Is using the Defender Armor considered cheating?

[GameDotExe]

Hey, I know I got you in here with that click bait title but I need your help.

My friend was looking to get into a new game and I jumped at the chance to get them into MH:W. I had stopped playing after Iceborne and completely missed that they added in Defender Armor with 50 defense right off the bat compared to the starter sets with 2 defense. My friend is pretty dug in to use this armor but I think it will ruin a first play through experience.

The problem for me is.. I don't know if this actually bad. From my perspective it robs you of a MH experience. In the first missions they do not seem take stamina, health, or dodging seriously because everything just tickles. This is their first MH:W experience so maybe those who did the same are encouraged to weigh in. I also feel that by not needing armor for low and high content it removes a good chunk of the reason you hunt monsters.. to upgrade gear.

Did the Defender Armor ruin the game for you or was it OK? Is it cheating?

[Trehek]

One of the things I love about Monster Hunter's upgrade system is that it keeps giving you short term goals. You find that you want a specific upgrade, you need materials for it, you go kill monsters for them. Then you move on to the next thing. You always have something to do. Defender gear does mostly skip through this since it provides a simple upgrade path with only few simple materials required. With defender gear you're simply killing monsters to progress the game, not for what they'll give you. That said, I think using or not using it depends on what you want from the game.

Defender armor is in my opinion the slightly lesser evil. It starts at ludicrous defense, comparable to armor you get at the beginning of high rank, and with strong survivability skills. It basically gives you an easier time in low rank and skips all the low rank gear. In high rank, you can begin to upgrade it along with other high rank gear and remains fairly strong throughout. However, it won't be the best option if you want a more offensive and/or weapon specific setup, and later enemies such as elder dragons will make you switch gears to tackle their mechanics.

Defender weapons are IMO the worse offender. Thanks to their upgrade path, they remain the strongest weapon through pretty much all of low/high rank (higher attack rating, very high blast attack), You won't need to touch the weapon upgrade tree at all until you enter the DLC and master rank.

For a player completely new to Monster Hunter, I would strongly advise against using defender gear. Using normal gear and needing to craft stuff in the upgrade trees is a much more natural progression, gives you more to do and subsequently gives you more time to get good before running into the difficult ranks. The game will become a challenge earlier, but that in turn teaches you to use all the options available to you, including your weapon's moveset, weapon elements, tools and consumables.

For a player who's played a Monster Hunter game before or who is mostly in it for the story, defender gear is an easier choice. You get through the game faster and get to tackle the master rank challenges of Iceborne. Tempered and arch tempered elders of high rank will also still be a challenge with early master rank gear.

[Mr. September]

Depends on your perspective.

If you think developers can add cheats into the game in the form of gear, yes. I think that way, so it is cheating. It's added to let you skip the base game almost in its entirety, which circumvents the intended experience and game loop. So, it's cheating by those standards. Not only that, it's also self-sabotage on top of it.

Other than the cheating topic, there are other extremely important points. Using the gear will make a player learn the game wrong and have warped expectations. It's a game about gradual, small power increases. A lot of grinding is necessary to have optimized builds. If anyone uses the skip gear in their first playthrough, they will think that the experience is a casual and smooth-sailing one. In reality, it's farming on top of more farming to get better at hunting.

The game loop consists of "hunt lesser crap, make stuff out of it and hunt larger crap" while getting stronger gradually". Most of the "power" you can acquire in the game comes from your personal skill and game knowledge, instead of your gear. Sure, you can unga bunga your way through some content by using a good build even if you suck, but it's a matter of time before you hit the wall and wonder "why is this game so hard now?".

TL;DR: I strongly advise against using the Defender weapons and Guardian armor pieces. It will make a new player get bad habits, and they will eventually hit a wall when the effectiveness of the gear fades in the endgame. It won't ruin the initial experience, but it will ruin the endgame for them due to false expectations.

PS: You can permanently remove the Guardian armor pieces with a save editor. Another mod also sets all the stats really low to make Defender weapons and Guardian armor useless. If your friend has low impulse control, those mods could help a bunch by removing the objects of temptation.

You can find both of them in the guide below. Search for "Nerf Defender Armor and Weapons (to the ground)". The save editor has its own section.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2359218616

[Kackstift]

defender gear is to speed up the vanilla content so you dont need to farm low or high Monster for gear and weapons.
It is your choice to use it or not.
I played the vanilla game 3 times normal from 1-99 Rank..
All my other playthrough i used the defender gear because i dont want to mod(cheat) to get to the trivial part of the game with less time wasted.

[Astrallight]

They dont give you the true MH experince. Also it makes alot of players bad cause they got carried for too long.

[n_three]

Honestly i wanna say yes and no. The defender wep and armor is meant for players to rush thru the main game so they can get to the DLC content. In master rank, you will be fighting the same monsters, with additional dlc monsters. After beating the main story and optional quests (without using defender), I clocked in about 100 hours.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by 🔱S7Y:

Why would optional gear ruin the game? If people have little to no self control to avoid using blatant op gear that's their problem.

The problem is the implementation. The game pushes defender gear on the player as the default option, giving the impression that that's the way the game is meant to be played.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by 🔱S7Y:

Originally posted by Tresh:

The problem is the implementation. The game pushes defender gear on the player as the default option, giving the impression that that's the way the game is meant to be played.

There's an in-game popup that lets players know what the defender gear is for speed running their way to Iceborne.

And most players will just see "Defender gear is recommended", which is something that that popup says, and run with that. Also, it not even being sellable further suggests you're supposed to use it.

[Mr. September]

Originally posted by 🔱S7Y:

Originally posted by Tresh:

The problem is the implementation. The game pushes defender gear on the player as the default option, giving the impression that that's the way the game is meant to be played.

There's an in-game popup that lets players know what the defender gear is for speed running their way to Iceborne.

You are expecting the average "gamer" to actually read that?

I admire your optimism and faith in strangers. I can only hope you have the same or greater amount of faith in yourself.

[815|Shouldabeen]

I was playing on PS4 at the time Iceborne and defender weapons/armor was released. It created a pretty large uproar in the community at the time because it was fast tracking people to the late game without them learning how to hunt. And in multiplayer, it was very obvious who used defender gear to get to the later portions of the game. You would have people triple cart in the first few minutes of the hunt and just all around tank attacks that are very avoidable.

If you are not a veteran of the series, or a returning to world from a break, I'd highly advise not using the defender gear. Monsters are more forgiving in low and high rank, so you can learn how to play. If you breeze past that portion of the game, you're going to make it very difficult when you hit master rank.

Also, for a new player, all content is new content. There's no rush to get to the endgame. Enjoy the journey. And happy hunting

[Thiccolas Cage]

I used it for a little while but it felt too easy, but mainly it just didn't look as good. The art in this game is incredible, and it's well worth farming gear and weapons because A) they look amazing, and B) it's really fun to research a monster and put together an armour/weapon set that will take it down quicker (which is the very root of the game).

But yeah, it's fine to wear Defender gear. The game is still fun. You just won't look as good!

[IxianMace]

It's cheating, yes. When I looked at the stats for the Defender gear and compared it to the regular gear, I avoided it like the plague as a new player because I knew it was going to ruin my experience as a hunter due to being overpowered compared to the things you had to hunt for and craft. I had my share of difficulties and frustrations while fighting certain monsters, but it was worth it.

[Mr. September]

Originally posted by IxianMace:

I had my share of difficulties and frustrations while fighting certain monsters, but it was worth it.

W take.

[GloomEater]

How's it cheating? It's there to get you to Iceborne quicker to where the endgame is. Unless your friend is reaaaally into the game, I would not risk the burnout just to play vanilla. Makes no sense as well considering you'll have to inevitability discard the defender armor and weapons in Iceborne and actually grind. So either way, the Monster Hunter experience will still happen. Just make sure they attempt to dodge attacks instead of tanking them and they'll be good by time ya'll hit Iceborne.

[Mr. September]

Originally posted by GloomEater:

How's it cheating? It's there to get you to Iceborne quicker to where the endgame is. Unless your friend is reaaaally into the game, I would not risk the burnout just to play vanilla. Makes no sense as well considering you'll have to inevitability discard the defender armor and weapons in Iceborne and actually grind. So either way, the Monster Hunter experience will still happen. Just make sure they attempt to dodge attacks instead of tanking them and they'll be good by time ya'll hit Iceborne.

It's not exactly "cheating", but it also isn't "not cheating". Disregarding the dilemma, at least I'm positive most of us can agree on the fact that it's an egregious design choice no matter how you look at it. What sort of developer adds a way to skip half of their game? Would you be fine with adding such a thing in your own game, if you spent thousands of hours working on it? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want that myself. My hard work being squandered to supposedly sell more expansions? The mere thought is infuriating.

Half of the "content" people are chasing is already in front of them in the base game. Rushing past everything to "get to the endgame" will only net them half of the intended experience. The intended experience being "working your way up the ranks gradually". This isn't an MMO where the good content is at the ass-end of the game. The journey itself is the destination in MH titles, if you learn and/or know how to enjoy it. In order to get there and actually tackle harder challenges, you have to go through the training first. To learn to succeed, you must first learn to fail.

Just because you will eventually discard everything and only use specific endgame armor sets doesn't mean you can't have fun theorycrafting builds in the base game or in early Iceborne. I hunted each monster half a dozen times and just messed around at my own pace. Sure, maybe not everyone has that sort of spare time. Even then, it's not a good idea to water down the experience. The struggle itself toward the heights is more fulfilling than getting to the summit.

As far as I can see, your mindset boils down to "Why should I bother working for something if I eventually have to let go of it?" mixed with "The journey to a destination is meaningless as long as you get there". Well, boss... Newsflash. We don't live forever. I'm sure you catch my drift. We'll eventually get there, so make it count instead of troubling yourself with these hard and brittle thoughts that lack vision. I don't expect you (nor am I trying) to change your mind, but at least try to understand what I'm saying.

PS: Most of the "power" you get comes from your personal skill and knowledge of the game's mechanics. Gear comes after those two. You can use suboptimal gear or even barebones builds and still perform well, given that you learned and practiced. On the other hand, you can use the best gear you can get your hands on and still do the bog standard mistakes you used to do at the start.

It's like how a master with a wooden sword can hurt you way more than a rookie with a real sword. The rookie has no idea how to use his weapon, while the master can most likely kill someone easily with what is basically a wooden stick with a rough edge. The Defender weapons are like giving a real sword to a rookie and expecting him to perform well. At first, he really does, but as the training ramps up, he starts to struggle REALLY hard. Eventually, since he never got basic training, he gives up.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

Defender gear and Guardian gear rob you of the actual experience in a moronic attempt to get you to rush through the game with an hidden easy mode to sell you Iceborne faster.

I call it moronic because I seriously doubt many new players would want to buy Iceborne after such an easy and boring experience as playing with those gears make the base game be like.