隻眼 / Deadeye

Deadeye is a decent Deviant monster in MHX and MHXX. Many argue that it is more manageable than its original form, because of its different size and movements. Additionally, Nyanta against Deadeye is effective. As a result, many players play Nyanta against Deadeye to gain points to level up.

In an online room with 4 Nyantas, the Level 10 Deadeye quest can be extremely efficient – locking to death is theoretically possible. Of course, that will depend on the performance of every Nyanta in the team:

• A good position to shoot boomerangs, neither too close nor too faraway, and not disturbing other teammates.

• A good timing to shoot boomerangs, to maximise the damage output.

• A brave heart to keep shooting boomerangs and trust other teammates, even when Deadeye is ready to attack.

The first two are pretty much trainable and certain when you master the playing, but the third one is a bit weird – this is similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma:

• When every Nyanta keeps attacking no matter what, the total damage output is usually high enough to stop Deadeye's attack or even stun it to the ground, to go back into a safe mode. Best outcome, this is necessary to speedrun the quest.

• When one or two Nyantas get scared and stop attacking to move into a safer position, the total damage output gets reduced and Deadeye will unleash its next attack. Perhaps the cowards will avoid the attack. Perhaps the brave Nyantas will get beaten down like being betrayed. Regardlessly, not the best outcome, the tempo has changed and this will result in a slower time.

When playing offline in-person, it is relatively easy to trust each other to make sure everyone sticks to some kind of rules. But this is much harder to get done with strangers online, I mean why trust someone I just met? Exactly.

But sometimes, just sometimes, a consensus could be made without any communication. When it happened, when everyone chose to trust each other, the optimised solution would be reached – back to the Prisoner's Dilemma! Of course, that did not, does not, and will not happen very often, not only in MHX, in games, but in daily life. Greatly memorable moments, from a soulless solo hunter.