Trade System Tweak

There’s been one thing that my regular group of hunters have been talking about and I posted this article on my site earlier this week and that’s a tweak to the trade system. Early discussion about a question I had posed has resulted in me being flamed beyond belief. I honestly had no idea people thought my idea would break the game, but apparently that’s the case.

We were talking about farming specific items that monsters drop and how frustrating it can get when you’re looking for one particular ingredient to finish off an armor set and the monsters just won’t drop it. It was made even worse when I mentioned that during a hunt I got the one item that a friend needed and he didn’t. I thought, we should be able to trade items so that he could get the piece he needed and could trade me for something I needed. That resulted in mass flaming from the internet (specifically on the Miiverse) telling me that would completely break the game and defeat the purpose of even playing.

Many people assumed I meant that it would mean that players could just hand over G rank armor or weapons to brand new players, thus removing the fun of the quests from the game and that’s not at all what I was proposing. I don’t suggest any player get something (especially uber powerful objects) for free. My suggestion was to limit the way trades could work, but allow players to trade for items that they needed. If I have a Rare 5 item then I thought it would be fair to trade for another Rare 5 item, or to limit the trades between players that were two HR away from each other.

It would eliminate hours of frustration that many players have and benefit both parties involved. I don’t think it would break the game in any way and would actually make it more fun because rather than having to hunt the same monsters over and over again HOPING to get that one thing you need you could trade for it, finish your armor (or weapon) and move on to other monsters and new sets of armor.

Am I completely wrong in thinking this?

Well, it does defeat the purpose of hunting, which is what the game is about. Sure, (disregarding Cosmic Tickets here) I may have a Brach Pallium and you may have a Zin Skyemerald, and we've been hunting for a day or two to get myself my own Skyemerald, but with your trading system, we could just skip fighting the monster entirely. If I got a Brach Pallium on my first G Rank Brachydios, there'd be no point in you fighting that monster again because I can just give it to you for something in return. There'd be no point in fighting any monster, because a lot of people would host trading cities and what not, trade desired items, get what they want, and done, there is nothing left in monster hunter for them. Not to mention players will get the least practice with a monster, and more noobs will spawn because they can just fight the monster a few times and be completely done with it, with no incentive of returning back.

On top of this, there is also the ability to reset your game before a save. So I could go to you, trade you the item you wanted, reset my game, then go back to you and you give me the item I wanted. He gets what he wanted and I get what I wanted without either of us loosing anything.

Sai mentioned pretty accurately why trades would not be good in this style of gaming.

When I go into a city, and someone is in there, or joins that has some particularly powerful, and hard to get gear, I immediately know the type of effort that person went through to get that done, and it is a good indication that this person is a good player. (With the exception of Abysal Lagi... I see people with that gear on, and I don't judge them until I see them fight, since the ranged exploit is just garbage).

If you get all your rewards without the effort, this also means you leave the game much quicker.

First off, I want to say thank you for a civil discussion on the topic. Most of the internet just begins the attack if they don't agree with you.

There will always be people that would game the system, but I think for the most part people would use the system in the way it's intended. To begin with you have to have hunted the monster at least once to even have the weapon or armor unlocked. Then you're only going to go after the armor that you think is the best for your hunter.

The game itself also sort of forces you to hunt all of these monsters because you can't unlock the next set of quests without going through certain monsters to begin with. It's sort of a built in checks and balances system so you know people have at least hunted that monster once (and most likely multiple times) to even get the stuff to complete that armor. So many items require a huge number of ingredients that would be impractical to trade for because it would take too long to do.

Like any system there are pros and cons to having it in there. I definitely see your point, but a system like this wouldn't be a quick way to get the full armor set that you need it would just be a way to get that last one or two things that you need. There could be a cap on the number of trades you're allowed to do per day whether overall or with a particular hunter. I don't think it would be hard to implement something that would keep exploiting it to a minimum. The game already has this in it to an extent with the Argosy Captain so I think it could be done on a player to player basis as well.

Just a thought.

The only problem with such things, as Sephastus explained, the game can be exploited using the save feature. Heck, I am exploiting this save feature to farm gold large crowns on every monsters. This game, like pretty much all other games, uses RNG functions. For example, the chance of getting items is based on a percentage, and since this game doesn't lock you into a rewards table. Instead, the table is random, meaning you can exploit the game. You can hit Ceadeus enough for a one hit kill, repel him, save game, restart the quest. If you don't get a dragon gem, you can exploit by quitting the game without saving

For gold crowns, all I have to do is get a gold crown monster, quit the game without saving, and now I can infinitely spawn gold crown monsters to farm.

This also works with rare 3 and below items. I can give my friend all the mega dash juices I have, quit the game without saving, and I'll keep my items, and he gets mega dash juices.

Thus, the entire trading system can be exploited, meaning I can give you ONE brach pallium, quit the game without saving, return with a brach pallium, and now there are two brach palliums in existence. Also, because of the save exploit, the limits the game would give, such as trading only once a day or something, means I can trade with you, quit the game without saving, and I'll still keep my one-day-trade thing.

But at the same time you have people who go tail farming. They're not really proving they have put as much effort into it as you would think. A few regular fight for mats and tail farm the rare. So you also got to take that into consideration.

In general I think it will make the game a bit easier for newcomers but also shallow the experience like you guys said. I know the pain of desire sensor. I solo whole game, all quests except Super event monsters. When i hit G rank, i was farming like crazy Blos to get its hardhorn to make proper GS set (my main). I killed like 100 of them and no sign of it. It was repetitive and really piss me off at that time. I have nothin against grinding but some basic things should be easy to obtain. I dunno why there's no decent LR/HR GS set.

Can't agree though that trading system will defeat the purpose of hunting or shorten the time you spent with this game. In Tri I had all I needed and I was still playing the game for fun with my friends. For years. I was getting all rare mats, gems only to sell them because no need of those what so ever. What I'm tryin to say is that this game something more than just "killing because i need this and that". For me it's all about gameplay and will to improve my skill. Armor and weapons are only tools for that. Tools i'd rather have than not.

Though the idea of a different trade system does sound cool, MH's trade system doesn't need it. It's already broken with the quit w/o saving exploit. A lot of players stick around MH because of the need to farm and grind gor hours (even days) to get a certain mat. This is how MH has always been, and don't take this the wrong way, but it seems to me to be the "lazy" way. I for one have already abused to trading exploit to get the Atlantis Crabstone award and stock up on tons of other Rarity 3 mats. I understand exactly why you would want a system like this, but it's just not for MH.

What about VE Cosmic Tickets? They change the formula a bit. You can get rare mats by trading.

Weapons and armor should represent skill and experience of its owner but in reality it isn't. It's idealistic idea which fails online. The same like HR doesn't mean anything because of leechers. They go up to HR100, cart with abyssal armor, fail to deliver with Ala weapons. All that matters is creativity, creating unique armor sets and knowing your strengths.

Though is scares me a bit if my save file or Wii U ever crashes. It'll be a pain to get all armors and weapons back. With trade system mentioned above it'll be easier/less frustrating.

Well think of it in this way. If you were in the shoes of these hunters (which in games we always try to do) and another hunter came up to you. He saw that you have almost all of the supplies you need to forge a set of armor, but that you're missing a piece or two. If he offered to trade you those two pieces for something that you had would you turn him down? If your career (or life) were on the line would you refuse the help of a fellow hunter that could potentially save your life or even further you career to bigger and better things? I can't imagine anyone saying, "No, I think I'll go out and keep hunting these same monsters. it would be lazy otherwise." You're probably going to accept the help gratefully so you could move on with your life.

I know it's a game, but there are many players who want to keep playing the game and seeing the bigger, badder monsters and the new environments, but also have a very limited amount of time to play. Does it really hurt anyone to have a system in place that allows them to get a few of those items that they need so that they can move on and see more of the content that the developers worked so hard to create? I have five kids and only a couple of hours a day that I really get the opportunity to play. If I have to spend two weeks hunting the same monster over and over again I'm not going to play the game. i'll turn it off in frustration and maybe never come back to it. As it is I have a great group of people that I spend most of the time online with (though I'm always looking for more people to hunt with). I also know that if there's a set of armor I want, but proves to difficult to get I'll move on to something else that fits my play style and gather the materials for that.

Yes, there are going to be people that exploit the system. Every game has them. In the end it doesn't really hurt your experience any for those players to have the equipment. The co-op nature of the game would actually mean you would benefit from them (even if they exploit the system) and it's really easy, pretty early on to tell who hunts the same way that you do and bail out if you think your experience is going to suffer.

If this was a PvP style game I could see this being a bad thing, but as a single player, or co-op game it doesn't really hurt your experience. Most players also have a core group of people they hunt with and create gentlemen's agreements for what they will and will not do.

Smiley, I guess the general idea and consensus, is that while that idea is in theory sound, in application it falters.

Any game that can be exploited, will be exploited, and that diminishes the value of any and all rewards you can get from honest hard work. Instead of players seeing you and thinking: "wow, the hard work this person put into the game is amazing", you'd get "He probably cheated to get that."

For example, when I see an HR 999 person, I do not think he earned it by doing a variety of quests and learning all there is to know about each weapon... instead I just think: He must've done "4 point Formation" a bajillion times. That quest requires no skill, just ranged, and 1 or 2 minutes of playtime for thousands of HR Points. And it has been exploited to death. Know how many times I have done it? ONCE, just for completion. I have earned my 130+ HR, and my skills playing the game reflect this perfectly. Yet, I have seen HR 999 cart on quests I never get touched in.

if it hurts the experience, then dont do it, it's not like you're forced to trade. if you argue that you'd be tempted or something, then get some restraint xD.

the argument involving the save exploit makes no sense either, surely that would be fixed if trading rare stuff was possible (something like saving after a trade?)

Rare gems and mats are one thing but why the hell we can't trade basic things like traps? This will be such game breaking factor?

Very nice idea for those who get frustrated with certain rare materials the game decides to seal away from them... But this could be easily exploited like others have said, as well as it breaks the spirit of the game, which is the grinding and rewarding experience. A fix to the "quit without saving" would be mandatory game saves for those rare items. "[hunter1] is trading Rathian Plate for your Rathalos Plate. Is that okay?" (Yes) "Now Trading(which is also saving the game data)..." "Trade complete." Of course, I don't know if that would be possible in Monster Hunter or not, but it would stop the Exploit when it comes to rare materials. It'll sure save one the huge grind for rare parts players can't seem to get no matter how many times they fight the Monster.


I'm afraid if such a system existed, there would be trade cities everywhere lol

If the trading system did have an immediate save feature after trading, the exploit will vanish.

In a game where grinding is the very core of gameplay that provides satisfying hunts, a trading system like yours would need to be severely limited to the standards of cosmic tickets, such as only a handful of rare items can be traded maybe one or twice per 2 weeks. I've only gotten 6 Cosmic tickets my entire 700 hours of gameplay, and I've only used about 3 of them, showing how Capcom really wants you to keep hunting instead of taking advantage of a trading system.

All these points for and against. I agree that it would be a great thing, if regulated in game properly, of course the equal value thing, a forced save after trade, locks on certain parts until the receiving party has the ability to obtain that part.

I can see the flaws and exploits, but at the same time being the most seasoned hunter amongst my small (but slowly growing) group of hunting buddies. It sucks when they don't have the time to grind 30-40+ monsters for a single stupid piece, and our entire group gets stuck in a rut, yet the rest of us can pretty farm that piece every other monster.

In that situation I see no reason against being able to have that hunter trade me a piece of equal value (sorta like star trades with Argosy) and both of us being forced to saved before and after the transaction.

And on tradeable traps and tools note, I cannot tell you how many times we go on cap missions and I take on trap duty (because again they don't have the time to grind the cash or resources (bleeping spiderwebs) to make a large amount of traps) and I place a trap only to have the monster zone (which in TriU apparently makes monsters invulerable to sonic bombs and traps) and either us having to waste the godawful time for my first trap to break or abandon. Could easily be solved by handing another hunter a trap in the field.

That could be regulated by making the trade temporary, say if you hand someone a trap, if they don't use it it gets put back in your bag/box

Trading system won't change too much to be honest. Instead of specific cities in which people farm for certain mats like crazy (which we see a lot these days), there'll be more general cities so people don't have to leave their mates when they get certain item. I see nothing bad about trading cities. People will get things faster so they can enjoy the game, choose quests which they really like to do, instead of quest which they HAVE to do because they need -blank- item.

Grinding is not the reason for me to hunt. If you haven't noticed people are exploiting getting rare items for years. Clust Ala runs in Tri to get Skypiercers, Giant Jho pierce speedruns in Tri, Abyssal Wiluminator runs in 3U, Pierce Miralis runs, Pierce Goldbeard runs. Does it have such value to you? Instead of killing 20 abyssals you can trade right now for dynamo and do the quest you really feel like. Makes sense to me.

might be better off with some kind of way to trade in a ton of common mats from the same monster for it's rarer items instead of trading player to player.
that way you still have to kill the monster to get it's items and if you get bad luck on the rare you can still get it eventually.

Sai_ wrote:

In a game where grinding is the very core of gameplay that provides satisfying hunts, a trading system like yours would need to be severely limited to the standards of cosmic tickets.

That sounds about right.

Maybe bring back the trading lady, and she unlocks one trade per species for every X number of monsters you hunted. You don't have to use the trade immediately, but once you use the trade, you have to hunt another X monsters to complete another trade. It would have to be tracked by both the monster species and by the rank. Shouldn't be able to trade in High Rank parts for G Rank parts. Or maybe only becomes available at G rank? The trades would be like Tirith said - lots of commons for a uncommon or rare.

Any trade system would have to be for countering runs of bad luck. I think it would change the character of the game too much if player to player trades were enabled.


As for traps - yeah, those should be tradeable between hunters. If Melynx can steal it, you should be able to trade it.