Been playing Monster Hunter World this week. Don't ask me about how it performs on my laptop (you do not want to know), but I am willing to forgive it, so long as I play a 'slower' weapon (like my main, the Charge Blade). Among the highlights:
- So the "Defender" class gear that's available when you have Iceborne installed? It has "disc one nuke" written on it so blatantly it's not even funny. I crafted the Charge Blade just because, but I won't even consider using it until my other weapons are up to par (it's still a good 50% stronger even ignoring its blast element for now). On the flipside, they don't seem to have any upgrades beyond low rank (at least not yet).
- First story quest in the Wildspire Waste ends with hunting a Barroth. There was also a wild Cactuar (part of the FF14 collaboration) there, quite the surprise since that crossover isn't otherwise available until after beating the game.
- Got the Palico Gadgets from the Grimalkyne tribes in Wildspire Waste (which wasn't too hard) and Ancient Forest (which took much longer, because apparently I have yet to explore its upper reaches
- Jyuratodus ("mud Lavasioth") actually put up a good fight, but I went in prepared with Gajau leggings (improves mobility in deep water). This makes me HR4 which unlocks the next tier of (lower rank) event quests.
- Had enough event tickets to craft almost the full set of Spring Blossom armor (so I ignored the headpiece for now). The triple Jagras arena quest wasn't too hard, but I should probably farm it a bit more because you need 3 event tickets for the event longsword, and it yields a full set of Palico event gear.
- The next story hunt is Tobi-Kadachi, but I've been doing a few side missions here and there to get more materials first. The sheer pace of story assignments affords almost zero time for new gear or upgrades, and if you're not upgrading your gear as you go along you will suffer for it later.
- I find the Wildspire Waste really easy to navigate despite its size. Ancient Forest, not so much....