For the demo of MHW, they showed off the new way of proceeding through a hunt... And it goes something like this;
Spawn into the Map. You get dropped at a set Base Camp [there are multiple per map] and you have your item box, delivery box, tent, etc etc. In the tent, you can actually change your equipment! Full access to your different armor, weapons, and "mantles" And mantles are basically a new type of toggle-able equipment that is in your item bar. It's shown in the trailer as the "ghillie" suit but there's a bigger selection than just that. In the demo they showed off two other types of mantles - the "Challenger" Mantle, and the "Stoneskin" Mantle. The challenger Mantle acts as a sort of "tank" Mantle. It's a shiny Mantle made out of various metal scales, and it's use is described as "a Mantle worn to attract the attention of Monsters. Useful for guiding them to different areas and (pissing) them off!". The other Mantle is the Stoneskin Mantle, which was worn by the Dev after he swapped to bow gunner mid hunt. The Stoneskin Mantle is supposed to give fire resistance and make you more stable -- but we didn't get to see the effects of the Mantle before the hunt ended.
The next new thing in the Hunter arsenal is the "Hunter Sling", a slingshot that is automatically equipped on all hunters and something I consider an essential to navigating the new areas. This slingshot is used to shoot various types of berries and rocks at Monsters, plants, and the environment. You can aim and shoot it without storing your weapon using L2 to aim, then R2 to fire. You select the ammo by equipping it through the item menu. The demonstrated ammo were Scatterberries, similar to the Scattershot from other games -- it's a weak AoE pelt used to knock environment or aggroed mobs. The other ammo was a new type of plant called "Ripshot", a thick apple like fruit(?) that exploded when shot. After briefly demonstrating the Hunter Sling, we got our final large new tool explained -- the trackerbugs.
Trackerbugs are what you saw in the trailer hovering around various lootable objects. That green swarm of fireflies. These tracker bugs will focus on tracking the monster currently selected by the Hunter. In the bottom right of the screen, beside the minimap, is a list of large animals encountered in the area. Any Monster you haven't investigated yet is a ?. As the Hunter travels throughout the area, the trackerbugs will lock onto various tracks of the monster being tracked -- demonstrated for us was mucus, Monster corpses, footprints, and claw marks. As you amass these Monster tracks, your tracking gauge fills up on the right of the screen. At various milestones, you will discover a) what the monster is b) the bugs will more accurately track the monster and at the final full level; the trackerbugs will accurately lead the way to the tracked Monster. If you happen to bump into the monster, you will get it automatically added as a full investigation.
The Monsters shown to us were the "Great Vagras", a ludroth-like Monster that gobbled it's Prey whole, and the Ajanoth, the monster seen in the in the trailer. The target for the demo hunt was the Ajanoth, but the Great Vagra was seen at various times throughout the hunt. After a little bit of tracking - the Dev finally came to the monster nest of the Ajanoth where it was sleeping. He used the ghili Mantle and the Hunter Sling to wake up the monster, and lead it outside of the cave -- oh, did I mention the map is open world? Because it is.
The map is divided into areas on the minimap, but it's one large consistent area with no loading screens. That being said -- after waking up the Ajanoth we got to see some combat. Attack was triangle and r2, triangle being the main slash it seemed. After running around the monster for a bit - attempting to avoid it's swinging attacks - the Dev did a charged swing off a nearby ledge and mounted the monster. Mounting is a bit different in this entry now, because the monster will act much more violently and erratically as it tries to swing you off -- so you can do the normal attack with triangle, hold on with r2, and then Dodge by holding to a side and pressing X. The Dev didn't accomplish this, and the monster slammed it's body into a tree and sent the Dev flying. The tree collapsed and entangled the monster, allowing the Dev to grapple back on and finish his mounting attacks - toppling the monster over. Some notable aspects are that there are now damage numbers on attacks -- for us, we saw GS average "15" on light to "34" on charged slash.
Jumping ahead a little, after going back and forth with the monster -- the monster got distracted by a roar and disengaged battle to run off. After chasing, we got to see some awesome environmental combat. There were poisonous berries that the Hunter interacted with using circle, and he cut the plant open - pouring the poison goo all over the floor. Sadly, the Dev got poisoned -- but did the monster. After being poisoned, the monster ran off enraged and slammed through a stone wall -- adding a new area to the minimap that the Monsters could go into and traverse through the various tunnels. In this little cave were lightning bugs that the Hunter could interact with using circle to create a makeshift flashbomb. The range on this was much smaller than what we expected, but it worked in such an enclosed space. Beyond simple circle interaction, the destructible environment came into play at a point. Similar to what we saw in the demo, the Dev placed a raw meat under a suspended boulder. Once the monster stumbled close to eat, the developer shot the bundle with the Ripshot bomb and blew it out of the suspension, dropping it onto the monster for 245 damage.
The monster was very weak, and quickly ran away to its nest. Instead of following, the Dev treated us to another new function of the game -- fast travel! The feline companion jumped onto the hunter's shoulders and they flew up into the sky(?) and then after a rapid loading screen, appeared in the selected base camp. Then the Dev switched to a heavy bowgun set (which is the machine gun that everyone is talking about) and showed us that we do in fact have all 14 weapon types available in this game!
The Dev eventually found the nest after bouncing on some vines and climbed up to it where he showed off a new bowgun feature -- mortar shot. He shot a large Rocket into the air and it came crashing down on the sleeping monster, waking it with a rude 45 damage. He then rapidly ran out and lead the monster through some forested cliffs up to a monster nest of an "undisclosed" Monster. Some brief battle ensued, showing off the new "Sticky" bullet type -- a glue bullet that explores after a few seconds for roughly 35 damage -- as well as the new wyvern bullet -- a very close ranged special damage shot that acts sort of like the charged gunlance blast from previous entries. After the short battle, a Rathalos came to the nest and grabbed the monster. It executed the monster by picking it up, doing a frontflip, and throwing it into the grounds for 452 damage -- ending the hunt. The Dev got some carves, a complete sign flashed on screen, and our short but sweet demo was over.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Hymn of Ragnarok
