Monster health bars?

[Habanero]

So I noticed that successful weapon strikes generates floating damage numbers. What purpose do they serve if we don’t know the total health numbers of the monster? Why isn’t there health bars for each monster fight? It’s weird that they give us one number but not the other. What’s the point in knowing how much damage each attack does if there is no correlation to how that impacts a monsters total health points?

[zmanbuilder]

The purpose is to know how much damage you are dealing.

[UnhappyCLOWN]

You'll have to rely on 3rd party mods on Nexus and wait for someone to make the mod to add health bars to the monsters. There are no health bars. You simply begin to see the monster limp and stuff the closer it gets to death until it dies. There is no real point to the damage numbers except for min maxers and people who care about their DPS numbers. It's mostly just to tell if you're hitting a weakspot, or not.

[Nihrahk]

Monster health bar mods usually get added fairly quickly. I could see one being added in the first few weeks.

[侍Kage]

EWWWWWWWW monster health bar in monster hunter game?
EWWWWWWWWWWWW

to each their own but EWWWWWWW

[Habanero]

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

The purpose is to know how much damage you are dealing.

Explain to me why that even matters if you have no idea how much health the monster has total, or at any given time in the fight?

[Nihrahk]

Originally posted by Habanero:

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

The purpose is to know how much damage you are dealing.

Explain to me why that even matters if you have no idea how much health the monster has total, or at any given time in the fight?

You won't know the first time you fight a monster, especially if it's a new one. After hunting the monster a few times though, you'll learn how much the monster has regardless if there's a health bar or not. Also, there's that little skull icon that pops up when a monster is near death.

[BunnyBunny]

THe numbesr are actually important to see how effective your hit is. For example, the distance can render the bow totally useless (1 dmg per hit if you are too far) or if you are hitting a well protected part or a part that has low value for your dmg type.

If you don't have the game knowledge beforehand you had no way to evaluate your dmg output before they introduce the feature.

[Danger Bay]

it's so you can see how much damage you're doing

[tentacles]

As for why there are no health bars, it’s a design choice that gives the game its flavor. You don’t get a health bar but you get other visual cues on how the monster’s doing. You can cut their tail or break their head. Usually they look extra beat up when you’ve got them low. Some monsters trip and fall easier the more you hit their legs, or get more tired over time. Also, almost all monsters have a limping animation when they’re almost dead and they move to another area. In this game you cat will also say “It’s looking weak, almost there” meaning the monster has about 20% hp left and it can be captured to end the hunt.

Monsters also generally have quite a lot of hp compared to a souls game for example. A normal hunt could be as long as 10-20 minutes or longer. Maybe the devs thought that for this kind of game, a hp bar could feel a bit demoralizing if you’re chipping at tiny slivers of the bar over 15 minutes.

No health bar means you focus less on a meter going down, and more on the monster’s behavior and the spectacle of the fight. Of course you could also mod in an hp bar if you still decide you want one.

[Ω Yuugami Ω]

The numbers' color also lets you know if you're hitting a spot your weapon is effective against.

If you're seeing white numbers, your weapon is not well suited for that spot you're hitting.
If you're seeing yellow, that's a good spot to hit.

Sometimes it can change based on other situations like Lavasioth with hard-rock covering him, or Barroth's skin being covered with mud (which also changes which element is more effective).

Damage numbers reveal a lot. Look past the obvious.

[Capybarasan]

Just keep hitting it until it's dead. How hard is it?

[Me, I'm Counting]

Originally posted by Habanero:

Explain to me why that even matters if you have no idea how much health the monster has total, or at any given time in the fight?

Because if you know how much damage you are doing you can figure out where the monster's weakspots are and which of your attacks are most effective against that monster.

[Xaelon]

Yeah. MH just doesn't have HP bars. If they were going to change that, it probably would have happened in World, since that's when Capcom made changes to open the series to a larger audience.

As for "Why?" It's just a design choice. Capcom "intends" for you to gauge the monster's HP by how it acts. For example you'll know a monster is almost dead when it starts limping and tries to flee back home.

You'll develop a feel for monster HP after you've played the game enough. Like how you'll instinctively learn how to back off during fights when things get too hot.

[LonesomeSparrow]

Originally posted by Habanero:

So I noticed that successful weapon strikes generates floating damage numbers. What purpose do they serve if we don’t know the total health numbers of the monster? Why isn’t there health bars for each monster fight? It’s weird that they give us one number but not the other. What’s the point in knowing how much damage each attack does if there is no correlation to how that impacts a monsters total health points?

you hit spot A and do X damage, then you hit spot B and do X*1,5 damage. you now know where to hit the monster.
also helps comparing weapons.
what's so difficult to understand?

[Habanero]

Originally posted by Capybarasan:

Just keep hitting it until it's dead. How hard is it?

How fun is that?