3:24 Die Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigentum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

I believe the original idea of Monster Hunter is to experience bounty hunters instead of hunting hunters. That’s why they have those prices upon monsters, danger rankings, guild and titles. The capturing is like those “dead or alive” situations.

For old world monster hunter games, there was a point where I no longer needed a map or use paintballs on monsters because I memorized the the locations where they would be. Even though it was minor, you can track the monsters without paintballs by following where their shadow went when they fly into another area or just following them if they just walk. I've always thought that paintballs and the map were just a guide for beginners and when you play long enough you wouldn't really need them.

Designing a tracking system for newer MH games is tough. I like the way it's done in the older games, where if you repeatedly hunt a monster, you can memorize areas where it's typically found, becoming more efficient at locating the monster over time. This way the game rewards experience and game knowledge. And also, the maps are small enough, so that you can go through each area fairly quickly. Obviously, this won't work in large and seamless maps of modern MH games. And imma be real, learning monster's habitat through flavour text sounds vague, unintuitive, and would require a lot or menu navigation and reading uninteresting descriptions. The only way out I can see is doing the scoutflies thing all over, but making it less intrusive. Maybe make palamutes sniff out tracks and follow the monster? And after you've found it once, have it be permanently displayed on the map?

I dunnoe, but the other way I could see this is like remove the whole "quest system" and developing their investigation mechanic in world into more extended detail... Where the main downtime play is to really track,gather,encounter and attempt to fight (But they will flee easily) and report your findings and then these quest will be generated and you slowly unlock the monsters as you progress and also "Trade" your findings like "HEy guys, I discovered the azure rathalaos, you guys want to come on this quest" so the monster you discover. so you may get very lucky to find the snort of an elder dragon to start the process to locate and maybe "research" the snort, send it out to arbiary research and it generates quest for it. like you can also make it that the monster that flee, will appear again sometime down the road and it still retain the damage you dealt and the broken parts it was inflicted...... like some of the elderdragon runs in the past game where they escape but when u start the quest again, they retain their damage and their current health pool you had from the previous encounter. Of course this mechanic would mainly remove the "Storyline" aspect of the game/no keyquest to hunt to progress up the star level. I dunnoe, its just base on my experience back in world when they release the demo, and there was this "rumor" saying that nargacuga could spawn sometimes in the demo hunt and you can get to chance encounter it and you get stupid excited by that thought u may get to encounter it out of the blue, that kind of aspect of the game where you progress by discovering the monsters, instead of doing the structure/story driven quest, but that also removes other aspects of whats been establish so yeah lol.

I think the answer is a lot simpler and has been right under our noses the whole time. Tracking animals. We already have the Cohoot but seeing as we only see it at the beginning of the quest and at the Hub, it is barely a "buddy". I'm talking about the Palico and Palamute, they follow us since we're the main Hunter obviously, but they are the ones using their animal senses to find tracks, scents, etc. to assist us. Unlike the Scoutflies that auto-lock, we have to guide our buddies to find clues for us. The more you level up your buddies, the better they are at tracking monsters and relaying that info back to us. This info can even be logged into the Hunter's Notes so even if you go on a Hunt without buddies, you still have all the tracking info needed to find the monster justifiably without them. That way it doesn't overload the player with lots of menus and particle effects and glowing map icons, it doesn't overly slow the beginning of new hunts too much (but new areas encourage exploration anyways), and by bonding with your buddies more you are becoming a better hunter yourself adding on to the theme of symbiosis of nature.

You could even tie the Cohoot into tracking in which it only deploys to find the monster _after_ you have found it and it flees to a new area. The Cohoot leads you to where the monster went, but does not keep tabs on other monsters in the area so you have to be vigilant and not say run into Goss Harag chasing down Khezu.

I thought world's system was pretty good was rather engaging in the early game. Then later on you only had to grab a few tracks for them to pop up. Then you just eventually ignored the system entirely cause you had memorized there possible spawn locations.

I think my main problem with this video is saying the downtown in oldergame is just running around . The stinginess of and harder access to ressource in older game meant you either had to make more individual ressource runs or actually use the downtime/research phase to farm ressources until you find the monster , and with your knowledge of the map increasing you can plan even better routes . Its only with the portable series bringing farm and expending on them over and over that this aspect really eroded away and made gen 4 mostly running around . I think that ressource management and gathering is something that should be taken into account when designing a tracking system too.

Most people often forget, you use scout flies to gather information for the researchers back in the base, that's why it's a track based system because the they don't have a lot information about the place, you're literally exploring a new world and the research and "hunting" is being done by the people back home. The knowledge the guild didn't give you is what the monsters would be doing during your hunt, they would actually go gather food, hunt smaller prey, you can use that knowledge to hunt specific monsters. I believe the reason why you don't have to do anything in rise is because the people in the village have already done the tracking for you and you're just there to kill the thing, the people of the village in Rise is very familiar with the world around them so it's like a monster got into your garden and not hunting in the wilderness like World.

I never minded the Scoutflies but I definitely get people finding them to be an excess of visual clutter. But I also don't find their concept to be 'anti-hunting' since they act as a living GPS, since, conceptually they work like a bloodhound. Get the scent of the target and they track it; so unless you want to argue real hunters using animals for tracking through scent isn't real hunting I dunno how much that argument holds up. That said the idea of refining the system that Scoutflies work on to be more involved like you conceptualized, first time entering a hunt you have some general hint of where to start based on ecology, find some tracks that imply something else about the animal's habits as a springboard for where to search next, and the more clues you find the more it narrows down that heat map you mentioned, that could work wonderfully. And as you said, the endgame of this and the Scoutflies the system gets almost completely mitigated for the sake of keeping the primary gameplay loop the focus to avoid the tedium, I think that's the best happy medium you could ask for. Get the hunter sim aspects but they fade away for the main gameplay loop thats so addicting by the end to not get bogged down.

I always loved having little quirks of the monsters to learn about to make hunting them easier. Fishing up a gobul or plesioth in gen 3 with a frog felt massive brained especially because it would bring them to the area you were in. Also love feeding nibelsnarf bombs I really wish there were ways to make bait better, I want to lure things by placing meat or taking out some smaller monsters. With ludroth bringing royal to the area or similar

I think it makes sense the game is called monster Hunter even though it doesn't look like real world hunting and that's because in the monster Hunter world because of the nature of monsters and the weapons humans have available to them do you need to use different strategies to hunt monsters so even though it doesn't look like real world hunting it is hunting in the monster Hunter world.

Great video as ever. I think your heat map idea is a very nice one, and as good as it can get whilst not creating an entirely new mechanic. If one were to cheat and add one, I think something akin to 'detective mode' from the excellent Batman : Arkham series could be a good way of adding tracking without the scoutflies too. In general I personally would love to see more diegetic information and less non-diegetic information; as well as tracks, things like varied, specific alarm calls and other monster behaviour hinting at where the target may be and letting you find this out for yourself over telling you. I also think this is something the devs have wanted to do for a long time but never had the stomach to commit to it fully. Attempts were made in Tri, and the World book also hints it was originally intended to have a lot more 'hunting'. I think if hunting became a bigger part of things, the 50 min quest could also start with first blood over entering the map. I also think larger maps / an open world would make the tracking more relevant later in the game as monster movements and spawns become less predictable across larger areas. My two cents on it all!

I have the spatial awareness of a goldfish, so I'm okay with just having the monsters on the map at all times. LetsCommitEcocide/10

You know, "hunting" doesn't only mean the hunter going to the target. It also includes luring the target into specific spots. And Monster Hunter already had something like that. Now, I'm a fifther, so I don't know how they worked in previous games. But there IS bait in World (and Rise), which I never actually figured out how it works, but it's supposed to lure a Monster into. Heck, there is even poisoned bait, yo. You could expand on this by giving the player different methods of reaching their target. You could just casually walk through the entire map in the hopes to stumble upon them. You could improve your odds by reading info on locales and monsters and study their behaviour (or simply learn it through experience). Maybe use some other "tools", such as Scoutflies or Palamutes, that help you find tracks of the Monsters. Or, if you are desperate, lure the monster to a specific place by doing certain things/events. Though, personally, I don't think the Scoutfly as a system itself was broken, just their implementation wasn't all that great. So what I personally would love to see is a Palamute-based tracking system as an updated Scoutfly-System. First of all, in World, many monsters had very specific spawns per map (usually 2, maybe 3), which you could easily learn by experience alone btw. In fact, after 1000h of playing World, I know roughly in which areas every single monster might spawn, so I easily check out these places first. If I don't find the monster there, I usually at least find some tracks on the way, which either leads me to the next track, or the Monster directly. World definitely still encouraged you to learn the behaviour of monsters, but was gentle enough to never require it. And unlike Rise, you could even select which camp you spawn at, further decreasing walking time through knowledge. I KNOW that Radobaan only walks around the upper parts of the Rotten Vale. That Tobi-Kadachi prefers areas with lots of trees. That Barroth prefers areas with water and mud. If you take these things into account, finding the Monster you want to hunt becomes so much easier. Of course, you first need to learn this. And while I personally don't mind the first random exploration through half the map on my first new Monster encounter, I totally do agree that the game should give us more Info on a Monster beforehand, if possible. Most of these monsters ARE known to the Guild, and thus should be very well documented already. I also think that most people don't actually hate the SYSTEM of the Scoutflies, but only their VISUAL presentation of. Think of it: The Scoutflies will navigate you to the nearest track of the selected Monster. From there on, they lead you to more tracks (which generally are in the same area and/or move you towards the target) until it finally reveals the targets location directly. This, in theory, is a pretty good balance between "having to search for the target first", without being too overbearing. But the problem lies in HOW they navigate you. As you have mentioned in your video, their visual presentation is really bad. They take away from the scenery, they do a bad job at communicating which direction they want you to go and their priorities are really annoying as well, like how they completely disappear once a monster engages you. If you instead replace them with something more easy to read that doesn't kill the whole atmosphere, I think it might be much more fun to work with.

25:49 this honestly incapsulates my opinion of MH. I prefer the old monster hunter games because they're slower and the majority of the game is during LR/HR/GR and not the "end game" at least for me. Apparently 4U had an end game. I never got there because there was enough nuance and difficulty in the entire rest of the game that I never needed to have the discussion about "whether or not 4U has a good end game" Basically all this is to say, you're right, the hunting mechanic would become superfluous by the end of the game as it was in World. But if the front end of the game was as difficult and as engaging as it used to be in in older titles, it would be a lot more substantial and wouldn't fall into the background so quickly.

Related note for Rise: while hunting was made irrelevant by the cohoot, general map exploration was incentivized by linking it to a pseudo difficulty slider (extra atk, def, hp, & stam from spiribirds). You can ignore it if you want, target specific buffs like atk using demon petalace and only getting red birds, or do a full route to max your stats. While I'd like more hunting elements too I actually really appreciate the spiribirds.

Here is my little idea for an improvement to the Scoutflies system. If any of you had already commented something similar, please let me know. Anyways, hope you like it: In MHW the Scoutflies, apart from floating around the ground, were also displayed in the form of a small line coming out of the lamp on the player's belt. Once I've been playing for a while, I noticed that this line also rotates in the direction that the larger group of Scoutflies takes you, which led me to think that if the System were more discreet, it would be a great improvement. If the Scoutflies, instead of being this train of particles that you follow, worked more like a compass visible only on the player model (as it already does in World) and subtly separated to reveal the evidence (Which it also does in World ), the whole Scoutflies system would be much nicer, as it would maintain its usefulness throughout the majority of the game, without being visually distracting. Basically, remove the bigger and annoying trail, keep the rest of the Scoutflies functions, highlighting trails and objects, and maybe flying around the monster when you find it, to keep the scenting element as part of the game. This wouldn't solve the whole hunting problem, but at least it would have come as more visually appealing to the player, while keeping it's functionality, Wich I actually really like.

I'm loving all the Monster Hunter content recently

I think a system of memorizing monster knowledge so you can learn and find the monsters more and more easily is just how the game works to begin with. Building in a players memorization of what zones a monster spawns in while giving SOME kind of helpful indicator was what old heads wanted all along until World came out and they had to agree too much change is bad. This is a great video. You're definitely onto something here.

I really like the 'heat map' idea. It satisfies that hunting/tracking desire (without scout flies doing the work for you), while simultaneously not making it drag into the higher ranks. It makes sense when you're low rank that you'd need clues or hints on where to find a monster you never hunted before, but as you hunt them more, they'd be easier to find. It wouldn't make HR quests a random search for the monster, but it wouldn't exactly give you an icon on the map either like in Rise. And even if you the player don't always remember 100% which area the monster is in, your hunter would, so the shrinking/pin pointing of the heat map makes sense. I know people and speed runners would complain that a quest takes longer than 3 minutes now, but I think it would add some immersion & flavor. Also a reason to actually read the descriptions. I tend to read a couple here and there when I remember, but if it added something besides just flavor and actual gameplay tips, I would definitely read them more often.

I feel like what this is ignoring is the other half of hunting, yes the mechanics around locating the monster are rather weak but in the preparations for when you do find the monster? there's plenty of depth there in old and new MH which has really only advanced as the series has progressed. From gathering herbs and mushrooms to fishing to make stronger bombs, there is so much prep you need to do before you even step foot into a large monster hunt. Rise bringing it one step further with all the endemic life and spiribirds, where every hunt is asking you to do further prep before facing down the monster. Getting just the right item load-out for each monster is a pretty decent chunk of the game which I would argue is fitting of the hunting name

Haven't watch it full but I do remember the painful experience running around on base world because I could not find any track and the flies isn't responding until I reach the correct place.

I dont know, i mean yes, tracking the monster in the maps and learning where they would appear is an essential part of hunting but I think its more intrinsic for a player to learn a monster through fighting, learning the moveset and elemental weaknesses. Prepping potions, antidote, picking up endemics and other things for the hunt is more "hunting" to me because the essence of a hunt in my opinion is the preparation

23:35 For people not reading there could be the possibility to have a companion such as the handler who just tells you at first that she read some notes that the khezu was last seen somewhere in the north or in caves or whatever. By the time you reach monster nobody saw before, you´ll be experienced enough to know the the heatmap stuff

This is an absolutely wonderful idea, and Id love to see something like this implemented. Ya, it would kinda punish people do didn't do any of the reading, but there are ways to make people more aware that doing such is important. Maybe for the first quest or 2, have a hunter join the player so "show them the ropes" (as rise has shown npc hunters is now a thing). Have them generally guide the player, saying "we need to find tracks to get started. The quest description mentioned that the Khezu was seen near a cave, so lets start there." or something similar. That way the player is aware they have to start with finding tracks, and are explicitly told that the quest descriptions give you a hint on where to start. It also adds an NPC to help you fight for the first large monster quest, to help ease people into the combat for people new to MH. Then as you keep hunting and such, you find out WHY the monsters were "last seen aroung X or Y". That would be a neat thing for people to figure out, and those who don't want to engage with the reading part of it can just remember "Khezu seen near cave", but this way it rewards the players that wanted to learn more and prepare. And it all disintegrates in the end game anyway, so it wouldn't add too much by the end.

I think an extra thing that could be added to the monster info screen is the maps where it can be fought, and highlight areas where it has been seen in, so if you first find it in area 8, then it moves to area 7. After the hunt those areas will be noted as possible locations for subsequent hunts.

My general guess about the idea behind the name is that the name hunter was chosen because it helps to define the monsters. Monster Slayer or Monster Fighter could be about actively malevolent creatures, such as in "Goblin Slayer" or about Warbeasts employed by some evil overlord and so on. The name Hunter implies that you are going after a creature that simply acts according to its nature with no other goals than to stay alive and procreate. That the term monster denotes creatures of great strength and ability, but not sapience. Granted, the challenge still lies in defeating the monsters, rather than tracking them down, but the idea is: You aren't meeting them on the battlefield. You stalk them in their natural environment and kill them to obtain ressources or stop them from affecting their environment in a way you disagree with.

I will say this in Rise's defense though; the setting is one of the best for the idea of hunting though if nothing else, at least base Rise in my opinion. As many have pointed out Rise has a very strong Japanese theme particularly a very strong _ninja theme._ Kamura is a rural, isolated village which is why it was vulnerable to the Rampage cycle in the past. Now they aren't isolationist, they readily welcome people into their village but they are definitely out of the way and some distance from the next nearest settlements by land. There are a couple of traders that bring knick knacks and goods from afar but there does not seem major trade between it and other locations. Kamura is completely self-sufficient which means the monster parts you acquire and the dangerous monsters you put down are more important than ever for providing for and protecting the village. Now what does this have to do with ninjas? Despite our western association with ninjas being master assassins, that couldn't be further from the truth. Ninjas were incredibly self-sufficient and their villages were often rural and not very wealthy, so they needed to utilize everything they could. Many famous ninja tools and weapons were repurposed from other tools and their equipment was often multi-purpose in order to make it as useful as possible; sai were fashioned after gardening implements, ninja swords are small not just so they can be easier to conceal but because metal is a precious resource, their grappling hooks were made from hand scythes and so on and so on. Ninjas were incredibly resourceful and in keeping in that tradition utilizing the resources provided by a hunt in game is totally in line with their way of life. Even the dango (hyorogan version of feasts, providing all the calories without the excess smell to tip off monsters) and the newly introduced palamutes (if any animal could be associated with ninjas its dogs) tie into this ninja theme. Of course though this is all lore and speculation, not game play.

I’m definitely one of the guys looking for the immersive Monster Hunter experience so I feel a good tracking system would do wonders for any future MH games. I love your idea of tracks revealing an area the monster visited that gets smaller the more you gather rather than revealing the monsters exact position. Means you actually have to spot the monster first. Though I think I’d like it if paintballs were part of that package. Track the monster, throw the paintball, done. Tracking over(least until the effect wears off). Time to fight. But the monster position can still be lost which leaves the potential for surprises as you try to find it again. I also really want to see monsters set traps for the hunter and I can see that working really well with your idea of using heat maps. Picture it like this: You’re on a hunt for a nerscylla. You’ve spent some time collecting tracks and narrowed down its location to one small spot on the map. You go there and find tracks so fresh the monster must have just been there but no monster in sight. You stand there a moment puzzled. Then it dawns on you. You look up but it’s too late. You’ve already been snared in the web of the nerscylla that was waiting just above you. The tables turn and the hunter becomes the hunted. The thought of having that potential for tension even before seeing the monster just makes me giddy. Plus imagine tricking your friends into walking into it. So much fun to be had.

Idk, I’d have to disagree with you about Worlds addition to the hunting system. And think it’d be better to improve on that system then implementing yours. As you alluded to, not that many people actually wanna do a whole bunch of reading or run around aimlessly, the focus is more on the fight. And not every monster will always or even should always be in a specific part of a map. I think if they just improve the placement of tracks, Lessing the amount scout flies on screen (cause apparently that’s a problem and you could barely see what was going on, I could see just fine. And it’s been a while since I played World but I’m pretty sure you could turn the focus camera off so it doesn’t take over your screen which I’ll admit was annoying. But overall I feel like you over embellished how bad the system was) and perhaps use the red area option you showcased to indicate a general vicinity of where the monster is and it would be perfect for the game as a whole. I think your proposal is very neesh and for most people it’s just feel like it was in the way. I think what world did was a good start in simulating you hunting the monster, but not making it enough to actually be in the way of you getting to the hunt itself.

Good stuff. I'd just add that the photography feature from Iceborne could be a great optional method to more quickly accumulate research and fulfill the "observation" aspect of hunting.

Brilliant video. Took all the words right out of my mouth, from the archaic paintballs being outdated to the overbearing scoutflies being a hindrance to World in multiple ways. And your proposed systems are almost exactly the solutions I've thought of.

Man, i miss your streams. I see you've already reached khezu all on your own too. Hoping you'll start it up back some day

I want to make a simple suggestion for MHR. Make the Cahoot a timed thing. Like when you start the quest it will not show you any monsters and after a few minutes you'd see a notification mentioning that your cahoot has returned. When you go back to camp or call it to your side, it'll relay the general locations of monsters on the map, but using your heatmap idea. Mix that in with your idea for the heatmap and ecology ideas, I think that would be a pretty good system as well.

For tracking… at the beginning of the quest you could have someone like the handler say “we’ve located the monster near zone 8 and 9” or something like that, and it gets more specific the more research you get. Eventually you’ll just get icons.

I honestly think your heat map idea is a pretty good idea, but i do agree that there are flaws that could occur too. But then again that’s the same with every idea no matter how good it sounds. Then again I also think alongside this there could be an encounter system for every time you engage with a monster you gain data on said monster and understand its behavior, abilities, elemental proficiencies etc. and this accumulates towards the archive page on said monster and letting the hunter understand the best ways to fight and slay the monster. And collecting enough materials from said monster allows one to understand what elements it’s weak to and weak points to target that improve with each encounter. And by maxing out the research and observation data on each monster, the hunter gains tokens of some sort to apply to armor’s or weapons the hunter wants to make that grant an all around boost when fighting a certain species of monster like fanged beast or that uses the same element as the one you got the token from(but it’s efficacy could lessen if it’s a different species of monster). And to top it all off the hunter could develop a reason to hunt small monsters besides meat and minor items. As from leveling the hunter’s understanding of the monster and it’s behavior; the hunter could understand what it preys on such as rathian’s hunting older aptonoth’s. Thus by collecting enough materials on said monster and other items like that skunk endemic life, the hunter could craft spraying scents to attract the monster and make it come to a certain area. Though this only works when the research level of the monster is at a intermediate level.

Man I'd love a MH game that went really hard on the nature bits, like imagine seeing stuff like an Arzuros walking around with cubs n such

The most epic way to legally murder Endangered animals

The first 10 seconds already killed me. "Ecocide" combined with the Kamura theme (or hunt complete theme?) really got me cracking. Anyways, and Oceaniz vid about MH; this is going to be a treat. Lemme get my mug of coffee and settle in for a good time.

Honestly, to work a realistic hunting system into the game you would have to completely overhaul the entire premise of the series. You'd basically NEED a fully (and I mean *FULLY* ) open world map without broders or load screens, even going as far as to make the villages part of the map as well. Given how big maps are getting these days I doubt that would be much of a problem... The real problem would be the monsters themselves. You would need a system that, at the very start of the game, generates and keeps track of dozens (if not hundreds) of individual monsters across the entire map. They would also need a staggering amount of behaviors to give each individual creature a routine of sorts in it's environment. Interspecies interactions, environmental interactions, seasonal interactions, day/night cycle behaviors, passive/active/resting behaviors, hunting/foraging/feeding pattern, and courting/mating/nesting behaviors to name JUST A FEW! At this point you are literally creating an ecological simulation that will run continuously in the background wether the player interacts with it or not. The world will have to be very much alive with its own ebb and flow independent of the player/s. That Rath you saw earlier in the game is still out there; flying around, picking off Aptanoths, fighting off other wyverns, tending to it's nest, going to the river to dring, ect in the background. You may never see that individual again, but the effects of it's behavior will be FELT at the very least. Maybe you CANT complete the quest you just got because there simply aren't enough prey creatures around since that Rath moved in. Maybe it already scared away the other creature you have been tasked to hunt. Maybe it displaced another monster and now that one's causing problems and you'll have to choose which on to hunt to restore balance. Etc, etc... There would also have to be several villages scattered across the map, each one with its own goals and problems. Maybe their fields or livestock are being raided by monsters. Maybe the dam they built disrupted the local environment enough to cause certain creatures to disperse and others to move in. These villages, and by extension the various villagers and agencies within them, will have to have their own motivations and opportunities for growth that will in turn generate quests. For example; say you got a quest early on to help clear out a section of forest of it's hostile creatures so that the village can plant a new field. Later you return to see that field up and running, but you get word from another nearby village that the monsters you displaced are causing problems for them. After dealing with that you receive an urgent quest from the first village! A huge monster has moved on to the area because the other creatures keeping it out are now gone thanks to you. You deal with it, only to find out that it was only there due to another villages overhunting of it's preferred prey. And so on and so on. Basically, EVERY SINGLE ACTION you take as the player, as well as the actions of the NPCs, will generate conflict withing the environment which will in turn generate quests for you to complete.... And finally we come to the players. Throughout your quests and unquested explorations, you'll gain experience and progress in researching the various creatures of the world. Documented behaviors, feeding grounds, pack territories, species ranges, breeding seasons, life cycles, strength and vulnerabilities, and more. Eventually it will get to the point that say, on one of your random explanations, you notice a large herd of migrating Aptonoths and are experienced enough to know that they are probably being followed by a Rath or other large wyverns. You haven't actually seen them yet, but you know their habits enough to know that they are probably nearby. You haven't received a quest to hunt them down, but you know you probably will if the migration passes to close to a village. You can choose to do nothing and hope for the best, preemptively hunt the following predators, attempt to alter the migration path to lead the herbivores and their predators away, thin the herd to make it less appealing to the predators, ect, all without ever receiving a quest and based solely on your experience thus far... As for hunting, Id say a healthy mix of tracking, testing, and research would suffice. But while you are tracking down that problem monster and are hot on its trail, maybe YOU are being tracked by a different monster that cought your scent of came across YOUR tracks. Maybe while you are busy creeping through the bushes, trying to stay down wind and out of sight of your target as to not tip it off before you are ready, there is another creature doing the same to you. Maybe before you have the chance to spring your ambush, your stalker springs there's and now you have a completely different fight on your hands, one you might not be prepared for... Maybe you fight a monster only to accidentally let it escape, only to be encountered later as a variant that uses new tactics based on how you fought it last. Maybe that variant developed a crippling fear of people and you never see it again as it avoid all control with people, but you feel it's effects as it displaces others in an attempt to stay clear of population centers. Maybe that variant instead developes a taste for human flesh and goes out of its way to hunt you or other NPCs down, causing even more problems and generating even more quests.... Honestly, at this point what I'm describing sounds nothing like a MH game and may well be better served as its own individual ip. Monster Hunter? Meh, more like Fantasy Ecology Balancer. There probably wouldn't (couldn't?) be much of a main storyline either, just the established villages vying for power, resources, and territory against each other and the monsters around them. I system where you choose which villages to help and which ones to harm would be fun, and you could add in a mechanic where if you choose not to help them the village will slowly die off sounds fun. Maybe I'm their desperation a village "delves too deep" and disturbs an elder dragon and by the time you get there to help the village is just gone, reduced to ash and timbers and now you have to hunt this incredibly powerful monster down without knowing anything about it before it can cause even more deviation... Maybe the emergence of the elder is tied to a set time limit and after say, 50 hours of game play, it will wake up regardless and begin laying waste to everything you've worked so hard to achieve. Maybe you randomly stumble across it early on and manage to survive, causing the rest of the game to be about you preparing for it's arrival. Maybe your research leads you to another sleeping elder and you manage to orchestrate a turf war between them and either drive off or defeat the winner.... Maybe, just maybe, the game never truly ends. Villages and monsters coming and going constantly as the seasons change and disasters occur, all the while the player desperately tries to keep the balance intact as civilizations push out into the frontier and the frontier pushes back.... Idk, maybe it's too much, but it sounds fun to me at least....

im really impressed by your idea and handling of its pros and cons like we all do, you are confident that your idea is a good one but also talk about its main flaw and problems respect from me for that and thumbs up for that

I think a cool way to unite the combat part of the gameplay and your improved research notes system is to also include combat tips for the monster within the notes. I think it should go as far as to show you how to dodge certain attacks and explaining ways you can take advantage of certain openings. This way the system you suggested could still be interesting after the first few hunts. Once you already know how to find the monster your mind will start to focus more on the combat aspects of the game.

After about 1000h in MH World i recently started a new save file with a friend of mine, and i got so used to having all the research levels on max that when i didnt 100% know the spawn location of a monster i usually knew a few zones they travel in and ran to those in search of it. But most of the time over the many hunts on my main file i got a feel and knowledge of where the monster usually is, i agree it isn't really hunting in the sense of tracking a monster down or gaining knowledge through text but personally i feel like i as a player got better at tracking them down intuitivly through the many times i've hunted them and saw their different locations they flee to and so on, especially for nest and sleeping positions that always stay static.

I remember that spot from the jagras quest at the start of MH world... Brings back memories

5:36 Or, you know, you can look at monster shadow when he flying away, and judging by direction in which shadow moved you could actually guess what is monster’s destination is. But you only can do so after you have experienced hunting that monster enough times and also after you got accustomed to schematic map itself, so you basically need to watch and learn what are the place monster like to flee to most often + what are the places he actually able go to considering direction of his shadow while he was flying away. I’d say all that is great play on actual ”hunting elements" even though you just can mark monster with paintball and it will be basically gps-tracked for you, lol

i think theHunter mechanics would be the best, find footprints, figure out if they are older or newer, if they are older they give you the general areas where they probably went to (theHunter does this by showing a circle around the player on the map), and the newer footprints would give you the direction they went to (the next area basically), which would make it much more simple, as it wouldn't be as intrusive, and would lead straight to the point. Also, make the user wear headphones and utilise sound: monster roars should be heard across the map, and you should be able to judge where they are based on that. They should roar: 50-90 seconds after the quest starts, in cases of turf wars, when they hunt small monsters, and randomly once in a while. This would make the player keep track of what roars each monster makes. Make call devices to call the monster to go towards you if they are close enough in proximity. Not right to you but make them go to your direction. They should be craftable, and made from the materials you get from the monster, or heck make them upgradable, or just slightly difficult to get. The call devices lose their effectiveness after you start battling it, so you couldn't call it back when it leaves, you need to chase it. This gives some kind of progression to it, but would require huge maps of World, as Rise maps would be too small imo.

I have an idea that sorta combines the track system and paintball system. A monster leaves tracks as it's moving (out of combat), and interacting with these tracks points you in the direction it is moving. You can then follow these tracks to whatever area the monster moved to (for flying monsters it would leave a special track that points in the direction it flew, or something) If you use a paintball, it leaves a special track that shows you where it is when you interact with it (either temporarily, but it leaves multiple as it runs so if you need you can follow another, or until the next time it runs away)

I have wanted a system like the one you described in monster hunter ever since rise removed the searching part of the quest. I have a question though, how does this system differentiate between multiple monsters? I thought different colors for the heatmaps might be an option but this could easily exclude those who are colorblind.

Rise missed the mark so much on the tracking aspect. You have a dog that can sniff the trail as you go across the possible locations, but the most interesting way would be to just climb a higher place and use the vantage point to see where the monster is.

So actually in the 2nd gen there was something similar to what you said but it wasn’t for all monsters. The magazine “Hunting life” gave clues to what monster like tigrex kut ku and such did and were they liked to stay overall. The magazine said khezu lives in the caves of snowy mountains and swamp region. And khezu spawn is literally area 3 of artic ridge. But they gave up on this in later gens

I'm a little late to this discussion, but I think a blend of all of these things might be best. The questboard can list map area numbers that the target monster is seen to frequent. (which will be the heatmap areas) At the beginning of the hunt you send out a bird to scout for the monster. In the meantime, you start your own journey, a rookie can use knowledge gathered from Info books on Monsters and the Region to find it, along with the suggested heatmaps and monster tracks that your palico/palamute can sniff and point out (to make glow visibly) to narrow it's location down, instead of having scoutflies clutter your vision (Can we train bugs that small, that well? Maybe it exists, I don’t know). Or, if you were unable to find it, until the bird comes back to update you on it’s scouting (ping your map, should be around 1 1/2 - 2 minutes). Finally when the monster has been acquired, hit it with a special scent bomb (like a dung bomb) for the bird/palico/palamute to track for the rest of the hunt so that there is no more worry. Ultimately, a seasoned hunter's advanced knowledge and intuition on the movements and habits of the target would prove to be the fastest way to intercept it and complete the hunt. Which I think would prove a hunter's progression.

To be fair to Rise, I think searching for endemic life to use in hunts could be considered similar to tracking the monsters, at least in the sense that you can reliably learn their locations and search for specific ones by memory to aid in a particular strategy you might want to use. This can be skipped by using the Palamute's SNIFF IT OUT command, though.

I think I read that each first hunt is canon to your hunter’s story, but the grind for the gear and the borderline genocide trying to get a gem are not.

For the finding the monster part, I just used Tigrex armor set which detects any existing monster on the area No need for paintballs or roaming around 😊

I've read people mentionning the buddies who could help you out to find monster tracks, which is a great idea imo. I also like your heatmap system, but i'd like if Capcom tried other more in-game systems to give you clues about the monster. Like for instance, you could follow a large monster that is out of your league at the beginning of the game while it is hunting your actual target itself. This could work with visual clues, like for example if you see an Anjanath sniffing on the ground, looking like it's searching for prey, you try to hide from it and follow it to see if it can lead you to the Great Jagras you're looking for. This way you could use monster interactions not only for fighting with turf wars but for tracking as well. We could also imagine a smaller monster later on that is escaping a larger one. You could find the larger monster by following the tracks of the smaller one backwards, but that would start to be a little convoluted x) Great vid and great conversation to be had. Hopefully MH6 figures this out x)

I definitely like world's tracking system over the "Here is the monster go kill it approach" that Rise takes. I do wish that they would incorporate a few other things though to make the game more immersive. Like bring back the Cold & Hot Drinks, the farm from the older games where you actually have to gather the items instead of just going through menu's. I also think that instead of having access to your ENTIRE inventory while on a quest that you could only choose to bring a few extra items alongside a gunner pouch. Some more environmental effects would be really cool as well, like if your on a quest and it starts to rain so all the monsters retreat to their caves so you'd have to go fight them in there. Monster Hunter Dos actually had a really cool mechanic with the breeding season where certain monsters would only show up during that time and some would be more aggressive. Also seeing some more monster diversity between the genders would be really cool. Like if female Anjanath had a differently shaped nose than the male ones or something. Just a couple ideas.

Beautiful analysis and proposed solution.

The first pause I agree with. While I somewhat understand the sport, and keep in mind that 'somewhat' is an big overstatement for me by say 99 percent, it should be the last reason for hunting. If I want to eat something I'll legally go for it but only if it's overpopulated or not on the endangered list. Except for domesticated pets or what i consider creepy. I refuse to eat those rock fish or angler fish that one lady tried to eat alive as an unprofessional mukbang video. The sounds it makes terrify me. Basically i have standards when it comes to hunting and eating.

I started playing Rise. And I disagree with the statement that going head straight at the monster is the way. Me and my team preffer to run around the map for first 10 minutes gathering buffs, items and other items that can be found on tge map. Just then when we feel like we got enough items we rush at the monster ad often arempting to stay more then one and by knowing where the monsters are we can predict when monster can be lured to each other to engage the territorial fight

You didn't even need paintballs after some time since you could just watch where the monster was going to find out which room it's going to

I think you have an excellent idea here. To address the researching about Master Rank and such, I had an idea that you could possibly do additional Master Rank research in that case. With the addition of the camera, let's say there's a recording feature implemented in the future, or even just the camera is fine. You can record scenes of Master Rank monster behaviors, deviations in their attack patterns, new patterns, more extreme forms of ailments the monsters can cause, etc. Furthermore, you can record environmental things as well, such as the behavior of other monsters in the area when your target is around (in the case of Deviljho or some other invasive species that doesn't belong to a locale). All of these can be compiled, and, if you're like me and have a sudden disparity in funds between HR 70 to HR 300, this optional research can be sold to line your pockets, as well as, in-universe, assist the Guild. In addition to this, you can even have bonus content unlocked from doing this optional research, like extra quests that have more unique cat and mouse dynamics in them or something that really tests your monster knowledge, with cosmetic and unique layered weapon rewards.

On your heatmaps idea. I understand it for the beginning of the Hunt, but what about when Monsters go from area to area, how would the tracking work then?

I'd like to see your ideas be a mod =D. I've gotten around the whole seeing monsters on the map (in rise) with a mod that removes them and turns kunai's into "paintballs". With the inclusion of spiri birds and hunter helpers in rise, all that "aimless" running around actually kind of helps. I have a certain path I usually take to pick up hunter helpers and tend to gravitate towards the spiribirds as I'm searching for the monster. Wirebugs that launches me high in the sky also helps me scout for a few seconds on typical areas they could likely be.

I actually really like this idea my only complaint is honestly personal I am legally blind so I kind of need the glowing particle effects to find my way around and I struggle reading the map layout because of my vision that is why I loved the scout flies in the world and ice born and now that I play in rise I have the guiding arrow turned on but I wish it was a little more pronounced especially in the sandy plains sometimes I still can’t see in there and wander around aimlessly but as I get the map memorized in the 3-D plane I have started to pick up routes from starting camp all the way to specific areas where monsters normally are such as the giant sandbox area and the watering hole I’m not sure what their areas are marked on the map but that’s where I find most monsters

I really like your heat map idea. I'd actually like to expand on it a little. For one, I think it would be cool if Palamutes interacted with this system a little bit. Removing the green glow of the scoutflies would make tracks much harder to spot, but maybe the Palamute can point It's nose at nearby tracks to show you them. It would be super cute and flavorful, and it can also serve as an explanation for the heat maps. Your dog gets the scent, so it can narrow down the location of the monster and its tracks. I'd also suggest a specific way for the heat maps to work. When you grab a track, a question mark icon with a number next to it will appear on your UI. Finding a set of tracks for a separate monster brings up another question mark icon. The number next to it is the order in which you discovered the set of tracks. The ? icons can be targeted by clicking in the joystick, just like targeting a monster in all the other games. The selected target will have it's heat map shown. The icons will remain as question marks until you sight the monster. This means that tracks that you find won't ever tell you what monster they belong to, just the name of the track itself, like "old footprints," "old gashes," etc. This makes the player actually pay attention to the tracks they find. Say you're hunting a Rathalos. You find some footprints and the heat map leads you to more tracks. Then however, you find some "old scales" that are green instead of red. Any hunter that is paying attention will realize that the track set is that of a Rathian, and will deselect the ? icon and look for a different set. This rewards the player for the level of monster knowledge that they have. For another example, both Diablos and Glavenus leave "old gashes" on walls. But most will be able to tell that a single slice means a Glavenus, and two slices means a Diablos. Particularly knowledgeable hunters might even be able to tell exactly what they are tracking just based on the shape of the footprint. Their reward naturally comes from the satisfaction of fast and efficient tracking, based entirely on their own knowledge. It would be both immersive and rewarding. I think near endgame this system can still remain engaging as well. If you make it so that near endgame, all heat maps are shown at the start even before you gather a single track, you can remove some of the tedium. You still keep the icons as question marks until you spot the monster. Having access to the heatmaps however will allow skilled hunters to determine where to look before even leaving the camp. Since the heatmaps show general locations of where tracks are found, if you know where specific monsters generally go, you can narrow down which heatmap likely belongs to the monster you want based on the locations it's showing. For example, if you know that your monster never goes to area 6, you can rule out the heatmaps that shows that there are tracks there. This would hopefully be consistently fun and satisfying for hunters that really get to know their monsters and where they travel, and even for people that aren't as good at that type of map logic, starting with the heatmaps is still an advantage since they can immediately know where to start looking.

As someone who started with World and never really had a problem with the extra visual noise, I thought the scoutflies were a really cool system. Being aimless at the start definitely sucked, but I think actually finding tracks and other signs of monster activity to hone in on its position fulfilled the fantasy of *hunting* and not just fighting monsters. So I think if they wanted a more hunting forward approach for the next game, they should expand on the best part of that system, the signs. Making more distinct footprints, claw marks, etc. so that we can get a semse of what types of monsters are in an area and making them frequent and readable enough that we can actually follow them without *needing* scoutflies (ideally they'd be optional or one of a variety of tracking aids you could prepare) would really drive home the feeling of actually searching for the monster instead wandering aimlessly or being led directly to it. Ideally, each monster would have it's own unique set of markings but reusing markings for similar monsters wouldn't be the worst thing. For example, nargacuga and barioth might use the same footprint but you'd know it was a barioth if you found sabertooth markings while tracking it. And perhaps the game could try to throw you off. Since rajang fangs might make similar markings, a map with nargacuga and rajang might look like it has a barioth instead to less experienced hunters

The biggest thing I can say is, its a video game. Even in your Khezu example by just saying it lives in Caves gave 2 options in that map. You check both and by then you should have seen it. Rise is designed in a way where you are almost always above the usable maps, so you can see a lot of ground. Same with old games, monster could move between at most like 4 zones in their wandering and would loop. Also spawn zones tended to be set, different species occasionally had different ones but once you used a food skill and saw it at the start that stayed fairly consistent given the primitive tech those games ran on. Sounds like they just need to refine World's attempt. Reduce the scoutflies (or eliminate them and just make interactables glow like Rise does) Set up a defined system of unlocks for research. Like you said levels affecting how quickly the Heatmap focuses on the target, but also doling out the Hitzone, Weakness, Ailments, Material info a little more. I think having the exact hitzone data is something that should only be left to 100% researched monster, not immediately after the first hunt. But elemental weakness could maybe start with a vague star system like World and roll into a specific number system later, same with Ailment data. Parts I think they did fine, hiding the actual part name until you obtain it but showing it can be gotten certain ways but not the in depth specifics until obtained. At least from the ground up on a new game going into the flavor text knowing they would be designing to give info about locales I don't think would add to their workload. They already make flavor text for every monster and quest, they would just have a focus now.

i think the best aproach for new players and late game is a rework of the world system, remove the particle effect and the neck snap from the scout flies, essentially have them be a blacklight that just lights up the tracks and trails monsters leave behind like they already do but without the particle clutter, and then implement more tracks depending on terrain, snow already leaves a trail when you walk through it so prints should be easier to follow in snowy terrain, mud monsters could leave a trail of mud etc, this breaks the rules of the challenge but maybe add some tree breaking/branches snapping tracks for flying monsters, and then implement the heatmap idea until youve gotten enough research to actually display their icons

You can change the setting that allows the scoutflies to rotate your camera automatically.

12:00 you can use mods to make the scoutflies less noticeable, there is a setting that makes the camera not track scoutflies, and also the scoutflies disappear in combat so its not like they hurt the gameplay at all but that kushala thing is true also no I do get better at tracking monsters i dont pay attention to the scoutflies anymore because I am faster than them at knowing where the monster is through alot of gameplay you can learn where each monster prefers to roam and therefor you get better at tracking but sometimes I can be wrong and in that very rare case the scoutflies are there to help me find my way

I hate the visual polution of the flies in world, but I like the idea of researching a monster before engaging. I think one of the many things that set monhun apart from the competition are the systematic elements: your hunter has hunger represented by stamina, weapons dull after use, older games had the environmental hazards of heat and cold, etc and I think they could make dynamic systems for hunting... For example, having a monster track just appear in specific places is just a scripted event, but having the monsters actually leave tracks as they move creates a dynamic system that would change from quest to quest. Maybe a random Khezu lost a turf war in it's cave and its now its roaming somwhere it normally wouldn't, leaving khezu tracks in strange places. I would also love to be able to set up an ambush for the monster, maybe killing a kelbi and dragging its body somewhere to use as bait and lure big monsters to where you want to fight them, setting up traps before the fight even starts. But I think the heat maps alone would be ideal, it wouldn't be too much work and wouldn't require too much time from the players to find their prey

7:40 Ecological Knowledge is the core of the tracking system of the older games, it is absolutely not absent. All monsters (even small ones!) have behavioral patterns you can learn and use to your advantage, Such as herbivores fleeing an area a monster is in or being on guard when a large monster is in an adjacent area. Large monster spawn points are *very* regular and not anywhere near as haphazard as you seem to think/imply, they aren't just random and absolutely coincide with their biology. Large monsters spawn most often in a specific area in a map, with a few exceptions depending on the quest, within their typical range. They will only move to areas within their 'range', and often in a specific pattern, meaning with enough experience you can perfectly track down monsters just by knowing what they tend to do and exploiting that knowledge. Paintballs are a crutch/learning tool for new players, they are not the only way to track things. There is no need to engage with any tracking system if you already know where your target is or will go based on past experience.

Since you did a every cursed technique and every quirk can you do every nen ability

ive only played MH3, Freedom Unite, and recently just beat Iceborne. i really really love the idea of Hunter/Gathering in MH games. early game is my favourite, needing to forage basically everything. i really hope they dont stick with the Rise formula

Really good video, but I have to say that in World, you can actually hunt mosters without the guide-flies once you know the monster you're hunting and the habitat where it lives; for example, if you want to hunt a Gran Jagras, you know where his nest is in the Ancient Forest; so, you can go there and wait for it. If we want to hunt a more roaming monster that doesn't return to its nest until it's injuried, like Anjanath for example, if you know that it hunts primarily Aptonoth, you can just go where the Aptonoths are. Plus, in World, all of the monsters roam precise areas of the biome they inabithat. Last thing, but this could be just my impression, i've never finded the guide-flies obnoxious or screen filling so much like you stated. That doesn't make this video less than amazing of course and sorry if my english isn't very good. Keep up your work Oceaniz

i think some teritorial monster like rathalos, anjanath, zinogre, etc (the apex predator on the ecosystem) roar more frequently so tthe hunter know what monster is in the are if they remember the sound, and maybe to make it even more fun, make the monster actually sometimes follow the hunter's tracks when visiting the hunter's previously visited area and even prepare ambush, so sometimes you hear some rustling behind and when turned around there is a a green narga behind a fallen tree ready to pounce on you

I think a good way to improve the research system you proposed would be two things: 1.) have monsters not always start at a research rank of 0, but some might be more or less researched to start. 2.) tie the base research level and gaining of research experience for a monster not just on fighting and tracking that same monster. Have you gain experience from time spent hunting in their biome, or hunting variants/non-variants of that monster, being at a higher hunter rank, etc.

I always use Psychoserum/Wave at the balloonman/Open MH Database anyways to locate the monster... Because that's how I like to play.. Or I can just not use those and try to immerse myself.. Which can be fun 1 or 3 hunts but if you're grinding which is the main catch of this game can become annoying REAAAALLY FAST... People need to be reminded as well that the guild is improving in terms of technology and that includes monster's knowledge, tracking them and even locating them that's reflected to how detailed the hunter notes is... Here' the catch: You are not alone in the field during a quest.. There's a bunch of other invisible people/helper that are just on standby waiting for your hunter to finish the hunt, assists you when you cart... Because the guild is already advanced... I don't know if they can go back yo being primitive and such but imho that would be a terrible idea... So it makes sense that currently tracking monsters will not be really hard, and it never was thanks to Psychoserum..

I can't wait for your ecology documentaries on both the kamura region and the elghoto kingdom

This was likely because I truly dove DEEP into World and am normally the "encyclopedia of game knowledge for the thing we're playing right now" in my friend group, but I was the person that knew: "Ah yes, [X monster], they spawn in this location, follow this route throughout the map, and by this time in the quest will probably be around here, except in THIS specific event quest, where they actually spawn here, and the most efficient way to get to them is to travel to zone..." So, when the video got to how it was handled in World, it felt like I experienced a totally different game from "bugs show you where the guy is," because at a certain point, I had done enough bug scooping to be able to completely ignore that. And since my friends hadn't, I could be the mentor and say, "Yes, we'll be spawning at this camp and heading in this direction to reach it." I felt like a hunter because my experience and mental bookkeeping allowed me to feel like one, not because the game encouraged me to, and that's a shame.

Excellent vid man

The monster of MH have evolved fighting capabilities, rather than kill prey/survive predators feats. Therefore having to fight for the most part makes sense to me

To add to this, we could have your pet owl have a secondary heat map. As you train your owl by feeding it monster parts and tracks, it'll hover over where it can see the monster. You'll know where it is visible from the air, but not necessarily exactly there. You can overlap that yellow owl heatmap with the red heatmap to narrow down where the monster might be.

perhaps make it so that you can enable various reserch ranks, for if you want a 'here is monster, go kill' exsperience, or if you want to exspirience the thrill of the hunt you can increase the size of or disable the heat map(for if you want to check your understanding of the creature)

14:15 I liked the system, but it was vastly undercooked. Here's my proposal: - Keep the general system for a xp-bar. It's already a abstract representation of the details/tracks your hunter notices but couldn't be rendered ingame for resource and performance-reasons. - Get rid of all the armor-skills which grant you information about the monster location, state etc. (As rise already did ...) and make it part of the xp/progress-bar. The same goes for the gathering-skills, but instead of being bound to the monster, the progress can be linked to the region. The more time you spent in an region and the more you explore, the more information is available to you. - You can level the progress by either simply hunting the monster, albeit very slowly. Collecting endemic life, drops/tracks/traces and observing/taking pictures of monsters in specific situations (Hunting/fighting other monsters, nesting, sleeping etc.) should also provide progress, at a much faster rate than just hunting. - This progress should not degrade. Probably my biggest problem in world with the system. Grind for simple grind-sake. - The knowledge/skills you gain from progressing should be shared with all team-mates who are currently with you on the hunt (And only for the duration of the hunt). The hunters are simply sharing the knowledge the have on the monster. This should encourage group-hunting and allows for "veteran"-status with certain monsters. (This veteran status could give a very slight bonus to loot-chance on rare parts, you simply know how to carve them by now and reduce the chance of wasting parts. -> This might encourage diversifying your weapon-collection later on, and makes it much more likely for you to try other weapons-types). - The heat-map you proposed, with the change that the heat-map gets more precise the higher your knowledge of the monster is. - Bring back the items, paintballs, psychoserum and scout-flies (As an item). Which can be used as stopgap measure until your are familiar with the monster (You progressed enough). - This progress-bar should NOT grant any damage-bonus in any shape or form. How good you are able to fight a monster should primary be linked to your skill and the equipment you brought. Some other changes I though of, which require major game progress changes and rebalancing: Get rid of the the village-quest system for single-player and embrace the open-world concept. You only return to the village to craft and stock up on items again. Progress is dynamic, based on events. Migration of herd-species attracts certain larger monster, killing certain species will open up "slots" in the food-chain for other monster to migrate into the region. You have to find specific combination of events to trigger/unlock certain monsters to spawn. Maybe bring back season/weather/day-night-cycle to diversify which monsters are currently available. Instead of having different maps, you just have a large region with certain terrain-types with all of them changing based on the season. Traditional quest should still be available either for multi-player or as special event-quests (Maybe be even generated, based on your region-state). Or to allow you to quickly grind a monster if you need specific parts, once you "unlocked" them.

Ok i'm seeing a way to fix the issue of new players not reading the quest description: Cohoot but instead of instantly showing everything, you can use it 1-2 times during a hunt to pinpoint the monsters location for a certain time on the map. (it would also make sense with the cohoot cause c'mon let the poor bird rest sometime!) another issue i could see tho is deterring new players of even trying the game. For example one of my friends doesnt like MH cause its 50% running around and 50% fighting atm, and most people just enjoy the fighting part a lot more

I love the idea you suggested, and the late game can be explained as your hunter becoming more and more experienced.

I think Evolve actually had a great idea for immersive hunting. Have birds fly up in the sky which would give away the monster's location should the Monster trigger it. We could have the environment be influenced by the monster to give away it's location both in the map in the red circle shown in the video, and visually by either having a pack of Aptonoth running away from a certain location or something like that.

I like the idea of unlocking information about the monster as you fight them, but I want it to be more I guess realistic. Imagine if you had to use a specific element against a monster to learn its weakness to that element, or to a specific damage type, blunt cutting or ammo. At the end of a hunt you can show a nice infographic chart showing all the stuff you learned and as you fight and directly learn more about the monster it fills out. If that takes too long or is too tedious, you could even learn information about it from people you hunt with, say youre a raw blademaster and you hunted with a gunner using ice ammo, you learn the monster ammo hitzones and ice hitzones from them. If you wanna get really weird with it, each hitzone and weakness could have a lvl that initially gives it a star rating and progresses to learning the numerical hitzone value eventually. I think its more engaging than just filling up a bar though that could have a place too for tracking or little journal excerpts about ways to track them. Just got a little further in the video and I think the heatmaps are a great idea. You could even have it make sense within the world in the form of rumors or sightings from whoever commissioned the quest. I dont think the self destructiveness is really an issue since you want the first 3 or so hunts to be memorable, atmospheric, and educational about the monster and its ecology. But after youve fought them 10 times you just want the fight itself and the materials. It gets less intrusive as youd want it to

One idea I think might help with reducing aimless wandering and conveying the feeling of an actual hunt could be to have "Tracking Quests" of a sort. In these quests, you wouldn't encounter any large monsters; instead, your objective would be to find and investigate traces of the target monster on the map. There would be at least one trace in each area the target monster frequents on said map. The idea is that before the player actually faces a monster, they should have an idea of where to find it, where it might go to eat or sleep, and some of the attacks/ailments it will use. Said quests could also be a way for players to explore and learn the maps with relatively little pressure. Competing a tracking quest grants access to more-traditional hunting quests for that monster in that respective location. One flaw with this design is that it could get repetitive having to do a tracking quest for each large monster species in the game, especially those that can found in multiple locales. For obvious reasons, there would be no tracking quests for arenas/single-area-locations or sieges (or any monster only encountered in them), and invaders would only have tracking quests on maps where there's an actual quest to hunt them.

In my opinion the "hunter" in monster hunter doesn't come directly from the method of tracking the monster, it comes from the idea that you must navigate a place the monster lives and hunt the monster. Monster hunter in the simplest form is a game filled with mostly boss battles, but unlike normal games in which a boss is always in one specific arena which you are just teleported to, in monster hunter, you are dropped in a map and told "hey, go get this monster". Even if you know where the monster is, you still have to navigate to it based off map knowledge (which was improved by wirebugs in my opinion) and use the environment to buff the player on the way. For example, despite how annoying they might be, spiritbirds require the player to not immediately take the most direct path to the monster to get buff, but because they are always in the same location, the more you play, the better and faster you get at buffing the player. It's the same with endemic life that you can pick up. I think my usual path in the new Jungle map is a good example. When I spawn into the map I immediately go for the marionette spider near by then turn back and take the great wire bug up to the patch of 3 spiritbird bushes and get some buffs. Sometimes the left most bush will also have a toad (either blast, sleep, or para). Then I go to that platform above the cat nest with the 2 bugs and run across to the other spiritbird patch through the log. After that I go down towards the lightning beetle, drop off the ledge to pick up the blast toad, and then I jump across to the nearby platform between area 9 and 2, go into the little secret water fall thing from the side, pick up a few green spiritbirds and grab the para toad. At first this took me a while to plan, and more time to master, but my reward is having decent buffs, and going into the fight with a marionette spider, a lightning beetle, a blast toad, and a para toad, plus an extra toad if I'm lucky. If I had to also locate the monster, this type of developed strategy wouldn't have formed. It also demonstrates my knowledge of what I need. Right next to the blast toad is a fire beetle, but because I know a para toad is right around the corner, I don't bother grabbing it, because it will be less useful to me. Additionally, grabbing the marionette spider is good because I know there are many places in the jungle that have good wall bang areas. In my opinion hunting isn't about tracking, hunting is about being put into another creature's natural environment and coming out on top.

Monster Hunter World had certain points in the story where both Low Rank and High Rank each had unique events where a predetermined monster was only made available to hunt after finding enough tracks and traces during multiple unrelated expeditions and quests. Pink Rathian, Bazelgeuse, and the Elder Dragons all had this investigative side to their introductions in World. World was my first Monster Hunter game, so I was heavily inexperienced and unable to figure out the scoutflies, but even I was able to see during a hunt that the footprints monsters leave behind always literally point to what direction the monster was moving from and towards. World also had fresh tracks and old tracks to show how far away the monster is. If a footprint was an old track facing towards you, then you were going the wrong way. With Rise, however, this flavor of hunting was completely absent, and that made the gameplay feel hollow in comparison to World.

I played Monster Hunter game since the original and has been a huge fan since Freedom Unite and when World was announced I was very skeptical because of how different it is from any of the previous game and any extreme change in an established franchise is always scary but after playing it at release I realize MHW was the MH game of my dream It is not perfect and it does lose some of the handheld series charm and quirk but overall it is just so good that I consider it as one of my fav games of all time edit: 12:30 Mod makes MHW so much better, it fix the yanking scoutflies camera and adjust their brightness or remove them completely but yea the base game scoutflies system is very flawed. And no, once you played enough scoutflies become less and less relevant, you learn more about where the enemies active area are and you go there directly while collecting track along the way so it is a matter of which one is faster, so yes you do get better at finding out the monster location through learning their habit and following their track cuz there is old and new track so if they are nearby you can guess. The mark is created by the monster, when they walk or interact with the world or do idle animation so it isn't random at all. I played without scoutflies for so long and I know where to find the sign of monster without them, each monster have different habit and location where they leave marks and when you know where to look they are quite obvious even without the highlight so it does add a layer on top of just knowing their general location or range of activity. That said it is true that without the highlight they are a bit hard to see because they are not designed to be found without it and when there is a highlight they are too eyecatching and quite distracting. All in all MHW failed to find the balance of being tedium and overly handholding the player, I mean imagine if MHW is like Red Dead or older game where you have to slowly gather item and use bugnet to catch individual bugs which is the opposite to the more streamline system we have now. Convenient and fun VS realistic mechanic has always been difficult to balance and they could do better or at least give the player more option without using mod. I hope they can improve this in MHW2 / MH7. Anyway although I don't disagree with you completely I think you are pushing it a bit too much

finaly a fellow rathian snot enjoyer

U did not mention alot about the springbird mechanic in rise, and the ecological creature too. I think that they are a great mechanic and it go well with knowing where the monster are. U can plan where to go and what to take and use natural trap and wall slam with other thing too. But compare to world it feel less satisfying for some reason. And some enviremental trap is really hard to see and activated, so if u not sure where or what it do it can be really hard to get it into ur run

I've watched that 2 hour analysis too

So I´ve thought quite a bit about your Ideas for change in the hunting strategy. First of all I would welcome a more coherent design of Monster Habitats. Like nailing down Monsters on certain Map Areas and Habitats. I also find the heatmap idea good it would generally make the Monstersearch more fun. What I think would be a problem for me would be the whole, make everything more wiki based. I have a reading disorder. To have to read the lexica in world to find the special small monsters (or the cat camera thing) was a pain in the ass and I gave up and just watched a youtube tutorial. I would also welcome it to make the quest descriptions hearable again in a shortened version while on the quest because it always took an eternity to read. I think there should be a little hint in the quest description where to find the first traces so people that cant or dont want to read a lot have a better chance to find them.

Monster Hunter 2 Dos still remains the best Monster Hunter game because it simulated Hunting the best: You had Seasons which you had to prepare for to face monsters and to gather specific items like honey in Breeder and Summer, or preparing for the Winter which has the game’s hard mode with tough monsters and subspecies. You also had bounties. The hunting felt like a job rather than a sport or mindless killing like it is now The subquest system is still the best which would reward you for completing them without even killing the monsters (certain parts were attached to this feature or had a higher chance if being obtained by completing them). I would love to have seasons back, as it already fixed many if the issues we are facing now with MH such as difficulty and subspecies feelings like color swaps