Although Monster Hunter World has received critical acclaim from series veterans and newcomers alike, there are always areas where the game can improve. And after spending tons of hours with the game, we can see a few systems and features that would benefit from some tweaking. Specifically, the SOS matchmaking system needs one major fix, and it needs it immediately.
While the filter for searches in Monster Hunter World, which allows players to outline exactly what level hunt they want and what monsters they want to slay, is great, there is a major problem if a player fails to join a hunt. And because an SOS search will only return a few joinable hunts, it isn’t out of the ordinary for a player to attempt to join a hunt and then find it is full. If you've spent any amount of time using the 'Respond to SOS' feature then you know 'Failed to Join Hunt' all too well.
Once they fail to join the hunt, players are kicked back to the SOS search screen with all of their search parameters reset. It would be a huge help if Capcom could simply make it so the SOS search retains all of the filters until the player successfully joins a hunt or they quit out of the board. Perhaps they could even make an auto-join toggle that puts the player in the first available hunt that fits their search filters.
As it stands now if player A is in the endgame and they want to hunt tempered Kirin, they need to:
- Select an Investigation from the Quest Type filter.
- Select a 9-star rank level to ensure that the Kirin is tempered and not just High Rank.
- Pick Rewards Available to make sure that they get the full rewards for completing the hunt.
- Select Kirin from the several pages of monsters.
It’s a really long process to have to keep repeating, all because you took some time to look at the players already in the hunt and the fail conditions. Monster Hunter World, a game that is all about carefully making decisions and being deliberate with every action, forces the player to make a snap decision about a hunt, lest they get a ‘Failed to join the quest’ message and have to fill in the fields all over again.
No doubt this may seem like a small change, but it is one that Monster Hunter World desperately needs. The endgame is all about grinding and in many cases players want a very specific hunt. Yes, it is possible to get that hunt by farming tempered investigations, but matchmaking is a much easier route. Or at least it could be easier if the system was just a little better.
Monster Hunter World is out now for PS4 and Xbox One. The PC version is set to release in fall 2018.