提案/Suggestion
Greetings,
I have been a Gyro only player since charge blade first released, and have found it to be the most engaging and satisfying way to play the game. Initially, this also came with the bonus of being able to use any armour freely without worrying about the lock-on skill. Eventually, lock-on became well enough distributed that this became moot; however most people, including me, always figured lock-on should just be a default when not playing Gyro. Ranged classes basically don’t have a choice as it stands, and that’s fine for the most part.
Gyro and Lock-on have always had advantages and disadvantages over each-other when it comes to normal hunts. Gyro has the freedom to target wherever it likes without delay, aim for anywhere on the monster, and do micro movement tricks. Lock-on has had ease of targeting the correct part, even when the monster bucks around like crazy. Enter the most controversial advantage Lock-on has over Gyro (and lock-on-less): the ability to bypass raycasting of move hitboxes, allowing one to hit through the monster to hit the targeted part, where an attack without using lock-on done with the exact same vectors would not be able to strike the same part. Whether this is how it should be is not the question here, but it is important.
Now enter: Riftborne monsters, and their unique mechanic of Rift-parts. Riftborne monsters are a real mixed bag when it comes to where their Rift part is placed. Some are on all naturally breakable parts, like Barroth and Banbaro, where it felt like they are without issue as generally every breakable part has gone through playtesting with wings, tails, and blunt only parts being part of the weapon class give/take. Other Riftborne monsters like Barioth, Aknosom, and Girros, not only have these on parts that are not breakable traditionally, but they are also kept away from the player or obscured for nearly the entire fight. This is where my perceived issue on play-testing comes in: It very much feels like all of these Rift-parts are only being play-tested with Lock-on being used. One could try dismiss ranged’s plight with class give/take (where’s the wing Rift-parts then?), however these parts are so egregiously un-hittable without the raycast ignoring properties of Lock-on that it casts doubt ln ANY play-testing without it was done!
So, how do we move forward from here if the team finds this as an oversight without touching Lock-on? I see three paths forward, but they don’t have to be exclusive:
- Size up the monsters until the Rift-part is able to be reliably targeted - A lot of the monsters are on the smaller scale of what they are in the games, some like Aknosom and Girros could easily be bumped up to silver or gold crown size without much detriment and would give much more surface area to target.
- Instead of using questionable monster parts, use only traditionally breakable parts - this brings back the class give and take for some like Aknosom where ranged can have an easier time with the wings
- Don’t stick with only three Rift-parts per monster - two can be fine as well you know; it doesn’t HAVE to be three, thus forcing these questionable parts for symmetry reasons.
If you made it this far thanks for taking the time to read.