Well I've finished MH Wilds High Rank and been hitting the endgame. Currently HR75 and I'm pretty sure this is it for available content. Skipped over the tempered early trash and just went right into farming the big mons. I've now got the endgame armor of my choice & with a little bit more farming I'll have finished the endgame weapon collection for my main (Gunlance). Went by quicker than I expected. There's the Artian gacha system I guess I could start playing with to push the limits of available power, but I'm not really feeling it. There's optional quests to do and maybe exploring other weapons until TU1 drops in early April.
I'm going to give the difficulty complaints some backing; while it does eventually become challenging enough to demand your attention and punish sloppiness, it's not ever "hard". Especially if you've played MH before. I've still yet to cart more than once in a hunt and the only times I've failed have been SOS'ing for players who needed the help and kept carting themselves. I wouldn't mind this level of difficulty if it weren't for how many subsystems are available that I just haven't bothered engaging with yet. I've only ever ate basic meals for the bonus health for example, there's been no fight that I've felt warranted eating for Moxie, made worse by how rare and limited food ingredients seem to be. They're too valuable to waste on a hunt I already know I can get through without them or on a hunt that I didn't know yet and was just going in to learn.
I didn't bother tailoring my item loadouts - just bringing basic stacks of potions and mega potions, plus whatever the mission resources gave you (typically hot/cold drinks) which were enough. Which is pretty insane compared to the neurotic loadouts I would run in World, every slot filled with bombs and mega potions and life potions and extra resources to craft more mid-fight. Even worse when I started playing gunner. The farm is all spread out too across a bunch of gathering and trading NPCs, which eventually gets condensed into just Nata after you beat HR, but really doesn't help with the resource shortage feeling. Mantles are back but they're pretty weak from what I've seen so far, you get to have one in addition to the ghillie mantle.There's one that gives you additional small damage procs on your hits in exchange for a DOT that'll probably become the go-to.
What else...there's a "living world" mechanic akin to a stripped down Guiding Lands that's how you get investigations, which I didn't much bother with either when I could just join missions with what I need. Maybe I'll look into how it all works eventually but it says something that I could hit this point of advancement while mentally filtering out so much of what didn't hit me as immediately necessary.
Edit: Speaking of unused subsystems, I have just accidentally discovered that "Sneak Attacks" involve getting behind a monster out of combat and pressing B for a special animation, not just yeeting myself off the Seikret from a cliff for a flying kamikaze bombing. Who knew...
