These are good suggestions referring to my second idea:

[quote=@Genni]
No option to play as a human hunter with a 'pet' monster which they're forcing to fight in battles, forage for food and eat rare candies to help them evolve in a direction that would be beneficial for the hunter? It would help with the roleplaying if the rival humans could trade smack talk before getting their giant beast to battle each other for supremacy. Defeating an Apex predator would give you the option to try and tame it, using it as one of your pets until it dies in bloody battle for your glory. A bit like in [i]Pokemon[/i].
[/quote]

I suppose you could attempt to tame/recruit monsters into your group. Remember though, these creatures are by all instances sentient, in which they can talk and feel, with many of the monsters having an incredible dislike to humans. However, if you're able to be on good relationships with the Barons/Counts/Prince/Monarch, you can be rewarded or simply given a monster to help you on your hunt. The type obviously depends on the mission, but by default you could get something as small as a Jaggi/Jagras, to something as large as a Tetsucabra - maybe even a juvenile/sub-adult Rathalos/Rathian for example. Larger threats may require a hunter to take arms with large creatures.

I will also keep heads on the humans being with factions. The original plan was for these hunters to be united while trying to find their way back home to their era, but perhaps to have them represent as one of the last human hunters of a territory, being maybe blessed by a god/goddess, could be an idea to explore.

[quote=@Genni]
You could take the RP in a totally different direction and make it a little like [i]Horizon: Zero Dawn[/i], where the monsters are machines which the humans can hack and take control of. By destroying other monster machines the hunters would be able to salvage parts from them to upgrade their favourite pets. Defeating an Apex predator would let you salvage some of the advanced tech from its body and bolt it onto your own monster, but if you get defeated in battle an opponent might rip the shiny tech off and start using it themselves.
[/quote]

Yeaaaaah, machines aren't going to be planned in the RP in any form. However, the core mechanic in hunting and getting hides will most certainly be in effect, as I plan for the hunter to be stripped of all but one piece of their armor (to make it unique amongst the crew of humans). Monster armor can also be heavily considered, even regarding my first idea. And Monsters can learn human tactics if the hunters fail the mission at hand, or strike back at them at a later date.

[quote=@Genni]
And another different direction would be to have the monsters similar to the Zerg from [i]Starcraft[/i], the Kaiju from [i]Pacific Rim[/i] or the Tyrandis from [i]Warhammer 40k[/i], where each 'hive' is controlled by a central intelligence which can spawn creatures with different abilities depending on what they need them to do. Players could take on the role of one the the 'overminds' breeding new species in competition with the overs, trying to gather new genetic materials to unlock new traits, abilities and skills, as well as biological material to actually grow the beasts. Defeating one of the Apex predators would then give you the ability to spawn a clone of them, but you'd have to collect enough biomass to feed into the spawning pool before being able to make something that big.
[/quote]

A cool idea for a RP... but I do not believe it will fit the visions I currently have for this RP. However it definitely must be explored in a more original RP.