Dauntless Open Beta in 2 days

[Abhorsen]

haven't seen it announced clearly on the site yet but i just noticed the news in my email

not sure if this link works for others? its suposed to be a webpage variant of the newsletter i got. https://storage.googleapis.com/cdn.p...ta_final.html#

[Lord_Darmon_The_9th]

I got into the beta from a key given to me. Wasn't too long ago but the game felt far far far from finished.
Character creation was very bare bones and there's not way to make a female even remotely feminine.
Animations particularly on walking and running look annoying to the point where I would rather not even have animations for those actions. Which is saying something.
Graphics are meh, it didn't run well on my PC so I had to turn it down.
Sound design was awful and most things I did sounded wrong.
Weapons, the ones I played, all felt very weightless. Dragons Dogma and Monster Hunter both felt great and this game did not come close to emulating the feel of those games.

That being said the monster designs all were neat and the attacks they did were pretty varied as well. Not sure how this game is going to stay alive though when Monster Hunter Worlds is coming very soon. But even if it was going to be the only "hunting" style game on PC I don't think I'd invest too much time into it. Beta really turned me off and unless I see some massive changes on a lot of things the game just isn't for me.

[Songz]

On the bright side, since Shardbound got funded ripped and it died, the old team members for Dawngate are now working on Dauntless for the past couple of months. So who knows, maybe this OB is more finished than you previously saw. They defo got a nice flux of staff members.

[Abhorsen]

I got into the beta from a key given to me. Wasn't too long ago but the game felt far far far from finished.
Character creation was very bare bones and there's not way to make a female even remotely feminine.
Animations particularly on walking and running look annoying to the point where I would rather not even have animations for those actions. Which is saying something.
Graphics are meh, it didn't run well on my PC so I had to turn it down.
Sound design was awful and most things I did sounded wrong.
Weapons, the ones I played, all felt very weightless. Dragons Dogma and Monster Hunter both felt great and this game did not come close to emulating the feel of those games.

That being said the monster designs all were neat and the attacks they did were pretty varied as well. Not sure how this game is going to stay alive though when Monster Hunter Worlds is coming very soon. But even if it was going to be the only "hunting" style game on PC I don't think I'd invest too much time into it. Beta really turned me off and unless I see some massive changes on a lot of things the game just isn't for me.

yeah i agree with your review there, solid points.
also you mean MHW for the PC? i've been playing it on ps4 for a long time but i can sorta see me alternate between both games. they are different enough to stay interesting. but yeah they need to fix that clunkyness if they haven't already. hopefully they can deliver solid content at a steady pace without destroying it with the cashshop. also hoping for a better character creator cause that thing in closed beta was terrible, all the females looked like dudes indeed.
i played the closed beta up till the Rezakiri boss, which was probably my favorite boss in the game. it has some really impressive attacks.

small video that shows this boss. i know theres a lot of people able to solo this guy now but this vid is just more similar to how i experienced him first time (including the lag which im sure has been fixed xD)

[Acreon]

I'll be giving it a shot but it sounds like my main complaints from the alpha/first beta phase from about a year ago are still there.
(Awful sound design, poor weapon feedback, humans looking like dogshit, etc)

[Seya]

Also an empty map with just one boss monster in them.

EDIT
Expectations were right to be low. Its really terrible.

[Stranger]

Start of the OB has been pretty rough that's for sure... On the bright side there seems to be a lot of interest. I managed to play through the tutorial but I got stuck at the loading screen upon completion. Fast forward like 3 hours I got back in but the game went down for maintenance after I had just made my character, again.

The tutorial is also plagued by some sort of performance issue so it runs severely worse than the rest of the game from what I've heard, so I'm hoping for a better experience once I get into the actual hunts.

With that said, It seemed pretty solid to me; Once the queue dies down/I get in and these FPS issues get solved I'd have no problem investing some playtime.

[Acreon]

Also an empty map with just one boss monster in them.

EDIT
Expectations were right to be low. Its really terrible.

Do the weapons still feel and sound bad, Seya?

[Seya]

I didn't have problems with the weapons , its the empty map with one boss in them.
That's all you do nothing else. It feels like the game isn't even in pre alpha. Just a tech demo...

[M1nhokas]

"There are 48421 people in front of you. Estimated wait time: 60+ minute(s)."

Damn, i'll try it another day then :\

[Guza85]

Game sounds pretty good on my system especially the hammer.

[Jermatoo]

Been playing it since the original alpha, I actually really like the game and hope it goes well. I've had a good bit of play time in the last few days because I've been off work but I can say for the most part it's a huge improvement over the last tests. There's a bunch of changes and stuff they added to the game with open beta like most of the NPCs actually getting unique looks instead of being copy pasted models. I won't say it's a perfect game by any means since there's quite a few problems still with things like the login queue, the horrid optimization with the tutorial and even some of the later areas, and stuff like even loading into any screen crashing people's games. All in all I'm willing to wait it out so the devs can iron out all the issues, I've been around since the first day the discord went up and I'm not gonna bounce anytime soon.

[Acreon]

So my thoughts so far:
+Combat seems far more responsive
+Monsters seem a lot more aggressive with their move sets being a bit more varied, particularly when enraged
+Graphic fidelity and style utilization has improved a bit as well
+-Sound and weapon feedback is better than when I last played, but I still feel the sound is a bit off at times. Still kind of sounds like I'm hitting sheet metal
-Still not a fan of the overall art style and some of the decisions like having rage be the same for all enemies?(Red aura)

Overall positive, I'll be playing for awhile. Also a nice bonus is that the games seems to be free of P2W. Shop is just things like armor dyes, emotes, and weapons skins. That alone gives the game a big bundle of "good points"

[Kashis]

I'm prob a lil biased, but coming from Monster Hunter, Dauntless feels weird. In some ways it is worse and others better.

For example:

Evasive manuevers for Sword and Chain Blades for example feel much faster and have a bit more control to them but there is much more delay between each attack and chaining attacks from light to heavy feels more difficult in Dauntless because of it.

When using m/k it seems like tapping/light presses on directional keys has little to no effect on movement, which feels annoying at times if you are used to how little dead zone you have with an analog stick (i haven't tested out using a controller for Dauntless at this time, but will do so later) in MHW.

A good number of the creatures in Dauntless actually have pretty good movement and attack animations from what I've seen so far, they feel more unique to fight than in MHW where a lot of the monsters share similar movement and attacks (Odogaron and Nergigante are prob two of the best designed Monsters in terms of how unique it feels to fight them.)

However a lot of the character animations in Dauntless feel way less smooth or look as good/expressive as they are in MHW. I like how you can sprint while wielding your weapon, but hate that you have to hold the action button to collect items (MHW they made most basic items harvestable with a single press as you run by).

I need to play it some more to get a better idea of what it is like, but it's just "okay" to me.

[Acreon]

I'm prob a lil biased, but coming from Monster Hunter, Dauntless feels weird. In some ways it is worse and others better.

For example:

Evasive manuevers for Sword and Chain Blades for example feel much faster and have a bit more control to them but there is much more delay between each attack and chaining attacks from light to heavy feels more difficult in Dauntless because of it.

When using m/k it seems like tapping/light presses on directional keys has little to no effect on movement, which feels annoying at times if you are used to how little dead zone you have with an analog stick (i haven't tested out using a controller for Dauntless at this time, but will do so later) in MHW.

A good number of the creatures in Dauntless actually have pretty good movement and attack animations from what I've seen so far, they feel more unique to fight than in MHW where a lot of the monsters share similar movement and attacks (Odogaron and Nergigante are prob two of the best designed Monsters in terms of how unique it feels to fight them.)

However a lot of the character animations in Dauntless feel way less smooth or look as good/expressive as they are in MHW. I like how you can sprint while wielding your weapon, but hate that you have to hold the action button to collect items (MHW they made most basic items harvestable with a single press as you run by).

I need to play it some more to get a better idea of what it is like, but it's just "okay" to me.

Yeah long time monhun player too. I can say though that it handle son controller fairly well. Still can be a bit clunky at times but i haven't played in a few days to see whether or not that was lag from the launch swamp of the servers or not.

[Acreon]

Been giving it some more time and just...i keep getting more frustrated with this game's design.
Weapon balance is shit. on top of this it seems certain monsters require specific weapons if you don't want to be wasting your time doing nothing(not just elemental weakness)
Mobility is piss poor, especially with enemies like embermane who literally run ****ing footballs fields over and over while you can kinda run quickly? Even with hammer double jump you maybe get one hit in before he does it again. Which goes into..
stamina regen is abysmal. It is god damn atrocious, especially with how much of it you're using, especially since while sheathing prevents usage from running, you have no proper unsheath attacks.
Also the game doesn't have client side hit boxes, meaning if the game decides your perfect dodge wasn't good enough on its end you're suddenly on the ground missing health. This is awful. Even MHFU knew not to break away from this given that it's PvE and timing is everything in these games.

I really want to like you Dauntless, but god damn it you keep giving me reasons not to.

[GenoX]

I played closed beta for a bit... The game became repetitive. The only difference is as you get higher the element and their action becomes faster. Team balance is also important. Like a hammer or sword player to knock boss during charges. I sort of hate how delayed or sometimes being unable to cancel attacks and you're stuck not using combos instead you hit and run. Good game if you want to occasionally hop on to fight a few boss. Boring game if you play 8 hours a day running around similar maps fighting different design of the same few bosses.

[chaoscauser]

I played closed beta for a bit... The game became repetitive. The only difference is as you get higher the element and their action becomes faster. Team balance is also important. Like a hammer or sword player to knock boss during charges. I sort of hate how delayed or sometimes being unable to cancel attacks and you're stuck not using combos instead you hit and run. Good game if you want to occasionally hop on to fight a few boss. Boring game if you play 8 hours a day running around similar maps fighting different design of the same few bosses.

Don't all games get repetitive though?..

[Abhorsen]

Been giving it some more time and just...i keep getting more frustrated with this game's design.
Weapon balance is shit. on top of this it seems certain monsters require specific weapons if you don't want to be wasting your time doing nothing(not just elemental weakness)
Mobility is piss poor, especially with enemies like embermane who literally run ****ing footballs fields over and over while you can kinda run quickly? Even with hammer double jump you maybe get one hit in before he does it again. Which goes into..
stamina regen is abysmal. It is god damn atrocious, especially with how much of it you're using, especially since while sheathing prevents usage from running, you have no proper unsheath attacks.
Also the game doesn't have client side hit boxes, meaning if the game decides your perfect dodge wasn't good enough on its end you're suddenly on the ground missing health. This is awful. Even MHFU knew not to break away from this given that it's PvE and timing is everything in these games.

I really want to like you Dauntless, but god damn it you keep giving me reasons not to.

i think i remember embermane, he was super easy with the chain and sickle during beta because a single hit during his charge made him trip and get stunned. i understand this may be impossible with a hammer lol

[Jrgsubzero]

It's alright.