Just to be clear. Cause I feel like reddit never understands this. This update was in production before the game ever released. They didn't make it harder because people thought it was too easy online it was hard before anyone played it.
Well, they can still tweak values post launch based on player feedback. For example: aggressiveness (interval between attacks), HP, attack, and defense values for the monsters. Changing those values will definitely affect the difficulty to a certain extent.
Its my biggest complaint, every fight in the game (except the new Zoh Shia) ends WAY too quickly. It ends right when I feel like I get into the swing of things and get into a Rhythm.
I really start to enjoy the fight aaaand they're skulled.
They are never going to please everyone. Doshaguma in LR was 4 minutes. In HR it's now 10+ min with S&S. Which is not short for me, and it causes actual physical pain in my hands doing it over and over. For thid reason I welcome wilds being slightly easier. I'm an average player and struggled mightly in world.
I went in the Zoh shia fight unprepared equipment wise and it took 24 min and two carts on the first try...
Doshaguma in LR was 4 minutes. In HR it's now 10+ min with S&S.
I'm not trying to discredit you, but you can finish Doshaguma HR in well under 10 minutes. I'm not a speedrunner and I play SnS as one of my main weapons, I kill it in 5-6 minutes pretty consistently.
Which is not short for me, and it causes actual physical pain in my hands doing it over and over. For thid reason I welcome wilds being slightly easier.
I am sorry about the pain truly, but its not necessarily about pleasing everyone. Monster Hunter is a harder game, it always has been, and its a game that requires skill to play and play well. Its the same as Valorant or League or Fighting Games or even the Souls series. They are games designed to be a challenge. If you strip away the challenge for sake of accessibility, you welcome new players in but all the long term players are basically told "sorry the game isn't for you anymore".
Its the same reason people hate Auto-Combo's in fighting games. Yes it makes the game more accessible but it undermines the fundamental premise of the game. If Monster Hunter isn't a challenge then what is it? Whacking an AI monster over and over that has no chance of defeating you.
And yes its not easy for everyone, but everyone can improve and rise to the challenge. But people who it's not a challenge for can't just magically make the game more difficult for them.
Oh, I don't feel discredited, believe me. This is where my skill level is at and I do try very hard.
World was my first monster hunter game and it also was my first hard game. It made me question my life a few times. There were walls... I thought I was never going to beat nergigante, but I did on my second try with lance. Teostra caused me emotional distress, lol. I found windy boi to be the worst. I finally beat Xeno jiva on my second try, one cart 24 min.
I feel I can't deal enough damage to doshaguma, he keeps running away, then I get interfeared by rath and his girlfriend. I break all kind of wounds, avoid most attacks, heal maybe 2-3 times, no carts, but still I end up over ten min... I guess I am average, although I carted very rarely, mostly beause I am too agressive, a never failed a mission, I even beat Zoh shia on my first try.
Maybe it's just due to him being a guardian or Ebony but I could've sworn base Odo was much more aggressive than I've seen in Wilds. I don't recall Ebony being hyper aggressive in World though so it may just be a variant difference.
I think he's a good level of aggressive. Super hyper aggressive let's you just spam your counter/parry stuff. Little break/lags in attack cadence messes with it. For me at least.
Yesterday was the first time I fought him with a GS (every other time was with IG) and holy shit was he making it hard for me to charge up attacks. I don’t think I’ve ever used tackle more in my life.
Tbh, I think it would be enough to just massively reduce the amount of wounds created OR remove the stagger from popping one. This alone would make fights a lot more difficult already because you can't just go and pop a wound for stagger + dmg but instead have to actually think about when to use this powerful move.
Throw in reducing how often monsters can be paralyze and toppled/staggered from wounds and monsters will be a significantly bigger threat. Oh yeah and make getting statused actually dangerous. Blastblight, Fireblight, and poison is such a joke now.
HP pools are mostly fine, players can still have short-ish hunts because "who's got time for that" etc. and that seems to be the prevaling mindset these days. I disagree with that, but whatever.
But the main issue, though, is wound frequency and power. Guaranteed, uninterruptable, risk-free staggers and knockdowns isn't tenable for a monster across the course of a fight, yet alone against four hunters.
Just one of many issues with the hunter vs. monster dynamic we have right now, but I think this one alone would go a long way to balancing fights and letting monsters have more of a chance during a hunt.
They have a perfect system for this in the difficulty stars. I'd love a 4* or whatever Tempered to stay around 5 minutes for when I want a quick hunt, but 8* Tempereds can take closer to 20 minutes as well as have less (or even none aside from tempered?) wounds, and you have 5, 6 and 7 for middle ground.
Would be neat if beating a wild one would unlock an optional of that star so you don't have to RNG them again.
No wounds on an high-star Tempereds would lock Charge Blade's behind perfect guards to access Savage Axe though.. As well as lock Insect Glaive out of it's free triple buff.
The concept is great, but weapons would have to be rebalanced around the changed wound frequency/availability if your plan goes would be considered.
I think the staggers and topples just need cooldowns. Let the wounds and their damage remain. Just don't let us topple and flinch the monsters for 3 minutes straight where you do like 50% of the damage you will do the entire fight. Once they get to attack and move your dps drops dramatically, which in turn, would extend the fight times a bit.
imo the wounds that appear during specific moves would provide enough opportunity for those, otherwise you can just do your normal extract minigame and tbh I think perfect guards are easy as shit to get anyway.
I haven't played too extensively though with CB and IG, but I think it is a bit of bad design to make some weapons so intensely reliant on wounds as opposed to GS and Hammer just... getting damage so in an ideal world that would change too
I wish they added 8 star versions of the other monsters. Imagine a monster Yian kut ku destroying everyone who hasn't realized there's a difficulty ranking system yet. XD But seriously, those hunts are fun, and I'm tired of Arkveld.
some of my favorite hunts in memory were Special Great Wroggi and Daimyo Hermitaur from Sunbreak because its so funny when their shitty moves do 80% of your HP. I know it's only high rank, but I appreciate those bs hard quests that give you nothing for completion because they're hilarious
Wounds are great design in that they provide a lot of weapons with utility and access to easy buffs etc. I wouldn't want to see them removed for that reason alone.
But they absolutely shouldn't be 0 risk with no possiblity for the monster to stun you/knock you off, nor should they guarantee a stagger or the ridiculous amount of downs that they give.
Should be proportional risk vs. reward for the buff they give most weapons imo on top of just a bit of extra damage.
IMO, Wounds and Focus mode are more disruptive to the flow and gameplay of Monster Hunter than Clutch Claw. And I will die on this hill. (My choice of weapons might have something to do with this)
Clutch claw was much more disruptive. Its why I stopped playing Iceborne. Needing to fire a clutch claw with Mouse and keyboard mid fight and play a mini game of ram the monster towards the wall was really tedious. It would have been fine if monsters didnt have the weird clutch claw stagger that is useless without the clutch claw. It felt forced.
In wilds there are hunts I dont even pop wounds and the hunts still feel fine. Yeah wound popping would probably have made the hunt faster but it wasnt forced on me.
I think it definitely depends on the weapon, in solo hunts with sword and shield or something, I tend to not even bother and just attack them for extra damage 'til they pop.
I think they're a good idea for like charge blade, insect glaive, longsword etc to fill up their gauges etc. but yeah, they're not my favourite addition to the series and I won't be sad to see them gone in the next game.
I've been doing hunts with focus mode unbound to any buttons on my controller and the game is substantially harder. Monsters are super aggressive without the ability stunlock them with back to back focus attacks.
IMO The ability to stay constantly aggressive while being able to reposition your attacks during their animation, really takes away some of the fun of monster hunter and makes it kinda braindead at times.
I've gone back and have been replaying GU, and I've personally had a way better time.
100%, focus mode is cool but it undeniably lowered the skill ceiling required to be decent.
It was one of the more unique things about the game imo, having to actually position yourself and needing to commit to attacks. A lot of the 'turn-based' feeling was lost with the transition to being able to focus mode unga-bunga everything.
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u/RobubieArt 2d ago
Just to be clear. Cause I feel like reddit never understands this. This update was in production before the game ever released. They didn't make it harder because people thought it was too easy online it was hard before anyone played it.