Thoughts on Defender Weapon

[J.M.]

So my main saving is around 950 hr and I just started a new one. I’m around 8 hrs now but already reaching HR 9. I used guardian armor set and defender LS and I gotta say that, new players, especially those who are not planning to buy IB, try to avoid use them as much as possible. You will not learn how to play this game. The guardian armor set allows you to blast through everything, even LR diablos can’t hurt you. And that weapon? I literally killed every monster in LR within 5 minutes with a R3 weapon, and this is definitely not normal, even for experienced players like me, to hunt something with trash weapon in only five minutes. This is the end game level hunting time. Also, since you don’t need to farm for material, you don’t even need to hunt a monster multiple times, and you won’t learn its move. So take my advice, if you are not planning to buy IB, don’t use it. You will lose the every fun part of the early game until you start on the tempered monsters, which I anticipate most beginners will spend at least 40 to 50 hrs before reaching HR 30.

[mewlynx]

Originally posted by Festive Jelly Jiggler:

Originally posted by maelynx:

I'm not trying to get too involved in this entire fiasco for hopefully obvious reasons, but aren't you concerned that new players using defender gear aren't getting an authentic MH experience? And I mean in the sense that they won't have to grind anything at all, won't have a reason to even look at the various armor and weapon designs, things like that. If people want to use it then I'm not going to stop them, but I can't help but disagree with the idea of this set existing.

I'm just curious as to what you think about that, like I said I'm not trying to spark anymore arguments, just trying to understand why people are fine with new players using Defender stuff beyond the "let people play how they want."

The point of the set is to get them ready for IB, it's to help teach them how certain things work in the game, it gives them the opportunity to try out new weapons more frequently since they don't necessarily have to commit one weapon due to having it be the weapon they have the most investment in.

It's not like they won't have to learn how to play just because they have good gear, that's the part I don't get why a lot of people are whining about. They'll still naturally pick up on how to play as they go, not many people who pick up the game are going to be so brain dead that they'll just button mash their way though. I feel like veteran players just don't like the idea of newbies getting to being kind of on par with them faster than X amount of hours.

Plus if they manage to get hooked on what they play of the base game, I'm sure they'll be willing to make the time investment it takes to grind in MR when that comes in IB. The gear helps them experience the monster fights sooner, and helps them to dip their toes into the grinding a bit.

Veteran players need to learn to be more welcoming to new players, I'm seriously sick of the elitist attitude some people have regarding the MH series. Ultimately I don't care either way that these weapons and armor were added, if they help someone to enjoy the game better, that's fantastic. Be welcoming and help new players to enjoy the game, and don't act like a snobby elitist jerk just because a new player is using the gear that was handed to them.

Thanks for the thorough response. Wasn't planning on talking trash to people using defender gear, btw, was trying to make it clear that I wasn't trying to be elitist.

[Mr.Thane]

Originally posted by Festive Jelly Jiggler:

Originally posted by maelynx:

I'm not trying to get too involved in this entire fiasco for hopefully obvious reasons, but aren't you concerned that new players using defender gear aren't getting an authentic MH experience? And I mean in the sense that they won't have to grind anything at all, won't have a reason to even look at the various armor and weapon designs, things like that. If people want to use it then I'm not going to stop them, but I can't help but disagree with the idea of this set existing.

I'm just curious as to what you think about that, like I said I'm not trying to spark anymore arguments, just trying to understand why people are fine with new players using Defender stuff beyond the "let people play how they want."

The point of the set is to get them ready for IB, it's to help teach them how certain things work in the game, it gives them the opportunity to try out new weapons more frequently since they don't necessarily have to commit one weapon due to having it be the weapon they have the most investment in.

It's not like they won't have to learn how to play just because they have good gear, that's the part I don't get why a lot of people are whining about. They'll still naturally pick up on how to play as they go, not many people who pick up the game are going to be so brain dead that they'll just button mash their way though. I feel like veteran players just don't like the idea of newbies getting to being kind of on par with them faster than X amount of hours.

Plus if they manage to get hooked on what they play of the base game, I'm sure they'll be willing to make the time investment it takes to grind in MR when that comes in IB. The gear helps them experience the monster fights sooner, and helps them to dip their toes into the grinding a bit.

Veteran players need to learn to be more welcoming to new players, I'm seriously sick of the elitist attitude some people have regarding the MH series. Ultimately I don't care either way that these weapons and armor were added, if they help someone to enjoy the game better, that's fantastic. Be welcoming and help new players to enjoy the game, and don't act like a snobby elitist jerk just because a new player is using the gear that was handed to them.

Well said

[Xilo The Odd]

Originally posted by Dark Priestess:

Most people will want to get to iceborne quickly, so the set is fine, people whining about just seem to be upset someone is playing the way they don't want them to play or angry they won't suffer through the boring slog that is LR like they did.

You'll easily learn the game well after LR, so using that as a complaint is pretty sad, LR teaches you very little since the game changes as you progress. and monsters just get tougher.

None of it matters after a while. So stop complaining about a set of armor. hell i can atest most of my knowledge of the game came well after i reached HR when i started mixing in elders. since LR didn't last very long.

as someone who already knew what to do in LR, i used a poison pukie hunting horn. for ALL of low rank. i blew through it incredibly quick as i didnt have to farm for materials for healing items. i just doot doot when injured. LR is literally the easiest thing in the whole dang game. but for someone new and trying to be cautious as they approach a monster to fight it, some of them punish that, namely, anjanath xD.

but yeah defender gear is here to stay, then go away once everyone is in MR. never know though, they may make it available at a later date and balance it with all the other stuff proper. as far as crafting goes anyway.

[D1rty Sanchez]

I'm with OP, I think they made a huge mistake with the defender weapons / set.

I totally get it if they made them HR weapons for people stuck at the end and wanted to get to Iceborne.

But these weapons are afaik avl from start game and imo would spoil the experience big time.
E.g. a mate recently wanted to buy the game (nothing to do with IB), and now I realized if he got it and used defender set, he'd get bored and probably get a refund thinking the game is too easy, I'd imagine many new players would be the same.

Originally posted by Dark Priestess:

Most people will want to get to iceborne quickly, so the set is fine

Why would people want to get to iceborne quickly? is the base game not fun?
That's 100h+ of an awesome game they just completely trashed for an expansion.

[D1rty Sanchez]

Originally posted by Dark Priestess:

Much like the transition from low to high rank MR makes both of those obsolete, How often are you still hunting in LR randomly outside of SOS and certain quests.

That is how expansions work. it isn't completely trashed but everything in the previous is outdated.

I'm at the end of my 2nd playthrough, I believe 100h+, LR was really fun the 2nd time.
This game has higher replayability than most people realize.

This is not how expansions work, expansion are not about making base game obselete or different, but about expanding the base content.

If they want newbies to access IB (for whatever weird reasons), there are healthier ways to do this, this is unhealthy business practice and almost anti-consumer, and unfair to the dozen+ game designers who worked so hard to balance the amazing base game.

I respect your good intentions, and also undestand that it won't effect your game so it doesn't matter to you, but certain players like me will see what went here is not cool.

[cruste]

Originally posted by D1rty Sanchez:

I'm with OP, I think they made a huge mistake with the defender weapons / set.

I totally get it if they made them HR weapons for people stuck at the end and wanted to get to Iceborne.

But these weapons are afaik avl from start game and imo would spoil the experience big time.
E.g. a mate recently wanted to buy the game (nothing to do with IB), and now I realized if he got it and used defender set, he'd get bored and probably get a refund thinking the game is too easy, I'd imagine many new players would be the same.

Originally posted by Dark Priestess:

Most people will want to get to iceborne quickly, so the set is fine

Why would people want to get to iceborne quickly? is the base game not fun?
That's 100h+ of an awesome game they just completely trashed for an expansion.

the weapons have no white sharpness from the very beginning, you need to kill nergigante to obtain dragon scales

the armor is also outdated, when you enter hr and finally get your hands on stuff with more attack skills

i was pretty disappointed as i had to realize that lr material were wasted for lr armors because there was no way to transform them into hr. I wish i had known it from the beginning and saved some precious lr mats for weapon crafting

it is good to see that the devs learned and added easy crafting options for all weapons so you have to slay hr monster only once before you can craft mr weapon.

[_Synt3rax_]

quit the "not learning the game" bs allready my god,they didnt released the set for nothing

[Jord77665]

Anything with blast is worthy

[Incomparable Groan]

The defender set will speed you through low ranks, and the early/mid high ranks (which is where I imagine Iceborne will begin). A bit of a weird decision imo, but nowhere near as "game breaking" as people seem to make it.

Current end-game gear is till better, and people that want a challenge going through the game can just ignore the set. Nobody is forcing people to use it.

Your average random team mate was carting plenty before the set was released as well, so I highly doubt it'll have a noticable effect on the average player's skill level either.

[Grisnir]

Originally posted by D1rty Sanchez:

Originally posted by Dark Priestess:

Much like the transition from low to high rank MR makes both of those obsolete, How often are you still hunting in LR randomly outside of SOS and certain quests.

That is how expansions work. it isn't completely trashed but everything in the previous is outdated.

I'm at the end of my 2nd playthrough, I believe 100h+, LR was really fun the 2nd time.
This game has higher replayability than most people realize.

This is not how expansions work, expansion are not about making base game obselete or different, but about expanding the base content.

If they want newbies to access IB (for whatever weird reasons), there are healthier ways to do this, this is unhealthy business practice and almost anti-consumer, and unfair to the dozen+ game designers who worked so hard to balance the amazing base game.

I respect your good intentions, and also undestand that it won't effect your game so it doesn't matter to you, but certain players like me will see what went here is not cool.

based on the game, expansion kills the endgame for the basegame.
In case of the IB, everything after Xeno it probably dead content and no point in doing it
every gear prior Xeno meaningless, since it's obolsote after the entering MR. The real fun starts at the endgame, hence why everything prior Xeno is called "Tutorial"

you may argue, that the last stage of the Defender weapons should be availble after xeno was defeated

[:bestgamerchina#1最好的中國]

Where did he say that they wont learn how to use their weapons? Hes saying that you wont learn ♥♥♥♥ about how to properly hunt a monster if you can just facetank everything and got endgame ready weapons without needing to farm monsters.

Meanwhile meta for fastest clears is greatsword sheath spam, bow spam or hbg bomb spam. Where all 3 are super safe to perform compared to rest of the weapons.

[JPM岩]

Originally posted by cruste:

Originally posted by D1rty Sanchez:

I'm with OP, I think they made a huge mistake with the defender weapons / set.

I totally get it if they made them HR weapons for people stuck at the end and wanted to get to Iceborne.

But these weapons are afaik avl from start game and imo would spoil the experience big time.
E.g. a mate recently wanted to buy the game (nothing to do with IB), and now I realized if he got it and used defender set, he'd get bored and probably get a refund thinking the game is too easy, I'd imagine many new players would be the same.



Why would people want to get to iceborne quickly? is the base game not fun?
That's 100h+ of an awesome game they just completely trashed for an expansion.

the weapons have no white sharpness from the very beginning, you need to kill nergigante to obtain dragon scales

the armor is also outdated, when you enter hr and finally get your hands on stuff with more attack skills

i was pretty disappointed as i had to realize that lr material were wasted for lr armors because there was no way to transform them into hr. I wish i had known it from the beginning and saved some precious lr mats for weapon crafting

it is good to see that the devs learned and added easy crafting options for all weapons so you have to slay hr monster only once before you can craft mr weapon.

Fun Fact, the Defender Weapons and Armor is actually a mechanic from Frontier to speed people though the LR/Hr tutorial

[Holografix]

I only play Hunting Horn and my only gripe with the Defender set is that the Defender HH looks generic. Could've had a better design. And it's not that strong, there are better HH. The Defender armor isn't even OP since I always carry 3 vitality gems anyway. The Defender armor looks cool tho.

[Tessrana]

What i am upset is, that these weapons are mostly even stronger than the ones you could take as similar.

I mean the defender glaive literally outclasses the Luna ones. And has 2 augmentation slots.
I played 4U on 3ds and I can say, that those who breeze through the game will be steamrolled in MR and all others will just shake their head.

And they usually dont get, why the game is so difficult and "unfair" now.
The jump in difficulty will be very high for this players... from "no thing can harm you" to "you get oneshottet by every touch of the monster"

In 4U this caused people to cheat and it was a nuisance to look at gear of the other players every time to make sure you run with legit players.
This will now be impossible with SOS.

[Endarion]

i honeslty don't get why so many people are mad about this

those weapons are literaly a double edged sword

1: yeah they can rush you to iceborne, but if you rush it you won't wont have materials to craft any ♥♥♥♥ thus back to grind

2: again if a noob rush trough it with said weapons, he then will be reskilled by literaly anything as soon he hits MR 2 difficulty where those weapon are outclassed by proper master rank weapons