@Highlaw
I think above whether the changes are good or bad, it's more of the case that a weapon was wholy removed from the game, and a new one inserted in its place. Imagine if Bow was never a thing, then from one game to the next your beloved LBG fundamentally changed into a Bow gameplay-wise, same weapon model but every gameplay mechanic is that of the Bow and everything about LBG ceases to exist. Ammo is now simplified into coatings (but still under the "Ammo" name) just like new HH "songs". Commonly used mechanics like "Rapid-fire" now work like DragonPiercer, instead of an attack you constantly use, it becomes a finisher "cooldown" attack but of course maintain the old name (compare Iceborne's HH spin to Rise's spin). So on and so forth. Like gaslighting the community into thinking it's the same weapon despite the obvious massive changes. To me it's a disaster based on that alone. Just because the team has been SO good in changing weapons in the past. The GS going from no charging at all, to charing hit&run style, to tackle-charging in 5th gen, while still allowing all previous styles. Same for LS, going from a GS clone, to a single power-up bar, to expanding into multiple lvls of the bar, into introducing Iai styles and finishers in 5th, again you could completely ignore Iai and play it in its old style. Same for Gunlance, which had MAJOR new moves and improved combo strings starting with MHP3rd (grond slam, quick reload, etc), but the original core was still there. I could go on and on, DB, SnS, IG fun additions/changes along the way. HH is the first where they went full stop, murder, and redo style, especially painful when Iceborne's version was the best yet and only needed small changes to avoid corner-hooting. It just needed a couple steps forward from that iteration, mayhaps using some MHGU's style into the basic moveset, but they just shot it instead.
@Ignitehawk
I had a lot of issues with Monster Hunter World on the whole, but that game absolutely nailed Hunting Horn. The changes made in World were the perfect mix of complexity and ease of use, both lowering the skill floor and raising the skill ceiling at the same time. It was awesome, and I was really sad when I discovered that Rise made the weapon so simple I never even had to look for song openings.
@MrMalkraz
In regards to the Greatsword, the main problem with "just going back to the old playstyle" is that a lot of the weapon's damage output (and therefore stagger potential) is now backloaded into the TCS. Sure, you can still just use draw attacks and the occasional supercharge, but your hunt times are going to increase by a significant margin because you're locking yourself out of most of the weapon's moveset. This problem is further exacerbated by the massive nerf to crit draw, essentially forcing Greatsword into the tackle bunga meta. You could play Longsword without any counters or wirebug attacks too, but that wouldn't be very fun would it?
@Rendo64
I'll simplify the charge blade as an example: - Phials never need to be loaded - Phials fill as you attack and automatically charge your sword and shield when they are full - Overcharging and weapon bounce are gone - Charge resets once you use saed With this I'm pretty sure the majority of old cb users are not gonna be happy about the changes while newer players will find it a lot more appealing to pick up and play. It's a small change but it completely ruins the depth of the weapon and turns it into another switch axe. This is what happened to the new hunting horn, it's a hammer that buffs without much effort.
@BlondeMcGuinn
I know I’m seriously late but I’m on PS5 so I didn’t get access to Rise until January ‘23. I started MH with MHU3 on the Wii U and became a HH main in World. I really dislike the HH changes in Rise. I miss the Encores most, and then probably the hilt stab. I miss lining songs up and playing them, the planning of it. I switched from HH to CB after about 25 hunts in Rise. Rise HH is just so dumbed down, but I’ve had tons of fun with the CB, so that’s a plus. Great video btw. I enjoyed Part 2 as well. This is an interesting topic and you went above and beyond. Big Ups! Subbed.
@RH_54321
Wish I had found the survey earlier. I enjoy Old-HH and Rise-HH, but for different reasons. I'm still disappointed the weapon I loved since 3U is gone in Rise. Rise-HH is HH in name only. I can appreciate Rise-HH for its simplicity, but the satisfying complex buffing playstyle niche of Old-HH is gone. So what if it was the least used weapon? If they wanted to make HH more appealing they should've just raised some of its inherent stats. Legit Iceborne HH with GU double notes would be my ideal HH. Rise-HH feels more like a blunt longsword.
@SirStuckey
I will save my major opinions until I see what you say in the next video (as I gave lengthy opinions there) but as a horn main since my first game (4U) I really hated the changes in Rise after the near perfect horn we had in Iceborne
@philbert4398
In regard to question 2, I feel additions are far better than a rework. I’m a Lance main (aka, least popular weapon) but I love Lance for being Lance. I fear that complete reworks will always have the issue of alienating those who love the weapon to get more people to play with the “shiny new toy”, which seems like the opposite of what should happen. An updated weapon should make the mains ecstatic and everyone else happy, not everyone else hyped and the mains left in a bitter-sweet limbo. It should solve the issues that stand in the way of the weapon rather than abandoning ship. Finally there’s the idea that just because something is unpopular doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just more niche. For example, pineapple on pizza isn’t very popular, but the people who like it love it and wouldn’t want it changed just so more people are willing to take a bite.
@william_sun
My problem with Rise's Hunting Horn is not the song mechanic. It's the normal attacks. I'm completely indifferent to the changes to the song mechanic, though I am disappointed by the lack of song variety.
Old Hunting Horn was unique among blademaster weapons in that its normal attacks had no fixed combos. Every attack ("attack", not "input") could combo into any other attack with only two restrictions in Iceborne: (1) you can't combo an attack into the same attack and (2) you can't use Hilt Stab or Echo Attack from idle. That's it. Additionally, each of the eight normal attacks in Iceborne behaved in a way unique from the others that give each attack a purpose outside of being "the next attack in the combo". For example, the Left and Right Swing are diagonal attacks that can hit around blocking body parts, the Overhead Smash always hits the head if it is in range regardless of what body part the hit box first collides with, and the Hilt Stab is a fast attack that can put any note of your choice on the staff. Even if you don't engage with the song mechanic at all, the weapon has a lot of nuance and gives the player a large amount of control.
Rise's Hunting Horn introduces fixed combos and, because of this, most of the weapon's nine normal attacks are now largely interchangeable with each other because the player no longer as the option to pick from their entire arsenal at all times, being limited to only three combo options after each attack instead of seven. (And Backward Strike, the one attack that is still unique, can no longer be used in the middle of a combo because of its uniqueness.) The uniqueness of each individual attack is gone, and there is no longer much reason to care which attack comes out next as long as it plays the note you're looking for. And even if you do care which attack comes out next, remembering which attacks combo into what is a nightmare with the mess that is the new Hunting Horn's combo chart, whereas for other weapons, you typically only have to remember your X combo, your A combo, and where you can jump between them.
To Rise's credit, though, the new recital animations are way better, and the invincibility from the standard performance animation is a huge benefit to the weapon in terms of positioning and survivability. I just wish that they didn't have to gut the weapon's normal attack mechanics to give us those upgrades.
@1QUOTE1
As someone who played HH prior to rise, I feel like song management isnt as huge a hurdle to get over when learning to play the weapon so much as the long animation commitments you needed to sit through to play songs. It's a definitely a skill you learn through playing, but its a turn off and kept me from touching it in 4U. Prior to Rise, there were changes made to make song building and playing more comfortable: GU had the double note system that rewarded aggressive play and lessened the amount of time spent playing buffs manually. World made song management and recitals less punishing by letting you roll out of recitals and massively buffed their strength on top, as well as letting you choose which songs to play and being able to hilt stab with any note to make song building even faster. Rise just needed to combine both of these together along with the new attacks, neutral draw, and i-frame recital and they would have hit it out of the park. Instead we have a weird mix of moves that are pretty good (i-frame recital and crush are excellent) and absolute trash ones (double spin and melodic slap) along with nerfed movement speed...for some reason? Buffs like earplugs are totally pointless now that every weapon has a way to ignore roars, and many of the other negative statues like tremor and wind pressure do basically nothing in Rise. It lost mechanics, it lost moves, it lost songs, and the songs it DOES have outside of Attack/Affinity/Defense/Healing lack the potency they once carried. HH needs all it can get so why did it lose almost everything while LS keeps everything and gets buffed massively?
@MusicStoRageA
If they were to change the weapon so much as to it seeming as a different weapon, could they not have kept the hunting horn prior to rise and made a new weapon class? While hunting horn's overhaul does not personally make me feel loss, I would be in great concern if overhaul of this fashion for other underused weapons of are on the way.
@facepalmguy6183
Ngl the response to question 2 made me a little mad for a second. I dont know, I just feel like a weapon should not be reworked just because of low player count. HH has its niche, and that's the keyword. Niche. A small niche that might turn a lot of players away, but those who stick with it realize how fucking awesome the weapon actually is. I hate how Capcom reworked the weapon to make it appealing to more players when they didnt need to. I gotta admit, I dont have much experience with rise HH. It could be amazing, and I think it probably is, but it just isnt the experience I'm looking for. It's not HH, its rise HH. Same name, different weapon. It doesnt feel like an evolution of the weapon that I loved using in Iceborne. It just feels like a different weapon. It's like if you had your main straight up removed, and now you have to pick a different weapon. Sure, the other weapons are all great, but you picked your main in particular for a reason. But now it's gone. No hate towards rise HH enjoyers. Just my twenty cents.
@darkbeetlebot
Counterpoint to question 1's conclusion: The common thread between the two largest sectors is that they both liked pre-rise horn. 82.6% of responders liked pre-rise horn compared to 17.4 who didn't. This is compared to the 48% who liked Rise. To me, this means that people seem to like pre-rise horn more than rise horn.
@ailill5458
I started out with the HH but switched over to Gunlance (going from no damage to no damage...) because the new HH just feels like a musical hammer. Only four songs is ridiculous. Can understand why old HH players feel the way they do.
@LesbianWitchAcademia
I do wish that they had implemented a Switch Skill to turn HH back to the way it was in World, since there are Switch Skills and all. It feels like a missed opportunity. Rise HH is definitely easier to get into, and is very fun with the flashiness of it, but it's missing the OOMF that World HH had.
@devv197
People who like the new HH are people who weren’t a big fan of it in previous titles. This comes with the secondary effect of alienating previous HH mains. You don’t completely rework a weapon just because there aren’t a lot of people playing it. You improve on the base moveset. Imagine if your main got completely reworked in MH6 because some people didn’t like it. You’d be pissed right? Icebourne HH was almost perfect, it could’ve used a buff to a few of its motion values but otherwise i had no complaints. After being a HH main since GU, meaning i actually the spent time to learn how to maximize damage and songs with it, i no longer use HH. The lack of songs, plus the trivialization of the weapon’s combat has pushed me away. HH combat in previous games was very similar to GS combat. You had to know the monster’s moves to know when to throw an optimal attack while also playing songs. Now you just press a button twice in a row or ZR once. There’s no uniqueness to the combat flow. It’s the same ZR and A combo until the monster trips or gets stunned and then you do Infernal Melody or Earth Shaker. Im glad i have SnS as a secondary because I wouldn’t be playing Rise if not.
@mcola1115
You hit the nail on the head in the video. With old Hunting Horn, the skill ceiling was high; your decision making, positioning for recitals/encores, ability to maintain buffs and do damage all at the same time for me made the weapon super interesting. Your HH had a wide arsenal of songs available to it, each with unique button combinations to perform. It was such a unique weapon and I felt like I had unlimited potential when using it. It was also fun seeing how your songs would change going into high rank. Whilst Rise HH adds some cool stuff (the new attacks in the base kit, the silkbinds are interesting) it does so at the cost of lowering the skill ceiling and removing the identity of the weapon; for me the trade-off isn’t worth it. The songs, which were a core part of the weapon, feel entirely secondary, passive and require little/no thought. Whilst it’s great that its brought more players to the horn, why must it do so at the cost of complexity and its identity? To be honest, the changes are so drastic it could’ve been a new weapon, that would’ve been more interesting; you have two utility-focused weapons with tradeoffs: more damage for weaker utility. Now, the HH just feels like a Hammer which does buffs, and whilst I enjoy knocking out monsters with HH, it’s more satisfying with a Hammer, so I guess I’ll just go play Hammer lol
@legnodinoce312
To add more complexity to the weapon, they could create different recital depending on the situation. I liked World HH because it was fun you could move while playing songs, to evade or get closer to the monster. Now, recital is just a standing still multi hit combo, that doesn't require much positioning skill. I would introduce different recitals depending on the way you move the left stick before playing it, like in world. They could even introduce different recital depending on the order you played the different notes, one for dps, one for counter, one to apply status ecc.
@knotwrite
I just miss the precision of the old attack animations. Despite its size, fighting with the HH felt like you were use a scalpel and dissecting the monster in a very deliberate fashion.
@poryjahn2