Monster Hunter World Beta: My Thoughts

Now that the Monster Hunter World beta has passed and it’s just a tad over a month until the title’s official launch date, I’d like to speak about my overall experience with the beta. Now to throw it out there I’ve personally been playing Monster Hunter since the PlayStation 2 era and I’ve remained a raving fan since. This was one of the first franchises (right next to SOCOM) that I first experienced PS2’s online multiplayer and one game I definitely put a massive amount of hours into. Nonetheless, I consider myself one of the many veteran hunters.

The World

Monster Hunter has always been filled with both land, water and flying wildlife. Each creature serving its own purpose in each ecosystem. However in the past, each creature wasn’t as lively as they can be found here in Monster Hunter World.

Parent monsters hunting to not only feed themselves but also their young. Turf wars breaking out do to one large monster being in another large monster’s territory. Large monsters breaking open “trap doors” so to speak, to rid themselves of any hunter or large monster threat. Small monsters running in packs, plotting and scheming to later attack a larger monster. Cats literally telling you to bring the monster to their designated location so they can trap it for you, all to help you take down the large monster threat. All this can be seen with in the world of well, Monster Hunter World.

Traveling

Getting around in Monster Hunter was usually made on foot, climbing and even falling off the side of a cliff. Stamina could be used to quicken movement while both on foot or climbing. In Monster Hunter World some new additions to traveling have been made.

Now you can use your grappling hook (or rope) to not only get up and down climbing areas quicker, you can also use it to swing from grappling locations on the map. Vines are also a way to swing around the map. You can even hitch a fly by grappling the pterodactyl like wyverns located in different areas of the maps. Also if you decide to sprint on the steeper sides of the maps, your hunter will preform a slide which helps you get downhill more quickly.

Swimming seems to be also a form of travel but it still remains unclear if larger bodies of water will be accessible in the full release of the game or any future DLC. Also it’s unclear if any deep sea diving will be implemented in the full release or in the future. In the beta, I personally only found knee deep ponds and one very small underwater passageway which was literally long enough to go in and out of the water within seconds of diving under. Other bodies of water were clear fishing grounds and didn’t allow the hunter to dive in.

Weapons and Armor

In the beta there was already prebuilt weapons and armor made available to the player. All weapon types were available and about five to six armor sets were available as well. Now to be fair, I didn’t check into the crafting system whatsoever during my play through. I was more interested in completing the objectives and exploring the maps. Whoever did tryout the crafting system, please free to comment below on your experience.

However, I did see that the skill tree wasn’t present for the armor. The skill tree was pretty much a graph chart with every skill available in the game named and how many points each piece of armor gave you per skill. The chart and list of available skills were not present at all, but there was one skill with a level cap attached to each different piece of armor. I want to say the level cap for the skills is Level 7 but I could be wrong. Some examples of skills available were Recovery Up, Attack Boost, Defense Boost and Fire Resistance.

Some weapons like the Hammer and Hunting Horn came with elemental buffs (paralyze and sleep respectively) which helped in hindering the monster’s efforts. I personally spent more time with the Hammer since it was the strongest weapon available and that paralyze elemental buff just really came in handy especially when fighting a large monster solo.

Shooting the Bow and Bowguns were made much easier since the auto lock is available and the control scheme for ranged weapons feels like any FPS/TPS would.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer was available during the Monster Hunter World beta. You and up to 3 other hunters were able to party up and take on each available quest. Though match making options were made available, somethings just didn’t make much sense.

For example though the options were made to search for same or any language and beginner or experienced hunters, it felt highly unlikely that only 1 to 4 rooms could only be found available. With the PlayStation 4 being a best selling console for 4 years straight and the Monster Hunter World beta being a PlayStation Plus exclusive, it just felt hard to believe such few players/rooms were available.

Also that “Quest ID” to party up with friends was such a nuisance. Just imagine having to always put in this about 10 letter/number combination code in order to search and find your friends room. Between that, getting kicked and even opening/searching more rooms through Quest ID; you’d easily be putting in hours in the Quest ID search alone. Thankfully there is word this was only a “beta thing”, as there is word an invite player/party feature is being implemented in the full game. Please and thanks Capcom!

Conclusion

Besides my earlier rant on Quest ID, I can gladly say the beta was rather good. As a veteran hunter, I do enjoy welcoming and helping new players to the franchise. I feel Capcom’s Monster Hunter World team did just that. The beta felt really “newcomer friendly” and this doesn’t have anything to do with just the on screen prompts of what buttons to press.

The training area was a great new addition, as it allows players to tryout all the weapon types available and give them a feel of not only the controls but also the weapon’s soul purpose. For example, the ranged weapons are more of a distant support role, the dual blades are more of a quick hit and run and the hammer is more of a in your face heavy hitter.

The ability to have auto combine is great. It eliminates the need to request to combine item and even the need to figure out which items combine with what. For example, a herb and blue mushroom use to make potions. Now to make potions you need two herbs and once you get two or more herbs in your inventory, your inventory will combine to make as many potions as it can from your herb collection. This keeps combining simple and frees up some much needed inventory space.

Having whetstones in infinite supply was also a nice touch. Whetstones are used to sharpen any weapons that have the ability to get dull, which is easily all the melee weapons. Whetstones needed to be mined from rocks, but with them given in infinite supply this means the search for them is over and just remembering to keep them in your inventory is key.

In the past, I know many hunters despised collecting wyvern eggs or chunky rocks. Both where found as gathering quest, could only be held and transported one by one, and limited the player from doing many useful things like jumping off cliffs, rolling or even attacking monsters. Monster Hunter World now allows you (from what I tried) to roll and even slide while transporting a wyvern egg without risking dropping and break it. What a relief huh?!

Did you get to play the Monster Hunter World beta? How did you enjoy it? Who’s looking forward to buying and playing it come release? Leave your comments below.

Remember Monster Hunter World releases January 26th, 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. A PC release date is still TBD. For more on Monster Hunter World and everything gaming, keep it locked right here on MagGamer.