That makes sense. I will definitely keep this in mind. I just assumed the time to put it away and back out would take longer but thats probably not the case.
It's a judgment call. Sometimes you want to keep your weapon out because the monster will come right back, and sometimes you want to sheathe and run over. The more you play, the better you get at knowing what the right thing to do is. I know my first time playing, I felt just like you do.
The bonus to sheathing is that even if the monster keeps moving, you're already in the best position to take advantage of that. So if Rathian charges away, you sheathe, and then Rathian charges back, you can still use your newfound mobility to place your attack at her head, etc. If you didn't sheathe, then you would probably just have to attack whatever was next to you after you dodged her charge.
How much of this game is gathering resources before fighting the big monsters? Because the demo started you off with what felt like a full set of stuff.
Do you need to take a lot of downtime to replenish your stuff between taking down the big guys? Obviously there's a reason for all the little monsters and stuff to gather so I know it is in there, but I'm just curious how much time is spent gathering stuff and getting prepared vs actually fighting the main monsters. Or maybe I'm just entirely misreading the flow of the game.
Gathering resources is very minimal compared to fighting monsters. I would say something like a 20/80 split, though at the very beginning of the game it's more like a 50/50 split. The farther along you get, the less preparation is needed because you use resources less often due to getting better.
.