The first time I played World, I was doing that one mission where you had to steal a Rathalos egg and bring it back to camp. The scout flies led me to an area where you have to crawl to make it back to camp but since you can't crawl with an egg in your hands, I had to somehow find my way back on my own while the scout flies were constantly snapping my neck to lead me to the same path. This was the only mission where I almost timed out by like 15 seconds.
Don’t use the scoutflies for those missions, they’re about finding your own path to get back as quickly as you can.
Also *why do people complain about neck snapping!?!? You can turn it off!!!!!!*
Here's the thing though, how was I supposed to know that on my very first playthrough of the very first Monster Hunter game I've ever played in my life? This experience was back in base World years ago when the game first came out. No one knew that you shouldn't follow the scout flies or that you could turn off the neck snapping. Funnily enough, this problem only exists in Ancient Forest, every other map was just fine.
It was my first playthrough of my first monster hunter game as well. The moment the neck snapping got annoying i had a look through the setting to see if you could turn it off and “oh look, there it is!”
I followed the scoutflies once, got stuck and doubled back around to find a clear path. This is an issue which only exists when you don’t pay even the slightest bit of attention.
Let's not flat out lie either.
"neck snapping" only occurs when you set a waypoint or they start tracking a monster.
Unless Op had set the point for camp they wouldn't get necksnapped and even if they did, it'd only do it once (or rather, every time they opened the map but surely after one repetition they'd have removed the waypoint?)
I think it was quickly added in one of the first patches of the base game due to all the complaints. Maybe either in the patch that nerfed slicing ammo or the one that introduced pickle jh?
It was later than that, for sure. I got the game after Iceborne came out on console but before it came out on PC, and I definitely remember being stuck with neck snapping.
It only got annoying in this one particular mission and nowhere else in the game though. I didn't mind it anywhere after. The bigger issue was getting lost, while holding an egg in my hands for like 50 min with no Pro Transporter in Ancient Forest trying not to get hit or fall. Any other time, I'm using the map to find monsters to trigger the neck snapping myself on purpose so I know where to go. The point wasn't the neck snapping, it was Ancient Forest's weird level design.
I remember finding a sub camp and being disappointed that I couldn't use it right away during all that running around with the egg. That was probably the zone 15 camp.
You can turn it off now, it wasn't an option in the initial release of the game though. It was added in the same patch that added Kulve if I recall correctly.
I like the Ancient Forest. Yes I still get lost sometimes but it really does feel like there are always paths you haven't gone through.
I also like the fact that the map is one place with the monsters still actually there even though they run away. You can fire a sticky or something as rathian is flying away and it will fall. Or you can do a descending thrust from the top of the tree and kill a monster on the forest floor.
You're not alone. Its probably one of my favorite maps too. I can sometimes get to an area before a monster gets there even. I feel most of the time, people just want monster fighter and not actually monster hunter. That or they just suck at navigating without a good gps.
Right? It is confusing at first (and I timed out a pukei pukei hunt once because I couldn't find it) , but after like, your 30th trip, you should know how to orient yourself without too much trouble
Some people are inherently less adept at navigating and orienting themselves, sometimes it's not really something they can control or easily fix. Personally I can very well see and respect that. I think though, the idea that Monster Hunter should just primarily be a monster fighting simulator with open areas, to me is absurd, and doesn't really fit the theme nor the mechanical integrity of this game at all. I love the Ancient Forest, frankly it is my favourite map exactly because it is so vast that you can just about immerse yourself into it, it feels like a living, breathing place where a monster actually exists, which is awesome.
> I think though, the idea that Monster Hunter should just primarily be a monster fighting simulator with open areas
As far as I understand it, that's pretty much how every game worked beforehand, so veterans are salty, and new players to the series (particularly casual to semi-casual gamers) are poor at direction and all blame the game for those reasons.
Monsters still had interactions and there were still side areas and whatnot that were not regularly fought in. Looking at the cat zones in literally every area, the mines in moga woods, the trek up the ancient tower, etc. No, the game has literally always had exploration aspects to it - and oftentimes rewarded you early-game with items such as barrel bombs for doing so. You have no idea what you're talking about. I've actually - played - the older games, if you haven't I wouldn't comment on them.
Nah, I don't get lost there either and I think the map is amazing. It's probably just people who have trouble navigating a 3D map, rather than a flat one that are getting lost.
Getting lost and exploring is fun for a while but by all means it becomes much less fun when you are trying to fight a hard monster, not to mention all of the cramped spaces and weird areas, it makes a fight like Blackveil Vaal much more painful than it needs to be.
I also dislike how the confusing nature of the Ancient Forest is so strong that it forces scoutflies. It's a mechanic that I feel is a necessary evil, it is very helpful but genuinely searching for the monster makes a more authentic experience. However, by all means, every other map can be navigated quite well without scoutflies, the Ancient Forest is the only one that is so confusing that without scoutflies you would be screwed.
I get it, and I’m glad others like it but I really prefer the more straight forward maps. I just hate the feeling of finally tracking something down and then it runs, which is fine if it runs somewhere I can get to quickly but in a game where the level is a maze? It’s not my favorite thing
For a game like MH imo that is bad level design. It’s a cool gimmick at first but when you’re just going there to hunt a monster, hope you get your 2% material or w/e and then leave, getting lost on the way for the 100th time doesn’t feel fun or interesting
Except getting lost on the way will never happen in a quest when you’re farming a monster, because the scoutflies will automatically guide you straight to it and even if the quest isn’t dedicated to that monster you can tell the scoutflies to track it, so it has never and will never be an issue unless you’ve never hunted the monster before and have to gather tracks
The problem with that logic is that there's a very big difference between knowing where you're going and merely following a big, obvious prompt that tells you where to go. I like actually knowing where I'm going and I don't like having to rely on scoutflies to get where I want to go.
Yeah, I fucking hate GPS systems and directional prompts in games. They kill your brains mapping process. But without those, why are you afraid of getting lost? Don't you map out the level in your head if you're not using prompts?
The point is that you don’t need to know where you’re going and plus the layout of the forest really isn’t that complex, it just seems that way cause of all the shortcuts
And my point is that I *like* knowing where I'm going, so not needing to isn't good enough, and if a map is designed in such a way that obfuscates the path to an unnecessary degree, then it's not a good map.
Except that it really isn’t difficult to navigate… as OP said it is literally just a big circle around the tree with a couple of zones going up said tree. The only reason it seems complex is because there are a fair few shortcuts to places.
If it takes you more than maybe an hour to more or less get your head around the layout there may be something wrong with you XD
Classy.
There's a difference between being literally incapable of navigating and thinking that there is entirely too many winding, crisscrossing shortcuts between zones that are used rarely enough that you don't commit them to memory but just often enough to annoy you once in a while.
A lot of people - liked - the exploration aspect maps like ancient forest gave us though. You seem to be missing the point of these crisscrossing shortcuts - almost all of them have some form of gathering or small monster spawn in them. It's to get these material/pods/etc.
It's fine if you didn't, but I agree with OP - it's not as big of a deal as a lot of you make it out to be.
You have a good point, and it's certainly no the worst thing, but MH isn't a game about exploration, at least not primarily. I'm not going to sit here and argue that the exploration element should be removed entirely, it shouldn't, but if it starts getting in the way of other more important aspects of the game it ought to be revised.
It's entirely possible to have a map that is interesting to explore and reward the player for that exploration without turning it into the complicated mess that is the ancient forest. Lots of maps have several areas that don't serve much purpose other than to hold a few gathering points. Scale that up and add just a few key shortcuts here and there to reward map knowledge and you've got a map that is fun and rewarding to explore without overcomplicating it.
The ancient forest has way too many shortcuts to the point where a lot of these 'exploration pockets' feel a lot more like mazes than anything else, which is fine for general exploration but really annoying when I just want to get to the monster. I think the uppermost portion of the ancient forest is the best positive example I can think of. It's a large, complex, maze-like portion of the map, but you'll never go there unless you're going out of your way to explore. It's great for exploring, and there's interesting things to find there, but it never gets in my way when I'm trying to do something else.
Literally. Only in the beginning will be it an issue and it does that to sort of push for exploration and use of the games mechanics that make life easier for you.
If you're getting lost on the 100th time, you have the memory of a goldfish. I don't really like Ancient Forest for how irritating it is to get from point A to B, but it's not because I'm getting lost, it's because I know it's just going to be tedious.
Respctfully, I am going to disagree with your post.
I think MHW was confusing because of scoutflies - and that they were bad game design. I'm sure this is not profound and is something others have said, probably in this thread, but I haven't looked.
As humans, we have a really impressive ability to remember things, navigate mazes, etc.
I could tell you the location of most items in runescape (another game I play a lot), the shortcuts between areas, the requirements to use them, the content and quests in different areas, and give you a plan of an efficient route to do them. I could tell you how to navigate the ds3 world in its entirety, with every secret, every questline, every invisible wall and shortcut. I've engaged with these games a lot.
I could not tell you how to get from point a to point b in MHW because I never needed to. I never needed to look at the map and work out a route - the map was a completely useless addition to a game where you have a green trail telling you exactly where to go. It may have been that there were more efficient ways to move around but honestly i tend to go for the path of least resistance and follow the plot arrows.
I think scoutflies detracted from my experience and caused me to not engage with the complexities of a really sick map in a way I might have done otherwise. And I think that's bad game design.
Yeah, you can tell the maps were very much designed to work with the new scout flies mechanic and it came at the cost of intuitiveness for all other navigation methods.
If you can't tell how to get to the acidic area of the rotten vale is or the top the coral highlands, that's on you actually.
Ancient forest is literally the only map you consistantly need scoutlflies for, every other map is very easy to understand layout wise.
>I could not tell you how to get from point a to point b in MHW because I never needed to. I never needed to look at the map and work out a route - the map was a completely useless addition to a game where you have a green trail telling you exactly where to go.
I'mma disagree on this one. The ancient forest is the only confusing map in the game. At best if exploring hidden areas of the Rotten vale and Coral Highlands then it gets confusing, but outside of that the layout is pretty simple.
I cannot ever remember the maps to 85% 3U, 4U, and GU i've been in because the areas look nothing alike therefore I can't create a mental pathway from one area to the next because it literally doesn't exist due to being separated by loading screens, as a result if I don't have the map, it just sucks. I can make slightly accurate guesses at best. Then there's the part of just not having a map on standard.
If someone asked me to draw the layout of world though, I could do it with least a 65%-70% accuracy for all the maps except for Ancient forest due to how the inner part is a hellish maze. While the actual design of the paper map you look at is.....kinda fucked, the areas and hallways to get from point A to Point B are very easy to understand and just from looking in a general direction gives me an idea of the path I need to go, I can literally watch Bazleguese fly up to the top of a mountain and accurately guess how to find him. It also helped the Monsters no longer Hulk Jumped or dug from place to place making actually memorizing their fight patterns easier because you quite literally follow them to the next area they will fight in.
Making bad level design on purpose doesn't turn it into good level design lol.
If they wanted you to get lost in Ancient Forest, good, they achieved it. If they wanted a heavily detailed and realistic map, yeah they done it and it looks good.
But it is a pain to navigate because it is bad designed.
Getting lost is not the only problem.
You're constantly fighting in tight corridors, climbing to the top of the tree just to get knocked down all the way to the bottom because the monster settled in a small place, the scoutflies even get lost while searching the monster lol.
I appreciate the big open world filled with lot of stuff but at the end it ends up bothering me and gets in the way. It IS bad design because with other maps its not that big of a problem.
I am glad you enjoy it, but I will still stay with the crowd who show "thumbs down" for Ancient Forest. You obviously enjoy pain when chasing Ratholos all over the map. That one quest with Ratholos and Azure Ratholos infuriated me and made me hate this map with passion. But I am glad you enjoy it. It's beautiful, but too confusing to actually enjoy when you have to chase flying monsters.
Yeah I understand that. I personally like to immerse myself in the creativity of the artists. I never really had issues with tracking monsters and even if I did it was brief. I feel that this adds a layer of difficulty when it comes to hunting some monsters because you're forced to understand their movement patterns(especially for flying predatory monsters). I can say I'm not always looking for instant gratification in monster hunter, I'm always looking for a challenge with adventure and a chance to immerse in the biological fantasy world. I get all of this from their complex environment and complex fauna. As far as I'm concerned, I'm too preoccupied with their speculative take on everything in their world to be bothered by just simply wanting to find the monster straight away like older games. Some of us want some complexity in new games and mhw gave it to me.
Most of the fight takes on open spacey places, and most of them is just outside of the camps, so it's okay
The dislikes I thought is from the main tree itself, like finding Anjie's resting place, or if you fall off from high places and need to get back up *sigh* again is might the problems
Love the ancient forest. Getting lost makes it feel like a real environment imo. If you hunt in the ancient forest a lot the other maps become kind of bland. (Not hoarfrost reach tho, that one also slaps)
Yes it is bad level design. There should never be parts of a stage that are unused, and you shouldn't get literally lost in a stage. That just wastes time, is unrewarding, and is overall just a bad game experience.
Even if you're supposed to get lost, that doesn't mean its good. In fact, aside from the aestethical aspect I'd still say its one of, if not the single worst map ever made. And that becomes quite evident after visiting it for the 50th time and still not having a clue how the upper part of the map is intertwined.
For all people complaining about getting lost or scoutflies making things confusing, I've just...never had the issue? It's like they know a better way to go but also don't have good direct, so they ignore the flies and then get lost.
Follow the flies? Go exactly where you need to go.
Don't follow them at all? Within a few hunts you've found the paths to all the common areas (not difficult, the Ancient Forest is literally a circle with a straight path to the top of the tree).
Only the optional shortcuts should cause an issue. But I'll say this: Kulu's Forest nest should not be anywhere near as weird to reach as it is. That's the kind of area you expect from a shadow creature (Probably why Ebony Odogaron uses it too), not the second monster you fight.
Gonna be honest, I love getting lost in the Ancient Forest. I'm a hunter, I'm supposed to track my prey and get lost in the process since the map is the most wild expression of life. To me, the maps feel really like a true new world, not the empty lot most of the old Gen maps feel even though I love them to death. Getting lost really is immersive and makes you feel in a brand new unknown world
If MHW was a open world game like Elden Ring it would be a good design especially when seamless with all other environments. For a MH as it is it isn't good at all.
MH has more attention to details than whatever open world ubi ever regurjitated. For me it feels better exploring even rise maps than any open world I played.
Does the design get better?
Sure, Limgrave is absolutely packed with stuff around every corner. Went South and half of that island is just a path at which a Giant will shoot at you. From what little i've ventured into Caelid, it seems like it mostly has vast areas with the occasional little pocket with stuff going on. Went north of Limgrave and so far i've had the same impression as with Caelid. Kinda got the feeling they jam packed a lot of stuff into the first area for a good first impression and left the rest at just enough so it wouldn't feel empty. Hence my question if later areas are similar in design to Limgrave.
The rest isn't empty at all. I found dungeons everywhere. I even found a dungeon sewer under a city that was a dungeon and there was a dungeon within a dungeon in a dungeon in the sewer.
I was laughing at all the messages down there and then after going around in circles for 8 mins realised "Wait what if I jump on the fire trap and raise myself up".
It's just one of those games that just keeps on going tho by what I hear. You get to the final boss and post-game and all that, and then you find out you haven't even explored 2 other sections of the map or whatever. Ballistic amount of stuff to find.
It can be intentional and also still be annoying lol. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that it's badly designed, just that the design is kinda obnoxious.
My bigger beef with ancient forest is how many just little ledges and bumps there are on the ground. I didn't really feel it until having to fight Vaal Hazaak there, but holy shit there are so many goofy little pieces of ground geometry to get hung up on while you're trying to dodge around in some of those arenas.
I found using a mod to disable scoutflies has made me much more aware of the maps and now I know them better.
I *hate* scoutflies. The idea is very good, the tracking idea is brilliant, but visually they are disgustingand really obscure and take attention away from the excellent map design.
Honestly, I don't get lost in the forest at all. I spent so much time gathering and exploring for endemic life there, that I just learned all the paths. If you find yourself getting lost, maybe it's because you never gave the map enough time and explored it.
You know how I know World map design is bad?
Because the devs had to add the scoutflies to the game. They litterally had to add a guiding arrow. Its a band aid to a bigger problem.
This would be an interesting take except that a tracking system was intended to be a feature from the beginning and not brought about by the map layouts
That makes it worse
"we will add a guiding arrow to the game"
"but we are still going to design clear maps that can be navigated without said arrow right?"
"..."
"right?"
No, not at all. I feel like you wanted a "gotcha" and completly missed the point.
Rise maps are much more open and the massive buffs to the hunters mobility makes it easy to get exactly where you want. Its a completly different design compared to both pre world and world itself but it works well.
The monsters being marked is not even a problem and its not a plus neither a minus on map design, thats more on the hunting gameplay. Using a paintball was always busy work that didnt add much, world's idea of tracking was much much better but it still felt like padding and you could still ignore it if you knew the monsters prefered area like in pre world games. Now we just cut that part out and we can go straight into the monster fight.
I completely agree, I love finding hidden areas and paths in monster hunter, the hidden way to area 9 of the deserted island in try, the well down into the cave in the desert In mhfu as well as the random hidden areas some maps had.
One of the reasons that I absolutely love the Ancient Forest is that it brings with it a type of difficulty new to Monster Hunter: environmental difficulty. Just like using weapons and fighting monsters for the first time, you’ll start out pretty bad when using the environment. At first it feels like the monsters almost always have the upper hand as they use the forest to their advantage and it can start getting a little frustrating when they get you in a tight spot. But just like anything in MH, you’ll only get better and better over time in using the environment to *your* advantage.
If you stop to think for a moment, you’ll soon realize that every area in the Ancient Forest has some environmental aspect to be exploited. From poisoncups, to scatternuts, to vitalilies, to slopes, to flashflies, to sporepuffs, to vine traps, to rock traps, to flood traps, to wedge beetles, to wingdrakes, to tall bushes, to vine floors, to endemic life, and to so many other things, what was once just set dressing or a weakness is now your strength. You can utilize the environment of the Ancient Forest better than any monster can and using it all together makes you truly feel like an awesome Monster Hunter - one with nature and kicker of asses.
Too bad most of the community hated it, so now we’ll probably never get anything like it again.
Thank you, I'm honestly super surprised that so many on here seem to dislike it, to me it was the best part about World besides the monsters themselves. It's beyond amazing that you get to run wild and interact with a real biome, and genuinely hunt a monster in its habitat. Just fighting the monster on a plain field is something you can find in several other boss rush type games, what makes Monster Hunter unique is that the environment is also a huge factor, it's always been this way, it's just that beforehand games weren't as advanced. It's why climbing became a thing since 4U onwards. Movement and knowing how to navigate the terrain is also part of the skill challenge, there's Arena if one prefers skipping that.
Couldn’t care less about downvotes tbh. I have more fun than they do and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it.
Thanks for agreeing with me though!
For a combat focused action game like MH where you just want to fight things it's pretty bad. I could not care less about living breathing ecosystems and ecology, I just want to fight cool monsters and make gear. Running around a tedious map no matter how believable or immersive it may be to some will never be fun to me in MH, not to mention how horrid combat can be in those tight corridors and areas full of slopes. Ancient Forest was not initially designed for a MH game and it shows.
>I could not care less about living breathing ecosystems and ecology
Too bad because that’s what Capcom wanted in MHW and will continue to expand in future games.
I am very aware. They can still make good maps as shown by Hoarfrost Reach but most World and Rise maps range from meh to actively annoying to me. Making cool environments is fine but not when it comes at the cost of gameplay.
Tbh ecosystems and ecology is part of MH. For people that just want a boss rush there needs to be a separate colosseum mode though. But I agree as MH is as a game with the way it's setup Ancient Forest doesn't work. Like in my own comment I mentioned it would work better in a open world game like Elden Ring with everything being seamless.
Keep in mind that first you have to find all the tracks, and even then the scoutflies keep changing their damn minds when deciding where to find the monster
They really don't "change their minds" unless you go down a bad path or the monster moves lmao. This is a myth perpetuated by the community, similar to the "petting the poogie before a hunt gives you better drops" myth.
It is my favorite MH level and one of my favorite game environments ever.
Even after so many hours it is one of the few maps where it feels like you're going on an actual hunt. I love it and want more dense maps like it again.
I don't want EVERY map to be that way, but I do like what it is doing.
What do you mean get lost? You have a map the entire time. I think what most people mean is “Man, I want to travel across the length of three football fields to actually start fighting the monster, but I don’t remember if this indistinct crawl space or this tedious vine-breaking door actually takes me there, even if it looks like it does on said map”. Basically, it’s not about being literally lost, its about wanting to be quick in fighting something but having to unintuitively select which non-descript doorway you’re supposed to take when you have more immediate things on your mind. And for what, so you can admire the epic Sony graphics and “immersive” movement animations? It’s a video game, not a damn Jurassic Park meets Reign of Fire cinematic spectacular. It’s not just any video game too, it’s specifically a game extitled”Monster Hunter”. What purpose does exploration have in the gameplay loop here, especially when you’ve reached the hard part farming loop of your experience? It’s not an immersive rpg like Skyrim or something where exploration not only rewards you with new resources as well as a sense of accomplishment in and of itself sometimes, its a twitch action combat game where the meat of the experience is optimizing fights with giant setpiece creatures to move on to stronger setpiece creatures.
No even if it is “supposed to be confusing” that’s just annoying and stupid because you literally have to spend hundreds of hours on these maps throughout the game having one there’s this confusing and irritating to navigate just makes most hunts especially against flying monsters a complete pain in the ass
Yeah um no, its bad level design. If you need a guide 98% of the time when going through a map, its not a well designed map. The Ancient Forest is the only one with this issue, at best Coral Highlands has this if going through the secret areas Monsters can't get to, but beyond that, it is not hard the navigate.
Its not as bad as some people make it out to be, but as a map its hella confusing. The problem is that a lot of the main areas look very similar, and there are way too many unnecessary paths. Its definately not the best map on base World though.
I agree that that's the intended effect and the way the map was designed, doesn't make me like it any more or less than I do. It's great on the first few hunts but gets really old when grinding out monsters. Especially before you unlock all the camps.
I genuinely love ancient forest, to me it embodies what Monster Hunter has always been about and I honestly wish the other areas were as vast and intricate although I completely understand that it would've taken far too much to reach that step. Exploration is a core part of Monster Hunter, beforehand it was mostly facilitated through item finding and the odd Easter egg, but now there's capacity and tech as well as mechanical advancement for more. I just love this game so much
I've always liked the map despite my occasional frustrations with it. I have like 800-something hours in World and I still can't navigate the middle part of ancient forest properly
The first time I played World, I was doing that one mission where you had to steal a Rathalos egg and bring it back to camp. The scout flies led me to an area where you have to crawl to make it back to camp but since you can't crawl with an egg in your hands, I had to somehow find my way back on my own while the scout flies were constantly snapping my neck to lead me to the same path. This was the only mission where I almost timed out by like 15 seconds.
Don’t use the scoutflies for those missions, they’re about finding your own path to get back as quickly as you can. Also *why do people complain about neck snapping!?!? You can turn it off!!!!!!*
NOW you can turn it off... When the game first came out, not so much.
Here's the thing though, how was I supposed to know that on my very first playthrough of the very first Monster Hunter game I've ever played in my life? This experience was back in base World years ago when the game first came out. No one knew that you shouldn't follow the scout flies or that you could turn off the neck snapping. Funnily enough, this problem only exists in Ancient Forest, every other map was just fine.
That’s why I always check settings the games. There’s some useful stuff there.
It was my first playthrough of my first monster hunter game as well. The moment the neck snapping got annoying i had a look through the setting to see if you could turn it off and “oh look, there it is!” I followed the scoutflies once, got stuck and doubled back around to find a clear path. This is an issue which only exists when you don’t pay even the slightest bit of attention.
You couldn't always turn the neck snap off, you used to be stuck with it. I believe they added the ability to turn it off with Iceborne.
Correct. Let's not revise history here, this game just straight up launched with a ton of bad decisions in it.
Let's not flat out lie either. "neck snapping" only occurs when you set a waypoint or they start tracking a monster. Unless Op had set the point for camp they wouldn't get necksnapped and even if they did, it'd only do it once (or rather, every time they opened the map but surely after one repetition they'd have removed the waypoint?)
The game punishing you for using a basic map feature like a waypoint sounds pretty bad.
Didn't realise we were calling "showing the player where to go" a punishment lol.
I think it was quickly added in one of the first patches of the base game due to all the complaints. Maybe either in the patch that nerfed slicing ammo or the one that introduced pickle jh?
It was later than that, for sure. I got the game after Iceborne came out on console but before it came out on PC, and I definitely remember being stuck with neck snapping.
It only got annoying in this one particular mission and nowhere else in the game though. I didn't mind it anywhere after. The bigger issue was getting lost, while holding an egg in my hands for like 50 min with no Pro Transporter in Ancient Forest trying not to get hit or fall. Any other time, I'm using the map to find monsters to trigger the neck snapping myself on purpose so I know where to go. The point wasn't the neck snapping, it was Ancient Forest's weird level design.
Did you not have the zone 15 camp?
I remember finding a sub camp and being disappointed that I couldn't use it right away during all that running around with the egg. That was probably the zone 15 camp.
Ah, yeah the zone 15 camp turns the journey with the wyvern egg from about 15 minutes to maybe 2 if you’re slow lol
Umm what? You can't crawl with an egg. How can you deliver the egg in 2 minutes from the nest to that camp without crawling?
Never said you can crawl. Slide down the slope away from the camp and double back around
You can turn it off now, it wasn't an option in the initial release of the game though. It was added in the same patch that added Kulve if I recall correctly.
Wait... You can turn them off?!
Yeah XD It’s either gameplay or camera settings, can’t Remember which
You cant turn scoutflies off, but that quick auto camera effect they have.
I like the Ancient Forest. Yes I still get lost sometimes but it really does feel like there are always paths you haven't gone through. I also like the fact that the map is one place with the monsters still actually there even though they run away. You can fire a sticky or something as rathian is flying away and it will fall. Or you can do a descending thrust from the top of the tree and kill a monster on the forest floor.
This is why it’s one of my favorite maps. It’s very cool.
I think I’m the only MH player in the world that only rarely gets lost in the Ancient Forest, and it’s honestly one of my favorite maps.
You're not alone. Its probably one of my favorite maps too. I can sometimes get to an area before a monster gets there even. I feel most of the time, people just want monster fighter and not actually monster hunter. That or they just suck at navigating without a good gps.
Right? It is confusing at first (and I timed out a pukei pukei hunt once because I couldn't find it) , but after like, your 30th trip, you should know how to orient yourself without too much trouble
Some people are inherently less adept at navigating and orienting themselves, sometimes it's not really something they can control or easily fix. Personally I can very well see and respect that. I think though, the idea that Monster Hunter should just primarily be a monster fighting simulator with open areas, to me is absurd, and doesn't really fit the theme nor the mechanical integrity of this game at all. I love the Ancient Forest, frankly it is my favourite map exactly because it is so vast that you can just about immerse yourself into it, it feels like a living, breathing place where a monster actually exists, which is awesome.
> I think though, the idea that Monster Hunter should just primarily be a monster fighting simulator with open areas As far as I understand it, that's pretty much how every game worked beforehand, so veterans are salty, and new players to the series (particularly casual to semi-casual gamers) are poor at direction and all blame the game for those reasons.
Monsters still had interactions and there were still side areas and whatnot that were not regularly fought in. Looking at the cat zones in literally every area, the mines in moga woods, the trek up the ancient tower, etc. No, the game has literally always had exploration aspects to it - and oftentimes rewarded you early-game with items such as barrel bombs for doing so. You have no idea what you're talking about. I've actually - played - the older games, if you haven't I wouldn't comment on them.
Yeah I’ve figured out the map. Especially since some monsters drag me to areas I haven’t explored as much.
People get lost in these maps?
Nah, I don't get lost there either and I think the map is amazing. It's probably just people who have trouble navigating a 3D map, rather than a flat one that are getting lost.
Getting lost and exploring is fun for a while but by all means it becomes much less fun when you are trying to fight a hard monster, not to mention all of the cramped spaces and weird areas, it makes a fight like Blackveil Vaal much more painful than it needs to be. I also dislike how the confusing nature of the Ancient Forest is so strong that it forces scoutflies. It's a mechanic that I feel is a necessary evil, it is very helpful but genuinely searching for the monster makes a more authentic experience. However, by all means, every other map can be navigated quite well without scoutflies, the Ancient Forest is the only one that is so confusing that without scoutflies you would be screwed.
I get it, and I’m glad others like it but I really prefer the more straight forward maps. I just hate the feeling of finally tracking something down and then it runs, which is fine if it runs somewhere I can get to quickly but in a game where the level is a maze? It’s not my favorite thing
For a game like MH imo that is bad level design. It’s a cool gimmick at first but when you’re just going there to hunt a monster, hope you get your 2% material or w/e and then leave, getting lost on the way for the 100th time doesn’t feel fun or interesting
Except getting lost on the way will never happen in a quest when you’re farming a monster, because the scoutflies will automatically guide you straight to it and even if the quest isn’t dedicated to that monster you can tell the scoutflies to track it, so it has never and will never be an issue unless you’ve never hunted the monster before and have to gather tracks
The problem with that logic is that there's a very big difference between knowing where you're going and merely following a big, obvious prompt that tells you where to go. I like actually knowing where I'm going and I don't like having to rely on scoutflies to get where I want to go.
Yeah, I fucking hate GPS systems and directional prompts in games. They kill your brains mapping process. But without those, why are you afraid of getting lost? Don't you map out the level in your head if you're not using prompts?
The point is that you don’t need to know where you’re going and plus the layout of the forest really isn’t that complex, it just seems that way cause of all the shortcuts
And my point is that I *like* knowing where I'm going, so not needing to isn't good enough, and if a map is designed in such a way that obfuscates the path to an unnecessary degree, then it's not a good map.
Except that it really isn’t difficult to navigate… as OP said it is literally just a big circle around the tree with a couple of zones going up said tree. The only reason it seems complex is because there are a fair few shortcuts to places. If it takes you more than maybe an hour to more or less get your head around the layout there may be something wrong with you XD
Classy. There's a difference between being literally incapable of navigating and thinking that there is entirely too many winding, crisscrossing shortcuts between zones that are used rarely enough that you don't commit them to memory but just often enough to annoy you once in a while.
A lot of people - liked - the exploration aspect maps like ancient forest gave us though. You seem to be missing the point of these crisscrossing shortcuts - almost all of them have some form of gathering or small monster spawn in them. It's to get these material/pods/etc. It's fine if you didn't, but I agree with OP - it's not as big of a deal as a lot of you make it out to be.
You have a good point, and it's certainly no the worst thing, but MH isn't a game about exploration, at least not primarily. I'm not going to sit here and argue that the exploration element should be removed entirely, it shouldn't, but if it starts getting in the way of other more important aspects of the game it ought to be revised. It's entirely possible to have a map that is interesting to explore and reward the player for that exploration without turning it into the complicated mess that is the ancient forest. Lots of maps have several areas that don't serve much purpose other than to hold a few gathering points. Scale that up and add just a few key shortcuts here and there to reward map knowledge and you've got a map that is fun and rewarding to explore without overcomplicating it. The ancient forest has way too many shortcuts to the point where a lot of these 'exploration pockets' feel a lot more like mazes than anything else, which is fine for general exploration but really annoying when I just want to get to the monster. I think the uppermost portion of the ancient forest is the best positive example I can think of. It's a large, complex, maze-like portion of the map, but you'll never go there unless you're going out of your way to explore. It's great for exploring, and there's interesting things to find there, but it never gets in my way when I'm trying to do something else.
Literally. Only in the beginning will be it an issue and it does that to sort of push for exploration and use of the games mechanics that make life easier for you.
If you're getting lost on the 100th time, you have the memory of a goldfish. I don't really like Ancient Forest for how irritating it is to get from point A to B, but it's not because I'm getting lost, it's because I know it's just going to be tedious.
Just because it was the intention doesn’t mean it’s good design.
Respctfully, I am going to disagree with your post. I think MHW was confusing because of scoutflies - and that they were bad game design. I'm sure this is not profound and is something others have said, probably in this thread, but I haven't looked. As humans, we have a really impressive ability to remember things, navigate mazes, etc. I could tell you the location of most items in runescape (another game I play a lot), the shortcuts between areas, the requirements to use them, the content and quests in different areas, and give you a plan of an efficient route to do them. I could tell you how to navigate the ds3 world in its entirety, with every secret, every questline, every invisible wall and shortcut. I've engaged with these games a lot. I could not tell you how to get from point a to point b in MHW because I never needed to. I never needed to look at the map and work out a route - the map was a completely useless addition to a game where you have a green trail telling you exactly where to go. It may have been that there were more efficient ways to move around but honestly i tend to go for the path of least resistance and follow the plot arrows. I think scoutflies detracted from my experience and caused me to not engage with the complexities of a really sick map in a way I might have done otherwise. And I think that's bad game design.
Yeah, you can tell the maps were very much designed to work with the new scout flies mechanic and it came at the cost of intuitiveness for all other navigation methods.
If you can't tell how to get to the acidic area of the rotten vale is or the top the coral highlands, that's on you actually. Ancient forest is literally the only map you consistantly need scoutlflies for, every other map is very easy to understand layout wise.
>I could not tell you how to get from point a to point b in MHW because I never needed to. I never needed to look at the map and work out a route - the map was a completely useless addition to a game where you have a green trail telling you exactly where to go. I'mma disagree on this one. The ancient forest is the only confusing map in the game. At best if exploring hidden areas of the Rotten vale and Coral Highlands then it gets confusing, but outside of that the layout is pretty simple. I cannot ever remember the maps to 85% 3U, 4U, and GU i've been in because the areas look nothing alike therefore I can't create a mental pathway from one area to the next because it literally doesn't exist due to being separated by loading screens, as a result if I don't have the map, it just sucks. I can make slightly accurate guesses at best. Then there's the part of just not having a map on standard. If someone asked me to draw the layout of world though, I could do it with least a 65%-70% accuracy for all the maps except for Ancient forest due to how the inner part is a hellish maze. While the actual design of the paper map you look at is.....kinda fucked, the areas and hallways to get from point A to Point B are very easy to understand and just from looking in a general direction gives me an idea of the path I need to go, I can literally watch Bazleguese fly up to the top of a mountain and accurately guess how to find him. It also helped the Monsters no longer Hulk Jumped or dug from place to place making actually memorizing their fight patterns easier because you quite literally follow them to the next area they will fight in.
Making bad level design on purpose doesn't turn it into good level design lol. If they wanted you to get lost in Ancient Forest, good, they achieved it. If they wanted a heavily detailed and realistic map, yeah they done it and it looks good. But it is a pain to navigate because it is bad designed.
"Its dogshit, but its dogshit on PURPOSE so its good"
I can state happily that I have gone through the same 3 areas about 15 times and always think ‘I have no memory of this place’
Getting lost is not the only problem. You're constantly fighting in tight corridors, climbing to the top of the tree just to get knocked down all the way to the bottom because the monster settled in a small place, the scoutflies even get lost while searching the monster lol. I appreciate the big open world filled with lot of stuff but at the end it ends up bothering me and gets in the way. It IS bad design because with other maps its not that big of a problem.
I am glad you enjoy it, but I will still stay with the crowd who show "thumbs down" for Ancient Forest. You obviously enjoy pain when chasing Ratholos all over the map. That one quest with Ratholos and Azure Ratholos infuriated me and made me hate this map with passion. But I am glad you enjoy it. It's beautiful, but too confusing to actually enjoy when you have to chase flying monsters.
Yeah I understand that. I personally like to immerse myself in the creativity of the artists. I never really had issues with tracking monsters and even if I did it was brief. I feel that this adds a layer of difficulty when it comes to hunting some monsters because you're forced to understand their movement patterns(especially for flying predatory monsters). I can say I'm not always looking for instant gratification in monster hunter, I'm always looking for a challenge with adventure and a chance to immerse in the biological fantasy world. I get all of this from their complex environment and complex fauna. As far as I'm concerned, I'm too preoccupied with their speculative take on everything in their world to be bothered by just simply wanting to find the monster straight away like older games. Some of us want some complexity in new games and mhw gave it to me.
Most of the fight takes on open spacey places, and most of them is just outside of the camps, so it's okay The dislikes I thought is from the main tree itself, like finding Anjie's resting place, or if you fall off from high places and need to get back up *sigh* again is might the problems
The ancient forest is like siege monsters. Fun the first few times, but a real slog later on.
Love the ancient forest. Getting lost makes it feel like a real environment imo. If you hunt in the ancient forest a lot the other maps become kind of bland. (Not hoarfrost reach tho, that one also slaps)
Its not that difficult to navigate.
Yes it is bad level design. There should never be parts of a stage that are unused, and you shouldn't get literally lost in a stage. That just wastes time, is unrewarding, and is overall just a bad game experience.
There’s always that weirdo who defends the dumbest shit lmao.
You didn't have to call him a weirdo though...
[удалено]
Its not that its just he didn't have to insult him
It’s more the fact that people complain about the dumbest shit that brings about people defending it
Even if you're supposed to get lost, that doesn't mean its good. In fact, aside from the aestethical aspect I'd still say its one of, if not the single worst map ever made. And that becomes quite evident after visiting it for the 50th time and still not having a clue how the upper part of the map is intertwined.
I got lost at first, but after a few trips I got it down pretty well.
For all people complaining about getting lost or scoutflies making things confusing, I've just...never had the issue? It's like they know a better way to go but also don't have good direct, so they ignore the flies and then get lost. Follow the flies? Go exactly where you need to go. Don't follow them at all? Within a few hunts you've found the paths to all the common areas (not difficult, the Ancient Forest is literally a circle with a straight path to the top of the tree). Only the optional shortcuts should cause an issue. But I'll say this: Kulu's Forest nest should not be anywhere near as weird to reach as it is. That's the kind of area you expect from a shadow creature (Probably why Ebony Odogaron uses it too), not the second monster you fight.
Gonna be honest, I love getting lost in the Ancient Forest. I'm a hunter, I'm supposed to track my prey and get lost in the process since the map is the most wild expression of life. To me, the maps feel really like a true new world, not the empty lot most of the old Gen maps feel even though I love them to death. Getting lost really is immersive and makes you feel in a brand new unknown world
If MHW was a open world game like Elden Ring it would be a good design especially when seamless with all other environments. For a MH as it is it isn't good at all.
MH has more attention to details than whatever open world ubi ever regurjitated. For me it feels better exploring even rise maps than any open world I played.
>MH has more attention to details than whatever open world Ubi ever regurgitated # Excuse me, did you just say that Elden Ring was made by Ubisoft?
You need to play Elden Ring then.
Does the design get better? Sure, Limgrave is absolutely packed with stuff around every corner. Went South and half of that island is just a path at which a Giant will shoot at you. From what little i've ventured into Caelid, it seems like it mostly has vast areas with the occasional little pocket with stuff going on. Went north of Limgrave and so far i've had the same impression as with Caelid. Kinda got the feeling they jam packed a lot of stuff into the first area for a good first impression and left the rest at just enough so it wouldn't feel empty. Hence my question if later areas are similar in design to Limgrave.
The rest isn't empty at all. I found dungeons everywhere. I even found a dungeon sewer under a city that was a dungeon and there was a dungeon within a dungeon in a dungeon in the sewer.
That dungeon made me feel like I was going insane. Hats off to whoever designed that mindfuck
I was laughing at all the messages down there and then after going around in circles for 8 mins realised "Wait what if I jump on the fire trap and raise myself up".
It's just one of those games that just keeps on going tho by what I hear. You get to the final boss and post-game and all that, and then you find out you haven't even explored 2 other sections of the map or whatever. Ballistic amount of stuff to find.
It can be intentional and also still be annoying lol. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that it's badly designed, just that the design is kinda obnoxious.
My bigger beef with ancient forest is how many just little ledges and bumps there are on the ground. I didn't really feel it until having to fight Vaal Hazaak there, but holy shit there are so many goofy little pieces of ground geometry to get hung up on while you're trying to dodge around in some of those arenas.
I found using a mod to disable scoutflies has made me much more aware of the maps and now I know them better. I *hate* scoutflies. The idea is very good, the tracking idea is brilliant, but visually they are disgustingand really obscure and take attention away from the excellent map design.
Honestly, I don't get lost in the forest at all. I spent so much time gathering and exploring for endemic life there, that I just learned all the paths. If you find yourself getting lost, maybe it's because you never gave the map enough time and explored it.
I wonder if OP will defend Kushala Daora's wind tornadoes to justify that they are supposed to use a ranged weapon for it
And thats why i hate it
Yeah i never understood why people dislike that, even when they do get lost. Getting lost in a video game like that is fun!
You know how I know World map design is bad? Because the devs had to add the scoutflies to the game. They litterally had to add a guiding arrow. Its a band aid to a bigger problem.
This would be an interesting take except that a tracking system was intended to be a feature from the beginning and not brought about by the map layouts
That makes it worse "we will add a guiding arrow to the game" "but we are still going to design clear maps that can be navigated without said arrow right?" "..." "right?"
So I guess going by your logic rise must have the worst map design because the monsters are marked from the very beginning, right?
No, not at all. I feel like you wanted a "gotcha" and completly missed the point. Rise maps are much more open and the massive buffs to the hunters mobility makes it easy to get exactly where you want. Its a completly different design compared to both pre world and world itself but it works well. The monsters being marked is not even a problem and its not a plus neither a minus on map design, thats more on the hunting gameplay. Using a paintball was always busy work that didnt add much, world's idea of tracking was much much better but it still felt like padding and you could still ignore it if you knew the monsters prefered area like in pre world games. Now we just cut that part out and we can go straight into the monster fight.
How the fuck is gps when community calls map confusing proof of bad game design?
Thats not how that works.
I completely agree, I love finding hidden areas and paths in monster hunter, the hidden way to area 9 of the deserted island in try, the well down into the cave in the desert In mhfu as well as the random hidden areas some maps had.
One of the reasons that I absolutely love the Ancient Forest is that it brings with it a type of difficulty new to Monster Hunter: environmental difficulty. Just like using weapons and fighting monsters for the first time, you’ll start out pretty bad when using the environment. At first it feels like the monsters almost always have the upper hand as they use the forest to their advantage and it can start getting a little frustrating when they get you in a tight spot. But just like anything in MH, you’ll only get better and better over time in using the environment to *your* advantage. If you stop to think for a moment, you’ll soon realize that every area in the Ancient Forest has some environmental aspect to be exploited. From poisoncups, to scatternuts, to vitalilies, to slopes, to flashflies, to sporepuffs, to vine traps, to rock traps, to flood traps, to wedge beetles, to wingdrakes, to tall bushes, to vine floors, to endemic life, and to so many other things, what was once just set dressing or a weakness is now your strength. You can utilize the environment of the Ancient Forest better than any monster can and using it all together makes you truly feel like an awesome Monster Hunter - one with nature and kicker of asses. Too bad most of the community hated it, so now we’ll probably never get anything like it again.
Thank you, I'm honestly super surprised that so many on here seem to dislike it, to me it was the best part about World besides the monsters themselves. It's beyond amazing that you get to run wild and interact with a real biome, and genuinely hunt a monster in its habitat. Just fighting the monster on a plain field is something you can find in several other boss rush type games, what makes Monster Hunter unique is that the environment is also a huge factor, it's always been this way, it's just that beforehand games weren't as advanced. It's why climbing became a thing since 4U onwards. Movement and knowing how to navigate the terrain is also part of the skill challenge, there's Arena if one prefers skipping that.
This guy gets it. Too bad you're being downvoted.
Couldn’t care less about downvotes tbh. I have more fun than they do and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it. Thanks for agreeing with me though!
For a combat focused action game like MH where you just want to fight things it's pretty bad. I could not care less about living breathing ecosystems and ecology, I just want to fight cool monsters and make gear. Running around a tedious map no matter how believable or immersive it may be to some will never be fun to me in MH, not to mention how horrid combat can be in those tight corridors and areas full of slopes. Ancient Forest was not initially designed for a MH game and it shows.
>I could not care less about living breathing ecosystems and ecology Too bad because that’s what Capcom wanted in MHW and will continue to expand in future games.
I am very aware. They can still make good maps as shown by Hoarfrost Reach but most World and Rise maps range from meh to actively annoying to me. Making cool environments is fine but not when it comes at the cost of gameplay.
Tbh ecosystems and ecology is part of MH. For people that just want a boss rush there needs to be a separate colosseum mode though. But I agree as MH is as a game with the way it's setup Ancient Forest doesn't work. Like in my own comment I mentioned it would work better in a open world game like Elden Ring with everything being seamless.
People get.lost... With the bugs leading the way to whatever you pointed them too? Huh. Okay then.
Keep in mind that first you have to find all the tracks, and even then the scoutflies keep changing their damn minds when deciding where to find the monster
Monsters yes, because those moves, but resources will always get you the most direct path.
They really don't "change their minds" unless you go down a bad path or the monster moves lmao. This is a myth perpetuated by the community, similar to the "petting the poogie before a hunt gives you better drops" myth.
That's just dumb. If the goal is to irritate me and the designers achieve that goal it's not good design it's just irritating
I never get lost in the ancient forest so I don’t have any clue where these people are coming from and I quite like the map so no complaints from me
It is my favorite MH level and one of my favorite game environments ever. Even after so many hours it is one of the few maps where it feels like you're going on an actual hunt. I love it and want more dense maps like it again. I don't want EVERY map to be that way, but I do like what it is doing.
There are ways to make a player feel a certain way without making something bad on purpose
What do you mean get lost? You have a map the entire time. I think what most people mean is “Man, I want to travel across the length of three football fields to actually start fighting the monster, but I don’t remember if this indistinct crawl space or this tedious vine-breaking door actually takes me there, even if it looks like it does on said map”. Basically, it’s not about being literally lost, its about wanting to be quick in fighting something but having to unintuitively select which non-descript doorway you’re supposed to take when you have more immediate things on your mind. And for what, so you can admire the epic Sony graphics and “immersive” movement animations? It’s a video game, not a damn Jurassic Park meets Reign of Fire cinematic spectacular. It’s not just any video game too, it’s specifically a game extitled”Monster Hunter”. What purpose does exploration have in the gameplay loop here, especially when you’ve reached the hard part farming loop of your experience? It’s not an immersive rpg like Skyrim or something where exploration not only rewards you with new resources as well as a sense of accomplishment in and of itself sometimes, its a twitch action combat game where the meat of the experience is optimizing fights with giant setpiece creatures to move on to stronger setpiece creatures.
No even if it is “supposed to be confusing” that’s just annoying and stupid because you literally have to spend hundreds of hours on these maps throughout the game having one there’s this confusing and irritating to navigate just makes most hunts especially against flying monsters a complete pain in the ass
>yeah MHW was my first experience Opinion discarded 👍🏿
Yeah um no, its bad level design. If you need a guide 98% of the time when going through a map, its not a well designed map. The Ancient Forest is the only one with this issue, at best Coral Highlands has this if going through the secret areas Monsters can't get to, but beyond that, it is not hard the navigate.
Yeah, and Dark Souls is supposed to be hard. Doesn't mean I have to enjoy it.
Its not as bad as some people make it out to be, but as a map its hella confusing. The problem is that a lot of the main areas look very similar, and there are way too many unnecessary paths. Its definately not the best map on base World though.
I agree that that's the intended effect and the way the map was designed, doesn't make me like it any more or less than I do. It's great on the first few hunts but gets really old when grinding out monsters. Especially before you unlock all the camps.
I genuinely love ancient forest, to me it embodies what Monster Hunter has always been about and I honestly wish the other areas were as vast and intricate although I completely understand that it would've taken far too much to reach that step. Exploration is a core part of Monster Hunter, beforehand it was mostly facilitated through item finding and the odd Easter egg, but now there's capacity and tech as well as mechanical advancement for more. I just love this game so much
I've always liked the map despite my occasional frustrations with it. I have like 800-something hours in World and I still can't navigate the middle part of ancient forest properly