Currently, the full gyro mode is “hinged” onto the monster. This means that when the monster moves, the camera also moves with the monster. While this may help players unfamiliar with gyro aiming, I believe this is a major contributing factor in why the Light Bowgun’s potential is limited in this game, compared to PC or Console versions of Monster Hunter.
Because of how the camera hinges on the monster, this makes aiming for where the monster will be, based on observing the monster’s behaviour, difficult because by the time you line up your shots and are ready to fire your LBG, the monster moves and your camera shifts, making your shots miss.
In order to counteract this “hinging” behaviour, we end up have to move the opposite way of where the monster is, or practically limit our aiming to roughly where the monster’s weak point will be in the future, based on its body language. This is highly counter-intuitive.
This is not an issue for Bow because Bows pack all the firepower in one shot that can be released within a second upon lining up the crosshair with the target. But for LBG, where you can’t just empty the entire magazine when the monster pauses and has to rely on tracing the monster as it moves around in order to maximise the damage potential of the weapon, the current aiming system simply just makes it very difficult to hit the weak spots. The change in monster damage resistance to ranged attacks on non-weak spots has made this problem even more glaring while largely not affecting the Bow simply because of how the aiming system works, not entirely because of how “strong” or “weak” the two types of ranged weapons are.
Therefore, please consider adding a third mode of aiming, where it’s completely unhinged and require user to aim just like in first-person shooter games.
The game can re-use the existing mechanism in setting the default angles at the start of the hunt, and use the Reset Aim button to reset to the current orientation of the phone. However, make it so that the camera does not follow the monster, so that as the monster moves across the arena, the player will have to turn around accordingly in order to face it.
While in this mode, make it so that the swiping action for evasive maneuvers not hinge around the monster too. Currently, when you swipe to the side or up/down, even in the current full gyro mode, you will still end up moving as if you’re circling around the monster or moving the opposite direction of swiping to the sides from the monster even if you’re facing 180° from the monster (i.e. if you have the monster behind you and you swipe left, you end up dodging to your right instead of to your left; when you face 90° to the side of the monster and you swipe up, you roll forward in an arc around the monster instead of actually rolling in a straight line forward). This makes it difficult to adjust position correctly, especially when you need to escape from a close-range wide area attack from the monster but when you swipe to the side, you end up still being at the side of the monster instead of away from the monster, and end up still get hit.
I see virtue in using such a mode that hinges around the monster for movements, but there’s also a need for a mode where you would evade in a straight line to the sides and to the direction you’re facing, regardless of which gyro mode or non-gyro mode you’re in, just like how the avatars in the PC/Console Monster Hunter titles move. Therefore, I think this may need to be a separate setting for controlling when to use the hinged movement and when to use absolute movement.
I believe that this will help make the using of several weapons more intuitive and efficient without having to change the properties of the weapons or monsters itself while making the movement and aiming systems more natural and intuitive.
Please consider this.
Update 2024-05-30
I would like to add on that playing melee weapon with full gyro is also not a great experience.
I was using lance and was trying to attack Azure Rathalos’ tail. While I was at its rear end, the tail was behind me, so I had to turn around to attack it (back facing the monster). However, when I try to hop to the left or right, my avatar hops in the opposite direction, right or left, instead.
This directional movement is really not a good implementation at all as such situations require user to have full control of the movement like how they do in most games where users can move through the 3D space based on their camera facing, not based on where the monster is at relative to the avatar.
I want to develop skills for making the best use of the weapon using gyro mode, but I am handicapped by how the camera and avatar’s actions hinge themselves to the monster.
