That's sort of how I feel too. I think the bulk of the difficulty of past games was due to inexperience. I only started with Tri and played every single one since then. I thought the game was incredibly hard back then. My first Great Jaggi took me 20+ minutes to kill and monsters like Barroth felt like an impossible wall but I think if I went back to the game now I'm fairly certain it would take me significantly less time.
This was me too, I remember beating Barroth, Jhen Moran and Gobul all felt like climbing over a difficulty spike a dozen or so hours into Tri. Failed hunts were common online and it felt like a huge part of the online player base was still learning the basics alongside me. Looking back they all seem so simple to me now, but I loved being part of that online community learning the game together and having veteran hunters from the PSP games dishing out chunks of info that must have seemed incredibly basic to them in the same way.
I think you've hit on it. A big part of why MonHun is hard when you're first starting the series is that you don't know the monsters, you don't know the weapons, you don't know the terrain, and you don't know the items. So you hit your head against the wall until you finally figure them all out and then when the next game comes it's easy. Even if they add new monsters you can figure them out easily by leaning on your experience.
The game isn't about leveling your character, it's about leveling you. The experience from one game carries over to the next, it's like starting a newgame+ with every new title before you even play through it. So if someone starts here they're going to have a hard time while if you played 4U you'll find it easy.
This is absolutely true and something veteran players should remember. If you've played MH before you're stockpiling resources from the start and crafting items from memory that you don't even know exist as a new player, making it much easier even though you need them far less. The first time I saw someone use a farcaster in Tri to deliver a subquest drop in seconds it may as well have been magic to me as it's never mentioned in the villages, now I have the farm cranking out sap plants and stones for bomb casings and exciteshrooms to combine with them early on as I consider them a pretty basic delivery/emergency-escape tool.
As you say, even with new monsters you have a starting point of saying, for example, 'Seregios? Looks like a flying wyvern with big claws and a single horn that hangs out in the desert. I'll probably take dung bombs, flash bombs, cool drinks. I can probably break its tail and head for good drops and its wings and claws look like good targets too.'
Or
'Nkarkos? Those red arrows when it's stunned look like when we boarded Jhen Moran to mine/bomb/attack weak spots. The fleshy bits in its shell look less armoured if I get the opportunity. The tentacles lie still for a couple of seconds after some attacks, that looks like an opening. Ah, ballista bolts! Where's the bolt thrower then... Why are these tranq bombs in the supply box? They wouldn't be here if I couldn't use them...'
Monster Hunter carries so much forward from game to game, the crafting, the maps, the monster attack patterns, even some elements of its bigger boss/urgent battles. I think that's partially why fans keep coming back despite similar battles reappearing over and over again, it's a huge timesink that is reassuring to old players in that their knowledge gained over hundreds of hours still broadly counts for something, as opposed to learning a new crafting and combat system in each game.
