Lagamorph wrote:- Combat is too slow, too clunky and too random whatever weapon you choose, though admittedly this is down to personal taste more than anything.
Call it slow and clunky if you must, but random? It's very much not random. Combat is very well done in MH, it's one of the big draws for its consistent challenge. If you get hit its almost always your fault.
Lagamorph wrote:- The controls are a shambles. There are too many things and nowhere near enough buttons for them on a controller which in turn leads to some baffling control design decisions,
- Your items in the bottom right can be cycled through the D-Pad or by holding down L1 and pressing buttons, which is fine, but the prompt indicates that pressing Square will use your item. This isn't actually true however if your weapon is drawn. Pressing Square will not use the item, it'll just put your weapon away. You then have to press Square AGAIN to actually use the item.
- If your weapon is drawn you can't pick things up because some genius decided that "Pick Up" would share a button with "Attack"
- If your weapon is drawn you can't run, since "Put away weapon" and "Run" are both the same button
These are game mechanics, not control design issues. There is always a risk to healing or using items, you have to know when is safe to draw or sheathe your weapon. If you really want to use items while your weapon is drawn, use sword and shield - that's one of its unique abilities, and why sword and shield can be used for a great support build in multiplayer.
If you could always use items with your weapon drawn the game would be broken.
Lagamorph wrote:- You have to break away from combat FAR too often to sharpen your weapons. Maybe some of the larger weapons don't have this issue as badly and have larger sharpness meters, but both the Dual Blades and the Sword & Shield definitely do. This is made worse by the fact that if you get interrupted during sharpening, then nothing happens with your sharpness. You should get at least partial sharpness from being interrupted halfway through, but you don't. Hell, I even finished sharpening earlier today, but because I was interrupted in the bafflingly unnecessary second where the character just holds up the weapon to appreciate their handiwork, no sharpening at all.
Again, this is game balancing. There are weapons and skills that will reduce the need to sharpen, and different weapons will need a varying amount of sharpening. Dual blades and sword and shield are right up there because they are high speed and frequently hitting weapons.
Lagamorph wrote:- The lock on system is a mess and seems to just lock on to whatever random monster it feels like at the time rather than defaulting to the one nearest to you. You can't simply "Unlock" if there's more than one monster in the vicinity either, you have to just keep clicking R3 to cycle through the targets until getting to the end.
Personally I would recommend not using lock on at all. It got added as no lock on was a common complaint for new players, but I find it more of a hindrance than help, especially as the parts of the monster you're targeting will change.
I think unfortunately the game isn't for you, but I'll still defend it against the complaints! At its core monster hunter gameplay is about learning attack patterns and judging windows for attacks, dodges or item use, and the controls and mechanics reflect this.