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00:00:01
S1 Ep21: Monster Hunter: World
88 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave and Jake this week as they hunt the most illusive target of them all... online connectivity!
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Oh.
Introduction and Humor
00:01:00
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? Good. It's going good. It's going great. It's going amazing. That was like a reasonable answer. There wasn't like an abnormal pause. I couldn't think of a joke or self-deprecating statement in the moment. So I went with it. It felt natural, felt right. This feels right.
00:01:29
Speaker
So anyways, yeah. Yeah, I figured I'd throw you off balance a little bit today where I just show up to record the podcast and just have like a cassette recorder right there and just be like, how's it going, everybody? Jake, I live here. We need boundaries. Then step into the apartment.
Monster Hunter World on PC
00:01:48
Speaker
But what do you want to talk about tonight, Dave?
00:01:52
Speaker
I ask is that we both don't know what we're talking about. Oh, oh, the setup, yes. Let me smash this T-ball with my giant hammer, because we're talking about fucking Monster Hunter World. Yes. For PC. Yeah, in particular, probably PC. I guess up front, it's just recently come out for PC, unless we wait forever to release this. I can't imagine that'll be the case. But we both played it on PlayStation 4.
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, we got it when it came out because some people were hyped about it. We were like, hey, we'll try it out, kill some monsters and stuff. Jake's like, I'll get a PS4 for this. And we'll get a PlayStation Online and do all that jazz. It wasn't the most rational decision. I guess I probably spent more money for Monster Hunter than most other games.
00:02:40
Speaker
Because there's like price of the initial ps4 game price of the PC game price of the PlayStation But I mean how much time do we sink into that though? Honestly, it's been a lot. It's been a lot of time hundred plus hours. Did you say? Yeah, probably at this point because I binged it a lot on ps4 and I played it pretty regularly on PC since it's come out Yeah, it's
00:03:09
Speaker
I mean, as we'll kind of detail throughout the podcast that we tend to, it's a good game. We've really enjoyed playing it. I'm not sure how blanket of a statement I want to make as far as details before we get into the 180-gritty.
Game Mechanics and Strategy
00:03:23
Speaker
No, that's all right. That's a good preview, I think. We can jump in there. As it probably mentioned in the description, we're not going to ruin the entire game for everybody, but we'll just have some top-level stuff, something you might encounter relatively early in our impressions of it.
00:03:38
Speaker
Um, I say relatively early. I mean, like if you only spend 40 hours in the game, are you really that far? Yeah. We're not talking about true ending context. Actually, I haven't even gotten there. No, I haven't either. Yeah. But one day. Yep. That being said, Monster Hunter, if you were to describe Monster Hunter with a noun and then a verb,
00:03:59
Speaker
or job description. How would you describe Monster Hunter to somebody? I would first say Monster Hunt, and then after yours, clarification, Monster Hunter. I think that's probably a good description of the game. I think we were talking to AJ recently, or I was at least, and he was asking like, oh, what's the game about? I was like, well, you hunt monsters.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very adequate high level summation, but...
00:04:33
Speaker
It's a nice third person to go around, take on monsters with a group of friends, ideally, but you get to set up, you get to have consumables and other items and upgrade your gear and change your gear depending on what you're facing, you're trying to do. And it's just all around really fun. Yeah. It's a lot of going out into the world to like a specific area.
00:04:57
Speaker
Like gathering resources if you need them fighting small monsters if you need resources particularly from them kind of preparing there's a lot of preparation and then the oftentimes lengthy fights with large monsters which can be very difficult but rewarding yes, yeah and The the game doesn't like in a standard game you would be going for story progression kind of which this this also has
00:05:25
Speaker
But it's not the point. Like the first time you beat a monster in Monster Hunter is very rarely the last time you'll face that monster because you may need to go back and get some other resources from it to complete like a set of gear, maybe some upgrades for your weapon. So it's kind of this more of a continuum than a linear experience.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's upgrading your own gear and also the gear of your Palico. So what is your friend cat? Essentially like a helper who you can also give some gear to and they'll kind of fight along. And depending on their gear, they might have some status effects they can apply on a monster or use some utility items to help you fight. And they're also insanely cute and everybody gets one. Yes. Everybody gets one.
00:06:16
Speaker
Mine is, for PC, my palette coat is named Peppermint. It is a white and red cat, and it's pretty great. I currently have them outfitted for paralysis.
00:06:29
Speaker
that goes with my own paralysis set. So sometimes we're going up against the monster and the monster's like, all right, we're going to go for the fight here. I'm going to take some swings at you. You're going to take some swings at me. And I'm like, you'll make a couple of attacks, then you'll be out. Going to keep paralyzed for the rest of the fight. Enjoy the paralyzer. Another paralyzer.
00:06:59
Speaker
Not literally, like the paralysis only lasts a little while, but you can get a couple hits in there. And that's like one of many status effects that exist in the game that you can induce either through environmental means, such as like kicking a frog or like cutting a poison plant or something like that, or on the weapons themselves that you could make. Yeah.
00:07:21
Speaker
One of the things I really have liked about this is like when I first went through is just kind of using bow very inefficiently. Just like I can shoot things. This feels so great. Yeah. And then I figured out you can do the dragon piercer on the bow where you do this long charge drawback. Yeah. And it has multiple hits through a monster. So you could try and like line it up through the length of their body. It's better than call of duty hit markers. Yeah. Yeah. Penetrating shot.
00:07:46
Speaker
But then once you realize you can do other things like the environmental like maybe cut a poison cup Yeah, maybe you jump off of a wall onto a monster for like an aerial attack. Maybe you can even mount the monster Yeah, oh my god. I'm I'm loving that this time around with the hammer
00:08:02
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of, you can go about a fight in a kind of like naive, you don't necessarily know the world, you don't know the environmental advantages you could be leveraging, but the game's a lot more rewarding when you're like, hey, I think there's maybe this one environmental, maybe like destructible terrain, or we can like drop a boulder on him, or we can do something like that, that kind of gives you the edge in the fight. And if you're using those throughout the fight and kind of leading the monster to these,
00:08:29
Speaker
these traps, basically, it can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of the fight. And that's basically how Monster Hunter works. We all started out, we had our weapon, there's 15 of them, they all play very differently. We can talk about our favorites probably, but you have your weapon, you're utilizing it to some extent, you're probably not using the full moveset, you're not, you know,
00:08:52
Speaker
You don't have an optimized rotation or anything like that against monsters. And you practice and you just get better, learn more about the game, and everything just goes much more smoothly. And that's really rewarding. Yeah, you just kind of start out kicking it in the shins. And then later you're like jumping off to him back, and he's like, fuck you. And you just like slap it around a lot. Yeah. It all sort of feels good, because when you start out, the monsters are
00:09:20
Speaker
for difficult to kill, because you don't have a lot of damage, you don't have good gear. But then as you progress and go back, you're like, oh, great Jogress. Everybody shits onto great Jogress. And then just kind of farm him for items, because his health pool isn't that big. His moveset's not that crazy. So you go back and you're like, I've progressed to this point, I'm the man now. I'm the hunter. So it feels good when you've struggled with a certain enemy to come back later. Maybe you're helping a friend out and you're like, fucking no you, let's go.
00:09:49
Speaker
Yeah, and in some cases that's because, like in the case of great Jairus, it's never like a huge threat, but you come back and your armor is significantly better, your weapon does a lot more damage, and so you kind of like tear through it. But in other times, you could be fighting a monster that gave you a lot of trouble in the past, but now you're like, I know your moveset. Like, I know what the tells are that are going to
Community and Multiplayer Experience
00:10:10
Speaker
mean you're about to like unleash some super devastating attack, and I know how to avoid it.
00:10:15
Speaker
There's one monster in particular who we were playing with, or I was playing with our friend Ian. And it's early in the game, so I'm talking about Anjanath, who has a one-hit kill move, basically. If she's enraged, she's basically a giant erect that can breed fire. That also has wings to some degree. Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
And if she's enraged, which usually happens if you've done like a fair amount of damage to it, whatever, they'll fight more aggressively. And in her case, she has this fire breath attack where she like shoots a fireball and it does enough damage that basically for where you're at in the game, it's going to one-shot you if it hits. If you're low level, you don't have any fire resist, you're just kind of fucked. Yeah. And, uh, so I knew this was kind of going to come and maybe Ian's listening now and he'll hate me for it. But I was like.
00:11:04
Speaker
oh yeah just you know watch out for the enrage kind of vaguely and then I see you do the animation I'm like yep here it comes and then he gets one shot but we went on to finish the fight you know for Master Chief but the game's just full of those learning experiences where
00:11:26
Speaker
being punished by a particular move the monster might have or something they do allows you to learn how to be a better monster hunter in the future. Yeah. It's kind of similar to MMOs in a way where you have certain bosses that have specific mechanics you have to learn and get used to. Yeah. So as soon as you have like a newbie with you, you're like, Hey, heads up for the thing. Yeah, exactly. And you learn like Diablos is charge or burrow.
00:11:53
Speaker
But I feel between our experience in PS4 and then coming back to the PC release. Oh, yeah. I know these monsters well enough now, because I was fighting Legiana, which is an articuno-type bird in one area. Yeah. And I'm just sidestepping things. I'm naturally like, I don't give a shit. I'm just trying to wail on her. You know where the frost is going. You've got a good idea of the moveset. I played Dark Souls. You just do the dodge roll. Yeah, dodge roll, dodge roll. Depending on your weapon.
00:12:23
Speaker
How you go about different boss fights can vary a lot. So I know for first playthrough you're going bow. So this time though I've seen you carrying the hammer. How's the hammer been treating you kind of compared to the bow? First look at my stoic pose as I'm sitting in my chair. Yeah.
00:12:42
Speaker
It's much more rewarding in that it has higher damage per hit because it is a hefty hammer versus just knocking back some arrows. Yeah. I see what you're saying. Also, it seems to be better at breaking parts off of monsters. So all monsters have kind of armor across parts of their body. And once the armor is broken, you can do more damage to that area because it's a weakened spot. Exactly, yeah. Like if I broke your legs and kept kicking you in the leg, you'd be like, this hurts more than usual.
00:13:11
Speaker
um now i know don't break my legs any more days but it also has a different charge up attacks so if i charge up to three bars and i kind of run in while moving i can do like this spinning attack which is kind of fun but even better than that i found
00:13:32
Speaker
If I do the charge and then I slide down a hill and then release, I do this jump attack and I start spinning with the hammer and you still get like this nice multi-hit, but when you finally land, you get a nice. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's the, the hammer is like immensely satisfying.
00:13:51
Speaker
And kind of based off your weapon determines your fighting style against a lot of these monsters. And sometimes a particular weapon will be much better against a certain monster. In general you can get by, but sometimes it's just really, really, really easy to go about one approach. I know with Hammer my biggest grievance right now is it's typically slow. It's kind of hard to pull out and put back if you need to run away and dodge something. Yeah, it is hard to pull out.
00:14:21
Speaker
See, this is like the one time it's convenient that your wife's not here or recording. She doesn't listen to this, we'll be fine. That's good, she doesn't. But it's hard to dodge with the hammer, so I find a lot of my time is spent positioning.
00:14:35
Speaker
and getting the spot where I'm not going to get slapped. So I can actually get in my attack and charge hits and not be interrupted by the opponent or my teammates. Exactly. And the hammer, since you're doing concussive damage, which can KO monsters, there's a big advantage to the hammer.
00:14:53
Speaker
go in for the head. There's kind of a standard arrangement if you've got a weapon that does severing damage, like the longsword. That's usually kind of to the tail. You want to cut the tail off, people get more resources if they can carve the tail.
00:15:09
Speaker
Yeah. Something I want to explain to people who are less familiar.
Resource Management and Replayability
00:15:12
Speaker
When you kill a monster, you can carve it for resources. Right. And it'll be different pieces of it, like maybe the plate, the sinew, or other things. And you can use that to craft other items and gear. Yeah. And typically for like a big monster, it's three carves. But if you cut off the tail, that's an extra carve. Yeah. So it's something you always want to try and get to get more resources per
00:15:33
Speaker
mission and there's certain monsters that cutting off their tail actually makes the rest of the fight a lot easier in particular rathian yeah rathian types because they're they'll have poison attacks that are
00:15:46
Speaker
I believe possible from the claws, but a lot more prevalent from the tail. And the, uh, if you, if you cut off the tail, the monster will still attempt to do tail attacks and it'll just like whiff or have like a tiny little hit box. Yeah. Like can't poison you and it just gives you more time to like open up with your attacks. Like you're using the hammer. So you want a longer window of time to just get in there and start smashing. Like the more time you have, the better your,
00:16:13
Speaker
your finishing combo is, right? Yeah. Like there's a, just an overhead combo, you just like repeat like five or six times. And it keeps doing consecutively more damage, but it's really hard to pull off if they are up and moving and attacking you. So like once they're down, I'm like, this is my chance. I'm gonna just wail on them. Hit, hit, hit. Yeah. Hammer is really fun for that. Some other weapons are a lot less picky about how much time you're spending in a combo.
00:16:41
Speaker
So like first time I played I played with Lance, which is the most defensive weapon It's like a sword in a lance and it's a sword in a lance or not a sword. That'd be hilarious It's a very aggressive playstyle. It's defensive and everyone else is dead. No, it's a shield shield in a lance and The shield has like
00:17:06
Speaker
decent defense on its own and there's a couple different builds that use a shield like there's sword and shield which is like recommended for starter players there's charge blade which i'm using in this playthrough there's there's several like that but the lance has a special defensive ability where or two actually where you can uh block and you'll be in like a counter attack stance and if the monster attacks you you completely mitigate the damage from the attack and then you'll like thrust upward with a lance for an immediate counter
00:17:35
Speaker
So you can use that to completely negate like a ridiculously powerful attack, like that one shot from Anjanath. You can just be like, all right, fireballs coming. And then if you time it correctly, just prep your counter attack and just charge through the fireball basically with the Lance thrust, which is hilarious. How long is the counter window? It's probably about like two seconds, maybe a little bit shorter. I haven't played. That's still pretty good. On PC. But yeah, now the advantages
00:18:04
Speaker
Uh, should you miss that counter window, you can actually cancel the ability. And this is, you know, there's a lot of this and like the advanced weapon mechanics, but you can cancel the ability into an ultra guard where you basically like hunker down behind your shield and your stamina bar, which usually expands. Like when you, um, get something around, um, starts to drain rapidly.
00:18:27
Speaker
And when that completely depletes,
Design Evolution and Accessibility
00:18:29
Speaker
you'll one, be exhausted and also completely vulnerable. But while it's downcharging like that, you have ridiculous levels of armor. So you won't counterattack anymore, but if you get hit by a blast or something like that, it'll do almost nothing. And that works for even like some of the strongest attacks in the game.
00:18:50
Speaker
So it's a very, very defensive playstyle and the attacks are actually just like horizontal Lancepokes and then like diagonal Lancepokes. So it's not a fun move set. Yeah, I think it's still fun, but it's not nearly as flashy as anything else.
00:19:09
Speaker
you lose the ability to dodge that many weapons have. Instead you do this little like hop to the side. And it doesn't have iframes as you know many many dodges would have. But the upside of the playstyle is usually a lot of weapons if they're very aggressive
00:19:31
Speaker
They focus on getting in there doing their damage and then getting out of the fight before the monster starts attacking. Like a well-trained lance user can just stay in the fight because anytime that the monster starts to attack they'll just counter and then they just stay there and keep wailing on them.
00:19:46
Speaker
Um, you were mentioning diablos earlier and how diablos has like, you know underground burrow attacks or charge which can like one hit kill people That's where people train the counter attack because they're just like oh you're charging me Counter stance and then just like stab diablos. He runs that yeah and uh, I don't know it's just it's really fun so that's that's how I played back in the day and now i'm doing charge blade which is
00:20:09
Speaker
Really shiny and flashy and... Visually actually looks more flashy because I see lightning rocks coming out of the ground. Yeah. I don't ever know what you're doing, but I assume it's damage to the monster. Yeah, there's a lot of that, unless I just completely whiff. But it's one of the more complicated weapons. There's 15 weapons in total, like I said. And I believe Charge Blade was the one... Probably the highest skill cap, because it has so many stances you have to consider. Yeah. Or you can consider, I guess.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, without making this a charge blade centered podcast, the short of it is you do damage. Oh. Yeah, you do damage. So that's good. That's good. If it didn't have that, it'd be bad. But you have a sword and a shield. You do damage with the sword and certain attacks will give you some charge and other attacks will give you like a lot of charge to fill kind of like an energy bar. Then you then dump into like vials
00:21:05
Speaker
and your HUD and it's kind of like usually there's a special move you have to do to dump that energy and if you don't dump the energy your sword overheats and it starts deflecting off of the monster it won't do damage anymore and after you've dumped those vials you can then
00:21:23
Speaker
go into this really powerful attack where you take your shield and you attach it to the end of your sword as you do to make a giant axe because you know, that's how it works and There's a ability that drains the vials that you have built up and It actually took me a while to even figure out like how I was supposed to do this But if you cancel that ability
00:21:51
Speaker
by starting this huge axe swing that's gonna channel all of your lightning stored up or whatever. And they're like, hold up, I'm not gonna do that. And you hit the morph button to switch back to a shield and sword. All of that energy ends up stored in your shield. Now your shield is overcharged and your defensive abilities are much, much stronger.
00:22:12
Speaker
And now that your shield's overcharged, there's another special move you can do where you store your vials instead of another attack. You'll actually put your sword inside of your shield. And there's this cool combination, almost like transform animation, and it overcharges the sword. Now you have an overcharged sword, overcharged shield, and all this other stuff.
00:22:35
Speaker
That's fine to keep track of and learn like in the practice round or the practice range. But then you go out and you find a monster and now it's trying to kill you. And you're trying to manage all these things on top of that. You're like, I have three resources that I'm managing and I'm trying to be efficient with combos and stuff. But it's the exact opposite of the Lance basically, where it was like, here's your simple play style. Here's like a really complex play style that I can and do screw up all the time. But.
00:23:04
Speaker
The thing is like, and coming back to playing the second time, um, and being better hunters, uh, I've managed way better with the charge blade than I ever did with the Lance. And a big part of that I think is because I just remember a lot of the game. Like, uh, there's so many things that I learned that I can immediately take advantage of right now. That took me a while to pick up when I first played.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yeah. So that's a little bit of a spiel, but the charge play is really cool. I like that. We'll put footnotes of the charge played rant if you want to find it easier or link it to your friends. How do you feel about some of the other weapons? I know Ian's been doing the dual swords, which has just been straight anime, cool stuff. Yeah.
00:23:55
Speaker
There's there's they kind of play completely differently. Those are like focused on like really, really fast attacks that do like lower damage. And then like I think the flashiest move in the game is his like super environmental ability where
00:24:11
Speaker
If a monster has a long back, he can do this ridiculous spin across the entire back of the monster. Which makes absolutely no sense. The game is fairly anime, but that's part of the charm. You can do these really cool flashy things and you feel good doing them. Like you're pulling off a cool thing.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's just a lot of really interesting things. I know Dan's using switch axe, which I've never tried, but it's kind of, it's similar to the charge blade transformative weapon. And I mentioned the sword and shield, which I know I've had some friends start out with. And it's recommended because it gives you attack, defense, and usually you have to put away your weapon whenever you want to use like a healing item or something. Exactly.
00:24:56
Speaker
And the sword and shield is just like, oh, I'm just going to chug the item or whatever. Use my one free hand that has a shield attached to it, just kind of sipping on some potions. Yeah. So they vary gameplay up enough that trying to pick up a new weapon completely changes the way that the game feels to me, which I think is really cool. Yeah. I think they're all pretty comparable DPS if you get more comfortable with that weapon set.
00:25:23
Speaker
It's like until you get to the highest tiers where people are just doing ridiculous, ridiculous strats that kill monsters in like 10 seconds or something like that. It doesn't matter that much. Might as well just do whatever's fun. Yeah. Which is what I'm doing. The paralysis build. If this was in game, if I was, you know, going full weeb, I think that it's probably not the most efficient. Man, it's fun.
00:25:53
Speaker
It's real fun. Another fun thing is that you can customize all of your weapons. There's different like trees you can build out into using the monster parts. So right now I think I have like six different hammers and ones like thunder hammer, ice hammer, fire hammer, poison hammer, sleep hammer. I'm just trying to build them all out. So I have options for, cause each monster has a specific weakness.
00:26:18
Speaker
or certain things are weak or two, maybe certain status effects are more susceptible to. Exactly, yeah. And certain things where it's kind of like, I'm Anjanath, I'm a fire beast. So doing fire against me is not the best. That sucks to be like locked into one. Yeah, they may be completely immune to one thing. So the depressing optimization approach is,
00:26:41
Speaker
Basically, just focus on base damage and never dip into elemental anything, which is perfectly viable, but it's boring. It's really boring. When I was talking about the hammer spin, every time you hit, you get that proc of the elemental damage, and there's a little effect. With fire, there's a little small fire explosion.
Impressions and Iterations
00:26:59
Speaker
With ice, there's a small frost that splashes out.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's the same way with a charge blade, which I'm not going to go into another spiel about. But the super move is basically like hammer of Thor, gigantic axe spring down, lightning, and this like cone in front of you. And the cool thing is if you've got an element on that, it's that element. Like in like all of these hits for really high damage. And if you're just using a normal weapon, it's just impact or like KO damage, which is still good. It's, you know, it's actually probably great, but it's less interesting.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, so vary your bonds, diversify your bonds, pick up a bunch of weapons. And you mentioned the trees for the weapons as well. That's something I really like because in a kind of linear improvement type game, you're just like, oh, I got a sword and I leveled up and I found a new sword and it's better. So goodbye for a sword.
00:27:55
Speaker
That's not the case in this game. Like, it takes a while to reach the end of most of these upgrade trees. Oh my god, it does. So this is one of the things that leads back into this, like, the monster hunter lifestyle is what I'll call it. Because it basically is a lifestyle. Which is...
00:28:12
Speaker
oh my my poison weapon it's like tier one right now and like my uh basic metal weapon is like tier two and it looks like i actually i can see all the ingredients i'm going to need to upgrade my poison weapon i'm like i'm gonna go have to fight puke puke like a couple more times uh to actually get that upgrade so if you're trying to do as some people do and collect literally everything and all the upgrades you have to fight a lot of monsters
00:28:38
Speaker
But it's enjoyable. It definitely keeps you invested because you always want to get those parts and pieces. But thankfully it's not all tied into specific monster hunts. One of the things you get early-ish on in the game is actually to the Tail Raider Safari, where you can essentially
00:28:57
Speaker
hire your friends Palicos to go on these expeditions and kind of go hunt their own monsters. Maybe they'll hunt some boss monsters, they'll collect some resources, kill some small natural wildlife, but then they'll bring back items to you. And you're like, man, that's nice because I didn't have to go fight Puke Puke again because my friend's cat did it for me. And you just spent research points instead of that time. So you can still do story progression.
00:29:24
Speaker
walls are kind of doubling back on your item trees. Exactly. Like there's that mechanic which is really awesome for not fighting monsters you don't want to have to fight that are kind of... it'll never let you clear a monster that's something you haven't encountered yet.
00:29:39
Speaker
Like you're not going to send your tail raters off. You're like, kill the final boss for them. But they're really good at dealing with things that save you time. And there's another mechanic like that. There's a whole lot of resources in the game that you can gather in different locations.
00:29:57
Speaker
eventually pretty early you gain the ability to cultivate those resources and that happens between missions just like the Tail Raider Safari and so you're like hey I'm running out of healing potions I need to grow more herbs which is you know what they call it in universe and so you can set your cultivation to that and then you know just run a couple investigations hunt some monsters do whatever there's ways to
00:30:21
Speaker
make it happen pretty quickly. And that takes care of the problem for you. You come back, you're like, oh, I have all of this stock of things I can turn into healing potions. And it's just that
Graphics and Environmental Interactions
00:30:35
Speaker
convenience. There's this loop of just things that can be happening in the game at any time that keeps you pushing forward and getting what you want, which is really cool. Yeah. And it always feels good to go back and redo certain sections. Oh, yeah.
00:30:50
Speaker
So you can go out on specific missions for go kill this thing or collect this thing. Sure. You also have optional missions where you get to do variations of that. You can pick up investigations for specific types of quests where you're like, oh, go back and kill this one monster. But it'll give you like, hey, I'll also give you these tiers of rewards. You get some bonus stuff, put it in there. Yeah, so maybe you get like a gold reward, like, oh, that seems pretty good. And you're like, three silvers, yeah, it seems pretty good. And you can like redo those missions and like have your friends along too.
00:31:19
Speaker
And then you can also spend vouchers to get even more resources back. So you're essentially building up this.
00:31:26
Speaker
resource engine efficiency or you're collecting these resources or materials you want to use to either craft your own gear or items for out in the field. So you're not always forced to, well I gotta go here, I gotta collect this fruit, I gotta mine this rock, I gotta kill this guy. Yeah, which I've done for sure but there's efficient ways to do it like you mentioned, the investigations. Another thing you brought up that I think is
00:31:50
Speaker
A huge boon to the game is because of the aforementioned points, you need all these resources for monsters you may have already fought, or it's just useful to have them in Surplus. It's absolutely fine to go back and play with your friends, even if they're significantly further back in the game than you.
00:32:09
Speaker
and like help them on some of their hunts because you need such a diverse range of resources that there's a good chance that whatever you're helping them fight helps your progression in some way. Maybe it's not the thing you're most focused in but you're like I'll start a poison weapon or something like that right? Which I think is just brilliant from a game design standpoint because usually you're playing like
00:32:34
Speaker
game with more vertical progression Say like Diablo or something like that and you're neither you topped here your friends starts out and you're like, all right I want to play together. I'll use my same character. He's not having fun. You're destroying everything and It doesn't get you anything And It's much more easy. It's much easier for people to get value out of hunting together in Monster Hunter
00:33:00
Speaker
Yeah. It's also, from a simple point, it's just fun. Yeah. Like I played the other night and nobody else was on. And I just did like a mission or two. I was like, I don't know. I'm not feeling this so much. Yeah. Because while it's still like a really great game, the part I've always loved about it, even when we were playing back in PS4, is you went squad deep and you're doing a thing. Maybe people were doing separate missions because you kind of have a lobby. Yeah. You can post missions. People can opt in or not. It was that social aspect that I really enjoyed.
00:33:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, for sure. Or you'd be like, hey, how'd you guys do this one thing? You're like, oh, you got to go here. Or you got to, its weakness is ice on the dick. Put an ice pack on its dick, it'll die. That's mostly. It almost evokes not to compare everything to Dark Souls, but I wouldn't say it's Souls-like. I wouldn't go there. Good. But something back when we were playing Dark Souls is when we were going through the game, we had this
00:33:59
Speaker
discussion going on like oh man there's this cool weapon you can find it here here's a tough boss uh here's a strategy you can use against that um when we were all going through at the same time that shared experience was really cool and monster hunter kind of carries that forward i think because um
00:34:20
Speaker
The game doesn't explain a lot of things to you. Like the weapon tutorial, stop at like, depending on the weapon, between like 30 and 60% of the move set to use a weapon efficiently. And maybe even lower on certain things like charge blade, where they don't tell you how to charge your shield. And.
00:34:45
Speaker
The rest of that knowledge you get from playing with friends. And that's really cool. When you're going on a hunt together and somebody does something and you're like, I didn't know that... That was a thing? Yeah, like I didn't know you could knock a flying enemy out of the air by throwing a flash bomb at the ground. There's a whole bunch of strategies like that that literally...
00:35:06
Speaker
you would not figure out unless you got super lucky or somebody explained it to you. And it's really cool. It's almost like it's like a mentorship program, right? Where you have experienced hunters and people coming into it. And it's just a fun dynamic.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, I know when we first went through, it was Justin and Rachel who were like, we played Monster Hunter games and we're not scrubs and we're like 70 hours ahead of you guys. Yeah. We'll show you the ropes. It's like, oh, the ropes are pretty. Yeah. Just like, how do I block? Stand in the corner and don't move the gadgets. You're like, uh, what's that sand you threw in my face? Oh, no, that's an armor powder to help you not die. You're like, okay, that's cool. How do I make that?
00:35:46
Speaker
And you can discover
Cultural Significance and Player Engagement
00:35:47
Speaker
more things to kind of create as you acquire resources. Yeah. You have like a recipe book.
00:35:54
Speaker
And if you know the basic resources leading up to something, it'll just be question marks until you craft it. And it'll be like, oh, mega nutrients. That's weird. I wonder what I can use this for. And then I know personally for me, since I love farming in a game that encourages it and makes it fun, this is that game.
00:36:18
Speaker
like i will go out and i will make an efficient route through an entire level hitting all the mining nodes that i care about yeah i don't think um and this this game's great for that i'll i'll look at my i'll look through my stocks of supplies and be like all right like like you mentioned the the armor powder it's like how
00:36:37
Speaker
I'm running a little bit low. I've only got like 20 of those left. I should probably go cultivate some of those resources or find them out in the field. If I'm finding them in the field, maybe I should. This is something we haven't talked about, but there's skills on your armor. It's like maybe I'll equip a set that I've built that's just focused on botanist, which makes it so I gain more resources when I gather out in the field. I'm like, all right, and we're out. We're going to go complete this.
00:37:03
Speaker
If that sounds monotonous to you, then that monster hunter might not be your game. And if that makes you excited, then it probably is. And I fall in the second category. Well, I'd say I'm not the botanist class of person. I'm trying to do super efficiency going out and collecting, but I just, it's really fun. Yeah. I know I keep going back to like this very base description of it's fun. Fun out of 10. But it is.
00:37:28
Speaker
Because the game itself is naturally beautiful. They put a lot of time into the graphics and how things look and feel. Also compared to previous Monster Hunters where it was just kind of...
00:37:40
Speaker
flat. And every time you went between areas, you had a loading screen. Yeah. And tracking monster was a huge piece of shit. They now have scout flies to help you be like, Oh, hey, there's like a note over here. Or like, you want to track the monster, it's over this way. And you kind of pick up research, right? Or more about the monster making signs on the ground, right? Yeah. The claw marks tracks or something. And your guy always has like this weird smell fetish where you just go. Yeah, nice. This is funny. This is
00:38:10
Speaker
uh, tangentially related. But I had that animation happen, like I was picking up a monster track and there just happened to be like a dung, dung pile nearby and my guy's just like, I'm just like, what are you doing? He's like, I found it. I found a pile of shit. And this is the type of game where dung literally has a use. Like I see that in a mission. I'm like, oh, grabbing that and grab a couple of handfuls of dung. Don't know if I need to scare a monster off. It's, it's great.
00:38:39
Speaker
3 out of 10. To go back from the poop briefly, yeah. All things in in poop.
00:38:47
Speaker
So like the original Monster Hunter was very flat and very tedious and kind of clanky. But like the first area, ancient forest, you kind of start out, it's kind of similar or reminiscent to the first Monster Hunter. It's kind of like grassy plains. There's some herbivore creatures kind of chilling, doing their own thing, some trees and whatnot. But as you go into the forest,
00:39:10
Speaker
There's all these like, oh, I can run up this tree. There are vines I can swing off, things I can jump off of. And it has such a level of broadness on its own, but then like three tiers of verticality, which I didn't know existed until 20 hours into the game. Yeah.
00:39:25
Speaker
Cause like you climb up to this wyvern's nest, you're like, I have literally never been here. How have I never been here? And then you like find all these cool things. Like the first time you're fighting Rathlois up at the nest and maybe shoots a fireball and breaks the dam behind it. And it triggers this cascade of water, which knocks it down this 500 foot drop. And then you drop down after it, like with your guns, not actual guns, like hammer, blazing, and you just kind of land on it. Dual pistol is probably the best one.
00:39:54
Speaker
Yeah, super McCree. Yeah, it's just a pleasure to explore in, like you mentioned. And I'm not going to spoil some of the environmental effects that can happen on certain maps, but they're really cool.
00:40:11
Speaker
like certain monsters will have environmental effects or abilities that like change the way that you have to fight them or completely change their resistances and it's just it's just really cool it feels like a world which is yeah the goal monster world oh yeah and you mentioned the previous entries in the series i think it's worth mentioning that like
00:40:33
Speaker
I tried to play one on 3DS, I think it was Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate or something. And people that are fans of Monster Hunter can probably just stop their ears up for a second so that they can keep thinking I'm an okay person. But I have not enjoyed the Monster Hunter series at all until this one.
00:40:55
Speaker
I realize it had a lot of potential, but it's got this impenetrable level of depth to it that is not at all friendly to outsiders. And a lot of the previous installations were very clunky as well. Yeah. Which hurt, but I feel like everything here has been so streamlined because newer people who have never played Monster Hunter before are like, oh, I do this. Okay. Oh, done. They know. And it's just, it's fun to pick up.
00:41:23
Speaker
It's not that I haven't tried because I had like I had 3ds that monster hunter game. I was like ah the screen small Maybe the reason I just am not getting into this game is because the screen small literally bought a 3ds exit a 3ds XL the larger screen one So I was like alright this should do it now This will be one of my favorite games and I played it like twice
00:41:46
Speaker
So that's actually praise for Monster Hunter World because as soon as I started playing it, I got drawn into it like immediately. Oh yeah. I have a controversial opinion, but people who don't like Monster Hunter, this is probably the one worth playing. The rest, maybe not. But even if you don't like Monster Hunter, this one's pretty good. Yeah.
00:42:07
Speaker
I think you're skeptical so you can watch videos of people playing it and be like, I want to do this. Yeah. Yeah. I think the thing that's probably most, um, the hardest thing to adapt to for me is that, uh, starting out when you don't really know the, know the game, some of the fights can take a while. Um,
00:42:27
Speaker
And it might've been worse in previous entries, but like if you go out on a quest to hunt one creature, you usually have like a 50 minute time limit. And if you're doing things sub optimally, you find that you have to retreat a couple times and heal up, maybe restock from a camp. Uh, you can start to approach that and.
00:42:49
Speaker
That's not necessarily, that's not the high end. People who are good at the game will clear much faster, but it can take a while. It can take a while to hunt. This is like a time investment type game to learn what you need to learn. And I know that that turned some people off, but I found it really engaging.
00:43:10
Speaker
I'd agree. Yeah. And there's just, there's just so much, so much you can do in here. Like, and I think it's, it's when a game has a combination of all these components and systems and things to like take your interest and be like, um, we might have actually brought this up, but develop your own goals in the game. Um, that's what draws me in where it's like.
00:43:35
Speaker
I could do whatever I want. I want to do this, this, this, and this, and this. That's how you make me play a game a ton. And, like, upgrading your gear. Getting more ingredients so that you can, like, customize your meals or have better meals prepared for any time. Oh, we didn't even talk about meals. Yeah.
00:43:50
Speaker
Alright, so meals are a thing. You can eat before each mission, and it will give you a bonus to like health, stamina, and depending on what you eat, you get a bonus to like attack damage, elemental or physical resistance, and your palico will also get some type of buff.
00:44:07
Speaker
The more ingredients you acquire throughout the game, the better your meals will get. Exactly. So you might have some side quests like, hey, go get me this thing, which will unlock this shrimp. Yes, exactly. Never been so excited to unlock shrimp as an ingredient in something.
00:44:23
Speaker
But the animation to just go and eat at the restaurant we'll call it? Yeah, yeah. The cafe. Like you have these pallet goes kind of like cooking in unison and then doing their own thing and then make this beautiful meal for you and there you go. That was surprisingly enjoyable. Yeah, the animations are amazing. Just the close room. I skip them now but...
00:44:44
Speaker
I've watched them many times. And just having these adorable standing on their hind lake cats prepare you a meal like with the most enthusiasm you can possibly muster. But nothing compares to my enthusiasm for canned bread. Speaking of canned bread, did you know that that new dance, the can can, is actually named after canned bread? Golly, that's swell. Gwynevere's canned bread. Get yours today. Gwynevere's canned bread will not actually cure hair loss. People care otherwise. Is hilarious.
00:45:13
Speaker
It's like sometimes you unironically think, say thanks Japan. This is one of those things. I think, I think, um, I mean, there's, there's plenty of mechanics you can go about in the game, but.
00:45:29
Speaker
just know that this all feeds into this core experience. And Monster Hunter is kind of one of those series that exists. I feel like it's more of a cultural thing in Japan to have certain series where they re-release, I wouldn't say re-release, but they'll release a new iteration of a game with very few changes until we got Call of Duty. I don't know if that was as much of a thing in the U.S., but even that they'll change up the campaign or something. Monster Hunter will use
00:45:58
Speaker
the same monsters. It's had like the same weapons and they'll occasionally add one for like many iterations. Oh, yeah. Like Rathalos has been kind of like the, the iconic picture of monster hunters like, Oh, I know that's from Monster Hunter. I've seen that picture before. Yeah.
00:46:13
Speaker
And I've got to give Capcom props for this when they're like, hey, we've been iterating on this series. We'll release another one. We'll maybe add a weapon type. We'll add a couple new monsters. And then we'll release all the monsters everybody knows in areas everybody knows. And they're like, let's just develop an entirely new actual 3D game with amazing graphics. And it'll just be the entry point for the public at large.
00:46:44
Speaker
Definitely pulled out the stops in comparison. Cause there's so much. I keep saying there's like 15 weapon classes. I've only tried two. I've seen a lot of people do others. I'm like, how is this? Is that fun? Should I get into that? Yeah, that's good. I like it. Like hunting horn. I know he's like a big support item, but I never want to learn it cause I never want to support. I want to wail on monsters with a hammer.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah, the the description for that one because people say that like charge blade is the most mechanically complex I don't know. I feel like hunting corn might be more because It's a combination of like you do attacks and each attack plays a note And then play notes in succession to play a song. Yeah song gives your team a buff. Exactly. So you're like, all right. Well
00:47:30
Speaker
I'll play this song, it'll give them health or stamina regen or something like that, maybe some sort of protection. I know we were playing with Rachel and she gave the group earplugs, which is the best effect. Holy crap, thank you, Rachel. So monsters will kind of scream occasionally whether you first encounter them for combat or if they're like, hey, fuck you, or if they're like, hey, fuck you, and then they try and leave the area. Yeah, they want to zone. But when they do that shout, it kind of stuns everybody who's nearby, unless you have earplugs.
00:48:00
Speaker
I don't hear anything, I don't care. I'm oblivious to this.
00:48:05
Speaker
And then on top of all of that, the hunting horn is also just, it has like ridiculous damage. If you managed to land the attacks. So the skill cow for the weapon is obscene. Cause you're like, I'm going to play this song. But I also know that these particular notes are going to be actual times that I'm slamming the horn into the ground to like make this note. So I'll hit the monster's face during this for like ridiculous amount of damage. It's hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. I'll never be able to use it.
00:48:34
Speaker
That's what we play with people who do. Yep. So we've been circle jerking about the game as we are want to do for pretty much anything we talk about. Every fucking episode. Every single one. I like this game. Did you enjoy it? It was good. Yeah. Here's why it was good. I feel like this one has some some valid criticisms though. I mean, Capcom's had issues with some games in the past, to say the least. And there's there's problems I had in the original release for PlayStation that weren't completely resolved for PC.
00:49:04
Speaker
Or I consider them problems maybe Capcom disagrees clearly, but is this the the unskippable yes? Yeah, the unskippable cutscenes. It's okay. There's only a million of them
00:49:15
Speaker
There's just, it's just not great. Like it interferes with the flow of trying to play with other players. If you want to play with a friend at the same time, you both have to see the cutscene individually. And then for specific story missions, you have a cutscene, you have to experience a four, you can have a player's join. Yes. Which is, it's interesting in a way, but it sucks that like you're always locked behind it. And it's not like this is a problem that
00:49:45
Speaker
It's like, oh man, someday someone's gonna have a solution to that. This has literally been solved in other games. If you're playing a multiplayer game and you hit people with a cutscene, or you're showing a cutscene because one player's never seen the cutscene, and then that player skips the cutscene, just skip the cutscene for everybody. It's like, it's all you have to do. You didn't need to set everybody in their own world, have them watch the cutscene, quit their game, and then make a new one to fight the monster.
00:50:08
Speaker
Because, like, while the cutscenes are kind of interesting, if you care about the lore, it's not a story-driven game. By any means, like, they kind of string it together with a loose plot for your... I'm not even gonna say it's not even worth looking it up. Yeah. But it sucks you're locked into it, and some of them are... can be several minutes longer, like, I'm gonna go take a piss or something, I'll catch you guys later. And then...
00:50:33
Speaker
There are certain missions where you're doing very tedious things and it just, it's a time sink for the sake of a time sink. Yeah. Like early on, you have an escort mission named the worst kind of mission. If I remember correctly, I think it's the best kind of mission. Ironically. Yeah. Cause nobody likes escort missions in games, but.
00:50:53
Speaker
They didn't need to do that. Like you, you can still string along the story in other ways without having to do that. Yeah. Cause again, it's a very loose storyline. And even with so much time, like wasted in cut scenes or missions that, you know, just to kind of string you along like that. Um, most of the gameplay is still fighting monsters, like as far as time. Oh yeah. So it's not like it was necessary. They didn't need to pad out the length of the game at all.
00:51:21
Speaker
No, there's already so much content. Yeah. It just seemed like a very poor design decision on their part, which they kept like, Hey, it was in PS4. Everyone complained about it. Let's fuck them. Let's put them in the PC version too. Consistency. I think that's really what they should have. To bounce back real quick though, the loading times on PC have just completely taken a shit on the ones for PS4. It's so much faster. It's like three or four seconds compared to
00:51:48
Speaker
Like 20, which 20 wasn't bad, but now that I'm on three or four, I can't go back. Yeah. I used to like, I'd have the loading screen after a mission on PS4 and I'd be like, all right, it's time to decompress. So process my thoughts. Think about the fight. I don't learn anything now. I'm just back in town immediately. Too fast. Too fast. I'm furious.
00:52:11
Speaker
It was actually, I think you remember the story when it was on PS4. I had just beaten the final boss of the game. And I was getting the game credits, which, you know, as we said are unskippable. And it's like a good 15 minutes. And so at the end of it, I was like, okay, I'm done playing for the night. I'll catch you guys later. Play some other PlayStation 4 games. And I just turned off my PS4 and fucked off.
00:52:35
Speaker
Later someone's like, oh hey, there's a special event going on. If you want to hop on Monster Hunter, we can play. I'm like, oh yeah, sure. I hop on, and it's like, oh, you didn't watch those credits. I was like, what? So I had to watch those 15 minutes of credits again. And then something happened where
00:52:52
Speaker
I'm like, oh yes, I've accepted the end of the game thing, let me go back into new game plus or whatever. And then I had to watch the credits again. So I'm online, I'm voicing people, and it's like a half hour, I'm just sitting there like, what the fuck is this? And that's a really easily avoidable thing, a really easily avoidable pain point.
00:53:11
Speaker
I think in current year, whenever you're listening to this, it's unacceptable to have credits that you can't at least accelerate if you're not going to make them skippable. I get sometimes you've got concept art and stuff you want to throw in there. Just make it so I can skip through faster. That's all I need.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's better to have it as like a, Hey, here's an optional thing. If you want to go back and like check out the credits and people who helped make the game possible, or here's some of the concept artists more information about the game. Right. Give me an achievement. Let people opt in because those people care. Yeah. But the people who don't care, you're not going to secretly win them over.
00:53:50
Speaker
It's true. Yeah. And I mean, it's the last thing they're going to do before they review your game. So maybe just let them have their way. That's once for every time you had to see the credits. Yeah. And I haven't gotten there for PC. I haven't seen the credits yet.
00:54:11
Speaker
Yeah, I presume it's gonna be the same since the rest of the cutscenes are unskippable. Hopefully you only need to watch it once this time. I pray every day. Yeah, in this institution. And he prays! But yeah, that's... that's...
00:54:27
Speaker
One of the few problems I probably have with the game, I kind of wish, and again some of these things aren't really problems, I kind of wish you could see other players in the main area instead of just the Gathering Hub, because the Gathering Hub's like okay, but I don't get why you can't just see people running around in the same session.
00:54:44
Speaker
It doesn't seem like it would be too hard mechanically or from a network perspective. No, it shouldn't be. But speaking of network, holy fuck. And I don't swear lightly. As Jake knows. You do. To be fair, I'm swearing for two.
00:55:07
Speaker
The networking has been atrocious. Oh, yeah, because there have been times where
Connectivity Challenges
00:55:13
Speaker
I can't see people's sessions or times where like we're in a session together and people will just drop yep, or sometimes I can't join somebody's quest that they've posted because It doesn't tell me why yeah, it just says oh you can't and so we have to do some
00:55:30
Speaker
weird workaround where it's like, well, I'll leave this game and rejoin the ritual. Right. Yeah. You do the connection. Try turning it off and on again. You do all these delving the troubleshooting things for a thing that shouldn't be an issue. And that's why the steam reviews are mixed because it is a gorgeous game. It is fun to play, but there are so many like thumbs down of like, yeah, but the networking blows Dick. Wow.
00:55:54
Speaker
And it's been such a pain point for so many players. Like I have like three different groups of people who I've been playing with and everybody's complained about it because it sucks. Because one of the big draws of the game is the multiplayer and as soon as that rug is like taken out from you and they roll you up in the rug and throw you in the river you're like, I don't like this. They just didn't tie off the ends. Make sure you can't escape.
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah, I have a horror story for that from the connection perspective. I was playing with Ian and we were on another Anjan Athant, right? And whenever you play in multiplayer, it scales up the health of the monsters.
00:56:34
Speaker
Um, I think it's like 2.2 times, um, regardless of how many people are in your game. So if you're playing with four people, you can carve things down like real fast. But I was, uh, playing with Ian and he had a connection disconnect. What happened is the game was like, all right, we'll try to reconcile this. Sometimes it just kicks you out entirely. But in this case, it's like, we'll have both people keep fighting the monster in their own sessions at full health.
00:56:59
Speaker
Oh. And so I managed to fight mine, it took like a while, but he just went up against it for like a while before it actually like ground him down and he ran out of feints and uh stopped playing for a while like like yeah that kills your enthusiasm for the night when you're playing with a friend and then the game's just like
00:57:21
Speaker
Gonna make it really hard, and here's the other thing. I'm not 100% sure on this, so just rumors hearsay. This is the rumor part of the podcast. I think it healed the monster when he disconnected. And if that's the case, that's terrible. Terrible. Because we almost had to think dead, and it went on to take, you know, a while longer. So. I like how you have three different, like, a while. A while. And a while. A while, yeah. Yeah.
00:57:48
Speaker
One of those wiles is true. Interpret those times how you will. Yes. So, Dave, you were saying that you actually had some connection issues earlier tonight, right? Dave? Did I get dropped? Are you fucking kidding me? That is severely ironic considering the prevalence of network issues that we have just been talking about for Monster Hunter World. That is just ironic.
00:58:16
Speaker
You know what? Let's call it a year. I'm done. Fuck this. Well, I guess that's it for us tonight. Uh, thank you guys for listening to another episode of soapstone. As always, you can contact us at soapstone podcast at gmail.com and like us on Facebook, facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. I've been Jake and I guess I'll see you in the next one.