Thursday 11/17/2022 Post

Back to sucking. 

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?

Is Ashes of Creation over complicating systems?

 Something has been nagging at me since the last Ashes of Creation developer update.  On one hand it was awesome to see Ashes change to a gathering model of "every tree can be chopped down", yet on the other hand I worry Ashes is planning to layer too much complexity on top of the system.  This came to the forefront of my mind this past weekend as I "chopped and chilled" in New World.  Sometimes simple is the best answer.

 Before I jump into where I see issues I want to say I am optimistic that the approach Ashes is taking will combat the problem of bots.  Simple systems are easier for bots and complex systems are harder for bots.  If any change Ashes makes helps drive down bot activity then it may be worth keeping.  Note: "we'll just ban the bots" is not a plan and has not worked to solve the bot problems for any MMORPG or other type of game... ever.

 The main changes that Ashes is layering on top of their gathering system are surveying and variability based on world conditions (time of year, node status, etc). Surveying will be a skill players improve that helps them survey the landscape and identify resource nodes and details about those nodes.  This combines with the nodes being variable based on world conditions; complimentary systems to drive engagement for gatherers.

 My first concern with complexity comes from surveying.  Instead of going off what a player sees it seems like players will be encouraged to "stop and smell the roses" so-to-speak (i.e. survey first to find the good nodes to then harvest).  I like but don't like this concept.  Sometimes (actually most times for me) players just want to smash rocks, chop trees, and not have to think about it all too much.  Adding in a pre-system to gathering feels like it takes away from that feeling that drives a player to want to chop down a tree in the first place.

 Surveying also has me worrying more and more about bots.  Is surveying go to be fun enough in itself for a player to want to do over and over (and over and over and over and over - as is the tradition with MMOs)?  I think there is real risk it just becomes something either a player "sets and forgets" while they get a coffee refill or worse it becomes a reason to encourage botting even more as in theory it will highlight to a bot the nodes to go harvest.  I need to see more from the system to tell me this will be fun and engaging for players otherwise it will fall into bot-category in my opinion.

 The variability based on world conditions does have some promise to combat bots as resources will not always be in the same spot in the same area in perpetuity like they are in games like New World.  It will also reward players that stay knowledgeable on the state of the world and what is going on.  Combined with the "open world PvP" (which I honestly don't think will stick, but for argument we'll assume they do) this could really set gathering as a job players can be known for.

 However, I question how this complexity may discourage players from just sitting back and enjoying the actual activity.  There is something to be said for the simplicty of New Worlds gathering; see a rock - hit a rock - get smaller rocks and maybe a gem.  See a tree - hit a tree - get logs and maybe some sap.  Maybe the blue glowing tree requires a higher skill level to chop and it tells you that when you approach.  No pre-scanning an area, no needing to break through a top layer to see whats underneath, and really no wasted time or movements.  Players just chop one tree to the next and it is ever so satisfying!

 Sometimes simple is just better.  What do you think?

 

 

Sunday 11/13/2022 Post

 Still the two-time reigning NFL MVP.

Cheeks can un-clench now.