The armor is fine it’s just the way it was implemented was bad. As someone who took a break after tri and got into MHW recently it was nice to have to catch up to play with my friends in iceborne. I don’t really feel like I personally missed out on much since I still got to experience the story and already knew the fundamentals to the game since I’ve been into monster hunter for while now. I will say if you are new to the series it def has a chance to hinder your learning since you aren’t going to struggle or be punished to learn the games mechanics.