Oh, this thread is really active, what a nice surprise. I'm joining the ranks of low level people: played this game for 20 hours, currently have a couple of 3 star village quest remaining. Didn't have a chance to go online before due to not having the Wii U, but now I got the system and the game for it.
Rolling with Rugged Great Sword and Great Jaggi Armor. It seems I won't be able to upgrade the sword further until I get to the tundra. Also got a couple of attack jewels, so I get a larger attack boost from the armor. Doing pretty good so far, although I've been having issues with capture quests: I usually run out of traps to use and/or kill the monster, which is why I've been avoiding that three star capture quest.