So I just got the PS4 Demo and I'm digging the game's style, and messing around with weapons, but I find myself with a myriad of questions with no clear answers. Thought I'd make a new thread for this game in the hopes more experiences Hunters can help school a noob, and keep other threads free of my noobyness.

Questions:

1. Is there a way to specifically knock bosses down? I'm kind of just swinging every chance I get, but everything I've heard about this game in the past makes it sound like it should be more strategic than that. Does it differ with each monster?
2. Paralysis knives? Porque?
3. Please tell me this 20 min time limit is a demo only feature? I'll straight up not buy the game if I can't explore/all my hunts are time limited so strictly.
4. What's eating steak do?
5. I've accidentally mounted a couple of times, how do I do it deliberately? lol

That's all I can think of right now, I'll post more as they occur to me. The controls take a lot of getting used to. I've tried the Bow and the Charged Blade against the bosses themselves (a lot of others in the training room) and I wasn't a fan (maybe if I was in a group I'd try bow again). Switch Axe seems like my jam though.

 

All based off of previous games.

1 - Attacks to different body parts do different things. Hitting the heat frequently with a weapon that deals blunt (Hammer/horn/Greatsword/axes) used to be able to stun them. Head and leg attacks can knock the monster over at certain thresholds.

2 - Paralysis and poison knives (again) build up that relative status. When it reaches a threshold (sense a pattern?) it triggers. There's also sleep (duh), and blast (builds up to an explosion). The previous game had Exhaust (makes the monster tired) too.

3 - Normally 45 minute hunt, although some I remember as being shorter, normally 30 I think?
That said, I think the monsters in the demo have lowered health.

4 - Stamina drops over time, roughly 1 bar every 5 minutes. Eating rare steak adds 1 bar, well cooked adds 2. Fainting resets to baseline, so if you're depleted of stamina and out of snacks...

5- Mounting is (surprise!) a threshold that is reached by dealing damage whilst in the air. So jumping off ledges, or using the insect glaive. Successfully mounting and finishing the rodeo will knock the monster over for a short duration.

Kiranico is a good resource. Here's the page on status afflictions (poison, para, etc), here's the homepage.

Gaijinhunter on youtube does very good video tutorials. However he lives in Japan, so he didn't always have the same game (MH4/4G as opposed to MH4U). This is a minimal difference. He's also on Tumblr.

The MH reddit page is really good (here), but there's a lot of chaff to sort through, and lots of people asking the same questions again and again and again. Don't do that. There's decent guides on the RHS.

Dauntless (PC based, very similar to MH) had someone upload a dictionary of terms (here), but you need an account to view it (all credit to Cuddlefonz for curating this). Or, here's a pastebin.

Previous posts (starting here) for anyone else to have a look at, my thoughts and some basic info.

Seriously, the MH community is pretty helpful, and not too toxic (generally. There's always exceptions). So local groups on Facebook (really) used to be a major part. I went to a few meet-up hunt/nights out, and everyone's friendly.
If you've got the spare cash, a used DS console and MHGen will set you back ~£50, and a lot of stuff can be pretty easy to figure out.

But then changing control scheme sucks.

 

Yeah, there's a reason why I haven't played MH until now. I had no interest in playing such an in depth action game on a handheld (even my beloved psp). It always sounded interesting, which is why I was so excited to play it with proper controls.

How much do those resources translate over to World? Is there much of a difference that we know of between the previous game and this console one?

 

Usable items (potions, antidotes, etc) will likely have the same sprite, effect, and name. Some might change due to imperfections in translation, but I can't imagine many would.

From the beta, I haven't had any issues with timing of attacks/dodges/blocks, although item use seems significantly slower.

Maps are completely different, from what's available. That might not stay true for the rest of the game, but I think they're likely to have changed all that.

Historically, drop rates haven't changed much on monsters, or on item gathering. There's some wiggle now and then, but nothing major.

Equipment creation has sometimes fiddled with the numbers, but the items themselves are normally fine - The Anvilhammer always requires Iron, Earth Crystal, Malachite, but it might be 99/50/10 or 50/50/20. If a new monster has a better fit though, then that's often a change - using toxin sacs rather than poisonous mushrooms, for example.

Monster weaknesses and weakzones (AFAIR) stay the same, although actual numbers vary.
Also, as a point:
- armour made from a monster has similar stats. So if you use Gigantor armour and are weak to water/fire attacks... The Gigantor itself is weak to water/fire.

So it'll be a good enough overview, but you can pick it up in game quickly enough. Failing that, someone's gonna create stuff like that within a week or so, and clips from reviewers/footage make it look like a lot of that info will be presented in game, albeit after killing them a time or two first.

 

Lots of changes, courtesy of IGN. Other sources too, but I can't remember them all.

But generally, the game looks more forgiving of mistakes (forging/upgrading/equipping wrong weapon, forgetting dinner, simplified armour skills, calling for help mid-quest, etc...), and as I've said previously, it looks like the skill floor has been lowered.

I don't actually think that's going to be an issue, because they are all peripheral to the main point of the game - killing big things and turning them into hats. But it could turn the early game into a bit of a drag for people familiar with the series, depending on how strict the tutorial is.
But that's much better than the initial game, because I know at least two people who tried to get into it, but without any tutorial or guide sheet, had no idea how to do most of the actions in game

 

I just played through all three missions again with the dual blades.

Nvm. I'm going dual blades, lol.

Maybe it's my imagination, but it just feels like I can cancel out of animations with rolls and dashes quicker with them than with heavier weapons. I barely ever got hit, I shredded the bosses and I felt I could dance around them rather confidently.

The jumping off a high ledge and 'Sonic-ing' down bosses backs though is kinda clunky. When it did land, I often glitched out and just returned to the ground :/

I watched that changes video too, and it just left me with the impression that I've got a whole lot to learn when the game comes out. They made it sound like it won't be too overwhelming though, and maybe even noob friendly.

 

I really like the progression in Monster Hunter TBH. There's usually the village missions (solo) and the guild missions (online, or you can solo offline). The monsters in guild are harder (more dmg and hp IIRC), scaled for roughly 2 average hunters. But the difficulty is implemented through different versions of quests and represented in game as stars. 1-4 is low, 5-8? is high, and 9-10 is G-rank.

It's really satisfying when you learn the monster at normal, fight them again at hard and see them add a new move. Then you fight them again at G-rank, and they've added even more moves and variations. There's also the recolors that add something special.

TLDR; it's definitely noob friendly. Just stay at low rank a little bit longer, make an entire armor set. You'll definitely feel rewarded when you move to high rank and go, "Hey! I know that move!" There's usually an early armor set that gives Atk Up and Sharp Sword/Speed Sharpening that you'll get good milage out of.

 

Messed around with Insect Glaive this beta, I love everything about it except the bloody Kinsect. It's so clunky, and it being a slow ass projectile makes hitting the required parts an unfun pain. Especially against aggro monsters who are jumping around all over the place...

I really like the Dual Blades, Hunters Bow and Switch Axe though. I might just go with the Bow because the sweet Aloy skin you get on PlayStation.

Is there a particular finality in picking a weapon? What I mean is, does the armour you work towards synergise heavily with your weapon? Or is it easy to just chop and change as you like?

 

From what I've read, on Reddit/Youtube/everywhere else, there's no difference this time.
It's a single set of quests, and you can do them either online or offline. If more than one hunter is in the party, then (AFAIR) the monsters get roughly 2.6 multiplier to health, dunno about damage. But this is true if there's 2,3 or 4 hunters in quest. Presumably, this happens even if someone joins midquest.
There's probably something to avoid abuse (near kill the monster, someone else join and reap rewards) though.

And you're dead on about move memorisation. I remember when I first started, being unable to fight a low village Rath. In 4U I solo naked-hunted a HRSilver, and it felt amazing.

\

In previous games, you had gunner (Light/Med/Heavy bowgun, bow) and melee (everything else) armours, although you could wear the other headpiece.
Gunner armour had higher element resists, melee had higher raw defense, and they had slightly different skills (gunners would get no benefit from sharpening skills, melee no use from better pierce ammo).
Skills would come once a set value was crossed (normally 5,10,15, etc). If you had +9 to something, you got nothing. This meant people would often mix armours to get 'better' skills.

You would often switch sets depending on weapon. A hammer, great sword or charge blade would get benefit from 'quick charge', and dual blades would get a more important buff from 'increase status', but that was more high level play than through the campaign.

In MHW you don't have that split anymore. And skills look simplified, with each piece just giving a smaller (but complete) bonus. So having Attack+1 still just increases your damage.

 

Final beta before release is live. The one new thing that's obvious is the added fourth quest, killing Nergigante. Took like 6 tries with different randos before killing him, but it was great fun. I can see how this game would be incredible with coordination - it's a bit less so with people going crazy and doing what they want, but still it's own kind of fun.

I was using bow the entire time, it seems bow is super gear dependant? (and sprint juice?) It was fun getting the mechanics down, but yeah, Dragon Piercer carelessly is a recipe for disaster and I had to find those Litchie bugs otherwise my shoot > dash > shoot combo depletes me entire stamina bar :/

Btw, I have no effing idea how anyone used bow in the old games without a right stick. Respect...

 

Mine's shipped!

 

Went live an hour and a half ago for me (Australia)... I spent an hour customising my character... I bet there's a feature that lets you change that in game and I just wasted my time, lol

 

In previous games, no chances, although I think you can do hairstyles?

And you're covered in armour basically all game anyway, so it only matters for the guildcard photo-op.

 

Lol, it's so easy to stray. Still haven't done the story Pukei Pukei hunt, but I've killed 3 in investigations...

 

The third zone is gorgeous

 

Yeah. I've been running around farming Barroths trying to craft the best-looking-so-far armor without even the slightest thought to advancing the story.

I'm enjoying the game, but I've gotta say,the "beat on the thing until it runs away, chase it, and continue beating on it" thing it's got going on is gonna get really old really quickly.. It makes the hunts really drag when you spend half the time mindlessly running after the glowing sparkle trail, and it really adds nothing to the experience.

 

I want this game so much. SO MUCH. I'm waiting for the PC though. At least there will be one I guess.

That's why you set traps, you prepare yourself to be able to stop it from running away at the key moments. Beating it just a part of it.

 

And the monsters get harder... them running is less troubling than them just slowing the fuck down, lol...

Yo @Thaumologist , you got the Horizon Palico armour? I got the 3 Watcher lenses, but it went let me craft Armour Sets... I'm curious if that's story locked...

Nvm, got it. You only need 3 for the armour and weapon, I got 5 and it took all 5 instead of 2... something is def buggy...

 

Chasing the flies down gets a bit easier - when you level them to L3, you get autotracker for the monster, that is, it appears on the map straightaway, and most maps have about 4 camps, when you've unlocked them all, so you can just quick travel over to the nearest.

But it's miles better than what it's been in previous games - one camp, and autotracker (an armour skill) wasn't available early game. Your only method of tracking the monster was searching every area, or looking up their hunting routes online.

If the monster keeps running away, try to get some non-basic ammo for it. Either pierce pods (from crabs), slinger thorns (red glowy things), or the other exploding one. You can get the mons to stumble, which is hopefully enough to then get close and whale on them again.




I'm really liking the tracking/flies this time around, they're pretty useful, and the updated monster manual is brilliant for checking weaknesses before the hunt. I knew Anjanath was going to be horrible, so it was off to go grind the Jyuratodus to get all the mats to get the water CB.

Although speaking of weapons, the tree looks a bit bare - there doesn't appear to be any Anjanath weapons, either in trees or forged new. Anyone got further into the the game, and found if there's more options later?

I heard (not sourced it though), that it's coming to PC in Q3. So hopefully all the bugs will be ironed out, and you should have more of the core game coming through (Capcom has confirmed more monsters are being released over time as free DLC), although any of the time limited DLC might have gone by then.

But that's six months away.

 

There's at least an Anjanath Switch Axe (it's the bottom most switch axe upgrade on the original tree, if that's ever expanded). I'm one Fang away from being able to craft it.

And yeah, after having played a bit further, my issue was more that I was trying to take on Anjanaths and Rathians with t2 weapons and bone armor. Once I upgraded to a proper switch axe made out of dead barroths, I pretty much entirely stopped having issues except for the occasional tag from the insta-kill fire breath. Curse my completionist nature for making that a lot more difficult than it needed to be.