Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

What I mean is that for what you said before it's kind of open.

Rather, let me rephrase this: imagine... that I like playing minecraft to explore the map and kill, say, spiders and creepers. Could this game plausibly cover that itch?

[Ozyton]

I doubt it. Minecraft worlds are randomly/procedurally generated while the maps in MH are hand crafted and never change. There are occasional setpiece things that can change the maps in very small ways, such as getting a monster to attack a fragile wall to open up a small side area. While you will spend a fair amount of time exploring the maps when you first discover them and killing the small monsters within the exploration isn't really the focus of the game, fighting the monsters is. Most of the materials you need for crafting items you're going to be duplicating at the farm or ancient tree or whatever it is, while materials for crafting weapons and armor you're going to be hunting monsters for, so eventually going on those expeditions for materials isn't going to be as useful since you can be getting the materials while you hunt.

So, once you've explored a map and know it fairly well that's about it in terms of exploration. Also the fact that MHW added a GPS of sorts trivializes the matter.

[forsaken1111]

What I mean is that for what you said before it's kind of open.

Rather, let me rephrase this: imagine... that I like playing minecraft to explore the map and kill, say, spiders and creepers. Could this game plausibly cover that itch?

You can certainly go out on expeditions into the maps to do your own thing, hunting monsters outside of quests and exploring the areas. The maps are all set though, they're not procedurally generated. They're fairly large and have some interesting things hidden away on them, and you get access to new ones as you go through the storyline.

[Nighthawk]

I agree with Ozyton on this one. If you're looking for an exploration-focused experience with a little bit of monster-slaying on the side, Monster Hunter ain't it. Monster Hunter is very much a series of big ol' boss fights where it's you vs. the monster for an extended period of time (30+ minutes if you're really new and still getting to grips with the mechanics and controls, 5-20 minutes if you're more experienced and better geared).

That's not to say there isn't some exploration and gathering involved, but it's clearly not the focus of the game. As somebody who also enjoys exploring the procedural landscapes of Minecraft, I can say with confidence that these are two very different experiences.

[Dunamisdeos]

Think Shadow of the Colossus, but there's like 40 boss mobs and they spawn in a certain area and you just hunt down as many as you want.

Also there's like 12 100% different weapons/styles. Also each boss defeated comes with a new armor set recipe.

Spoiler: But really this is the hero of the game. Minor spoilers. (click to show/hide)

Meowscular Chef and his Palico crew make you food for buffs.

There are multiple cutscenes.

[Nighthawk]

Spoiler: But really this is the hero of the game. Minor spoilers. (click to show/hide)

Meowscular Chef and his Palico crew make you food for buffs.

There are multiple cutscenes.

I can't approve of every change they made going from the older titles to World, but even a curmudgeon like me has to admit that the animation work is top notch.

[Culise]

Think Shadow of the Colossus, but there's like 40 boss mobs and they spawn in a certain area and you just hunt down as many as you want.

Also there's like 12 100% different weapons/styles. Also each boss defeated comes with a new armor set recipe.

Spoiler: But really this is the hero of the game. Minor spoilers. (click to show/hide)

Meowscular Chef and his Palico crew make you food for buffs.

There are multiple cutscenes.

For my part, I look forward to the rise of Babushcat in the expansion (linked for size and because MP4/GIFV don't work nicely with img tags).

[nenjin]

Did...did she just put Creme Fraiche on that?

GotY 2020.

[Ozyton]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe World is the first in the series that actually has an animation for cooking the food. Last I recall the only animation was the absurd and hilarious eating animation, which they toned down to make more believable in World.

[Nighthawk]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe World is the first in the series that actually has an animation for cooking the food. Last I recall the only animation was the absurd and hilarious eating animation, which they toned down to make more believable in World.

Correction.
This is from 4U. I believe there were also cooking animations in Generations. I don't remember further back, though.

[Ozyton]

Oh wow, I completely forgot about the 4U chef because once I beat singleplayer I spent all my time playing multiplayer in the gathering halls.
I do remember the animation for cooking 10 well-done steaks at a time though, that was pretty damn amazing.

[nenjin]

If the 40 gig update to MHW is any indication, Icebourne is out.

[Ozyton]

Just beat Nargacuga, have to fight Glavenus next, but I've been playing all day and need to take a break.

[Nighthawk]

Just barely scratched the surface today with my best hunting buddy, but I'm already having loads of fun. The issue of scaling feeling off for multiplayer (which was one of the things I agonized over with vanilla MHW) is all but eliminated; we've been fighting monsters as a team of two and it feels like they actually react to our attacks! Also, the new gathering hub has all of the stuff in it--the forge, the bounty list, and so on and so forth. Super convenient if you play the game multiplayer as religiously as I do.

I've seen a lot of negative reception to the release due to PC-specific problems. Haven't run into any yet myself, but my PC is very new, so I don't count. I hope the issues get patched up soon so people can enjoy the game. It really does feel like they improved on everything tremendously.

[Ozyton]

Back when MHW first released on PC there was a huge issue with the elemental hit effects when you hit a monster, lightning damage being the worst offender. Currently it seems people are having huge issue in the areas with snow on the floor that leaves tracks when you move through it, so maybe it's just something they didn't anticipate and is something they can patch up. AFAIK everyone still suffers if they have the volumetric fog option enabled, so try turning that off anyways.

Thus far I feel Iceborne is a huge improvement over World, especially in terms of the user interface. The only two issues I have with it at the moment are how unresponsive it feels when you open a new menu (you can't use the menu until it fades in 100%) and how 'cancel' is selected by default when trying to take all rewards or all harvest box items. Pretty much everything else is a huge step forwards. You can push a button to unslot every decoration now, the way layered armor works is better and you can set it to your gear sets too. You can use keyboard shortcuts while using a controller so you can have your gestures and such set to your number keys while your useful stuff is in the radial menu. There's likely more stuff but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

It is taking me quite a while to get used to the clutch claw as a lancer. It doesn't appear you can use the clutch counter reactively like you can the regular counter and every time I do the monster ends up missing me despite aiming for me so I'm sitting there exposed like a dumbass. Not only that it's pretty awkward to have to switch to grapple mode whenever a monster gets staggered so more times than I can count I've wanted to clutch onto a staggered monster only to go into a clutch counter instead.

As for the new monsters themselves I've only fought Antekadrome and skinny ice shark (not fat ice shark, which would be amazing). I liked the Antekadrome fight but I've only done it about 2 times, but the Beotodus was pretty annoying. In general the tutorials have been pretty good, but in this instance I had someone trying to casually talk at me while I'm trying to focus on fighting this guy, but I have a lot of trouble multitasking and missed all of the 'tutorial' bits.

I haven't gotten to see many of the new skills yet but 4 slot decorations seem to drop like candy. Thus far my favorite new skill has to be Guardian which gives you a damage buff for ~15 seconds when you time your guard just right.