I gotta say, this game's endgame being described as a grind doesn't make a lot of sense to me—it kept me away from the game for way longer than it should have. Yes, you run the same content over and over again, but it isn't mindless, trivial content you're just running for the sake of what you get out of it. It's not about the telos. The fights themselves are the fun parts, the parts and rewards you get for them are (to me) just to push you to have goals and objectives.
I get why people think it's a grind, but I'm surprised to hear people who have played through it describe it that way. It's like saying playing a fighting game online is a grind because you get MMR from it—sure, it's true that you have to do a lot of fights to progress, but the fights themselves are the heart of the game. If we're using the same word to describe running tempered Nerg over and over, improving and learning, and to describe catatonically killing mobs in WoW for six hours for rep, that word's definition is maybe so indistinct that it does more harm than good.
that said, I can totally understand someone not being into MHW's endgame. for me, as someone who is entirely allergic to MMO/JRPG-style grinding, running those fights over and over, learning answers to attacks, shaving ten seconds off my time, mastering another weapon, was all very very fun—getting crafting mats was the least important part of what i was doing
man i'm ready for iceborne
Yeah like I said I'm not sure it's for me, hence - again - I said "that was over quick" - somehow without the story it's missing the motivators to get going, and everything that felt convoluted feels now even more so, mind you it took me 60 hours or so to finish, that's not "too little" but now I just feel there should be more because it was so fun, now seems the fun is over and it feels like work ...
Also it's really dumb they give you this Yaku fight right after finishing story - "lol usually easy monster that now one shots you and that you barely do any damage to" - after you just fought a couple of pretty tough dragons successfully is just bad game design.
Basically half the gameplay is "make healing / other items" "try to figure out what these gems do and why you can't apply them to whatever you want" "try finding the right battles to give you the parts you need for your next upgrade or whatever" "what is affinity and how to get it" and so on...
The actual fights are fun but saying that's all there is to is only half the story.
Basically I don't have an issue per say with how it works, but there should really be more and better QOL features, like why doesn't it auto-craft the stuff I need when I select "restock" provided I do have the parts, and why doesn't it tell me which battles to choose for the materials each upgrade / part needs, this stuff is just tedious, and it's not fighting monsters, it's fighting menus. There really is a weird imbalance between how things work and how it's explained to you in the game, I have to look up every single thing, that really shouldn't be the case. It feels like they put a lot of effort in the actual mechanics and very little into explaining how they work for new players. "They tell you what it does but not how" is what I'm constantly thinking... There are worse grinds for sure - but I really think there's a weird emphasis on getting parts, trying out other weapons (so you get to grind more stuff) etc, it's really mostly a game design issue to me.
BUT that's just how it is, so I need to do research / ask questions, etc...
The true Monster Hunter refresher. A bit burned about repetitiveness? Try a weapon hardly used before and it's like a new game.
See, that's not it. I'm not burned out, I'll never use another weapon. I just need to know what to do next, how things actually work, etc, I need a clear path, I kinda had it as long I was playing the story, but now I feel lost and kinda misunderstood, I don't know if it's for me, or if there's actually enough content to keep players going (if you've noticed a lot of people saying how great it is don't even play anymore lol) but it's for mostly different reasons you guys seem to think.
