The Monster Hunter multiplayer thread!

[Grimsgrams]

Alright, I'm free to play Monster Hunter tomorrow, friday, from about 16:00 to 21:00 (BST) so if anybody's interested let me know.

[mikeleddy83]

Possibly, not home until 17.30 though.

[Grimsgrams]

Okay Mike, I'll open up a room in a bit but don't worry if you can't play, I'll be going on harvest tours while I'm in there which is something I always need to do anyway.

Location: 03 Free C, Lobby 1
Name: Cane&Rinse
Password: CaR

I think passwords are case sensitive by the way. Also, anyone's welcome!

[mikeleddy83]

Great games there. going to open another lobby in a second (beaten to it). Great Zinogre take down at the end gents.

Thanks for hosting Grim, hope this Super Metroid thing kicks off

Apologies for the slowly diminishing communication (Scrustle and Ash), I'm absolutely knackered and have been since 5 this morning, regardless I hope to play again.

[Grimsgrams]

Yep, cheers everyone, good games. And yes let's try to do something about that Super Metroid situation, Leddy!

[Grimsgrams]

Tomorrow I'm free until 19:00 or so, let me know if you want to play.

[arry_g]

So, at the advice of Scrustle - I picked up a copy of Monster Hunter 3 for the Wii U today. I plan on hopeful finishing my run through of Resident Evil 2 first but hopefully tonight or tomorrow I too will be jumping on the Monster Hunter Train. Any advice going into the game? Also, is online play open pretty early on or is it advissed you sink like fifty hours or something into it first?

[Scrustle]

My advice to a beginner is to at first take things a bit slow. There's a lot of information to take in at first, but none of it is particularly complicated. Don't be afraid to just experiment with stuff or do things that may seem non-essential at first. The basics are that you need to make sure you're prepared for a hunt before you start, and learning monster behaviour. Preparation involves making sure you always have health potions and other essentials with you, like some well-done steak, whetstones, and if the situation demands it, stuff like antidotes, hot/cold drinks, paintballs, and stuff like that. All these concepts are gradually introduced to you in the tutorial missions, so it's not overwhelming when you're actually getting to grips with it. Food buffs are something you'll need to learn about too. Again, these are introduced slowly, so it's not something you need to be worrying about right from the start, but you will need to know how to use it online. Before you start a hunt, you can pay for a meal which gives you certain buffs depending on what ingredients you choose. Most importantly it gives you varying boosts to your health and stamina, but there are other things too, like elemental resistances, etc.

Learning monster behaviour is pretty self-explanatory. Much like the Souls games, combat in Monster Hunter comes down to watching your enemy's attack patterns and spotting an opening you can exploit. It's far more forgiving than the Souls games though, but without keeping that eye out, you will die pretty quickly. Weapons are also a very important aspect of this since they too have a kind of Souls-like quality in that different types behave in very different ways, and they often require you to think ahead and choose your moves carefully. A lot of the weapons are very slow, but even the fast ones usually don't allow you to cancel mid-combo. I advise starting off with one of the smaller, faster weapons, since they're the most similar feeling to other games. The sword and shield or dual swords are the way to go. I personally went with the latter.

The thing you need to know about Monster Hunter is that it's a constant learning experience. I've got almost 130 hours in it so far, and I still don't feel like an expert myself. I'm not bad at using the dual swords and longsword, but I don't know how to use any of the other weapon types. Each new monster is a learning experience too. And there are a lot of details about the game which it doesn't explicitly tell you, which you have to find out for yourself or go researching for.

One of those unexplained things are what all the stats for armour and weapons mean. Don't feel put off by that though. I don't really understand them all myself, but it doesn't seem to have held me back. There are a few basic stats which you can glean from just looking at info, like power and defense stats, and as long as you just try to maximise those, you should be fine. Also, elemental and other special effects for armour don't actually work unless they reach a certain cumulative number. So if you're going for a certain effect, you might need to get several pieces that have the same one. Usually the best way to do that is to simply create the full armour set. But again, that isn't something you really need to be concerned with as an absolute beginner. Just try to make the numbers as high as you can as you should be fine. It's done me well.

As for online, you can jump in to it any time you want. Single player and multiplayer are separate, but your character is consistent between both, so you can choose to do whichever you want as you please. That said, you should definitely play through the tutorial stuff first before going online, so you are at least somewhat familiar with what you're doing. Give it an afternoon or two so you feel like you get the basics of how the game works. But if you feel like jumping in quickly, I'm sure everyone here would gladly give you the guidance needed.

[mikeleddy83]

Tomorrow I'm free until 19:00 or so, let me know if you want to play.

Sorry mate, not likely to be on today but I had hoped to get the chance before 7.

[Grimsgrams]

That's absolutely fine Leddy, I was just letting you good people know in case anyone else was free too. As it happens, I'm likely free again tomorrow 'til 20:00 BST so if anyone's interested, you know what to do!

[Scrustle]

Anyone interested in joining up for some more hunts again? Friday or the weekend perhaps?

[Grimsgrams]

I might be up for a bit of Monster Hunter depending on whether or not I can get a game of Battlefield 4 going with the forum people (just bought it and am a bit excited about playing it.)

[Scrustle]

So how about we set up a hunting session this weekend instead? No Mario Kart tournaments to get in the way this week.

[mikeleddy83]

I'd have loved to have got in on this but I have a family packed weekend with almost no wriggle room. It's always a pleasure playing with Ash, Jinkkai or Grim alongside yourself but the new influx of people who should really seek out this experience are here and I hope they take the opportunity (pretty sure Arry_G started this recently and if I read right MrFlabyo could be good new hunting partners). Either way I wish you some good hunts over the weekend and can't wait to come back

[Scrustle]

Well I'll set up a room this evening then, at 8PM. I'll add details in here closer to the time.

EDIT: Sorry for the delay. Had to update the console.

Room is in Free C, Lobby 1, called CaR, with the password being CaR too.

[dezm0nd]

Putting the feelers out there for anyone who may be interested in some MH4U sessions in the future?

[Grimsgrams]

I'm certainly interested - I'll be getting this bad boy on day one (as well as a NN3DS for optimum smoothness.)

[mikeleddy83]

Same here, bought from Amazon France so I may be a few days late to the party.

[dezm0nd]

Ah there's no rush! We will gather our weapons and hunt on a regular basis!

[arry_g]

Will there be room for anyone in MH4U? Even me? I want to give it a go but really need good people to roll with and teach me the ropes. That said I'll be playing Majora's Mask some evenings too so I wont be about every night.