Mechanics

Due to the open-world nature of this region, many new methods of traversal have been added to the hunter's toolset by the Guild. Be it sea, land or sky, there is no region a hunter should go into unprepared!

## Grappling

Unlike the hunters of the Kamura Village who use wirebugs, hunters of the new frontier utilize its bulkier, flightless cousin, the **Grapplegrub**. Their silk is rather powerful and they can grab onto surfaces with immense strength, but due to being flightless a hunter must find a surface to make them grab onto in order to make use of them. They can be used to bind monsters for wyvern-riding, and hunters employ a lasso-like motion when capturing monsters.

The more powerful cousin of the Grapplegrub is the **Master Maggot**, a species that has the uncanny ability to subdue the minds of monsters and let it's wielder control them. An ability only used in nature to deposit it's eggs inside of the guts of monsters, poachers often take advantage of this species to allow them to hunt monsters on the backs of their natural predators. Hunters are normally not allowed to use it, but during certain events the Guild may allow their usage. Their gameplay ability is letting a hunter ride a monster indefinitely, sometimes altering or even replacing their finishing move and removing the time limit, being able to be knocked down only when the monster is K.O.'d or killed.

## Companions

Companions are your allies on the frontier, from the ever trustful Palico to the species native to the region itself, and even the elusive Palavian from far off lands. Each one of them offers different abilities and skills to help you hunt monsters, and they're split into two major categories; helpers and mounts.

Helpers will provide aid by either buffing you, dealing additional damage with traps, or acting as a moving anchor point for your grapplegrub. During offline hunts you can take two with you, but on online hunts only one is permitted. Mounts on the other hand serve to help you move across the map with ease, each one specializing in a different kind of terrain. They're not useful in combat but they are of great help while chasing/being chased, letting you take paths you alone couldn't.

### Helpers

* Palico
* Palavian (Halk)

### Mounts

* Quaggaros
* Dolphymimus
* -

## Exploration, Tracking, Navigation

In this new frontier, exploration is crucial to get your bearings. The hunter must fill out the map themselves by seeing new locales and noting down important landmarks for reference. Particularly high vantage points might allow a hunter to fill in a much larger area, so make sure to keep a lookout for those.

To go along with this, monsters will not be shown on the map unless paintballed or spotted by a **Halk** with the appropriate skill, thusly requiring the hunter to locate them personally. Most monsters leave distinct markings on their environment, be it fell trees, footprints, territorial markings or even remains of previous meals. Keep a sharp eye and sharper wits about you! Paintballs can show a monster's rough location, and will allow the hunter to follow a color trail left by the beast, so they can be highly viable tools in especially confusing areas. A monster's path may even be predicted based on it's tracks, allowing a particularly witty hunter to intercept them with a well-placed trap! Only the bold and the crazy make it far on the frontier so be creative in your approach, some monsters won't let you pull the same trick twice.

## Monster Movement, Herding and Luring

Monsters rarely stay put for long during a fight. Be it a hunter's retreat or tables turning on the wyvern, they might choose to move to a different locale to recover or corner the hunter. A skillful hunter can use this to their advantage, as a monster blindly fleeing or chasing can be easily manipulated in one's favor. Note that this is much easier to do with mounts than on foot, so be mindful of that.

### Herding

A monster fleeing will try to maintain distance from the hunters, shaking them off with occasional charges or hip checks as it's running to a new locale. Use this to your advantage by positioning pursuing hunters between the monster and the path which you don't want it to take, and it will pick the other way. Use this to lead it into traps, ambushes and inopportune areas for it for an easier fight. Groups of herbivores can behave similarly, with attacking members can cause all of them to start running in another direction, allowing the hunters to herd them in similar fashion, be it as a part of a quest or to get the attention of your actual monstrous target.

### Luring

Certain monsters can be so aggressive that once angered they will not let the aggressor leave without a fight, and fleeing will cause them to give chase. Luring a monster can be significantly more dangerous than herding, as the monster chasing you from behind is in a much more opportune position to attack. If it is chasing a group, a good way to lose aggro is by splitting up, usually confusing the beast to the point of not knowing where to go. Even if it just staggers for a moment before choosing, that can give you a huge lead to escape a particularly dangerous opponent (note that not all monsters are this indecisive, however). Luring a monster isn't just a good way to get distance, however. A monster can be lead into traps, better fighting areas for hunters and even other monsters, to allow hunters a much needed edge in a south-going engagement.

## Wyvern Riding

Wyvern riding has gotten a major overhaul. Monsters no longer fall prone when ready to be wyvern-ridden, but silkbind attacks are still needed to get them into a state where it can be done (shown by golden threads being tied around the monster). This allows a hunter to either lasso or mount them.

### Lassoing

Lassoing allows the hunters to throw their grapplebug at the monster and restrain it. The more hunters perform it, the more efficient it will be. Positioning matters here, as depending on where different hunters are and whether or not they engage any moves will determine the success or failure of the lasso. Hunters opposite of each other can hold their lasso to hold the monster in place, but initiating the pull action for either will release the monster with no effect, failing the action (however if one party pulls and cancels the lasso at the same time, while the one opposite of them pulls immediately after, the pull force will be tripled). Two or more hunters on one side initiating the pull action at the same time can pull the monster and make it slam into that direction (the angle it flies in is the average of all the hunters participating).

### Mounting

Mounting is done in two phases, bucking and riding. When the hunter initially mounts the monster it will try to shake them off, forcing them to subdue it by button-mashing (same as the older gen games) until they win, at which point they can ride it freely (failing it obviously means getting shaken off). Once the timer on wyvern riding runs out, bucking will commence again, this time harder. If the hunter succeeds that they get the wyvern ride meter reset, even if it lasts less this time. This can technically be continued indefinitely, but the hunter does lose a lot of stamina doing this, and running out at any point will cause them to fall down. The initial mount can be made easier by other hunters holding the monster down with lassos.