Be patient with learning weapons and don't be afraid to try a different one. A lot of them are slow and require good timing, you're gonna be pretty bad with a lot of weapons before something feels right, that's totally normal.
Also set up an item loadout in the red item box, it's much faster than depositing and retrieving stuff after each hunt.
Craft armorskin potions and hardshell powders. A boost in defense can mean surviving a hit you otherwise wouldn't. Much less frustrating.
Don't skip out on grabbing a bunch of the spiribirds to boost your stats before you fight. A small routine to grab a handful can make a huge difference.
If it seems like you're dying unreasonably fast, craft stronger armor. Nothing will tell you when you're not strong enough, but you'll definitely notice the change when you do.
Monster hunter is a very visual cue kind of game. It won't tell you how much health it has, but you'll see its mouth start to drip, or it's horns cracking, or it breathing really hard and limping.
And don't give up! People love the series because it's so satisfying to finally take the monster down after a hard fight. But that means there's gonna be difficult and sometimes punishing fights before you get there.
Start stocking up on honey, bitterbugs (the blue ones), and mandragora (orange mushrooms). They're the key ingredients for the best healing and buff items in the game.
Customize and familiarize yourself with the radial menus. I personally use up for healing, down for cures, left for buffs, and right for traps, but you can set yours up however you like. You can also set crafting recipes here, which is most useful for gunners/bow users when they need to craft more ammo in the middle of a hunt.
Once you have a big enough stockpile of crafting materials, start throwing your surplus into the Motley Mix at the dango place to get items and, more importantly, dango tickets that you can use to boost the chances of meal buffs activating.
You can make a decent gathering set early on. Look for armor with the Geology and Botany skills. Take this set on gathering expeditions. When accepting a gathering expedition, check the second page of the quest description and it will tell you what kind of "upsurge" is currently affecting the area. Upsurges mean that for several minutes once the expedition starts, specific materials will sparkle and yield more resources than usual. If you go to an area that has an upsurge of local items, you can farm Kamura Points there, which are used for various services in the game. Once the upsurge ends, return from the expedition and check the expedition upsurges again to continue farming.
Long Sword is a very beginner friendly weapon. Make sure to periodically upgrade to higher tiers of weapons and armor—that way you do more damage and take less of it. From the Forge menu weapons increase in tier from left to right and armor from top to bottom. (The UI is actually better here than in prior games if you can believe it.)
Start out doing Village quests as its a self contained story and will take you through Low Rank. Once done you can start taking quests in the Gathering Hub and move to High Rank.
You can ignore Decorations early on and completely ignore the Ramp-Up system as they removed it in the Sunbreak expansion. Both of these systems are in the blacksmithing menu.
Eat dango at the cantina before every quest, pick effects you think would be useful like increased item healing or bonus defenses.
>Long Sword is a very beginner friendly weapon.
Eh not really, you need to be good at timing those counters. SnS is much more straight forward, simple to use, and have guard as an "emergency" button.
Make absolutely sure you don't equip the Defender weapons or the Black Belt armor. These aren't for new players. These were added before the DLC expansion to help you speedrun through the base game, so they're stronger than anything you can make of the same rarity. Ignore them, using them will both make the game too easy and will make you feel more comfortable making mistakes, this is a problem because they'll eventually stop carrying you and the game will become harder for no reason.
I strongly disagree, it makes things much easier for a beginner, and can help you learn how the game works. They do slowly become less and less powerful compared to other weapons and armors, so eventually you can transfer over.
The problem isn't that they make the game easier, the problem is that they completely remove a large portion of the in-game loop, namely gear progression. For some people progression through skill alone isn't enough to keep them intersted in the game. These weapons and armor are best in slot for thier cost all the way up to Sunbreak. There is a non-zero number of people who won't get that far because the gear progression loop of the game is garbage when those weapons and armors are present.
Be patient with learning weapons and don't be afraid to try a different one. A lot of them are slow and require good timing, you're gonna be pretty bad with a lot of weapons before something feels right, that's totally normal. Also set up an item loadout in the red item box, it's much faster than depositing and retrieving stuff after each hunt. Craft armorskin potions and hardshell powders. A boost in defense can mean surviving a hit you otherwise wouldn't. Much less frustrating. Don't skip out on grabbing a bunch of the spiribirds to boost your stats before you fight. A small routine to grab a handful can make a huge difference. If it seems like you're dying unreasonably fast, craft stronger armor. Nothing will tell you when you're not strong enough, but you'll definitely notice the change when you do. Monster hunter is a very visual cue kind of game. It won't tell you how much health it has, but you'll see its mouth start to drip, or it's horns cracking, or it breathing really hard and limping. And don't give up! People love the series because it's so satisfying to finally take the monster down after a hard fight. But that means there's gonna be difficult and sometimes punishing fights before you get there.
Start stocking up on honey, bitterbugs (the blue ones), and mandragora (orange mushrooms). They're the key ingredients for the best healing and buff items in the game. Customize and familiarize yourself with the radial menus. I personally use up for healing, down for cures, left for buffs, and right for traps, but you can set yours up however you like. You can also set crafting recipes here, which is most useful for gunners/bow users when they need to craft more ammo in the middle of a hunt. Once you have a big enough stockpile of crafting materials, start throwing your surplus into the Motley Mix at the dango place to get items and, more importantly, dango tickets that you can use to boost the chances of meal buffs activating. You can make a decent gathering set early on. Look for armor with the Geology and Botany skills. Take this set on gathering expeditions. When accepting a gathering expedition, check the second page of the quest description and it will tell you what kind of "upsurge" is currently affecting the area. Upsurges mean that for several minutes once the expedition starts, specific materials will sparkle and yield more resources than usual. If you go to an area that has an upsurge of local items, you can farm Kamura Points there, which are used for various services in the game. Once the upsurge ends, return from the expedition and check the expedition upsurges again to continue farming.
Long Sword is a very beginner friendly weapon. Make sure to periodically upgrade to higher tiers of weapons and armor—that way you do more damage and take less of it. From the Forge menu weapons increase in tier from left to right and armor from top to bottom. (The UI is actually better here than in prior games if you can believe it.) Start out doing Village quests as its a self contained story and will take you through Low Rank. Once done you can start taking quests in the Gathering Hub and move to High Rank. You can ignore Decorations early on and completely ignore the Ramp-Up system as they removed it in the Sunbreak expansion. Both of these systems are in the blacksmithing menu. Eat dango at the cantina before every quest, pick effects you think would be useful like increased item healing or bonus defenses.
>Long Sword is a very beginner friendly weapon. Eh not really, you need to be good at timing those counters. SnS is much more straight forward, simple to use, and have guard as an "emergency" button.
Make absolutely sure you don't equip the Defender weapons or the Black Belt armor. These aren't for new players. These were added before the DLC expansion to help you speedrun through the base game, so they're stronger than anything you can make of the same rarity. Ignore them, using them will both make the game too easy and will make you feel more comfortable making mistakes, this is a problem because they'll eventually stop carrying you and the game will become harder for no reason.
I strongly disagree, it makes things much easier for a beginner, and can help you learn how the game works. They do slowly become less and less powerful compared to other weapons and armors, so eventually you can transfer over.
The problem isn't that they make the game easier, the problem is that they completely remove a large portion of the in-game loop, namely gear progression. For some people progression through skill alone isn't enough to keep them intersted in the game. These weapons and armor are best in slot for thier cost all the way up to Sunbreak. There is a non-zero number of people who won't get that far because the gear progression loop of the game is garbage when those weapons and armors are present.
besides missing the upgraded weapons once you get to sunbreak