[Discuss] Fixing MHW after Alatreon

[Kiron Drake]

TL;DR remove the item box so that the game it not as easy. Alatreon is fine the way he is, just make Escaton judgment a massivly high damaging move instead of a OHK.


So, after playing monster hunter from Tri to World, I would like to think I have a good idea on how to manage Monster Hunter’s crazy difficulty at times. The Alatreon fight in Iceborn is fantastic. All of the elements are used (even water) the classic moves are back like the ice rain and he even has some really annoying new combos now. My least favorite of his combos is where he uses an attack that sends you flying to the ground and then he uses his fire beam on you while you are helpless. Quite annoying.

His elemental phases are a little more confusing, since the game doesn’t do a good job of explaining what element he is in at the time you start the fight unless you are used to looking for the signs. To add to the confusion, since Alatreon uses all five elements now and it looks like he is constantly shifting elements while using them, new players could be very confused about the timing expected of them. The only reason I knew about the fire mode>Dragon mode>Ice mode cycle was because I looked up information on some for the new mechanics before I started the first fight and I don’t know how many people take the time to actually do that.

His general attacks are nice easily dodged if you stay on your toes, there are plenty of opportunities to hit him one you get used to his moves. There is a huge opening whenever he does his lightning attacks, just be mindful of the electrified horns.
In a normal monster hunter fight, this would become a fight of attrition. You dodge the onslaught of vicious attacks, then you get in a few good smacks of your own. Either you run out of healing items first and he kills you, you get relly good at dodging and it becomes a fifty-fifty chance on who dies first, or you master the timings and crush alatreon like a Hornetar under your boot.

Then there is Escaton Judgment.

For the record, I think it is an amazing move and completely fits with Alatreon. There is that sense of awe and “oh sh*t” when he starts the charge up…for the first two or three times. The move is apocalyptic and visually looks amazing. I still think Safi Jivva’s Sapphire star looks better and did it first, but the audio muffling and the blurred vision from the amount of raw power Alatreon is using…perfect.

Then we run into a lot of problems. After getting carted over and over by Eschaton Judgment, I have come to the point where either I abandon the quest because I know I’m going to die and I need to keep my items, or I try to tough it out because I think I staggered him enough. This is even worse online because Alatreon is plenty good at killing players WITHOUT Judging the whole party all at once. So, after looking back at my past Alatreon fights and the past monster hunter games in a whole, I tried to find the common thread that makes this game easier and the other games much more brutal.
Here are the mechanical things that were added in MHW Base game/Iceborn that was never done in the pas
t games I have played. I will list them in order of things I find most useful to least useful.
1. Restocking everything at the base camp
2. Insane damage and stun opportunities with slinger burst attacks and Wall slams.
3. Moving while eating/drinking potions. New players have NO IDEA how much of godsend this is…
4. Easy item farming with the Steamworks
5. Melding massive amounts of items with the Elder Melder
6. Changing loadouts on the fly at camp

Out of those six, I can say that one of them is very detrimental to the game experience when compared to the adrenaline of fighting monsters in the past games.
Restocking ALL items at camp.

In a clutch moment with a monster? Pop a max or ancient potion. If you die, you can get another one.
Run out of mega potions and honey? Use a far caster and grab more…and the far caster so you can do it again!
Run out of rare ammo for a HBG or LBG that makes this monster cower? Farcaster to camp and resupply.

I do like being able to restock my items at camp and I have relied on it to resupply my mega potions when I die against a tough opponent. I would be have had a much harder time beating Shara Ishvlada if I hadn’t been able to get my healing items back quickly because that was first monster where I actually ran out.

BUT it is too easy to use as a crutch. Where is the difficulty when you can just run away to camp and just…resupply. Why bother learning how to avoid the monster and ration your healing items when you have an infinite supply of healing items and ammo? Why save that max potion for a clutch moment when it is just quicker to use when you are at half health? Why save Dragon or cluster ammo for an opening when I can just blast the monster, resupply, and do it again? Wait, I can combine ammo on the fly? Who does that?

Alatreon tried to fix this by making it impossible to use farcasters. That makes sense. Adding in a sudden death move that wipes out everyone in one go ON TOP OF being unable to escape it? That does not make sense.

Alatreon’s fight forces player to ration supplies and get good at healing on the fly, bringing honey to make more mega potions, saving those fast heal items for a critical moment, and placing you shots carefully.

THIS IS A GOOD FIGHT. This is the kind of fight that was missing in the entire monster hunter world game. It is you, a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dragon, and limited supplies. It is a cage match and only one of you is leaving.

If they were to remove Escaton Judgment from the game completely but keep the far caster ban in place, this fight would be a hell of an adrenaline rush. The dragon can cart you in five hits if you are lucky, two if you get hit by the big ones. You only have ten mega potions. Do you use one now or can you take the hit? Will you be able to make more before he kills you? Will you get enough of an opening to use the might seed now or do you need to wait? Can you dodge this attack or do you need to start healing now?

I have not fought a single monster in Iceborn that made me ask the above questions other than Alatreon. I love every second of his fight. It is intense, it is fast, it is hard, and you either get good or get carted. I don’t even mind Escaton judgment because it is basically the game saying “you should have aimed for the head” *snap*

I don’t think Capcom was thinking of the difficulty drop when they made the camp an easy resupply point. Hell, I didn’t think of it as making he game easier till I fought Alatreon. Alatreon is how the game is supposed to play, you VS the monster with LIMITED supplies. So, after raging at Alatreon and blaming capcom for making this monster so difficult, I made a list of things that could be changed to make the game harder, more fair, and make it to where there is no need for a ridiculous spike in difficulty like this one.

1) Remove the item box at camp or tweak it. Make it to where you can resupply once or twice, and limit the types of items you can get. Hell, bring back the combining books and make it to where we can only get combinable items from camp (like no more potions, just herbs that you then have to manually combine to get a potion). Make it to where you can’t get more ammo, make it to where you can’t get Max or Ancient potions. I don’t think this would be too hard to do, but I am not game developer.

2) Add a penalty to entering the tent. Something like if you enter the tent, you are barred from getting gems from the reward screen or something like that. It would suck, but that is the point. Do you get that easy resupply or do you want that chance at the gem you have been grinding for?

3) Give the base monsters MORE damage. Make it to where Great Jaggrus is a threat.

4) Give all the monsters in the game much MUCH higher resistance to ailments and status while making elemental weaknesses a key into getting that quick time. The whole blast blight issue has been a thing since Tri…

The game is fine as it is, we just make it too easy because we like to make it easy. we make it to where we find loop holes because we don’t like to work for rewards more than we think we should. The Beauty of the past monster hunter games was that you HAD to work for it, you HAD to keep an eye on your items. In the past, if I started a quest and realized I forgot an item, I had to abandon the quest. Not so in this one.

Because the item box exists at camp the way it does, the only way the game can be hard is if they make a monster like Alatreon and make it to where you can not run away to resupply. Escaton Judgment is a little much, though it does make people build either a fire or ice set.

Here is a challenge for all of you who think the item box is fine the way it is. Pick the last monster that gave you challenge, a real fight. I mean go full broke here, put on the weak ♥♥♥ armor, fight it like you did when you first fought it. Fight them like you normally would. Then, fight them again and do not use the item box at camp.

My bet is that the second fight will not be any more difficult than the first one, but you will be looking at your potions a bit closer. That added tension is what is missing from the game.

Now, Escaton Judgment can be fixed easily if we remove the item box. Instead of it being a massive OHK move that wipes the party, it is instead a very high damage move that ALMOST wipes the whole party if they are at max health. That will make it to where you must heal or risk getting carted. If you reach the elemental stagger limit, then the move does much less damage. If you grossly exceed and crush the elemental stagger limit, then the move does nothing.
THAT is how you fix judgment.

If Capcom bother reading this (they won’t) I hope they use these ideas. I love this game and it is wonderful to play solo and with friends, but not all the new things were needed.

[Kiron Drake]

Originally posted by Gen:

Camps being available in every hunt is an intentional change for modern Mon Hun to appeal to new/casual hunters. It's not a bad thing.

that may be, but the complaint i hear from a lot of people still playing the game is that it is too easy...that and i miss that rush of beating a monster with no backup plans.

Honestly Escaton judgemnt can be fixed simply by making it a very high damage almost one shot that gets weaker if you reach the threashold. that makes sense with the Farcaster ban.

[Anima]

I'll be "this guy" this time so here we go: Escaton Judgement doesn't need a rework you just need to git gud. Literally. It is beyond my mind how a dps check that i can do in the first 40 seconds of the fight seems to be impossible to do for so many people in around 6 mins.

[Waffles]

Originally posted by Kiron Drake:

Originally posted by Gen:

Camps being available in every hunt is an intentional change for modern Mon Hun to appeal to new/casual hunters. It's not a bad thing.

that may be, but the complaint i hear from a lot of people still playing the game is that it is too easy...that and i miss that rush of beating a monster with no backup plans.

Honestly Escaton judgemnt can be fixed simply by making it a very high damage almost one shot that gets weaker if you reach the threashold. that makes sense with the Farcaster ban.

Heh! I agree with you, there was some pride to be had by besting a monster with only the items in your pockets.

Personally, I believe the game is in a great state right now; easy but still holding onto the roots of Mon Hun for veterans while being accessible enough for new hunters to learn and love the series.

Let me tell ya, not all of us veterans have it easy with Alatreon, haha.

Hmmm... I can see the reasoning behind your idea. It's the same idea but executed differently in a fair way.
It wouldn't be a bad change!

[Kiron Drake]

Originally posted by Anima:

I'll be "this guy" this time so here we go: Escaton Judgement doesn't need a rework you just need to git gud. Literally. It is beyond my mind how a dps check that i can do in the first 40 seconds of the fight seems to be impossible to do for so many people in around 6 mins.

I do agree, but the general fanbase seems to be all mad about it since most of them never played a MH game in their life. i love the nuke and it is a good fight, but i like it when Capcom makes these harder boss fights. if a little over half the current community leaves because they can't 'get gud' or because they feel like this is an unfair fight, Capcom won't release more hard fights like this. If you remove the item box or nerf escaton just to the point where it kills all but the unprepared players, people will stop complaining about it and capcom can bring us more fights actually worth our time.

[Macho Chunko]

There's nothing to fix in MHW, the game will remain this way, and the next ones are probably gonna have either new mechanics or they will just keep making it even easier.

[Anima]

Originally posted by Kiron Drake:

Originally posted by Anima:

If you remove the item box or nerf escaton just to the point where it kills all but the unprepared players.

I suppose you wanted to say "all but the prepared players". And to that i wonder isn't that already the case? For those who prepared (made the right build etc.) escaton judgement is just a high damage move (as you suggested it to be) and not a KO move since they always get the damage check done. Those who didn't prepare don't get the damage check done and die.

[< blank >]

I don't care much about the tent because it's kinda reasonable. You don't bring your full equipment into the wild. If the hunter run out of items, they can only gather from the wild to craft it.

Except this...

Originally posted by Kiron Drake:

4) A much as I hated it, bring back the “stop, drink, pose” healing animation. That was part of the Difficulty in Monster Hunter Tri through Cross.

"Difficulty". Lol. Are you the kind of people who would say bad hitbox is a difficulty too?

I don't mind if you replace this with "reduced 60% healing while sprinting/reduced 40% healing while moving". It is at least a bit more realistic that you can't really drink while moving.

[JPM岩]

The last monster that gave me a challenge was lvl 140 Hyper Savage Jho in 4U. The tent is there for folks who need it. I dont, so I dont use it.

[Macho Chunko]

Originally posted by JPM岩:

The last monster that gave me a challenge was lvl 140 Hyper Savage Jho in 4U. The tent is there for folks who need it. I dont, so I dont use it.

The way i see it it's weird if the hunter couldn't resupply at the tent, makes sense than in a dangerous hunt they would bring a tent and alot of supplies and equipment with them, dunno why people think that someone would only bring like 20 potions and a single weapon on a hunt, they aren't taking a walk outside their house afterall, they travel thought the world to get to the monster they need to kill.
If someone doesn't like that they can simply not use the tent, cause even if someone starts the quests "unprepared" and with the wrong set they would simply reset the quest in 1 minute, having the tent allows you to simply change quickly if you forgot something, it's not a huge deal that somehow makes the game less challenging, the challenge comes from the hunt itself and seeing how many people always whined about monsters being too difficult throught MHW and IB even when they can resupply makes no sense to get rid of it.

[𝓇𝒾𝓃𝒶𝒶𝒶𝒶𝒶]

Learn to use paragraphs.

Mh boomers trying to ruin the future of the series with their "balance" ideas. *sigh*

[Cerberus]

Paintballs

[GunRunner89X]

Originally posted by Cerberus:

Paintballs

Loading screens between areas!

Wait...

[Kiron Drake]

Originally posted by Cerberus:

Paintballs

ha...i rmember paint ammo. good times ^.^

[Nebiros]

Originally posted by Kiron Drake:

Originally posted by Cerberus:

Paintballs

ha...i rmember paint ammo. good times ^.^

Much better than the lame-ass scoutflies, eh

[Artorias]

You are describing an Alatrean arena challenge with custom gear. Capcom could make special tickets for gear. Why not bring back gank fights from dark souls. Fight two midir at once while naked and with a dull butter knife. We can't have players actually beat the event. Only five people in the world should be skillful enough to complete the challenge and flaunt their weird armor to the pathetic plebians who are beneath them..... /s