Forever Zefirocloaked in the midnight glory of an event horizonRegistered Userregular
Can I just vote for the Seliana theme?
Seriously though, no monster themes ever stick with me, I don’t know if I’m just so focused on the fight or what. I need to sit down and just purposefully listen to them with no distractions
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Oh, also Allmother Narwa, I forgot about it and I actually really like the vibe that song gives to the fight.
Though I honestly think my favorite songs in Rise are the normal field battle songs. Seriously, I think Rise has my favorite "seriously, I'm just fighting a Great Jaggi, why is the music so good" field songs in the series.
Seems like the rise/Sunbreak monsters got the shaft overall.
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IceBurnerIt's cold and there are penguins.Registered Userregular
edited March 13
This contest is a treasure trove of officially localized track names for decades of JP-only OSTs.
For me it's close between Sandy Plains (technically Barroth's theme but I associate it most strongly with Diablos) and Moonquake, but I'll give it to the better monster and vote Moonquake.
Jhen Mohran's theme was tempting, too, and even Alatreon's. Tri had such epic bosses and music.
Speaking of Alatreon's theme, this contest gives its track name, Chime from a Shimmering Bell! It's an unlisted, unnamed track hidden after a pause at the end of disc 2 on the official Tri OST, so I had no idea.
Seems like the rise/Sunbreak monsters got the shaft overall.
If you're speaking of the music vote, some of the games from P3rd onward didn't associating area battle tracks to specific monsters. Seems Capcom just picked tracks for each monster.
I'm also curious how they handled Gravios and Gypceros, the 2 monster to get one track each between MH1 and MH2(dos). Then again, I bet the original dos/MHF2 OST isn't featured at all, just the replacement tracks MHFU and MHGU borrowed from one of the early updates to Frontier Online.
Edit: Seems I can still browse the theme collection. This contest appears to be the first reappearance of some dos stage tracks since MHF2!
Gypceros and Purple Gypceros got Poisonous Haze - Geryos from MH1 Swamp, but not Roar of the Marshlands Oddity - Geryos from dos/MHF2 Marshlands.
Kirin, Oroshi Kirin, Gold Rathian, and Silver Rathalos got Phantom of the Tower - Kirin from dos/MHF2 Tower, but not Legend of an Unexplored Land from Frontier/MHFU Tower.
Gravios gets Fissures in the Earth - Gravimos/i] from MH1 Volcanic Belt, but not Volcanic Heavyweight - Gravimos from dos/MHF2 Volcano.
Daimyo Hermitaur gets Lord of the One-Horned Shield - Damiyo Zazami from dos/MHF2!
Fango and Conga get Outlaw of the Jungle - Quaking Conga from dos/MHF2 Jungle, not Glutton of the Jungle from Frontier/MHFU.
Blango gets Raging Snow Lion from Frontier/MHFU Arctic Ridge, not Dweller in the Frosty Dark - Roaring Blango from dos.
Lavasioth gets Magma-covered Demon of Flame - Lavasioth from Frontier/MHFU Volcano.
Hynocatrice gets Hypnotist of the Forest - Hypnocatrice from Frontier/MHFU Great Forest.
Vespoid Queen gets Glutton of the Jungle from Frontier/MHFU Jungle.
King Shakalaka gets Assassin of the Burning Sands from dos/MHF2 small arena. I don't recall if it was omitted from MHFU.
Of all the MH2(dos) tracks, no monster was assigned the original Marshlands, Volcano, or Arctic Ridge themes. Of those, even MHF2 didn't use the original Arctic Ridge track, replacing it with the Dundorma Competitve Hunting Arena track Risking my Dignity. I had a suspicion its similarity to a certain track in Sony Pictures' Steamboy feature animation got them in trouble, but who knows at this point.
So many interesting choices for monsters with no theme to call their own or share within a small group.
50 or so hours in and just started in on rank 7. Decorations make things a bit too complicated. Especially after unlocking a way to pump out talismans with random skills and decoration slots. It's really starting to remind me of WoW, wearing a mismatched set of armor, grinding for drops, slotting in gems and enchantments and such. I guess I'll take too much choice over what it was like earlier, when killing monsters gave basically nothing, and it was hours between unlocking new equipment, much less actually grinding for a new piece.
Things sped up a bit once I'd gotten a handle on the controls, but now fights are slowing down again. Monsters do a lot of damage, and I do very little. It's a lot of running around and spacing out attacks, hitting them once or twice, rolling away, then back to running. That's not uncomfortable, it's an average Souls boss fight, except you need to land about twenty times as many hits.
Fights also get progressively easier as they go on, which is weird? The longsword really wants you to land its combo, and that's not happening for most of the fight. But after 5-10 minutes of hit and run, they'll finally start to stagger or fall over, and then you can actually start getting in attacks. Which snowballs your damage as you can finally consistently level up the sword gauge and keep cycling through helm breakers.
Maybe it's because there's dozens of different monsters to fight, but even though they're all fairly unique as far as visuals and animations go (besides a few being recycled, which I'm guessing is due to bringing in the equivalent of every earlier game's Pidgeys and Caterpies), the fights are all blurring together. Don't stand directly in front/behind, get out quickly after attacking to avoid the shoulder tackle equivalent, rush in close and behind when they fire a projectile, avoid whatever dash they invariably have. It's not that different from a Souls boss fight, you're just doing it for 2-3 times as long. But that's all there is, there's no running around grabbing stuff to break up the boss rush.
I'm no longer really frustrated, but it feels...repetitive? Although I guess if I were just playing endless sets of a fighting game with my main character, it would feel somewhat similar.
But that's all there is, there's no running around grabbing stuff to break up the boss rush.
That's not entirely true. There are a bunch of things hidden on every map, even beyond the usual gathering nodes. Each map has 10 secret messages tucked away in odd places. Launch a Gathering quest and poke around a bit, see what you can find.
I've found a few, but they didn't seem to reward you with much for finding them. Just cosmetics and money I think, maybe some of the non-monster crafting materials? But if there's weapons, armor, talismans, etc. hiding out there, let me know. That's more what I meant, something more immediately useful to hunt down.
I've found a few, but they didn't seem to reward you with much for finding them. Just cosmetics and money I think, maybe some of the non-monster crafting materials? But if there's weapons, armor, talismans, etc. hiding out there, let me know. That's more what I meant, something more immediately useful to hunt down.
Oh, no. Nothing like that. At least... not that you can find. But your pets will eventually be able to find unique materials when you send them out on Meowcenary missions.
So mismatched sets and decorations you are working on getting a good set of skills. Early on you probably have limited decorations but limited skills on armor, so alpha sets are probably your preference. But sometimes the beta ones if you have good complementary decorations are really strong too.
Fights generally do get easier as they go on and monsters run low on stamina and are injured. That's pretty normal too.
I found it was good to pick one generally useful against everything path, grind out as high a rank weapon as possible, and then do the best I could with armor. HR7 is around where I switched from Dual Blades to Lance needing more protection, and that got me through MR2 where you really start having to plan and tailor your build to each fight in my experience.
Don't be afraid to use SOS flares or if you get a stupid quest finishing it with someone else. Beating your head against a dumb hard fight isn't usually fun and those are tools to make it easier.
0
IceBurnerIt's cold and there are penguins.Registered Userregular
I'm no longer really frustrated, but it feels...repetitive? Although I guess if I were just playing endless sets of a fighting game with my main character, it would feel somewhat similar.
If I only played the same weapon, I might feel the same. At some point early on, I set out to learn and play them all. I wasn't very successful until the 2nd game, but I got a handle on it and just kept it up since, even through the new weapons added along the way. This is not the path for everyone, but for me it definitely contributes to keeping things fresh and motivating.
Older games experimented with various ways to help keep hunts fresh or encourage hunting something you might have otherwise ignored. I think only 1 of these features is still in the series as of Rise, environment stability from Tri.
- MH2(dos) added a dynamic Day/Night cycle, seasons, and dynamic monster bounties. This seasons affected which quests and areas were available, as well as the gathering spots. Time of day affected the small carnivore and herbivore spawns on the map. Time of day also changed the maps, from differences in layout to hazards. Unlike other games quest payouts weren't constant and varied based on how much you had hunted the target. There were also targets of the day every so often that would reward specific gathered items or monsters hunted. All of this was removed for the PSP downports though.
- MH3(tri) brought back dynamic day/night with impact on spawns but not resources. It also created a new much more dynamic spawning system for resources and small fry monsters used through the end of Gen 4. Tri introduced free hunting where you never knew what was going to show up beyond the initial forecast. It also added the stability system, where other monsters could suddenly intrude on hunts if the quest environment was "Unstable". Tri was the last game for a while that had multiple quests on different maps for a given monster, in every single rank. Being able to hunt a monster on different maps goes a pretty long ways to keeping things fresh, since the area layout and other possible intruder spawns change the dynamic up. Lastly, Qurupeco could call another monster for help and even buff nearby monsters if you let it. You never knew what it was going to call, so very late game in Tri and 3U I used to let it call for help on purpose.
- MH4U added a procedurally-generated stage unique to free hunts, where the map was different each time. You could also find random gear except it was weapons and armor with random stats. The procedural map gen systems didn't have a large amount of "rooms" to work with, so the map pieces ended up recognizable in a hurry, but the mystery monster spawns and mystery gear kept it reasonably interesting.
- Generations turned things on their heads with Hunting Styles. There's 4 styles in Generations, expanded to 6 in GU. They really mix things up enough that I still haven't fully explored them all. Generations also added Hunts of the Day which gives a guaranteed set of monster materials for completing a hunt with the target monster.
I've found a few, but they didn't seem to reward you with much for finding them. Just cosmetics and money I think, maybe some of the non-monster crafting materials? But if there's weapons, armor, talismans, etc. hiding out there, let me know. That's more what I meant, something more immediately useful to hunt down.
EDIT: woops, misread your post, but I'll leave this here anyway
As for things to run around the map and find, while there's no secrets like that there things like useful Endemic Life that can help you in your fights scattered all over (like free Wyvern rides, extra money, extra item drops, free status ailments, etc), plus there's the camps to unlock that give you different fast travel/supply points around each map (after you find a spot for a camp, you can then do a Delivery Request to unlock it)
I'm not sure if you've messed with Wyvern Riding much, but it can be very useful to go track down another monster on the map and ride that and use it to fight your target. Not only is it basically free damage, hitting a monster with a heavy attack drops a free material, and you can get 3 drops from every monster.
Monsters also enrage a lot more the lower their health gets, and some monsters have states that they'll enter based on low health. But yes, the fact that a fight rewards you for targeting parts, inflicting knockdowns etc is a big part of the appeal. (Also, monsters get more and more resistant to status effects like knockdown, and it gets harder to even trigger such in the first place, the more you do it). The game rewards aggressive play and abusing the environment to get early knockdowns etc, which then creates feedback loops. Hell, there's funky and hilarious setups that can do things like stagger-lock a Rathian with Switch Axe's Wild Swings.
Also if you're not landing the combo with Longsword, you're doing it wrong honestly. Without seeing your play, it's hard to say what you're doing it wrong, but Longsword is built on getting your aura to max asap. It'd be like... not being in Demon mode whenver it's safe to do so on Dual Blades, or using basic ammo with one of the bowguns: a very bad plan. Probably why you feel you're doing no damage, because you won't be doing much damage with the combo.
Remember this is a game where defense is a lot more reactive than dark soul's proactive - staying in combat and iframing an attack - or in Longsword's case, countering, is a damn good plan. Proactively rolling out of attacks generally just wastes stamina and positional.
They have to stand still for a good 5 seconds to land the full R2 combo. That doesn't tend to happen in the first half of the fight. The one counter helps, but its also obviously more difficult to land during the first half of a new fight.
The base roll doesn't have enough iframes to get through most attacks, so I have had to preemptively roll away instead of trying to dodge through attacks. Working on more ranks of the evade skill, but not enough yet.
5 seconds is plenty of time to land a combo. Most monsters are shockingly open once you learn their patterns, or tricks like making Diablos ram into a wall (and get it's horns stuck). Fights are a dance, and most monsters cant just go beserk forever without having an opening evnetually, or attacks that'll let you force an opening (be this through easily countered moves like charges, attacks that can backfire like Val's Vent Charge or Volvi's Bouncing bomber attack)
Also, you've got Soaring Kick or Silkbind Sakura Slash, both of which increase your spirit gauge for you, as well as the Special Sheathe combo - Longsword in Rise/Sunbreak is really big on Quick Sheathe because a lot of it's moves involve doing Iai sheathe then unleash shennagins. Point is you have a wealth of options to get your spirit combo.
They have to stand still for a good 5 seconds to land the full R2 combo. That doesn't tend to happen in the first half of the fight. The one counter helps, but its also obviously more difficult to land during the first half of a new fight.
The base roll doesn't have enough iframes to get through most attacks, so I have had to preemptively roll away instead of trying to dodge through attacks. Working on more ranks of the evade skill, but not enough yet.
with longsword, you'll generally want to try to line up your foresight slash or try to go into iai stance and use the R2/RT counter rather than rolling. Turning your enemies offensiveness into defense/offense for you and increasing your sword gauge at the same time, so you don't have to use R2 combo and instead can use soaring kick->helmbreaker more often during openings/monster flinches/exhaustion. easier than it sounds for sure, but longsword's moveset lets it have multiple ways to power up for its big punishes.
The problem with the counters is, even if you hit the timing on the counter window, you don't get any invincibility beyond that. So I often nail the counter timing and keep moving directly into another attack. You don't even get the gauge reward for that. Also if the monster just moves away and you whiff the hit, you get nothing.
I should at least go back and try to learn longsword , I was just oft put by it’s extremely vocal fanbase about how much better it was then everything . The venn diagram of those guys and the people who jump in every conversation about rise with how much world was better being practically a circle didn’t help.
The problem with the counters is, even if you hit the timing on the counter window, you don't get any invincibility beyond that. So I often nail the counter timing and keep moving directly into another attack. You don't even get the gauge reward for that. Also if the monster just moves away and you whiff the hit, you get nothing.
Yes, they're not a magic perfect solution and your going to have to put work in. Counters are absurd in this game in general.
Ultimately, you're playing the weapon that is most reliant on both counters and maintaining its buff. If you aren't hitting these, it's not going to perform well. If that's frustrating, you should absolutely try other weapons that are simpler or have different complexities.
I wouldn't recommend Charge Blade, as that's another weapon that really leans on counters to get the most out of it thanks to Guard Points. But there's stuff like Duals who maintain their buff via all in offence (at cost of needing to manage your stamina heavily), or sword and shield that doesn't have any given buff mechanic to worry about (trading it instead for a semi complex moveset that can do both impact and slashing). 14 very different weapons means there's almost certainly something that'll be a good fit
Charge Blade is less counter-centric than LS (well, depending on game a bit, as it has a really useful counter silkbind in Sunbreak), as the big part of its damage is the basic charge>discharge loop. Guard points smooth that out a lot, but compared to LS you don't gain nearly as much power out of them so much as they're just the "best" defensive option for maintaining offense.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
As a longsworder I whiff the combo finale so much.
The full combo is easiest on a monster that has just been tripped. You can also use the X+A backstep into the spirit combo which will put you closer to the finish.
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Hunting Horn is great, has a mode by default in Rise that offers i-frames while attacking, rewards aggression, and can be simple OR slightly complex based on your song recital style. Said styles are: press the same button 2x -OR- press a note attack 1x, then play the song with your trigger button. It also has a self-only buff that gives you ~15% attack boost AND makes it so you don't bounce any attacks, it's dope.
Lance is fantastic in Rise, but it REALLY gets fun and fluid once you're into Sunbreak and have all the switch skills. Without them it's absolutely viable, I just really like the shield charge attack.
Switch Axe is really fun but it's a little technical and doesn't get any defensive options until pretty darn far into Sunbreak.
As a longsworder I whiff the combo finale so much.
The full combo is easiest on a monster that has just been tripped. You can also use the X+A backstep into the spirit combo which will put you closer to the finish.
Doesn't have to be the backstep, side fade slashes also combo into a shorter version of it.
Charge Blade is less counter-centric than LS (well, depending on game a bit, as it has a really useful counter silkbind in Sunbreak), as the big part of its damage is the basic charge>discharge loop. Guard points smooth that out a lot, but compared to LS you don't gain nearly as much power out of them so much as they're just the "best" defensive option for maintaining offense.
Yeah, my point was more if you're struggling with counters already, CB still needs them to truly shine. So it seemed a bit asasine to recommended it, even if it's a very fun weapon that can welcome monsters to the jam (factory). I'd recommend Duals, but i'm not sure how well the all-out style of them would mesh with Reynold's play, and additionally, they really rely on picking up a bunch of the switch skills and silkbinds you get later in the game to truly, properly shine.
I really love the Followers system because of Horn. Like yeah their DPS isn't mega helpful, BUT their buff songs are exactly the same as if I played them for myself, so now I can get THREE SETS OF BUFFS?!?!!? It's so good. Even when I'm playing a different weapon I can have two full sets of buffs on EVERY hunt?!? Geeeeeez, so so so good. I'm really hoping that they keep the Follower system in Wilds, maybe even fuse it with the Pawns from Dragons Dogma...?
I've managed to solo my way to the Sunbreak endgame. Beat Amatsu with my random slap dash Switch Axe set but I got bodied by Primal Malzeno when I tried that out. I rebuilt with some regular Mal armor and swapped to Lance for extra safety and because S.Axe makes my hands hurt because I spam buttons like a moron instead of timing my presses. So far I'm really liking regular Lance but YouTube algorithms are like, "hey so you like explosions, right...?" so now I'm checking out some Gunlance stuff and boy-howdy it looks nifty??? Decisions....
Charge Blade is less counter-centric than LS (well, depending on game a bit, as it has a really useful counter silkbind in Sunbreak), as the big part of its damage is the basic charge>discharge loop. Guard points smooth that out a lot, but compared to LS you don't gain nearly as much power out of them so much as they're just the "best" defensive option for maintaining offense.
Yeah, I have literally never bothered with focusing on Guard Points and done pretty well through multiple MonHun games, myself. Just the basic loop of swording into big smack into discharge suffices to do pretty much anything without any trouble.
IceBurnerIt's cold and there are penguins.Registered Userregular
edited March 17
Is Switch Axe still reasonably simple in Rise? Throughout Gen 3-4, the biggest non-obvious thing is that you can optionally morph-slash right after certain moves to smoothly change modes (and thus moves) without stopping what you're doing. In classic you have what, a grand total of 6 or so normal attacks apart from the morphing?
Optionally open with tilt L-analog forward + triangle/Y to do a gap closing slash. Can optionally morph right after.
Triangle/X for a more vertical infinite series of attacks. Can loop infinitely if you do the gap closer again after the downswing.
Circle/A for a more horizontal infinite loop of attacks. Can optionally morph after the swing from the left that ends with the sword to your hunter's right.
In sword mode, repeatedly tap both attack buttons at the same time to use the exploding finisher. Optional: Hold downward on L-analog after starting to skip ahead to the final boom.
In axe mode, there's some sequence to get into repeated, moderate-speed horizontal slashes which use stamina, called "Hack and slash".
IIRC World/Rise added an axe mode finishing move.
I also don't focus on guard points with Charge Blade, though it's only in 4U, Gen, and GU out of the classic games. It's just super SnS with explodey axe mode to me.
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Seriously though, no monster themes ever stick with me, I don’t know if I’m just so focused on the fight or what. I need to sit down and just purposefully listen to them with no distractions
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
Though I honestly think my favorite songs in Rise are the normal field battle songs. Seriously, I think Rise has my favorite "seriously, I'm just fighting a Great Jaggi, why is the music so good" field songs in the series.
you're hearing that shit right now
For me it's close between Sandy Plains (technically Barroth's theme but I associate it most strongly with Diablos) and Moonquake, but I'll give it to the better monster and vote Moonquake.
Jhen Mohran's theme was tempting, too, and even Alatreon's. Tri had such epic bosses and music.
Speaking of Alatreon's theme, this contest gives its track name, Chime from a Shimmering Bell! It's an unlisted, unnamed track hidden after a pause at the end of disc 2 on the official Tri OST, so I had no idea.
If you're speaking of the music vote, some of the games from P3rd onward didn't associating area battle tracks to specific monsters. Seems Capcom just picked tracks for each monster.
I'm also curious how they handled Gravios and Gypceros, the 2 monster to get one track each between MH1 and MH2(dos). Then again, I bet the original dos/MHF2 OST isn't featured at all, just the replacement tracks MHFU and MHGU borrowed from one of the early updates to Frontier Online.
Edit: Seems I can still browse the theme collection.
This contest appears to be the first reappearance of some dos stage tracks since MHF2!
- Gypceros and Purple Gypceros got Poisonous Haze - Geryos from MH1 Swamp, but not Roar of the Marshlands Oddity - Geryos from dos/MHF2 Marshlands.
- Kirin, Oroshi Kirin, Gold Rathian, and Silver Rathalos got Phantom of the Tower - Kirin from dos/MHF2 Tower, but not Legend of an Unexplored Land from Frontier/MHFU Tower.
- Gravios gets Fissures in the Earth - Gravimos/i] from MH1 Volcanic Belt, but not Volcanic Heavyweight - Gravimos from dos/MHF2 Volcano.
- Daimyo Hermitaur gets Lord of the One-Horned Shield - Damiyo Zazami from dos/MHF2!
- Fango and Conga get Outlaw of the Jungle - Quaking Conga from dos/MHF2 Jungle, not Glutton of the Jungle from Frontier/MHFU.
- Blango gets Raging Snow Lion from Frontier/MHFU Arctic Ridge, not Dweller in the Frosty Dark - Roaring Blango from dos.
- Lavasioth gets Magma-covered Demon of Flame - Lavasioth from Frontier/MHFU Volcano.
- Hynocatrice gets Hypnotist of the Forest - Hypnocatrice from Frontier/MHFU Great Forest.
- Vespoid Queen gets Glutton of the Jungle from Frontier/MHFU Jungle.
- King Shakalaka gets Assassin of the Burning Sands from dos/MHF2 small arena. I don't recall if it was omitted from MHFU.
Of all the MH2(dos) tracks, no monster was assigned the original Marshlands, Volcano, or Arctic Ridge themes. Of those, even MHF2 didn't use the original Arctic Ridge track, replacing it with the Dundorma Competitve Hunting Arena track Risking my Dignity. I had a suspicion its similarity to a certain track in Sony Pictures' Steamboy feature animation got them in trouble, but who knows at this point.PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
Honestly the first theme that went through my head when you said this was the new Zangief theme
Which is a bop
Lady of Lightning is a great track (which I use for just general BGM in Sunbreak), but I prefer the rock remix.
Things sped up a bit once I'd gotten a handle on the controls, but now fights are slowing down again. Monsters do a lot of damage, and I do very little. It's a lot of running around and spacing out attacks, hitting them once or twice, rolling away, then back to running. That's not uncomfortable, it's an average Souls boss fight, except you need to land about twenty times as many hits.
Fights also get progressively easier as they go on, which is weird? The longsword really wants you to land its combo, and that's not happening for most of the fight. But after 5-10 minutes of hit and run, they'll finally start to stagger or fall over, and then you can actually start getting in attacks. Which snowballs your damage as you can finally consistently level up the sword gauge and keep cycling through helm breakers.
Maybe it's because there's dozens of different monsters to fight, but even though they're all fairly unique as far as visuals and animations go (besides a few being recycled, which I'm guessing is due to bringing in the equivalent of every earlier game's Pidgeys and Caterpies), the fights are all blurring together. Don't stand directly in front/behind, get out quickly after attacking to avoid the shoulder tackle equivalent, rush in close and behind when they fire a projectile, avoid whatever dash they invariably have. It's not that different from a Souls boss fight, you're just doing it for 2-3 times as long. But that's all there is, there's no running around grabbing stuff to break up the boss rush.
I'm no longer really frustrated, but it feels...repetitive? Although I guess if I were just playing endless sets of a fighting game with my main character, it would feel somewhat similar.
That's not entirely true. There are a bunch of things hidden on every map, even beyond the usual gathering nodes. Each map has 10 secret messages tucked away in odd places. Launch a Gathering quest and poke around a bit, see what you can find.
Oh, no. Nothing like that. At least... not that you can find. But your pets will eventually be able to find unique materials when you send them out on Meowcenary missions.
Fights generally do get easier as they go on and monsters run low on stamina and are injured. That's pretty normal too.
I found it was good to pick one generally useful against everything path, grind out as high a rank weapon as possible, and then do the best I could with armor. HR7 is around where I switched from Dual Blades to Lance needing more protection, and that got me through MR2 where you really start having to plan and tailor your build to each fight in my experience.
Don't be afraid to use SOS flares or if you get a stupid quest finishing it with someone else. Beating your head against a dumb hard fight isn't usually fun and those are tools to make it easier.
If I only played the same weapon, I might feel the same. At some point early on, I set out to learn and play them all. I wasn't very successful until the 2nd game, but I got a handle on it and just kept it up since, even through the new weapons added along the way. This is not the path for everyone, but for me it definitely contributes to keeping things fresh and motivating.
Older games experimented with various ways to help keep hunts fresh or encourage hunting something you might have otherwise ignored. I think only 1 of these features is still in the series as of Rise, environment stability from Tri.
- MH3(tri) brought back dynamic day/night with impact on spawns but not resources. It also created a new much more dynamic spawning system for resources and small fry monsters used through the end of Gen 4. Tri introduced free hunting where you never knew what was going to show up beyond the initial forecast. It also added the stability system, where other monsters could suddenly intrude on hunts if the quest environment was "Unstable". Tri was the last game for a while that had multiple quests on different maps for a given monster, in every single rank. Being able to hunt a monster on different maps goes a pretty long ways to keeping things fresh, since the area layout and other possible intruder spawns change the dynamic up. Lastly, Qurupeco could call another monster for help and even buff nearby monsters if you let it. You never knew what it was going to call, so very late game in Tri and 3U I used to let it call for help on purpose.
- MH4U added a procedurally-generated stage unique to free hunts, where the map was different each time. You could also find random gear except it was weapons and armor with random stats. The procedural map gen systems didn't have a large amount of "rooms" to work with, so the map pieces ended up recognizable in a hurry, but the mystery monster spawns and mystery gear kept it reasonably interesting.
- Generations turned things on their heads with Hunting Styles. There's 4 styles in Generations, expanded to 6 in GU. They really mix things up enough that I still haven't fully explored them all. Generations also added Hunts of the Day which gives a guaranteed set of monster materials for completing a hunt with the target monster.
PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
Dragon's Dogma: 192 Warrior Linty | 80 Strider Alicia | 32 Mage Terra
EDIT: woops, misread your post, but I'll leave this here anyway
https://game8.co/games/Monster-Hunter-Rise/archives/318182
https://game8.co/games/Monster-Hunter-Rise/archives/324833
I'm not sure if you've messed with Wyvern Riding much, but it can be very useful to go track down another monster on the map and ride that and use it to fight your target. Not only is it basically free damage, hitting a monster with a heavy attack drops a free material, and you can get 3 drops from every monster.
Also if you're not landing the combo with Longsword, you're doing it wrong honestly. Without seeing your play, it's hard to say what you're doing it wrong, but Longsword is built on getting your aura to max asap. It'd be like... not being in Demon mode whenver it's safe to do so on Dual Blades, or using basic ammo with one of the bowguns: a very bad plan. Probably why you feel you're doing no damage, because you won't be doing much damage with the combo.
Remember this is a game where defense is a lot more reactive than dark soul's proactive - staying in combat and iframing an attack - or in Longsword's case, countering, is a damn good plan. Proactively rolling out of attacks generally just wastes stamina and positional.
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If I am ever not in Demon Mode, it's probably because I ate shit and carted.
The base roll doesn't have enough iframes to get through most attacks, so I have had to preemptively roll away instead of trying to dodge through attacks. Working on more ranks of the evade skill, but not enough yet.
Also, you've got Soaring Kick or Silkbind Sakura Slash, both of which increase your spirit gauge for you, as well as the Special Sheathe combo - Longsword in Rise/Sunbreak is really big on Quick Sheathe because a lot of it's moves involve doing Iai sheathe then unleash shennagins. Point is you have a wealth of options to get your spirit combo.
Or you're in arch-demon mode because your stamina needed to Regen for MORE DEMON MODE
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with longsword, you'll generally want to try to line up your foresight slash or try to go into iai stance and use the R2/RT counter rather than rolling. Turning your enemies offensiveness into defense/offense for you and increasing your sword gauge at the same time, so you don't have to use R2 combo and instead can use soaring kick->helmbreaker more often during openings/monster flinches/exhaustion. easier than it sounds for sure, but longsword's moveset lets it have multiple ways to power up for its big punishes.
Yes, they're not a magic perfect solution and your going to have to put work in. Counters are absurd in this game in general.
Ultimately, you're playing the weapon that is most reliant on both counters and maintaining its buff. If you aren't hitting these, it's not going to perform well. If that's frustrating, you should absolutely try other weapons that are simpler or have different complexities.
I wouldn't recommend Charge Blade, as that's another weapon that really leans on counters to get the most out of it thanks to Guard Points. But there's stuff like Duals who maintain their buff via all in offence (at cost of needing to manage your stamina heavily), or sword and shield that doesn't have any given buff mechanic to worry about (trading it instead for a semi complex moveset that can do both impact and slashing). 14 very different weapons means there's almost certainly something that'll be a good fit
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The full combo is easiest on a monster that has just been tripped. You can also use the X+A backstep into the spirit combo which will put you closer to the finish.
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I mostly only play solo though. Lance is kinda boring to play though. It works but it's not fun.
Lance is fantastic in Rise, but it REALLY gets fun and fluid once you're into Sunbreak and have all the switch skills. Without them it's absolutely viable, I just really like the shield charge attack.
Switch Axe is really fun but it's a little technical and doesn't get any defensive options until pretty darn far into Sunbreak.
Doesn't have to be the backstep, side fade slashes also combo into a shorter version of it.
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Yeah, my point was more if you're struggling with counters already, CB still needs them to truly shine. So it seemed a bit asasine to recommended it, even if it's a very fun weapon that can welcome monsters to the jam (factory). I'd recommend Duals, but i'm not sure how well the all-out style of them would mesh with Reynold's play, and additionally, they really rely on picking up a bunch of the switch skills and silkbinds you get later in the game to truly, properly shine.
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I really love the Followers system because of Horn. Like yeah their DPS isn't mega helpful, BUT their buff songs are exactly the same as if I played them for myself, so now I can get THREE SETS OF BUFFS?!?!!? It's so good. Even when I'm playing a different weapon I can have two full sets of buffs on EVERY hunt?!? Geeeeeez, so so so good. I'm really hoping that they keep the Follower system in Wilds, maybe even fuse it with the Pawns from Dragons Dogma...?
I've managed to solo my way to the Sunbreak endgame. Beat Amatsu with my random slap dash Switch Axe set but I got bodied by Primal Malzeno when I tried that out. I rebuilt with some regular Mal armor and swapped to Lance for extra safety and because S.Axe makes my hands hurt because I spam buttons like a moron instead of timing my presses. So far I'm really liking regular Lance but YouTube algorithms are like, "hey so you like explosions, right...?" so now I'm checking out some Gunlance stuff and boy-howdy it looks nifty??? Decisions....
Yeah, I have literally never bothered with focusing on Guard Points and done pretty well through multiple MonHun games, myself. Just the basic loop of swording into big smack into discharge suffices to do pretty much anything without any trouble.
- Optionally open with tilt L-analog forward + triangle/Y to do a gap closing slash. Can optionally morph right after.
- Triangle/X for a more vertical infinite series of attacks. Can loop infinitely if you do the gap closer again after the downswing.
- Circle/A for a more horizontal infinite loop of attacks. Can optionally morph after the swing from the left that ends with the sword to your hunter's right.
- In sword mode, repeatedly tap both attack buttons at the same time to use the exploding finisher. Optional: Hold downward on L-analog after starting to skip ahead to the final boom.
- In axe mode, there's some sequence to get into repeated, moderate-speed horizontal slashes which use stamina, called "Hack and slash".
- IIRC World/Rise added an axe mode finishing move.
I also don't focus on guard points with Charge Blade, though it's only in 4U, Gen, and GU out of the classic games. It's just super SnS with explodey axe mode to me.PSN: theIceBurner, IceBurnerEU, IceBurner-JP | X-Link Kai: TheIceBurner
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