Is the first expedition solo only?

[TemplarGFX]

My friend and I just got this to play together and we have having a really hard time understanding how to play together.

We figured out that the first quest is solo only. the second quest you can play together after a cutscene, but next is an expedition into the ancient forest.

We are in the same online session, but when we head out onto the expedition we are both in the our own instance. If one of us goes back to the hub, there is no quest to join to get onto the other players game.
And if they shoot an SOS flair, it doesn't show up (when I search for SOS flares it says there are none)

Is it just that this first expedition must be done solo? The game gives you no indication (that I saw) on what is and is no co-op capable.

Please help me to understand how to play COOP with my friend! Thanks

[Suzaku]

For story quests, both players need to see the cutscene before they can join/be joined, as you've already seen. There's a couple times throughout the story that require you to go on expeditions that can't be joined by others in order to unlock story-critical paths.

Then for things like optional quests, investigations, and event quests, you can prepare them like any other hunt but group together before heading into the map. For the average player, the story makes up a small part of their total playtime.

[CookedMeat]

1. As you've already noticed, some quest required you to watch a cutscene before activating multiplayer.
2. For certain quests, you need to search for specific new monsters in the expedition, usually 2 or 3, and each of them have a cutscene. For these quests, you can't fire an SOS before viewing the cutscenes for all monster. However, if you returned to base while the main objectives (search for new monsters) is done, you will be give assigned quest to hunt these monsters, which you can play in multiplayer.
3. When you are searching for SOS flare, it would be better to specify the filter. For your case: Low Rank + Expedition.

Almost every quest is able to be played in multiplayer but you need to follow certain rules (watch cutscene for quests / fire SOS for expedition)

[TemplarGFX]

Thanks for the replies. Does anyone know if specifically that first expedition to setup the camp in the ancient forest is coop or not. You can shoot a flare right away after starting it, but no matter how many times we tried or what filters we selected it always said there were no SOS flares found.

I sort of assumed that if you can shoot an SOS flare, you can play in COOP (otherwise why let you shoot the flare!) but we tried for almost 10 minutes and in that entire time my friends SOS never showed up for me

Does it matter who sets up the online session? When we started I setup an online session and invited my friend to it. we played the first mission together after the cutscene and we played an optional quest together. However for this expedition my friend stayed in it and shot the flair and I went back to camp. maybe that was the issue?

[CookedMeat]

SOS isn't tied to session. You can even play with people in another session via SOS flare.

I cannot confirm if the quest you mentioned is solo only, but if you can fire an SOS then I think it should be allowed to coop. Maybe something is wrong with the filter settings. Or maybe you and your friend are located in two different region that are very far apart. (SOS usually show results from players near your region).

If you would like to counter this region-lock limitation, change your Steam download region.

[cruste]

Why do you waste time with trying to figure it out simply finish the task and move on to the next quest. it is faster than wasting time on trying to find each other.

try the optional quest for multiplayer, if these don't work you have maybe some trouble with blocked ports, strict nat.

you should find each other, if you are in the same session, normally these mission appear at the mission board with the indicator that you have to wait for the cutscene.

you can meet each other at the gathering hub to goof around in the town.

Tradition dies slowly, even slower in japan, but there is progression in a certain way. some stuff was improved in rise and other stuff is inferior to world. no more cutscene horror in rise, but it is more complicated to play with randoms and sessions were reduced from 16 to 4...
one step forward two steps backward

wasn't there a cutscene related to the kulu ya ku related to the first camp?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K40Su3Azm8A
your buddy should be able to join after this scene

yes the coop experience in the story progression is awful, but you can get used it.
best results if one of you simply rushs through the story than repeats it with the partner or you run into the issue where both always need to unlock the stupid cutscenes.

There are also two option to leave a quest, so make sure you have chosen the right one or the progress isn't saved. abandon vs return.

abandon was designed for people who want to regain their cosumables if they encounter a tough wall, useful in the early stage of the game

return is the option you have to use to keep cutscene progress saved and it also help hunters who are only seeking for specific monster parts.

[TemplarGFX]

Originally posted by CookedMeat:

SOS isn't tied to session. You can even play with people in another session via SOS flare.

I cannot confirm if the quest you mentioned is solo only, but if you can fire an SOS then I think it should be allowed to coop. Maybe something is wrong with the filter settings. Or maybe you and your friend are located in two different region that are very far apart. (SOS usually show results from players near your region).

If you would like to counter this region-lock limitation, change your Steam download region.

Thanks for the reply. My friend only lives 20 minutes from me and we are able to play find with optional quests. I'll check with him what his download region is just incase its set different to mine and thats why I couldn't see his SOS.

Originally posted by cruste:

Why do you waste time with trying to figure it out simply finish the task and move on to the next quest. it is faster than wasting time on trying to find each other.

try the optional quest for multiplayer, if these don't work you have maybe some trouble with blocked ports, strict nat.

you should find each other, if you are in the same session, normally these mission appear at the mission board with the indicator that you have to wait for the cutscene.

you can meet each other at the gathering hub to goof around in the town.

Thanks for replying. As I said in the OP we were able to do one main quest together after a cutscene and also an optional quest. We can see each other in the gathering hub so its not a problem with nat/ports etc.

As to why do we waste time trying, I don't see how thats relevant but we both bought this to play together, not solo. we want to progress together at the same time and experience it coherently together, not both play a single player game while on chat

[ominumi]

There's going to be a few expedition like this for the rest of the game. Try spotting the monster first then send out a SOS flare. My guess is that the player needs to get to a cutscene. But once a player sees the cutscene, it becomes an Optional Quest.
This game does make it annoying to coop during Assign Quest. Anything else is fair game.

[ᔑᓭ∴ᔑリ⊣]

i assume it's been answered at this point but i'll say it again anyway:
you cannot join a friend's expedition. You can only send an sos flare, which makes it public to randoms from other sessions

HOWEVER, if you get the goal to 'hunt a monster' (not just 'sight' it) during an expedition, and then you return to base, that monster will appear as a quest you can both join immediately
(this might be the same for small monster slaying too but i don't remember, imo it is best to do the first few story requirements in solo anyway)

you can only join eachother's normal quests from the quest board. story quests require the cutscenes to be watched + both people at same point in story (both need to have seen the same cutscenes)

because of how it works, iirc you can't do any expedition multiplayer that doesn't have a specific hunting goal (beyond sending sos flare)

yes. coop in this game is.................. Funky lol

all this stuff only applies to expeditions and story progression luckily. optionals, events, post-game stuff etc. isn't so convoluted

[TemplarGFX]

Originally posted by ᔑᓭ∴ᔑリ⊣:

i assume it's been answered at this point but i'll say it again anyway:
you cannot join a friend's expedition. You can only send an sos flare, which makes it public to randoms from other sessions

HOWEVER, if you get the goal to 'hunt a monster' (not just 'sight' it) during an expedition, and then you return to base, that monster will appear as a quest you can both join immediately
(this might be the same for small monster slaying too but i don't remember, imo it is best to do the first few story requirements in solo anyway)

you can only join eachother's normal quests from the quest board. story quests require the cutscenes to be watched + both people at same point in story (both need to have seen the same cutscenes)

because of how it works, iirc you can't do any expedition multiplayer that doesn't have a specific hunting goal (beyond sending sos flare)

yes. coop in this game is.................. Funky lol

all this stuff only applies to expeditions and story progression luckily. optionals, events, post-game stuff etc. isn't so convoluted

thanks for the reply!

So it was a story mission stupidly called an expedition, but it wasn't actually an expedition like what the rest of the game considers an expedition. That was confusing things alot!

About half way through the mission there was a cutscene and then it could be joined like a normal story mission.

[Tamblyn]

Hey OP heads up, any new monster you find will have a cutscene. Will need to watch that then your friend can join. They will also need to have watched their own cutscene in their game. Dunno if this was patched since I played 3 years ago.

[TemplarGFX]

Originally posted by Tamblyn:

Hey OP heads up, any new monster you find will have a cutscene. Will need to watch that then your friend can join. They will also need to have watched their own cutscene in their game. Dunno if this was patched since I played 3 years ago.

Thanks for the answer. The problem turned out to be that there are specific missions called expeditions that can't be done COOP (not the expeditions you do where you have no objective, story missions called expeditions). this was one of them. Like the expedition to the great ravine a few missions later.

[9Sage]

Rule of Thumb is if you can't fire an SOS, it's a solo portion of the game.

[TemplarGFX]

Originally posted by 六耳猕猴:

Rule of Thumb is if you can't fire an SOS, it's a solo portion of the game.

Hi, thanks for the response. The issue with this mission was that it let you shoot an SOS immediately after starting the mission. That SOS just never shows up for the other player.

That of course made us think it was MP capable