Ian and I recently talked about a thing in video games that is annoying. This is in games that are continuous, such as Destiny 2 or any other ‘game as service’ game. There is a thing that when the season ends and a new season begins, all the caps are reset and you basically have to start over again. Not exactly, but it’s close enough. I felt that way with Monster Hunter World. I took it to surprisingly and poured hundreds of hours into it. I really liked it until the Tempered Elder Dragons and quit cold turkey. Then, Iceborne, the DLC came out. I was hyped, but it was only on consoles at first. I want to say just PS4, but I’m too lazy to look it–ok, it’s both PS4 and Xbox One. I had to look it up because that’s my nature. The internet has been a boon, but it’s also been a curse. In the olden days, if I didn’t know something, I just had to deal with it. Now, I can look it up whenever I want. It’s almost a compulsion, but a benign one.
The basic armor you are given in Iceborne is better than anything I had crafted in the entire base game. Same with the base weapon. I know why they did it–because they wanted the newbies to be able to try the new content without having to grind in the base game. Truly, I understand. From a business standpoint, they want as little obstacle to entrance as possible. If newbies had to play hundreds of hours in order to even get to Iceborne, well, then it would be Dark Souls. So I can’t blame Capcom for doing that. However, it was deflating as fuck to get that good shit and realize that my time in the base game was all for naught.
I know that’s not the case. I know that the enjoyment I got from the base game is something in and of itself. But, it still left a sour taste in my mouth and I could never really get into Iceborne. Part of that was because it so much harder than the base game (which was another reason for the better gear), but it was also because it felt like those hundreds of hours I put into the base game were for nothing. N00bs who were playing for the first time had the same equipment as I did, so why even bother? If I had just picked up the game as a whole, I could have cruised through the entire game on easy mode. Again, I realize that the experiences I had with the game wouldn’t have been the same and would probably have been trivialized, but it’s hard not to feel bitter.
It’s the same struggle I have with taiji. My teacher’s teacher is changing things up, especially with the Solo Forms. I’ve explained this before, but we used to do the Long Form by Master Liang. Which I hated. Then, he developed the Medium Form based on movements by Master Choi. He decided the Medium Form was going to be the main form so my teacher put the long form aside and began teaching us the Medium Form. Her teacher also developed the Fast Form, which was based on the Medium Form and she started teaching that to us as well.
That’s the way it was for a few years. Then, later on, in the last six months, I would say, her teacher decided to change things yet again. Or rather, that’s when she brought it to our attention. He reintroduced the Long Form and told her that he wanted her to teach it to the beginners and the Medium Form or Chen Man-ch’ing’s Short Form to the advanced students. Or was the latter one of the two he wanted her to teach to the beginners? Either way, she decided to go with the Long Form for beginners and the Medium Form for advanced students. But, she also wanted us advanced students to reacquaint ourselves with the Long Form. Which has some changes.
I need to say that I don’t do well with changes. At all. If I can plan for them, I’m better, but I still don’t like them. I fully admit this is a me problem, but it makes it difficult for me to roll with the punches when my teacher’s teacher changes things up. Much of what he does is a way of making things easier for newbies, which brings up the same sense of bitterness in me that the Iceborne debacle did. Why did I have to learn all those difficult movements if they were only going to be tossed to the side? One of my classmates told me they felt similarly and we’re probably not the only two.
I understand it’s his prerogative and my teacher pointed out that the masters used to change things all the time. It doesn’t make me feel any better emotionally about feeling as if I’ve wasted my time. I can tell myself as much as I want that learning the hard stuff gave me a good basis for what we’re doing now. It makes the newer stuff easier to learn for one thing. It doesn’t help. I also tell remind myself that I like most of the changes, but that doesn’t soothe the sting, either. There’s always this voice in the back of my head that reminds me of how much time I’ve wasted. Oh, yes, I also point out that I wasted a lot of my own time by dragging my feet on learning shit, but that’s on me.
Back before the first wave of changes, I was teaching myself the left side of the (Long) Solo Form. I was two-thirds done with the third (and last) section when my teacher’s teacher started massively changing things. It was at a pretty brisk pace and I decided to shelve the left side until things settled down. That was maybe three or four years ago and I haven’t picked it back up again. I could do it now because my teacher’s teacher has seemed to have settled on what he wanted the Long Form to look like, but I haven’t done it for two reasons. One, I have so much other things to focus on right now. Relearning the Long Form, learning the changes to the Medium Form, and all my weapons. I also want to teach myself the Fast Form, but that will have to wait.
In the time since I quit teaching myself the left side of the Solo Form, I’ve taught myself the left side of the Sword Form and I’m nearly 2/3rds done with the left side of the Sabre Form. Which, by the way, has been harder than the left side of the Sword Form as I thought it would be. However, it’s not as difficult as I feared it would be, which is relieving. I think I taught myself the left side of the Sword Form in two days. Maybe three. With the Sabre Form, I taught myself one row a day for the first three days and now I’m working on the fourth row (of six). It’s all fine and dandy until the end where there are two complicated movements. It’s the reason my teacher stopped teaching me the right side of the Sabre Form the first time around; she wasn’t confident in her ability to teach it. Surprisingly, I found it pretty intuitive the second time around and had no difficulty with it. I have to point out when I said I didn’t have a problem with it, I just mean learning the movement. Doing it correctly and with confidence, well, that’s another story.
Anyway, I taught myself up to those two hard movements and then decided to take it slow. Today, I tackled the first movement, which wasn’t so hard once I broke it down. I saved the second movement for tomorrow, which will be my third day teaching myself the fourth row. I expect I’ll be able to teach myself the second hard movement tomorrow. I anticipate being able to teach myself the fifth row in one day and the sixth in another. That means a week total, which is less than I thought it’d take me.
In regards to all the changes in all the forms, I like most of them in general. I like some of the a lot. I’ll try to keep that in mind the next time I’m frustrated with yet another change.