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I am somewhat interested in playing MGSV, but when playing a singleplayer game, I really hate it when my efforts are undermined by forced competitive multiplayer like base invasions, especially if people are cheating their way to victory.

It does not matter how big or small the loss is, the hate is primarily psychological. My opinion is: I worked for it, I spent time to unlock it and/or gather it. If another player, while playing the same game I do, can take something I earned in a singleplayer game away from me, that just breaks my morale, especially if it happens multiple times.

Is there a way to opt out completely from the competitive multiplayer components of MGSV so other people can not detract from the efforts I made? I don't mind any multiplayer that is beneficial or neutral, like auction houses or PvE.

I am open to any solutions.


My question is different from Are FOBs necessary to complete the game? in that while I do not want the invasions, I do want to make full use of the FOB. The duplicate question asks "can I ignore FOBs?" while I ask "Can I use FOBs without risking invasions?".

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  • I believe they recently added this feature, but I'm not in front of my game right now so I'm not 100% certain. I'd like to add that in nearly 100 hours of playing I've never once been invaded.
    – two bugs
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 16:28
  • There are at least two factions of players who will invade people with nukes sooner or later to steal them. Once you are advanced enough. you're a target.
    – Nzall
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 16:32
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    True, but nukes are completely optional to build and are never required. They're used to put you on a different invasion list, and little else.
    – two bugs
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 16:36
  • +1: I haven't played MGS5 yet, but I've been curious about this since I heard that single-player bases could be invaded.
    – Powerlord
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 16:44
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    Possible duplicate of Are FOBs necessary to complete the game?
    – Adam Lobo
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 8:50

4 Answers 4

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No

It is not possible to use FOBs without risking invasions. Neither is it possible to not construct a FOB.2

There is no way to opt out of FOB construction as it is needed to advance the single player plot. Therefore there is no way to stop others from raiding your FOB. Being off line does not work: your FOBs can still be raided while you are offline.

It is nothing to worry about

However, just like I was, you are worrying for nothing.

I shared your exact same concerns and since FOBs are mandatory, I asked how to secure your FOB. I followed the advice given have had a FOB for several weeks now and never been invaded once. It could be a statistical blip, I might be raided as you are read this. However, my FOB is a useless piece of junk that is super defended by losers (C-rank or below) on high alert and hight technology gear.

However, even if you are raided and lose fully: It still does not matter. FOB offer you two major advantages: two more units to dispatch on missions and a huge increase in staff numbers. Those alone will offset any lose you make when being invaded.

Your FOB will be bury in a long long list of FOBs. If you invade other FOBs, then they get to know you as an enemy. Thus, they are more likely to take revenge on you1. If you do not invade them, your FOB looks like a piece of trash that will be really expensive to invade: why bother? Think of it as your FOB increasing your productivity by 100% but sometimes (very rarely) you will lose 1% of that. Net result: You have 99% increase in productivity. Still a win.

You could build a nuke. This would stop anyone without high enough heroism from invading you, turn you into Demon Snake, and turn you into a target for those with high heroism to steal your nuke to either sell it on or disarm it. I would not chose that path…

A yearly update

It has been longer than a year, since I wrote this answer, I now have two FOBs build, and have had not one invasion. However, I am raking in the benefits from being able to send two extra team of the S+ soldiers to harvest resources.


1: Almost of this was a theme of the game, or something. ☺

2: Actually, that's not true. Just do not progress past Mission 20. However, that cuts out about 30 missions and lots of side ops from the game.

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  • I do not want to opt out of construction. I fully want to construct one, but I do not want to be a target for invasions, which to me are just tacked on multiplayer shenanigans which start to get into extortion racket territories with the insurance Konami sells.
    – Nzall
    Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 9:36
  • @NateKerkhofs: You cannot opt out of constructing a FOB. Which means that you are left open to be raided. However, you can mitigate the risks of being raided. Answer edited. Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 11:18
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These invasions aren't really bothersome.

At low levels, you aren't worth invading because you definitely don't have anything worth stealing, and the volunteers gained from invading you will also suck. Most people invade FOBs so that they can get S-rank and higher recruits, which will join them as volunteers once they invade someone with advanced-enough security. The other reason you would be invaded is that you possess a nuclear weapon, which is completely optional and doesn't even get unlocked as an option until close to the end of the game. Players will invade other players that possess nukes so that they can steal and then either sell or dismantle the nuke. Dismantling nuclear weapons gives a lot of Heroism, which is a stat that influences how many volunteers you get and how good they are.

Not that much evidence of cheating yet.

I have no experience with cheaters online, but I have seen it done in videos. Cheating is unfortunately a common problem in these Japanese-developed games with fleshed-out multiplayer features -- see Dark Souls for another case study. Japanese publishers don't ever seem to prioritize putting a stop to cheating post-release or allowing their devs to put the necessary precautions in place to prevent it. It's just an unfortunate trend that I've observed when I play any Japanese-made game's multiplayer feature. The one exception that I've witnessed is Monster Hunter, which would suffer very greatly from cheaters due to its quasi-MMO persistence and grind. Heck, there might be a lot of cheaters in MH4U -- I haven't played it at the highest tier, so I can't say for sure.

However, from my experience and discussion with others, it seems that cheating isn't a big problem in this game -- at least, not yet.

Losing an invasion isn't really something you have to worry about.

If someone infiltrates your base to its core successfully, you really don't have that much to worry about. You will lose some resources which you will have in large abundance by the end of the game and are farmed automatically in large numbers, and troops that are replaceable because they're not on your Direct Contract list. Direct Contract is a mechanic that allows you to put a limited number of staff on it so that they can't be killed or Fultoned during an infiltration. I find that the game provides ample enough Direct Contract slots so that I don't have to worry about losing the staff I actually care about.

In fact there is actually a question on this site where someone is asking how to make it easier for someone to successfully infiltrate his base, because he astutely recognized that defenders get much, much less for winning a defense than attackers get for winning an infiltration, and additionally defenders really don't lose much of value when the infiltration is successful.

From my overall view, it seems like Konami/KojiPro intended for FOBs to be a sort of "Farmville" mechanic in the game, where you can build up your bases with cool security features, up your ranking in the Virtual League, and increase your resource gain. The infiltrations seem like they were designed to be rewarding for attackers (who are just looking for extra challenging gameplay) while being minimally damaging to the defender, so they don't have to worry about being attacked. This encourages people to go out and invade FOBs frequently. The FOBs were built as a sort of additional sub-game on top of MGSV -- the features lend it towards having little impact on your actual game unless you want it to.

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    This answer is accurate. Don't even worry about it. I only constructed what I had to make for an FOB. Logged a good 16-20 hours in since and haven't been invaded once. It's simply not worth the risk for them if you don't upgrade anything. And you don't lose out on a ton by not upgrading stuff. Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 18:44
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    I can get that it might not be a big deal and that you can negate it by not buying nukes and keeping your upgrades under control, but for me it's mainly the psychological side. If it's an MMO, I only do PvE and if it's not, I exclusively do singleplayer because I really don't like losses that I can't do anything about, even if they're minor. It just seems like really cheap game design that a player can lose anything they worked for (read: have to play more) just because another player is playing their game.
    – Nzall
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 20:49
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    I feel this goes to a great amount of effort answering why it wont matter, which addresses concerns OP raises, but does not answer the actual question at all.
    – user106385
    Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 21:19
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    @Timelord64 Problem solving isn't always a matter of answering the question directly. I am here primarily to serve the asker, not the site's rules. No offense. Commented Oct 14, 2015 at 21:44
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    @NateKerkhofs Then you should have specified that the principle of the thing matters that much for you in the OP. I am a pragmatist, so I was trying to address your practical concerns by telling you this has no substantial effect on the meat of the game. I do not worry about things that have no effects on my gameplay; sorry for the misunderstanding. Timelord64: I did not say that OP is wrong -- I even went so far as to say I agree with him. Why the antagonism? Commented Oct 15, 2015 at 13:53
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According to Konami - Yes.

Selecting "Online Disconnect" from the pause menu will allow you to play without being invaded by other players.

Here are the official notes:

TIPS: About Online Disconnect: If you want to play offline without worrying about coming under attack from rival players, select ONLINE DISCONNECT under the Pause Menu.

It's difficult to find validation or even much discussion about this recently introduced feature, but I have no located a single case of someone being invaded after using it.

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I don't know if "Neither is it possible to not construct a FOB.2 2: Actually, that's not true. Just do not progress past Mission 20." was true when written. But it definitely is NOT true now. I've completed mission 29 and have NOT constructed an FOB. I'm not sure if it's because I've always had the game blocked in my firewall so it has never connected to Konami but, nevertheless, I've never constructed one and so far it hasn't prevented me from progressing in the single player storyline well past mission 20. I just wanted to post this in case someone else like me came along later to read this they would be aware of the current state of things and not mistakenly believe they are forced to construct one.

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  • My problem is that I don't want to opt out of building a FOB, I want to opt out of the invasions that accompagny it. The FOB gives a number of other benefits that I'd rather not miss. I understand that it gives a number of bonuses for the main game, and I'm also a big fan of unlocking persistent stuff that I can just check off. I just love having a game within a game where I can play the main game to collect upgrades and items to use in the game within a game.
    – Nzall
    Commented Jan 10, 2016 at 23:22

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