monster hunter – Page 5

Bad Grind Good Grind

March 27, 2018 by Belghast

I am still reeling a bit from a dream I had over night. I guess in theory you could call it a nightmare, where I ended up leaving my current job and ending back under the yoke of the one boss in my work history that I hated working for. I’ve always been one of those people who tended to naturally get along with bosses. Pending they are coming from a place of logic, I get why they want the things they want… and especially now as a “boss” myself I get how orders that seem disconnected from reality end up having to be passed down. This boss however was petty and vindictive and gave me nothing but a constant stream of conflicting information. If I did what I thought was right… he would rail on me for not doing it however the hell he wanted me to do it. If I stopped and asked for directions in how he wanted me to do a thing… he would rail on me for not taking initiative. In the end it was two and a half years of the lowest point in my career that did some serious damage to my psyche that I am apparently still sorting out.

On the gaming front however I have been playing quite a bit of World of Warcraft, mostly because I want to unlock the two Allied races that I have yet to. Let me take a moment to talk about how much bullshit the way these races are unlocked is. Primarily that it is grossly unfair that two races for a single faction are unlocked by doing content that has been in game more or less since the launch of Legion, and the other two gated behind the newest content and honestly the most frustrating to do. So I have the two horde races of the High Mountain Tauren and the Nightfallen unlocked and a monk and rogue create respectively. Now I am working on the frustrating rep grind that is roaming around Argus and doing daily quests barely watching the needle climb at all.

Argus just feels bad and was only slightly improved when I got the reputation to unlock the improved flight whistle. Why in the hell this was not a default thing makes zero sense to me. I get that they rushed this content out the door and did a lot of visual tricks that are easily dispelled the second you lift off the ground. However the constant tug of war of achieving flying only to have it arbitrarily taken away from you is maddening. We experienced this with Pandaria and then suddenly losing the ability to fly on the Timeless Isle and Isle of Giants and in both cases it felt horrible. Having a speed bump in the form of Argus still feels horrible… but I am gritting my teeth and dealing with it for the sake of racial unlocks. As to why this suddenly matters to me now? I have no clue… it could have been simply spurred on by having access to the races in Alpha.

The other game I have been playing a significant amount of lately is Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate on my new pokeball edition 2DS XL. Unfortunately the shut down of MiiVerse and the lack of having any sort of a native screenshot functionality will keep me from actually capturing any shots of my gameplay. However this has sorta become my evening retreat as I chill out doing some monster hunter from bed before finally heading to sleep. I find having some sort of a wind down activity helps a lot and at least thus far this fits the bill nicely. I do however have a USB to 3DS charging cable at work so I might start taking this with me and playing a little over lunch now that I am getting into some of the more exciting activities.

I’ve not made it terribly far but at this point I have taken down two monsters: Velicidrome and Seltas… both of which I need several more parts from. I have the mission to hunt the Great Jaggi so I am likely to attempt that next because I need a single hide to upgrade my current sword and shield. Not sure why I have not broken out my beloved Longsword yet, but for the moment I opted to stick to the starter weapon. In truth in Monster Hunter World, the Sword and Shield is probably my second favorite of the weapons so I am in part using MH4U as a way to get more familiar with its quirks.

How quickly I have taken to this game in the relatively short amount of time I have been playing it… tells me that Monster Hunter World is not necessarily a fluke for me. Sure it was this amazing gateway into a very complex game… but the core mechanics are ultimately the thing that is keeping me there. I’ve had similar experiences with Generations, but I feel like 4U does a much better job of easing you into the game and giving you some semblance of a story to care about. At some point I fully expect to return to Generations and push a little further given that I have yet to actually get to a single real monster there.

Monster Hunter World

March 15, 2018 by Grace

As you know, I got dragged into playing MHW after a concerted harassment/peer pressure campaign by two of my best nerd friends. Now that I’ve had some time to settle in, I have some thoughts and opinions.

As someone who has absolutely no prior experience with the MH franchise, I was totally unprepared for the level of utter nonsense in this game. I’m not just talking weapon design or the grind required to progress. I am talking about adorable cat friends who wear fancy costumes and have adventures and bring back monster parts. Also you can catch and collect tiny animals from your travels who live on your carpet in your fancy church/spa of a room. Also there’s a friendly pig you can pet and dress up. Also there seems to be a proud tradition of event quests that reward ridiculous hats. Basically, for a game that comes across as nothing but boss fights and gear grind, there’s actually a wealth of fun silly side things to do. I am a fan.

Of course this is still a game about murdering giant lizards and things and stealing their bones. There is plenty of that to go around. This game has a very tight core loop. There is not a lot in the way of forced downtime activities. Yes, you can seek the silly side things discussed above, but the game never makes you do boring side jobs to progress the main plot. You’re here to kill monsters and that’s all it asks of you. If you enjoy those fights then it is fantastic. If you were looking for more variety you might have to find your own fun.

I’ve discovered that I enjoy the game most when I don’t force myself to push the story forward, and instead focus on side quests and exploration until I actually feel the need for something new. Right now I have the self-imposed goal of killing every monster I have encountered before I work on the story again. There’s no shortage of things to do if you enjoy the core mechanic of the game.

I also realized that my enjoyment went up substantially when I stopped worrying about catching up to my friends who started playing weeks ahead of me. The game is reasonable about letting us play together no matter where I am in the story, so there’s no urgency. It took me a while to accept this because in the MMO world playing with friends so often feels useless until everyone is at the endgame. Here, as long as I don’t faint too much everybody is happy and we all go home with sundry monster parts to feed into the gear machine.

So all said, I’m still quite happy to be playing Monster Hunter World with my friends, and I’ve mostly forgiven them for dragging me into the game. Now I just hope they stay interested long enough for me to catch up.

Dragged onto the Bandwagon

February 21, 2018 by Grace

I’ve made friends with some beautiful, amazing folks through playing video games. Sometimes this is a double-edged sword however. For example, over the past few weeks a couple of my friends have engaged in a relentless peer-pressure campaign to get me to play the new Monster Hunter with them. It’s not that I don’t want to play the game, I desperately do. However, money, time, and personal reasons meant I was planning to wait for the PC release. Unfortunately waiting was making me miss out on all the fun of roaming around murdering lizards with my friends right now. So I have been deluged with videos of palicos being adorable and stories of monster slaying and nonsense.

Anyway last night the dam finally broke and I found myself logging in and being overwhelmed by character creation (how do I choose what my adorable kitty pal will look they’re all so cute???) and weapon options (I don’t know what most of these do and I don’t have the patience to try them all before I go murder monsters). Thanks Bel.

I only got to play for a few hours but I can already tell this game has the potential to reach obsession levels. It seems to have a good mix of satisfying gameplay, crafting, and cosmetic goodies. The biggest thing I’ve killed on my own was a great jagras so I’m obviously still figuring things out but it was incredibly satisfying. I’m learning how the monsters work and I’m getting better at my chosen weapon (bow). It felt great to go from taking over half an hour to kill one while getting intensely beat up by it, to tracking one down and taking it out in a few minutes without taking a scratch. If the game keeps that core loop of learning and progress I will definitely be in for the long haul.

I can’t wait to really sink my teeth into this game over the weekend and start tackling some bigger prey.

AggroChat #184 – A Very Unstable Show

May 21, 2019December 10, 2017 by AggroChat

Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra and Tamrielo

This week we record an unstable show… and by that I mean a huge chunk of the conversation is about the adventures of Tam, Ash and Kodra in drafting the new magic “un” set. From there we talk a bit about Unstable being Legal in Commander for a small amount of time and the ups and downs of Iconic Masters. We talk a bit about the Curse of Osiris DLC for Destiny 2 and the ups and downs of it. This weekend Monster Hunter World Beta is available on the Playstation Network so we talk a little bit about it and Monster Hunter in general. We talk a bit about Reigns: Her Majesty and Fire Emblem Heroes 2.0 release.

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