Monster Hunter : Wilds has made many improvements compared to World and from what I've seen, it's not really been talked about, mostly just "performance issues" and that's it. If anything, people have complained about these improvements. I will go over everything MH:Wilds has improved over it's predecessors.
Background:
MH:Wilds takes most notes from MH:World, even it's name, which makes it a little more difficult to talk about MH as you can't just saw MHW as both World and Wilds has the same accronym. Until the DLC comes out (which if history always repeats, there will be) then hopefully the acronym for that will be different than MHW. Now, MH:World isn't the newest game, MH:Rise is newest. So, why take inspiration from a game before last, instead of the game just made? Cuz Rise was a step back. The orginal MH game was made for the playstation 2, then the next 3 were made for the playstation portable (Freedom, Freedom 2, and Freedom Unite). MH3 was for the Wii, MH3 Ultimate for the 3DS along with 4 Ultimate, Generations, and Generations Ultimate. The MH franchise saw most popularity in Japan, however with the newer games, like MH4U, saw more popularity around the world. With this, they wanted to create a game made for the world, instead of just their following in Japan. Enter, Monster Hunter : World. No longer tied down into Nintendo systems, they returned to consoles, both PS4 and Xbox One, along with PC. MH:World was their leap into the world view. After MH:World they made MHR (Rise), which was a step back. World was a completely new feel, so with Rise they went back with a more familiar style, however it ended up falling short. Althogh they also tried many new ideas (which I believe some were good, only needed a better execution). With Wilds, they went back to the style of World, and used the ideas from Rise to improve.
Seikret (Horse):
The Seikret system, or as my friend aptly described it, the horse system, is a very fun and stylish addition to the game. This system was already played with in Iceborne with the Tailrider system, although much more simplier (and basically a reward for doing optional stuff). In Wilds, it has been fleshed out and it now feels like a complete thought with a good execution and properly intergrated with the rest of the game. Simply press a button to call your Seikret and be able to ride and control it, able to move faster (although with much less control), able to preform actions while riding (allowing you to sharpen your weapon while chasing after the monster), to switch weapons (new to this game and talked about in more detail later), and to access supplies for the mission. Compare this to Iceborne and the Tailrider's where it acted like a item you had to scroll and activate, then not much control was given over it, and was mostly a means of being able to preform actions while being able to chase the monster. The Seikret also feels at home in Wilds, walking across the many enviroments and taking paths not normally accessable. Now, The Tailrider system does have more differences and isn't 100% a full comparison as they have different objectives, however due to many similarites, it's safe to assume that the Seikret system came from the Tailrider's. The major differance is that the Seikret system eliminates travel time between monster area movements, which both has good and bad things. It takes the built in breaks in a hunt out, which means you're almost always fighting, however sometimes it is nice to have that small break during a hunt. This is a stylistic change, the creators thought it would be better to have more continous hunts instead of more segmented hunts. This is similar to having cutscenes between phases of a boss battle, of that little break is nice the first time your fighting it and that intense battle, however after the 1,000th time, it gets repetative so you want to skip it. I think a possible solution to this "problem" is to increase the time it takes to aquire the Seikret, like the Tailriders. The Tailriders were a reward for playing the game and doing optional things within the game, it was only accessed if you went out of your way to get it or played a lot of the game, therefore, it gives you that break until it gets repetative, then you can skip it. Although this makes it's own problem of "when". When should you be able to skip the cutscene? That's easy, the first time. But this isn't a cutscene, it's a part of the game, which having to actively scale walls and across the map can help you memorize the map. Being able to skip that after the first time doesn't commit that to your memory. Then if you wait too long, then your too used to having to haul your way across the map, so it feels "cheap" or the "easy way" out. This is why many veterns of MH might see the Seikret system as making the game "easy", a motif you'll see in this analysis, as they've become used to having the "difficulty" of having to chase after the monster. Really, this is a stylistic decision to remove a objective nuisance to the player. They saw that World attracted many new players, new players that are not used to the old systems. So, in Wilds, understandably expecting many new players again, in their eyes, simply removed a old system that would be a annoyance to people who haven't experinced it before, knowing it would change the flow of gameplay to differ from that of the previous games, but with the mind to improve the game.
Secondary Weapon:
During a hunt, the player is able to switch to a secondary weapon by calling their Seikret, getting on, and pressing a button to swap between primary and seconadary. This is, for MH, incredibly inovative and new. In every game before, to switch weapons, you would have to walk back to camp (start) and go into a menu and pick the one you wanted. The secondary weapon system allows much more vertility in the game, as a very important aspect of the game is weakness exploitation. You can have a poison weapon to fight, then once the monster is poisoned you can swap to a fire weapon to exploit multiple weaknesses, or for monsters with changing weaknesses allows active adapting to the situation. Each of the 14 weapons are very unique and have their own playstyle, so for new players, this can help them find a weapon they like much faster. Again, many veterns call this "easier". I call this "quality of life". This removes a annoyance for the player. If it was to make the game easier, they could let you swap armor or switch to any weapon. They specifically allowed pre-selecting only a single weapon for the hunt, to allow extra pre-planning and strategy without comprimising difficulty. Quality of life and difficulty usually have overlap, both remove problems, however they are distint, as lowering difficulty removes challanges, raising quality of life removes annoyances. Having to walk back to camp to swap weapons is not a "challange", its annoying. The dev perspective: with a expected influx of new players, removing this annoyance seems like the proper solution to improve the experince for all players.
AI Hunters:
SOS Flares will put your quest on the SOS page for other players so they can join in a help you. In Wilds, they introduced AI hunters which can be summoned instead of other living players. This is allows getting help, even while playing solo. Many people say these AI hunters are better than living hunters and make the game "easier". Yes. They do. That's the point. It's a SOS. It's the same idea of a puzzle game allowing you to use a hint. If you need help, you can get help, even if you want to play solo. I love playing solo, I love they have a "online solo" option right off the main menu. I only play with my friends, who none execpt 1 play MH and he only has MH:World. I like taking on the game by myself. I have never once used SOS flares. I haven't needed help. However, not everyone is like me. My friend who was playing MH:World got stuck on Diablos (the wall for new players). He tried and tried but couldn't beat him. He quit the game for a few months until he decided to play again and got past Diabolos. He then quickly advanced and after a few tries finally beat Nergigante. I see it both ways, sometimes all you need a bit of help, however this is.. for lack of better words, a "skill issue". The reason I call the Diablos the wall, is because he's almost perfectly designed to destroy new players, he is a test, to see if you have learned, and if you haven't learned, you have to in order to beat him. That's almost needed, tests, which when you finally beat them, you feel truely rewarded. Calling in help for a solo player is good, however calling in help when you don't need it is bad. The reason people claim it makes the game "easy", is because they don't need help.
Make Your Own Challange:
The best way to deal with something that feels too "easy" is to make your own challanges, raise the difficulty yourself. I personally make characters for each save file and that's my challange, keeping in character; picking only a single weapon to use, never covering the face with armor (unless it's in character), and to only wear armor that is a put together outfit that makes sense for that character. It's very fun for me because it forces me to
(Misc: I love being able to grab items from a distance with the slinger, soo much better than having to constantly stop in my journey to pick up a random item.)
I intentionally avoided all information about this game until it got released, cuz I knew I would love it. Yes, I do. It is quite demanding preformance wise, though most preformance issues I had were in the camp (lobby) and not in the actual gameplay. Then after adjusting my settings a bit, I had no proformance issues at all. I had set the shadow render distance and quality down and it pretty much fixed it. Azeuz was where I
The gameplay is AMAZING. It took pretty much everything from World and improved upon it. So many little things that are just quality of life improvements. Such as being able to grab stuff at a distance with the slinger instead of having to go right next to it and pick it up. The weapon forging and upgrading in a single menu instead of 2 seperate ones. Then improving on weapon mechanics. Now, although i've played 15 hours so far, i've only played with the duel blades. I like having only a single weapon per save file, which is really dumb, but it's just something I like doing because I like playing characters instead of just straight min/maxing cuz that makes it a little more fun for me. Though, the duel blades are so much better than in World. All they did was add one extra mechanic to them. Perfect dodge. Duel blades get a power-up from a perfect dodge, dodging at the last moment, which allows them to for a little bit of time attack while dodging. It adds so much to the gameplay dispite being such a little change. My only complaint with it, is that it doesn't stack. If you perfect dodge and get the boost, and you perfect dodge while you have the boost, it doesn't extend the time you have the boost, which is a little dispointing but it's such a little detail and honestly, skill issue ;-;
I wrote the Tunnet review to start this page, then waiting until Friday, tomorrow, to play MH:Wilds, then write about it. Although, I stumbled upon this game, Hyper Demon. It's a small game, but it's very interesting. The core concept is that you can see 360 degrees. This is done by doing a spherical warp to see 180 degrees in front of you without warping the center, then having red show what's behind you. This is really only able to be done because the game takes place in a empty pitch black room, so there's no detail to show behind you, other than enemies. The combat is fast paced, I imagine it's something akin to ULTRAKILL, though I have yet to play it myself. I really like it, even though i'm really bad at it. I perfectly understand the 360 degrees thing, I understand that, but I've just always been bad at fps games. As of writing this, I only have 35 minutes of playtime, and I can tell that it'll be much more with time to come. It won't be something I'll play for hours, like MH likely will. But it'll be something I can always come back to for a bit, try to get a higher score. Right now I have a score of about 20. I doubt I'll get above the 100's but it will be fun just to play. A small game, but very fun.
Tunnet is a puzzle game, where you connect point A to point B. It takes a moment to understand, I can imagine it taking longer if you're not familier with electronics or coding, although once the concept is understood, it's a very straight forward game. I think it's a nice experince though I personally don't think it has much replay value. Once you get to the end that's pretty much it. The end, by the way, is very difficult. I haven't completed the end part. Though the rest of the game is pretty relax, well, other than the vibe. The vibe, by the way, is very unsettling in a passive way. It's not in your face, just.. nothing. Which is how it does it. It's just you, in the tunnels, alone, wiring computers to each other. After getting to the end, I decided on making a new save with the goal of connecting all the endpoints and routing them effectively. I'm easily bored and quit after connecting all 3 sections in the first level. The following is a image of the plan I drew on my whiteboard on how to connect everything on the first level.
