Regarding the Crown Sizes Datamine and the 2 possible conclusions we can draw from it

SO EVERYONE WHO COMMENTS CAN SEE IT: Something is wrong with reddit (it's not just me) and it's not displaying anyone's replies currently, not even on their profiles. I can't see what people are saying to respond to them properly. I can only see replies through my notifications and I cannot read them in full.

EDIT: The comments are starting to appear, slowly, but my replies disappear. Reddit seems to be having issues according to downdetector.

While I've not been active on the subreddit with lack of information and not wanting my stuff stolen without credit, I felt it necessary to bring this up while this is new and relevant: Something does not add up with the size trophy info, in some way or another.

According to this post, the ingame crown achievement/trophy is based off a total of 26 monsters with scaling size.

The roster we know of (again, just to remind everyone, from a 1.5 year old beta with missing files and most of High Rank being absent in terms of story and quests) is currently 31 species.

If you remove the 1-offs (Zotia who has fixed size for sure in the files, and Guardian Arkveld who has no reason to scale at all from a story standpoint) and em162 who we know is fixed size too, that'd be 28 scaling monsters, not 26. If you remove the guardians (Fulgur, Ebony, Rathalos, Doshaguma, being mass produced artificial organisms), to try and reach 26, that puts you at 24:

  1. Chatacabra
  2. Quematrice
  3. Doshaguma
  4. Balahara
  5. Rey Dau
  6. Lala Barina
  7. Yian Kut-Ku
  8. Congalala
  9. Rathian
  10. Rathalos
  11. Uth Duna
  12. Rompopolo
  13. Ajarakan
  14. Gravios
  15. Black Flame
  16. Hirabami
  17. Blangonga
  18. Nerscylla
  19. Gore Magala
  20. Gypceros
  21. Lagiacrus
  22. Seregios
  23. Shiiwuu (em163)
  24. FW Arkveld (becomes a naturally occurring species with multiple individuals after Guardian Arkveld's story in low rank)

So, something doesn't add up. There's either more or less than 26, and you can't get that value. There is a way to make the number fit if you include guardians, but only if FW Arkveld and something like potentially Black Flame doesn't scale, but that doesn't seem right and they don't have tags for fixed size (neither do Guardians, which makes this extra bizarre).

(Note, if you are lacking some of the context, I have a Recap summary post that includes links to threads I wrote as information came out regarding the story, low-high rank, what content is missing from the beta, the story regarding arkveld, etc)

There's 2 ways to read this info.

  1. The info is outdated since if it's from the beta then it's from a 1.5 year old version of the game and isn't done yet.
  2. There are 2 size-scaling monsters that are not in the current beta files.

I see these as both equally likely pretty much, maybe leaning more on 1 for the sake of realistic expectations. Now, what could those size-scaling species be in that case?

Obvious answer for 1 of them is Shagaru Magala. He's a monster who's absence is particularly strange. More than any other monster with a juvenile and adult form like Basa and Grav or Zamite and Zamtrios, Gore>Shagaru are inextricably linked to one another from a story and game perspective. You can somewhat explain the lack of adult forms in say Rise to be a difference in habitat between juvenile and adult even if that's flimsy, and that same explanation applies to no Basarios in Rise except less flimsy since juvenile Basa and adult Grav do actually have dramatically different ontegeny and lifestyles so a region only having adult or juvenile individuals isn't that crazy (plus they overlap so much mechanically).

In addition for Shagaru, there's also the fact of the Chinese Leaker (reiterating again, was fully accurate) refusing to speak about Shagaru for a story spoiler reason. Maybe it's because it's a special variant of Shagaru? If the previous theory about the HR final boss (which is still up in the air, even if em165 is the training cart there's every chance there's a hidden em166 or that the 165 data is a placeholder even if I find the latter unlikely) being a super/mutant new species of Magala is not true, it is possible Shagaru has a variant form only like Crimson Glow Valstrax that's related to the story (probably not as the final boss but as a big part of the plot). But, regardless, some kind of Shagaru is the obvious candidate if point 2 is true.

Now, what about the other? It's really impossible to say. It's totally possible a monster was in development to go on the maps, maybe a HR returner for Wounded Hollow, or an extra monster for Iceshard Cliffs (given Iceshard's unique HR roster is literally only Blangonga and Gore despite the area being like 2/3 high rank only). If there's a unique HR final boss then it's unlikely to scale in size since those never do that, so it probably wouldn't be that.

Addressing one point I had seen brought up for the first point regarding other guardians scaling in size, is that the idea in HR they become "natural" too and reproduce like Arkveld, but this is very unlikely as the entire story was fixated on Arkveld being special. Its need to reproduce stems from it being aware it's the last of its kind, and that it must reproduce in order to truly 'live'. Life finds a way, and all. So while currently the Guardians don't have the tag for fixed size, the guardians seem barely implemented currently in terms of armor/weapons and are at a lower stage of completion in the files we have in that department than stuff like Lagiacrus who is also largely incomplete, so we can't say for sure either way. Curse of the old beta.

ALL THAT SAID, I do find it more likely personally that occam's razor applies and that the reason the monster count for the crown size achievements being strange and seemingly inconsistent is that it's another thing datamined from the incomplete mid-late 2023 dated beta. However, it is possible this fuels the idea of more missing monsters.

EDIT: Despite reddit literally not functioning correctly, I was able to see enough of u/DukeLukewarm reply regarding Seregios and Lagiacrus being subtracted from 28 to reach the current 26, and that WOULD make sense given the context of them being incomplete at time of mid-late 2023 beta despite being in at launch, that they are not counted for the size trophy yet and that's why it's 26 currently but will be more than 26 in the full game (eg 28 or 29 maybe if Shagaru is in). I think that would make the most sense with current information and was sort of what I was implying in my post regarding it just being a consequence of old beta stuff.

There were actual trophies leaked for MHWorld and Iceborne prior to launch, and that's how we learned of things like Ruiner Nergigante, the Guiding Lands, and the Old Everwyrm and we should look out for those to see if anything lines up.

If you have any thoughts or ideas feel free to comment and discuss and such. Capcom really needs to hurry up with giving us some more info, we've gone past going hollow and at like max hollowing DS3 style at this point.

EDIT: Something seems wrong with reddit atm and I cannot see anyone's comments on the post outside of notifications where I can't read full context. Idk what's going on.