Farmable Heavy Armor Ward Sets in New World

 Credit to the Reddit post embedded below outlining some farmable +Ward heavy armor sets in New World.  Enjoy!

Copies of the pictures from the post:

New World: A different option than changing gems between mutations

 Caught this video from BDLG on a different approach to mutations in New World that doesn't require you to swap out gems on all armor when the mutations rotate.  This approach saves thousands of gold and expedites swapping resistances (basically now just one click).  Watch the video or read below for the basics of the approach.  Hope you enjoy the tip!

 The basics of the approach:

• Cut Pristine Opal gems on all armor slots (increases all elemental resistances)
• Amulet with specific protection (nature, fire, etc) + a gem that matches that protection (amber for nature)
  
• In the video there is the example of Eyes in the Abyss named amulet which has Nature Protection and then you slot an amber gem; total nature protection is now ~27-28%.  

 For each mutation it is then as simple as swapping your amulet and leaving the opals in all the armor.  That is gold saved (not buying new gems each rotation) and time saved (not having to swap gems out).  Brilliant!

Note: another named amulet with protection mentioned in the video was Scorpion Stone.

New World Has A Problem

 New World has a problem.  This weekend is a free weekend for the game, but it doesn't seem anyone cares.  Based on player activity on nwdb.info and Steam charts, other than the highlighted "Free Weekend" note on Steam charts, you would not know anything was happening.  There is no discernible bump in player populations.  This was the case the last time a free weekend was tried.  Why is this the case?

 I think the main reason on the lack of interest for the free weekend was New World's massive success at launch when we saw a peak of 900,000+ concurrent players.  Most gamers that wanted to try the game bought it and tried it already.  As there is no subscription cost for the game players can return at any time "for free"; they don't need a free weekend.

 And what brings back players to New World?  New content.  Brimstone Sands and the fresh start servers were hockey stick charts for the game.  Players returned in droves, consumed the content, and now are settling back out to wherever the came from.  I am sure the next big content drop will see the same sort of bump and settle.  That is where resources need to focus; not free weekends.

 The question is what level of resources does the free weekend cost?  And what is the loss to other development efforts?  Nothing ever happens in the world of software development free of cost; there is always a trade off.  Only AGS can answer this so I don't want to dwell on it and I hope AGS is considering it when planning these events.

 At least with this free weekend they didn't create 70+ new servers (yes, they literally had 70+ dead servers for the last free event and none of the servers hit more than a small handful of players).  This free weekend players just play on the existing servers.

 What do you think?  Leave a comment.

My Twitch 2022 Recap (lulz)

 Twitch has their 2022 recap posted.  You can check yours out here. Here is my recap:

 I lulz over this because I'll be honest I had no idea who my third most watched streamer, Mukluk, was until I looked him up.  My guess is I watched him for a Guild Wars 2 drop which goes into why I even have 500+ hours watched on Twitch: drops.  That is basically the only reason I am there outside of dropping off my Amazon Prime sub to a streamer in need.  And let's be honest; I am not watching actively 99% of the time... it's buried in a muted browser tab somewhere.

 Also lulz is BagginsTV.  Not that I don't like him or that he is not a good streamer, but the only reason I think I have hours watched there is because his stream is embedded and auto-plays on the New World Database website.

 Anyways, like my Reddit recap, 2022 was the year of New World!  

 What does your recap look like? Drop a comment.

How I Reorganized My Storage in New World

 It's not quite spring, but my New World storage couldn't wait!  I worked on and off the last few days to devise a way to best organize my storage in a way that would make it easier to find what I was looking for.  The main target was to make my various piles of gear more easily accessible to fit into different slots in my build.  Below I've outlined my thought process and where I've landed.

Some data points I had in mind as I worked through this:

• There are 20 town storages available (three were added in Brimstone Sands)
• There are 13 weapons
• There are 3 armor weights (light/medium/heavy) with 5 pieces each; total of 15
  
• There are 3 accessory slots (amulet/ring/earring)
• You can own 3 houses
• A tier 4 house can have 4x storage chests

We'll start with the towns where I have houses.  After paying up for cursed storage chests and paying for a Tier 4 house I was able to jam all crafting materials (except cooking) into my Windsward storage.  I then used a second town where I had  a Tier 1 house for all cooking supplies and some misc gathering/crafting gear.  My third house is Tier 3 and is the town I do my trading post flipping in so it is off limits for this exercise as its regularly maxed out on weight.

 This left me with 17 town storages to sort gear into.  At first I went with putting all light gloves into one storage and down the line with each armor slot/weight getting its own town (15 total).  This actually turned out to be a little annoying so I collapsed all light armor into one town, all medium into another, and all heavy into another.  Less searching over all for gear pieces and you can sort storage by weight of each item to neatly organize gloves by gloves, etc because the slot all have the same weight (note: this is not true of weapons; some rapiers were heavier than others as an example).

 Next that left me with the 13 weapons.  For this I just put one weapon in each of the first 13 storage available.  The exception is sword and shield which are together (not sure I like this since there are three sizes of shields but leaving it for now).  This makes it easy to peruse my collection of weapons I'll never use but am too afraid to salvage because I might think about using them.

 I then put all accessories into a single storage.  That was a mess as visually it is impossible to figure out an earring vs an amulet.  Then I mixed them with armor, but they get mixed together in the armor section.  So I ended up putting rings, earrings, and amulets each in their own storage opposite a weapon.  This worked out very well.

 I was left then with two empty storage units which is useful for making bulk transfers.  A note as well is I keep all consumables in my active inventory (potions, food, buffs) so that does not require a separate storage.  I use one town for miscellaneous storage for things like extra recipes and piles of fishing bait I own for some unkown reason.

 In the end here is what storage looks like:

Town Storage	Category 1	Category 2
Brightwood	All Cooking	Crafting/Gathering Gear
Brimstone Sands	Blunderbuss	Light Armor
Cleave's Point	Bow	Medium Armor
Cutlass Keys	Firestaff	Heavy Armor
Eastburn	Greataxe	Ring
Ebonscale Reach	Trading Post
Everfall	Greatsword	Earring
First Light	Hatchet	Amulet
Last Stand	Ice Gauntlet
Monarch's Bluff	Life Staff
Mountainhome	Musket
Mountainrise	Rapier
Mourningdale	Sword and Shield
Reekwater	Spear
Restless Shore	Void Gauntlet
Taberna Mercatus	Warhammer
Valor Hold	Extra Recipes/Songs	Fishing Bait
Weaver's Fen	NOT USED
Wikala al-Waha	NOT USED
Windsward	All Crafting

 

Interesting Vampire Tank Build (New World)

Busy day so just going to share this interesting New World Vampire Tank build I saw on Reddit.  Enjoy!

An Issue With Skins

 I was thinking about skins in games and wanted to talk about one of the things that annoys me.

TF2 Silhouettes

 First I want to get nostalgic about Team Fortress 2.  One of the things that I felt the game got perfect (at least at launch, not sure about current state) was the visual feedback about what class a player was playing.  The heavy was very distinct compared to the scout who was distinct compared to the sniper/medic/etc.  Every class was visibly identifiable the moment you came across them unlike other FPS games of the time where it was very difficult to get a sense of your opponents capabilities at a glance.

 Fast forward to the modern age and the explosion of skins as a key revenue stream for online games and the one thing that annoys me about skins: skins obfuscate a characters role in the game.  For example I will use my current game of choice, New World, and how it uses skins.  

 Skins are available and can then be applied to any equipment slot for a player.  The problem is skins are not visually tied to armor weights so a heavy armor user can apply a skin that looks like light armor and vice versa a light armor user can dress up in heavy plate armor skins.  Most annoying is shield skins where players can use the skin for a small round shield while using a big ole' tower shield.  

 This means I lose out visually on clues about my opponent.  A character running around with a small round shield should be indicative of a light armor load.  If I jump in to attack them thinking that and end up hitting a wall because the player is actually a heavy armor tank with a tower shield (more damage reduction) it is a "feel bad" moment. And I will admit I've used to this my benefit by being that heavy tank with a round shield skin baiting in attackers thinking I was a light weight.

 Even though I've benefited from this skins situation it still annoys me.  Skins in games should not change the visual distinction needed for the game to give good feedback to the user.  In New World's case it is as simple as making skins require specific armor weight to apply (i.e. can't apply a round shield skin to a tower shield, can't apply a light armor skin to a heavy armor piece).

 So I plead with game developers: please don't sacrifice visual feedback to players during game play in the favor of giving more skins to players.  Please make skins as minimally impacting on playing the game as possible. 

 Thank you for listening to my rant.  Agree?  Disagree?  Leave some comments.

Cool Stuff in New World Update 1.8

 New World Update 1.8 has arrived and with it some cool stuff!  Full release notes here.

 First up is a return of the Winter Convergence festival.  Last year's festival was a resounding success; gleamite meteors shocking the MMORPG world and showing how open world content can surprise and delight players!  The meteors are back (along with the videos with "whoa this is cool" reactions).

 New this year with the festival is an open world boss; the Winter Warrior.  Similar to the Halloween event boss the Winter Warrior will appear in the open world and require a zerg of players to take down.  Initial reports are the fight is fun and has healers running for their lives.

 The update also brings a new mutated expedition that combines Starstone Barrows and Amrine.  It will be cool to revisit these two early game expeditions.  Most players likely gave Amrine a spin in their early teens of leveling but many have never stepped foot into Starstone Barrows as it is easy to leap frog leveling right past it.  Personally I've never done Starstone so looking forward to giving it a whirl.

 The most newsworthy part of the update is the shell company mitigation which will restrict how players can hop companies and how war rosters have to come together.  This should hopefully help reduce single companies, who were creating multiple shell companies, from dominating the map.  End goal is to get more players into war because more companies can participate.  This is a watch and see change, but on paper it makes sense to have the intended effect.

 I didn't get a chance to try the patch out yesterday, but will be jumping in today.  Are you out hunting meteor showers?  If so leave a comment!

 And oooohhh pretty!

New World Developers and the Community Face Off!

 Props to the New World development team for sitting down and taking some questions from the community in the most recent Forged in Aeternum.  They didn't shy away from the burning questions!  And they fleshed out more of what is coming next for the game.  First watch the video and then read on for my commentary.

 First I do really want to commend the team for sitting down and answering some of these questions; even taking a doozie up front at face value (i.e. reading it off as it was written).  The first questions of course were "what about PvPppppp!" and the lack of PvP focus on the road map which of course must mean the development team is all part time and something something.  Again, kudos for the team taking this on and discussing staffing of the teams (more developers than they had last year) and stating the obvious "we will deliver more than just the main items noted on the road map".

 The team also talked about a few PvP topics and specifically they are working on the territory influence process getting revamped.  Outpost Rush (OPR) was also discussed and the team shot down the idea of more maps coming to OPR.  The team doesn't want to divide the community between OPR maps, but the team does want to improve the current map so are looking to do just that with the cross-server OPR update that is on the road map. 

 I think this is the right approach for OPR and a new map would divide the players even further than they are today.  It is basically the same issue as having too many mutation levels for expeditions.  Fewer is better and in the case of OPR, as it requires 40 players, one is enough.  It is still my favorite game mode and I am no where near tired of the map.  The one thing I'd want is to fix the wide open spaces to give players more of a chance to navigate the map without getting musket sniped. Annnnnd that is my input on the community question that was posed (see screenshot)... basically keep OPR the great game mode it is with some improvements for traveling around.

 Also not on the roadmap but covered in the video was that expedition mutations will be
"squashed" from 10 levels into fewer.  They want to combine this with a grouping of changes for expeditions and mutations.

 Basically this was a polite "please be patient, we are doing a lot of good stuff" message in a community Q&A.  Ultimately the proof is in the pudding and aside from one minor item, Leaderboards, the team delivered above and beyond on the first year's roadmap.  Anyone looking at the past year of the game and saying the team is not delivering is just being  ignorant.  Keep up the great work AGS!

You won't believe whats coming next to New World! PvP players will be pissed!

 The New World December Dev update video is out and with it comes Roadmap 2.0.  You won't believe whats in it! Read on (or watch the embedded video) to find out and I'll also share some of my thoughts.

 First, apologies for the click-bait lead in but it was purposeful.  The first thing to note about the Roadmap 2.0 what was shared in the update is it is pretty much what was expected.  Nothing surprising or exciting.  It was a confirmation of "we are going to do what we said we were going to do".  Let's take a look at the Roadmap 2.0 as thats where I want to focus my thoughts.

 Unlike the first roadmap that covered an entire year this roadmap is only half a year.  I am good with that as it will give us something to look forward to later in the year.  Also doesn't commit the team to things that may or may not be relevant in a few months time.

 The first item on the roadmap that I want to shout "HELL YES!" about is the Spring 2023 "Gear Set Storage System".  This is the number one item on my list of features for this game.  I would do more content more often if it was easier to change out my gear.  While I have previously stated I was fine with "using a spreadsheet" that has worn on me; it still takes 10+ minutes to make the changes to other gear sets to swap to different content.  Thus I just stick in my PvP gear for the build-of-the-moment and then shrug my shoulders at the thought of not doing PvP content.  Yet I have half a dozen PvE sets ready to go for any sort of PvE content. 

 Spring 2023 also includes a new expedition.  I know this pissed of some PvP players to see another PvE expedition and no PvP-specific content, but I like it.  I really enjoy New World's expeditions.  The more the better.   I would have liked to see "and we will have cross server expeditions" as part of this road map but understand that is going to take time (note: they have said they are working towards it).  I play on a high population legacy server so getting groups is not really a problem.

 MSQ Improvements is also on the Spring 2023 portion of the road map.  Not excited about this at all.  I get why they are doing it since they revamped the level 1-25 portion, but as I wasn't too impressed by the new experience so I really don't think it merits more work.  Yet, for new players coming to the game it makes complete sense so I'll just say "OK" to it.

 In the Summer 2023 category of "HELL YES!" is the transmog system.  Having played Guild Wars 2 - aka Fashion Wars 2 - I look forward to besting enemies on the field of battle dressed as a chef.  Also there sounds like there will be a collection aspect to this so you can "check the box" on all the transmog skins you have collected.  I like making sure boxes are checked.

 Also in Summer 2023 are raid groups and the first "raid" (aka elite trial as they are calling it).  We will finally get to go beyond 5-player groups and also get to take on the giant sandworm that tremors around Brimstone Sands.  The worm will supposedly be the "hardest PvE content" they've delivered requiring maxed out gear and solid coordination.  That will probably limit how much I get into it because that's not really my thing in MMORPGs; I am the guy that likes to squash regular expeditions in my full 625 GS sets.  But I was also not a huge "dungeon" player before New World and yet I've found myself from time to time doing a lot of "dungeons" in New World  (at least more than I did in games like World of Warcraft).

 Then last but not least on the Summer 2023 hype train is Cross World Outpost Rush.  HELL YES!  HELL FREAKING YES!  I love OPR (Outpost Rush) more than any other game mode in New World.  Even on populated servers it doesn't always mean there are 40 interested players to get an OPR started.  Cross server will solve this and I suspect lay the ground work for future cross server content like expeditions.  Any PvP player complaining about this road map is not recognizing how key cross server OPR is to getting better PvP game play out of New World.  PvP players should be hanging their hats on this roadmap item!

 Speaking of PvP players one item NOT on this roadmap is ranked PvP arenas.  One would have thought that ranked PvP arenas would be right up there as "next" on the list of things to do but here we are and its not listed.  Does it mean it won't happen? No, they could fit it in under the "additional content with each release" disclaimer.  Personally I think it speaks to something about arenas: they just aren't where it is at for this game.  

 The game just doesn't shine in 3v3 arenas in my experience.  I play a ton of solo queue arenas but that is mostly because I play in small increments and can't wait out an OPR queue.  Once cross server OPR exists I probably won't do 3v3 arenas except to get my gypsum.  3v3 arenas are more often frustrating than rewarding; rare is the competitive match and "competitive" matches I've watched from the good 3v3 teams are long drawn out messes of who gets lucky enough first.  I will repeat it: competitive 3v3 arenas are NOT where its at for New World.

 To recap the roadmap: we are getting what Amazon Game Studios said we would be getting.  Mainly that was more expeditions, gear set management, transmog, and raids (elite trials).  This likely pisses off PvP players, but what doesn't piss those players off?  For the sometimes PvP and sometimes PvE players that make up the bulk of this game the road map is spot on.  Way to go AGS!

 What are your thoughts?  Share a comment.

A New World Tip and Happy Thanksgiving

 Happy Thanksgiving (to those that celebrate)!

 And a relevant New World tip.  Make sure you get your Feast-O-Plenty Food Trophy from the Turkey Terror event.  This buff is great and combined with the same buff on your bags can almost double your food buff duration!  Players have until Dec 6th to obtain this from the Turkey Terror event.

New World: Greatsword/Sword and Shield Build

 Under the weather today so just sharing a video guide for greatsword/sword and shield.  Looks like a fun build.

New World 300 STR and the Grit problem

 New World has five attributes: strength, dexterity, intelligence, focus, and constitution (STR, DEX, INT, FOC, and CON).  Investing 300 points into any one attribute unlocks a final bonus for that attribute.  In the case of 300 STR that is grit on all heavy and light attacks.  This is a problem; grit is strong and no other attribute's ultimate ability comes close to the grit provided by 300 STR.

 Grit is important in that it helps prevent a player from being staggered.  Normally grit is reserved for specific attacks or abilities and thus players can plan around those specific moments and what grit brings to that moment.  With grit on every light and heavy attack the nuance is gone and the power is obvious as the 300 STR attacker stays upright and doesn't suffer staggers that every other player has to either dodge or endure.  There is no trade off being at 300 STR.

 Compare 300 STR's grit passive to 300 FOC 300's.  FOC 300 grants faster mana regen when mana is down.  300 FOC bonus mana regen in a game where there are mana potions and mana regeneration potions you can quaff!  300 FOC has a pointless bonus.

 Now combine 300 STR's grit bonus and the fact it is a primary damage attribute and it gets even nuttier.  Any STR weapon player is going to want to get 300 STR for the damage; grit makes it a no brainer.  Throw in the Thwarting Strikes perk that gives +12% damage to attacks with grit and voila!  Top damage stat and one of the best passives in the game to help you stay upright to dish out that damage?  Sign me the freak up!

 Obviously I am ranting on the 300 STR passive for grit but anyone that knows the weapons and builds I like to play knows that I abuse that 300 STR.  In fact I've played with it so much that when I swap to any other build that is not 300 STR I feel like I am playing an entirely different game as I am stuttered across the battlefield.  Grit just unlocks "smash left click" mode and without it the player has a little more thinking to do.

 The question is: does grit on all attacks make sense anywhere?  Actually it does: for tanks.  Tanks need to stay up right and out of stagger to do their job.  Grit on attacks being tied to 300 STR means tanks are almost exclusively going 300 STR.  Ideally tanks would be encouraged to go 300 CON. Some tanks do because the hit points are nice and for PvP the 300 CON passive that increase duration of roots/slows/stuns can be helpful (though no where near grit on all attacks), but giving up grit on all attacks means as a tank you spend a lot of time not doing your job in PvE and PvP.

 Is there fixes to the situation?  Yes; two jump right to mind.

 The first change that could be made is to tie grit on all attacks to 300 CON.  CON is not a damage skill so it makes sense that it could gain an advantage in attacking by giving 300 CON players grit on their attacks.  It fits right into tanking where this sort of benefit is a great synergy without dipping into the "it's just broken" category. 

 The second approach to take is to give grit on all attacks to heavy armor users.  It makes thematic sense and mechanical sense.  Heavy armor is penalized a huge loss in damage (30%) and gets a much worse dodge.  It would make sense to reward heavy armor with the ability to not get smacked around easily.  Other than PvE tanking heavy armor doesn't have much of a clear role.  Giving it grit on all attacks would give it an immediate role.  

 The only issue with grit on all attacks being moved to heavy armor is this bridges top damage attributes with grit on all attacks (heavy armor + 300 STR) so just shifts the problem somewhere else.  That is why I think the first proposal makes so much sense.  In fact if I was sitting in a development meeting about balance that would be the first thing I'd question.

 Hopefully AGS is listening because this conversation is on repeat in the community and most recently exasperated by the popularity of the greatsword which is a top target for 300 STR.  Knowing that AGS wants to both improve heavy armor and melee in PvP I am hopeful addressing the 300 STR grit issue will be top of mind.  Until it's addressed I will just keep on using it because without it this is an entirely different and clunkier game.

 

New World: Obtaining Motherwell Wisher's Coin

 I have used Sword/Shield for the majority of my time playing New World.  I leveled up as Sword/Shield and Firestaff.  I spent a long haul playing Sword/Shield + Hatchet when leaping strike + shield bash was the king combo build.  I have most recently done a bunch of tanking in PvP and a bit in PvE using Sword/Shield.  So it came much to my surprise to learn there was a round shield, Motherwell Wisher's Coin, that had the Rogue perk (increases backstab damage).  More curious was what was required to farm for it!

 The shield drops from Well Guardian inside of the Motherwell.  Players that played at launch may remember the original version of Well Guardian tied to the main story quest line and it's millions of hit points creating an excessively long and exhausting fight (which meant players just exploited terrain to spank it to death).  Well Guardian was brought down to normal hit point levels appropriate to its position in the quest chain.

 Well Guardian also features some named item drops which now always are a minimum of 590. As mentioned one of those drops is the round shield with the rogue perk.  The only problem now though is that players cannot enter the Motherwell after having completed the quest.  In comes the creative players who always seem to find a way around these sorts of inconveniences.

 Through some creative jumping and crawling a player can make it back into the Motherwell and farm Well Guardian.  If interested you can follow this guide on Youtube.  Then it's just down to farming Well Guardian over and over and over and over (as is MMO tradition!).  I would recommend bringing Blight Tinctures with you as you will get blighted (damage over time and healing effects significantly reduced) and while Well Guardian is a shadow of his former self he still can smack around a level 60 (got me one time).  Some spots on the rock wall will save you from blight but best to just bring tinctures (I bought a stack of 100x powerful tinctures for a few hundred gold).

As a note I had +luck on my bags (x3), no luck on my armor/weapons, and 3x major loot trophies in my house.

 Fifty or so kills later and voila!

Well guardian also drops these named items (I got several of each before I got the shield):

• Greatsword: Sword of the Defender
• Rapier: Motherwell Wisher's Wand
   

Turkey Terror in New World

 New World's annual Turkey Terror event kicked off this morning.  A giant turkey, new rewards, and more await players throughout Aeternum.  The team shared a neat event video via Elon Musk's new toy.

The authorities uncovered this found footage in the forests of Aeternum.

The details of this case was never disclosed to the public.

Discretion is advised. pic.twitter.com/SQ2SNik97A

— New World (@playnewworld) November 15, 2022

 I journeyed out and slayed my daily quota of turkey.  I found it interesting that there are weapon coatings that do extra damage to Turkulon (the giant monster turkey) instead of just giving us a use for all the "beast" related items (coatings, ward, bane).  The boss turkey is also not a challenging fight so not sure why players would need the extra damage from the turkey coatings.  

 As far as rewards there is a new armor skin for your boots that replaces your feet with turkey feet.  I absolutely love this skin (see image at right).

 Also available is a turkey-specific skinning knife which gives event items when you skin regular turkeys such as the the aforementioned turkey-specific weapon coatings and also is the current way to get your daily diamond gypsum.  

 Probably most important though is the Feast-o-Plenty Food Trophy that increase food buff duration.  A trophy obtained from the mighty Turkulon, Feathered Avenger of Death. It inspires you when you eat a meal.  Only works when placed in your home.  Grants +25% Food Buff Time when you eat beneficial food.  I have yet to unlock the trophy but it is definitely a reward worth working towards!  It also looks like you can only gain one copy of the trophy during the event so no stacking to 75% through 3x trophies.

 There is also the giant turkey legs and the recipe that goes with them to create +Luck/Con food.  The big change though is everyone that contributes to the giant turkey kill gets a leg compared to last year where only the person that skinned the turkey got a leg.  Legs and this +Luck food will be a hot commodity!

 Most refreshing is there is a pity system so if you don't get a specific reward you will be guaranteed to get it on your 16th Turkulon kill.  It took me about an hour to get five kills in today and that was mostly just waiting for spawns while I did other daily tasks.

 Over all the event is light weight and fun.  The Turkulon fight seems either bugged or it is undertuned (i.e. its easy).  Players who want the rewards will be able to get them and still enjoy other parts of the game.  Another great event in the bag for New World!

 Fighting Turkulon and have different opinions of the fight?  Think the rewards are dumb?  Maybe brilliant?  Let me know in the comments.

New World PTR Gold Acquisition Nerfs

 Pew. Pew. Pew. New World is nerfing individual gold gain in the latest PTR update.  As it's a bit buried in the thread here is a full copy of the text:

In this PTR update, we added a few economic changes which help maintain a healthy balance between coin going in and out of the economy.

We’ve seen significant increases in coin generation from economy updates in our July and October updates. With many returning players impacting our world economies, we see a need to get the balance of coin generation and breadth of rewarding activities back to healthy balance. Specifically we are reducing coins earned from Lost Sack of Coins to 250 per bag, and returning Trade Post tax to 5%, the standard in player driven marketplaces in
MMOs.

We removed Lost Sack of Coins from elite chests as the chests are very rewarding on their own now, and have chosen to make Darkness Breaches the only source for players to get Lost Sacks of coin and removed them from all chest drop tables. Tuning of the economy is ongoing in New World, and we’ll make adjustments as needed to ensure balance for long term health.

We are also correcting a trend where we’ve seen a supply outpacing demand for T5 Iron Hide, making it less valuable than other tiers of hide due to it’s excessive availability. We will be cutting the quantity per Iron hide drop by ~50%. As always we are continuing to heavily monitor the economy and will continue to work towards continually improving it and keeping it healthy!

1. Reduced coin in Lost Sack of Coins to 250 per bag down from 500.
2. Lost Sacks of Coins no longer drop from any chests. They now only come from Darkness Breaches.
3. Increased tradepost tax to 5.0% from 2.5%
4. Reducing T5 hide drops by roughly 50%

 First, I want to commend Amazon Game Studios (AGS) on the transparency in the change.  These are the sort of changes that can sneak into test servers and create chaos if not "announced" by the developers.  AGS is out front on this one letting players know and explaining the why behind the changes.

 I like the changes over all even though it will hit my wallet hard (I make the majority of my money on the trading post).  Inflation (and deflation) was getting a bit out of hand lately on the legacy servers (not sure how its going on fresh start servers).  Anything that helps drive gold out of the game is a good move at this point.

 With that said this is going to be a hard one to swallow as a community because we still have the Windsward/Everfall-owning companies netting millions of gold a month.  As long as these mega-rich companies exist then the top end items we are all chasing are still going to be out of reach for the average folk but laughably NOT out of reach for the rich folk (seriously 300k is no different to 500k for a best-in-slot item for the richie riches).  Nerfing individual player gold rates isn't going to change that top end problem but will put players further behind getting there as we have to spend more to just exist in the game day over day.

 Is there a solution to this problem that doesn't upset the community?  Probably not.  It's needed change to fight inflation which erodes the economic foundation, but its going to cause debate in the community and put the have-nots even further against the companies-that-have-everything.  Sure there are recent changes that affected the bottom line for companies, but it also brought up other companies into the ranks of "making more gold than a company really needs".  

 Really the only change that will change this is to get rid of gold as a reward for territory control or spread the gold reward out to the entire faction. As long as the tax money funnels into a single company it will continue to cause problems for this game and drive changes to nerf individual gold acquisition.  Seriously if they just caused tax gold to disappear millions of gold would just poof out of existence.  

 In it's place could be some alternate form of currency specific to upgrading towns and forts or maybe, and I know this is crazy, something that benefits the entire faction.  Maybe I'm just crazy factions should have more of a purpose and reward for being in them?

 Anyways; pew pew pew to your money bags.  What are your thoughts?

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 7: Greatsword Part 2 )

For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword 
• Part 5: Nightveil Hallow 
• Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience

Part 7 (maybe 4.5): Greatsword Part 2 - read on!

 In my first impressions post about the greatsword I mentioned I had not yet played with it. Well that has changed and I am here to tell you all about it.  I grabbed one off the market and hit the weapon experience grind spots to make it to weapon level 20.  Then I took it into some PvP.  Holy **** this weapon is good!

 The greatsword feels better than any weapon I've used in New World.  The hit tracking and mix of capabilities it brings are phenomenal.  Its flexability between defensive and offensive capability is unrivaled.  I now want every weapon to feel as good as greatsword does.

 I want to key in on the hit tracking for the weapon; sometimes called homing or seeking.  New World has an action oriented combat system so players hit where they are aiming.  This is fine and good with ranged weapons, but it is problematic for melee attacks, especially in PvP, so to compensate the game helps melee attacks cheat a little bit by locking onto their target.  Greatsword seems on another level as far as its tracking and was much easier to ensure hits with.  Combined with some great mobility skills and I was slaying enemies left and right.

 Another key that makes greatsword great is the area of effect of the light and heavy attacks.  The attacks swing far and wide and have superior reach compared to other weapons.  Where with a warhammer I can rarely hit a target right in front of me I have NO ISSUE hitting with greatsword. I also understand why I've been getting wrecked in PvP by greatsword; it literally doesn't seem to be able to miss!

Watch out - greatsword coming at ya!

 Contributing to the "don't miss" is also the greatsword abilities, at least from the Onslaught tree, is that the player has agency over all parts of the attack.  For example there is Cross Cut which is a three-part attack.  Instead of being locked into an animation that goes in one direction I can twirl and twist my camera and character around to ensure the three attacks land on target.  There are also other attacks where bonus attacks can be triggered mid animation.  It feels so good compared to weapons like warhammer where you have zero control once that animation starts and your opponent can literally just "walk away" from the attack in PvP to avoid it.

 I am in love with the greatsword now and rapidly building towards a medium bruiser build with great axe.  Even without gear or experience I was instantly wrecking players in PvP and that was just taking my frontline tank build and swapping in a greatsword fully specced in onslaught.  With heavy armor you often feel so underpowered for damage but greatsword makes up for so much of that its crazy.  And I've seen the defensive tank build with greatsword and the defensive skill tree; literal unkillable turtles.

 Greatsword: 12/10!  Note: I fully expect a nerf as this is crazy strong and explains why every 3v3 arena, OPR, and open world encounter seems to heavily feature greatswords.

 Have you tried greatsword?  Agree/disagree?  Leave a comment.

 

 

 

"This build. Has. It. All." and Melee Sucks! (New World: Greatsword/Great Axe Build)

 Don't have much for today so just going to highlight a greatsword/great axe build I saw on YouTube (snarky comments about melee sucking included!).  Based on my experience getting wrecked by greatsword players in PvP this definitely seems like a legit "has it all" build to quote the video's creator.

Enjoy!

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword 
• Part 5: Nightveil Hallow

Part 6: Revamped Starting Experience - read on!

 With the Brimstone Sands update there was also a massive change to the new player experience and the level 1-25 quest and related storyline.  This also includes big changes to zones and some towns.  Big visual changes are also part of the package.  While I have not done much of the new experience I do have some thoughts from the part that I have done.

 First the biggest part that jumps out is the visual changes to towns like Monarch's Bluff.  Gone is the rickety fishing village vibe replaced by a castle worthy of King Arthur.  While its a shock initially the feeling wears off quickly once you realize, for the most part, the layout and structure is the same.  It is also wore on me as far as theme as it does not feel like the New World I know and love.  I wouldn't say it takes away but I actually liked the fishing village vibe.  For new players this is likely not an issue as the general feedback from many new players is "I love it!".

 There are also other big visual points of interest in the revamped new player experience up through level 25.  The "castle worthy of King Arthur" is a recurring theme here as players run across massive castles everywhere. Visually stunning when viewed from afar but again, for the New World OG like myself, it just feels out of place when we still have literal "slapped together boards" towns like Reekwater.  

Castle; pretty!

 Fortunately the new points of interest are explored on the back of new and interesting quests.  There is still the "loot X chests" quests, but there is a variety of new quest experiences to go with them.  There are escort quests, go blow stuff up quests, dodge under the lasers quests, and plenty of interesting find and kill things quests.  This carries through level 25 before going back to the originaly-release-experience to level 60.

 I will give credit to the team for the new quest designs and experience up to level 25 but players will be in for a culture shock as they get to end game and are back to the "loot chests" loops.  Personally I have no problem with the "loot chests".  The chests are really just a driver from point A to B and where New World has always won me over is all the stuff that happens between A and B; especially if you are PvP flagged.

 In conclusion: 5/10 on the revamped experience; at least for this New World OG.  I can understand other players returning to the game for fresh start, who were expecting a different experience, heaping praise on the changes.  For me though it is a skin on top of what existed and a skin that feels misplaced.  Once the full experience is put together from 1-60 I will re-evaluate.

 Have you tried the revamp?  Playing on a fresh start server?  Leave a comment or ten.

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 5: Nightveil Hallow)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition 
• Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems 
• Part 4: Greatsword

Part 5: Nightveil Hallow - read on!

 A little untimely as the event is over, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the Nightveil Hallow event that was part of the Brimstone Sands update.  Nightveil Hallow was New World's Halloween Event and it brought bubbling cauldrons and an open world boss to fight.

Bubbly!

 The first noticeable part of the event were the large bubbling cauldrons in each town; visually stunning and thematic!  Next to the cauldrons was an event vendor and quest giver.  One of the changes I liked with this event was that there were only two reputation levels and players could quickly get to the second level just by completing the questline.  This meant all reward levels were available to players without any grinding required which was very nice considering the massive amount of other new content that was also available at the same time (new zone, new expedition, new weapon, etc).

 To get tokens for the event players were tasked with defeating Baalphazu and his cast of minions.  Baalphazu was an open world boss fight that takes a large number of players to defeat as not only are you fighting Baalphazu but also his never ending waves of creatures.  A good number of tokens were rewarded for each kill and combined with ease of access to reward tiers it meant with some part time effort players could get the rewards they wanted from the event.  This was a big win compared to other events that required constant daily grinding to get the best rewards.

 The fight had a few unique mechanics; mainly throwing pumpkins at him to break his defense down so players could take down his life (if the defense bar was not depleted via pumpkin tossing he had greatly increased damage reduction).  Creepy crawly pumpkin headed enemies would spawn and once killed dropped the pumpkins that players could pick up and chuck.  Baalphazu also featured a few tricks with a pull and bomb mechanic followed by cascading damage waves.  There is nothing like seeing 50+ players all of a sudden get sucked in and then wiped out!

 Since the fight was open world and lots of players were interested in killing Baalphazu the fight was never much of a challenge and just a question of "how long".  While there were the mechanics with waves of spawning minions and the pull-everyone-in-and-bomb-them there was always enough players left alive or coming back (since you could create a camp right next to the boss spawn) to keep the fight going.  

 I'd of preferred seeing some sort of cooldown for players killed before they could rejoin the fight.  I don't necessarily want special events to be  "hard" but I'd prefer if more of these types of open world fights didn't boil down to throwing a zerg at it and have a camp located right next to the event boss.  Same goes for Elite points of interest in the open world; they just favor zergs and camping right next for fast respawn.  A little more challenge is all I am asking for to encourage players to pay more attention.

 Over all I enjoyed the event.  It didn't ask me for a lot of my time and gave me some cool skins and an awesome house pet I stop by daily to water in my house (yes, you literally can water your pumpklin buddy - see video embedded below). Rating: 8/10