Monster Hunter: World Tips and Advice (Monday Musings 33)

Now that I have beaten the game, World is definitely my favorite Monster Hunter and I wanted to give general advice on how to fully appreciate this masterpiece.

You don't need specific advice to enjoy and beat the game, because there are no missable trophies and you simply can't make mistakes in this game. You may feel you might have wasted materials, but you can always farm more, and the game gives you so many chances of getting even the most rare items, that if oops, I used up Rathalos Ruby on the wrong equipment (I actually got one finally as a drop!), you can actually buy one now!

That being said, I agree you shouldn't willy-nilly upgrade rare equipment (common equipment is fine because it's easy to get these mats) because the farming is real, so in these situations, do look up on the internet what the strongest armors, skills and weapons are for your weapon type as you upgrade.

First Advice
The most important advice is to try all the weapons in the training room, even ones that you think you won't like. You do that by going to your room on the first floor (Trading Yard), to the right of the elevator lift and talk to the cat housekeeper, then chose Training Room.

As with all Monster Hunter games, there are weapon tier lists, which I would completely ignore, as every single weapon is absolutely viable. The temptation is to use the S-tier weapons, which are considered the dual blades and long sword from one list, but why?

I can understand wanting the most powerful weapon if this is PvP, but this is a single-player and COOP game. If you don't find these weapons fun, what's the point of playing the game?

If you love more than 1 weapon, definitely use ALL the weapons that you're interested in, or even vaguely interested in and find interesting. The concern I see floating around the internet is that it will be a lot of grinding to make more than one line of weapons.

However, at the very beginning, you're given ALL the weapons (Ore Tree) so you can try them all out, and even un-upgraded, they're all viable for quite a few story missions. Therefore, just use the starting weapons for the first few story missions. At least up to the third upgrade, it doesn't take much grinding to get enough materials to upgrade all the ones you like along the ore tree path, as these materials are common.

Now, as you go higher, some of the materials are hard to get, and will require a lot of farming, but you can take your time upgrading your secondary weapons. It's not like you MUST get the maxed out Nergigante (Ore Tree) and Diablos (Bone Tree) line immediately of all your weapon types. Work on upgrading your main one first, and then your other ones later.

Further, a lot of the weapons along the ore tree are considered the strongest up through the Nergigante line, so it's not going to be a waste of materials, since you're investing in a very strong weapon line. Furthermore, if you need materials, you can "roll-back" the upgrade and get materials back, up to a certain point. The smithy gives you a warning when you can't roll-back so pay attention before you commit.

In conclusion, you can use ALL of your interested and favorite base starting weapons at least on the low-rank, easier monsters, maining and upgrading your favorite, and then come back and upgrade the others down the road.

So, even as you find just one weapon that "clicks" I would still experiment with other ones as you move up the ranks. For instance, I loved the hammer out of all the ones I tried, but I needed a severing weapon to cut off tails since blunt weapons such as the hammer and hunting horn can't do that. I tried out the long sword and the Switch Axe, and settled on the Switch Axe due to how it feels. Both are equally great at cutting off tails.

However, since Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, I've always wanted to try out the Charge Blade (CB) and Insect Glaive (IG) because I fell into the trap of wanting to main the S-tier weapons, which were considered CB and IG for that edition. I simply didn't understand the CB, and I really can't aim at specific parts of monsters with the IG. Therefore, when I used the IG, I wasn't effective because you really need to get at least the red essence to increase your attack power.

After finishing the game maining Hammer and secondary Switch Axe, I decided that once and for all, I really want to understand the CB and when I stuck with it, I fell in love with this weapon. I find Gaijin Hunter's tutorials the best. He hasn't yet done a tutorial of the CB for World, but I watched his ultimate MH4U CB tutorial, which has almost similar move-sets as World and he goes through every single move precisely. He explains each step clearly and slowly so you can follow what's going on, and you can try these moves in the training room while watching his tutorials.

Now that I have some mild success with CB, I'm going to revisit IG, the lances, the hunting horn (another weapon that I always wanted to master) and the ranged weapons!

So I strongly agree that if you love a lot of the weapons, try them all out! You get the base forms of all of them so at least you can use them on the low rank, easy monsters, and slowly upgrade them from there, rolling back mats if you feel you need them.

On the flip side, do NOT main the weapons that you don't like even if they're S-tier weapons! So if you don't like the dual blades and long sword, don't use them!

Second Advice
The second advice as with all great games is to truly savor the game, and not worry whether you're good or not. I was taken aback when one of my PSN gaming buddies was struggling against Anjanath and was about to quit. He wrote that he didn't understand the game so of course, being an evangelist, I gave him basic advice and he agreed to stick with it, and give it a second chance as this is his first ever Monster Hunter game. The key here is this is his first ever Monster Hunter so we don't expect him to be a pro like Arekkz Gaming or Gaijin Hunter, which is a ridiculous expectation.

A few days pass by, and he wrote me and was in the HR50's! I was floored because this was someone who was about to quit but he achieved way more than me at that time!

I'm sorry, if you get to that rank, you have to be good at the game because there are monsters that are walls, such as Anjanath, Diablos and Nergigante, that you can't just level up and tank through. For each point in the game, you can max out your weapons, armors, and charms/gems only so far, as you have to open up upgrades through story missions, so you're blocked from raising your attack and defense power. But as you practice and recognize attack patterns, despite having the same stats, you can defeat them.

However, after he told me that he beat the game and was very highly ranked, he then said he sucked at the game despite this being his first Monster Hunter game. He mentioned that he must be awful since he's seen people take down monsters in well under 5 minutes, but it takes him 15 to 20 minutes to kill hard monsters. He said he was bad due to "slow kills" despite the fact that he was maining the long sword, the light bowgun and now the insect glaive. So he has mastered ranged and melee weapons!

Of course I wrote him back and said he was excellent at the game, and that in order to get to 3 mins and under, every swipe of your weapon has to hit the monster with absolutely no wasted movements, and fully optimized gear.

The point of this is that even a first-time Monster Hunter sees the fetish of needing to kill monsters as quickly as possible, so this goes to my second advice. Who cares, unless you're going to join Capcom's upcoming competition of fastest arena kills? Most hunts you get a full 50 minutes, so why not enjoy the environment, farming resources along the way, and take time killing the monster? With the gorgeous, living environment (except for the intentionally grotesque Rotten Vale), why not stop and smell the roses?

In fact, this is the problem I'm facing as a CB user, with this fastest kills culture of Monster Hunter. I also feel this pressure to kill monsters as quickly as possible even SOLO, so I fixate on this ultimate move, and keep missing as a result due to its long animation, because I don't wait for the most opportune moment.

Further, with this need to kill monsters as fast as possible, I try to charge my shield and sword immediately, even if the charging doesn't attack the monster at the same time. To be technically good at CB, you have to time your moves precisely, but with the pressure of destroying monsters quickly, I'm developing bad habits.

In fact, I feel the panic of charging the shield and sword as quickly as possible, that I would sometimes forget the initial R2+Circle (RT+B) to put the energy into the phials first. For instance, I would collect up to the red phials, but then straight out charging the shield and wonder, why the shield didn't charge? Well, that's because in my rush to kill the monsters fast, I didn't put the energy into the phials first, before charging, missing basic steps!

So I'm going to follow my own advice and slow down, and perform the movements at the best times, even more necessary in COOP play as you don't want to trip your hunting buddies!

Furthermore, as you get better and better at using your weapons and knowing the monster attack patterns, you're going to kill the monsters faster.

TL/DR: Experiment and enjoy all weapons that you find interesting, and don't worry about killing monsters fast! 

The How of Happiness Review

My Favorite Types of Games (Monday Musings 32)

My feline video game buddy, Niki, passed away on Thursday, February 8. I haven't gotten around to writing about her but I will do so when I start feeling better. I miss her terribly.

Since she's always sitting next to me while playing video games (I would say Niki is a true gamer!), I've been thinking about what kinds of games we've played together, and why these games appealed to us since we write reviews of games from time to time (Niki is my fictional guest writer N.C., Esq).

I wrote this piece about what you should look for in video game critics, and the one criterion is whether you have the same taste as the critic, so I think my readers should know what games I tend to like. 

Looking through my top 10 games, I tend to like games that have extensive leveling up system where you can min/max stats. I find it refreshing when I'm struggling at the beginning of the game, due to low levels, weak armor and weapons, and then becoming overpowered. This explains why RPGs tend to be my favorite genre because of the challenge of leveling up and continual improvement.

This is not to say that other genres don't feature improvement and mastery, far from it. FPS and Platformer games are extremely challenging, and you can improve steadily through practice, such as being able to kill enemies faster, using less resources (i.e. making only headshots).

Since I'm a relatively new gamer, I appreciate being able to level up my character so I can face a difficult part of the game and succeed. If I keep failing, I can always improve my levels, weapons and/or armors to win. Whereas with shooters and platformers, you simply fail if you can't shoot your way out or make that jump. You can't just level up your character and grind your way through, you either have to make those shots or jumps, or fail.

Gameplay also is very crucial so a lot of games that I love have complex and deep combat mechanics. Even though the Dark Souls series doesn't have the complex button sequences of action-adventure games such as Bayonetta and God Of War, you have to be good at understanding the attack patterns, knowing when to dodge and attack, you can't just button mash.

What elevates an RPG above the rest is the level design, because even though you may have really incredible combat mechanics, if you have a level design where you're just going straight from point A to point B, it gets very boring.

I love games that have an overworld that's like a puzzle such as the Souls series, and dungeons with puzzles such as Legend of Zelda and Wild Arms 3. I was so impressed with Wild Arms 3 because of the strategy needed in it's turn-based mechanics, but also because of the dungeons having sophisticated level design where you have to use various gadgets and manipulate the environment to get around, much like Zelda pre-Breath of the Wild.

In addition to level design, variety of enemies and different attack patterns are a must. Even though Tales of Berseria has a wide variety of monsters, the way they attack didn't affect gameplay as much. You have to dodge from time to time, but the gameplay revolved around building up combinations.

I found that building up combinations was addictive and fun, especially the rush of power and feel of Velvet's Consuming Claw. Albeit, the bosses in Berseria all have very different attack patterns. So Berseria was the one game where attack patterns aren't so important, but nevertheless the game is one of my favorites.

I think story and character development are also crucial. The game doesn't have to be a Thomas Mann-level of masterpiece, but at least have some story and psychology into the character. Tales of Berseria is one of my favorite games because of the story and focus on characters, to the point where you're interested in what's going on with every single party member, and you seek out their story lines in form of quests.

Ori and the Blind Forest is one of the few platform games that I love because of the story and characters. Ori's platforming is pinpoint precise and fun due to its challenging nature, but such is the case with so many other platformers. Why I love it and not care about all the other great platformers is the presentation, story and characters in Ori that are lacking in Mario and the Rayman series.

Here's a list of my favorite games in alphabetical order: Chrono Trigger, Eternal Sonata, Final Fantasy VII, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Kingdom Hearts series, Persona franchise, Monster Hunter franchise, SoulsBorne series (duh!), Tales of Berseria, and Wild Arms 3.

Games rounding the top 10 in alphabetical order are: Fortnite, Gravity Rush series, Ori and the Blind Forest, Valkyria Chronicles Remastered, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana.

TL/DR: My favorite games tend to be ones that have a great story and characters, deep gameplay mechanics (such as Dark Souls and the Monster Hunter series), strong leveling system where you can build your characters, weapons and armor, and complex, puzzle-like level designs.

What features do your favorite games have?

The How of Happiness Review

Fortnite Progress as a Ninja and Tips (Monday Musings 31)

Dragon Scorch is Derpy but can kill 50 husks in 1 swipe

I'm almost at Twine, which is the last area of the game, as a Dragon Ninja, having finished all the Canny Missions except for the Storm Shield Defense and the launch mission to Twine. I have also done a couple of missions in very early Twine (level 76), and Ninjas, contrary to what's written on the internet, are viable through early Twine.

I wondered if I was only able to accomplish this because I have a great group of friends on delinquentMuse's Discord (this is her Twitch site) who carried me through. Note: when she is streaming live, type !Discord in chat and you'll get her Discord link. She has a Fortnite room where we get together to assemble parties, offer advice and support.

Indeed, all the missions I have done with them, I can easily be away from the keyboard and win. In fact, there were quite a few missions where my friends completed the objective as I went around the map to find various objects (i.e., fire trucks, gnomes, televisions) for daily rewards. Because of this, the best advice I can give anyone starting out in Fortnite is finding a group of helpful friends. But of course, to keep your friends, don't mooch unless you have an understanding that you're there to find your or their daily rewards, or you're there just to farm, through the in-game text chat.

I got lucky as I already had a team before playing Fortnite because of delinquentMuse, but for those who don't, the good news is that all classes are more than viable in the starting area of Stonewood so you can work with any group. Further, Stonewood is pretty active so it's unlikely you'll end up by yourself.

So, whatever class you play, if you meet anyone in-game who's been helpful and friendly, at the end of the mission, you can invite the person to be your friend. I would recommend doing that aggressively.

Then, as you get to harder levels, you can invite your friends through "Party Finder" in the options section where you tweak your settings. Since some may be in a mission, or a bug may prevent you from joining one of your friends, if you have enough of a large list, at least one of your friends might join.

That being said, can I truly say Ninja is viable for me if I can still win missions even if I contribute absolutely nothing on Muse's team? I'm not sure. Therefore, I decided to play quite a few level 70 missions with strangers when my friends weren't around. The biggest test was a level 70 "Deliver the Bomb" mission and only one stranger was on my team, a soldier. I think he was the Halloween variant of Urban Assault, Skull Jonesy, and was only mid 30's. He actually commented that he may be too low a level as he got into the mission using the "Plays with Others" mission, where there's a quick game option allowing you to enter any mission, regardless of level. As a level 30, you will get 1hko in a level 70 mission very easily.

This was an issue because thus far, it was my friends who knew how to build and put down perfectly placed trap halls, and I reinforced, placed traps (since it's obvious where to put them when my friends make the frame of the trap hall), brought materials.

Further, with only one person on the team, your stats aren't boosted as much compared to when you have a full team. Because of this, I decided to be very aggressive about traps, and put down two trap halls, almost missing the South side until my team-mate mentioned a storm there, and was surprised that he only died once because of the traps. At the same time, he was very skilled.

I was covering the North side, which had the well-placed traps and was quite pleased that all the husks went through the hall and I just dragon slashed the remaining almost dead ones that were making their way through. The mission was going very well.

However, as for my team mate, when I saw him go down (there's a menu status of your team mate's health) covering the South side (which had the less well thought out trap hall), I went over to revive him and we switched sides. He didn't die after that. As for the South side, only a few husks went around the trap hall, which were very easy to take care of as a Dragon level 74 Ninja. The mission was very successful.

Because the storm doesn't change direction in "Deliver the Bomb" missions, placing traps is more predictable. Even so, this goes to show you that building and trap placement can make your mission smooth even as a Ninja.

In Stonewood, the first part of the game, you don't need traps, but once you start in Plankerton, my biggest advice is to take the initiative (even though it costs a lot of resources and farming time) to build and place traps yourself so you can see what works and what doesn't. Or watch (and reinforce) a team mate if you notice that she really knows how to build to perfection and pick up tips that way. The good news is that Plankerton and even mid-Canny are very forgiving so you can experiment with traps. You will get tons of experience with all the Plankerton and Canny mission requirements so you'll become good at building and trap placement if you're pro-active.

Allegedly, in Twine, traps aren't effective per the internet, but this video shows that traps are actually quite effective. Jump to around 10 mins and 30 seconds for the game play. Although Rage Brothers swears a lot, he gives excellent advice. He's actually below level (level 90) for this level 94 mission.

I think the next tip as a Dragon Ninja is not that important, as my friend who mains Ninja was doing quite well as a level 50-ish in level 70 missions, but he has exceptional gaming skills.

But, to make it easier as a Ninja, here are the best ways to boost your stats. That post was specifically for the Dragon Ninja, but if you main another hero, the general advice of maximizing your main and supporting heroes as much as possible holds true. Then, you must focus on building up your survivors.

I was very aggressive with the FORT squad, so whenever I see the fun and easy "Build the Radar" missions that reward evolve materials or survivor experience, I milk them for all its worth, so I can build up my FORT squad stats, focusing on Tech, Offense and Resistance. Again, I use my "Jack of all Trades, Master of Everything" grind strategy where I'm extremely strong in all important stats, which was necessary for me as a relatively new gamer.

TL/DR: The two biggest tips are making helpful friends and learning how to build well.

If you made it to late-game Fortnite what other things did you find helpful?

The How of Happiness Review

Fortnite Reflects Reality (Monday Musings 30)

Everyone has grown up with the belief that if you work hard in life, you can succeed. This is

The Ever-Elusive MG Ramirez

such a nice and comforting idea, but unfortunately doesn't hold true. There are tons of people who work multiple jobs who can't get ahead because they're living paycheck to paycheck, just working to survive.

So a lot of people can't "better" themselves as insensitive people argue, because how can you afford AND spend the time studying, attending College classes when you're working 80 hours/week and often have children to take care of? Whereas there are a lot of people who are simply born into wealth.

This is where Fortnite might be one of the most realistic games on the market. You can spend as much time and effort completing missions to earn your v-bucks (or even your hard earned cash--don't do it!) to buy pinatas called Llamas, which give out randomized loot. Llamas are the only way to get the best and most exciting items, which are the mythic heroes and mythic lead survivors. Through the RNG process, you can play this game for years straight and if you have bad enough luck, you may never get a mythic hero.

Now, if you're a millionaire, you may or may not get all the mythic heroes as well, but your chances multiply greatly as you can easily buy a million Llamas, and through RNG, one of them should eventually contain a mythic hero, though again, this is not guaranteed even for wealthy consumers, because what if you just have really bad luck? So upon opening your millionth llama, you get the same common defender that no one wants?

In other words, no matter what you try to do, how much you play the game, how much you spend, like life, you may not get what you want.

However, the issue here is that we play video games and seek entertainment to escape reality, so do we really need a video game that reflects negative aspects of life? I heard that getting the best items in Hearthstone is RNG, but the more you play, the more likely you get better items, which I think would make Fortnite a better game if they adopt this system, if they must continue with the loot-box. I often see people getting mythic heroes through sheer luck but they stop playing the game (see the auction list of those selling mythic heroes), whereas a lot of my friends continue to play months and months, and still don't get a mythic hero, despite being extremely dedicated.

Do you think I'm being too salty here by criticizing video games that strive to reflect the harsh realities of life, or do you think developers should take the "entertainment as escapism" route and make game-play elements more equitable?

The How of Happiness Review