What game are you playing?

[methoxetamine]

I am playing Monster Hunt Wilds again.

lmk if you want any multiplayer buds, i've stopped playing since they finished adding title updates and event quests and whatnot, but am always down to help a newblood, did the same with @Mordred and played a bit with @Finarfin and @mercerxiv

also

Let me know how the title update monsters are, I played 50 hours at launch but haven't fired it up since I finished my gear (outside of minmaxing autism). I'm really looking forward to the expansion, but I probably won't get back to the game until it's much closer to release, especially with Endless Ragnarok coming so soon

The title update monsters, while not numerous, definitely added some much needed difficulty to the game, and are good fun imo. Lagiacrus and Seregios are pretty tough(and lightning croc boy is of course kino for a Tri enjoyer like myself), and Gogmazios, while gimmicky and not too difficult, is a flashy and enjoyable fight. They did the Final Fantasy crossover where you fight the big robot Omega Planetes, which is the equivalent to the Behemoth fight in World if you did that. Hardest fight in the game; requires proper teamwork and coordination, but is satisfying to beat. Also the arc-tempered versions of the Apex monsters are a good challenge, and Arkveld in particular is a very different and difficult fight, and is a solid 'final challenge send-off' to the game (kinda like Arch Tempered Nergigante in World)

Should gather the boyz for a hunt

I'm down, I'll reinstall soon

[mynameismortis]

Bought MH:World like u guys recommended and also RISE because its also on sale, hope they are fun experiences

[Roguey]

She literally let this psycho alien ***** go free after it murdered a bunch of her comrades. Before letting it go, she says something along the lines of "we can all learn to coexist together in peace".

This suicidal pacifism was in the first Xenoblade too with an identical setup. The first half of the game is about Shulk hunting a mass murdering monster, and then halfway through he finds out it is piloted by a human and suddenly 180s and is trying to save him instead of killing him (and even blocks Dunban's strike), even though Metal Face still willingly killed all of those people for fun. It is also a broader issue with Japanese pop culture entertainment, where the predominant narrative about war in anime/JRPGs/VNs/etc is that "oh no, if only we could just stop having bad feelings and all get along!" and usually does not want to admit that there can be just reasons for war (perhaps because it would remind people of WW2).

As for the different species getting together like furballs and robot people, I would not read too much into it as a deliberate allegory for the multiracial globalism as pushed in Western media (though that is a thing in some Japanese works, see the latest Trails games).

Funny times.

[Tangerine]

It's a VIDEOgame. videoGAME.

ftfy

[Kolgrim]

I've been playing RE5 and RE6's mercs mode off and on for the last few months. I never really played them that much before until now but **** are they fun. I also found it incredibly amusing that Barry's special move on a downed enemy is called "Miranda Rights" where he draws his magnum and head-shots the majini. There's no way that's getting put in if they remake RE5 lol.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Monster Hunter Wilds

I am trying to finish the story (I have reached the first credits but it seems the story is not over yet) and the major unlocks so I can then do multiplayer with my friends without them having to wait around while I watch cutscenes.

They put all of this effort in, but the actual writing of the last stretch of the story was disappointing and not well written. As 10 minutes of credits rolled by listing several hundred developers for this hundred+ million dollar AAA game, I am baffled as to why they could not have been bothered to contract a good writer.

(long)

► Show Spoiler

I have beaten the final boss... or have I? Is there a postgame true final boss I haven't seen yet? The game has a weird structure where after seeing the credits roll, the story continues, and now I have to fight the same bosses but with jacked up stats and farm their new mats to recraft the same armors I already did, but with higher stats and I can transmog these armors. And I have to play a lot/grind to meet the Adventurer Rank requirement to continue the story. So the story is having me playthrough the same game, fights, environments, etc, twice. Why not just have the player go through it once? So is the goal to kill Arkveld and the last boss again, but with higher numbers? Very bizzare. (Granblue Fantasy Relink also has you refight all of the bosses again but with jacked up stats after the credits rolled, but there wasn't anymore story left and it was just pure gameplay from there on out. GBF Relink also had three postgame exclusive bosses and a true final superboss to aspire to reach).

Speaking of, it is very odd how Arkveld was built up as the endgoal and pseudo antagonist, and is advertised on the box cover. But he is not the final boss. The actual final boss is a similar looking white dragon-feathered angel beast thing, but it comes out of nowhere at the end with no build up or impact. Why not just have Arkveld be the end?






There is a cool action sequence near the end where you fight a giant metal lizard. It has a cool introduction where it is crawling sideways along the walls, but unfortunately in the actual fight it's conventional and he just stands on the floor while you slash at its ankles. I thought it'd be like the lizard boss from Shadow of the Colossus where he is crawling up the wall and you have to knock him down, and then fight him on the floor. Or it'd be like Halondrus where you have to be fighting him while constantly on the move down the hallway.






Another animated food scene.





We arrive at Nata's village, and find his people are still alive. Nata's uncle Tasheen explains that the their people are called the Keepers and they are the descendants of a ruined civilization called Wyveria. They are to "watch vigil over Wyveria", but he never explains what that exactly means).




Tasheen then takes us down below to show us some examples of Wyverian technology. He explains that Arkveld was a type of artificially engineered being called a "Guardian". Tasheen begins explaining about the guardians, how they serve people, but then beats around the bush and never explains what their (the Guardians') directive or purpose is. Are the guardians guarding a secret? Pruning the population for some reason? Do they hunt down and destroy evil? Etc. But the characters ask questions and speculate and uncle fills in on everything except the big obvious question, which the game dodges for a few hours. Why?

(Also, Nata starts projecting onto Arkveld, the beast that killed his people, projecting that Arkveld "just wanted to be free" as if he was a person just like him rather than an animal. There is a lot of Japanese media-isms that begin seeping in here).

(On the same note, again uncle Tasheen never actually explains what the Keepers are doing. What does "guarding over Wyveria" actually mean? They do not venture outside of their underground chamber and did nothing to stop the Everforge people or us from snooping around the Wylkstone tech. It seems like they just live in their chamber and don't actually do anything else. That's not really "watching over Wyveria" as if you have a responsibility. Uncle Tasheen is also acting as if he wants Nata to take on some responsibility, but again we are not told what it actually is. Tasheen says that the guardians exist to serve people, but the Keepers apparently never exercise their authority over the guardians to do anything.




Near the very end, finally the game decides to offhandedly give us a motive/purpose for the Guardians, which is that they were used for war. Kinda boring after dragging the question out for so long. But it is odd how judgmental the characters/narrative are about this and how Wyveria fell as if this is supposed to be a life lesson. It is entirely possible for a country to build weapons for self defense rather than for expansionist ambitions. This could easily have been the result of something like a Zanarkand vs Bevelle war involving machina and summons.

Nata begs for us to not kill Arkveld. ??? Why does Nata care so much about this monster that killed several of his fellow villagers, demolished their houses, and nearly killed him?





After killing Arkveld, it is discovered that another guardian is positioned within the dragontorch and is (said to be) absorbing energy. But visually there is zero activity or energy seen. It looks like the creature is completely inert, like frozen within ice, unlike the prior guardians which could be seen moving around in their pods. We are given no timetable on when this creature got there. It could have been hundreds of years ago and only now just discovered, and might still be there hundreds of years from now. At dinner, Alma out of nowhere presumes that it will wake up at any moment and that they must launch an offensive and kill it right now, but to me it felt like they had all the time in the world to call in guild engineers to construct a giant ballista aimed at the creature and fire, pump poison into its sphere, etc.




(Also, at the end, Tasheen on behalf of the observers abstains from leading or voting on what to do about the guardian feeding on the Dragontorch. "Holding vigil over Wyveria" my *** you guys really do just live in an underground chamber and do nothing).

I like how the falling meteor AoE telegraphs are light sources, feels a little more immersive than having a cartoony swirly or a yellow UI marker over it.




It is irritating how Alma is constantly being a debbiedowner whenever someone suggests decisive action. She seems like a control freak, constantly trying to hand out orders, which is stupid given her presentation as some minimum wage adventurer's guild receptionist who has read a few encyclopedias and has no actual skills. She is not Olivia who is convincing as competent in this field and has seniority/authority. I do not know why there is an emphasis near the end about the MC needing her "authorization" to kill a monster. Is that actually a thing? Didn't this game begin with the MC being a highly trusted member if the organization personally entrusted with this mission by the guildmaster? I don't need to wait for a receptionist to say yes.

Another oddity is how Nata appears to be Eastern indian, but his uncle Tasheen is white, and yet we are supposed to believe that both of these characters come from the same small village of <40 people who have lived in an isolated underground chamber for hundreds of years. After many generations of everyone intermarrying, shouldn't that village just have one homogenous group of people?


Is this some sort Federation thing operating under the propagandized version of the "colonial era" where they are trying to avoid something bad happening to these weaker powers? "They will join us when they are ready" self-enlightenment thing?



First Meet

[Manny V]

@Val the Moofia Boss Story is dogshit, so don't worry too much about the inconsistencies n whatnot. But ye, the Wyveria/Guardian **** is nonsense retcon garbage that's just there for cringe 'humanity bad' nonsense, best to ignore it.
Tasheen isn't **** kid's uncle, he just calls him that since he was friends with his dad before he got hit by a train or whatever it was that killed him.
The 'authorization' **** annoyed me as well, Alma is a **** character(like most of the characters in this game of course), and comes across as nepobaby HR ***** that has a leash on you.
Monster Hunter has always had low rank and high rank, generally low rank is for introducing monsters, mechanics, gameplay systems and is a way to 'warm up' to the game, you don't really need to get too invested in the progression of gear and whatnot in it. In the older games it was what separated solo and online; for example in Tri single player was all low rank and based out of Moga Village, once you finished the story you would go online and do high rank stuff. Wilds just makes low rank an obnoxious slog with the story and handholding ****. Once the credits roll, the game truly begins.

Anyway now that you're done with the low rank-slop the sesh can begin! Bear in mind there'll still be some cutscene **** but it won't be constant, you have to get your Hunter Rank up to the threshholds to progress the story

[methoxetamine]

I'll be honest I tabbed out to shitpost during every story cutscene in Wilds

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Alma is a **** character(like most of the characters in this game of course)

Alma was the only character I wound up disliking. The MC with Todd Habberkorn's voice sounded good. Your sidekick Palico, and Olivia sounded good and were neat. Guildmaster was cool. Not too fond of Gemma was chill. Except for Nata's two inane tantrums at the end where he defended Arkveld, I was actually pleasantly surprised by him as he came across as a normal (not ridiculously skilled or behaved) boy in a photorealistic movie/game who was not annoying. I guess the engineer guy and the stupid biologist were kinda meh.

I wish that Athos had more screentime. He barely spoke at all.

[Manny V]

He barely spoke at all.

i got bad news for you

the bad news is that it's a foid cat

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Rocking out with the HQ bros

[Valter]

One of the very first games I ever recall playing on the PS1, Rugrats: Search for Reptar, just got a remaster for modern systems. Out of curiosity, I booted it up to see how well the game aligned with my memories of it, and I must say: I was not ready for how shameless Nickelodeon was.

[wndrbr]

I must say: I was not ready for how shameless Nickelodeon was.

am I missing something?

[Valter]

I must say: I was not ready for how shameless Nickelodeon was.

am I missing something?

nig nig nig nig nig nig nig nig

[wndrbr]

I must say: I was not ready for how shameless Nickelodeon was.

am I missing something?

nig nig nig nig nig nig nig nig

wtf are you a racist or something?

[mattig]

am I missing something?

nig nig nig nig nig nig nig nig

wtf are you a racist or something?

Man, I been here like a week and I know we all racists here. How new are you?

[wndrbr]

nig nig nig nig nig nig nig nig

wtf are you a racist or something?

Man, I been here like a week and I know we all racists here. How new are you?

nah, this is a very diverse and inclusive community.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I have been going through the postgame/part 2 storyline of Monster Hunter Wilds.

I have encountered a lot of annoyances that have added up and cause aggregate frustration with the game.

First, there are a lot of game mechanics that are not adequately explained to the player.

• I knew that you could ride a monster if you leapt onto it from a higher altitude, and that you could press B to stab it and create wound openings. But I thought that those wound openings would be for you to pop with your weapon after you hopped off and were on foot again. I didn't know that you could press RB to draw your weapon while riding the monster and pop the wounds right then and there.
• For certain quests (namely capture quests), I needed to somehow paralyze and tranquilize the monster, but I would be browsing my inventory and not seeing these items that Alma told me that she gave me. It turns out you have to call the Sekret, mount it, and press left on the D-pad to open a secret inventory that she put the items in.
• There is a capital/main hub area that you never visit during the main game. You have to go to one of the villages and talk to a random side NPC to gain access to it.
• Other things I cannot recall off the top of my head.

Second, the multiplayer experience is very frustrating due to a combination of poor UI, poor programming/design, and poor netcode.

The ingame chat is abysmal to operate and read.

• You cannot read or type in chat while using any NPC services like the quest counter, the tent to change your gear, the blacksmith, etc. You cannot read or type in chat while browsing menus. You cannot read or type in chat when you have selected "ready" for the next quest. You cannot type in chat while carving a monster or sharpening your weapon. Etc. You can see a small icon in the top right corner saying that there have been new chat messages, but you have to back out of whatever you were doing to be able to open the chatbox and scroll to find it and read it.
• The chat log automatically defaults to the quest party when you join a quest, even if you joined in a premade. So if you type in quest chat before the other premade players join, they won't see it, and you have to spend time trying to press buttons to force the chat log to switch back to the premade chat.
• You might be typing in chat, but then the end quest cutscene might suddenly begin, and you lose access to the chat and whatever you were typing. You cannot chat during loading screens like in FF14 or Warframe.

It is so bad that it feels preferable to alt+tab out to an out of game chat program like Steam than to use the ingame chat.


Then there are online connection issues. Several times, we have been in a mission, and then suddenly I get told that I have been disconnected (even though I can still alt+tab out and refresh my internet browser tabs) and dropped from the group. It feels like the game will breakup parties at the drop of a hat. Maybe this is another example of Japanese game devs assuming that the rest of the world has flawless Japanese internet, like with the netcode issues that have plagued FF14 and Japanese fighting games.

• First, this is happening during a boss fight, but there is no way to pause the game and continue browsing menus to fix this. I have to instead spend several seconds trying to call my Sekret, mount up, and ride away (while the boss is chasing me) until I can get sufficiently far enough that I can now begin browsing menus trying to get back into the group.
• While browsing menus trying to get back into the group, the options to invite other players are greyed out, and there is no obvious way to get back online. I cannot send SOS flares. Checking "set online status" to online does nothing and the multiplayer options are still greyed out. If I run all the way back to Alma at the base camp in the zone, the lobby options are greyed out. I have to either abort the quest and lose all of the progress made on that monster to then get into a group with my friends again, or finish the fight solo, which means 5+ minutes we are not playing together.

It is very confusing trying to get in a group with my friends. Why are there link parties, squads, and lobbies? Why are there friend lobbies and private lobbies? My friend tells me he has made a lobby for us, and I am having to go down the list clicking the options trying to find the one that will let me in. I have clicked one thinking I got into his lobby, but apparently not and we can't see each other. Except my friends say they can see me, but I can't see them.

Really baffling to see in a 2026 game of this caliber.


Other miscellaneous annoyances:

• I am going around to the towns and picking up NPC sidequests, but often times I talk to a NPC, and then I get teleported back to base camp. So now I have to go back to the town to talk to other NPCs to pick up their sidequests... only to get teleported back out again, etc.
• The quest UI is confusing. I talk to Alma, and there are assignments (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), side quests (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), event quests (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), investigations (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), and challenges (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss). ??? But there are also (actual) side quests (different from the ones that Alma offers) which you get by going around talking to NPCs. And there are also surveys (which is apparently a quest that automatically begins if you just run out into a zone and fight a boss?).
• When you complete a side quest (the ones that Alma offers you), you get a get a checkmark star on it indicating you have done it. But the same does not happen for the event sidequests she offers.

[Manny V]

Me bad at explaining but me try:

For certain quests (namely capture quests), I needed to somehow paralyze and tranquilize the monster, but I would be browsing my inventory and not seeing these items that Alma told me that she gave me. It turns out you have to call the Sekret, mount it, and press left on the D-pad to open a secret inventory that she put the items in.

Problem with Wilds introducing the dumb seikret ****; in the old games you'd start at camp with a supply box, so getting items needed for the quest was more visually obvious, rather than relying on hammerspace on some dumb bird mount.
Otherwise it's just a good habit to press left on the d-pad whenever you're doing a less conventional hunt, as you'll probably have additional supplies that can be quite handy (and in capture quests, essential) for the hunt.

There is a capital/main hub area that you never visit during the main game. You have to go to one of the villages and talk to a random side NPC to gain access to it.

The reason getting the hub isn't obvious to unlock is because for some dumb reason it wasn't in the base game. It was added in the first title update. Chalk it up to rushing the game out before it was fully ready i guess.

Second, the multiplayer experience is very frustrating due to a combination of poor UI, poor programming/design, and poor netcode.

Chat is ***, yes.

Then there are online connection issues. Several times, we have been in a mission, and then suddenly I get told that I have been disconnected (even though I can still alt+tab out and refresh my internet browser tabs) and dropped from the group. It feels like the game will breakup parties at the drop of a hat. Maybe this is another example of Japanese game devs assuming that the rest of the world has flawless Japanese internet, like with the netcode issues that have plagued FF14 and Japanese fighting games.
First, this is happening during a boss fight, but there is no way to pause the game and continue browsing menus to fix this. I have to instead spend several seconds trying to call my Sekret, mount up, and ride away (while the boss is chasing me) until I can get sufficiently far enough that I can now begin browsing menus trying to get back into the group.
While browsing menus trying to get back into the group, the options to invite other players are greyed out, and there is no obvious way to get back online. I cannot send SOS flares. Checking "set online status" to online does nothing and the multiplayer options are still greyed out. If I run all the way back to Alma at the base camp in the zone, the lobby options are greyed out. I have to either abort the quest and lose all of the progress made on that monster to then get into a group with my friends again, or finish the fight solo, which means 5+ minutes we are not playing together.

The connection problems are indeed very unfortunate, not much we can do about it, however; if you only lose connection to the link party, but are still in the lobby, you can rejoin if you:
-back out of the quest after losing connection
-go to the quest counter and 'join lobby members quest'
this should let you join back up to the same hunt you were just in, although maybe not if you were the original host of the hunt. it can be fucky like that.
but ye this is why i was encouraging us all to be in the same lobby as well, since the link party connectivity can be fickle.

It is very confusing trying to get in a group with my friends. Why are there link parties, squads, and lobbies? Why are there friend lobbies and private lobbies? My friend tells me he has made a lobby for us, and I am having to go down the list clicking the options trying to find the one that will let me in. I have clicked one thinking I got into his lobby, but apparently not and we can't see each other. Except my friends say they can see me, but I can't see them.

Basically, the original way of playing is to have everyone in the same lobby together. The addition of link parties is new to Wilds, and is meant to exist as a way to have your friends join one another even if they're not in the same lobby, and to get notified when they post a hunt and such. It's good in theory but as per usual, the way it's implemented is poor, and the way of navigating the menus for it is indeed dumb. Not to mention the ****** netcode.
Squads are just a way of making a guild or clan or whatever. I made one for the HQ, as a means for us to just all join a lobby without having to rely on someone hosting a private lobby. But since I hadn't played the game in a while, it handed over the Squad leadership to whoever had played recently(in this case, it handed it to @Zess_T i believe), which also prevents me from inviting others to it, and it reset the squad name and description. Another ******** implementation.

I am going around to the towns and picking up NPC sidequests, but often times I talk to a NPC, and then I get teleported back to base camp. So now I have to go back to the town to talk to other NPCs to pick up their sidequests... only to get teleported back out again, etc.

Don't recall that being the case, weird.

The quest UI is confusing. I talk to Alma, and there are assignments (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), side quests (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), event quests (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), investigations (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss), and challenges (get teleported to a zone to fight a boss). ??? But there are also (actual) side quests (different from the ones that Alma offers) which you get by going around talking to NPCs. And there are also surveys (which is apparently a quest that automatically begins if you just run out into a zone and fight a boss?).

Field surveys are another new addition with Wilds, since they implemented an open world environment thing where you can just walk out of camp whenever and start smackin whatever monster you feel like to start a quest. They are the exception to the rule. Every other type of quest is generally just done by going to the counter, posting the quest, and letting the boys join before you all head off.
Assignments are just story progression quests; one off quests.
Optionals include the side quests you get from NPCs and what have you, and often give special rewards or unlock certain features. However, they also include basic standard quests for every monster you've already hunted, just as a failsafe to have access to every monster if you don't see one out in the field anywhere and you haven't got an investigation saved already. Most of these aren't worth bothering with unless you really care about ticking off every quest in the list(like i did ), since the quest is static and doesn't give anything special or extra in the rewards.
Investigations are when you select a monster in your environment on the map, and make a quest out of it. The difference between this and a field survey is that it saves it to your investigation list, and you get 3 hunts of it. Generally you always want to do these when grinding something for materials, as you will get bonus rewards. It's effectively mandatory for hunting tempered monsters, since there's not many optionals or event quests for em, and you get special tempered monster rewards that replace most of the monster material rewards you'd get in an investigation for a normal monster. You can also save an investigation from any of your recent field surveys you've done, so don't feel like you screwed up if you did a field survey but forgot to save it as an investigation beforehand.
Event quests are special (originally limited time) quests that unlock materials for making unique gear, or give certain rewards like cooking ingredients or armour spheres, etc. The key is the quest description. Now that the game's finished with content updates until the expansion, they're all available now, so no need to worry about missing out.
Then you have the arena quests, which give special coin rewards used for making some gear. You have to choose between various equipment sets, so they're fun for trying out something different. There's normal arena quests, 'challenge' arena quests (which include a couple of ones where you get a special pendant reward depending on your time ranking), and 'free challenge' quests which are just said pendant reward challenge quests but aren't in the arena, hence 'free' i guess.


Anyway hopefully that explains a bit, i get that it's probably a bit of an information overload when i'm trying to explain all this **** in game lol. Probably doesn't help that this is your first MH game, at least some of the basic systems would be more familiar to you otherwise. Even so they've made a bunch of weird decisions with some things in Wilds so that even experienced players are scratching their heads.

[methoxetamine]

this game is more woke than i ever could've imagined

[mynameismortis]

Few hours into mh:World, no woke stuff just have fun killing big dinozaurs but one thing that bugs me. What is the lore of this Guild? How do they have the power to send so much resources to this new world? Are there nations at all?

[mattig]

wtf are you a racist or something?

Man, I been here like a week and I know we all racists here. How new are you?

nah, this is a very diverse and inclusive community.

Ofc we are. Racists are always diverse and inclusive.

[Finarfin]

Alma is a **** character(like most of the characters in this game of course)

Alma was the only character I wound up disliking. The MC with Todd Habberkorn's voice sounded good. Your sidekick Palico, and Olivia sounded good and were neat. Guildmaster was cool. Not too fond of Gemma was chill. Except for Nata's two inane tantrums at the end where he defended Arkveld, I was actually pleasantly surprised by him as he came across as a normal (not ridiculously skilled or behaved) boy in a photorealistic movie/game who was not annoying. I guess the engineer guy and the stupid biologist were kinda meh.

I wish that Athos had more screentime. He barely spoke at all.

>Alma was the only character I wound up disliking.

[Manny V]

Few hours into mh:World, no woke stuff just have fun killing big dinozaurs but one thing that bugs me. What is the lore of this Guild? How do they have the power to send so much resources to this new world? Are there nations at all?

aye, the Hunter's Guild in Monster Hunter isn't just like one of many guilds or whatever, but rather is one of the main organisations in the setting(considering the world's inhabited by fucktons of giant monsters that threaten civilisation) and i believe pretty much all the main settlements fund it/have branches/hold operations etc since they effectively protect them from monster threats. All of the multiplayer hubs in the old games are sizable cities, and give you an idea of the extent of their civilization, despite their crude and primal architecture. Take Loc Lac for example:
Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) - Loc Lac

Also, if you want a huntin bro for World, i'm also down to go back to it, just will need to reinstall it