Area Hosting and You

[Lutyrannus]

"Area Hosting" is a concept that many MH players probably aren't aware of going into old Monster Hunter, but it has a significant amount of effects on the hunt. With that in mind, I've decided to make this brief guide to the concept of area hosting.

Area Hosting Basics
The area host is the player who's console/emulator controls the monster. Being the area host is almost always a huge benefit.

There are two main ways the game decides the area host.

If the monster is in the area before the players, the first person to enter the area becomes the area host.

If the monster enters the area after the players, the person with the highest priority color will become the area host.

The color priority is red, then blue, yellow, and finally green, which is determined by the order you joined the quest in - red is the quest poster, blue is the second person to join the quest, and so on.

It's currently not clear if the server determines the area host when the player finishes loading into the area or after the player begins loading, and I've seen inconsistent reports of both.

If the area host leaves the area, the host will switch to the next priority player, which is determined based on if the monster had been in the area before the players or the monster enters the area after the players..

In the first situation, the player who entered the area second will become in the host. In the second situation, the next color will become the host.In both situations, any player that exits the area will be put fourth (assuming a full hunting party) on the host priority list when they re-enter, meaning that everyone else would have to leave in order for that player to become the area host again.

Host Priority
For everyone besides the host, the game tries to show what it thinks the monster is about to do. The monster continues to do the action it is about to do on the host's screen, and this usually works cleanly for everyone. However, if the monster gets suddenly interrupted in the middle of this action, it takes a while for the monster to stop doing the attack, and in that time, it can still dish out damage.

For example, a Rathian might insta-charge, and you get hit, only for the Rathian to quickly snap to a different position and stagger. This is because, for the host, the Rathian didn't charge at all - the host staggered it before it was able to. However, because your game was not yet caught up with them, it charged before the monster staggered.

This is why we get things like ultra instinct Plesioth - Plesioth is significantly easier for the area host as it does not teleport.

In this video, we can see an example of host priority. Ara attacks where the Diablos fell on the hosts screen - not where it fell on their screen.

[yursk]

It makes a lot of sense, thanks for the explaining, I didn't has any idea abot this :3

[Rune]

ty for posting here so i don't have to link to reddit in my guide :)
who knows what's gonna happen to reddit in a few years, but mh oldschool forum is forever

[BabyRath]

oh that is super interesting !

Also a question : how does it work for small monsters ? Are they hosted with the are or are they always hosted by each player individually ? Asking because of their tendency to desynch between screens, leading to stuff like companions looking like they are punching air when they are actually disposing of a small monster

[Lutyrannus]

oh that is super interesting !

Also a question : how does it work for small monsters ? Are they hosted with the are or are they always hosted by each player individually ? Asking because of their tendency to desynch between screens, leading to stuff like companions looking like they are punching air when they are actually disposing of a small monster

On the network, small monsters are client-side, but their health and such is server-side

[BabyRath]

Ah, that's what I was imagining then. Thanks!