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Monster Hunter World - The List - 5 Things MMOs Can Learn From Monster Hunter World - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Monster Hunter World - The List - 5 Things MMOs Can Learn From Monster Hunter World - MMORPG.com
Monster Hunter World may be the first time I’ve played and enjoyed a Monster Hunter game. As an online experience, it’s not quite an MMO and yet it does plenty that I think future MMORPGs can learn from. In this list we’ll explore 5 things MMOs can learn from Capcom’s Monster Hunter World.
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Something about this gives me a knot in my stomach. I'm killing a monster to make loot to kill a stronger monster to make stronger loot, ad infinitum.
Mend and Defend
The only place this game lacks and feels frustrating is the multiplayer options. Joining and getting a party together feels clunky and more confusing then it should be. There is not much in the way of tutorials when it comes to the whole party system and im still not sure how to launch my own ingame SOS. My other gripe is i feel like the performance on a base PS4 is lacking, Although its better from the beta(or maybe iv just gotten use to it) 25-30 fps is rough on the eyes. still wished PC would have launched along side console, I think i would be even more into this game if i had the option to play ultra wide at 60 fps with all the bells & whistles on high.
Aloha Mr Hand !
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
That's basically every MMO or progression system in general. You get stronger to take on the next thing. This game just has it all done by you instead of a level system or gear drop system.
I personally also really like the TTK on the monsters, it feels like you are taking down massive beasts instead of just spamming skills and killing things quickly. But it's also a different type of game. I don't think the MH world would lend it self all too well to an MMO landscape as it is, because the hunts would be all the less spectacular if you have 45 people taking out the same monster on farm. It would have to be instanced and that would cause it to be a little less MMORPG like.
Yeah, I'm one of those who love long fights. Loved fighting BAMS in Tera solo with my lancer.
I want a fight to mean something. To me, anything that's "quick" doesn't really mean anything.
I'll add that I like fighting large hordes of mobs in Black Desert as there is a certain fun to be had mowing down large groups all at once. I am so buying this game when it releases on PC.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This is a game about battling monsters. Why wouldn't you want to be battling better monsters and different monsters with different attacks.
I think games like this are really for people who like "combat". Which is something I love.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
As for the crafting...Ugh, I hate crafting and having to watch that cut scene over and over...OMG I want to kill those three!
I'm really enjoying the battles themselves, but I am seeing repeating patterns in the fights from different monsters.
I will agree that I think MMO's could take a lesson from this game in regards to open world monster spawns and boss fights.
The loop didn't hook me.
It's like an MMO with only boss fights. Which for some people, that's exactly what they want. For me, I need a bit of a build up...
I like traditional WoW-style dungeon/raid design: some trash, small boss, some trash, bit bigger boss, some trash, really hard boss at the end... then the loot in a chest (or corpse) for everyone to ooh and aah about and say "GG" over. It's like a song or story - the good ones have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. MH is like.. jump straight to ending every time.
Sure, the trash and such can be long or annoying. But what is a good romp without a bit of foreplay at the beginning anyway? MH always reminded me of the schoolhouse scene in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. What's wrong with a kiss?
That's my own opinion. I have enjoyed Final Fantasy Explorers somewhat, which is loosely MH based, but it is a bit more traditional, not just huge monsters, and TTK on the huge monsters isn't that long either (nor are their mechanics all that complicated, being a 3DS game).
In regards to the crafting... did you ever get deep into SWG's system.... You had to go hunt down plenty of monsters to get body parts for crafting. This is beyond just getting the Kryat Pearls. RiS Armor was a pickle to get as you needed Kominglio (sp been years) dragon scales Peko Peko Feathers and a few more things to make. You could also use other parts of harvesting animals in Armor layers to make better stats for your end product. I am just saying this is not the first :P
Examples: Ultima Online was 8th game in the series - it used mechanics, created and polished during a decade. Dark Age of Camelot was 14th game for the company. World of Warcaft was practically "just" a single-unit Warcraft game (i.e. devs have used an experience collected during ten years, 5+ game releases and multiple expansions). No wonder that attempts to replicate these games from scratch - failed miserably.
And MHW itself is 13th iteration of the game + Capcom used similar boss fighting mechanics in other games (like Dragon's Dogma).
TL;DR replication of a game isn't easy - if possible at all.
Thank you for your time!
What a game.
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
Have to say, I'm pleased to be wrong this time!
Pretty much agree with everything you've said. We could definitely do with more "thrill of the hunt" type encounters. Having to properly track down mobs, stalk them, avoid ambushes etc all sounds great. I imagine it could get tedious in a game you expect to play for months/years, but as it's already tedious with our largely static mobs this can only be an improvement.
Exciting movement....yes please! This has always been an issue in MMOs. Admittedly, just having better animations for rolling after a fall, vaulting over obstacles etc doesn't actually add anything to the game, but if you could combine it with gameplay then I'm happy. For example, adding in Zelda: BotW climbing into an MMO could start to open up interesting tactics and a more platformer style of gameplay.
Crafting.....meh. When LotRO launched, it had what you described. You had to hunt down specific mobs for specific items used to craft specific weapons and armour. I personally enjoyed it, but ultimately it just resulted in a lot of mob spawn camping and made high end crafting inaccessible to a lot of people. It also doesn't tackle the issue that crafting itself remains boring. The interesting bits in your scenario are the gathering (which is just combat) and the end result (useful stuff). You would need to stop designing MMORPGs around loot for the end result to matter, and I can't see that happening.
Pets.....meh again. I personally don't like pets, but as to your more fundamental point about giving us enough options so that we become closely attached to our characters I definitely agree on. Being able to customise / personalise your character is a big part of MMORPGs but a lot of them do a poor job. Particularly in loot based games, you often end up looking the same as everyone due to having to wear stuff for the stats. Wardrobes / transmog helps, but some still fail.
Combat dictated by weapon choices....undecided. Your weapon choice should definitely have an effect, but I'm a big fan of strong roles so I wouldn't want weapon choice to mess up roles. To be honest, I can't really think of a solution I'd be happy with. I don't like ESO's implementation. I think what I'd have preferred is if weapon choice AND class choice acted together to determine skills. That way, a tank selecting a 2h axe would get different skills to a healer selecting a 2h axe.
well OMFG
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
#1 is customization -- in CoH it was all the different characters you could create, and eventually even their powers could be customized with different colors, etc. Some games have gender-locks, CoH didn't even have a limit on species, let alone races. Many of us also loved making up backstories for our characters, and reading other people's stories.
Movement was also a big factor. in CoH it was the travel powers: teleporting, super speed, super leap, and flying. Wonderfully free flying, zooming low over streets, between skyscrapers, and hovering high in the sky to admire the scenery, sunrises and sunsets, or the moon sailing through the thing clouds.
Immersion is another big thing, movement being a part of that. Feeling like you're actually there, being your character or like a guiding spirit hovering right above and behind. Either way, like you're somewhere else, or at least that your computer is a portal/interface to another world, so it doesn't feel like you're just playing a game on your computer. 2D, ortho-view, and side-scrolling games can never come close to that.
This article also mentions having different weapons make a real difference. In CoH the Archetypes played differently, and the powers and power combinations you chose also made differences. And you could feel the difference when you played, and when you played on a team, it wasn't just everybody making big slashes and flashes, there was a wide variety of visual effects and (more importantly) different effects on the targets. It made teaming up so much more fun, and part of the immersion.
Something CoH had which MHW doesn't, apparently, is variety of paths right from the start. There could have been more, but the Origins factor gave you different contacts to start with and different main story arcs to pursue, with emphasis on different villain groups.
The "thrill of the hunt" is something CoH didn't have so much, although it did have bosses that would pop up in different places. But this reminds me of something I think ALL these games need more of: Artificial Intelligence! Basic AI is not that difficult and doesn't take a lot more programming or data space. I'm not talking about implementing Watson here. A little bit would go a long way.
Arm wrestling.