Chapter 933: Step by Step
With the release of Monster Hunter, players’ resentment toward Chen Mo for ending the story on a cliffhanger mostly dissipated, as they all immersed themselves in hunting without time for complaints.
After purchasing Monster Hunter, players genuinely had a great time, progressing from the Great Jagras to the Kulu-Ya-Ku, then to the Pukei-Pukei, Barroth, Jyuratodus, Tobi-Kadachi…
One unique monster after another kept appearing, and players moved from the Ancient Forest to the Wildspire Waste, starting to encounter diverse terrains like deserts and swamps.
The emergence of new monsters and the increase in difficulty didn’t make players feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, they were quite excited!
The reason was simple: the difficulty increased very slowly and was gradual.
The Great Jagras was basically a large lizard that barely fought back, getting pummeled the whole time.
The only mildly troublesome thing about the Kulu-Ya-Ku was that it would hold up a rock to block attacks, but it was still easy to bully without any pressure.
The Pukei-Pukei spewed poison, requiring players to bring antidotes to fight it, but as long as they could cure the poison, its moves were actually easy to dodge.
The Barroth was more intimidating, a big fellow that looked scary, but it was only intimidating in appearance—it had a lot of health but low attack power. As long as players had decent gear and enough potions, it wasn’t hard.
The Jyuratodus stayed in the swamp the whole time, severely limiting players’ movement, but its attack patterns were simple—just biting, tail whipping, and spitting mud—none of which were fatal.
The Tobi-Kadachi was trickier, moving very quickly, making its actions hard to predict. It had a strong attack drive and could even use its tail to discharge electricity and shock people.
The Anjanath was big, had high attack power, and thick skin, requiring some equipment support to take it down.
…
Each monster’s difficulty increased only slightly, whether by changing the environment or introducing a new type of challenge (like needing antidotes for the Pukei-Pukei or adapting to swamp terrain for the Jyuratodus). Combined with proper beginner guidance, players always found a solution after failing once and then got through it smoothly.
Moreover, the players themselves were constantly getting stronger.
On one hand, players gathered more and more materials from hunting monsters, allowing them to craft stronger weapons and armor. When players couldn’t beat a monster, their first instinct was to forge a new weapon, and upgrading their gear naturally lowered the difficulty.
On the other hand, the players’ own skills were steadily improving. Although these monsters didn’t pose a fatal threat, they had a lot of health. During hunts, players gradually became more familiar with their weapons’ characteristics and combos, and their gameplay subtly improved over time.
Furthermore, as the game progressed, players discovered many ways to “skip class” or cheese the game, which greatly reduced the difficulty.
For example, there were many falling rocks and traps in the game that could damage monsters; different monsters would fight each other when they met, allowing hunters to just wait on the sidelines and reap the benefits; when a monster was low on health, players could set a trap to capture it; for flying monsters, flash pods could blind them into agony—using flash pods against the Legiana was incredibly effective…
And if you couldn’t win, you could just rely on numbers. Early monsters had low attack power, and multiplayer mode didn’t increase it much. If you were lucky enough to team up with a skilled veteran, you could just lie back and spam “666” while the quest was completed without any difficulty.
As the monsters grew stronger, their intelligence also increased. Some would even lay false trails by leaving footprints in many places to prolong the hunters’ search time, or when near death, they would deliberately wander into other monsters’ territories, hoping those monsters would attack the hunters. But overall, players only found it a bit annoying, not enough to be completely outwitted by the monsters.
Almost no players experienced quest failure due to three faints. The most common issue was running out of time because their weapons weren’t strong enough or their damage output was too low. In such cases, players didn’t feel much frustration, knowing the game was rich in content and worth the 1980 price tag, offering plenty of playtime.
As the story progressed, players moved from the Wildspire Waste to the Rotten Vale, started obtaining different items and mantles, and had already hunted over a dozen monsters. During this time, they also completed the Zorah Magdaros repelling operation, earning plenty of materials.
Zorah Magdaros was the mountain-like monster from the very beginning of the story, covered in hard rock. Players didn’t directly fight it head-on but instead flew onto its back to destroy its heat vents. In other words, this battle had no risk at all—just avoid the lava.
During the fight with Zorah Magdaros, Nergigante would show up to cause trouble, but players didn’t need to defeat it—just hide to the side, as NPC hunters from the system would handle the story. So no one thought this monster was particularly tough; it just looked cool.
At this stage, players had experienced very little frustration. Most players passed each monster after at most one or two failures, with no monster able to stall them for a whole day. The difficulty was indeed slowly increasing, but the players didn’t feel it much.
Thus, so far, players were very satisfied with Monster Hunter. Whether experts or newbies, they happily hunted in the jungle and enjoyed teaming up, completely unaware that the dangers of the jungle were creeping closer…