What exactly is the point of Spiribirds?

[Corey]

I've been playing with the spiribird mod for a while, but now that I've turned it off I can't even imagine the design decision behind this. They want you to eat to get half your stats, then waste 5 minutes of a hunt collecting even more stats...? And no, collecting spiribirds in high level investigations is straight up not optional unless you play with the tankiest build in the game or go hitless because monsters over level 100+ literally 2 shot you with max armor...

They seem like very tedious padding. The dev team knew people would complain about hunts being too short because track collecting is no longer a thing, so they thought up spiribirds to FORCE you to walk around the map. I can't even think of any other reason these stupid things even exist...

[kl250d]

Slight sidetrack but does the spiribird mod work when playing on multiplayer even if my mate doesn't have it installed?

[Corey]

Originally posted by kl250d:

Slight sidetrack but does the spiribird mod work when playing on multiplayer even if my mate doesn't have it installed?

I'm pretty sure it does. The prism that appears is client sided iirc.

[kl250d]

Cheers

[pseudo]

I think the idea was to give players a way to "power up" if they thought they couldn't handle the monster with what they already had. The problem is, at endgame Sunbreak (LV120) it becomes almost mandatory unless you're the king of counters/dodges. Even as confident as I am, I still grab greens because sometimes the game just has attitude issues.

I'd really rather they put a couple Prismatic Spiribirds on the map even if they're in hard to reach spots. After about a thousand hours, it really makes you wish we were just playing a previous entry where the health you had was all you got. Easily my least favourite part of the hunt.

[Azael Ijima δ]

I have a couple routes for each map, only take me around 1 minute to at least fill green and getting some helpers on the way like beettles that will help in the fight.
I let Spiribird Caller fill the rest as the hunt progress.

[ArthorPen]

even if one were to argue that they are optional or they are for teaching patience or that they encourage exploration - i really don't see what purpose spiribirds fulfill that simple gathering and standard prep doesn't already.

thus why i think their existence is just completely unnecessary.

so i guess that for some stupid reason, gating maximum/potential stats is just a random design decision the devs like to include from time to time - it was tied to decorations in world and its tied to spiribirds now. even then, i argue that simply removing stat gating is a QOL change long overdue.

the only few things that maximize stats should be eating a meal, steak/ration, max/ancient potions, and armor/demon drugs. THAT IS IT! no other chore or extra steps to take. eat meal = maximum health/stamina. drink drugs = maximum attack and armor. maintain with potions, rations, and steak. should be THAT simple.

[Plumber]

While it's possible to stubbornly ignore spiribird HP and just never get hit, either by playing conservatively or by using a moveset with immaculate defense, we're definitely intended to be grabbing them and taking advantage of petalace stats. If not, arena-type maps wouldn't supply us with a prism spiribird out of the gate.

[Houseki Yarisuke]

Running around to get them doesn't really bother me too much. But I do agree that the game would be stronger without them.

[FafnirChaos]

I think once qurios armour crafting opens up, you may not even need to collect them. I used to but now running Greed- Intrepid Heart - with Recovery, I don't even need them anymore, spirit bird caller is just a bonus.

[MelvinSmiley]

Like others already said, they are annoying for people that play without mods like me, but with spitbird caller skill and food buff you need just 1 minute to collect all buffs, not 5, so it's not that bad.

[Popcorn]

Originally posted by Azael, The Dreamer:

I have a couple routes for each map, only take me around 1 minute to at least fill green and getting some helpers on the way like beettles that will help in the fight.
I let Spiribird Caller fill the rest as the hunt progress. :lunar2020ratinablanket:

Love the route for the ice area (forgot the name despite loving the area's route)
I always get: the marionette spider near the base, snow beetle, fire beetle and thunder beetle along side the second marionette spider

[randomguy01542]

Originally posted by pseudo:

I think the idea was to give players a way to "power up" if they thought they couldn't handle the monster with what they already had. The problem is, at endgame Sunbreak (LV120) it becomes almost mandatory unless you're the king of counters/dodges. Even as confident as I am, I still grab greens because sometimes the game just has attitude issues.

I'd really rather they put a couple Prismatic Spiribirds on the map even if they're in hard to reach spots. After about a thousand hours, it really makes you wish we were just playing a previous entry where the health you had was all you got. Easily my least favourite part of the hunt.

I know we are just making assumptions here, but the power up for health/stamina is kinda arse imo, we already had the ability to make items to increase health/stamina before and removing that so we'd have to find spiritbirds is disappointing, I didn't mind spiritbirds before, but not being able to eat a steak and bump up my stamina is a bummer.

[CookedMeat]

They are an alright design when you are in the first 10 hours playing the game. They encourages exploration and understanding of the map, and in some way, creates a situation of:
-Go straight to the monster but risk a little, but you save time
-Spend some time gathering power up, and use the buff against monster

However, this mechanic only works when you are in the early game. Once you reached 200 hours, 500 hours or even thousands hours into end game, you will start to see how garbage the design is. The spiritbird never got related rebalance in Sunbreak other than spiritbird caller jewel and dango, which both are unreliable to obtain a sustainable buff without running around maps (dango) or before a hunt ends (jewel).

Sure, it's a 30-60 seconds extra 'preparation' per hunt. But I have to do 500 end game hunts to get the materials I need for qurio crafting, each hunt spending 30s, that's a freaking 250 minutes wasted doing absolutely boring repetitive pointless work just so I could prevent getting 1-shot. Which is why I now try to force myself to gid gud enough to not rely on the birds. But mistakes still happen time to time which is annoying. I just wish I could spend kamura points or qurio tokens for some qurio upgrades for my petalace so it give me a base HP bonus immediately into the hunt.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

They are an alright design when you are in the first 10 hours playing the game. They encourages exploration and understanding of the map, and in some way, creates a situation of:
-Go straight to the monster but risk a little, but you save time
-Spend some time gathering power up, and use the buff against monster

However, this mechanic only works when you are in the early game. Once you reached 200 hours, 500 hours or even thousands hours into end game, you will start to see how garbage the design is. The spiritbird never got related rebalance in Sunbreak other than spiritbird caller jewel and dango, which both are unreliable to obtain a sustainable buff without running around maps (dango) or before a hunt ends (jewel).

Sure, it's a 30-60 seconds extra 'preparation' per hunt. But I have to do 500 end game hunts to get the materials I need for qurio crafting, each hunt spending 30s, that's a freaking 250 minutes wasted doing absolutely boring repetitive pointless work just so I could prevent getting 1-shot. Which is why I now try to force myself to gid gud enough to not rely on the birds. But mistakes still happen time to time which is annoying. I just wish I could spend kamura points or qurio tokens for some qurio upgrades for my petalace so it give me a base HP bonus immediately into the hunt.

Thats the point of the birds, it's supplement for when you arent great at the game. If someone is actively relying on spiribirds into late game, theyre not good at the game.

[CookedMeat]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

Thats the point of the birds, it's supplement for when you arent great at the game. If someone is actively relying on spiribirds into late game, theyre not good at the game.

You really can't let go of any chances to slide in a 'gid gud' argument can you?
The good type of design that encourages getting good will be stuff like adrenaline, dereliction, mail of hellfire etc that grants positive buff when you willingly make the game harder.
Spiritbird is different, to make the game easier all you simply need to do is waste time to carry out the same repetitive boring task every single hunt.

You don't need to suck Capcom's balls just because you liked their games. They make mistakes time to time, pointing it out instead of justifying them is the most rational thing a fan could do.