Multiplayer RPG games (not MMO), also Monster Hunter World

[skunk3]

Is anyone interested in partying up in some RPG games? The upcoming Pathfinder: Kingmaker game looks great. I also have Divinity: Original Sin 2 and a bunch of others. Last but not least I do have Path of Exile but it's more of a grinding game than anything else. Anyone up for playing sometime? I will also likely get Monster Hunter World for Steam.

[TheKomodo]

I'm definitely getting Monster Hunter World as soon as I have spare money, i've been looking forward to it for years and i've played since MH2U on the PSP.

My favourite so far is MH3U on Wii U, but unfortunately my Wii U broke, I sold my New Nintendo 3DS XL recently but still have MH4U and MHG.

I did have money set aside for the game, but i'm dating a new girl and it's all the spare money I have right now so wanna use it to spend some time with her, i'll have more money next month or something, I can wait a month or 2, but definitely i'll team up I f**king love the game, best game i've ever played along with Worms and Zelda franchises.

I have a binder with about 100 laminated pages i've made up over a couple years of playing, with maps, weapon/armor trees, combo lists, gems n other stuff, can't wait to do the same with MHW

[skunk3]

I've actually never played a Monster Hunter game but this looks very cool and I am dying to find something that grabs my attention and makes me want to play. I have a f@#!load of PC games and nothing has kept my attention for more than a week. Everyone raves about how great Path of Exile is when really it's just a huge grindfest.

[skunk3]

Monster Hunter World pre-ordered. 

Unfortunately the game doesn't go live for 7 more hours. >_>

[Throsti]

Try play in Tibia xDDD

[skunk3]

So I've been playing MHW today and I gotta say that I'm not loving it. It's basically a MMO. There's a lot of boring collecting crap that you have to do and the combat is basically go to this location, attack the monster, try to evade attacks, and keep chasing it down until it's dead. Over and over. Then you get slight upgrades on your gear. I wasn't expecting it to be like a MMO. I was thinking more of an exploration game that focuses on co-op ass kicking. I'm gonna stick with it for a while to see if my opinion changes but I HAAAATE MMOs.

edit:

So it's not really like a MMO per se, but it does require you to team up with people to get the most out of the game, and to also not spend forever dropping one monster when a group of 4 can do it extremely fast. I've also been told that the end game is extremely grindy. I actually think I'm gonna try to get a refund because I can already tell that this isn't a game that's going to suck me in. I hate games based upon grinding.

[TheKomodo]

Damn, quite surprised you don't like it, it does have grinding yeah but tbh I never paid attention to that, if you are worrying about grinding after playing the game for less than a day, you are playing it wrong man.....

It's the characters, music, the world, the sillyness, the cuteness, everything... Perfecting your routine and combos to take down monsters.

It IS a very annoying grinding game if you aren't having fun, but when you just actually love the gameplay and feeling like you are in that world, you just collect stuff over time lol.

I dunno, maybe I see it differently, it's the only game besides Zelda and Worms that I actually love right now.

[skunk3]

Well, I started the game using the heavy bowgun because that seemed cool to me and it was just so slow and plodding that I got irritated and finally tried a different weapon. I switched to the dual knives and it's WAY better. I do way more damage and the combat feels more fun, but it's still not amazing. Basically all you do is just spam a button over and over again while steering in the direction of the monster and then rolling away when it telegraphs some sort of attack... then just run back in and start hacking away. I think it's one of those kinds of games that would be potentially fun if you had a dedicated group of friends who play it together but solo it's very blah. I haven't researched the game at all so I am experiencing it as a totally clueless beginner just figuring things out as I go along.

It just seems like the combat isn't really that deep. There's no skill tree that you can use to customize your play style. There's no perks or feats that I know of that really separate you from anyone else... just different weapon styles. There's nothing about the game that makes me go "wow this is awesome" aside from the first time I see some huge monster... but the novelty of that wears off pretty quick because you end up seeing those same monsters a million times. I was just hoping for more customization... more personalized play styles, as well as more dynamic combat other than "I run up to the monster and spam the A button." I am only a couple of hours into the game and I know that it probably (hopefully) gets better as I go along but for now there's hardly anything to craft and the only items that I can buy are trash. I find myself collecting just about everything I see because I'm afraid that if I don't I will regret it later on, which in turn gets boring because endlessly collecting shit is tiresome.

I've been told that the early part of the game is fairly boring and that it's basically just a tutorial for the "real game" which starts when you hit 'high rank' as a hunter. We'll see. 

[Sensei]

Basically all you do is just spam a button over and over again while steering in the direction of the monster and then rolling away when it telegraphs some sort of attack... then just run back in and start hacking away.

That's what I saw on twitch streams. And that's the reason I asked you in discord why you like this game, but hate WoW? As a guy that never played either, I find them quite similar.

Similar idea at least. Run around, hack&slash creeps, hack&slash monsters, fullfil quests..
Is there any depth to it or that's basically it? Cause hype is enormous and I'm just curious - why?

[TheKomodo]

skunk different weapons are used to collect different parts of the monsters, for example you use a great sword/long sword to cut off tails, you use a hammer to smash heads, you use a bowgun to shoot certain parts as well, things you cannot do with other weapons.

I used to love the bowguns, the heavy bowgun is even slower than the normal one, trust me once you get all the proper stuff a heavy bowgun is EXTREMELY powerful...

I guess when it comes down to it, it's not the most complex game of all time, it is a very repetitive game, but that's exactly what makes it great for me.

Repetitive games suck, unless it's repeating things you absolutely love, and the core basic elements of this game bring me peak fun when playing video games.

The music of Monster Hunter is in my top 3 soundtracks of all time, for anything, games/movies/tv etc, between that and the visuals, I can sit there just watching the screen for an hour texting my gf chilling with the music...

With the right party having a laugh I can sit there playing for up to 24 hours straight trying to beat better and stronger monsters, then once you beat enough you get High Rank, then once you complete that, you get G Rank! Which i've never had before, I doubt I ever will because I can't seem to find a group of people I fit into.


I mean, look at Worms Armageddon...

We play on the same maps constantly, even if we make a new Big RR map, it's just same shit, different route.

Another BnG map, same shit, diff hides.

The combat system itself is simple as shit, aim and shoot.

The graphics are EXTREMELY outdated, but we love them!

I think games are more about friendships, and enjoying the artwork/sound/feeling of playing with other players, more than they are the game...

There is no point sitting saying what you think is bad about the game cuz it doesn't really matter, it IS a great game technically and creatively or it wouldn't have sold as many copies as it has and have the massive fanbase it does, this game is FRICKING HUGE! In Japan!

I don't even know if you understand this feeling/thing i'm talking about, it's hard to explain and I haven't done the best job, really tired today, f**kin lost 2g earlier, got home and banged my foot off my chair snapped half my nail off, then continued to putting my f**king Zelda hoody on backwards, i'm not having a good day 

I will say this though, if the initial world/graphics/audio, feeling of cuteness and adorableness, feeling like a hero! Doesn't pull you in, and you are one of these people who expect to be blown away with combat systems n sh*t, walk away now, go design your own or something, don't waste anymore of your time, this game is not for you.

[TheKomodo]

Also, not saying your opinion is sh*t or anything, you are spot on lol, just trying to warn you, if that's what you are looking for in a game, and that's what you see in this game, it's obviously not for you and shouldn't even waste your time further, better trying to look for something else?

It just seems to have the exact ingredients for music/art/fun that I enjoy at a basic level...

You know what, it's true what they say, less is more, in music too, listen to Carly Rae - Call Me Maybe, that song has like hardly anything in it, but it's SO big! It's cheesy as f**k but I love it!

[skunk3]

I've been putting in 10+ hour days at work the last two days so I haven't had a chance to delve deeper into the game, but I plan to over the next couple of days since I have two days off in a row, which is super rare for me. I want to at least try to get my money's worth out of the game since I bought it from Green Man Gaming and they won't refund my money. Also, a personal friend of mine just got the game so that should at least make it slightly more bearable.

I guess that you and I have very different tastes when it comes to gaming because based upon my very limited experience with the game, I simply cannot see what all of the hype is about. Sure, it has a general "cuteness" to it and the music is well done, but that's not enough to keep me playing. Gameplay is everything for me and any games that involve a grind to progress are a turn-off for me because, well, I'm generally good at all sorts of video games and I like to use my skill. Grind-based games irritate me because it doesn't matter HOW good you are, you're still going to be 'behind' others unless you put in as much time grinding as they do. If a game must be grindy, it should at least be as enjoyable as possible and reward people for being good at playing the game. MMOs for instance take almost no skill to play at all. It's all in what gear you have and just spamming what action makes the most sense at the moment.

Worms on the other hand might appear to be very repetitive, and in some schemes in can be, but generally speaking every game is a different experience, and personal skill actually matters. It never feels grindy or tedious for me, aside from a small handful of schemes which can be tedious indeed.

I had no idea that different weapons can be used to collect different things. That's cool yet also sucks at the same time because it means that you will be forced to use weapons that you don't like using eventually unless someone else in your party uses them. It also means that it's quite likely that you will have to grind out killing the same monster over and over again hoping to get a lucky drop, which strikes me as utterly boring.

Although Path of Exile is very tedious and repetitive, it still manages to be somewhat fun for me because the skill tree is so huge and you can really personalize your playstyle with different classes, skill points, gear, gear slots, gems, etc. Obviously there's nerds out there who have figured out the 'optimal' build for each character class, but you don't really have to follow those ideas if you don't want to. I really like being able to play my own way (in any game) and not be railroaded along a narrow path and forced to do a certain thing, especially over and over again. This is probably why I've never completed any Grand Theft Auto game. When I got GTA V for PS4 I spent probably a month doing almost nothing in the game aside from exploring. I'd ride a bicycle around the entire city and just check out every nook and cranny while not breaking any laws, lol.

Another thing that bugs me about MHW so far is that there's a very limited amount of quests that I can pursue, and most of the people online powerlevel through the game so when I try to join other people's parties they are way higher level than me and I can't join. I am currently stuck on a quest that requires 4 players and I can never get anyone to join me, so I literally cannot proceed. All I can do is just repeat previous quests and collect crap that I don't even know if I need.

[Anubis]

There is no "being behind" anyone. Why do you look at this game as if it was competitive. It's a single player / coop game and you have no incentive to grind faster than others. You play at your own pace and enjoy the game at your own pace. You can gather all the armors and weapons and you are not missing out on anything. It's not a MMO and you try to make it one, that's your problem. I have played MH since the initial release on PS1 and never felt this was anything close to a MMO. The game scales with player amount and is balanced around 20-30 minutes combat time if you are a mediocre player or have outdated armor and weapons, I usually need 5-10 minutes for a monster in early ranks and around 15 minutes in the high ranks depending on the weapon and type of monster. A fast agile monster you should not go at with a slow greatsword or heavy bowgun. Pick the light bowgun and/or longsword/dual blades then. Every monster has a weakness both elements and weaponry as well as weaponry style (slow, fast, ranged/melee). It's trial and error to figure out which weapon type counters which monster the best, though early on you can just use whatever you like since they fall over if you look at them especially in MH World. (prior MH games were a lot harder early on)

So if you can't beat a quest solo then update your weapons, sometimes your favorite weapon is not the best to use against a monster, try a different one and see how that goes. You generally want to master a ranged weapon (use light bowgun or bow since they are mobile and have decent dmg), a slow weapon like hammer or greatsword and a faster mobile weapon like longsword, dual blade or sword and board. If you fight a flight capable monster you are usually better off with a ranged weapon or bring flash bombs to get them out of the sky.

The skill in the game is knowing the attack pattern and weakness of monsters, it's a knowledge based skill game. If you don't believe this game can be skilled then you should watch some youtube videos where people don't even get hit at all and anticipate the movement of a monster perfectly, you should not judge the game with your little knowledge that you have and ask for advice before making assumptions.

[skunk3]

Well I openly stated that my impressions of the game are based upon very little experience.

Also, it's not a MMO (as I corrected myself) but it's very MMO-like in that you have a hub city that you always have to go to for various reasons, as well as teaming up for quests and lots of grinding for materials.

I played for about 4 hours last night with my friend and bugs aside (very poor co-op that's always disconnecting or now showing friend sessions) I actually had fun. So far I think the monsters are pretty easy to read and I can avoid getting hit most of the time. My friend who I was playing with kept dying because he wouldn't roll out of the way or anticipate certain attacks. My opinion of combat has improved since yesterday, but I still have major issues with the game.

1. The current state of multiplayer is trash. Friends often cannot join my online session, nor can I join theirs sometimes. Even when we do manage to get in the same session I often cannot join quests that my friend posts up, and not because of level requirements. I just get an error and can't join. This is a commonly reported problem>

2. The amount of time that it takes to use items while in combat is ridiculous. You have to put away your weapon and come to a full stop just to drink a potion, which makes you a sitting duck. Also, the monster AI seems to be programmed in such a way that normal 'aggro' keeping techniques from other games simply doesn't work. The monsters seemingly go for anyone who is trying to heal / sharpen / etc rather than whoever is dealing the most damage or being the most annoying.

3. Lack of monster HP bars sucks IMO. I know that damage is kinda shown on the monster models but it's not very accurate and you never know just how close you are to killing anything... you just keep attacking until it dies. Also, the monsters are damage sponges and either have a shitload of HP or player attacks are weak AF.

4. Even after I quit the game there will sometimes be a MHW process still running in Windows that I have to manually shut down via task manager, which takes up some CPU and makes my fan run non-stop unless I shut it down.

5. Friends cannot play through story mode missions together because the game requires both players to be finished with cut scenes before you can join or someone else can join you. What this means is that if you're playing with a friend one of you needs to be higher level than the other to not waste time, or you both have to start the quest individually and then once the cutscenes are finally over one or more people need to exit that quest and then join someone posting the quest. It's really convoluted and shitty.

6. The in-game voice chat is terrible.

7. A lot of 'heavier' weapons are so damn slow that they are nearly useless because by the time your swing even finishes the monster will be in a totally different spot. So far I'm sticking with the dual knives/swords because it's fast and I can actually hit things.

8. Weapons seem to bounce off of creatures a lot doing no damage at all. I can understand if it is a really thick bit of hide or armor but some of the hitboxes are silly, especially when using a slow weapon. My friend was SCREAMING last night about this and also constantly running out of stamina.

9. I haven't been able to upgrade my weapon in some time because I am lacking some material that shows up as at the smithy, and I have no idea what it is or where to get it.

complaints aside my attitude towards the game is improving a bit. I just wish that the combat was better in certain ways and that the co-op wasn't so janky.

[TheKomodo]

It's all in what gear you have and just spamming what action makes the most sense at the moment.

Isn't Big RR just spamming whatever buttons you need to at the right moment? Isn't most schemes doing the right thing at the right moment?

In fact wait, that's games in general...

It also means that it's quite likely that you will have to grind out killing the same monster over and over again hoping to get a lucky drop, which strikes me as utterly boring.

I don't see the difference from hunting the same monsters over and over, and playing Big RR over and over...

It's just something you enjoy doing, I like how the rope looks when it moves around the map, it's just, appealing to me...

I love running around gathering materials and saving them in my box to use for later, if you constantly do this in small amounts as you play you never have to worry about grinding so much, it's kinda like I wash my dishes after I use them so I never have to worry about a huge pile of dishes to wash...

Yes it's a chore, but you can make it enjoyable if it's for a greater purpose that you enjoy as a whole

When I got GTA V for PS4 I spent probably a month doing almost nothing in the game aside from exploring. I'd ride a bicycle around the entire city and just check out every nook and cranny while not breaking any laws, lol.

So, you can spend an entire month of your life, walking around in a simulated city acting like a law abiding citizen, but you can't stand grinding for a few nights to get an epic upgrade or new weapon?

I hate grinding, I really do, but it's a lesson in life isn't it, nobody likes the grind, but when you put the effort in you reap the rewards, in life we work to follow our dreams, we save money over long periods of time to experience awesome vacations or something.

It's no different from a game.

1. The current state of multiplayer is trash. Friends often cannot join my online session, nor can I join theirs sometimes. Even when we do manage to get in the same session I often cannot join quests that my friend posts up, and not because of level requirements. I just get an error and can't join. This is a commonly reported problem>

That's a pretty lame problem tbh, I hope they fix that, it's good you take the time to report on such issues, maybe it's a good idea I wait 1-2 months to get my copy so that these things don't ruin the experience for me, I can get extremely angry with bugs, especially when they took so much extra time specifically to make THOSE f**king areas of the game as good as possible. Seriously, multiplayer experience was one of the main reasons the PC release was delayed lol... Typical...

2. The amount of time that it takes to use items while in combat is ridiculous. You have to put away your weapon and come to a full stop just to drink a potion, which makes you a sitting duck. Also, the monster AI seems to be programmed in such a way that normal 'aggro' keeping techniques from other games simply doesn't work. The monsters seemingly go for anyone who is trying to heal / sharpen / etc rather than whoever is dealing the most damage or being the most annoying.

This is actually common for the series, while I can see your point, you expect to be able to do things in a game you can easily do in real life, remember it's a game, it's part of the experience, just like we have to wait between turns in WA.

I haven't played MHW yet so I can't comment on the Monster AI, but to be honest what's so bad about that? If the Monster is smart enough to attack the person trying to heal itself, that's a pretty smart f**king Monster and makes it even more satisfying when you learn how to adjust to it's movement patterns so you can manage your items efficiently.

If I was in a fight with 2 guys, 1 of them pulls a knife, i'm obviously gonna focus on the guy with the knife 1st, if I see someone pull out a phone in an attempt to call for backup, i'll try to intervene.

It actually makes sense to me tbh, i'm not actually sure why you see that as a problem just because it's not the same as other games? It's a game, every game can be beat, it's just a matter of figuring out how.

3. Lack of monster HP bars sucks IMO. I know that damage is kinda shown on the monster models but it's not very accurate and you never know just how close you are to killing anything... you just keep attacking until it dies. Also, the monsters are damage sponges and either have a shitload of HP or player attacks are weak AF.

This is actually one of the best things about the game!

The way Monsters move is VERY crucial, every experienced player will know when a Monster is weak so you can capture it or it's about to run off/die.

You can even equip certain armor sets which gives you a notification when the Monster is weak.

And yes, Monsters have a lot of HP lol, in time you will figure out the best ways to attack each Monster.

6. The in-game voice chat is terrible.

Can you elaborate please?

7. A lot of 'heavier' weapons are so damn slow that they are nearly useless because by the time your swing even finishes the monster will be in a totally different spot. So far I'm sticking with the dual knives/swords because it's fast and I can actually hit things.

Again, experience, once you learn the Monsters movements you can time your swings, also, you can set traps and stun monsters etc which gives you extra time to attack.

8. Weapons seem to bounce off of creatures a lot doing no damage at all. I can understand if it is a really thick bit of hide or armor but some of the hitboxes are silly, especially when using a slow weapon. My friend was SCREAMING last night about this and also constantly running out of stamina.

You really don't get this game at all, like I said before, the core game must not be very appealing to you because you have no patience to learn the game and figure things out with experience, everything that most players understand is part of what makes the game so good, is something you immediately hate.

Sharpness of weapons is crucial, some weapons cannot penetrate certain parts of certain monsters, their hides are so thick and strong that long swords and great swords will just bounce off, kinda like trying to cut diamond with a knife.

Eventually you will get weapons with higher colours of sharpness that are strong enough to penetrate the monsters.

It's part of the game, you either like the game and enjoy that, or you don't.

9. I haven't been able to upgrade my weapon in some time because I am lacking some material that shows up as at the smithy, and I have no idea what it is or where to get it.

This is actually part of the game also, for example you won't see armor that you can craft show up until you have at least one of each item required to craft it.

You can look online for weapon upgrades and look to see which items are required, then you can go and hunt to gather those items, or you can gather them.

Another thing I should point out, it's the same with combining items.

I love this, it's exactly like real life, when humans started we knew nothing, we had to experiment to find combinations and how to create things, we learned how to combine herbs and stuff to make medicine, how to make explosives, how to make everything...

Our species wasted resources through failed experiments, you might waste rare resources in Monster Hunter through failed combining(tip, get the Combo Books!).

In the game, you literally have to discover and experiment yourself, and this is part of the game I absolutely f**king love!

You said you explored GTA5 for a month discovering every nook and cranny, think of Monster Hunter in the same regard, except you have to have a creative mind, the need to explore and experiment, through trial and error.

I highly recommend you clear your mind of all expectations of gaming, stop expecting to see a game do exactly everything you are used to.

Stop saying "That's stupid, it should do this..." and start saying "Oh, I wonder why it does that..."