I'm completely lost. I was going along fine in single player, doing quests and whatever, I managed to escape the lagiacrus, all that. I even killed a Great Jaggi. I am a bowgunner. However, My friend told me that playing offline is quite pointless because you can't level up your HL and you'll have to do all the same quests over again in online mode, so I switched over.

Now wtf. I can't even kill a great jaggi and I'm having extreme difficulty with the game? What's with the huge spike? I'm on the second quest that is possible to get (THE SECOND DAMN ONE) and I can't beat it with a Bone Hammer+ and decked out in Hunter armor. Can someone give me some tips as to what the differences between offline and online? And just about the game in general? I know it's a few years old but, it's still a good game that has a bunch of people playing.

The only real difference in the online is that all the monsters are scaled for a 4 person team to be fighting them. You won't get any HR but the offline is useful since you have the farm and such for easy resources. That and with the monsters being weaker you can learn their animations. After a certain point you probably never will play it offline but until you get the money to just buy honey; offline is the only source really. Is there anything specific you feel weak on, or are you just kinda lost at this point?

@xyzygy: Ok so like the last guy said, offline isn't useless. Developing your villiage is a fantastic way to build up resources early on, and you need to start off offline so that you can actually fight shit on your own without being terrible. Great Jaggi is a good start, but I'd generally recommend playing offline until you can beat a Barroth solo. Once you can handle that asshole you have the skills necessary to be able to handle most everything after with some practice. And as the previous fellow said, online monsters are balanced for parties. You'll need at least one, preferrably two or three more people at a similar rank to make it easier.

That said, you can ALWAYS make the game much easier simply by being more prepared for every fight. Learn what monsters are weak to what damage types (basically just look at the resistances on the armor you make from them). Learn what you can damage/cut on each one. Make sure you have a full load of potions going in, and traps/tranqs to cap (Capping gets you better odds on most rewards, and even if you fail you get free damage in). Know if flash bombs, sonics, or dung bombs are useful on that monster. And remember that if you really need it, you can always bring MATS for stuff so you can bring more. Like bringing 10 potions, 10 mega potions, and 10 honey is effectively bringing 20 mega potions, when you can only hold 10.

Mostly though just find the weapon you like. And don't be a longsword. They're very effective but annoying as all hell to party with because they have ridiculous hitboxes and tend to interrupt everyone around them. Switch Axe gets a similar rap because people don't use it well, but if you know what you're doing you can avoid knocking around your allies pretty easily. Hammer is great for knocking out enemies (so always work the head with the hammer, or let the hammerer in your party get to it), and also drains monster stamina very quickly. Also good because it's high damage, and you don't really have to build more than one or two branches to have a damned good one for most situations. Sword and Shield is great if you want to apply a lot of elemental damage or status effects, but you'll have to build a wide variety for different monsters. OK for tailcutting but not as good on big monsters because sometimse you just can't reach the tail. Great Sword is a fantastic weapon for tailcutting and damage in general, with a devastating charge attack, but you need to be pretty good at timing your hits, and knowing the enemy patterns, because it's slow and your attack windows won't be very large. Switch Axe is great all around damage, has a cool special charge move, and huge range for tailcutting. Just learn not to fuck up your team with it. Bowgun can be unbelievably helpful to a team, but requires a lot of work making specialized armor and ammo. If you can, you really want to have one around, but they're not very common. Lances are interesting. Best block in the game, their damage counts as both cutting and impact (whichever is better applies), their attacks are fast enough that you can use status damage if you so desire, but you don't really have to, and they can get all up in a monster's business safely. However they are SLOW AS BALLS, and their dodge is pretty shitty, so you really have to aim for Dodge+ armor if you want to do it. Most weapons are improved somewhat by certain armor skills.