2023-09-13

The ultimate upgrade for any online game is friends!

Back in July, my high school buddy Xiaolong came over to my place. I fired up my PS4 (which I’d been using as a set-top box) and launched Monster Hunter World, a game I hadn’t touched in over three years. After just two hours, I rediscovered the joy of this game and got completely hooked.

I was using the “folded longsword” – commonly known as the bow. Ranged weapons are naturally much squishier than melee, and on top of that, I was awful and hadn’t played in three years. I didn’t even know how to make monsters hit walls, so I’d often triple-cart and fail quests.

I struggled through Royal Ludroth, Tigrex, and the rest – no decent gear, no decorations – but I still managed to clear them eventually.

Later, when I was getting absolutely wrecked by Velkhana, I fired an SOS flare and got two HR 999 players joining my quest. Because I tend to play at odd hours lately, we threw a bunch of English at each other before suddenly realizing we both spoke Chinese. From that day on, we added each other as friends and started hunting together happily.

My new teammates are true Sapphire Stars! They can use all 14 weapon types – which, for me, feels like playing a completely different game every time I switch weapons. They’d smoothly carry me through every quest, using different weapons in flashy ways.

On their coattails, I blazed through the story, even somehow stumbling through Alatreon.

Then we ran into Fatalis. Fatalis is a monster that gives you 5 carts on the first encounter but can’t be fought co-op during the first phase. I braced myself, equipped my Safi’jiiva armor, and prepared to see what Fatalis was capable of.

Fatalis 5-carted me in 5 minutes, instantly failing the quest.

Two days later, I finally cleared the first phase and started hunting with my teammates. But then we spent the whole evening in a losing streak… because I kept dying like snowflakes. No matter how hard my teammates tried to heal me, I’d get one-shot by 80% of Fatalis’ attacks.

Too embarrassed to keep dragging them down, I suggested we hunt other monsters. When my teammates weren’t around, I practiced Fatalis on my own.

In stark contrast to my teammates, the SOS lobbies for Fatalis were basically dead for a low-rank player like me (under HR 200). And the few people who did join would often just quit as soon as they saw me die in the first phase, leaving me to get pummeled alone. 😭

Gradually, I picked up some life-improving tricks: crafting Mega Potions and Life Powders mid-combat with materials, equipping the slinger to ram monster heads into walls on sight, slotting Evade Window 5 and Divine Blessing 5, trading Steam Tickets from the Steamworks for hundreds of Dash Juices, and collecting all the bows from Kulve Taroth and Safi’jiiva.

Eventually, I realized I could comfortably beat every monster except Fatalis. I knew I was probably ready.

And finally, yesterday, my teammates and I cleared Fatalis several times, collecting all the materials. The sense of accomplishment was indescribable. More than that, though, having a good friend to game with – even more than a great game or great hardware – is probably one of the happiest things for a gamer.

(The images are chat logs of me streaming my entire emotional journey to lxyl.)

• 🍡Monster Hunter Rise