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New World's developers are introducing a new feature to improve the endgame experience in the game. At launch, there was a startling lack of content for the endgame. As the players have pointed out, there was nothing much to do but grind once anyone hits Lvl. 60. The changes that are going to be implemented may provide a solution to this issue.
Amazon's New World was slated to be the next big thing before its release. Upon launch, it quickly recorded over 700k concurrent players on Steam which even put a strain on the game's server. Barring a few hiccups with hardware, New World had managed to capture the imagination of countless players around the world.
But soon after, a plethora of issues cropped up. From a litany of bugs to a bunch of exploits, New World was plagued with issues that players did not expect. Although the developers tried to maintain communication with the players, their updates and changes did not go down well with the community.
Expedition Mutators are being tested out in New World's Public Test Realm
The developers stated that they were introducing a new end-game feature titled Expedition Mutators in a blog post released on January 6. They stated:
"Mutators change the familiar by augmenting “Normal” and “Named” Enemies found within expeditions, changing the way encounters play out and what strategies players should consider before battle."
The system is designed to rotate through combinations of Expeditions and Mutations each week and will have ten difficulty levels per Expedition Mutation. The aim of the players will be to reach the maximum difficulty - which the developers have said will be "extremely difficult."
The feature is also introduceing "new bespoke gear and rewards" and further options to increase the players' power levels. Expedition Mutators are, at the moment, live in the New World's Public Test Realm. There are two PTR servers available - one in Central Europe and one in US East.
For the PTR test cycle, one of the three expeditions - Dynasty Shipyard, Garden of Genesis, and Lazarus Instrumentality - will be mutated every 48 hours.
How to access the PTR and give feedback
The PTR gives players the option to try out the new feature. It also gives the developers the option to iron out any issues that may arise during the players' gameplay. They have asked the players to drop in their feedback if they encounter any issues, on their PTR sub-forum or through the in-game feedback tool.
Interested players can access the PTR servers through a special preview client that can be downloaded through Steam called "New World Public Test Realm."
The blog's mentions of other features and fixes
A new resource material called Umbral Shards has been introduced into the game. These will help players to increase the Gear Score (GS) of their items from 600 to 625. These Shards can be acquired in 3 ways:
- By completing Mutated Expeditions.
- By crafting an item with a GS 600 when the Expertise with that item is also at 600.
- By opening a Gypsum Cast when Expertise for that item is also at 600.
The blog also mentions balance changes done to the Outpost Rush. According to the developers, the summoning of Brutes was done frequently and easily by solo players alone.
To make it more of a group effort, the Brute Summoning Stone's cost has increased from 500 to 750 Azoth Essence. The blog also mentions a small number of combat-related changes.
The community will be delighted to see that the developers have made changes to the cost of Fast Travel as well. The blog states:
"This release includes an update that dramatically reduces the distance factor in the amount of Azoth required for each trip. Accordingly, the Faction Control Point bonus associated with Fast Travel now reduces the distance factor to zero."
In November, when Amazon Games made a number of changes that essentially increased the grind in the name of endgame, the players were furious. They felt like the developers were clueless as to how they can manage the game.
The January update can be seen broadly as a welcome move. The difficulty settings of the new feature appear to have satiated the community's need for more challenges and difficult PvE content.
One post on the r/newworldgame subreddit by u/CeasefireGehennas brings much of the issues from the new PTR to light:
There are many more persisting issues with Amazon's MMORPG that the developers need to address. But the fact that the game has potential, is beyond any doubt. With the new year, it can only be hoped that the developers will manage to revamp the game and get it back on track. The Episode Mutators feature and the PTR test cycle certainly provide the perfect opportunity for them to do so.
