I remember Archie showing an interest in how Monster Hunter veterans would perceive the revamped World, and seeing as Robio is on a long hiatus, that only leaves me. I'll be adding to these impressions as I go, so far I've only done a few of the earliest quests and have only fought one larger monster, the Jagras.
First things first, graphical fidelity in this game is unprecedented for the Monster Hunter series. Seriously it's so sharp it sears my eyes. The World suffix relates to how the stages you fight in are no longer divided in seperate, smaller arena like areas, but are one interconnected whole. This is both very cool and rather annoying as it allows the devs to incorporate much more maze like level design, meaning it's harder to memorize everything. There is also a side effect that it's possible to be battling a large monster in a passageway between larger area's where movement is much more restricted. It still works, but it's nicer to have a bit more room to move around in.
Not only are the stages larger and more complex in terms of level design, the same can be said about the level of detailing. There is a lush look to the whole game, but I disagree with the devs in that this means every item of interest needs to be highlighted by your tracking flies as you pass it by. It breaks the immersion when every other piece of scenery starts glowing when you approach it.
And this brings me to the second big change in World: accessability. The game still requires a lot of your time, but a lot of the 'friction' has been removed. It's still early days, but for now I still long for the more purist experience of old. Some examples: you track down monsters by finding tracks, which results in your tracking flies picking up the scent of larger monsters, after which they guide you to it's current position. I understand how the devs deemed this neccessairy due to larger, more complex stages, but I feel it is detrimental to the need to learn the lay of the land like you did in earlier games. It's the difference of driving somewhere with a map or with the GPS enabled. You're just not as aware of your surroundings. The need to hit them with a paintball to keep track of them has also been thrown out, the flies keep tracking it, and you'll even get an icon on your map indicating the monster's current position. There's less friction, but also less skill involved.
Another immediatly apparent difference to older games is also the opening scene of the game. There are many more cutscenes to wade through, making the whole thing more action-ey and cinematic. It's clearly a play for the mainstream market. I didn't mind it, but it wasn't what I was expecting.
Controls and menu's are still more or less untouched, but crafting gear and weapons has seen a major change: you can level weapons down and get the monster parts you used on them back. I do not approve. It robs the leveling system of its sense of commitment. Nothing is final. It changes the forging and upgrading that is the main manner of progression within the game to something more resembling a skill tree. Interchangable.
So far all the rest has been sufficiently monster hunter-y. Everything is bigger and bolder, meaning there's a larger learning curve for returning players, but the core gameplay is still very much in tact. I'm wielding a Switch Axe, a weapon first introduced in MH4, and will probably swap it in and out for the trusty Hammer and a sprinkling of Hunting Horn for multiplayer. So far I'm enjoying it massively, but despite the game's play for accessability, I find it's larger level of scale to make the whole even more bewildring. I guess it'll just take some adapting.
Just finished a successful Arch Tempered Nergigante run and man it was intense. Two people carted near the end and I was getting pretty nervous and my palms were getting a bit sweaty. Managed to mount him near the end as everyone else kept hammering him to finish him off. The music during the whole thing was great and it really felt epic. He’s definitely my favourite monster to fight in MHW.
So has anyone here experience with Kulve Taroth? I've been reading a guide for it, but it's not making much sense. Basically you have to keep replaying the mission untill your persuit level is at least 3, and better yet 5 or higher, in hopes of being able to slay it or break its horns?
Yeah for Kulve Taroth you can’t kill it but the goal is to break its horns off. Usually it takes about 3 or 4 runs but can be done quicker depending on the damage power of your party’s weapons. In each run you should just hammer away at different parts of Kulve to break them which give points to go towards raising your “pursuit level”. You should also run around checking out footprints and other things left behind by Kulve that contribute to your pursuit level as well. He’ll escape each run after a period of time, up to 5 times I think before your mission is finally over. Whether he ultimately escapes or you break his horns you’ll get awarded loot based on your pursuit level. The higher the level the more and better loot you get. It sounds more complicated then it is and after a couple of runs you should get it down pretty well.
I think the max level for pursuit is 16 or 17.
So with how many people did you attempt this? Apparently you can have up to 16 players partake, but since the matchmaking is even more useless than it used to be, we just tried to do it with the 2 of us. How does the rewards system work? Do you only get rewards when you manage to break the horns? We did runs for over little under 2 hours, but had nothing to show for it.
What weapons is everyone using? Might have asked this before, but who cares?
I'm using charge blade and thinking of moving back to hammer or even hunting horn.
You always get some rewards but the amount and rarity depends on your final pursuit level. When Kulve escapes for the final time or you break its horns it’ll say that the Kulve event, mission, or whatever you want to call it has ended displayed on your screen. Go up to the Quest giver at the counter and you select the option to claim the rewards. It’s mostly a variety of weapons that can only be obtained from this quest. If you break the horns you can carve each one to get a few more random weapons as well.
I’ve typically always did it with a full team of 4 myself. Each online room has a max occupancy of 16 people so there can be up to 4 different teams doing Kulve runs along with your team as well. This is pretty cool in how it’s done because you’ll sometimes see messages that another team has broken such and such a part on Kulve and I think these all get added to the pursuit level as well so you kind of working with other groups of people. I find the matchmaking to be quite easy in this game myself. Just do a lobby search and select Kulve Taroth as a search option criteria and it’ll bring up a whole list of lobbies that are doing it. Look for one with like 13 or 14 people in it and join that lobby. You’ll have no problem getting lots of full 4 people Kulve runs going.
I’m using the Insect Glaive myself. Wouldn’t mind trying out a couple of other weapons but I’m just so comfortable with the IG now that I’ve been sticking with it especially when tackling the more difficult monsters.
I only have experience with matchmaking when I tried to look for people doing Kushala Daora quest. I found precisely zero.
So you just need to keep repeating untill you either break the horns or Kulve Taroth just gives up? Bah.
I've also been looking into the weapons she drops. They seem to be very powerfull, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of the game, namely to slowly craft your way up to the best possible weapons. A strange choice if you ask me.
Well your goal is to try and break the horns before Kulve escapes for the final time. It’s kind of like a race against time. Breaking the horns and tail are what net you the most points towards maxing out your pursuit level and granting you the chance for the really best of the loot. Breaking the horns is basically the same as killing or capturing the other monsters, as in its the real objective. Just doing a bunch of runs and having Kulve simply get away isn’t going to get you any of the good stuff.
The way I look at it is that these are the very “end game” type weapons and they’re all random so you still do all the crafting getting up to weapons that bring you to this point.