So I ended up playing a ton of this today, got back into the grind loop, and coming from Generations Ultimate it's kinda a weird feel.
Like everyone says World is easier than the old games, and it sorta is and sorta isn't.
Enemies are definitely less aggressive in World and give you more time to beat on them.
But, the HR monsters in World hit....fucking hard. Like I've got pretty ok HR upgraded armor now after a day of grind and I'm still getting like 50%+ of my life taken away in one hit from tough enemies. Like even in G-rank in GU with just HR armor and entry level G-rank armor I'm not getting hit like that at all. Maybe like 30-40% damage hits. World feels a lot like "oh shit I just got hit better run the fuck away and try to heal so I don't cart my team" vs. in G-rank GU where I'm like "ok, I'll wait until I get hit a few times to back off and heal"
Also I don't know if it's just because it's an old game at this point, but the active community
sucks on ps4. Almost 1/3rd of the quests I did today ended up failing and not getting anything. When I play GU there's a person carting here and there but man I think I played from HR1 to G2 with randoms and only failed a quest maybe twice the entire time.
I can't tell if this is because the players are better in GU (old-school MH players), or if it's because shit hits harder in World and its easier to cart.
Also some dumb players out there like if there's 2 monsters on the map there is no reason to split up and fight them separately instead of ganging up on one monster at a time wtf. Some guy fighting Black Diablos solo while the other 3 are fighting a Rathian and you get a message he carted. Wtf.
The other thing is the progression is so.freaking.slow in World compared to GU. This whole thing for the last 4 monsters (Nergigante & Elder Dragons) where you have to just "keep playing maps over and over and eventually after a bunch of hours they'll unlock the fights" is really lame. Just give me a list of missions one after another to beat until I get to the ending. You can tell that because there's so few monsters they just dragggggg out the content in World. I've almost unlocked the elder dragon fights after playing all day and gearing up.
I now get the complaint about the maps being too busy/maze-y. I have trouble at the start trying to find my team and the target half the time. Once I find them it's pretty easy to follow from point to point, but still yeah. I don't think it needs zones or anything, but make it easier to get to the monsters at the start.
The monster turf war thing sucks now that I've played GU and they've added Deviljho. Like whenever a turf war starts everyone just walks away and starting mining ores or dancing or doing whatever that is not fighting the monsters for like 3 minutes while the monsters duke it out. It's cool to see once but this is dumb. I don't remember it being as big of an issue pre-Deviljho but he shows up like every high rank mission and fights the target for a while. Yawn.
That being said I like the combat, the gathering and the online has pros and cons. It's easy to jump right into a mission all quick vs sitting around in a room waiting for a team in GU, but I really miss not having a "team" that comes back to the gathering hall after a mission and then we do another mission, and then another misison, etc... I'd often find a good team and we'd play a couple hours doing different stuff. Here every match is with different random people and maybe it's why people play worse because there's no sense of a real team. I hope they do something to make 4 person lobbies more of a thing in the expansion or World 2.
I think I prefer the boss fights in GU because they feel a little more arcade-y. World is definitely more dynamic and it's cool too, but GU bosses and especially the variants just have this arcade feel like when you fight Dreadking Rathalos and he launches nuke bombs on the field instead of fireballs. I'm hoping the expansion adds a lot more variants. I like the Azure Rathalos in World, but that's about the only notable variant? Pink Rathian doesn't seem much different and Black Diablos is just faster with a new move?
Anyhow World is fun and an addictive grind (much more of a grind), but I think in another day or so I'll have all the Elders down, take down a few monsters I haven't fought and then I'll shelve it until the expansion. Meanwhile I'm probably going to keep playing GU finishing up all the special permit deviant fights I haven't done yet and maybe finishing G-rank.
I definitely like Monster Hunter at this point tho
Anyhow I started yesterday with about 270 DEF and ~832 ATK, and now I'm around 340 DEF and ~1200 ATK. However, since I'm a hammer user if I want to actually knock down stun the bosses if I drop about 30 DEF down to 310 DEF I gain stun damage +30%, so I'm going back and forth between those builds depending on how tough the fight is.