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Ok can safely say I've sunk enough hours into this to give it a decent review. I've farmed the two endgame behemoths and I've got my build completely set up (as best I can, we'll get into that later). TL: DR version: Play it to tide you over til MHW is released...drop it like a brick once it is or you get bored, whichever comes first. Since there wasn't even a forum topic on this, I can see that there is already a problem with marketing, let alone the numerous problems with the game. Firstly, the gameplay, its fine at the moment, it plays alright, its basically a Free to Play cross between old school Monster Hunter and Dark Souls (yes it has Dodge rolling with i-frames and a stamina system so it is kind of apt this time and the devs have stated outright that they took inspiration from Soulsborne games), if you need something to tide you over until Monster Hunter World comes out on PC, give it a go, I wouldn't recommend investing any money into it however. The game play loop is your standard MonHun fare, fight you way up monsters of increasing difficulty, craft gear from parts dropped by said monster so you can fight monsters of higher difficulty, repeat until you're fully geared in your Heroic Maelstrom (the equivalent of Tempered to MonHun players) gear and weapons and have upgraded everything to +10. 1) Distinct lack of content and very slow bug fixes: There is probably enough content to keep you going for about 20-30 hours at the moment. The other problem is the devs speed with which they implement new content and fix major bugs which cause problems of their own with the game play loop. Currently there are plans for 1 new Behemoth and 1 new weapon in 2 months (and updates every 2 months after that)...that is a glacial slow pace in order to keep the higher end people occupied and, unlike Monster Hunter, there are no plans for minor weekly events to tied you over between the large gaps of sweet FA to do once you maxed everything out. Not only this but most of the major bugs or issues only get fixed with said 2 month content patches. For example there is currently a problem with the damage buffing skills being multiplicative and not additive (resulting in weapons that should be hitting for 1.5k damage hitting upwards of 10k, making even the endgame fights trivial), this is further compounded by certain Cells (the Dauntless equivalent of Gems) not working the way they should aiding in said massive damage stacking. There is also the problem of the End game monsters being mostly beefed up versions of monsters from lower tiers (which, yes, monster hunter does do but at least they make the effort to slap on a different colour which Dauntless doesn't even do) with very few minor tweaks to their abilities. There are currently 2 unique monsters at Heroic and are your equivalent of Elder Dragons...thats it. 2) Lootbox RNG and Cell issues: Unlike in Monster hunter (where gems are still RNG but you can at least try to grind them out fighting Monsters), the only way to get the rarest of Cells (+3, all skills go to +6) once you've maxed out your 'level progression' is by doing 3 weekly quests and getting a golden loot box for each weekly quest completed. This is a holdover from when they had P2W Buyable loot boxes which they ditched once Battlefront 2 killed the loot box idea but never introduced a proper system to replace it, the 3 'free' loot boxes each week were basically there to entice you to buy more ala the free loot boxes you get in Overwatch each week. Now this wouldn't be a problem if a large chunk of the cells weren't complete trash (imagine 80% of cells you get being the equivalent of Palico Rally...) and offer such little benefit or are so bland as to not be worth even slotting. You MIGHT get something useful for your build but..chances are it'll be crap and when its only 3 shots at decent cells each week... 3) Lack of Build Diversity: Currently there are only 5 weapon types (Axe = Greatsword, Sword = a less interesting version of Sword and Shield, Hammer is..well..it's a hammer, sure it has the ability to fire blasts of energy but barely anyone uses that because the damage is pitiful. Chainblades = Dual blades (with terrible damage output), Warpike...tries to be Insect Glaive only less interesting and useless in team play) and roughly 6 builds you can make that are exactly the same for each weapon. A KO focused build, a High Damage Build, a Dodge focused damage build, a Wound focused build, a Tank focused build (which I've never seen anyone do...) and a Medic build. They all operate and play exactly the same with almost no variation between said builds, keep hitting the monster until it or one of you team mates dies, go revive them if you have Medic +6, if nobody does, go pick them up anyway, rinse, repeat. There's no crazy off the wall builds that you can see in Monster Hunter like Wide Range team buffing builds, Elemental focused builds, Status focused builds, Crit focused builds, Health Regen builds, Palico focused builds and so on. Thanks to the Cell RNG you pick whichever cells you've got, find the armour that suits them the best, whack them in and call it a day for that week until you get the cells your build actually needs next week, maybe. These are only the major issues I'd bring up for an Monster Hunter fan looking to maybe give it a try. Basically it really isn't worth more than a quick punt at the moment since its free but don't hold your breath for it to actually be anywhere near as good as Monster Hunter World. Edited by Dr_Mech at 02:14:00 20-06-2018 |
#12240243, By Dr_Mech Dauntless: Free to Play Monster hunter (kind of)
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Dr_Mech 1,175 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 12 years ago
