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Monster Hunter Old World vs New World QoL: What's Good and What's Not

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
Staff member
ZD Legend
Comm. Coordinator
This is something I've been meaning to pin down for myself, so I thought I'd just make it a thread here. Personally, I feel like the quality of life the new world MonHun games have is either hit or miss. Some is really nice, and then some just feels like it undoes a lot of the design philosophy surrounding the series for the sake of convenience. I wanna share a chart outlining the QoL that I think is good and bad.

Good QoL -
  • the back roll; makes evasion better and helps you stay facing the monster while dodging
  • the armory menu; much easier to preview things and is just generally nicer
  • the smithy wishlist; this is definitely helpful for keeping track of the materials you want to make
  • the improved monster list data; there's finally good reason to go into the hunter's notes. before you'd need to look up everything on sites like Kiranico, but now elemental advantages and even drop rates are helpfully listed for you.
  • open maps and mobility; the old world sectioned maps weren't bad and they still hold up with their own advantages, but i definitely do prefer how interconnected the open maps feel and it makes the maps themselves feel more alive
  • endemic life; in world they were just kind of there, but in rise you have good cause to collect hunting helpers. they add a nice layer of depth to using the environment to your advantage.
  • layered armor; now that it functions more similarly to how it did in genu, it's a much better system than it was in world. fashion hunting forever!
  • both decorations and charms being forgeable; in old world, you could make decorations and had to rely on quest rng to give you charms. in world, you could make charms and had to rely on rng for decorations. in rise, you can forge both (forging charms is still rng but now its not up to quest rewards anymore). that's really nice.
  • food menu; the dango system in rise is pretty nice, mixing and matching your food based entirely on skills, and it's also nice to be able to see percentages of activation.
  • styles and special moves; genu's styles and arts, and rise's silkbinds and switch skills, are very good things for the series to have. customizable movesets is always really welcome, and special moves just really spice up the gameplay. world's gameplay was honestly kind of boring without them. i hope we keep seeing forms of these going forward.

Hit-or-Miss QoL -
  • permanent whetstone; it's not really necessary because you would never go through 20 whetstones in a single hunt but it's also nice that blademasters have a permanent way to maintain their weapon since gunners have internal ammo. it's basically equivalent with that.
  • key quests being labelled; the fact that they weren't marked in old world meant you either had to guess or visit sites like Kiranico to find out what they are. it's nice QoL but nothing game-changing.
  • fast travel; it's definitely helpful when chasing after those monsters that flee across the entire map, but otherwise, I personally don't find myself having to use it much because in Rise I take permabuffer paths before engaging anything. it's a nice option but not 100% necessary.
  • palamutes; good ol doggo does make traversal easier but it's only marginally faster than wirebugging around. also not 100% necessary, just something nice to have.
  • wirebugs; they are absolutely fun to use but they also kinda break the game, especially wirefall. the air dodge is really excellent, though. i appreciate aerial mobility greatly.
  • moving while healing; it's nice, yeah, but knowing when to time your heals in old world really wasn't all that bad. it was also part of the design philosophy surrounding positioning and timing.
  • the skill system; dropping negative skills and changing the point system to a level based system is really kind of busted. there's no consequences for stuffing as many skills as you can fit onto your armor, and less thought goes into it. it's nice having so many skills, but it's just really broken when you compare it to old world skill management.

Bad QoL -
  • the weapon tree; i hated it in world and i hate it in rise, too. i do like that there's a lot more starting points on it than there were in world, but as a system i do not like it one bit. i would far prefer the old world menu for scrolling through weapons to make.
  • eating and storage from camp; this directly contradicts with the design philosophy surrounding preparation. a huge part of monhun was always the work you put in preparing for hunts, making sure you ate and you had all your items in order. if you didn't, you were punished and could maybe scavenge some stuff from the supply box or the field. now that you have storage in the field, there's no consequences for anything. like, i get the convenience factor, but for me, it just ruins the resource management aspect of the series.
  • automatic tracking; this really does just baby the player honestly. having monsters already permanently tracked on your map when you get into the field, as well as capture status automatically being displayed, it wasn't necessary at all and it just takes the "hunt" out of the hunt.
  • removing temperature effects; once again, babyfying the game and just ruining the whole point of preparing before hunts. also makes the locales and ecology less believable without the extreme climates.

So there you have it, those are my thoughts on the quality of life changes in the new world games. I still feel as though Generations Ultimate was the peak of Monster Hunter. Rise is catching up pretty close, but a lot of the ways it babies the player kinda miff me, and its also still a bit lacking in content. Still a fun game, just with its share of modern conveniences that end up detracting from some of the things that make MonHun what it is.
 
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