monster-musings

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Outlanders has proved to me that I'm not opposed to the idea of an Monster Hunter survival game, I just don't want that.

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I have a lot of thoughts on the charm system in Wilds. After looking at the possible combinations for them, I have a slight idea of what I want for a charm, but it seems like it'll be very hard to snipe for them.

The main bottleneck seems to be finding 9 stars to actually hunt - I'm HR 400 and it's still hit or miss - at least without resting constantly or hoping randoms are strong enough to SOS into. It would help tremendously if charms were backported as rewards for lower level monsters, either as occasional main rewards or as bonus rewards like in old gen. Speaking of which, I miss when charms were minable - that'd also be a welcome change; it'd allow for charm gathering in the downtime between hunts.

I know it sounds like I'm asking for a lot, but really I'm just asking for some parity with previous MH titles. Something as important as a player's RNG charm isn't something that should be tucked away behind the highest eschalon of endgame - it should be something the player gains access to early so that they have enough time throughout their progression to come across valuable charms.

There's also the issue that found charms are not much stronger than craftable ones, particularly with Group 10 skills (Adrenaline Rush, Agitator, Wexploit, etc) but that's basically a whole other post.

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Been working on flagship art to sell as stickers, I just finished the Zinogre, so I thought I'd show off the bunch so far.

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My big hope for Stories 3 is all the QoL improvements from 2 and also the restoration of the monstie element swap system from 1. It was such a weird omission from 2, and I still can't wrap my head around it. It's partially implemented but effectively not because of how monstie element stats scale.

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REMEMBER

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- MonsterHunter -

By SOUD

** Permission was granted by the artist to share this image.

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MHST3?! A new Velocidrome model?!!!

This is the first time we're getting an official iteration on baby's first boss since Velociprey got the mysteriously high quality redesign for Sunbreak and *squints* the Exoprimal collab. I've been saying since the redesign dropped, that it was a portend Velocidrome would show up in 6th gen - though I didn't imagine it would be in a spin off first!

I am definitely anticipating it for the Wilds expansion now.

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Sick of this guy

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monster hunter is a metaphor for life. you need to protect yourself, slow down, and try to understand the things around you. blindly lashing out will only get you hurt. your cat is an invaluable and steadfast ally. honey makes everything better. when you least expect it there's a giant hungry pickle that wants nothing more than to annihilate you with its pickle beam. always remember to eat.

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I did the unthinkable and put together a video that is not MH related, but it is comprised of clips I've amassed playing other games with friends. Video under the cut.

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Shoutout to all the folks with masc hunters baby-slutting it up in the Caravaneers jacket, it's what he would've wanted.

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I Am Going To Need A Fucking Miracle, 2024

Digital acrylic on canvas

Immortalizing a lucky hunter's fateful moment versus the G Rank Hyper Plesioth hip check.

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Deez rex or whatever it's called.

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Happy Title Update 2 everyone, live commentary under the cut.

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getting mad enough at video games that i have to stop playing and make a chart

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Endless discourse on difficulty aside, my major complaint about Wilds is just how boring set building is. Most damage skills on armor are some combination of inconsistent and overly expensive, and it doesn't help most traditionally decent skills are locked to weapon slots where they have to compete ceaselessly with one another to the point where people don't run certain skills at all. It's even more infuriating to engage with especially since these limitations feel like they're in place just to be lifted in the inevitable expansion.

Even if you want to commit to stacking the less consistent skills, their slot cost and breakpoints are such that you can only manage 2 or 3 of them, and it requires the dedicated use of your talisman at that point because armor skills don't have leveled decorations like weapon slots do, which causes even more headaches.

And then there are Artian weapons, which are their own circle of hell that aren't worth dealing with as an end game. They barely stack up against craftable weapons; their one merit being that they might barely outperform craftable weapons in stats, but only if they're rolled optimally, which the player has zero control over. The highest tier of Artian weapon comes with maxed decoration slots, but the inability for them to have weapon skill points like craftable weapons defeats most of the benefit this brings, and doesn't do much to help how limited weapons skills are.

Set building in older titles is a highly rewarding and expressive puzzle game, in Wilds it's just a chore and metered in such a way that there's almost no meaningful player expression.

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I think the funnier thing about YouTube moderation vs Twitch is that a Twitch chat ban is broadcasted to the whole of chat and the offending party, but a YouTube comment ban isn't; bad actors get the trigger pulled on them and they're none the wiser, just continually screaming into a hole where no one else can see them. With Twitch it offers some opportunity for self reflection, but in YouTube's case it mostly speaks to Google's corporate dystopia on breeding conflict and controversy, but that's also kinda beautiful?