Confused at start of Iceborne

[Quinn0Matic]

So I just started Iceborne and I feel completely overwhelmed. The upgrade trees on weapons expanded massively and suddenly all the armor I grinded for on high rank is useless, i guess. Also I've just learned that it's possible to augment weapons and armor. I have no idea what that even means, but apparently that's the reason I do no damage to anything. I looked up how one augments things, and it requires a drop from tempered monsters. I've never seen a tempered monster and can't figure out how to find them.

I've watched multiple videos on the steamworks and I still have no idea why I should do it.They keep mentioning golden tickets, but i have no idea what those would be for, so I don't get the point of this feature.

Why does the linian researcher dude want me to spy on wild palicos? What do I gain from this? Does this feature function like bounties that I can do while i'm busy with other stuff, or like investigations? Can i ignore him?

I'm sure this isn't helped that I got bored with insect glaive and switched to the bow. I'd been steadily upgrading the defender bow throughout high rank because i was sure that would happen, but now with the expanded tree I realized how absurdly long it'd take me to get each bow upgraded to master rank.

I guess what I want to know is:
1) which bow and armor should I focus on first?
2) where are the tempered monsters?
3) what's the point in augmenting stuff, and if i augment something can i undo it like with decorations or do i have to make 10 versions of every piece of armor and weapon I like?

Before you type "you can learn some of this stuff by playing the game" I'd prefer if you didn't. Just go elsewhere. There is so much stuff I don't really want to touch the game until I know more.

[DaTank]

How much time do you actually have in this game? It doesn't sound like you beat the campaign.

[Quinn0Matic]

Originally posted by DaTank:

How much time do you actually have in this game? It doesn't sound like you beat the campaign.

150 hours

[TormentedSalad]

Ignore augmenting if weapons are upgraded into master rank they lose augments from high rank anyway theres a different system for it at the end of master rank

as for bow and armor jagras and kulu armors have some decent skills and bows elemental i dont really play bow much

[DaTank]

Originally posted by Sydnipede:

Originally posted by DaTank:

How much time do you actually have in this game? It doesn't sound like you beat the campaign.

150 hours

Yea I wouldn't worry about augmenting/upgrading unless you have reached a wall that you can't pass. You will be doing this at the end of IB.

Although I have never used the gear/weapons I hear the defender/guild palace or whatever that stuff is called is great for starting IB.

[mewlynx]

Don't worry about augments right now. Whatever you saw about tempered hunts is outdated and only applies to HR augments, which get made useless the instant you make a MR weapon. There's a new augmentation system at the end of Iceborne's story, so you won't have to worry about that until later. Also, you can change or remove augments you put on a weapon and even get the materials refunded in MR, so you don't have to make 10 of each weapon you want.

What armor you go for purely depends on what sorts of decorations you have available to you right now. If you're low on decorations, I'd honestly suggest you not go with bow just because of how skill hungry it can be, but if you really still want to use it, check to see if you at least have a bow charge plus decoration. The earliest you can get it on armor is with MR Legiana, so it's not super deep progression-wise but it's not instant and you'll have to do a fair number of hunts without it.

Steamworks are mostly there to get celestial wyvern tickets to meld monster mantles (the MR equivalent of monster gems). During festivals, you can also get tickets you can use to turn into decorations at the melder, which is what the video was probably talking about. You can safely ignore it until festivals, in my opinion, and even then it's just a bonus thing.

Lynian researcher surveyor stuff is just optional. You don't really get anything out of it aside from cosmetic items to put in your room (little stuffed cats representing the various grimalkynes) and an achievement.

Tempered monsters will pop up later, don't worry about that as there's pretty much no reason to. All Tempered monsters are good for in MR is to farm decorations, but I would recommend waiting until you can do threat level 3 ones at MR100.

[Rumors]

I don't play bow, so can't help you there, but...

-Augments: this was end game HR progression. Ignore it. You're a long way from MR Augmentation

-Tempered: You find these monsters from collecting tempered tracks, which in turn can give you investigations to hunt tempered monsters. You can also find them in some optional and event quests. A tempered monster is basically a stronger version of whatever it is. For HR, these were important for augmentation. In MR, they're only important for deco drops and the like until you hit MR's post game area.

[ChubbNutt]

You could augment weapons and armor in high rank too. Doesn't matter now because base master rank stuff is still better, but don't expect to augment anything until endgame.

You get a lot of items for doing steamworks, ancient potions, mega potions, gourmet vouchers, dust of life, all good things. You also get prints which are used to meld a lot of stuff too. During events you can even get prints to get pretty good decorations.

The rewards for the linian researcher are garbage and it's not worth doing. Ignore it.

For bows you generally want one of every element. As for the armor you should just get whatever provides the best skills you can get. Switch to Master Rank armor asap, the defense stats are too high to ignore.

Augmenting armor greatly raises the defense upgrade cap. Augments weapons can provide many benefits, mostly the health/lifesteal augment. It takes monster parts to augment weapons and while you can roll back on an upgrade I don't think you get everything back.

[JPM岩]

Treat it no differently than the base game. Steamworks give you tickets, the exact same tickets from base game for doing your weeklies. Theyre just bonus tickets. You gain nothing from the Lynian Researcher, it's just a fun optional quest (the game tells you this).
1. Which ever one you like the most. Dont worry about meta until after the story. MR Jagras Armor is a good start.
2. They show up. Theres HR Tempereds for LR/HR, and then theres MR Tempereds which show up later.
3. Bonus upgrade perks. Dont worry about this until end game.
You really sound like you dont have the 150 hours you claim you have if an upgrade tree scares you.

[cua_bien02]

Steamworks give you several nice things that you might need beyond the juicy bonuses during festival:
- Potions, max, ancient: enough said
- Tranq bombs: never have to bother making them again
- Armor sphere: for armor upgrades. Pretty important
- Silver + gold eggs: for when you're cash strapped in MR.
- Gourmet voucher: very good and important for tough fights. It allows you to eat for full hp + stamina and guarantee palico skills. Bonus, one gourmet voucher will apply to the entire lobby, so very good for a group of friends.
- First wyverian ticket: for melding rare monster parts

Some Lynian spying tasks give you wyverian ticket for melding monster part, in case you just need 1 thing for that nice weapon/armor but don't want to farm. Plus, Lynians are cute and during expeditions, they engage in activities that you normally will not see during quests.

You can craft some MR weapons immediately if you have the materials without having to upgrade them from tier 1 weapons, look for the ones with a small hammer icon in the upper right. You'll also see them available in forge. Can't help you further I'm afraid since I don't play range.

[HimmDawg]

Most of this stuff is just in your head.
We are talking of a DLC equal in size to the basegame so naturally there are a lot of new weapons. Just don't bother too much about the ending of those upgrade trees right now ^^

Steamworks are just for a couple of extra items. Potions, Bombs and stuff. You collect fuel, fuel is also gradually generated automatically, you burn fuel there, you get items. Easy enough. Now, most of those items are just normal items. There are also some special items like tickets or interior you might get from this. The gold tickets mentioned in those videos only appear during a seasonal event. At any other time outside a seasonal event, the set of items you can get is different. Outside of those events, most people do the steamworks for the weekly Celestial Wyvern Print which can be traded for a rare drop from (almost) any monster.

Regarding the linian researcher: Why not just trying out? :) it's part of the game to see if there's something to gain from. If you really wanna know it: After you've completed all requests with at least one requirement fulfilled, you'll receive a Celestial Wyvern Print + it's necessary for one achievement

Originally posted by Sydnipede:

1) which bow and armor should I focus on first?

Depends on your decorations. Generally good skills for bow are
- all the crit-stuff (Critical Eye, Weakness Exploit, Critical Element)
- element up
- constitution
- bow charge plus
Those should push the damage enough. If you die too much, put in Health Boost.
For bows itself: try to have at least one bow for each element. You can also stay with the defender bow for a while but it'll lose power really quick when progressing through the story.

Originally posted by Sydnipede:

2) where are the tempered monsters?

High Rank, after you've completed the story. Some NPC will give you a quest for 2 tempered Baselgeuzes. Also some random NPC will mention, that special tracks can be found in the areas. Pick up those tracks and you might get investigations with tempered monsters in it.
They'll appear in the endgame of Iceborne too.

Originally posted by Sydnipede:

3) what's the point in augmenting stuff, and if i augment something can i undo it like with decorations or do i have to make 10 versions of every piece of armor and weapon I like?

Yes, you can undo augmentations. In High Rank, you can fully revert augmentations. You even have to do so if you want to upgrade an augmented high rank weapon to master rank. The game will ask you if you want to revert augmentations on that weapon in order to further upgrade it. Reverting augments works in Master Rank too, but i wont bother you with that since it'll take you some time to get there.

[Quinn0Matic]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

You really sound like you dont have the 150 hours you claim you have if an upgrade tree scares you.

Check my profile, i guess?

It's mostly the sheer amount of grinding i'd have to do on low and high rank to get a bow of every element up to master. I didn't realize how much work I was making for myself by switching weapons, and just wanted something to aim for first so I wouldn't get fatigued. Idk.

[Quinn0Matic]

You've all been very helpful. Thank you.

[SushiJaguar]

I know you said don't post stuff like "play the game" but that's exactly what you need to do, dude. It's one of those things where it's like, imposing until you actually get started. You need to just throw yourself in there instead of having someone literally spell out every step. It'll become much less fearsome and you'll pick it up quickly.

And uh, if you wanted someone to do that, why didn't you read the tutorial prompts that explain everything about tempered monsters...?

EDIT: Bow is an awful idea as a weapon if you don't have many decorations or, um, much of a clue about how to augment/build your loadout. It's the weapon that requires the most tinkering and tweaking due to how much of an impact certain things like Mighty Bow can be. Plus, the ammo is quite expensive to make if you intend on using a decent amount of it, so you need a good grasp of your Botanical Research.

[HimmDawg]

Originally posted by SushiJaguar:

EDIT: Bow is an awful idea as a weapon if you don't have many decorations or, um, much of a clue about how to augment/build your loadout. It's the weapon that requires the most tinkering and tweaking due to how much of an impact certain things like Mighty Bow can be. Plus, the ammo is quite expensive to make if you intend on using a decent amount of it, so you need a good grasp of your Botanical Research.

While this is true, it shouldn't prevent you from playing a weapon you like. Yes, without some decorations, bows are generally weaker than other melee options, but look at it from the following pov: If you happen to get a few of those decorations, especially Might Bow, then you get a huge upgrade in damage. If not, then it'll take a few minutes more for a monster, oh well.
I suggest that you take a look at the armor that is currently avaiable for you and look at its skills. Read the descriptions (wiki has sometimes a more detailed version tho) and figure out which skills can also be useful. I already gave some advice in the last post.

And yes. Crafting an elemental bow for each element type is grindy. It's the essence of Monster Hunter after all :D

[Sery]

Originally posted by Sydnipede:

Originally posted by DaTank:

How much time do you actually have in this game? It doesn't sound like you beat the campaign.

150 hours

150? Jeez you mustve literally turned your brain off during that time lol