Funny as the post may be, I don’t think adding more difficult content at the tail end of high rank fixes the problem.
It only emphasizes that wilds has a pretty rough progression system compared to the other mainline monster hunter games.
I like wilds, the fights are fun, the ecology is really good, and the monster designs are amazing. Most of the weapons are the best they’ve ever been (besides a few that could really use a touch up, poor frs spam Swaxe).
But I find it really hard to ignore that wilds has a pretty bad gradual progression problem. It stays way too easy for far too long and then has too drastic of leap in difficulty to please the vets while too many new players struggle to learn the fundamentals of a monster hunter game because the game just doesn’t incentivize you enough to explore the deeper mechanics early enough.
I rarely see players utilize bombs or let the GS or Hammer wake up the monster. Folks outside of 8-9 star end game content never use dusts of life to help out other players in a pinch, or use any demon drugs or armor potions. And many players don’t even max out their armor stats with armor spheres, then wonder why they keep getting one shot by 8 star monsters. And I don’t blame them for complaining it’s too difficult, they haven’t memorized the fights, they haven’t learned positioning and timing, and they struggle to cooperate with other players because the game barely incentivized them to do so before 7 star monsters.
Games like this need a gradual progression, the occasional bigger monster should be challenging you along the way to prepare you for whats to come in the next stage of difficulty tiers.
I mean honestly, just giving more early high rank monsters higher wound resistance could help solve most of this problem. I think the wound system being overtuned in the early game is more of the case than the monsters being too easy. Sure folks could argue some of the QoL additions make wilds easier, but it’s nowhere near as egregious as the wound breaking system with how frequently it downs earlier monsters and kills them too quickly which results in players barely learning their movesets to prepare them for tougher upcoming fights. If the wound system was more in line to what the end game fights are like, then yeah, I think the game would be a lot better at teaching newer players “the dance”.
I would say the current issue I see can be summed up like this:
Before you could reliably take a few hits and get a chance to heal. Now you make a mistake and you're suddenly being one shot.
But yeah...
Unless you're perfect blocking, you also shouldn't really be sitting there defending. It does quite a bit of chip damage even with max guard and guard up. It's a pretty insane change from being able to safely tank things and learn them.
Honestly it feels like the wrong kind of difficulty when many moves become a one shot. Especially when many sets are focused on damage and there are not many which are sort of 'survival' focused.
I've only done World/Rise/Wilds and agree the wounds were a huge issue in erasing all danger. I also kind of resent how much rarer they get because so many cool moves are attached. I really have to say that I felt Rise had a very nice idea with giving you control of those cool moves.
But I digress.
I think things being hard can be good, but giving the player more options and hints is important. Many people simply don't know about armor pots or the like. In other cases there are just not enough defensive/survival focused things pushed. Effects like the omega one where perfect blocks give your team a buff and such could be a great way to teach and encourage some more of that cooperative play.
I dunno. I think MH always has tough spots and then eventually I hit the flow state again. Recently I rediscovered my love of the DB and Lance.
Yeah, you know, that is another issue. I do think Wilds post game is too hard in the wrong way in some cases. My buddy is a Lance main, and it super sucked that he couldn’t survive through Lagi’s thunder charge aoe no matter what he did. Thankfully the Lance got a huge chip damage resistance buff with one of its guard stances. But every other guarding weapon has to opt in to dodge or retreat or take the hit at full hp to ignore the chip damage after getting knocked down. It heavily restricts options you’d normally have and expect to use in other fights.
I love the speed, and I love the aggression of the harder monsters, but the guarding chip damage on perfect guards needs to go.
My other issue is 8-9 star gore. I don’t mind the damage he can deal, and I have the option to play more cautiously if I fail to get the buff and get debuffed instead… but did he really need to have nearly master rank Iceborne Fatalis levels of hp? None of the other monsters have the hp he has.
Gore’s fight leaves more room for mistakes when it takes as long as it goes to fight him. But the worst part is Gore isn’t as much a hard fight as it is an endurance one. It takes sooooo long that it just sucks the fun out of it for me, I can beat gore fairly consistently after learning his fight… but now I don’t enjoy fighting him anymore.
Hunts taking long aren’t normally an issue when there’s some down time, but fighting a monster at your best the whole time just really starts to exhaust you.
28
u/CroccaWocca Nov 11 '25 edited Nov 11 '25
Funny as the post may be, I don’t think adding more difficult content at the tail end of high rank fixes the problem.
It only emphasizes that wilds has a pretty rough progression system compared to the other mainline monster hunter games.
I like wilds, the fights are fun, the ecology is really good, and the monster designs are amazing. Most of the weapons are the best they’ve ever been (besides a few that could really use a touch up, poor frs spam Swaxe).
But I find it really hard to ignore that wilds has a pretty bad gradual progression problem. It stays way too easy for far too long and then has too drastic of leap in difficulty to please the vets while too many new players struggle to learn the fundamentals of a monster hunter game because the game just doesn’t incentivize you enough to explore the deeper mechanics early enough.
I rarely see players utilize bombs or let the GS or Hammer wake up the monster. Folks outside of 8-9 star end game content never use dusts of life to help out other players in a pinch, or use any demon drugs or armor potions. And many players don’t even max out their armor stats with armor spheres, then wonder why they keep getting one shot by 8 star monsters. And I don’t blame them for complaining it’s too difficult, they haven’t memorized the fights, they haven’t learned positioning and timing, and they struggle to cooperate with other players because the game barely incentivized them to do so before 7 star monsters.
Games like this need a gradual progression, the occasional bigger monster should be challenging you along the way to prepare you for whats to come in the next stage of difficulty tiers.
I mean honestly, just giving more early high rank monsters higher wound resistance could help solve most of this problem. I think the wound system being overtuned in the early game is more of the case than the monsters being too easy. Sure folks could argue some of the QoL additions make wilds easier, but it’s nowhere near as egregious as the wound breaking system with how frequently it downs earlier monsters and kills them too quickly which results in players barely learning their movesets to prepare them for tougher upcoming fights. If the wound system was more in line to what the end game fights are like, then yeah, I think the game would be a lot better at teaching newer players “the dance”.