New World December update: Expected release date, upcoming gathering changes, new perks, and more

Amazon Games has a lot in store for New World players this December. Along with new perks, they will be looking to add the Winter Convergence Event to celebrate the holiday season.

The new update cycle has already been added to New World’s Public Test Realm (PTR). While all the changes may not make it to the official patch, gamers already have an idea of what they can expect once the version officially goes live.

While the new changes hit the PTR a couple of days ago, it’s still too early to comment on when the patch will be dropping. Amazon Games is yet to provide any official information regarding it. However, New World users feel that it will be sometime next week.

So what can fans of the MMORPG expect from the upcoming December update?

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All tentative changes that might make it to New World in December

Passive gathering perks will also be receiving a significant boost (Image via New World)

1) New perks, better gathering efficiency

Amazon Games will be looking to add a bit of quality-of-life changes with the December update. So, not only will there be new perks hitting New World, but the passive gathering perks will also be receiving a significant boost.

Here are all the perk changes that hit the New World PTR:

• Logging Efficiency - Logging speed increased by 3%-15%.
• Mining Efficiency - Mining speed increased by 3%-15%.
• Skinning Efficiency - Skinning speed increased by 3%-15%.
• Harvesting Efficiency - Harvesting speed increased by 3%-15%.
• Plagued Crits - Critical strikes against target below 50% health inflict disease for 12s, reducing healing effectiveness on the target by 10%-40%.
• Plagued Strikes - Heavy attacks against targets inflict disease for 8s, reducing healing effectiveness on the target by 10%-40%.
• Thwarting Counter - Deal 10%-25% additional damage against targets with active grit.
• Thwarting Strikes - Deal 3%-12% additional damage while you have active grit.
• Trenchant Strikes - Fully charged heavy attacks deal 3%-15% additional damage.
• Trenchant Crits - Fully charged heavy attacks deal 5%-20% additional Crit damage.
• Trenchant Rend - Fully charged heavy attacks apply rend for 7s, reducing target’s absorption by 4%-15%. (12s cooldown).
• Trenchant Recovery - Fully charged heavy attacks heals the player for 10%-30% of the damage dealt.
• Physical Aversion - You take 2%-4% less damage from ranged physical light and heavy attacks.
• Elemental Aversion - You take 2%-4% less damage from ranged elemental light and heavy attacks.

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2) Gypsum system

Players heavily criticized New World’s weapon watermark system, and many felt that the unnecessary grind was not justified to get the desired weapon and gear drops from enemies.

Hence, to address the issue, the developers are looking to introduce a unique Gypsum system that will look to help gamers get their desired weapon or gear of choice by doing specific activities.

The PTR notes reads:

“Each activity rewards a different type of Gypsum that can be crafted into a Gypsum Orb. These Orbs can then be crafted into Gypsum Casts of any weapon, armor, or trinket type. Opening a Gypsum Cast will guarantee an expertise bump and gear of that type.”

However, the New World community isn’t completely sold on this, and while some feel it to be a great addition to the MMORPG, others think that it might make the crafting profession useless in the game.

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3) Tweaks to the PVP damage formula

One of the biggest PVP changes that the December update will be seeing is how critical damage applications work in New World.

Crit build will be getting a nerf, as crit damage will no more be multiplicative in the game but will be additive. Hence on average, Amazon Games suggest that there will just be a slight reduction in damage.

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4) The Winter Convergence event

The celebration will also bring more snowfall and the Northern Lights (Image via New World)

The Winter convergence event will be the biggest attraction for the upcoming update. Apart from introducing a number of activities like collecting Gleamite, or the Convergence Sprit town project, the celebration will also bring more snowfall and the Northern Lights.

Additionally, Yeti, the Winter Wanderer, will also be making its visit to the world of Aeternum, and wage:

“a wintry war between the positive forces of Winter (slumber, perseverance) championed by the Winter Wanderer’s positive side and the negative forces of Winter (death, stagnation) are championed by the Winter Wanderer negative side.”

The December update looks very exciting for New World fans, and it will be pretty interesting to see just how well the wider community takes the upcoming update.