Day 3: Rise of the Angry Earth (Taking it easy)

Read about all of my Rise of the Angry Earth experiences here.

 Rise of the Angry Earth is approaching its first full week in New World, but I'm only on my third day of my adventure in the Elysian Wilds thanks to a full-day internet outage, offsite work meetups, and then getting sick.  With real life intruding, and my pre-expansion burn out, I've taken a step back and realized there is no need to rush.  It is better to take it easy at this point.

 The first major reason for taking it is easy is that I missed out on some of the gravy train of early "not exactly as intended" features of the expansion.  The main was the story-mode expeditions dropping loot up to 700 GS.  A few players I know were able to spam these expeditions and are 680+ gear score already and since story-mode is a nerfed regular mode there was literally no challenge involved.  Now regular (aka story-mode) expeditions only drop up to 670 GS.  As they say in MMORPGs: "abuse early, abuse often".

 I am not too upset about missing out as I am getting plenty of 670+ GS drops from other methods and I also have a couple artifacts now which are always 700 GS.  I have no problem taking it slow and being deliberate about my gear upgrades.  Also I am finding with my prior 625 gear set that I am capable of holding my own.  I am winning PvP arenas and PvP fights and just tanked a story-mode expedition with it.

 Speaking of tanking an expedition I got the chance to try the new Savage Divide expedition via it's story-mode.  It is a beast-themed expedition with apes, mammoths, and some other beasts.  AGS made it so the story-mode was very low barrier to entry and my group had no issue clearing the expedition; even after locking out one of our DPS on the last boss.  A little disappointing that it was this easy but I can see how in mutations this will be a much harder expedition.

Look who greeted us on the other side of the door!

 Jumping out of expeditions I also got to try the new influence race for territory control.  This was a ton of fun with hundreds of players fighting over a single control point in Monarch's Bluff.  Most amazing was my performance was really good.  I think my graphics upgrade to a Radeon 7800XT is mostly responsible, but still hats off to the team at AGS for making a massive open world PvP fight with hundreds of players something playable.  Rewards were great as well; lots of gear drops, faction tokens, and PvP experience/salt.

Open world PvP fight during an influence race

 While I had fun in this race I do have a few areas of feedback

• Tents need to be disabled during influence races or at a minimum block them around the control points.  You can place tents within spitting distance of the new control points which means any "victory" with pushing players out of the control point is short lived as they re-spawn literally in the middle of the fight.
• The races are popular right now but how long will that last? Will players come back over and over?  The root content is fighting other players vs engaging with the new objectives.  What I've seen so far is one objective becomes the main hub of the fight and the rest are relegated to watching the paint dry unfortunately.
• Players not playing now and farming the hundreds/thousands of players being killed are missing out - the bulk of rewards are oddly tied to number of players that show up and get killed vs the reward at the end of the race.  In the future if you just get a few kills per race because it's not as popular it will be a lot less beneficial as it is today.
• It's a bit irritating to go and pick up loot bags in the mass of zergs.  Lots of loot bags were missed because you can't go out and collect them.

Anyways; back to playing it easy :)  Enjoy some other screenshots from my adventures!

 

After defeating Medusa in the soul trial

The expansion visuals continue to stun

This Minotaur guy is my favorite (though I don't pay any attention to his quest text)

Jumping puzzle?

A big chain.

Charts! New World continues to rise (in more way than one!)

 Click-bait title aside - just a quick drop in here on a Sunday to capture New World's peak player numbers over the first weekend of it's expansion: Rise of the Angry Earth.  We've seen a 22,000+ peak concurrent player increase!

Over 77,000!

 Also on the rise is player cap per server; now up to and testing 3,000 players per server!  AGS confirmed it is for testing so we'll see if it becomes a long term solution to the feast and famine player spikes New World continues to see.

3,00 players per server in testing!

Day 2: Rise of the Angry Earth (Level 65, Featherweight, and more!)

Read about all of my Rise of the Angry Earth experiences here.

 After taking a day offline due to a Spectrum outage I returned to New World's expansion: Rise of the Angry Earth.  We marked a few accomplishments.

 Ding! Level 65!  I missed the screenshot to capture the moment which is not surprising as it flew past.  I don't really understand why they added the levels if they were going to be so easy to achieve.  I don't want a big long grind, but this was just pointless number inflation and now I'm right back where I was at level 60 with a map full of quest icons that are mostly meaningless as the XP gained from completing them goes into a blackhole.  I'd recommend AGS look at the mastery system from Guild Wars 2 as a way to make general XP worthwhile after max level.

 Next I snagged my first artifact: Featherweight!  This dropped for me on the first kill of the named open world boss that drops it.  I feel sorry for folks farming this for hours on end, but hey sometimes you just get lucky.

 

 For those following along this means I am now in the Elysian Wilds zone playing through the expansion's storyline.  It is moving along quickly and I am not hitting some of the slowdowns that other players faced with the crush of players on launch day.  Quests that can only be completed one player at a time were open to me with no waiting lines.  In general I am enjoying the zone (screenshots below), but the story is click through material (i.e. boring).  One part I do like is the Angry Earth chick talking to me; the audio is great and really feels like it is inside my head!

 Check out some of my screenshots from Day 2!

Into the Elysian Wilds we go!

 

A cool hideout in old First Light; the story could of done more with this location.

A tower off in the distance I need to check out still.

Still burning stuff with the flamethrower!

Day 1: Rise of the Angry Earth

Read about all of my Rise of the Angry Earth experiences here.

 Day 1 for New World's first expansion was 10/3 but for me my first steps were on 10/4 and really today 10/5 for the full plunge.  So what did I do with my first day?

 First I started out by salvaging stuff that was clogging up my inventory and town storage in key towns.  I have a long, long way to go on salvaging all my 625 and below gear, but I got through salvaging all the perk mods, umbral shards, and other items that were deprecated.  I am now over 1,000 dark matter, made 10,000+ gold, and have thousands of attribute perk mods.

 

Look at all them attribute perk mods!

 Next I hit the trading post and started posting my horde of items I bought to flip.  I am NOT sharing my secrets but lets just say it is going well and I am closing in on 200,000+ gold!  The one dud I will share is golden scarabs and I'm glad I didn't overinvest here.  They are NOT going up in price; they are cratering! 

 A few other progress notes:

• Refining skills are all over 205
• Gathering skills are over 205
• Level is 64 (just from doing mount quests and a ton of refining)
• 50% done with the new faction tier
  

 I also made my way through the mount questline up to unlocking my wolf mount.  I am taking a break there and headed towards the new Edengrove settlement to start the quest line to enter the new Elysian Wilds zone.  Note: I tried to go directly to the Elysian Wilds and failed to read the prompt that you will be killed by the spores if you don't do the questline.

 I ended with this screenshot outside of Edengrove.  Check back in for more fun in the following days!

New Edengrove!

Charts! Successful launch for Rise of the Angry Earth

 Rise of the Angry Earth launched yesterday and minus some server queues it seems like it is a resounding success.  Some charts to go with it!

 First we have active players on Steam DB showing a peak concurrent player count of 55,000+ players.  This is short of what we saw with Brimstone Sands, but still a solid uptick in players.

 Secondly we have the Steam's Top Sellers with New World and Rise of the Angry Earth at spot 2 and 3 respectively with only Counter Strike 2 ahead of it at 1.  This is a good sign of both returning players and new players picking the game up.

 Both of these tell a good story for New World and it's first expansion.

Launch day! Rise of the Angry Earth

 Today is the day!  New World's first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, launches at 12 noon eastern!  Downtime starts at 9 AM.  I won't be able to join the fun today so will see everyone online later this week.

Final Prep: Rise of the Angry Earth

 New World's first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, launches tomorrow 10/3 at 12 noon ET!  There will be lengthy downtime ahead of the launch and players will need to re-download the entire game.  This leaves today as our final prep day before the expansion!

 For anyone interested in my larger plans; I documented that here: New World Rise of the Angry Earth Preperation Checklist .  This post will be more about; did I get it my prep done and are there any final adjustments to make?

 The big answer is: no.  No, I did not get my prep done.  Real life is busy and I ended up camping and fishing this weekend with friends so I'll be rolling into the expansion with little in the way of raw materials and completed quests.

 So what adjustments am I making because of this?  None.  I am going to just enjoy the game and play at my own pace as I have always done.  My original prep list was all about getting stuff done fast to be on the cutting edge and I should have known that wasn't going to happen.  That is not my style.  

 I am still a completionist so getting all my crafting and refining skills to 250 will be a goal.  Getting faction levels and to 65 will be a goal.  Getting my mount and getting that leveled up will be a goal.  I will just take it all at my own pace.

 And my pace is going to be behind the curve because I won't be available for the launch due to work.  I will maybe get to log in late on 10/3 but won't have time until 10/4 and realistically 10/5 is when I'll get a good chunk of play time.  I am hoping this means I miss out on launch day headaches but get in on some of the launch-related shenanigans.

 What are your plans for launch?

New World: Eggs For Breakfast

 Mmm... tasty eggs for breakfast this morning in New World.  The screenshot is from the Siege of Sulfur event.

New World Expansion Disappointing?

 There are rumblings in the New World community that the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion and Season 3 changes will ultimately be disappointing for players.  Videos such as the one below from DukeSloth are contributing to the concerns.

 I don't want to get lost in DukeSloth's specific feedback (my comments are on the video if you are interested), but wanted to hit the high (low?) points I'm seeing across the community.

 We've waited a long time for the territory control rework and what we've gotten is a few new "basic" control points in each zone and time-locked windows (sucks to be you if you can't play during those times) to push influence to declare war.  The current system is boring and the new system, other than encouraging players to be in the same zone, still seems like a lot of running from A to B instead of encouraging PvP combat.  The "basic" control points are a far cry from what most imagined when "control towers" were announced.

 Territory control: possible disappointment.

 The expansion is adding one new zone which I've covered before.  The zone is smaller than other end game zones we've seen such as Brimstone Sands.  The main quest line on PTR only took a couple hours to work through.  There is only one new expedition.  Over all there is not a lot of content to go with this "expansion" which is not what many players are used to when an MMORPG says it is launching an "expansion".

 Expansion size and scope: possible disappointment.

 Crafting rework is promising but not promising.  Players can now craft specific best-in-slot gear but it will require a pile of time-gated materials so will take time and effort to craft.  However, all the crafts were raised to 250 (from 200) but only some gained the new crafting targets so it feels like grind added for no other reason than to grind to 250.

 Expansion crafting changes: possible disappointment (but also HYPE).

 Heartrunes upgrade to 700 GS now but require a ton of investment to upgrade.  It is not clear why this was added.  Heartrunes are a defining ability for players and gating players away from one of the few abilities they have in the game seems like an odd choice.  I didn't even realize this was a thing until I watched the DukeSloth video I linked.

 Expansion heartrune upgrades: possible disappointment.

 Stuff is just going to be silly and probably broken with all the changes.  Artifacts will lead to broken builds. Certain perk combinations feel really strong at first glance.  Whatever ends up being broken will probably be the flavor of the day and players are going to complain until the balance patches hit.  Current New World is in a good spot for balance (from my view anyways) so for some players going into a wild west period of builds will be frustrating.  Personally I find this time period fun; I like trying different builds!

 Silly broken builds: possible disappointment.

 Over all I am not worried in the slightest.  I love New World and will love it with all the changes even of some miss the mark or are underwhelming.  There are things I know for a fact that will just be better: the gear system is better, mounts are going to be awesome, and I am going to get to try all sorts of new things out with builds because of artifacts.  I agree that it doesn't feel "big" for an expansion but I didn't need it to be.  I am fine with just getting a bunch of new stuff to chew on.

New World Rise of the Angry Earth Preperation Checklist

 With the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion barreling towards New World players on October 3rd I figured it was time to share my checklist of items I am doing to prep for expansion.

 A few key items to keep in mind:

• Gear score max will change from 625 to 700; current 625 (and below) gear will become obsolete
• Note: save it to salvage after the patch
  
• Max level will be increasing from 60 to 65
• A new faction tier will be available with new faction store rewards
  
• Refining and crafting max level increases from 200 to 250
• There is a new set of time-gated refining materials

On with my "New World Rise of the Angry Earth Checklist" (more detailed comments below)

• Bank 10,000 of all raw materials (see below for full list) so that I can power through refining to 250
• Then will use this to work on crafting, but I have no plans on
  
• Bank 30 completed faction quests so that I can level up to the new faction tier
• Faction tokens around 100k (max is 150k, but you need room to get your rewards turning in your banked faction quests)
• Bank some completed town boards so that I can turn them in for level 60-65 progress
  
• PvP salt saved up (I am at 80k)
• PvP track ready to complete
• Do the "Siege of Sulfur" event for named items
  

Raw Materials

With the refining skills increasing to 250 and a new set of time-gated materials becoming available it will be important to get to 250 refining as soon as possible so you can start refining the cooldown materials.  So I am working through banking a large amount of the following raw materials:

• Weaving
  
• Fibers
• Silk Threads
• Wirefiber
• Logging
  
• Green Wood
• Aged Wood
• Wyrdwood
• Ironwood
• Mining
  
• Iron Ore
  
• Starmetal Ore
  
• Orichalcum ore
• Note: I don't pass up Silver, Gold, or Platinum but I am not banking them
• Leatherworking
• Rawhide
• Thick Hide
• Iron Hide

There are folks that have done the math for how much of each is needed to get to 250 but I'm just using a generic "10,000 of each" farming target.

Note: you can then funnel these refined materials into cooldown mats or pushing crafting levels. Or just sell for gold as the market will likely be elevated for a while by folks just buying their way ahead.

Faction Quests and Tokens

You can have a max of 30 faction quests  and since there is a new faction tier to level up with the expansion any completed, but not turned in, faction quests will net you experience towards that level.  I am going to try and get 30 completed and ready to go for day one; at minimum as many as possible in the towns I own houses in.

As a note I am also banking about 100,000 faction tokens to buy new faction shop items. The cap is 150,000; so a 50k buffer for all the faction quests I will be turning in.

Town Boards

With the level increase to 65 it will be possible to get a jump start by having town boards completed but not turned in.  Many of the town board items are very simple; just need to have a few items stashed in storage or craft something.  I am avoiding the "go kill X or collect X" town boards.

PvP salt and track 

The PvP tracks will be a key source for end game gear and it is possible to see 700 GS rewards on the track on day 1.  These rewards will cost a good amount of azoth salt (20,000 if it follows current reward cost).

You can also "store up" a completed PvP track.  Important to note that this will stop new PvP XP gain so time this for right before you log off the day before.  The theory here is two things:

• If the current track has Umbral Shards as a reward choice that will change to Dark Matter post patch; so leave the shards unselected and hope for the dark matter to select post patch
  
• Since you are completing the track once you login you will get an immediate fresh track with new rewards on the new GS scale up to 700; if enough PvP XP rolled over you may get to pick one right away
   

Siege of Sulfur

The current event, Siege of Sulfur, was extended due to bugs so is still active.  This event spits out current 590 GS named items which will upgrade to 625 with the expansion.  They then can possibly salvage into Dark Matter.  This event is worth doing.

Pre-Expansion Burn Out

 I am so excited for New World's first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, that I've burned myself out.  I am still playing and doing stuff, but I have no real drive for anything specific.  It's also hitting my desire to blog about it as well; I didn't even post yesterday!

 So I'll be over here chilling in the meantime and will find some other stuff to blog about; like complaining about Starfield.

New World Player Numbers

 New World is enjoying a resurgence in player interest as The Rise of the Angry Earth expansion nears.  We are still 2.5 weeks out from the 10/3 launch but up go the Steam charts!

Big changes to New World PTR for Season 3 + Expansion

 DukeSloth has a good video out today on changes coming to the New World PTR for the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion and season 3.

My summary of changes:

• Regeneration Serum is removed; it was too strong
• PvP artifacts won't be locked to 100+ level so don't stress about not being at 100+
• Artifacts on the free season pass track will be available as world drops later on; still worth getting on the free season 3 track vs farming later.  No artifacts on the paid track.
• Magnify will now show when you are setting attributes; not after you set them so you know exactly what attribute it is applying to
• Outpost Rush (OPR) crates dropped AFTER the update will drop up to 700 GS; so you could OPR day 1 and get a 700 GS reward
• Runestone Stopwatches are no longer used in crafting; TBD what they will reward when salvaged (it better be good or I'm gonna be upset)

 These changes hit a few of the areas I was starting to get worried about. Specifically the regeneration serum was going to be a mandatory super potion if left as it was.  It would have made no sense to have in the game in the same patch where they are specifically nerfing healing potions in many aspects (especially in PvP).

 I am curious what Runestone Stopwatches will salvage into.  It would be ideal to know before the patch.  If it's not a great salvage then it would be much better to spend them now on something like crafting bags that you won't be racing out to change.  If it's really good then I will want to create more stopwatches and since they are daily cooldowns then I need to know now or each day I lose out!

 Lastly its good to get confirmation that OPR crates, dropped AFTER the update, will go up to 700 GS.  I am sure it will be rarer but the possibility along with the PvP track rewards should keep PvP players neutral (I'd say happy but us PvP players are a tough lot to make happy).  Also this means anyone saving up OPR crates currently won't get an unfair advantage once the update is live.

New New World: Mounts

 Mounts are coming to New World and it truly is a BRAND NEW NEW WORLD!

 I am very excited for mounts and everything I have seen in the videos and on the PTR show that the team went above and beyond to deliver mounts.  I can't find the exact video but I remember distinctly at one point Scott Lane (lead boss man) stated if they were going to do mounts it would be when they could do them well and boy was that spot on.

 Mounts in New World will be much more than just a speed boost.  There is a riding skill, races and timed challenges, cosmetics, buffs and food, and multiple nice quality of life features.  

 One of the coolest finds on the PTR was realizing that your mount will try and follow the road if you set it to run on the road.  I had suggested exactly this in my Oct 2022 post on the topic when we first found out about mounts being in development.  I was comparing it to The Witcher games where the horse auto-paths:

...the horse in The Witcher will automatically follow paths/roads and the player can basically AFK to their destination if its at the end of the road.

 Speaking of the Witcher; the infamous "roof horse" is also a prevalent meme in the New World PTR.  This indicates there is some good movement capability with mounts to navigate them in tough terrain such as the roof of a building.

 

Roach?

 Another exciting note about mounts is that they will be allowed in Outpost Rush.  Gone are the days of long runs back to the action. This should spice things up as it should be much faster to help get to baron fights or to attack/defend back caps.  I know some players will complain about mounts in instanced PvP game modes but screw em... who the hell wants to spend 1+ minutes running back to the fight.  Note: mounts will not be available in wars.

 I am also looking forward to the mount tradeskill and building up my riding skill over time.  It doesn't look like it will take long to level up and some players may ask why it has to exist if it goes by fast, but just like leveling in RPGs it is a mechanism to train the player on the multiple features of mounts and unlock more and more capability in a controlled manner.  Crazy to think lots of players like it when a game walks them through a new feature!

 As far as mount variety I didn't want to see anything more than horses as I am not a big fan of New World getting too far down the fantasy path vs the original "age of discovery - the new world" vibe it had originally.  With that said I concede the "new world" ship has sailed and we are very much in knights and fantasy so I can live with horses, wolves, and lions as mounts.  Just glad it wasn't things like spiders.  I'd be cool with hippos though.

New New World: Crafting Changes

 The buzz keeps on buzzing for New World's expansion and changes for Season 3.  Today we have a great breakdown of crafting changes from Jay Oddity.  My hat off to Jay; he is owning it on the coverage of the current PTR.

 There is a ton of minutiae to go with the crafting changes so I want to avoid getting too far into the weeds and cover more of the "what does it all mean?".

 The big change is that crafters will be able to craft "perfect gear", but the components to do so will be time gated and take a bit of effort to collect.  Many of the high end components will be bind on pickup and thus require the crafter to put in the time.  Since materials are time gated daily/weekly we won't see a surge of perfect 700 gear score gear on day one from bankrolled crafters.

 Even though there is methods for perfect crafting; there is still the "gamblers delight" option where you get random perks.  Less material cost, but more risk.  It won't be as bad as current state crafting gambles as the perk pool is much, much better with far fewer garbage perks but it's still a gamble.  Some folks like to gamble so the option is still there for them.

 I do want to hit on the fact that some of the crafting materials for the better crafting methods are bind on pickup (BoP).  I understand why this was done and think it is fine, but it doesn't make me jump for joy as it forces crafters to participate in other parts of the game.  Forcing players to do things they may not want to do is never great.  I am hoping as we get farther away from the expansion that we see a transition away from BoP just like we saw the PvP perks become bind on equip instead of BoP.

 Another change is it seems items and buffs that increase crafting outcomes have a flat benefit now.  If a piece of armor grants +5 to minimum gear score that always applies.  It does not appear through gear and buff you can get to 700, but not clear if we are missing anything.  The way to 700 is the specific 700 GS crafting recipes... aka the "perfect gear" I noted before.  I may be misunderstanding this so don't take this as gospel yet.

 Crafting levels also have been increased to 250. It is not clear how much effort/material will be needed to level them from 200-250 but I am looking forward to pumping out some crafting levels.

 Over all I like all of the changes to crafting.  More meaningful outcomes is great.  I would like to see the BoP change but understand that it is needed to slow down how fast crafters get 700 GS items out into the game right after launch.  I am glad I have all of my crafting gear and trophies unlocked and look forward to pushing towards 250 in all my crafting levels.

New New World: Umbral Shards

 Holy patch notes Batman!  I don't have the time between now and 10/3 when the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion launches to cover all the details, but without a doubt we are truly getting a NEW New World!  Today though I wanted to zero in on the change coming to umbral shards as we've all been waiting to know what would happen to them.

 Umbral Shards

•     Removed the ability to upgrade gear with Umbral shards.
•     Umbral shards can now be salvaged for coin at a rate of 0.1 coin per umbral shard.

 First I want to say "told you so" to everyone that thought the original information was false when it was reported by Massively OP that umbral shards would be converted to gold.  It was clear that Massively OP reported that correctly from the developer Q&A they were part of and good to see it validated now.

 Next; I don't think there was any "winning" consolation prize that could be given for umbral shards.  New World needed to reset gear and gear progression for it to have a more meaningful end game loop and to do that they needed to shutter umbral shards.  Any compensation was going to be only a half measure.

 Personally I think 0.10 gold per shard is a fine compromise.  Its not enough gold that you would race out to gather a bunch before launch, but it's enough that if you have some laying around you'll cash them in and feel good about it.  Also it's a small enough amount that I don't feel terrible about cashing them in now to upgrade some "fun" gear sets to play around with before October.

 And honestly this is how I really feel...

New New World: Only ONE New Zone?

 I wanted to start covering the myriad of changes coming to New World for it's expansion and season 3 balance changes.  There is a ton to unpack and no particular order to cover it in so I came up with this serious of posts titled "New New World: <topic>" because we are in fact getting an entirely new and fresh version of New World!  Today I want to talk about the "just one new zone!?" feedback for the Rise of the Angry Earth expansion.

 

 There has been a small uproar in the community about the expansion only having one zone and there is an argument to be had that it's not even "new" since it is just the First Light zone redone as the Elysian Wilds.  That doesn't seem like much for an "expansion"; especially when we received all of Brimstone Sands as a free update last year.

 I can somewhat see the argument that it is not an "expansion" as we are used to in the MMORPG space.  Normally an expansion means an actual "expansion" of the game on the size and scale of the original game.  With that said, based on Brimstone Sands last year, and what we've seen so far from Rise of the Angry Earth it seems like this will be New World's annual "expansion" size: one new zone and a bunch of new features.

 I am good with that.  I dislike when games add too much new landmass and invalidate all of the old.  While there will be a period of time where the Elysian Wilds is the zone to be in I expect players will fall back to Brimstone Sands, Reekwater, Shattered Mountain, and other current end game zones along with Elysian Wilds.

 Also we can't forget about the other zone receiving a makeover with Season 3: Edengrove.  With the angry earth taking over First Light they have left Edengrove open for the taking.  Edengrove will now be a capture-enabled territory with multiple changes to go along with it.  So technically we are getting two "adjacent to new" zones for the Season 3 and expansion.

 Combine two reworked zones along with mounts, level increase to 65, gear score increase to 70, reworked mutations, and a new weapon with the Flail and it is silly to think $30 is too high a price tag for the expansion.

New New World: Gear Progression Changes

 I wanted to start covering the myriad of changes coming to New World for it's expansion and season 3 balance changes.  There is a ton to unpack and no particular order to cover it in so I came up with this serious of posts titled "New New World: <topic>" because we are in fact getting an entirely new and fresh version of New World!  Today we are going to talk about the new gear progression system.

With Season 3 and the expansion there is an overhaul of the gear progression and acquisition systems.  

• Expertise is being removed.  
• Upgrading gear via umbral shards is gone.  
• Gear score cap is now 700.  
• Max level is now 65.  
• Loot will now drop at an intended gear score and not require upgrading.
• Loot bias will now be applied; loot will match the type of gear you have equipped when looting in.
  

 First, it is fan-freaking-tastic that expertise is being removed.  It was a pointless grind gating players from using items they acquired or making items they acquire effectively useless because they were not yet high enough expertise to get end game drops.  This also means no more having to run new players through content to get "expertise bumps".  

 In the place of expertise gear will simply drop at it's intended gear score level.  Thus if you do the hardest of hard content you can expect gear to drop at or close to the new max score of 700.  Progression in gear score will be based off acquiring better gear.

 The only thing I worry about with this new model is how fast crafters will be able to start making 700 gear score items.  Once crafters are making them then players will immediately be at 700 gear score.  I expect well funded companies having crafters cranking out gear fairly quickly after launch.  I hope this doesn't trivialize all the other methods to acquire gear.  I love crafters having a role to play but not at the expense of everything else.

 The last piece is "loot bias" whereby loot that drops will now be biased to be close to the gear you are currently wearing.  Playing a tank? Expect tank drops.  Play a healer? Expect healer drops.  The developers did state for chest rewards that you can change your gear before opening the chests/caches to influence what will drop.  So as a healer you could change to DPS gear before opening a series of chests to get DPS drops or vice versa a DPS could swap to healer gear to get healer drops.  I am hopeful this will work as advertised because I play oddball builds and if I can get more rewards targeted more at that oddball build then it's a win!

 Also a brief mention that the new level cap will be 65 and the extra 5 levels should go by fast.  I am fine with this change but it will be locked to those that own the expansion so players that don't buy the expansion will be left behind.  I hope AGS reconsiders that and lets everyone reach max level regardless of expansion ownership.  New World is much closer to Guild Wars 2 than it is games like World of Warcraft; it doesn't make sense here to tie level ranges to expansions.

New New World: Influence Changes

 I wanted to start covering the myriad of changes coming to New World for it's expansion and season 3 balance changes.  There is a ton to unpack and no particular order to cover it in so I came up with this serious of posts titled "New New World: <topic>" because we are in fact getting an entirely new and fresh version of New World!

 With that said the first one I wanted to hit on was the changes to the influence mechanic for territory control and war declaration.  Summary of changes we know so far:

NEW INFLUENCE RACES
Capture new Influence Towers and strike down enemy Factions in open world combat for territorial supremacy. Each Faction will compete for Influence in specific zones during scheduled times. If an attacking Faction earns enough Influence through PvP Missions, Influence Towers, and Forts before the race ends, they’ll receive bonus rewards, plus the opportunity to declare War. If the defending Faction prevents the attackers from scoring enough Influence within the time limit, they’ll earn bonus rewards for both the Influence Race and the next War. Regardless of who wins, the attacking Faction with the most influence can escalate the conflict into War.

 The first aspect is that the influence races will be scheduled.  This is a good change from the current state where a territory could be pushed any time on any day.  The only issue with scheduled content is that you are out of luck if you don't play during those times so I am in "wait and see" on this change to determine how good of a change it is.  At a minimum it will concentrate open world PvP to specific time windows and areas on the map.

 The next aspect to discuss is the towers.  This adds more capture points than just the fort on the map.  This should help spread out the players and create interesting combat instead of just running around in the open fields or forests.  Anything that brings players together to fight is a win!

 PvP missions are mentioned as well which is a little disappointing.  These missions are boring and I had hoped they would be removed entirely and replaced by the open world objectives like the tower.  From follow up videos it sounds like the missions are now much shorter distances and with mounts that means they should be fast which worries me that whoever shows up with the most players will win as it will not be practical to defend against a bunch of players doing PvP missions (its about impossible today even with long range missions).

 The last note I will end on is the talk of "faction" vs company.  I may just be reading too much into "Faction with the most influence can escalate the conflict into War." but that reads like companies may not be the one's declaring war anymore?  And there would be a faction-wide declaration?  Is there more changing with war that we don't know about yet?  Probably just reading into it too much but would be cool to see more changes that are faction-based vs specific company.

 

New World Gear Reset CONFIRMED

 I am comfortable now stating without the shadow of a doubt that the New World gear reset is CONFIRMED and your 625 gear is about to be yesterday's news.  The final nail in that coffin was the September developer update posted yesterday on YouTube when it was stated expertise will be gone and so will umbral shard upgrades on gear.  This was the final and full clarification we've been waiting on (past updates only touched on pieces).

 That is a long update, but the key aspect is at 5:49 where it is stated clearly that expertise is gone and umbral upgrading is gone.  Combine this with the updates that gear in the expansion will drop up to gear score 700 and we now know our beloved 625 gear is end of life.  The gear reset is real.  Get your salvage button ready and make room for all new clutter in your inventory and storage!