Why Monster Hunter World Iceborne will fix the game?

[3VOLVE]

The following image is taken from a wallpaper I designed for my PlayStation Community "Monster Hunter World - Iceborne Pathfinders" search it up and join if you'd like. Enjoy the content written.

Hello, I'm Artist 3VOLVE and real quick I want to talk about Monster Hunter World which is my game of the year for 2018. I love Monster Hunter World and I feel that it really cleans up the extremely rough edges around Monster Hunter. Hell if this game had "Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate's" content it would be a 10 out of 10. I feel like Monster Hunter World had and extremely huge issue most games suffer from which is endgame problems.

I feel like Endgames are the missing parts of reviews and it is sad because reviews are typically meant for casual players. The endgame is hardly covered unless by people like AngryJoe or that one angry Brit I can't remember. Anyways this is a key part to review because reviewers see it as a job to review games and give it a couple of hours then write and say print. But it doesn't cover the most important topics usually and they never talk about microtransactions/loot boxes/screwing over players. Monster Hunter World hasn't done any of that and it certainly deserves praise but it is missing a lot.
A lot of people say it is just the lack of content that makes the game worse. I disagree but I see your point. The thing is if you've never played a Monster Hunter game it is hard to pinpoint what's wrong when you jump into World for the first time. After all this game is your standard.

This is because Monster Hunter games have tiers of content and I'll try to explain them all well enough to give you a proper understanding. The tiers are Low Rank, High Rank, G-Rank and then Special Quests.

LOW RANK - This tier introduces you to the majority of the Monsters you'll be facing off against. The easier beasties and shows you how to craft armor and weapons. However, the only useful things you can craft from this rank is the weapons because they cross over into high rank. The armor becomes literally useless once you hit high rank and especially G-Rank. So a big mistake people make is trying to get everything and spending too much time in Low Rank.
HIGH RANK - The most important tier you could say where more Monsters are introduced especially what are called Sub-Species. These are different iterations of the same monsters with new movesets and slightly altered designs usually by color and element. In this Rank all the Low Rank armors are available but they perform better and will actually still be useable by endgame by some chance. Here you get better rewards and fight "the same monsters over again". Here lies the problem.
G-RANK - The rank most beloved by hardcore fans as it brings into play new armor for the same monsters, new monsters and weapons that can be upgraded and that will look drastically different. It will also test your skill and is fair but a bit frustrating at first if you don't know what to do.

Now there's much more to these ranks but there is a problem when we talk about Monster Hunter World. First off the problem that starts this is the lack of G-Rank. See in Western Countries, we hate paying again for a new game that has the same old content with new content added on top. We just want it to be DLC so we retain our data. However, in Monster Hunter World they feel like they kneejerked and created "Tempered Monsters".

This is a new tier of Monsters that basically makes you fight "the same monsters over again". So before we get into what's bad about this, let me break this down so you understand without a bit of confusion.
Low Rank is one tier where you fight all the monsters.
High Rank is another tier where it adds little monsters in World.
Tempered is another tier where you fight the same monsters but none are added.

Seems like instead of a step forward it was a step back, and it was.
Tempered Monsters rehash the same old content that you grinded hundreds of hours to complete. Why would you want to do it again if you get nothing new. Sure you can upgrade your armor and weapons further, but that's just numbers. That can be added in regardless.
Tempered Monsters are like what happens when you have Monsters that are carefully designed to be balanced and then you say buff them up regardless of balance or differences like G-Rank would have. G-Rank improves on the content. Tempered Monsters simply rehash the same old content and buff up numbers. This is one of the biggest "taboo endgame design decisions". It isn't related to skill, it isn't related to a compare and contrast system.
In the Tempered rank you also come across the issue of your tools being less useful, giving you less options to use your arsenal against these monsters.
While not terrible, I think you can understand where I'm going with this. In previous games, Tempered Monsters were never created and here it feels shallow because it isn't truly rewarding. It is a shallow system to buff up some numbers by replaying the same old content you've exhausted.
I won't even get into the streamstone system that has you collecting streamstones like: Hammer Streamstone, Great Sword Streamstone and etc. They reward you with these items but super rarely and then on top of that you get them for weapons you don't even use. You don't get a streamstone, trade it in for one you would use. This punishes players for playing the endgame content because if they want streamstones so they can upgrade their bow they'll most likely not get it for the bow.

So now we've went over the unbalanced, unfun, rehashed content that is Tempered Monsters. People push through it right? Simple. Then they add Arch-Tempered Monsters. Oh here we go. Dear god. So Arch-tempered monsters is a new tier just for Elder Dragons. These are big boss monsters with usually the best armor in the game. Problem is that you've already fought tempered monsters hundreds of times, mostly elder dragons because if you want to upgrade your weapon it takes:
- A specific Streamstone for a specific weapon and RNG is trash.
- A Gem from an Elder Dragon you've farmed too many times / Plate from a Monster you've fought in 3 tiers.

And other things that are no longer fun to farm. Enter Arch-Tempered Monsters that have you fight the same old monsters from High Rank, Tempered Tier and now Arch Tempered that give you the same armor with small visual differences but this time they take waaaaaay too long to kill. Because you are so used to High Rank health which carries over to Tempered Monsters but not Arch-tempered. See the issue? They have you fight Monsters all over again that you've fought dozens of time for their armor, weapons and streamstones specifically and make them stupid hard removing the fun and balance of the monster. Say you can't use your arsenal and they mitigate your arsenal and say you can no longer counter this enemy with flash bombs freely or you can no longer use the same tactics because the monster have new movesets and their difficulty is ramped up without thinking about balance.
It isn't fun. So after all this text where does this leave us? Well Monster Hunter World's endgame content is the worst in the series easily. It is the least rewarding in the series and it is content rehashed so hard you'll end up dropping it once you learn about tempered monsters for the casual players.
I want the casual players to become hardcore, play the game further but when things like this are added it ruins the game to be perfectly honest.

[3VOLVE]

Finally after the Game Awards (and Sonic Fox's cringey victim political speech) the devs announce a new expansion called "Iceborne" that will officially act like and rewrite the basic premise of G-Rank. Not to say this came too little too late but Tempered Monsters never should have been made or at the very least they should have been less grindy to keep players invested instead of giving up on the same content they've done for 200+ hours. Iceborne is promising new locales, new monsters, G-Rank gear and new gameplay elements. It sounds interesting and will be cool for a paid expansion since they've given us so much free content. Once again it deserves to be praised. As you can tell from the picture above there is Anjanath G-Rank gear if you've played the previous game and there are new monsters as well. So now we get to why this is important for the series.

I don't want to say Tempered Monsters were a completely bad idea. If this is your first game you either hate it or love it because you have no standard based on older Monster Hunter game's better endgame content. However, what Iceborne promises to add is hopefully a better more rewarding endgame that will respect the player's time and money. Tempered Monsters were much too grindy for items you don't even want or need. Getting Hammer Stream stones when you only use blades or bows is frustrating and doesn't entice you to play hammer like the developers thought but only more so frustrate you that you have put in 80+ hours to get nothing you wanted. That's not fun or rewarding which the first 100 - 200 hours of Monster Hunter World absolutely is. Iceborne needs to so desperately give us a reason to play again with new monsters and weapons with the promise of another tier of content. Not rehash and boost enemy's hp and attack for the sake of new and difficulty. Monster Hunter World's core problems show when it doesn't respect the player's time and tries so hard to artificially extend its game. It isn't natural and doesn't feel natural when past games have done it so well. If this game had ended at high rank fine, if it had ended at tempered that's a bad endgame and it is less fun and monotonous to be honest. We need Iceborne to redefine the endgame Monster Hunter World redesigned and ignored.
However coming out in Autumn is a long time away for next year. I don't know how many Monster Hunters will remain till around then especially with the ones burnt out from you putting out the same monsters you'll fight for the 3rd and 4th times. Around 5 - 10 times each rank. At that point you really need new content. That's my not-so-quick endgame review for Monster Hunter World.
it will get better but by how much is my question. Will it bring back the players who were frustrated and burned out? I have no idea but I hope so because it is a great game, it just needed to be more rewarding in the later levels. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a nice day.