Idk man, I feel it’s kinda lame that it’s the fight *demands* you change your whole build specifically for *it.* Have I done that before for especially annoying monsters like Kirin? Sure. …but I could still complete those fights without that setup; I could still play *my way.* It’s that lack of freedom to approach it however you want that really sucks the fun out; for me anyway.

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

Right, that's kind of ultimately what I was getting at. It's a very rigidly demanding fight. Which once you have a build that works, the fight works well. But that doesn't gel well with Monster Hunter's 'figure out how monsters work on your own' approach to strategy, Monster Hunter's core conceit of allowing tons of different types of builds to be viable and engaging for most other fights, and the central grinding balance the game has designed entirely around that wide variety of builds. That one change in strategic demands to this one fight, completely upends the rest of the game's central design; they're incongruous :)

@Deoxys_Used_Mimic

Ай бұрын

@@LibraScope Now that I think about it, there are far worse fights in MHWI… I mean, it’s not Ancient Leshen. Thank Dog, *that* fight wasn’t required in order to fight Fatalis.

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

​@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic Hahaha. I'm actually unsure if I ever did Ancient Leshen. I know I did the normal one, but I don't remember much about it other than playing as Geralt.

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic Just thought it would be funny to mention that I finally did Ancient Leshen... yeah that fight sucked hard, lololol.

Apologies, I don't normally comment on videos I disagree with, but there's a number of points I'd like to challenge. For the record, I'm not trying to call your video "bad" or whatever, I just see things differently. I'll concede the fight's mechanics aren't explicitly outlined for beginners, and heavily punishes a lack of knowledge. Personally that doesn't really bother me and I would also argue that no hunt is ever really explained beforehand. While Ala demands more than most fights, expecting Alatreon to break this trend is a bit unreasonable, though there could have also been better hints mid-fight. IMO it's fine that Alatreon is a jump in difficulty, it is in line with his lore and previous appearances, but I do find it problematic that lots of beginners feel compelled to beat him on as soon as they reach the relatively low Master Rank requirements. The fight is clearly designed to be an end/postgame encounter, so having the requirements be a bit more gated might help newer people recognize that. Anyway the biggest thing I want to emphasize in this comment is that the the fight indeed does demand a lot from the player, but not from the equipment end of things. Getting better gear will certainly assist you in clearing Alatreon, but I think this video majorly overstates what kind of gear/grind is actually required for you to do it. The game gives you plenty of options in terms of capable weapons/armor for dealing with Ala before you unlock his fight. Safi, Kulve, Frostfang, Silver, and even Velk, are all more then capable of meeting the elemental topple without needing to go crazy with elemental skills/builds. It's even possible just to take the Judgement faints and run a purely raw build, the day after beating him for the first time, I just cleared it with my usual Brachy set. That being said, I have been playing MH for far too long, so I am not expecting most beginners to do that with ease, though insurance also can extend things quite a bit on that end. I guess my point is provided you have the right item loadout/pre-hunt prep, and have a solid understanding of blights, hitzones, elemental damge, and your weapon's moveset, you don't actually need good gear to slay Ala. Naturally elemental builds will have it far easier, as that's what the fight encourages you to do, but stating it's mandatory isn't true. Dragonblight isn't really a problem if you learn to space/frame the dragon attacks, if you get hit, just do your best to learn and use your seeds/cooldowns wisely. Your elemental damage output is just contingent upon learning where you can squeeze in the extra hits for the element to reach the threshold for the topple, a bigger number/higher skills are helpful but again not required. Heck the slower hitting weapons have a lower threshold they need to meet to perform the topple. One of the issues I have with the narratives I've seen some newer players adopt, is that builds in Monster Hunter are what matter to clear hunts. Sure, you'll need some stats to clear things within that hunt's respective timer, but what's far more important is learning spacing, timing, attacks, mechanics, and just general monster matchup knowledge. When I look at difficult fight I don't go in thinking about what can I grind for to be optimal or counter/ignore what this monster is doing. Instead I get excited and want to grow as a hunter, despite getting constantly bodied.

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

I think you've kinda missed the point of this video. I really do appreciate the comprehensive and kind comment. But my argument was never 'you have to grind better gear'. It's not about better gear. It's about different gear. It's that you almost certainly don't have the type of gear that the game wants you to be using; at least not to a degree that it would create a whole build for you. So you end up needing to spend time grinding hunts to get that gear. And since the gear is new, it's probably a good idea to do some basic Augmentations and Upgrades to that gear, which depending on your circumstances might take more grinding. If you want to go in with a specific charm you don't have upgraded, you'll have to grind for that. It's not about needing to go in with the best of the best or something like that. But rather, something that's suited for endgame, and more specifically, this fight in particular. It's NOT that you're grinding like you would in an RPG, where you're trying to get HIGHER stats than normal for the fight, that trivialize it. It's that if you don't have access to things needed to make a build for it, you have to go out of your way to gather all the pieces of that build. Normally in Monster Hunter, that's fine, because that's an elective choice. I wanna try being a team healer? I gotta get healer stuff. I wanna try using a Paralyze weapon build? I gotta reinforce that concept. But it basically NEVER asks so demandingly, that you to spec into a specific type of build for a single monster, because its specific challenges are SO punishing. The closest I got to that before Alatreon, was feeling like preventing Blastblight was necessary for me, to do Raging Brachydios. It's important to recognize that I said in the video that you do indeed have options, and then as an example I listed the many ways you can deal with Dragon damage and Dragonblight. It's not that you don't have various routes you can take. Instead, it's simply very unlikely that a player is going to have everything they need, based on the strategy they want to go with, and the skillset they might be best at. No other hunt so universally stops the average player and says "Change your build, or else the only way you're getting through this is by absolutely mastering every hitbox and every timing window, etc." And skillset diversity is important to think about when assessing a fight like this. We can talk about how you can technically beat the fight this unintended way, or with that unintended setup, or if you just master these hitboxes and such all we want. But not everyone is going to have that skill, or even an interest in playing MH that way. And up until Alatreon, that's okay, because you can usually play to your specific strengths as a hunter while still having a buffer of forgiveness when you make mistakes or your skillset has weaknesses. Alatreon removes that buffer. The less rounded your build is for his specific pain points, the more punishing he becomes the SECOND you make any mistake. It's the variety and severity of his punishment types COMBINE, that make him so deadly without a well rounded build. Again, my point was not about 'good gear'. It was about most players who aren't complete masters needing THE RIGHT gear, which they're unlikely to have unless they grind for it. This fight is several notches MORE SPECIFIC in what it wants from your average player, when compared to the rest of the game. Lastly, I'd like to note that it's kind of strange to argue that Alatreon's mechanics aren't outlined well for beginners, and that makes him uniquely punishing... but that you don't think it's reasonable that Alatreon breaks the trend of most monsters giving players little guidance. Is it not already breaking a trend that he's got such specific, narrow mechanical expectations? The reason other hunts don't need heavier guidance than the minimal amount they have, is because they don't make a habit of doing things like hiding unavoidable instant-kill party wipes and progress-negating phase transition gimmicks from you. The intended mechanics of other monsters are generally not NEARLY as rigid and specific as this, and as such, the player can more effectively learn through experimentation and failure. It only stands to reason that if Alatreon is going to break the trend of rather relaxed build demands for your average player, they should also break the trend of relaxed communication about their mechanical demands, and give us some more direct information, right?

@mh-united

Ай бұрын

​@@LibraScope It's possible that I'm misinterpreting things, both in the video and in this comment, so sorry if I get things wrong. Let me start with the grind you've brought up in the first three paragraphs. Yeah, there are a lot of skills that will make the fight substantially easier in different regards. The biggest is Health Boost, followed by more Elemental damage, then having generic damage skills, and lastly some utility/resistance options. While the vast majority of the game up to Alatreon can be cleared with sets that aren't optimized in that manner relatively easily, I don't find it a fault with the fight that it pushes the player to either learn the fight or compensate by enhancing their build(s). However I do find it problematic that Alatreon is unlocked as early as it is, because if you start the encounter close to the rank it's unlocked, you won't have encountered most of the hunts that are similar in difficulty. If Ala, and Fatalis by extention, were locked behind something like MR 100, it would give players the chance to both refine their skills and potentially sets. If there's one thing we both can agree on, I think, it's that the fight is demanding and punishing. That being said, I don't think Ala is as big of an outlier for it's spot in the game. When Alatreon was released in the second to last title update, most of the community (at the time) had already overcome MR Kulve, Safi, and if you go further back, Behemoth, who all had similarly punishing mechanics/damage thresholds. None of those fights are spelled out for you mechanically speaking and all of them have mechanics that can lead to immediate failure when not dealt with appropriately. Most players at the time Ala was released would have beaten Lunastra, along with the majority of arch tempered elders like Nami and Kirin (at their respective ranks), and would generally recognized that yeah you'll want to have skill tailored to dealing with them to make your life easier. You mentioned Raging Brachy, but there are other monsters with similar attack speeds and mechanics to Ala. It's fight is designed to be fairly challenging for players that have intimate understanding of everything that came before him, and have built up a catalogue of skills and sets from most of those things they've encountered. Basically I don't expect beginners to run in with whatever build they're comfortable with and clear it without issue. If they did, Alatreon wouldn't be a proper endgame encounter. Despite that I think with enough familiarity with the fight, you could genuinely run a lot of things and you don't actually need much (in terms of armor skills) to clear the fight. I don't see players that recognize monster attacks and find safe positions to be "masters" of the fight, it really doesn't necessitate dodging every attack. I had two friends new to Iceborne, with no insight into it's mechanics, clear Ala as a duo, with Nami armor, a wide range talisman, and Velk weapons. They just failed it for a while and eventually caught on, by breaking the head in a run, and learning when/where it was safe to attack. Yeah the fight has two specific things you'd likely want to do to clear it, being get the topple and break the head. I don't see that being all too different from luring Behemoth away from meteors, hiding behind them, and doing enough damage to avoid getting nuked without them, nor do I the judgement as being all that different from needing to do enough damage to MR Kulve's weaker hitzones to avoid immediately failing the timer before she flees, if anything it's less punishing then that. With a strong enough grasp of things you can still do neither of the previously mentioned mechanics, (at least when playing solo/duo) and still kill Ala. It doesn't require a "well rounded" build, just one that is geared towards doing enough damage. Also in your last paragraph, I'm pretty sure you misunderstood what I was saying. Yes, it would be nicer at least mid-hunt for the NPC dialogue to be a bit more specific. The tutorial text box that pops up beforehand does outline things a bit better, but they do set you up for a rough first couple of hunts. Honestly I think that's fine that it doesn't, but I also come from an era of Monster Hunter where failing quests repeatedly was the norm and wasn't a problem. There wasn't any information on your first couple Crimson/White Fatalis hunts letting you know that you'll need to deal with armor mode, nor any advanced warning that Yama might one-shot your entire team with the his suction with no way for you increase the number of carts you have. Ala back in Tri never really gave you much indication that he'd be weaker to some elements over others, but we learned as a community to overcome it. Players in that era would just accept the challenge, slowly adapt, and there's no real major punishment for failure, just a use of time to learn the fight. Not every fight needs to teach the player in the same way, and having fights like Ala that initially favor the monster are some of my favorite in the series. Again, a lot of this is just subjective, but I just don't see the demands of Ala's fight being outrageous. It could just be me, and the group of new players I played with, but I'm not particularly bothered by the way the fight is presented and handled. It certainly could be better, but I personally found it a fun time to learn and watch others do the same. Anyway it sounds like you felt things were insurmountable/impractical without upgrading/grinding, and were bothered by it which is fair. I don't have the same outlook on the fight. If you do end up tackling Fatalis, I wish ya luck and I'll be interested to see what impressions you walk away with.

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

@@mh-united I think we're reaching something closer to an understanding. I think 'impractical' is a good way to describe how it felt to just run headfirst into Alatreon. I think the length of time MH fights often take also has something to do with it. I play a lot of very difficult games. So I'm used to high challenge, and used to having to figure things out on my own. But usually, a boss or whatever in other games might take 5 minutes. Keeping up such a high level of play for 2-3x as long, or longer in MH is already fairly taxing. Doing it against an enemy that can crush a player as quickly as Alatreon, or Fatalis is definitely a lot. Also, for me, Alatreon is different from Safi'Jiiva, or Behemoth, etc., because it's 'required' insofar as that other fights are locked behind it. I forgot to mention in my previous reply that I do absolutely agree that putting the fight behind MR 100 or something would've made a lot more sense, though it also makes sense for very, very experienced hunters to be able to get to him as soon as they'd be capable of defeating him, especially for repeat playthroughs. I think it would be a good idea for MH to maybe introduce a second, "Recommended" HR/MR rating for superboss style hunts like that. So people have a general idea of how experienced they might want to be, even if you unlock a hunt at a lower rank. Similar to you but on the opposite side of the spectrum from your friends, anecdotally my friend and I were already nearing MR80 by the time we really tried Alatreon again, and it didn't feel like it made any meaningful difference, because our problem wasn't a lack of experience hunting; it was the things I've illustrated already. A good compromise might be to give players an option for some sort of... more advanced investigation for fights with gimmicks like this, that way if you feel you need it, you can fill out special pages of the hunter's journal that give you more direct knowledge about the monster. That would fit well with the whole ecology layer of the series. And specifically with Alatreon and some of the other monsters, it fits well with the "Oh my gosh, there's a big mystery as to why this monster is here/acting this way/so dangerous." story elements, because you'd be more actively finding that information out through means other than simply fighting and cutscenes, more often. But if you don't want to do that extra work as the player, you could just skip straight into the fight so it doesn't hold up those veteran players. If you beat the monster, all that info will fill out in the journal automatically. Monster Hunter is a difficult one to tackle, because there are several layers to skill and mastery that all have WILDLY different timeframes. Like... after nearly 500 hours of ANY game series, it's hard to argue someone like myself is a beginner. But at the same time, I also wouldn't quite call myself an expert, despite the fact that if you compare MH to something like Souls, you could 100% every Souls game, and Bloodborne/Sekiro in less than 500 hours and be a master in spite of the challenge of the series. Despite not being unfairly grindy the vast, vast majority of the time, and despite MH's slower pacing not being an issue, Monster Hunter progression is kind of protracted in a way. And so you can gain heaps of experience... spend 200 hours in Low and High Rank, and still feel kinda noob-ish against what Master Rank throws at you in terms of skill. Ultimately, I think it's important to recognize how many people have a problem with this fight. I don't disagree with you that the fight itself is fine, as I said in the video. The fight itself is fair, and strategic, and really solidly balanced. But when so many people have made videos on this topic, and so many commentors on those videos express frustrations, even after these players might've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing, there's gotta be SOMETHING the fight is doing that's rubbing people the wrong way, that could be improved. And for me, I didn't want to argue that it was just that the fight sucked; it doesn't. I just think it needs a bit better conveyance, and that it's not particularly well suited to MH's usual gameplay loop and pacing.

I hate alatreon because of his flying

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

I agree. I appreciate that he seems to have a very limited amount of time he can spend flying in each phase. And if you can pull it off, flinch shotting him while he's flying is super useful. But it still feels kind of bad in a fight with phase timing like this. Especially in the Dragon phase, because it more or less means most weapon types can't really hit his head to contribute to breaking the horns.

@duarteribeiro1520

Ай бұрын

@@LibraScope For me it's not because it's harder to break the horns it's because of the time wasted, I don't like standing there and either trying to get a hit or two or trying to smoke bomb but sometimes it doesn't work

@LibraScope

Ай бұрын

@@duarteribeiro1520 That's absolutely fair!