Not the Peace I wanted, but Peace Nonetheless (A Re-Analysis of Weapon Orders, Armor IDs, and Title Updates)
This thread is gonna be a bit of a roller-coaster but I just want to say pre-emptively: I'm sorry, for getting people's hopes up. I was interpreting what I saw - and I wasn't wrong either. I'll get into that.
Apologies this took so long too. I started writing this like, genuinely 12 hours ago from time of posting. I started and stuff kept... happening.
Anyway, let's get into it. Remember how I said I wanted to take a break, but that I would "of course report any findings or things of significance"? I think this constitutes.
Lagiacrus and Seregios are title updates.
This isn't a speculation, I'm not unsure, it's not "oh it might be but beta jank", they are. I will say I've been mentally preparing for the eventuality for a while, I'm more shocked about Seregios in particular than Lagia as I've made clear.
To state, the guy who I thought was weird and a troll with the weird convo was legit - I have removed my conversation with him from that post in order for his privacy. I will not fully state how I determined his legitimacy, out of respect and consideration. In addition, even aside from that, I came to this conclusion on my own, which I am going to go through here.
There's also more that I am NOT at liberty to discuss and I made this clear to anyone who asked. If anyone has found out or is privy to it, DO NOT share it. It already seems to be out other places, which really sucks. I will not be sharing specific details of stuff any further, so please don't ask. You're just gonna have to trust me on this, and I'm sure MOST of you know this is something I wouldn't lie about or that I wouldn't assert if I did not genuinely believe it.
To just be very very brief it seems they were moved to TUs last minute as there was tail-end issues with development regarding something prioritized over them. I know this might sound vague but I really can't say more than that, sorry.
I also have to say that the behavior I've seen and jump to complete doomerism sucks. I understand, I do, but guys, be real here. Is the game, full of amazing systems, incredible visuals, fun gameplay, awesome new monsters, fun returners, and a great lore and story gonna suck automatically because 2 things got pushed back? No, it won't. They'll still be coming. We waited all this time, we know they're coming, we can wait a bit more.
Anyway, there's stuff to share, we'll start with this slice here as a visual example, to how I came to the conclusion myself.
This is from u/alxnns1's spreadsheet. Notice how the armors in this section from large mons all cost 5k, while those from small mons and generic stuff cost 4k. Now, let's skip ahead.
Sort 125, the 3rd column first row, is the Arena reward armor piece. Last armor piece of the game. It then jumps, to 200.
While we're here, let's look at everything... Lagiacrus is set 208. Seregios is set 210. The jump is gigantic... and stuff seems to be potentially ordered like TUs. I have brought this up before, that the SortID seems strange if they were base. I'll also point out the other 2 monster sets here - Set 204 and 206. Set 204 is PROBABLY Mizu. Set 206.... idk? It's set 59_01. That is a suffix not used by anything. It also costs 10,000, which is what FW Ark costs. It's a mystery to be sure.
...Then it jumps again, with 5 sets that use "Type04" color. Those would probably be our legendary kings, with Gamma sets.
Now, it seems that the Benchmark's list of armor may only be indicative of the first couple title updates. The set 212 could be Gogmazios, or whatever the siege monster is. There's not enough here to indicate what I found out after this.
So, could this mean Seregios and Lagia are TUs? That'd explain why they have no stats. That'd explain why they are so jank.
So, with the idea that the beta includes TU content, one might think that, to substantiate this idea, you would check the weapon textures....
...So that's what I did. I went back through EVERY weapon texture in all 14 classes, lined it up with the data from Alx's spreadsheet, and cross referenced, and checked EVERY unused ID.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LJ-hRRE5IIMx-axt9rEN4uGpyhIaZcZ4UcrBV9A1bCU/edit?usp=sharing
I updated this sheet. So, what did I find?
A LOT. LOTTTTT of unused IDs. With consistent patterns, even. In my older post on weapon patterns, I commented on a few consistent patterns, such as Uth>Rompo>Rey, and Rathian>Rathalos>Gore>Nerscylla, and Hirabami>Nu Udra>Ajarakan, and Kut Ku>Gypceros>Lagiacrus>Seregios>Gravios>Blangonga. These orders are not necessarily matched with progression, but are VERY consistent. There's some out of order, but those seem semi-random, which can sometimes happen with development stuff like this.
The patterns should speak for themselves but I'll point out a few,
- Unused ID before Guardian Arkveld, after Blangonga (like entirely consistent unless I missed one, I think on all 14 classes). This MIGHT be Mizutsune.
- Unused ID -after- Guardian Arkveld, which is missed by a few classes but there is always enough weapons to just say that it's in a randomly different spot like Seregios weps are (I think this is Zinogre's weps possibly)
- Unused ID after Jin Dahaad and Shiiwuu (Xu Wu?), which should in theory be Zotia.
I'll point out the really big thing from this: SNS, in total, has TEN unused designs. One of them is Zotia, so that's 9. Now, at least 1 or even 2 could be event items, but let's just go through the hypothetical.
10 SnS
-1 Zotia, 9
-2 Lagia/Seregios, 7
-3, Gog, Mizu, Zin, 4
The big one - 1 GUARDIAN. One of these SnS is an unused Guardian ID (10_XXXX) design. This implies a Title Update Guardian down the line. Anyway, 3.
Em166? -1, 2
2 unaccounted for.
Again that could be for anything, we'll have to see.
Just to be clear too - NONE of these count stuff like the 9000 series weapons that we know are unused placeholders. The difference here is that with context that Seregeios/Lagia as TUs we can point to this indicating title update content.
Also, nice bonus, turns out Quematrice has a weapon design change in HR, like Chatacabra, Doshaguma, Balahara, and Lala Barina.
I also want to rip off another potential unfortunate band-aid.... this MIGHT explain why we don't see Zotia weps and armor. I will reiterate from a previous post - Zotia has no weapon stats, nor can we identify an armor series that belongs to him. Not one. A scenario where Zotia comes back in a TU especially as he seems to be LR only has been brought up by some, and is now a real possibility, and that could be the game's siege instead. So, unfortunately, it does appear we are in a base Rise scenario if that is true.
Addendum: Re; the crowns trophy, as that was a big thing I brought up: It seems GArkveld really DOESN'T count as the individual is truly 1-of-a-kind and all re-fights with it are non canon. The 2 extra ones that do are Guardian Rathalos and Doshaguma.
With the context I have, I have very strong reason to believe Lagiacrus and Seregios as they are currently are part of TU1.5, or version 1.11 which I talked about in this post the other day: https://www.reddit.com/r/monsterhunterleaks/comments/1iptvio/title_update_version_numbers_from_the/
It's NOT IMPOSSIBLE that circumstances have changed again and they are in fact in at launch or day 1 patch. That said I don't believe that is the case, and that they'll be TUs, a couple months out possibly. While that sucks to relay, I think we'll have them by May. I think the 24th may still well have a Lagia trailer either way, I have good reason to believe that's possible. I could also be wrong on the Zotia speculation and there could be beta jank at play, idk. I just know that after this I don't think I can do any more.
This might not be the "all-informative-expose on the full details" everyone would want potentially but this kind of spiraled into something horrendous for my mental health, I think I genuinely experienced shellshock at a point earlier today through insane overstimulation and pressure. I'm still just a person and human error is always a factor.
At the least - I know peace that I did not give in to doomerism, and that I was technically never wrong re; these two, just that things changed. I also feel peace in the certainty, instead of dread. We just have to wait longer. Take this time to look forward to Wilds. It will be the best MH game ever, and it will get even better with time. I have faith in the devs to make things good. Sometimes things don't work out the way we want them to, but that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. A lot of people have been supporting me this whole time and I know that even in such a time that is disappointing like this we can be positive. We're less than 10 days until the game is here, only 10. The wait for Lagia won't feel so bad once we're playing. And please, keep people unspoiled still, don't take this as a chance to spoil everyone who doesn't know yet.
That's it from me for now. Take care, stay positive.