quote MyLifeIsRandom

So while farming Terra S. Ceanataur alone for the extra shells I needed to start crafting the weapons, I noticed something. Every time he/she burrows beneath the ground, the Ceanataur waits until I try a suicide jump or a roll, and then bursts from the ground at my exact location. I thought this was just some form of bullshit that happened on the occasional odd quest or two. However, only when my dodge brought me to a complete stop did my enemy rise forth and knock me back a few yards. It's almost as though it now knows exactly when the strike. This is of course obviously different from the usual regarding Ceanataur as his ridiculous reach disproves any comment regarding his planning to your location. However, with a limited range during his rise from underground, it's almost like he planned it the moment he went underground. Has anyone else seen particularly brilliant AI in their foes, lately or previously?

The great MLIR outsmarted by a crab? Surely not!

Just wait for it to burst up, and jump. Its all about the reaction time.

quote MyLifeIsRandom

Well that's the thing. I haven't hunted many Shogun in MHFU. In MHF2, one would either rush to burst up from where you were, stay underground for a time before rising up in the same spot, or he would form a pentagon around you before bursting up from in-between the previous points. Now, even with Narga X and my extra long rolls, I still get caught right after dodging his initial rise from the ground, if I can do so at all. I guess I just didn't notice this particular enhancement at first.

Then just get as far as possible from the point where you were when he went under. That way, he's far less likely to come up anywhere near you, and certainly shouldn't come up there twice.

quote MyLifeIsRandom

I've actually performed that plan. It rarely worked, and I was often beaten and bruised because for some reason I had an impulse to test my new Ceanataur Z armor despite the -20 Defense skill. I also tried escaping the area, and waiting for the paintball to appear again to signal he had risen by himself, but I'm a generally impatient person in a fight.

Hmm. Strange, I've never seen anything like that, certainly not from a crab.

quote MyLifeIsRandom

I was just wondering if anyone had seen any particular effort on the part of monster AI to vanquish them. Like a Rathalos taking out priority targets, Vespoid working in tandem with a larger creature, Diablos using his burrow attack to destroy traps, etc.

All monsters attack targets in turns, mostly. Vespoids are too unpredictable to bother observing them, and diablos seems to avoid doing that if anything. The closest I've seen was when a daimyo left an area after I put down my last trap, even though he'd just gone theree, thwarting my attampt to capture him.

Here's what you do to practice dodging the dig attack. Get autotracker so when Shogun digs underground, look at you map area and locate him, when he turns to you, run to the side and WAIT till it gets near you, once this happens, your screen will shake, IMMEDIATLY dive and he will come up almost at the same time, then you will have dodged that attack.

Once you get used to it w/o autotracker, when he digs, just run to the side and wait for your screen to shake then jump, and you will dodge it everytime.

With Narga-X just run to the side and dodge instead of dive cuz evade distance increases your jumping space.

It's really easy to dodge once you get the hang of it.

And that thing about monster AI. Rathalos only hits other targets if they're in his line of fire, other than that he only focuses on you, and you alone, unless you had your cat with you. And Diablos destryoing traps, thats cuz when he was digging towards you, you were prbably near the trap. If you weren't near the trap when he dug, he'd miss the trap entirely.

Well it's a japanese game, originated there. It probably has a pretty good AI. Also, the item AI is complex too. I feel the AI knows what armor/weapon you want to make and doesnt give you the items, until a number of tries.

With regards to the shogun, as one of my least fave monster, I got the hang of it when i tried making Ceanataur Z (which needs a lot of Heavy ceanataur claws). One thing I've learned about the dig attack is to run away from it but not in a straight line. Kind of like spiraling away. When he starts to dig move away as far as you can (maybe for about 2 seconds) then revolve around the spot where he burrowed. When tremors start to increase in magnitude, roll.

i just run to where it burrowed first it never seems to return to its original spot

When the ground shakes, he's about to come up, so jump.

If he doesn't pop up for a while, he's going to dig out of the same spot that he buried under, so feel free to sharpen without fear of getting ninja'd.

If he pops up in multiple places, he's digging up in a circle pattern and will finally emerge in the middle of the circle.

You can just run in a straight line, as when the ground shakes he will emerge at the position you were when the ground shook - so by that time you will already be slightly further away than where the tremor occured a split-second ago and can jump away from him.

Don't run in circles or anything stupid, don't run back on yourself, into a path you've already taken. Imagine him following you underground.

quote Samurai X14

i just run to where it burrowed first it never seems to return to its original spot

Ignore him.

The monster doesn't do anything incredible like predict where you're running to. It will dig up underneath you, and like I said before, you have to notice the tremor and leap.

If 3~ or so seconds pass and it hasn't surfaced, like I said, it won't follow you, and will dig up in the place it burrowed originally.

This game has simple AI. You were just experiencing coincidences.
Have you ever noticed if you set a trap down for a Rathalos and stand very far away from it to get it to charge?
It just stands there and fireballs. Over and over. You have to draw some distance for it to charge.
They just attack in relation to where you are.

like you said Yukiiko just coincidence thats what happens to me most of the time so im just throwing my experience into this no need to get bitchy about it