Monster Hunter Rise - I'LL TELL YOU WHAT'S RISING LADS

I think it'll be Duel Blades that I main this game as they seem fairly straightforward but effective. Gotta watch that stamina, but I can deal with that. You obviously have to get in very close but you have the tools to zip about if you need to.

At the moment my off weapon is the Greatsword, which I've never used before. It's quite fun although I think there's a lot more to learn than the game teaches. I might swap this for Hammer which I tried for the first ever time in the arena and found pretty fun.

There is a much better tempo to the hunts in this game than MH World thanks to the subtraction of scout flies and tracking. The maps are obviously less cinematic but I don't think the game loses anything for it beyond those turf wars.

A weird observation, and obviously I'm only at 4* quests at the moment, but the monsters in World felt a lot bigger.

I think the camera was a little tighter to the character in World, but also there have been a few smaller beasties so far.

I don't know how much I want to talk about Rise with the cast going out, which is of first impression almost 7hrs in.

As I'm now 11hrs in and just did my first rampage section. So far so good and quarter through the year, sure not been much come out, yet this is easily the best game so far which I feel is going to be hard to top.

Can't talk. Hunting.

neil wrote:

You’re still on my list so assume I’m on yours! I still post on there but there’s not much Nintendo chat and I’m basically a Nintendo fanboy nowadays

All the best people are.

Buskalilly wrote:

Leave the Tanookis alone!

Like Mas, I should probably leave my answer to this for now. Listen to Monster Mash if you want to hear the reason behind my Bombadgy bullying!

The Lady has basically dropped this though, at the second tutorial fight. Basically she struggled to keep track of everything, didn't use her demon blade abilities, and got killed by a bear. That's a big blow for my chance of keeping going, however much I liked faffing around in the shrine area. My best bet might be to dovetail it with another game.

It's not an easy game for sure and I definitely benefit from being able to ask the Monster Mashers what certain things mean.

Not using demon mode will massively handicap the duelies unfortunately. The speed buffs it adds to attack and movement make a big difference. I've personally found at low rank that I don't need to keep an eye on my stamina even with demon mode on. I'm normally sturdy enough to take a hit from low rank monsters, which turns demon mode off and lets the stamina recover. If she was to try it again, I'd recommend using demon mode aggressively and learning to tone it down later.

The thing I struggle with the most with duel blades is actually learning the monster's moveset and its tells. With such a short range there's a temptation to be up close all the time, but sometimes it makes sense to take a breath and see what the monster does with a bit of space. I also used the A+X attack too much to begin with which led to me flailing at air constantly.

I had to play it handheld last night. Maybe I need glasses or something but squinting at this game is not the way to enjoy it. Especially when you're crap at it like I am, the small screen makes it even harder.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1228/1228-h/1228-h.htm

neil wrote:

I had to play it handheld last night. Maybe I need glasses or something but squinting at this game is not the way to enjoy it. Especially when you're crap at it like I am, the small screen makes it even harder.

Why I bought a proper Switch again.

Muss wrote:

It's not an easy game for sure and I definitely benefit from being able to ask the Monster Mashers what certain things mean.

Not using demon mode will massively handicap the duelies unfortunately. The speed buffs it adds to attack and movement make a big difference. I've personally found at low rank that I don't need to keep an eye on my stamina even with demon mode on. I'm normally sturdy enough to take a hit from low rank monsters, which turns demon mode off and lets the stamina recover. If she was to try it again, I'd recommend using demon mode aggressively and learning to tone it down later.

The thing I struggle with the most with duel blades is actually learning the monster's moveset and its tells. With such a short range there's a temptation to be up close all the time, but sometimes it makes sense to take a breath and see what the monster does with a bit of space. I also used the A+X attack too much to begin with which led to me flailing at air constantly.  

I've suggested the Greatsword to her instead. It seems like the simplest option (given that she refuses to play Sword and Shield). The alternative is that I show her how to use the Dual Blades, which I've offered to do.

I'm progressing through this slowly: I've done all the 1* quests and smashed my first Wyvern Egg. (F in the chat please.) Am I approaching the Bnahabras wrong? I remember them having particularly flashy armour in Stories that I'd like to get off them, but when I thwack them with my Hunting Horn they seem to vanish.

Buskalilly wrote:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1228/1228-h/1228-h.htm

I... suppose that's an upgrade from 'git gud'?

Monster Mash episode on Rise first impressions.
Featuring the veteran take from the mash lads and some early thoughts from newcomers Mas, Balla and Smurf.

Balladeer wrote:

Am I approaching the Bnahabras wrong?  I remember them having particularly flashy armour in Stories that I'd like to get off them, but when I thwack them with my Hunting Horn they seem to vanish.

You'll notice that in the Bnahabra quest it gives you a poison bomb; that's the trick to killing them without smashing them. Use those, and craft a few more of your own if necessary, and you can kill them without damaging the parts.

Getting ahead of myself on the Bnahabras I see.  Good to know.

Luke, I... I'm sorry.  I did the bear quest, but then I realised that I didn't have any Tranq Bombs. I have Tranq Bombs now.  Never again.  (A couple of Bombadgies got caught in the crossfire too.  A bad time all round.)

On which topic: what's going on when the Arzuros seems to disappear off the map for a bit?

I think all the maps have these tunnels or other such bits of terrain that are only accessible to certain monsters, who will then shimmy over to somewhere far away. I think the one in the Shrine area is there as a means of a monster moving quickly from downstream of the waterfall to upstream without it having to climb.

Arzuros is quite an interactive monster in a sense. It'll eat honey (I'm not sure if I've seen it trying to fish or not, but maybe) so in it's case I'm not sure if it moves about randomly or if it is steered towards areas it can eat in at certain times. There are other monsters with this sort of behaviour but I think Arzuros is the first you find.

I'm not really sure what drives a monster to migrate between zones, or what makes it flee from you. It might be completely random most of the time. They'll wander off for a rest sometimes when they're tired or injured, but I remember trying out whatever Monster Hunter was on the Wii U and finding it really strange that monsters would just wander off.

It was nice hearing everyone's thoughts in that podcast and good to see that everyone still seems happy to give it a go. If anybody wants to play with the Mashers at some point there's usually one of us around.

I actually completed the final mission solo on Friday. I've played a solid chunk of this game multiplayer but I've also really enjoyed hunting solo for the first time, which I've found really helped me get to know some of the Monsters. There are so many particle effects that it can be a bit of a sensory overload with multiple hunters at times, especially since everyone has their dog in play too. I still have a lot I could do in the game though as I've only really used the Duel Blades and dabbled in a few other things. There are some really challenging but fun late game monsters for people who make it that far.

How do I make or buy traps in this game?

Buy trap tools from the merchant then combine those with either a net for pitfall traps or with thunderbugs for shock traps.

Thanks. I started using Accept via Join Request and having randoms join me on quests. Doesn’t make it much easier does it?!

The monster's health scales depending on how many hunters are up against it, so you're very much correct in saying it doesn't get that much easier!

I've not posted in this thread since the game came out and that's because I've been playing it so bloody much! I'm up to HR7 now using both the Greatsword and the Hunting Horn. I'm having an absolute blast. I said in the impressions cast - great listen by the way, and enjoyed hearing the newbie hunters talk about the game, hope you guys stick with it - that this is the best Monster Hunter has ever been and I still think that rings true.

They've done a great job at chopping out the busywork that made hunts sometimes feel like a slog in previous iterations, they've ramped up the speed of the combat and made it feel so damn satisfying whilst still retaining that addictive loop that Monster Hunter thrives upon. What a game, lads.

neil wrote:

I started using Accept via Join Request and having randoms join me on quests. Doesn’t make it much easier does it?!

JayMoyles wrote:

The monster's health scales depending on how many hunters are up against it, so you're very much correct in saying it doesn't get that much easier!

The way it helps, in theory at least, is that the monster's attentiom is spread between multiple hunters so you get a chance to heal and stuff.

Ohh really health scales, as I mentioned on the cast took on a Great Baggi online and took seconds.

I'm guessing it was more down to what weapons using etc then the monsters health.

That's the one thing I still find a bit weird with them swapping over to scaling monster health based on number of players, as pre MH World it was the case that going online would allow you to get carried through the tougher quests until you found your feet.

You may have just been unlucky with the random players you got though, for example I done a couple rampage quests online the other day that were just the polar opposite to each other the first felt like everyone was on the same wave length where nothing went wrong but the second was a complete mess of us allowing the second horde to smash through the first gate making it a mad scramble to organise things for the final monster.

EDIT:

mas wrote:

Ohh really health scales, as I mentioned on the cast took on a Great Baggi online and took seconds.

Yep! Found this via reddit.

Quote :

MHRise both raises the base difficulty and adds extra health for every additional player in the session.

As an example, your first encounter with the Village Rathian sets her HP pool at around 3,960. Her LR multiplayer value is around 7,605, or 1.92x that of the village. This is only true if you're the only player in the session! At two players, this becomes 10,647 HP. 3 becomes 14,145 HP. At max players, that's 16,731 HP, or in other words, LR Rathian with 4 players has more health than G Rank Hyper Rathian in GU. Holy smokes.

Aww - I hoped they'd be easier in multiplayer so I could coax The Lady through a couple of brawls, should she ever come back to it.

Muss wrote:

I think all the maps have these tunnels or other such bits of terrain that are only accessible to certain monsters, who will then shimmy over to somewhere far away. I think the one in the Shrine area is there as a means of a monster moving quickly from downstream of the waterfall to upstream without it having to climb.

Cheers Muss. I didn't realise you were a Masher now!

Well, it depends on how you look at it because what Buska said above does help but I do feel like all hunters have to at least carry a bit of weight because of that increased health.

If you've got the equipment then it's probably not too hard to carry someone through low rank, provided they don't die all the time as you will still only have the 3 faints between the team. Of course the further you go up the ranks the harder it gets.

I personally find it easier to study monsters in single player but I could see others being the opposite. Multiplayer gives you opportunities to hang back and watch what's going on.

I love how online works in this game. I played more quests last night and did them all with Send join request. Every time I got people helping me out, and it made it way more fun. It reminds me of Dark Souls a bit, except it's a lot easier to get people in your game.

While I don't dislike having a join request option I do miss the lobby hopping of the older games (3U/4U specifically) where you actually got to know your team a little beforehand & could even decide to stick around and farm specific things.