Latest New World Community Q&A Covers Lessons Learned from Rise of the Angry Earth And Season 4

27.11.2023 - 23:35 / mmorpg.com / New World

The latest New World community Q&A is out, and the team covers lessons learned from Season 3 and Rise of the Angry Earth, endgame, gear, progression challenges, and more.

Right up front, the team answers a question about why Season 4 seems to be lighter on content than previous seasons. In response to this, the devs decided that they would prioritize higher quality content over quantity after some mistakes early on with Rise of the Angry Earth. The expansion was New World’s first, and they wanted to go big, but this came with some missteps in terms of quality. They are taking some lessons from that experience and play your feedback. 

For Season 4, this means that cross-world expeditions have been pushed back for further refinement. “We really wanted to lean into it and go for a full PUG finder because we think that would be a much better experience for players and that's going to cost us a little more time”. This is part of their overall decision to deliver a better player experience, even if this means altering the roadmap a little. 

Relevant to the player experience, another question asked had to do with endgame grind and a reduction in endgame grind that could make some feel there’s little reason to stick around. To that, Scot Lane emphasized the other activities available, but also expressed understanding. From a dev team POV, they worked to vary the options at endgame and also to not make the chase too punishing, because that too drives some away. Lane emphasizes that they try to have options for different types of players. 

On loot, making some loot biases in drops came into question. There's some intentionality here because they want certain perks to be rarer and more special and maybe oriented towards crafting or something you need to get a special item for. To not just make everything cookie cutter. 

There are many other questions addressed, including changes to help make 700 gear score more reachable/less gatekept, work on banning exploits and more, like balance changes.

There’s also a new overview all about Artifacts and the design process behind them. Designed to provide diverse build options without disrupting overall balance, Artifacts are one part of that desire to make things more interesting. They're intended to empower players and relieve some of the concerns about always needing to have a viable build within the current meta. The Amazon team approaches Artifacts with a seasonal theme first, then comes up with potential perks that fit. Once they finalize the list of prototype perks, they figure out how to make sure that they don't disrupt overall balance while still offering fun options.