Anti Frustration Features / Monster Hunter: World

One of the main draws of Monster Hunter: World is that it streamlines or simplifies many, many, many of the mainstay features from previous games to make the game more accessible without detracting from the game's depth.

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Exploration and Material Gathering

• The vastly increased scale and detail of the areas in World make it easy to lose a monster or miss gathering points. "Scoutflies" will highlight gathering points and help you track large monsters. This can also result in icons on the minimap displaying whether a monster is hungry or close to death, which required certain armor skills in earlier games. ^note  You have to max out the tracking on on a monster to get this displayed, however, which will show a blue outline on the minimap icon for the monster when you have done so.
• You can now simply depart on a quest upon accepting it. Before, you'd need to take care of your food buffs, equipment, and items before leaving (and you'd have to quit and return to the hub if you forgot anything), but all of these can now be accessed at camp during the quest—the only thing you have to do before leaving now is setting your Decorations. Eating now also has a 10-minute cooldown, meaning you can apply new buffs after fainting.
• Gathering is much quicker; as in Generations, you can simply hold the interact button instead of pressing it for each item, and in many cases you don't even need to stop running. Whetstones and Pickaxes now have infinite uses and do not take up inventory slots, while the Bug Net has been removed in favor of a Capture Net which similarly takes up no space and has more varied uses.
• The infamous Desire Sensor has been mostly neutered with the introduction of Lucky Vouchers and Gold Wyverian Prints. Lucky Vouchers are a daily login bonus^note although you can skip up to five days and still get all your vouchers, and "login" is a misnomer since you don't need an internet connection and when applied to a quest will reward you with all of its completion rewards. Gold Wyverian Prints are earned by completing all Limited Bounties,^note a handful of objectives that change every week and can be used to meld rare monster materials. Meanwhile, the Steamworks added to Iceborne guarantees at least one Celestial Wyverian Print ^note the Master Rank equivalent of the Gold Wyverian Print, per week.
• Desert areas in other games require a Cool Drink during the scorching daytime or a Hot Drink during the freezing night to prevent negative effects. The Wildspire Wastes has no such mechanic, and even the regions that do need such items - Elder's Recess, and Hoarfrost Reach in Iceborne - only need one rather than both, because they are a Lethal Lava Land and heavy snow tundra, respectively.
• As of the v.2 patch, you're immune to knockback while carving during the period after quest completion, so you can't be deprived of your carves by an annoying monster or hunter.
• Materials are now set instead of the old system of using a pool of possible materials at a gathering point. With the old way if you see a spot where you can get a god bug you would be more likely to get an insect husk and risk breaking your net to get it, for example. It would make gathering more annoying than needed due to the fact that you basically rolled the dice for rarer materials even if you knew where they spawned. Here each item is unique, looks unique, and you never have to worry about getting a material you don't want when gathering. The only remnant of the old system lies in the gathering nodes (mining outcrops, bone piles, etc.), which give three materials overall but do pull from a small pool of potential rewards, depending on location, rank and color.
• Bathing in a hot spring in Hoarfrost Reach will give you the same Warm Body effect as drinking a Hot Drink - along with a small healing effect, which goes beyond recoverable damage - allowing you to explore the areas close to camp without having to use up a drink. But Hot Peppers are also incredibly plentiful, and with auto-craft turned on will basically mean you never really run out anyway. Staying warm is, therefore, far easier than it has ever been in the series.
  • Similarly, Chillshrooms that can be crafted (and set to auto-craft) into Cool Drinks can often be found in and around the area where you would need them in the Elder's Recess.

Item use and Inventory Management

• You can now consume items while moving, and the lengthy flexing and belly-rub animations have been removed. This has been balanced in some cases: for example, a Potion's healing effects are applied over time instead of instantly, and certain actions will cause the healing to cut off early.
• YMMV, but the item wheel. You can now quickly use a preset item in a shortcut menu instead of scrolling through the item menu, so it is possible to quickly sharpen your weapon but still have a curative on the usual item button. The item wheel is also the only way to sharpen your weapon without having to sheathe it first.
• You can set certain items to "Auto-Craft" in your Crafting Menu; instead of manually crafting items, they will be created automatically whenever you obtain the right materials.
  • Sometimes, if you need an item that needs another item that needs to be crafted, you can craft that ingredient in however many amounts you can, then go back to crafting the item you needed. These are marked with yellow text.
  • There's no longer that chance of failure when crafting.
  • Most notably the game lets you craft an item the second you have the ingredients for it.
• If you attempt to use an item you don't need at the moment, it won't be consumed—for instance, a potion while at full health or an antidote when you aren't poisoned.
• Inventory management has had a complete overhaul that generally prevents your pouch from becoming too full. There are now three distinct item pouches: one for usable items and consumables,^* Including things that are useless on their own but can be combined to be usable, like trap tools and antidote herbs one for your ammo, and a new third one entirely for inert materials gathered from mining, carving, etc. Materials are also automatically deposited in the item box upon return to town and sit invisibly in their own section, removing most of the clutter when trying to arrange one's pouch. Further, infinite-use gear that is bolted to your character (capture net, fishing rod, etc.) or managed from the equipment screen (mantles) doesn't occupy inventory slots at all. Account items and objective items on delivery quests don't even take up space temporarily, being instantly delivered or converted into points.
• Research Points, the currency that's separate from Zenny, are now gathered more organically than before. Picking up monster trails, collecting "account items", and completing tasks given to you now give you points outside of combat, and breaking monster parts and capturing them give you more as well, so does killing but it's much smaller to encourage strategy in tackling a monster if you want points. It's also always possible to get them, in both free roam and mission, so you don't have to worry about going out of your way to grind them just to keep up your supply.
• The resource generator has been updated to be more automatic and flexible. Now you can choose what you want it to replicate at any time, and the only thing you have to commit to is the boosts you want to apply. So if you put a boost on bug items but decide you want mushrooms more you can swap them then and there and at worst will have to wait one mission to apply the mushroom booster. In addition once you reach the end of the normal game a new mission will open up that will get you "soft soil" which increases the duration of all active boost by 5 missions. Done properly you can have all 4 boosts active and only have to stop every 5 quests to apply another soft soil, making it even more flexible and effective.
• Bowgun ammo is much easier to procure. A bush of the right type gives 10-40 berries, which are auto-crafted into several magazines' worth of ammo, and can be upgraded from there into high-grade ammo with the addition of gunpowder (itself easily obtained in bulk). Previous berry yields were a tenth of that, required a second item to act as the casing, and advanced ammo required more esoteric items such as fish; maintaining a supply of endgame shots meant hours of gathering or intense micromanagement of item duplication.

Combat

• A command and combo guide appears in the top-right corner of the screen, making learning a weapon much easier.
• The Sharpness gauge is now an actual gauge that visibly drains, instead of your weapon suddenly snapping to a lower sharpness level.
• The Monster Field Guide removes some Guide Dang It! aspects of the series by providing you with elemental weaknesses, combat tips, and which materials drop from which monster part.
• The final boss fight has two phases, each of which take place in separate areas. Its tail cannot be severed until the second phase to ensure you can get all the carves.
• The Battle with Zorah Magdaros (the equivalent of Lao-Shan Lung/Jhen Mohran/Dah'ren Mohran for this generation) actually has NPCs assisting you during the fight. While they won't fire them, they do load the cannons for you, saving you the hassle of having to load each individual shot.
  • Additionally, cannons can now be loaded with up to five cannonballs, instead of just one, and can be manually rotated by pushing on their sides. If a cannon is full, NPCs will wave at you, so that you know when to fire them for maximum damage.
  • What’s more, unlike the Battleship Raid boss battles in the series, this one has a health bar for the Wall you are guarding, letting you know just how much damage it can still take.
• Ranged weapons aren't completely shafted when they run out of ammo/coatings. Bows and Bowguns have an infinite supply of close-range coating and Normal Ammo 1, respectively, and both can find materials to craft ammo types on every major map (other than empty phials for bows, but these can be carried in stacks of 99, and some are given at the quest start in the chest).
• While most weapons do slow down the player when drawn, players don't get slowed down nearly as much when they're drawn compared to past games which was nicknamed the "Hernia walk".
• Introduced in Iceborne, the new Clutch Claw tool has two uses:
  • Grappling onto monsters. Rather than mounting them for a chance to wail on them with the carving knife, though, it lets the player get in a strong attack with their main weapon, weakening the part and increasing damage done. For light bowgun users in particular, this means planting a Wyvern Blast onto the monster, even if all three are currently recharging. This allows light bowgun users a chance to do more damage than they normally would when waiting for more Blasts.
  • Flinch shot. Assuming the monster isn't enraged, a hunter can use the claw attack to turn a monster 90 degrees up-to-two times (after which they will automatically enrage), and if they have slinger ammo, can use flinch shot to send the monster forward. If they hit a wall, the monster is toppled, allowing hunters to wail on them when they're down.
• As of the release of Iceborne, but not requiring players to purchase it, multiplayer hunts now have a separate two-player difficulty where monster attack and health are higher than single-player but lower than the normal multiplayer difficulty. This makes it much easier for two hunters to complete their objective, especially while dealing with lower level Palicoes that don't attack or use their tools often enough.

Equipment

• There are no longer separate sets of blademaster and gunner armor, so you're free to switch between weapon types instead of worrying about crafting more armor to go with it. Instead, blademaster weapons provide a raw defense boost while gunner weapons provide an elemental resistance boost.
• You can now place equipment on a Wish List, which allows you to freely access a list of materials you need to obtain while giving you notifications whenever you acquire one, and if you have all the material on entering base you will get a notification that the item is ready to build.
• Entire weapon upgrade trees are now displayed within the game, where before you would only be provided with info on the immediate next upgrade. Upgrades can also be reversed, refunding you the materials (but not the money) - some upgrades are irreversible, but these have a special border on their icon.
• Kinsect upgrades have been further simplified from Generations and XX. Kinsects are no longer fed, but are upgraded along a tree by expending materials just like weapons. Kinsect Elements are no longer locked to a particular Kinsect and can be changed, once again by expending materials.
• invoked In previous games, entering High Rank for the first time would present the player with a rather nasty Difficulty Spike—High Rank monsters hit much harder, but since you haven't fought any yet, you're stuck with Low Rank gear. In World, the Final Boss of Low Rank drops materials for reasonably powerful High Rank gear, making the transition to High Rank much less painful. What also helps is the fact that your first High Rank target is a Pukei-Pukei, who even as a Low Rank monster is on the low tier of aggressiveness and attack power.
• Skills only require a single point to activate, as opposed to 10 or more in earlier games, making it easier to make mixed sets. Additionally, negative skills are gone.
• Weapons have all been updated with skills and moves that increase either their potency, or flexibility and let them fill more roles. The Lance and Shield-and-Sword are both able to deal mounting attacks without any environmental assistance, while the Insect Glaive and the Hammer gain a passive damage boost you can activate any time, though it reverts if you get flinched ^note the damage itself doesn't matter; only the character getting knocked around This helps those committed to a single weapon fill more roles where they previously fell short in some areas.
• The bow's moveset has been changed into one set moveset, instead of each bow having differing shots at each charge level. ^note The charge and fire shots are always rapid, wide shots are an attack button that has both a weak-but-costless quick shot or a more powerful-but-short-ranged power shot if used after another shot, and pierce is now a charged super attack, and the barrage is now always the much less intrusive "concentrated" version. In addition to letting them smooth out the bow's damage and prevent otherwise good bows from being useless due to shot type, it also means you have a shot for every situation. The damage being shown now also helps a lot of players in two ways: 1) using it correctly, as before a lot of newbies might not realize that the bow is very dependent upon range for it's damage (something previous games didn't show with damage numbers). It even gives you a warning when you're too far to deal more than 1 damage. And 2) it helps keep players from mistaking barrages as a reliable damage dealer, because the game has a separate damage value for breaking parts from normal damage, whereas the barrages are good at making monsters flinch above all else.
• Some players main a single weapon or a couple weapons all the way through the game, upgrading them into better tiers as they gather new materials. Others like to experiment, and try out new trees or weapons even as they get into the late game. For them, there are certain points in each upgrade tree where you can skip a number of tiers and, at a higher zenny and tier-appropriate materials cost, directly forge a new weapon to play with instead of having to upgrade a lower tier weapon up to that point. This cuts down massively on the need to grind Low Rank drops to bring a weapon the player's never used before up to High/Master Rank viability.

Achievements

• Traditionally, the various Crown achievements have been the most tedious due to the reliance on RNG to spawn a monster of the required size. World eases up on this thanks to its Event quests. Some are guaranteed to spawn Mini or Big Crown monsters while others have an increased chance of spawning a crown.
• There are achievements for capturing various endemic creatures which will only spawn under certain conditions and even then are not guaranteed. Iceborne added the Felyne Zoomaster meal skill which increases the chance of rare endemic life spawning.
• Outstanding Observer requires the player collect 20 requested screenshots. Originally only 20 requests were available, but a later patch added 10 relatively easy additional requests which also count for the achievement.

Events

• Some event quests are only available in a specific console or region, such as the Horizon Zero Dawn quests being exclusive to the PS4 version and the USJ quests being Japan-exclusive. It's still possible for players outside those consoles or regions to run them and obtain the exclusive gear if they join someone who's running that quest.
• Rather than one-time events that are Permanently Missable Content, events are on set rotation. If players missed the first instance of an event it will eventually repeat. Even cooperative content such as the above-mentioned Horizon Zero Dawn content reappears during the festivals when all events are active.
• For players struggling to fight or even unlock the secret monsters in Iceborne, there are weekly events that let them fight the beasts outright and as often as needed without having to go through all the requisite grinding in the Guiding Lands first. Not only that, but completing these event quests also makes it more likely for the monsters to appear in Investigations, making repeat battles even easier to get.
• For the 2020 December update, most every event quest will be permanently available from then on. Moreover, the Safi'jiiva and Kulve Taroth siege quests will indefinitely rotate every two weeks, ensuring newer players won't have to wait long to tackle them.

Other

• invoked If Iceborne is installed, after talking to the NPC that begins the first step of the expansion, the game will automatically mark the two final Hunter Rank capping quests complete and put nonessential copies on the optional quest list. These two - one of which involved hunting two tempered Bazelguese, the other a tempered Kirin - were a notorious Difficulty Spike that could make getting to higher HR content difficult; since Iceborne equipment obviates much of the difficulty, this change makes is easy to go back to.
• invoked The jump from High Rank to Master Rank is even higher than from Low Rank to High Rank. The monstrous Difficulty Spike is eased in two ways: the first few hunts are done in expedition mode (so there's no carting penalty) and the Hoarfrost Reach's material tables make it fairly easy to craft a set of starter Master Rank armor. Additionally Beotodus, the very first Master Rank hunt, can be manageably farmed for an armor set that's generically good for any weapon.
• Seliana Campground is much more focused in its design compared to Astera, basically being a round courtyard surrounded by the shops, smithy, and so on. This makes taking care of pre-hunt preparations much quicker, since the Provisions Stockpile and the Canteen are now separated by a short jog instead of being on opposite ends of the map.
  • The Seliana Gathering Hub has access to both the Resource Center and the Blacksmith, something that frustrated players in the base game since they had to leave the Hub to check bounties or upgrade gear.
• For those that use the Vigorwasp Palico tool, Iceborne added a one-time revival ability, allowing you to avoid a single cart per hunt (as well as the penalty). Pretty handy in those instances where you might be awaiting healing, but an (un)lucky hit would've otherwise finished you.
• The systems for Layered Armor were revised with Iceborne. It's made at the Blacksmith instead of by turning items into the Resource Center, the selection menu is simplified, and one can designate specific layered sets along with pre-made armor loadouts to preserve them — alternately, one can choose to ignore a pre-made Layered loadout and use whatever they have on at the moment.
• When loading a pre-made Item Pouch in Iceborne, the game now asks if the player wants to change their Radial Menu as well, averting a number of incidents where players would lose their shortcuts by loading up an older Item Pouch.
• Initially, the Guiding Lands' system of one area going up while another goes down had no means of regulating these changes, making fighting the monsters you want more difficult on top of the RNG. However, adjustments have been gradually added overtime:
  • 'Fixing' the levels so that they don't fluctuate, along with decreasing them at will from camp. These make leveling one region at a time, along with keeping the pool of potential monsters closer to what you wish to fight if you don't have their lure(s), that much more doable.
  • A Banishing Ball item will also immediately make a monster leave the Guiding Lands, allowing for a new monster to appear from the pool right away, instead of having to wait for them to leave or slay/capture them.
  • The Elder Melder will now be able to craft special tracks for any monster found there, so long as you've encountered them once before and have the required materials.
• The Kulve Taroth siege was hated because of how its randomized weapon drop system worked — players weren't guaranteed to get a weapon they wanted regardless of how well they did. The new Safi'jiiva siege mitigates this by guaranteeing that the player will get multiple weapons of the type they used to fight the dragon. Additionally, these weapons are customize-able, allowing players to add different attributes, and even make them count towards armor set bonuses, making it much easier for players to get the exact kind of weapon that they want.
  • Additionally, unlike other mountable monsters, Safi'jiiva instantly goes down without trying to fight back the moment it gets mounted. This saves a lot of time that could've been wasted on an already-limited time as it is by being forced to mount Safi'jiiva until it gets tired and allows other hunters to wail on it for as much as they wanted.
  • An update queued for early December will add solo and 2-player difficulties for the siege, removing the massive headache involved with trying to find a lobby that's actively doing the raid, as most players skilled enough to do the raid either already have all they gear they wanted from it or have the significantly better Fatalis gear.
• One of the biggest hurdles when facing Kulve Taroth is that it will retreat if the hunter fails to damage it enough. Fortunately though, the timer will only begin once it engages in battle with the hunter allowing other players the time to arrive or to stock up before heading on to the next phase.
• Tempered Furious Rajang is fought in the arena where you are unable to restock your items nor can you eat a meal to replenish your health if you faint. However to compensate for this, the supply chest provides numerous amount of healing items. Additionally, unlike other quests, you are allowed to faint five times before failing the mission as opposed the usual 3 faints. The same also applies to Fatalis's Special Assignment (but not it's Event Quest though).
• If you make it to the second phase of the Fatalis assignment for the first time but fail the quest, you will be able to bring friends along and use the SOS Flare from the get-go instead of having to clear the first phase again by yourself in future attempts.
• Fatalis's head does not break while incapacitated (such being paralyzed, Flinch Shot to the wall, knocked out by artilleries/Dragonator or trapped under a One-Shot Binder). This is to ensure that it will always get a knockdown whenever its head broke to allow hunters to wail on it throughout the duration of the knockdown.

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