I'm on my phone after work so searching the forum for this topic is a PITA, forgive me if I missed an obvious one.

I'm at about 130 hours into the game. S ranked every mission, 90% completion, almost done with mission tasks. I've invaded other FOBs and have had mine invaded many times. All it has ever been is a fun, silly diversion.

"But mah materials! But mah staff!"

Your resources are all unprocessed, you never lose the valuable stuff. You can get tens to hundreds of thousands of unprocessed resources from side ops or even some main ops in well under an hour. Your staff start to number well over a thousand before long. Losing a couple A ranks or even S ranks makes almost no difference. I'm constantly needing to fire staff because the ones I Fulton on top of volunteers completely fill up my base every two hours or so.

And it's not just my time played, either, when I had far fewer staff and time played I was never anything more than a little grumpy after a successful FOB attempt by an enemy, and that was mainly the principle of having MY staff stolen.

I'm not even going to talk about things like direct contract staff, because micromanaging your staff or worrying about individual members is a complete waste of time and effort. I've made 100% of available R&D items and have never worried about these things. It was a much bigger deal, relatively speaking, in Peace Walker, mainly due to the low staff cap and the awful auto sorting.

Your unprocessed materials... your 10-20ish staff, it's okay, you don't even have to go recover them... let it go. You don't have to freak out and find out how to still get a FOB while being offline, it's okay. Your base won't stop working, you benefit FAR more from being online and fleshing out your FOB than you do from trying to hide from it. Trust me, I'd be quite angry if there was no decent opt-in system for losing anything of real value

Its mostly the complete lack of any sort of explanation on how any of that shit works. Also the Icons for what material are boxed up on your fob are pretty clearly using the icons for processed materials.

Yeah, the lack of an explanation kind of sucks -- but that goes for the entire game. They don't explain SO many things, I didn't even NOTICE the invoices for box fast travel until like 35 hours! I don't think I've found a single tooltip for them, either.

And yeah, it uses the processed materials icon, but it's absolutely unprocessed materials that are stolen. Your processed stuff will never go down unless you spend it. Which is good, because if you could lose your processed fuel, I'd be raging so hard at all times, because that stuff is a pain to get! I've got so much time played and I STILL haven't finished expanding Mother Base! (To be fair, I wasn't paying attention to resource costs and got all of my FOB stuff to 3/4 before I realized it was way more expensive than the main base.)

I've come to really like FOBs because they're really low risk and lead to some of the best moments I've had in the game that made me wish I had Shadowplay enabled, dunno why I had it off. Having a guy invade my base, kill me, and then hide, while I come back, spot him and chase him. He goes over a rail and hangs, I go over with him... and we just kind of both hang there, moving left and right into each other for a good 45 seconds, I'm laughing my ass off and I'm sure he's getting a kick out of it too. I let go, and start pelting him with rubber bullets. He climbs up and sprints away. I chase him down, he thinks I don't see him go over another ledge, he's just hanging there. Click... tink! I roll a sleep grenade to where he is and cackle like a banshee as he slowly falls asleep and falls into the cold, cold ocean.

Plus, actually infiltrating a FOB with good defenses is probably the most rigorous test of stealth endurance in the entire game, as it should be, you're an invader in someone's domain, with dozens of defenders and traps. It's you against very stacked odds, and that's what makes it so thrilling when you actually succeed against a really hard FOB. You can't pause, you can't retry, you've got one shot. And when the enemy player actually joins in, it becomes ten times as harrowing and sometimes borderline impossible, but for me it never stops being fun. It was certainly a pain at first when I'd get shot at without ever seeing anyone, but as I play more I learn where the defender generally spawns and can get out of line of sight pretty reliably. I actually use characters other than Snake because they can wear helmets to protect them against headshots, which is a HUGE deal when another player joins. (Warning: Using combat staff and losing results in their death, not a faux "injury" like with Snake! That helmet comes at a cost!)

For all the crappy server stuff at launch, and despite how confusing and scary FOBs might seem at first, I think they add a lot to the game, give it even longer legs than it already has. There's a thrill and a challenge there greater than anything presented in the single player stuff, and I think that's very commendable. It's also SUPER satisfying when you spend some time fleshing out your defenses and logging in the next day to read "Defense successful!" as your base defended itself against a real player! That's awesome. It gives a weird sense of pride, like you did your little AI men right. And when the defense fails, I feel galvanized to hop in and retaliate! Also, I took up supporting a few random players, and I haven't regretted it. They've supported me back and it's so fun to join in to defend someone ELSE'S base, you still get bonus staff and materials for doing it!

I have still yet to be invaded. I'm wondering if its ever gonna happen. I also have never invaded anyone else and don't really plan to.

I only engaged in the FOB stuff to increase my overall staff limit a tiny amount and kind of ignored it until I hit the end of the game. I must of got invaded about 10-15 times but it's so easy to recoup my losses it never really mattered to me. I defended it twice when I wasnt doing anything important and thought it kind of sucked. But when you dig into the amount of things you can do to configure your base and you start invading tougher bases it starts to get more fun and i'm glad it's in the game.

What I really want is a proper MGO though. I loved MGS4's and thought it didnt get the recognition it deserved. (granted it was kind of a pain to set up outside of Japan)

Also, what's the point in nukes? Can I nuke a rival FOB?

Nukes prevent people with low heroism from invading your base. You require more and more heroism the more nukes someone has. It just lowers the chances you get invaded. You cannot use them, to my knowledge.

And we're getting proper MGO as well, so all is well!

I'm pretty sure the resources that are stolen from you are ones that your FOB mined itself, so it's stuff that you'll never get anyway if you don't log online.

From what I'm hearing, nukes can be used only when another nuke owner you invaded retaliates by invading back. Then you can use your nuke to destroy their FOB back to stage 1, and they have the choice of using theirs to do it to you if you nuked them. Mutually assured destruction son!

Thanks for the life story but you seem to be arguing against phantoms; not all that much negative feedback here, maybe general confusion.

At a guess, as to why it seems fine now to people who are as far into the game as OP, and why it was for a time such a big deal went something like this.

Konami-"Hello, single-player loving fan-base? Yes, we are going to be putting multiplayer into your game..forced participation..which can negatively impact your single player experience. We saw the success of the Mass Effect/Dragon age micro-transactions..but we are Konami, so its mandatory and punishing, instead of optional and rewarding/self-contained. Also, F-U, please support your local mafia run casino..."

Fanbase-"uh..screw that..and you and everything you doing arg!"

Like, on its face, without experiencing it, it sounds like a bloody awful idea. One I and many other people would go "where is the opt out of this entirely box please? There isn't one? ok F that and you." That it turns out to be not so big an issue is one thing, yah maybe nothing to yell about anymore. But the concept behind having such a feature, and the way/the people doing it were gonna garner some hate in the beginning.

Did they ever say it could negatively impact your single-player experience? Because even the most ruinous assault on your FOB is still a vast net positive over trying to opt out, though I get what you're saying about pre-release stuff.

I set mine up about 5 days ago and I haven't even been hit once yet. Not only that but since they let you support random players I've earned close to a million GMP just defending over people's bases and when it's not your own base being hit it kind of takes all the pressure off the defense and makes it really fun.

I think it's mostly a stress that people don't want to deal with. I was given the wrong impression by a lot of the talk on the internet around release that had me thinking it could result in you losing everything you've collected. That was all I could base my opinion on because today was the first day the game actually connected to the servers for me. : /

Yeah, I think the lack of information is what did it, and then Brad posting his "devastating" losses on Twitter and on the Bombcast, when in reality he probably never lacked for resources or staff even directly after the attack. I think it's all these numbers you want to go UP, not down, combined with these systems that can seem confusing and overwhelming, I think I'm starting to see why so many were freaked out by FOBs. (Someone above commented about basically making a strawman argument, but I saw a few posts on here and was mostly referencing the Giant Bomb crew + the Steam forum people begging for ways to disable FOBs, and I'd rather post this here than on that nightmare board.)

Many players cant take a loss of any sort and no matter how small when they play. If they dont respawn at the same place with all items restored its a "bummer". Its even worse if its caused by another human becouse then its "griefing".

My only concern is that since i play on PC it will be a hackfest.

I want to like the FOB feature, as I love the invasions in Dark Souls and multiplayer games with stakes, but it's just the lack of information or explanation as to how anything works that makes it incredibly annoying.

I created a base, ran the tutorial, tested against my own base, and that all went swimmingly. Since then, I've researched all the security options, green weapons, and battle dress armour but I have no idea if I've applied them correctly. I went into my FOB's security options, selected one of the struts, bumped the guards/devices all up to maximum, then hit apply to all FOB platforms.

Since then I've been raided about 5 times, always when I'm at work or sleeping, and every time the person has beaten my security at leisure (seemingly) because the replay log is just a string of security staff being neutralised, followed by containers being fultonned. Every single invasion has been on my base development platform, which I assume is because it has heaps of containers? I checked the security on that platform to make sure I didn't miss something, but it all seems to get a decent grading.

I lost 19k fuel (plus various other resources/staff) in the first invasion, the next few were just staff dying with no resources stolen, then the last one I took a hit of 25k fuel plus extras and staff. Of all those invasions, I only have the option to retaliate against two of the people. Every time I get on, I try to invade them and they're either being invaded, or being blockaded after a recent invasion.

Maybe it's the curse of playing in the Australian time zone, and everyone's actively invading/defending during US prime time?

I'm just glad Destiny and Mario Maker are working fine, so I can play those instead of obsessing over why my FOB experience has been so shit.

At the end of the day, you can always just gather more materials and fulton more dudes. My problem with FOBs is that they aren't especially fun to interact with.

Maybe I won't mind getting invaded when I'm in lategame and have done everything but I'm not gonna risk it when I only have a handful of A+ soldiers.

Just limit your Security Team assignments to a lower rank, like D or even E for now. Lock your important people into contracts on other teams, and there is no risk of losing them. As you progress through the game and start getting a lot more experienced and skilled staff members, you can slowly start increasing the skill level cap of your Security Team.

@Mike: But if I don't want to invade anyone, is there even a reason to go online?

The main reason I don't like this kind of thing in any game is that it's just pointless. All it does is give trolls an official way to troll. So there I am doing what I want, and then, bam, I've got to screw around because some douchebag decided he was going to waste my time? What in the actual fuck could they be thinking with this nonsense. Also, aside from just disconnecting from the internet, there's usually not a way to just turn it off in game. Is there one in MGS V?

While this isn't the only reason I'm not getting MGS V, it's definitely on the list of "shit I don't want to have to deal with".

Having a FOB full of soldiers > Having no FOB and having A+ soldiers. It's a numbers game. You'll get the quality in bulk in time. The presence and expansion of your FOB is faaaaaar more progress than you'll ever make trying to ignore it. Also, if you only have a handful of A+ soldiers... keep them in Mother Base. Mother Base cannot be invaded.

You don't have to "screw around" with anything, though. You can totally ignore FOB invasions, the entire point of my post is that the stakes are incredibly low. You're never going to "feel" any FOB losses.

Sure, you can defend others' FOBs for substantial rewards in the form of top-tier personnel and tons of materials.

@xbob42 I couldn't agree with your general sentiment more. There was some related discussion going on in the pinned FOB FAQ topic as well. There is just so much bad information going around about FOBs, and there has been since before launch. I have to admit though, before I actually started doing my own FOB stuff, I had bought into a lot of the misinformation myself. I think it's a combination of poor messaging from Konami about how exactly the FOB systems work, coupled with some people expecting and assuming the worst when it comes to this stuff. It's really unfortunate because even though the FOB stuff isn't as fleshed out and functional as it could be, the downsides aren't nearly as bad as some uninformed people are making them out to be.

@xbob42: I get that your point is that the stakes are low, but my point is that it's pointless. It just drives my point home that, at the very least, you may still want to go and reclaim whatever resources you already had to start with. Even if it's not a lot of time lost, at that point, it is still nothing but wasted time. And like some other people said, the fact that you can lose A+ soldiers is dumb. It just goes back to trolls being trolls. Those people could have acquired them another way, but no, they decided to bother somebody else. You may not have a problem with it, and that's fine for you, but it still seems like it serves no purpose other than that off chance you get to screw somebody over just for it's own sake. It may be avoidable, but not everybody is going to do everything perfect when they first start, and it should not have to be avoided to begin with.

You can only lose soldiers that you assign to your Security Team or that aren't assigned/locked to other units. If you pay just a little attention to your personnel and security policies, this isn't an issue. Besides, by the mid to late game, A+/A++ soldiers are a dime a dozen. I have hundreds and hundreds that are A+ or better at this point.

Your Security Team should be made up of scrubs until you are so overflowing with staff members that you simply have nowhere else to put them. Losing them should mean nothing to you, because the value of soldiers of that rank is practically nothing. They are so numerous and easy to get that I don't even think about it anymore.

Your entire attitude is the issue, though. "Playing this mode is a waste of time, these fucking fuckers are fucking wasting my fucking time, why the fuck are they trolling me??"

When in reality it's more like, "Hey, I'm gonna invade some FOBs, because I find it fun and it's a part of the game."

If you consider it a waste of time, don't do it. Part of getting the benefits of a FOB is accepting the risk of a FOB. Building your FOB is your opt-in. You're free to never build one and have your time "wasted." You want all the benefits with none of the risks. Do you have the same attitude about dispatch missions? You're guaranteed to lose some soldiers to that, but you do so for the reward. A FOB is just a large-scale version of that. In both cases, the rewards hugely outweigh the downsides, which from what I'm reading equates to "I'm grumpy that this red mission popped up and I don't want it there!" Don't. Do. It. Don't assign your best staff to a FOB if you're worried about micromanagement, or if you do -- put them under direct contract so you can't lose them.

@xbob42: I've tried to get through to a number of people on the boards just like you're trying to do with Tyrrael right now, and I don't think it's ever worked. I think some people (not talking about you, Tyrrael) just have preconceived notions about how they think FOBs operate and a bad attitude to go along with it. When I see that I may try to dispel some misinformation but I just leave it at that, because more often than not, no matter how much sense I think I'm making, the responses I get typically start with, "Well yeah, but..."

I don't know. It's such a strange phenomenon, it's like some people are just looking for a reason to be angry or something.

I just give up. I'm having a ton of fun with the game and FOBs along with it, if people don't want to learn how the game actually works and would rather just complain about it on forums, then that's their loss.

I've recently been invading some scrub FOB's and it's a lot of fun. Once you upgrade your own base a little you should definitely get invaded less because it's much easier to raid unsuspecting level 10 bases than fully souled up fortresses.

@humanity: My base is the latter. It's built up to the max with drones and the works, set at full preparedness. Even though I'm only running a bunch of scrub, bottom of the barrel reject soldiers for my Security Team, I've only had two attempted invasions total. I defended one, and the AI took care of the other one. And this is with me doing a bunch of invasions and opening up plenty of revenge wormholes, too. I get it, though. Why go through all that trouble when the very next base in the list of targets only has one platform and no real security to speak of?

The problem with FOBs I have is that I'm always invaded when I'm not even playing the game. What's the point in having a mode where you can 'defend' your FOB if you can be invaded when your PC isn't even on? That and all the people who are weirdly aggressive in their defending of the mode, like get over it, someone doesn't like something you like.

@Mike: Exactly. It might seem shitty to new players but thats just how it is. I've invaded a half dozen bases, got caught a few times, and even killed the invader twice in one run before I warped out of there. It's all pretty fun and I honestly don't think too hard about getting invaded back or the resources I might lose because ultimately the gear I currently have has been serving me really well and apart from the automatic tranq sniper I'm working towards I don't see anything down the line I might even need to expand my base for apart from the novelty of just having it.

I also don't know how people miss the box quick travel tutorial message. The first time you pick one of those little things up you get that big window saying HINT: You want to learn more about this?? There are a lot of weird details that the game absolutely doesn't explain but the broad strokes are outlined pretty well. Like there is confusion online about what the Boaster skill actually does, where some people get rid of those guys because they think their stats are fake when in reality once they're already in your service you are seeing their real stats - details like those definitely get glossed over and even that guide doesn't really clear it up much.

@humanity: Simple. They never pick up a shipping order. There's no point in the game, at least as far as I've gotten which is that I've just unlocked my first FOB, that requires you to pick up a shipping order. And they can be rather small to see and unless you get close to it, you won't get a prompt to pick one up meaning you'll likely just think it's set dressing.

In psychology and logic, rationalization or rationalisation (also known as making excuses) is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in a seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable – or even admirable and superior – by plausible means. It is also an informal fallacy of reasoning.

@jesus_phish: I don't know you walk by those things a lot when you explore bases. I found it in the very first base I infiltrated in Afghanistan because I was looking around everywhere. I get that you can miss it once or twice, but you should finally notice it less than 30 hrs into the game. I dunno maybe it's just that I'm thorough when I play games.

I think it looks kind of fun. I haven't progressed far enough to unlock it; however, it's also just more of that tacked on always online bullshit that seems to be a required checkbox for developers in games now. People liked it more when you decided when you wanted to go online as opposed to it being required for traditionally single player content. And if you really think about it, people were upset when console videogames started having online multiplayer modes in general. The beginning of the 360/ps3 era was full of people clamoring about how multiplayer modes were hindering the single player experience. I feel like this is just an extension of that frustration. And it's probably a lot worse now since it's getting harder to avoid.

I'd rather it be optional personally but it's not my game.

@humanity: Like I said, some people will just look at the orange loading bay and think "yeah that's just a loading bay that all these bases have" just like every base has an air radar but also has several trailers that look like air radars but aren't. So 30 hours into the game you're still going to just look at those orange loading bays as set dressing unless you get close enough to see the prompt.

It's also not in any of the hints as far as I've seen and I think by now I've cycled them all - unlike say dumpsters or toilets. I'm sure if you look at the orange loading bay and ask Miller over comms what it is, they'll tell you but I also reckon most people aren't asking him a lot.

I've a buddy who finished the game and never picked one up. Most missions he'd sneak around the base and it was never in his interest to go near a loading bay.

@jesus_phish: yah I dunno what to tell you, that just sounds insane to me, but hey we all play games differently so go figure I guess.

@jesus_phish: I don't recall the cargo delivery stuff ever being hinted at either, now that you mention it. The only reason I happened upon it is because I play games (especially games like Phantom Pain) slowly and methodically. I'm that guy who creeps around and checks inside every building, inside every tent, and around every corner. I can see how someone who doesn't pay attention to little details missing something like that, but man...those cargo pickup locations are all over the place. They're even on every Mother Base platform, which is my preferred method of moving around on MB, and a hell of a lot faster than taking a jeep or helicopter I might add.

@Mike: Yeah I play the same way. It's part of the reason why I've only gotten to my first FOB despite having the game since launch. I spend so much time looking in every building or tent I can get into and making sure I'm not missing a door somewhere. The helicopter takes a ridiculously long time to get around MB. I took one once and never again.

But I can absolutely see how someone who might play the game more gungho or not care about checking out everything they can could end up missing the shipping notices and then just assuming they're just set dressing.

You mean this?
It...is...awesome. Finally researched it yesterday, and it is everything I hoped it would be.

@tyrrael: Engaging with the game like it was intended is not "trolling" or "griefing" its exactly how the game is supposed to be played. Why people playing this or Darksouls can't get that I'll never understand.

I have an issue with this thread as it seems to imply that "you're playing the game wrong, play it my way or your stupid". Just because people enjoy micromanagement doesn't mean its a waste of time. You like your Call of Dutys, some people like their Civilization games. The "you can just got out and get more stuff" argument isn't fair for people with limited playtime.

@puchiko: Except you don't even need to do THAT much. Just set your Security Team to a max of E soldier, lock your important troops into other units, and then never even look at the FOB stuff again if you don't want to.

@demoskinos I think part of why some people consider FOB invasions trolling or griefing is because they are still under the impression that they're going to log into the game one day and have zero troops at mother base along with zero resources because they were all stolen when they were asleep.

@Mike: I need that gun!! Which one is it?

Its so satisfying to go into someone's base who stole all your stuff and taking it back while laying waste to their entire base

@pompouspizza: It's the MRS-73 NL semi-auto tranquilizer sniper rifle.

I haven't been able to connect online for a while now so I kind of have no idea what's happening with my FOB. It just freezes up searching for the server if I try to access any of the online features. Ah well.

I initially thought it would be cool but I've never tried it since the menus load slower when playing online. Plus I don't want to be interrupted in the middle of a mission. Maybe I'll try it later.