Oh, I forgot there's no limit to dying on expeditions.

Thanks for the quick hunt. Was speedy, that.

We’ll be fine, with or without Fire. We’re 2 good 4 Monstahs.

But yeah...fire should work. Got a Glav Hammer which seems very hitty and burny, so looking forward to testing it. Doubt sleep will be as effective against the next hunt.

No rush, just lemme know when you’ll be around and I’ll jump in.

Did the quest we got up to. Not too bad, but resistances are key and you need damage - dude has HP for days. Took me 35 minutes, which might seem speedy but I was doing relentless attacks and he just refused to go down, even with decorations for damage and crits. Screw doing that with a low DPS weapon.

Ooh good job! I didn't have much time so only tested my new armour against a Great Jagras, Pukei Pukei and Paolumu. Very exciting, I didn't even manage to make more weapons.

I look pretty awesome though.

Hahaha, don't think my guild card updates though! It's a memory of my death metal period in MH.

I should be around later today, so next morning for you, if you're not sucked into endgame by now.

Sorry - missed you this morning. You gonna be on later?

Coolio.

Yeah that was a good hunt. I should practice hunting in the forest a bit though, I always slide into the poison puddles or get lost. With how far you sometimes needed to dodge for that hunt it's a good thing if you don't dodge into a tree or boulder the whole time.

Also unlocked the next story quest. Not what I was expecting so this of good. Looking forward to it.

Nina wrote:

Also unlocked the next story quest. Not what I was expecting so this of good. Looking forward to it.

Yeah, like you I thought it was heading in one direction, but it took a different path. I’m online this morning anytime you wanna jump on, if you have time.

Speedhaak wrote:

Gah I dunno. The hunts in this are driving me to drink. I think in theory I love the idea of Monster Hunter but I'm not quite sure the reality is my cup of tea.

Sorry bud. How far are you along? One thing that can help sometimes if you’re not feeling it is a weapon switch.

Any idea what your particular issues are with the game?

Thanks to @Nina as always for the good hunts today. And congrats to her for completing the campaign.

Squirty LSD Boi, Angry Spikey Boi, Angry Tiger Boi and Weird Ass Final Boss Boi all done with confidence.

Yeah Boi!!!!!!

Let’s get some three way scientific research involving large weapons going.

All of that stuff - assignments, optionals etc. - was there at launch. There's just more of them now, especially events. Event quests can be ignored for the most part - many are there to fulfil a specific farming need, e.g. I need gems, I need ores, or I need to improve my hunter rank quickly. Some offer "special tickets" which usually unlock unique armour pieces. Other than that, I tend to ignore them unless I'm looking for a very specific type of grind.

That said, I can understand how the game might fail to appeal or land properly if you're not playing regular-ish. As a stop-start game it ain't so great. I took a big break between base game and Iceborne, but whenever I play it, I tend to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to it - it becomes the hobby game. 

Lance is in a bit of a weird place at the mo. META arguments aside (I tend to find min / maxed builds boring, as evidenced by my insistence that my hammer is used for inflicting status ailments which is apparently NOT VIABLE AND HAMMER IS ONLY FOR RAW!!!) I actually think the Lance is the weapon that came into Iceborne the worst.

MR enemies hit hard, and I found early Iceborne with lance somewhat overwhelming. While most weapons can be tuned towards status, crit damage (or basically whatever you want, ranged weapons aside) the Lance absolutely needs defensive skills, so you lose a lot of utility for builds. Early armour sets don't do a good job of offering good Lance skills and the Lance seems to have the hardest-to-use clutch claw mechanics (imo) out of all the weapons - and clutch clawing is a big thing in Iceborne. Add to that the fact that Heavy Bow Guns currently offer similar protection to Lances, along with a whole lot of damage, and the Lance feels like it needs a retune. 

The counter argument to that is that Lance hopping / evasion is now far more important that block, which is fine. But if you're someone who wants to play the lance in a tanky fashion (like I do) it currently feels really underpowered. 

The lance is a great weapon, though - one of my mains and for some time it was my fave. But I've barely touched it in Iceborne as it's such a build-dependant weapon and I found it far easier to survive with the Hammer or Bow. I tried it a few times in Iceborne against some enemies and I was just getting destroyed - I genuinely thought something was wrong. I used to be able to carry with a lance against some of the toughest enemies in the game and that weapon saw me through 30+ nergis, but now it sits untouched.

I'm at a point where I can probably get a decent lance build together and I fully intend to. However, I'm actually looking to try out a LBG or HBG build (and no, not the stupidly broken HBG META build that is currently in mass-use). Defensively, the HBG can be as good a shield as the lance, unfortunately, with far more range and combat utility. I wanna go back to tanking again, and that actually looks like my best bet. 

As far as micro-management goes, there's more, although which items you actually have to bother with depends on weapon sets. Until this week, i never bothered with any ammo stuff outside of Bow Coatings. Currently the side stuff sits at:

1. Argosy
2. Tailriders
3. House Decoration
4. Steamworks
5. Melding
6. Resource Deliveries 
7. Forging, Upgrades and, later, augmentations
8. Your garden thingy for growing plants / bugs etc. 
9. POOGIE!!!!!!!!

There's a fair amount, but most of that stuff can be forgotten or semi-automated until you need it. Tailrider is once every five quests, melding can be completely forgotten until you need to meld a specific item (mega demondrug and armordrug, basically). Resource deliveries - only need to focus on unlocking new camps, the rest can wait. Your resource garden, once you get it going and have good fertilisers, you can use soft soil to refresh the setup and only have to re-do it every 5-9 quests. Point is, it's a lot of upfront work but becomes easier once it's going. Poogie is life. Love Poogie.

The only side-stuff i'd say to prioritise outside of the aforementioned is the optional quests with speech bubbles - they give new equipment. The rest can be ignored unless needed. 

So yeah - I understand your position re. schedule. Content wise, there's more, but they're the same types. Micro-management is bloaty, especially before you've really got it going. The Lance - great weapon, love it - but it's struggling imo. There's a reason why it's bottom of the list used by speedrunners. Now, speedrunners all use MEGA META OPTIMISED builds, so you can ignore that re. fun. But, it does show that the Lance really isn't offering anything even against high-damage or high-aggression enemies - every other weapon can do something the lance does right now, and can do it better. Hell, the hammer has turned into one of the best aerial weapons in the game AND has great support capabilities due to clutch claw softening. 

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you to be into the game. If it's not working, it's not working. Just thought i'd share some thoughts.

Yeah, should be around in the morning.

Been putting Icebun off, but I am fair looking forward to see how the GL meta has evolved. I gather it's way more explodey now. Good.