Forum:Monster Interactions

I'm sure countless people have thought of this one way or another, but I still feel it needs addressing. If you watch the Monster Hunter Tri opening cutscene, you see an ecosystem at work. Jaggi attacking Aptonoth herds as they stampede along a narrow cliffside passage (that doesn't exist in-game, oddly enough...), with Ludroths waiting in the water to feed upon anything unfortunate to fall in, until they flee at the approach of the Lagiacrus and... well, you get the idea.

Now let's look at actual gameplay. Does any of that happen in-game? Short of a few kinds of large monsters killing and eating a particular kind of small monster, no. Monsters seem content to coexist with other species until you show up, at which point they either run away or drop everything and attack you. Short of Rathian and Rathalos, there doesn't seem to be any sort of cooperation or competition between monsters. Sure, you can make them *accidentally* injure each other, but they don't seem to actively attack each other (with the exception of Deviljho). Why can't rival clans of Jaggi, for example, fight each other? Alternately, why don't we see them pursuing or ambushing aptonoths, with some of the larger ones fighting back?

Yes, I am aware that this concept would be limited by the "max 2 large monsters at once" rule, but you could still have the 2 large monsters fight each other over food and territory (their competition being the reason why you're hired to kill them). I guess, despite this massive wall of text, all i'm really asking for is for monsters to have slightly less of an "oh-look-it's-a-Hunter-let's-drop-everything-and-attack-it" mentality.

On a side note, Rathian and Rathalos should be able pick up and fly off with prey, and the Gobul should be able to inhale epioths and swallow them whole, like they do in cutscenes.173.22.241.179 18:11, December 6, 2010 (UTC)Cobalt