Monster Hunter World!!!!!

Actually it does. Sometimes. I’ve never been entirely able to work that one out - anyone else know how it works?

The food system is a bit complicated… There are three dimensions:

  • Freshness (the checkmark). Fresh ingredients give +10 max HP.
  • Type (i.e. the tabs). If you have 2/4/6 of meat/fish/vegetable you get small/medium/large bonuses to attack/defense/resistance stats.
  • Skills (i.e. the rows). The more ingredients you have from the same skill category (but possibly different tabs), the more powerful a food skill you’re eligible for.

So… The ingredients you unlock always show up in the main canteen, with a random selection of them being fresh. The camp will have a random subset of what’s in the main canteen. As you unlock more ingredients and upgrade the canteen, it becomes very unlikely you can’t get +50 health and some decent stat bonus even when eating at the camp.

That cat has had a yellow exclamation mark above it’s head the entire game and I’ve never figured out how to get his quests.

All you should have to do is talk to him.

Also, that’s enlightening @jsnell, thanks.

Walk behind the counter.

And when you talk to them, do them! People are doing them all the time. It has a few of the most annoying quests though… stupid eggs.

He had about 10 quests for me.

I couldn’t end on a sour note so I pressed on. Diablos was a good intense fight. I’ll probably farm once or twice so I can build a Charge Blade out of him and then do this big story quest.

DMC5 is still 3 weeks away so maybe I’ll keep playing into high rank.

There’s a glimmer of hope here.

I went to farm Diablos on an expedition and I kept fainting because my health was the size of a postage stamp again. Finally he just fucked off and left, which was annoying, but not rage-inducing. I returned to the wastes and didn’t see him on my map so I figured I’d have to restart. But I ran around for a bit and smacked the hell out of a Kulu-Ya-Ku, then started fighting a Rathian.

After a fighting him in a few areas, a Diablos suddenly bursts out of the ground to dramatic effect. I went through a long fight with him and I noticed I was hardly getting hit by his attacks. I had the rhythm down at this point. I finally brought him down and got the Diablos Fang I was looking for to complete the Diablos Charge Blade I plan to use after this last story fight.

I really liked fighting multiple monsters on a single expedition. It’s a good warmup and gives me a little satisfaction before I dive into the grind on the top tier monster I’m hunting.

There are quite a few investigations that actually require multiple monster hunting, if that’s your thing. They tend to be quite generous with the extra rewards, too.

For my part, I went back to try and farm Nergi (after having beaten him in the story mission) and firmly got knocked on my ass. I’m still trying to parse why, really. I’m better equipped than I was the first time I took him on, so I’m a bit baffled. Bad luck? Size variation? Or maybe just a lack of adequate caution/patience. Or hell, maybe TimJames is on to something that’s an issue for me too and it’s a lack of warm-up

This game is a roller coaster.

Just when I felt like I was getting into it again, I took on the “Redefining the Power Couple” optional quest to fight a Rathian and a Rathalos. It took me 10 minutes to catch up with one of them because they kept flying everywhere. Then it was back to nonstop knockdown, stun, poison, and burning. All my flash pods missed, and I only got 3 of them. I wanted to rage quit but alt-F4 doesn’t even work.

I feel like I need to invest enough time to make the right build and learn the enemy attacks to avoid all this frustration, when all I really want to do is smack the hell out of easy monsters in a game like this. My internal expectations aren’t set to be annoyed like they would be for a platformer or beat 'em up, where it wouldn’t bother me because I’m mentally prepared. I’m at a crossroads where I have to decide to accept it or quit.

I’m also bothered by a random YouTube video I watched where the guy said the enemy AI reads your buttons to avoid damage or knock you down at the last second. Assuming that’s true it makes total sense, and I understand why they have to do that. It just adds insult to injury.

Maybe it’s just this quest. I’ll definitely skip it!

What YouTube is this?

I saw that one and I don’t think it’s quite true, though it feels true when you miss a Super Amped Element Discharge. ;)

And I guess I finally found my main weapon. After much soul searching and hundreds of monsters, it seems the weapon I’m most efficient and productive with (and one of the most fun to play with) is… the Switch Axe. Go figure. I’m having a blast.

Oh yeah!

Take flash bugs with you, you can craft more in the field.

This strikes me as being similar to all those “OMG XCOM RNG cheats!” claims. People get frustrated and would rather blame the game than random chance.

On my first or second high rank mission I ran into Bazelgeuse. I was under the impression that was the ??? monster I was hunting.

I thought the game was crazy to expect me to be able to kill that thing!

I started carrying Dung pods just for him.

Hah, just wait until you get to the HR 29 cap. ;)

Also, relevant:

Dung pods have so very many uses - they let you pick where you fight a monster by forcibly moving them from zone to zone.

Ironically, they’re not nearly as good at moving the ol’ B52 around, because something about his territorial logic lets him turn around much faster than other monsters. He’s specifically attracted to roars, and since most monsters won’t shut up when you’re fighting them…

Fantastic! Needs Deviljho though.

The roller coaster is shooting up again. I did some main quests that were a lot easier than that side quest. I really screwed up not keeping a good balance between the two.

I’m really enjoying the Charge Blade. It’s so cute that it has the same charge attack as Sword & Shield that I liked. My only complaint (aside from monsters moving out of the way of my discharge attack) is the lock-on camera tends to make that last hit somewhat unsatisfying. Usually the only thing I see is a lot of high damage numbers.

Maybe I’ll try playing unlocked.

Never ever play locked in MHW.