Monster Hunter World recently released on PC and got to the top ten list for most concurrent players on Steam. + Show Spoiler +
It's a good time to get into the game since Monster Hunter World is a bit more Western friendly for players new to the series.
Game description: Do you enjoy boss fights where player skill is heavily emphasized and rewarded? Monster Hunter pits you against gigantic monsters that dish out a lot of hurt. But with practice, you can memorize the enemy's movements and completely avoid damage. It's a dance of death that is extremely satisfying. Furthermore, the focus of the game has you hunting monsters for their body parts in order to create hats, armor, and weapons.
The best part about Monster Hunter World is that it's completely playable online with your friends. It would be cool if we got a TeamLiquid guild going for Monster Hunter World PC.
Played this on ps4 already and its a lot of fun. Only about 15 hours in but all the different monsters really feel like different fights. It kinda plays like a chain of exciting bossfights. Im also going to echo basically every review and critique though: the menus and systems in this game can be insane. I still feel like im barely scratching the surface with all the non-combat mechanics. The gameplay is great though so I just take it slow with all the other stuff.
On August 11 2018 17:33 solidbebe wrote: The gameplay is great though so I just take it slow with all the other stuff.
This is the right approach. It's one of those games where you can definitely get by playing suboptimally as long as you're learning, and having fun. A lot of the external stuff that feels overwhelming -- the canteen, bounties, investigations, the botany box, the trading sailor, etc. -- are just a bonus and can easily be ignored until you're comfortable enough with the core gameplay loop to start messing with the little things. Learning the overall pace of the game, how to fight each individual monster, and how your weapon works best, will get you way more mileage in the long run, and that's the fun stuff anyway.
I put in a couple hundred hours on PS4. Not sure how much I'll play on PC yet, but I missed out on a lot of the free content and events that happened throughout the summer so hopefully I get to experience some of that. And any future DLC. I'm playing bow with mouse & keyboard just to try it out and mix it up. The mouse and keyboard controls could be worse, but I had to do a lot of tinkering with key binds to get comfortable, and the mouse input isn't raw either so it still needs a little work. I've intentionally flip flopped between controller and keyboard a few times in back to back missions just to see which I liked more. Controller is so comfy and you fit more binds and menus in fewer buttons (though I also have the PS4 experience already so a bit biased), but M+K definitely helped with aiming on some of the more quick and annoying monsters lol. I would never use it for a melee weapon though.
Edit: I will echo the criticism below about the performance though. In some areas it's fine, but in others it's unacceptably bad (Rotten Vale being the worst so far), even with the community suggestions like disabling volumetric stuff and playing with the different brands of AA. The performance was bad on console too, but this port did take a while, and more importantly it feels so good when you're getting 60+ frames in a fight that the drops or slow areas are extra noticeable. Most of the settings don't even have a huge impact in my experience (so there's not a lot of "lowering the settings to sacrifice looks but keep great framerate" approach), and playing in fullscreen 1080p on a 1440 monitor leads to lots of blurriness and weird aliasing/AA issues. No idea if this is stuff they'll iterate on over time.
From what I have read so far, they have completely butchered the PC port... The list of grievances that I have found so far looks like this: -cannot disable mouse acceleration -cannot disable motion blur -cannot disable depth of field -no FoV slider -Denuvo DRM -cannot skip cutscenes -console UI -almost unplayable coop mode
Apparently they don't have real mouse movement but rather emulate an analogue stick - with all the problems that come with it. I found this video regarding those issue:
Needless to say that I am holding out on buying the game for now. Overall the port looks like a giant middle finger to PC players...
Agreed, the port is an absolute technical disaster. The gameplay is good but the graphical issues and poor optimization is what's killing the game at the moment. I'm having a lot of fun but it's a damn shame when so many people are struggling getting 60 FPS at 1080p. Hopefully, Capcom works on it and releases some patches, because it's pushing PC components that should otherwise be fine.
It's certainly not "almost unplayable co-op mode". Designed like shit, sure, but far from unplayable.
The one big core fuckup is that for story missions, you must first do them solo and have watched all the cutscenes before any of your friends can join. Fortunately, it gives you a big message (SOS flare available) as soon as you're through all the cutscenes, which is usually when you actually start fighting the giant monster. You can "co-op" the missions this way, and there's a ton of other shit to do so you won't just be bored and waiting.
Otherwise, you can pretty much form an Online World and do any of the content with your buddies. Some of it is a bit unintuitive (you have to SOS flare to let your buddies join a free roam, or complete a mission and choose to stay on the map) but its far from unplayable.
This is very sad to hear. I was very exceited for this game since its console release and looked forward with anticipation for the PC release. I guess I'll wait a month or 2 to see if they can get their shit together and patch this mess before deciding to buy it.
On August 13 2018 00:53 Fleetfeet wrote: It's certainly not "almost unplayable co-op mode". Designed like shit, sure, but far from unplayable.
The one big core fuckup is that for story missions, you must first do them solo and have watched all the cutscenes before any of your friends can join.
Yeah, that counts as "almost unplayable" in my books. There really is no excuse for such a terrible system in a title released in 2018. We've had games with better solutions 10-15 years ago.
So it's been a month and steam reviews seem to hint that the network and connectivity problems were by and large fixed? Can any of you confirm?
Also, my enhanced steam says there are roughly 100K players still playing this on a daily basis. Is that a lot? Seems to be 1/3rd of the number of initial player base.
I'm still on the fence on this one. I wanted this game to be a good PC port so much.
As long as you can find groups of 4, the game should be fine. Seriously, its all PvE, so as long as you can get people to come when you shoot up an SOS flare, you should be good. And as someone who plays a lot of PS4, helping people on hunts is what everyone does when they have nothing to do. If you can run it, monster hunter is a great game. But I would still play on controller.
On September 25 2018 05:52 Latham wrote: So it's been a month and steam reviews seem to hint that the network and connectivity problems were by and large fixed? Can any of you confirm?
Also, my enhanced steam says there are roughly 100K players still playing this on a daily basis. Is that a lot? Seems to be 1/3rd of the number of initial player base.
I'm still on the fence on this one. I wanted this game to be a good PC port so much.
Pretty much all of the issues I had on PC seemed to have disappeared. Haven't disconnected from public groups or playing with friends, not dropping frames from dual blade players going into demon mode, and not really lagging from the game in general.
I had about 200 hours into MHW on PS4 and about 70 on PC so far. The game feels about the same, except PC is missing some of the event content and loads a lot faster.
The player-base is fine, even though it is split up more now than before. The game is perfectly doable solo, so I don't think you should stress too much about that. There is still plenty of content PC has yet to get and each one will bring more people back to the game.
I'm actually surprised that PC is getting the new content so slowly. Haven't played much since launch week (PC) but I've been waiting for a lot of the stuff to hit that I never got to try on console and it seems to be coming out at the same pace the console shit did even though it's already developed.
So umm could someone give me a few pointers, I feel lost? So far I am up to the first encounter with Nergigante on top of Zorah Magdaros' back. I mostly didn't have too much trouble with the wyverns I've encountered except for 2 - Tobi-Kadachi that simply 1-shotted me with an electrifying attack, and the mudfish-thingy that was just annoying to fight as a whole.
What should my gear progression be? I'm kinda dressed in bone armor for the most part, and have bone weapons tier II so far... I tried out all the weapons in the training area but none of them really hit the spot for me. I guess Switch Axe and Charged Blade feel the best? The target tracking in this game is just terrible, which I guess is a feature that makes it take skill to kill things.
It can take time to find a weapon you prefer. If you keep trying different things you should obviously expect to fall a bit behind, either because you'll have to grind more materials to keep your upgrades up, or because you aren't getting comfortable with one specific weapon and improving your hunt times. I think it's fine personally, it took me a long time to find my preferences back in MH3U, which was my first (and they've changed since then as well!). It'll just indirectly make progression feel slightly more difficult; more mats, more money, less practice.
If you're up to the Zorah back event with only the issues you described, you're doing fine. Fights can definitely feel frustrating depending on the monster's speed and move set, but like many other difficult games most of the improvement comes from learning and recognizing attack patterns and good positioning, which is gonna happen naturally as you repeat each fight. Combat and target tracking should feel clumsy with most weapons when you're new imo, it's the nature of the game. There are no easy secrets to being able to constantly attack a target or stay safe, each fight is different and the openings and things you learn to look out for will change (depends on the weapon you use as well).
When it comes to armor, at least until you reach high rank, just keep an eye out for any skill that looks useful and try it out. Quality of life stuff like Earplugs, Quick Sheathe, Speed Sharpening, etc. might really smooth out the learning process and are useful for lot of different weapons. IIRC a few of the Bone pieces you mentioned also have attack boost which is generically good as well. If you have a few pieces you've been using for a while I highly recommend keeping their defense fully upgraded. It can make a noticeable difference throughout most of the game, not getting one-shot as often is always nice lol.
Never hurts to watch a handful of guides or kill videos on the weapon(s) you use either. Don't feel pressured to play as perfectly as some of the speed kills or whatever, but it might give you an idea of what attacks to use more or less often.
On October 02 2018 08:35 Latham wrote: So umm could someone give me a few pointers, I feel lost? So far I am up to the first encounter with Nergigante on top of Zorah Magdaros' back. I mostly didn't have too much trouble with the wyverns I've encountered except for 2 - Tobi-Kadachi that simply 1-shotted me with an electrifying attack, and the mudfish-thingy that was just annoying to fight as a whole.
What should my gear progression be? I'm kinda dressed in bone armor for the most part, and have bone weapons tier II so far... I tried out all the weapons in the training area but none of them really hit the spot for me. I guess Switch Axe and Charged Blade feel the best? The target tracking in this game is just terrible, which I guess is a feature that makes it take skill to kill things.
Anyway what should I do next?
Couple of things. TLDR I don't think you're farming enough for better equipment before progressing
- You're supposed to get annihilated by Nerg the first time, he's an end game monster and you're early game. So don't worry too much about that - You can reach tier 3 weapons with drops from the monsters you have fought so far - Bone armor is I think the lowest defence armor in the entire game? If you can farm anjanath or tobi for even only 2 or 3 pieces out of 5 you'll get armor roughly 3 times stronger - Different weapons are stronger/weaker against different monsters, there is no one size fits all weapon. It's good to switch between 2 or three. For example I rotate between longsword, bow and lance depending on the monster. - Make sure you are using items like traps, flashbugs etc and also environmental traps. They are great for free damage - Don't forget to upgrade your cat's gear as well as yours. Pukei Pukei parts can give your cat a poison bow which is really helpful
On October 04 2018 15:52 DropBear wrote: Bone armor is I think the lowest defence armor in the entire game? If you can farm anjanath or tobi for even only 2 or 3 pieces out of 5 you'll get armor roughly 3 times stronger
Just to clarify, 3 times stronger doesn't mean taking 1/3 the damage.
And as I mentioned in my last post the "base" defense of gear doesn't matter as much when you can keep pieces upgraded with armor spheres and usually get "old" armor close to whatever the most recent tier you've unlocked, assuming you're progressing normally. I think it's more important to use "lower tier" pieces with skills that are useful or you like, as long as you use armor spheres to keep them maxed out.
I do hunt new species of wyverns I encounter around 4-5 times until the zoo book shows them at level 3 so I can get all the cool info about them. I do rotate weapons and I've watched Arekkz's Hunter Weapon Workshop vids to get the gist of how to use them, and then went on to try them out on real hunts (the pole in the middle of the training zone just doesn't do it for me). I really like Charge Blade, Bow and Longsword a lot, I think I could grow to like Light Bow Gun and Hammer too if I practiced them enough. Dual Swords I can use pretty well, but I just don't feel them as weapons. But I can't for the life of me aim the longsword's anime slash. I think I wasted 3h yesterday trying to angle it on both the training pole and live prey and once I'm in the air I might as well roll a D8 to determine which direction the slash will land.
I also fought the air furball bat thingy with a switch axe... never again. Even with flashpods traps to get him out of the air, getting enough hits in to activate the good combos was frustrating. I killed my first Rathian with the bow, getting carted only once. It was a strange cart though. He got me up against a wall, and proceded to bulldoze/tackle me with his feet like 3-4x in a row in the span of maybe 5s. I think I might've glitched him there for him to spam that attack and the animation so much.
In the 2nd zone, I think I saw something I shouldn't have? While hunting Barroses I saw a weird wyvern with sand skin and huge horns leave a giant subterranean hole around the part where the Rathian / Koala-Ya-Ku nest, which I can't for the life of me find the entrance to. I saw one promo video that showed that this particular wyvern nests under the quicksand pit, but I can't trigger it? Even with a Barros on top, he doesn't want to fall in? Is it a later story mission or is there a way to trigger going down there?
I planned to save up my armor spheres for something nice, is this a mistake? Should I just make Rathian armor or Anja one and upgrade them?
On October 04 2018 18:06 Latham wrote: I planned to save up my armor spheres for something nice, is this a mistake? Should I just make Rathian armor or Anja one and upgrade them?
Depends on how many bounties you've been doing. If you feel like you're doing a good job of keeping on top of bounties (like getting a couple done every time you go on a hunt or so idk) then you should be swimming in armor spheres, I wouldn't be too afraid to spend them. There's a limit to how much you can upgrade a piece early on; for example you might be able to upgrade the Bone gear 8-10 times right now (not sure exact numbers) but you would only be able to upgrade Anja twice or something. It's there as a way of letting you "catch up" shittier armor to the more recent tiers you unlocked, rather than pooling them to spend on a brand new shiny high rarity piece you made. You also start getting better spheres later on so you might as well use the lower level ones sooner than later. Or you could just farm a new set like Anja or Rath like you said and forget about it for a while lol. Whatever you feel like doing. If you already don't mind repeating a monster like 5-10 times just for fun then you might as well look into their gear while you're at it.
Also re: long sword I have like 400 hours between console and PC release and I've never fucking been able to use that thing effectively. It's popular as hell but I hate it lol. Probably not a big deal if it's not clicking for you. There's a lot of weapons I understand "how" to use but just don't enjoy or don't click most of the time. Preference over proficiency any day imo.
Woah Odogaron just kicked my ass 3 times in a row. This one is actually deadly with his speed and combos, unlike anything else I faced before. He just pounces and takes off 3/4 of my HP. Also my blocks with gunlance and AMP'd-up shield from charged blade don't block as much as on other monsters. Have to rely on dodges which I don't always make due to being locked in an attack animation. I guess I really do need better armor right about now. Bone armor without any spheres invested took me to this point, which isn't all that bad. I can't decide what to make - I heard Legiana weapons and armor counter this hell cur, but Anja or Rathian is supposed to be solid - or Tobi-Kadachi since its only weakness is water and I read that there are very few water type wyverns.
edit: I don't want to double post so I'll post an update here: I finally beat Odogaron, with a Pulsar Bow MK. III. I went through quite a lot of trouble getting there though, couldn't do it with Charged Blade, Gunlance and Long Bow Gun. I also decided to make the Halloween Armor set instead of all the others. It has arguably the same defense as the best sets I can make ATM (Legiana and Odogaron at 130/150 respectively) and what I feel is more important, it doesn't have any minuses on the elemental front and excels with fire res. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but -15 lightning or whatever, seems like a not-so-smart thing to have equipped.
I finally figured out what that horned clown under the desert wastes is. A Horned Diabolos. Funny how I could see it underground beforehand but had no way to trigger/interact with it. Now I'm gonna hunt his clown-ass down, as dictated by the main storyline quest.
I already slaughtered the Rathalos in Ancient Forest on 1st try with this bow. =)
Another thing this game does not tell you about is upgrading your weapons - that the upgrades are refundable if you want to downgrade.
EPT![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/4T3F0jO.jpg)
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/Rj9UPoR.jpg)
