What will increase my Hunter Rank?

Question

My current understanding is that Hunter Rank increases based on story progression for a while, and then at a certain point, it "unlocks", and will increase based on any quests.

I've found a few sites that describe it at a high level, but I'd love to specifically know how it progresses even based on the earlier story quests; my regular co-op pals are a little ahead of me, and I can't tell how many quests/expeditions/etc. it will take to rank up so I can join them on quests. Being able to see how many quests between certain ranks would help me gauge how much I need to accomplish before catching up.

EDIT @Vemonus's answer is helpful; however, I'm looking for what specific quests, expeditions, etc. even within the main story which will increase my rank. I understand that there is a cap of sorts, which keeps one from grinding and skipping through the story. I also understand that "Assigned" quests are the story quests, but I've found that not every story mission seems to increase my rank.

Answer 1

During the main story, your Hunter Rank is capped and only increases as you progress through the story. For the most part, each major quest (or group of quests) raises your Hunter Rank by 1, all the way through 15, once you defeat

Xeno'Jiiva.

After that point, all of the extra HR experience you'd accrued but hadn't been counted towards your actual HR is applied. For instance, when mine became unlocked, I jumped from 15 to 26 immediately. Hunting large monsters will further raise your Hunter Rank, with more difficult hunts granting more experience (low rank gives almost nothing, whereas high rank gives a decent amount). Multiple monster hunts seem to grant a lot of experience, as well, scaled with the number of monsters you hunted. For example, I completed the five-monster Event quest earlier this week and went from about a quarter of the way from 40 to 41 all the way to 41.

The major exceptions I can recall to this 1:1 rule were when multiple story quests were assigned to you simultaneously and you could do them in whatever order you wanted. For instance, when you get three quests to slay Kushala Daora, Teostra, and Vaal Hazak, none of them raise your HR for completing them.

However, it's not very important to know which quests raise your HR, because the Assigned quests work differently than quests in previous Monster Hunter iterations. In previous games, you were given generic quests, but only a small subset were required to progress through the game and the game did not explicitly tell you what they were. In World, to uncap your HR and complete the story, you must complete all of the Assigned quests, without exception.

Additionally, there are two other caps on your Hunter Rank that are removed once you beat the corresponding Assigned quest. You will have one at 29, which requires you to beat 2 tempered Bazelguese, and one at 49, which requires you to beat a tempered Kirin.

Answer 2

Every (yes, every) quest contributes to your hunter rank, but it is hidden until the ending, blocked by your nominate hunter rank locked by your story progress. Kiranico notes that even ☆1 assigned quests will award you hunter rank points upon completion.

Also, certain event quests are capable of boosting your hunter rank more than average. They are usually noted in the event quest schedule as "a good quest for raising your hunter rank" (and master rank, for Iceborne Master Rank quests) and also have special remarks in the quest description. For example, No Tomorrow for Usurpers, in which you face a tempered Bazelgeuse, grants you almost half a hunter rank worth of experience point. Although not explicitly noted, arch-tempered monster quests also seem to grant equivalent experience points to such hunter rank boost quests, so if you are used to arch-tempered level threats, you may also try such quests.

Aside from that, hunting tempered monsters of high threat level seem to contribute to the hunter rank more.

Note that if the subject quest is Master Rank the mechanism also applies for your master rank. Useful information to know, since the end contents of Iceborne is unlocked at higher master ranks than in World's hunter ranks.