to some places. Then another bunch of exposition dumps. Pacing can be off, but this is certainly an atmospheric game. The artwork, music, and setting carry it but better story pacing would've been helpful.

M76 said:
This is the kind of free pass I'm talking about. Calling the walking "in depth" is a bit of a stretch. Holding down two buttons so you don't fall over on rough terrain is not in-depth, and far from enough to make the gamplay satisfying in of itself. I'm not saying it is a bad mechanic (contrary to other contrieved kojima mechanics in previous games) just that it is not enough, surely there is more to the game, right?
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It gets a bit more complex, but I typically avoided many of the things. I seldom used ladders. I mostly used trucks to get from point A to B. Often times I drove on obstacles that would've trapped any vehicle.

M76 said:
BTW what good does holding your breath? The BCs or whatever they are called never go away, so you can hold it until you go green, or you can try to run. The latter always worked so far, the former only got me in deeper.
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Further you get in the game the harder the paths are, with more BTs. So running results in "death". I would just inch my truck up slowly, take out a few BTs, get back in truck, move up a bit more. Rinse repeat. You'll eventually get anti BT grenades and finally anti BT guns later. But combat in this game is clunky and not that well done. It is a walking/hiking simulator, first and foremost. Sprinkle in an interesting setting, artwork, themes and it is workable.


Example of some of the trips. You can see the old radar in the distance here:

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And you can see it down in the lower right here:


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Destination was up the mountain somewhere.

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Grenade launcher:

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Does it change as time goes on? A little bit. The main thing that changes is you'll need to plan your routes a bit. I've had to leave trucks behind a few times and come back for them. One time I abandoned my truck in the mountain range halfway through and had to come back up and grab it again. Mountain range area is where the planning comes in and where most of the challenge is. But the general gameplay never changes much.
 
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M76 said:
So far that is a perfectly accurate description of this game. Walk forward make some A B C choices, and of course the extreme pretentiousness which is kind of the brand of Kojima. Unexplained things without any setup whatsoever, plot contrivances, and things that plain seem out of place get a free pass because of Kojima, when if anybody else tried to do these they'd be called out, but not our sacred cow. So far after 3 hours I think I've watched more cinematics than the time actually spent walking.


This is the kind of free pass I'm talking about. Calling the walking "in depth" is a bit of a stretch. Holding down two buttons so you don't fall over on rough terrain is not in-depth, and far from enough to make the gamplay satisfying in of itself. I'm not saying it is a bad mechanic (contrary to other contrieved kojima mechanics in previous games) just that it is not enough, surely there is more to the game, right?


BTW what good does holding your breath? The BCs or whatever they are called never go away, so you can hold it until you go green, or you can try to run. The latter always worked so far, the former only got me in deeper.
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If you don't like Kojima, that's fine. His games may not be for you. However you must see the difference between a Dear Ester or Gone Home type game where there is , no route planning to deal with NPC antagonists and the environment itself , no choosing how to balance your parcels and equipment to keep your center of gravity, no shooting, no melee takedowns, no getting ambushed, no construction of everything from ladders to shelters, power management, vehicles, collaborative online elements and more. Long before Death Stranding "Walking Simulator" referred to a different kind of game, so of course people are going to balk at miscategorization the same way that people claiming that anything gloomy or has dodge-rolling is "souls-like", when there may be a whole host of things that differ from the proper Fromsoft "souls" game or those who stick very close to the genre formula in total.

Under that sort of rhetoric I could just talk about RPGs "just making numbers go up" or platfomers "jump to not die", but that's pretty disengenous. Aside from the fact I was making a comparison to the near lack of gameplay mechanics of any sort in traditional "walking simulators", holding buttons to not fall over isn't the sum total of the game system and should be appraised in aggregate. Death Stranding makes planning for , actively moving through, and reacting to emergent events, part of the traversal mechanic system; its a literal "player vs environment" element in addition to being "vs NPCs" at some times. You can fail , lose cargo, receive a lower rating on a mission etc...simply because of environmental hazards - watch where you step and your stamina gauge when it comes up, if you slip or fall you may damage your cargo, know where to deploy your tools efficiently or you'll be out when you really need them, if you load yourself up too much or balance it poorly your stamina drains, so your greed at wanting to return all that lost cargo can be your undoing, watch your batteries and other resources etc. Even if you put aside combat and stealth (which are significant enough elements), the whole traversal mechanic in aggregate and how it relates to the routes and experience of making deliveries adds up to a compelling gameloop for many. It differs more significantly from other "open world" gametypes in the "radio towers and bandit camps" model for instance ; another set of mechanics that some just hate entirely , some look for it to be done particularly well, and others enjoy wholeheartedly and seek them out in a repeated fashion. Even if you put aside the way hey structures his narratives or the content of his storytelling, Kojima usually melds mechanics in service of whatever vision it may be and it tends to be innovative ; this doesn't mean its to everyone's liking, but it often tends to be different than many other offerings even within the same ostensible genre. MGSV having a secret ending that is only available if everyone on an entirely platform (PC/Steam, PS4, XBOne etc) refused to build and/or scrapped nuclear weapons in their base - a feature that for each individual, is protective and keeps others from invading - so the whole "everyone has to potentially make themselves more vulnerable in order to step forward to something better, together" was way in line as a theme of denuclearization he wished to convey. With Death Stranding, it goes a bit farther creating its own genre or sub-genre of sorts from a number of different facets that make it different from even closest analogs like open world survival sims and the like. So there's quite a bit to the game both thematically and mechanically, and regardless of one's view on the "pretentiousness": of the storylin or themes, it does something different in gameplay that may not be for everyone, ,but is at least as valid as the features comprising the core gameloop in many other "open world" genres/gametypes.

Regarding holding one's breath, BTs cannot "see" you while you're doing so. You still need to move away but if you do it relatively slowly (ie crouched, holding your breath ) and keep aware of their location you can avoid having them "alarm" (ie when they "roar" and make a beeline for you) . Alternately, if they're on you you can hold your breath so they lose where you are faster. Of course you have to manage your breath gauge as another mechanic when sneaking through BT laden areas, to make sure you don't gasp at an inopportune time..
 
UPDATE V 1.001 NOW LIVE

"This minor update brings a number of stability improvements and bug fixes to DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT."

The "minor update" is 33.9 GB. :rolleyes:
 
Will there be any proper weapons in the game? I'm supposed to retrieve something from a mule camp, but there is no way to sneak in undetected. There is just too many of them and they are inside each other's FOV. And they seem to have some kind of shield so melee attacks do nothing.
 
M76 said:
Will there be any proper weapons in the game? I'm supposed to retrieve something from a mule camp, but there is no way to sneak in undetected. There is just too many of them and they are inside each other's FOV. And they seem to have some kind of shield so melee attacks do nothing.
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Yes, view my screen shot above with the grenade launcher. You don't want to kill people though (unless you want another BT creeping around), so use less lethal ammo. You'll get a rope gun which is probably the best. Then an assault rifle with rubber bullets. Flash bang grenades are useful to. But you don't really get into much combat in general.
 
Flogger23m said:
Yes, view my screen shot above with the grenade launcher. You don't want to kill people though (unless you want another BT creeping around), so use less lethal ammo. You'll get a rope gun which is probably the best. Then an assault rifle with rubber bullets. Flash bang grenades are useful to. But you don't really get into much combat in general.
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I really don't know how could I avoid combat. I guess I could ignore that specific job, it doesn't seem mission critical.
 
M76 said:
I really don't know how could I avoid combat. I guess I could ignore that specific job, it doesn't seem mission critical.
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With combat you don't have to kill people. I never killed anyone in the game. Some of the jobs might require you to get into combat, but you'll get better tools as you progress. You'll get many repeating jobs and eventually you'll figure out which ones are just similar routes. But sometimes you can get two jobs that go to the same, or similar areas, and it is best to do both at once if possible.
 
So I just learned that you can cause voidouts. This never happened to me during gameplay, which means I never "died". Seems like the carters are permanent so you probably want to avoid them, but I am finished with the game and might try one for the fun of it. Seems like they can only occur in certain areas and block off certain routes though.

I played through the Director's Cut and killed someone for the first time then dropped them off at an incinerator.
 
Not at all a fan of Epic Store, but an excellent game if you're into its design - the first true "walking sim" where walking is an actual mechanic! The in-depth traversal/balance/inventory, stealth, combat, and asynchronous collaborative building all come together in an excellent way. . If you're a Kojima/MGS fan and like his unique take on many themes (notably connection is a big focus in this one, both literal and figurative) and overall weirdness, that will be even better. The Director's Cut adds a bit of everything, bolsters quality of life type fixes, and overhauls some mechanics, plus a fair bit of new content (including even a bit of story expansion and new areas!) If you had the standard version of the game in the past, you can even import your save though unless you were significantly into the baseline version I would just suggest a new save file. The Director's Cut is now "the" version of the game for the collaborative online building environments; I'm not sure if the Steam and Epic Store versions will be able to both play together but hopefully this is the case. Either way, enjoy!

I'm generally opposed to Epic Store's business practices in many ways and I'd encourage anyone actually buying the title to pick it up on Steam, but for those who want to take advantage of free content from Epic , I suggest looking into alternate open source launchers such as Heroic ( https://heroicgameslauncher.com/ ) or Legendary ( https://legendary.gl/ ), as well as something more universal applying to many store/platforms like Playnite (https://playnite.link/) or Lutris ( https://lutris.net/ ) among others. Enjoy!
 
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I like Kojima games cause of 1) the batshit crazy, and then 2) the gameplay

This one was fine on the first but the second is you either like it or you don't - very polarizing, I was the latter this time around
 
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Blade-Runner said:
Noice, but is this going to be the director's cut version?
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I doubt it...but even if it's the Standard Edition, the upgrade is currently on sale for $4.99 (on the Epic Store)...so it's still a great deal no matter how disappointing the game is or if it's basically a walking simulator
 
polonyc2 said:
I doubt it...but even if it's the Standard Edition, the upgrade is currently on sale for $4.99 (on the Epic Store)...so it's still a great deal no matter how disappointing the game is or if it's basically a walking simulator
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Hmmm not bad. Are there any graphical features that warrant holding off playing this until I have an RTX capable GPU? My current build is super long in the tooth so I am sticking to last gen games until I can upgrade later next year.
 
Blade-Runner said:
Hmmm not bad. Are there any graphical features that warrant holding off playing this until I have an RTX capable GPU? My current build is super long in the tooth so I am sticking to last gen games until I can upgrade later next year.
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it doesn't have any ray-tracing features but apparently its DLSS implementation is one of the best ones (looks better than native)...rumors are ray tracing may be added in the future
 
polonyc2 said:
it doesn't have any ray-tracing features but apparently its DLSS implementation is one of the best ones (looks better than native)...rumors are ray tracing may be added in the future
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I haven't looked at DLSS in Death Stranding for about 2 years (been using AMD cards, my RTX 2060 has been sitting on a shelf).

When I looked at it back then, there were some very clear visual issues. Any sort of shiny or reflecting surface was very visibly dulled----looking like a much lower quality shader. A lot of the Rain was ommitted from the screen. Especially when the rain had bright sky/clouds behind it. DS has an effect where rain looks like its actually dripping on things and running down the sides of stuff-----that effect is basically non-existent with DLSS. And anytime you do manage to see rain dripping on stuff----the animation is very stilted, like several of the frames are cut-out. And that issue is shared with other things, such are waterfalls, running water, flashing lights, etc.

DLSS has had a few revisions since then. I would like to think most of those issues have been cleaned up. But, I haven't checked.
At the time, I recommended using AMD's fidelity FX CAS (if you need a performance boost at a higher resolution) and FXAA for Anti-Aliasing (both are in-game options). As the game's own TAA also blurred and blunted shiny things, etc. Basically trading some aliasing quality, for much better visual effects for many other things.

Here's a video I made 2 years ago. Even with youtube compression, you can easily see the issues.
https://hardforum.com/threads/more-dlss.1990492/page-12#post-1044753127
 
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Doesn't DLSS dynamically update someway to the latest DLL on all games (eventually) through GeForce Experience? Or was that only certain titles?
 
staknhalo said:
Doesn't DLSS dynamically update someway to the latest DLL on all games (eventually) through GeForce Experience? Or was that only certain titles?
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As far as I know, the developer has to manually update the game files.

It is possible to copy/paste the updated DLSS files between games. And it seems to give benefits. Whether or not it gives ALL of the potential benefits compared to the developer intentionally doing it, I am not sure.
 
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