Monster Hunter Wilds Story Co Op

[Satoru]

Quick question, can you play co op from the start?
If not, how long does it take and how much do you need to play before being able to do the STORY co op?

[Emerald Lance]

You need to do the introductory mission solo first. After that, you can play coop. You cannot join a friend's story mission (or vice versa) until both you and your friend have actually started fighting the monster. It's strange and was one of the biggest complaints about World so I'm surprised they kept it that way in Wilds, but it is what it is.

[Just Life]

You can play co-op but you'll need to do a lot of set up for it. Unlocking being able to enter lobby and SoS is the first step.

After you and your co-op partner does that, one of you will need to send a Link party invite to the other. While in a Link party, when ever one or the other start a quest a Quest invite will pop up.

So in story the quest/hunt will start once you are going to fight the monster. That will be the only time you'll be playing together for the story.

When attempting to join your Link party member quest, if you are hit during any part of loading into the quest; it will get canceled. So the first thing you do is put on your green cloak in your inventory, it is called the Ghillie mantle. When you have that on, monsters will lose sight of you. Make sure not to put it on if a monster is attacking you or else it will break and go on cooldown.

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Emerald Lance:

You need to do the introductory mission solo first. After that, you can play coop. You cannot join a friend's story mission (or vice versa) until both you and your friend have actually started fighting the monster. It's strange and was one of the biggest complaints about World so I'm surprised they kept it that way in Wilds, but it is what it is.

Ah, that's a bummer. Do the quests atleast complete for both players when finished?

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Just Life:

You can play co-op but you'll need to do a lot of set up for it. Unlocking being able to enter lobby and SoS is the first step.

After you and your co-op partner does that, one of you will need to send a Link party invite to the other. While in a Link party, when ever one or the other start a quest a Quest invite will pop up.

So in story the quest/hunt will start once you are going to fight the monster. That will be the only time you'll be playing together for the story.

When attempting to join your Link party member quest, if you are hit during any part of loading into the quest; it will get canceled. So the first thing you do is put on your green cloak in your inventory, it is called the Ghillie mantle. When you have that on, monsters will lose sight of you. Make sure not to put it on if a monster is attacking you or else it will break and go on cooldown.

Thanks for the in depth explanation

[Emerald Lance]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Originally posted by Emerald Lance:

You need to do the introductory mission solo first. After that, you can play coop. You cannot join a friend's story mission (or vice versa) until both you and your friend have actually started fighting the monster. It's strange and was one of the biggest complaints about World so I'm surprised they kept it that way in Wilds, but it is what it is.

Ah, that's a bummer. Do the quests atleast complete for both players when finished?

Yes. Once you're actually in a hunt together, it works exactly like you would expect a multiplayer mission should work: everybody gets completion, and everybody gets rewards. It's just that joining the quest is a hassle.

Of course this only applies to story quests. All other quest types can be joined from the start with no issue, assuming everybody meets the HR requirement for that quest.

[Kiririn]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Quick question, can you play co op from the start?

No. Not in the way you are probably imagining.

Seven years out from World's release and the multiplayer is arguably in a worse state than World. The illusion of the "open-world" is immediately shattered when trying to play co op.

[Pwincess]

As somebody who primarily plays co-op, yeah it's a bit disappointing, though if you play with somebody who plays... let's say, at a different pace than yourself, it's advantageous.

Basically, when you start a fight, an invite goes out to your link party to join the fight. When they join, they are brought to the base camp in that region and can come running to join. Players who are before where you're at in the story cannot join you if you start a fight, but you can join any fight up to and including where you are at in the story.

Prior to that, you're not really in the same session - I'm not sure how that works, as when I join a public session I see other players but when I do a private session and send my coop partner the session ID we don't see each other, maybe because we're at different stages of the story? I dunno.

On the one hand, we don't really play "together" until a fight happens. On the other hand, I can move at my own pace and just jump back a bit in the progression when my coop partner finally gets around to monster hunting.

I suspect the game will be more co-op-ey once we both hit high-rank as it gets a lot more free-form and self-directed.