Edit: Uhhh… I think I overdid this a little. It turned out to be a big wall of text! Sorry no TL;DR!
I’ve tried again to create a pure hunter build for this update and below are some of the benchmarks that I got. Hopefully, this could be used to see if things are going the way how the devs designed hunter’s progression. I’ll be basing it to the time invested on the game.
- 30-45 mins (I guess, forgot to check when I started) - Level 6 - finished tutorial, crafted a bunch of slingbows. So far everything feels fine.
- 2 hours - Level 11 - Literally just killed mobs for a whole hour to reach 11. There are times when it got boring but nothing too much to make me quit the game. I guess I killed around 50 wildstocks and 15 spitters by this time??
- 3 hours - Level 13 - Progression starts to get boring at starter world. Went to a shop and found out that I can use Iron Slingbow without mastery and I was overjoyed! Definitely made me played more from the point that I’m probably about to quit. Also discovered that a compass upgrade will show mobs around (Has this been a thing for a long time now? I just found out now). Went to moon world (Septerfon). With Iron slingbow and compass upgrade, I say it was a satisfying hunt. Feats also boosted my progression although some are not quite related to hunting (explorer by using portals, mined a 100 dirt to get to Chisel Knight’s HQ which is on top of a mountain, etc.)
- 4 hours - Level 15 - Went to a ring world (Munteen) for a more challenging hunt. By this time, hunting still feels satisfying not only because of the increased exp (cuttle and hoppers give a good amount of exp even if they are quite easy to kill) but also because they now drop valuable drops unlike before. This made me able to try higher tiered slingbows (Silver) for more fun.
Then I reluctantly left the game because I’m way passed my sleeping time. 
Insights
- I’ve been complaining why we can get tool mastery earlier than combat mastery when they are a mastery for a completely different profession. I’m complaining about it because the time I feeI I need to have access to higher tier tools to feel that I’m “progressing” is the time I’ll notice that combat mastery is still not available but tool mastery is. I still feel the same way with this playthrough but found out that Iron and Copper slingbows have 0 mastery so that solves the problem. However, I’m still not convinced why we can’t access them at the same time.
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MOBS SPAWN RATE NOW IS
. I cannot stress enough how it made hunting much more satisfying. Previously, I have to walk a LOT and even discover around 3 regions so that I can reach level 10 lol. It’s so bad that my skill attribute percentage distribution is 20% power and 80% agility just because I’m probably just running 80% of the time! I’m happy to say that it’s the other way around now. I’ve probably invested 80% on power and 20% on agility and my time distribution when playing is probably 50% running (or lesser I guess) and 50% fighting if I just focus on hunting.
Concerns
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Are the frequency of the mobs related to the biome? I’ve started on a forest and grassy biome which I think is the reason why there a a bunch of mobs to kill. If that is the case, it’s not very obvious and other people starting on desert might find hunting boring without knowing that they have to go somewhere to find a big catch. I’m thinking this would be solved by adding objectives for Hunter (We currently don’t have one and it’s sad). In this objective, it will share a bit of lore to the mob and hints where to find them for example. Wildstock - “These gentle creatures spend most of their time feeding on grassland but make no mistake! Angering them will prove their strength through its ramming power!” Hopper - “These hot headed creatures lives on only dangerous planets etc etc.”
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Combat feats is not properly balanced with other professions’ feats. To give a concrete example, killing 100 wildstocks gives 2000 exp and 200 coins and it’s the same as gathering 100 soil which is definitely a lot easier… killing 100 roadrunners also give the same reward and they are sooo hard to achieve.
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Quick nitpick. Killing level 1 spitter gives 120 exp. Achieving the feat of killing 10 of them gives you 200 exp only. That feat just feels very unrewarding for me and feel really dumb. hehe.
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EDIT - I know I’m building a “pure” hunter but this playthrough and overall positive satisfaction might not be possible without the help of pre-existing shops. If I was not well versed with Boundless and failed to find an Iron slingbow, I might have quitted halfway through. That’s why I believe we need a quest for hunter that guides them through the game even without prior knowledge of game. Something like at around the time when player is at Level 10, a quest that requires you to find a shop and purchase an iron/copper slingbow. A plus if you mention that visiting the capital of the world would give them a higher chance of finding a shop. The sole purpose of this quest is to ensure that the possibility of buying gears on shop crosses their mind rather than them rage quitting saying how lackluster the progression is. END EDIT
Overall
This is the first time that I feel starting a pure hunter from scratch feels satisfying. And that is telling a lot given that we just tweaked spawn rates and some mastery stuff. More concrete features for hunters are soon to come and I feel that this will be a big step towards the completion of the hunter profession! I’m yet to experience progressing now given that at level 15, I’m already hunting at the most dangerous world. I just hope that I still feel progressing. I’m guessing most of my reason for hunting now is more for drops than the exp itself. It’s now time to focus on my wealth in which what I did as well on my other alt’s pure miner build. Mindlessly gather resources for money (and helping shops). Though sadly, there aren’t any reason to bank a lot of money right now but that is a separate topic of its own and I did dis-organizely voiced it out here.
Disclaimer
This is just purely based on my experience which can be affected by lots of factors. I’ve been away from Boundless for a few weeks and I could just be very eager in playing that I feel satisfied and overcome some steep challenges along the way.
Eagerly waiting for the next hunter update and delete this alt again! (Yeah sorry alt that is how you will be used. RIP 
)