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

 

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 4: Greatsword)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

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

Part 4: Greatsword - read on!

  With the Brimstone Sands update the New World developers brought to the game the quintessential fantasy MMORPG weapon: big honking swords (aka greatswords).  Players can now slap overly large swords over the top of their ridiculously large great axes and warhammers to complete that anime-but-if-anime-was-in-colonial-times look.  A bit snarky, but the swords are massive and I am here with some thoughts.

 First a note on the image included.  This is one of my all time favorite fantasy images.  Not only because of the honking big sword but also the entire outfit comes together in a "don't try me bro" way.  I used this image as the base for my guild recruiting poster back in the Warhammer Online days ("ask not what your guild can do for you but what you can do for your guild").  Needless to say; I'm a fan of big swords.

 But I cannot tell a lie.  I have not actually played with the greatsword myself so this impressions post will be entirely from the perspective of a player getting repeatedly wrecked by them in PvP.  Spoiler: a new weapon released in New World is stronger than others!

 The weapon as I understand it is broken into a stance mechanic whereby players activate and stay in a stance based on skills used.  Stances bring innate advantages and boil down to a defensive or offensive stance.  This is a unique weapon compared to others in the game and the stance mechanism is allowing it to fit into multiple play styles.  In fact I'd say it has hit the trifecta: great with light armor rollie pollies, great for medium armor bruisers, and great as a tanking weapon for heavy armor.  

 Regardless of stance; one thing the greatsword has going for it is mobility with players leaping and slashing their way to their opponents.  It seems whether you play the offensive side or defensive side there is a focus on mobility with the weapon.  

 Another unique aspect of the weapon is it scales equally off strength or dexterity where as most weapons have a primary stat they scale off of and a secondary.  This equal split approach for the greatsword means players can get a lot out of both the dex and str attributes and weapons that pair with either.  This is why I think we are seeing it paired up with everything from bow to heavy sword/shield tanks.

 As far as my experience playing against the greatswords?  I have definitely learned I need to stay and fight greatswords which unfortunately is not a great proposition for a heavy armor player such as myself.  My damage is too low to get through their defensive stance and their damage is so high on offense that it shreds right through the heavy armor I wear.  I have also seen the medium greatsword/great axe bruisers dominate in 1vX situations in PvP arenas and Outpost Rush.

 Speaking of heavy armor and greatsword there are some "turtle" builds popping up that make tanks look nigh unkillable.  The defensive side of the greatsword offers a ton of versatility for the defensive tank player so makes a perfect compliment to sword/shield.  At the same time it also brings the mobility and scaling off STR so feels like a perfect match.  I may have to swap it for my warhammer in my heavy frontline tank build...

 As can be guessed so far by my comments the greatsword is in its honeymoon phase and is every where.  I think this is a good sign for future weapon designs that a new weapon can function across the spectrum but it does create a gap with the existing weapons that don't enjoy this sort of flexibility.  Time will tell.

 What are your thoughts?

 

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems)

 For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests 
• Part 2: The Ennead Expedition

Part 3: Heartrunes and Runeglass Gems - read on!

 Heartrune? Heartgem? Runegem? Runeglass?  Apologies if you are confused as the names of the new heartrunes and runeglass gems sound similar and changed names during the testing period.  The Brimstone Sands update for New World brought some new toys to the end game.  Here are some thoughts on each.

 First we have the heartrunes (aka heart gems).  These runes grant players an extra ability to use alongside their weapon abilities which means a player has a fourth active ability at any given time.  They can be thought of as an ultimate ability as there is a charge up period before the rune can be used.  They are a neat concept and bring an extra layer of diversity to players without giving a strict power increase.

 Heartrunes can also be upgraded to give them perks for different effects (more damage, slow enemies, etc).  It is not readily apparent in game they can be upgraded but like many end game activities in MMORPGs the information is available on external websites.  The upgrades do require players to first acquire the minor version of the heartrune which are currently all part of expeditions; either dropped from the last boss or crafted via materia.  

 The materia crafting cost, 8,000 per minor rune, is pretty dumb as 99.9% of players will unlock it via completing the expedition long before they ever get to 8,000 materia.  I have no idea where they came up with this number for crafting from materia so I hope it changes otherwise the recipe should not exist.

 Another issue I find with the upgrade process is the materials required for each are all over the board in what they require; with some requiring a new "writ of adventure" which you get from faction vendor (20,000 freaking tokens) or Brimstone Sands quests.   As far as I can tell these writs only go into those five specific rune upgrades.  I am not sure we needed yet another legendary crafting component; especially one that costs that freaking much.

 The legendary upgraded versions of the runes bring a lot of variety and I can see using multiple different ones on my different builds.  There is a stoneform for defensive builds, vining to slow players down, and any number of buff/debuff in between.  There is also the standard "do damage" runes which is a bit unfortunate as I'd of hoped the runes would stick to utility and not just adding a damage ability.

 I do have a concern that the detonate (big bomb damage) is the "go to" for your average player.  I can see where the developers maybe wanted it to help break up clumps in modes like war, but while detonate is a great clump buster it is also just an extra damage spike tool that favors light armor DPS rolling all over the place killing things.  Especially with the brutal upgrade where you get higher damage but take more damage while charging; which means light dodge is basically required so you can dodge into your target right as it explodes.  

 So far in Outpost Rush it very much seems like detonate is the go to.  I have died more to it than any single skill I can remember.  The animation is also terrible in groups; you have no realistic idea if its your teams or the enemy teams detonate and if you are detonating its difficult to see if your opponent also starts a detonate.  Ideally detonate would result in your own death (i.e. you are blowing yourself up), but its just another big damage spike ability.  Sigh.

 Enough about heartrunes.  The other toy added was runeglass gems.  These new gems are used to slot into equipment the same as regular gems but bring small advantages over the regular gems.  For example; punishing runeglass brings extra damage to any gem type.  The advantages are small enough that it's not game breaking even when stacked on all gear.  

 The only downside is the runeglass cases are super expensive to craft and thus won't make much sense on PvE gear that requires constant gem changes for mutations.  They will also make top end PvP gear that much more expensive exasperating the problem of best-in-slot PvP gear being too expensive and limited to the big companies with the big gold piles.

 Some ideal changes for runeglass gems would be letting you take them out of gear so you can use them again or maybe you can slot regular gems over the top of them and swap back to the runeglass later; this way the runeglass is more permanent while regular remains dispensable.  Also maybe dial back the crafting requirements and/or make the unique materials available in more than just Brimstone Sands.  I already dread that I am going to be putting a 30,000 gold gem in my 15,000 gold weapon or 5,000 gold armor.

 Heartrunes and runeglass gems bring something for players to invest time and energy into and while offering some power creep to the "haves" vs the "have nots" it is not enough to break the game.  This is a good move in the direction of horizontal progression instead of strict vertical progression.  With a few tweaks to be friendlier to players they will offer a lot of options.  Without changes they will be longer term goals for many players.  Either way I like both and think they are a good addition to the end game.

 What are your thoughts?  Share a comment or two.

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 2: The Ennead Expedition)

For my other impressions of Brimstone Sands

• Part 1: Quests   

Part 2: The Ennead Expedition - read on!

 With Brimstone Sands comes the new The Ennead Expedition and with it, in my opinion, the most challenging mechanical boss fight in the game.  The rest of the expedition is great as well and it doesn't overstay its welcome (...unless you struggle with the mechanically challenging boss fight).  Here are my thoughts as a 620+ gear score tank taking on the regular version.

 The Ennead is themed as an ancient pyramid and features a number of the new enemy types from the Brimstone Sands zone.  While not as visually stunning as Tempest Heart it is still a good looking expedition.  There is a mix of corruption along with the ancient theme and lasers, lots and lots of lasers!  Slight spoiler, but at the end of the expedition there is a neat little console you can activate for a quest line that calls in the trademark upside down pyramid top that is heavily featured in the Brimstone Sands area.

 As far as fights go there is not a ton of trash to work through.  There is one part that is maze-lite but nothing too challenging to work through.  There are floating guards that go through the expedition laser zapping anyone that stands in their sphere of influence. The guards are invincible so you do not fight them.  They keep players on their toes.

 When it comes to bosses there is some pretty tough mini-bosses throughout the dungeon.  They are mostly tank and spank but all seem to come with a group of adds and ranged minions.  The first major boss is a giant scarab in a room full of lasers and the scarab features its own giant laser beam.  While the scarab has an array of attacks and some positioning by the tank can help avoid group wipes it is a straight forward fight.

 The next boss, General Crassus, is fun filled mayhem.  The fight features a lot of continuously spawning adds and progresses through three phases.  The last phase is where it gets interesting with two hard charging cyclops, of course with laser beams shooting of their eyes, and its a race to either DPS the main boss down or take the cyclops down and then the boss. 

 The last set of bosses in the dungeon are sure to make plenty of players mad.  The last fight is a pure mechanics fight.  Players have to know what they are doing and when to do it in order to succeed.  My first run took us two hours to get it down and I've had multiple more that just can't get past the hump of the final fight.  It is a very challenging fight and I can't imagine how players are doing it on higher mutations; it is rough even as a 620+ gear score tank on regular! It's a fun fight to figure out and a sense of accomplishment once done!

 The only real issue I have The Ennead is that the last fight is hard and that sets it apart from other expeditions.  While there is the reward of earning a unique heartgem, Detonate, from the final bosses the rest of the rewards are your lock and stock expedition rewards: shards, materia, and some named items.  Unfortunately since other expeditions are far simpler and faster to run I do worry we will see a limited number of players wanting to run The Ennead in the future. It feels like some of the other new items with Brimstone Sands could of been added to this more challenging expedition such as glyphs for runeglass gem crafting.

 Over all I really like the new expedition and it was good to be challenged again.  I like the mechanically challenging fights but do think they will keep other players out since "quick run" can turn into a slog or a wall at the last fight.  I won't be running this one nearly as much as I've run the other expeditions, but feel like the challenge is worth the time spent even if rewards are the same as other expeditions.

 Have you got your butt handed to you in the last set of bosses in The Ennead? Share a comment!

 

New World Brimstone Sands Impressions (Part 1: Quests)

  I wanted to start sharing my thoughts on the Brimstone Sands release for New World.  This was a huge release that brought the new Brimstone Sands zone, a new expedition, major updates to the early game leveling progression, and multiple other changes to the game.  I will be breaking up my impressions into multiple parts over the next few days.  I wanted to start off by sharing my impressions on the quests in the new zone.

 Before the release I was nervous I may find myself uninterested in doing the quests in the new zone.  Since my character is max level I have no need for experience.  I have not done many quests in the game because I am holding out hope that at some point they add an aptitude system for experience gained after max level.  So I set off and did the zone unlock quest which I thought was a neat way for players to progress into the zone instead of being able to just charge in.

 My concern about not wanting to do the quests was put to rest when I got a look at the quest rewards.  Yes, they still grant experience that goes to waste, but all of the quests in Brimstone Sands are LOADED with other rewards.  There are numerous legendary weapon rewards, and not just mediocre weapons, but actual weapons I have and will use.  On top of that quests also grant gypsum orbs, umbral shards, and numerous end game crafting materials.  Bottom line: I felt rewarded for doing the quests and a little bummed I've finished the majority of them!

Legendary weapon as a quest reward!?

 

 The quests also lead players to the new heartgem runes which are like ultimate abilities you can use.  I'll have more thoughts on heartgem runes in a future post, but using quests to introduce new features is the right way to go.  Quests also introduce players to the glyph system unique to the Brimstone Sands zone.  While I have not gotten all of the glyphs it was fun being sent around the zone to unlock glyphs which in turn let you unlock more aspects of the zone (for example you can open new doors once you have learned the glyphs for them).

 Also the glyph quests were used to help me learn about different mechanics in the zone. For example a quest had me try and unlock a glyph in a pool of acid so that I would learn how to use acid tinctures to avoid death while standing in the acid pool (note: I may not have paid attention to this detail so paid for it in repair costs to my gear after multiple failed attempts...).

 The quests themselves are also greatly improved compared to the "kill 10 rats" or "loot 10 crates" quests of the original zones.  One of the most memorable quests features a jumping puzzle and some uniquely placed goats that I am sure I will fondly remember years from now (not really, fuck the goats).  There was also a lengthy puzzle quest involving portals that I had to just cheat and look up online.  And my favorite was the quest line that lead to an instanced solo boss encounter with a fight that was actually challenging as a solo player.  I really hope they add more of these instanced solo boss fights.

 My comments are also just touching on the quests in the new end game Brimstone Sands update.  There is also plenty of freshness to the quests in the revamped new player leveling experience from 1-25.  I have not done much of it but the quests I have done have the same level of polish and uniqueness as the ones in Brimstone Sands.

 The new approach to quests and how the Brimstone Sands zone was set up with things like glyphs really gives me hope for the future. If the developers keep looking at ways for us to progress horizontally and not just vertically this is a winner for me.  I really enjoy this approach to MMOs and it was immediately familiar to me as a long time Guild Wars 2 player.  I had so much to do on day one and still have so much more to now progress and while I am taking it bit by bit I don't feel in any regard I am behind other players as far as power level. 

 Part 1: Quests = 10/10!

 What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment.

YouTube handle stolen!

  I finally got to pick a Youtube handle and to my disappointment "heartlessgamer" was already claimed.  This is sort of dumb considering I've had this domain and the heartlessgamer@gmail.com email for going on 20+ years... you know Gmail from Google and Blogger from Google... you know the same Google that owns Youtube!?  Heck I even had the Google+!!! Why on earth someone else gets to claim the handle is beyond me.

 I'm not really mad; I mostly just watch the tube and don't create any content/videos.  You can find me at https://youtube.com/@heartless_gamer (yep; nabbed that underscore!).  If you want the other guy (assume its a guy) they are at https://www.youtube.com/@heartlessgamer

 And to show the universe loves to taunt us heartlessgamers; the other guys twitch features TWO underscores!  Check it out https://www.twitch.tv/heartless__gamer - and for anyone wanting my twitch it is https://www.twitch.tv/heartlessgamer_twitch

 I may have to touch base with this dude.  This is fun to follow around the web.

New World Fresh Start to the MOON

 We're going to the moon baby!  New World fresh start worlds have launched and the game is closing in on 100,000 concurrent users on Steam (probably over by the time you are reading this).  The game is also 50% off for anyone interested in jumping in.

 This is a well deserved hockey stick for the New World development team.  It will be interesting to see how long this peak lasts and where it tops out.  There is also the Return to Aeternum event that will be running through Nov 18th.