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Spent the last week finally going through the full content questline for Dauntless since absolutely loving the closed beta and open beta. I chose to wait for 1.0 and this was the best time for me to sit down and really hammer through the content. Stormclaw was originally as far as I got before (I think it was Tier 3 back in Open Beta? Or Yonder Keys, I don't quite recall at this point). Really really enjoyed this game and my time with it so I wanted to make a write up about my general thoughts and observations I made going from the start of the game to my first Rezakiri and Shrowd kills just earlier today/a few hours ago).
For context: I've many hours in MHW (and Iceborne), absolutely love Demon's Souls/Bloodborne (those Dark Souls games are alright), and did nearly everything solo with a hammer in 1.0. I did a couple group hunts here and there but every "first kill" was solo with a hammer. I think I can count the number of group hunts I did on one hand.
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Thoughts and observations in no particular order (In hindsight, this is more like my main point and reason for enjoying Dauntless):
- I love that the fights feel like boss fights first and then worry about creatures/aesthetics second. My largest gripe with Monster Hunter (and to a slightly lesser extent Dark Souls bosses) is that the design of those monsters feel like they prioritize and put the desire of making a *creature* first before an actual interesting engaging fight. I get that's partly the point, but I genuinely find that an incredibly boring and, sorry Capcom, poor way to design a game that's effectively a series of boss fights strung together. For example, a late game fight in Monster Hunter World will still largely be about the monster thrashing around and being, well, a creature. The large dragons very rarely have interesting mechanics going on that create an interesting back and forth or pace in the fight.
More specifically, let's take Teostra from Monster Hunter. A big red dragon lion that lives and breathes fire and lava. One of the final unique monsters you'll face in the line of available monsters in Monster Hunter World (not including the Iceborne expansion). Most of its attacks are still the monster thrashing and swiping at you. That will be the *majority* of its engagement towards the player. Its unique signature attack is to hover in the air momentarily and create a large body explosion that will almost certainly one-shot you from even full hp if you are a new player. Teostra has a few environmental/ranged abilities (on top of a small stream of fire that it will breathe occasionally) where it creates small flare 'bubbles' that will explode after a brief period of time. That's, without being completely exhaustive, its general total moveset.
The problem comes in this: You could swap the elemental flavor of said moves and abilities and get *generally* the same fight in most instances with most monsters. I'm well aware that's being reductive to an extent, the larger point is the key part that ends up differentiating these monsters in Monster Hunter World is how the monster thrashes around. How large its leaps end up being, how slow or quick or wide reaching they become. I have played several hundred hours of MHW and Iceborne and seen nearly every monster there is to see and fight and beat in that game save the final Nergigante variant (because I really *really* don't care to grind out the last 30 master ranks in Iceborne which takes a non-insignificant amount of time), and I can safely say no monster really breaks this mold or feel in any meaningful way. The most I could say is perhaps Kushala Daora which is a large bronze dragon that creates environmental twisters that act as large hazards that block and clutter up the field of play which I do not personally think is enough to really differentiate a fight in an interesting way.
Now I just spent a lot of time talking about how disappointed I am with the monsters in Monster Hunter because Dauntless' monsters do everything I wish Monster Hunter did. They aren't anywhere near perfect but the design ethos and choices just constantly put a smile on my face and make me genuinely excited and overjoyed that I can honestly say I never felt with any Monster Hunter monster. The first time I faced against Stormclaw back in Open Beta (I think it was open beta?) my friend and I who were co-op hunting through it were literally shook and I was laughing and screaming the entire time because god damn I wish boss fights in 3rd person action games fought and acted the way Stormclaw did. Lightning walls that cut off and close you in? Reflecting projectiles? Timed lightning bolt dodges? I was *screaming* the first time Stormclaw put up lightning walls. I don't think I could count beyond one hand the amount of times a non-MMO raid boss actually creates dynamic divisions in the battle field that change who you have to move around the field. This isn't a complex mechanic, but it's the fact that you *never* see this in most 3D action games that focus on boss fights.
Then you've got Riftstalker which I absolutely adore its void room where you play chicken with a boss. Forcefully placing the player in a different "phase" where you completely change the way you were originally engaging the boss is just not stuff you see. You were damaging and dodging basic swipes just a moment ago and now you're staring at a black void having to dodge projectiles and shadows of the boss trying to find the moment to hit the real version to knock it out of this phase. It's just genuinely fun and exciting. Part of what I love about this, and it's something my friend said that helped me realize how to describe it properly, is that it's effectively a "raid boss" phase. You were doing DPS and now the boss transitioned into a completely separate unique phase that completely changes the pace and way you engage and deal with the boss. This specific moment is a microcosm of what I adore in a good boss. It's the back and forth tug of war you play with the enemy that ebbs and flows between you dealing damage to you having to avoid attacks to engaging with entirely unique mechanics that change from boss to boss.
Then you've got the two radiant behemoths which share the same theme so I'll group them together. They have something I absolutely adore: let's put a shmup bullet hell in our action game and actually make it matter. Something my friend and I have fond memories of and what I will use as a comparison point: Ultima Weapon from Final Fantasy 14. Dodging a dynamic constant laser light show is *fun as hell*. There really isn't a lot to say other than I absolutely love it and this just reinforces the larger point that this is just sh*t you don't see bosses. This isn't just a single beam attack coming out of a bosses mouth that you see so often. This is a dozen separate points make light beams you gotta dodge and weave through.
-----Smaller specific point of criticism: I wish the attacks were less "focused" on a single point. It would be much more fun, for example with Valomyr, if the light lasers didn't just draw a line to you but instead made specific line designs you had to constantly dodge and move around in while you found your windows to hit Valomyr itself. Ultima Weapon from 14 is the big point of reference I'm making here and I love that MMO laser line dodging and would love to see more of that in Dauntless.
The general point is these are the highest absolute highlights of my time in Dauntless and the key is that these 4 behemoths have *extremely* different feeling flows of combat and fights between each other. The pace of the fights just have fundamentally different pacing because of the way the monsters are designed to engage with you. Valomyr sits back and makes a laser light show you have to dodge and contend with, Riftstalker has the flow of Embermane when it suddenly skews hard left into a game of chicken with a shadowbat. Stormclaw is a lightning goat(thing) that boxes you in and makes you play ping pong with its projectiles. There are fewer monsters in Dauntless, but I can genuinely say I felt more variance going between the dozen or so in Dauntless than the 30-something in Monster Hunter World. Going through Monster Hunter, it felt like I fought 3, maybe 4, of the same monster templates, where as in Dauntless that number is nearly equivalent to the number of monsters themselves.
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Okay that turned into a big long rant on my point/reason for why I so deeply enjoy Dauntless but I have a few other things I would like to touch on:
- I think stagger is too impactful. I keep seeing people say strikers are too good and I feel that's missing the forest for the trees. I get the same feeling with hammer but to a smaller extent (I only messed with strikers a little bit but have spent nearly the entire time with hammers). It's simply too easy to stagger lock monsters which I think deeply goes against the idea of you engaging in a *boss fight* and devolving back into beating and pummeling on a fodder enemy. I would like to see a large change to stagger thresholds.
This is obviously coming from a completely different desire and perspective. I played Dauntless like a series of solo boss fights that I had to learn and get better at and not this sort of pick up and play co-op bash fest that the game probably feels like if you play nearly only in co-op and 4 player hunts. I'm going to make criticism and ask for things that lean towards my preferences, but I simply think the behemoths lose meaning and reason if you are able to beat them in 30 seconds. They're no longer boss fights at that point.
- I think the economy is a bit odd. It's a bit annoying to have to upgrade lower tier gear since it requires fighting and churning through weaker variants of fights. I would appreciate being able to break down higher tier gear into lower tier gear but methinks this might be a way to keep lower tier hunt matchmaking populated. As a nearly exclusively solo player, this is just a weird roadblock to me.
- I miss the rams in the world areas. I get it's obviously not as big and fleshed out and not really intended to be a big open living environment but it would be nice if there were basic critters in the map areas just to give some extra flair. This would be almost exclusively a cosmetic/aesthetic change so I get why it's not high on the priority list but it would be nice.
-I wish certain fights were slightly more fleshed out or tuned. It's a bit sad Pangar's unique trait of making huge ice walls feels so buggy. Half the time that I fought it, it barely made any ice walls and I genuinely love that sort of field/player movement manipulation. Pangar ends up feeling like a really big Gnasher and feels too "basic" because of it. Basically I want all fights as complex and crazy as Stormclaw. Stormclaw is so good.
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Okay final closing comment, I figured this would go long but this is just a big dumb long post: I'm super happy to have gone through all of Dauntless' core content and I'll spend more time playing the Heroic+ playlist. Trials isn't exactly my cup of tea since beating the fights in sub-3 minutes is just not really what I enjoy about fighting the behemoths. I love the back and forth long fights that get to that feeling of raid boss fights without all the annoying baggage that comes with playing an MMO and hope more and more of the game tends to that direction and hope every successive behemoth that comes out makes me as excited and giddy to fight as when I first fought Stormclaw. I remember when I first saw Dauntless on the PAX South show floor like 3 years ago and was very enamored by it and spent a good amount of time talking to (I believe it was) Reid Buckmaster and hoping for that sort of MMO raid boss game in small more easily attainable format. I'm super happy it has managed to impress me and I'm a jaded cynical sh*t so that's a really big deal for me. I'm excited for the next behemoth and excited for more great support from Phoenix Labs :)
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