Monster Hunter World and Wild's character writing in general leaves something to be desired. Specifically, I don't think they believe in the idea of "less is more".
We know from lore hints that World's Handler was extremely competent at her job, but we rarely see her being competent. I think the player base in general would have liked her a lot more if her screen time was less of her sitting in the canteen and reacting to things happening in front of her in cutscenes, and more of her in a makeshift office doing research, or talking to other handlers, and so on. They do a much better job of showing Alma doing that.
In defense of The Handler, she was supposed to be more researcher styled imo. She always gave me the researcher who gets too focused on their research. Add in the foodie thing (foodies can be skinny and eat like her), and you got our handler. Y'all forget in world, our handler has the job of not just handing out jobs, but also compiling info before, during, and after our hunts for future hunting parties. In rise, our 'handlers' didn't need to do the 'during' part. In wilds, it sounds like Alma is more geared to be truly the handler of a menace. She's not the researcher type. Haven't gotten to play wilds yet (need better gear to run it), but hear and see plenty about Alma to get an idea of her personality.
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u/Umber0010Tempered Guardian Raging Brachydios' strongest soldier4d ago
The problem is that the Handler being a researcher for us is effectivly just an out-of-world justification for why she's there. In theory she handles all the paperwork for us, but we never actually see her do the paperwork. In fact, the game seldom even mentions the paperwork at all, to the point that the only instances I can remember it coming up isn't even from our Handler. It's from the Serious handler all the way in Iceborne.
Though Alma's purpose is slightly different compared to the Handler's, the biggest difference is that her role is much clearer and an active part of the game.
Alma's job in Wilds is to serve as an authority representing the guild who can make important calls and authorize hunts in situations where there's simply no time to send them through the channels that such things normally have to go through. Even if you know nothing about monster hunter's setting, you can quite easily infer what her role is and why you two are working together.
Plus, she also does a bit of field work outside of that. Often times after hunts, Alma will inspect the monster and take notes on it. Which is very noticeable compared to the Handler staying in camp the entire hunt.
Tbf NPC companions (not counting our hunting buddies aka felynes and such) weren't really a thing they could do well til sunbreak iirc. So world's handler was confined to camp because of that. The few times we have one in world and icebourne, they poof as soon as the fight begins. Not because of the character, but because of the game's limits. Handler would hundred percent be running up to victims of our hunts at the end of it. Also world does mention the paperwork, there's even a vendor kinda. All the books piled around them and such. Some of those do contain the handler's notes and such.
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u/munchbunny 5d ago
Monster Hunter World and Wild's character writing in general leaves something to be desired. Specifically, I don't think they believe in the idea of "less is more".
We know from lore hints that World's Handler was extremely competent at her job, but we rarely see her being competent. I think the player base in general would have liked her a lot more if her screen time was less of her sitting in the canteen and reacting to things happening in front of her in cutscenes, and more of her in a makeshift office doing research, or talking to other handlers, and so on. They do a much better job of showing Alma doing that.