New World PvE

 I made a lengthy reply on Reddit about PvE opportunities in New World Aeternum.  It gained some traction and has been shared a few times on different subreddits.  I wanted to capture a version of it for the blog and long term keeping.

The question asked: "Just bought it! How is the PVE? Is the loot drop rewarding as well?"

My answer:

PvE during leveling is a good experience; you will get a lot of enjoyment out of that.  The game has some of the best "cinematic experiences" for expeditions (aka dungeons) and personally my first trip through some of them such as Tempest Heart were a visual treat (though "story mode" expeditions are very easy challenge wise).

The "rewarding loot drop" depends on who you ask.  New World has a classless system where your build is determined by your gear.  Gear is variable with 3 perks, a gem slot (except on some special items), and which attribute bonus (INT, STR, CON, etc) it has.  What is "best" for a piece of armor, a weapon, or a jewelery thus has variability.  It is not like other games where that one raid drops that one tank sword that every tank has to get.

The game also drops a lot of gear and I mean A LOT; more in the line of a Diablo type game than a normal MMO.  Most of that gear is randomly generated and is basically garbage that you will just salvage.  That goes all the way through end game where a lot of gear drops are just underwhelming.

The game does have a system called "loot biasing" where gear from many end game chests (elite, expedition, etc) will match close to the gear you are currently wearing. So if you are heavy armor with INT as your highest attribute you will likely see heavy armor with INT as the highest attribute.  Unforutnately this comes up short because it doesn't consider weapons and armor drops with weapon perks for other weapons. I personally feel like this is a miss that they should fix with the system.  A heavy armor piece with INT is great if thats my build but if it drops with a flail weapon perk and I don't use a flail its just one more piece of gear I need to salvage down.

But that is just the gemeral loot drop system.  There is lots of "named" items in the game that drop with locked in perks and many end game named items let you upgrade the item to 700 gear score and set the 3rd perk to your choice (there are "perk buckets" with rules so its not any perk, but lots of options to choose what the 3rd perk is).

Then there are artifacts tied to specific content.  Often it drops after a few tries and has pity mechanics so you do get it to drop. Artifacts are end game armor, weapons, and jewelery that you will build entire builds around.  It feels good to get an artifact to drop after working towards it!  And there is a ton of artifacts in the game now and are in every lane of gameplay from solo PvE to group PvE.

Expedtions are a main PvE end game activity; specifically the mutated version.  Each week new expeditions get mutated and have levels 1-3.  "M3" aka mutation level 3 is the hardest.  Mutated expeditions are where many artifacts are obtained and they drop a ton of other rewards, but as mentioned its hit or miss on how great those drops are (most not so much).  Mutated expeditions are also a good way to get dark matter drops for end game loot upgrades which is a necessary part of the end game.

More recently they added the first raid to the game.  It is 10 person and is the hardest end game PvE content.  Many players complain about it being too hard for casual groups if that gives you a sense.  Personally I think its spot on; hard for a pick up group to complete but not impossible; while still being challenging for organized groups.

The raid offers gear up to gear score 725, the new max, and drops rare schematics for crafting which is where a lot of the true best end game gear comes from outside of artifacts.  The artifacts that drop from the raid are also sought after; some pick up groups solely focus on just getting past the first boss just to get folks the artifact that boss drops.  The issue though is the raid drops rewards only once per week; once done with your weekly run there is no reward for repeating.

There is also a 20 person sand wurm "raid" that is a single boss fight with good end game drops as well.

With that said there is tons of ways as a solo PvE player to get 700 gear score gear and it's not hard.  While 725 is the new max; 700 is more than capable in PvE and PvP.  Artifacts can all be upgraded to 725 so many folks end up with 3x artifacts (max you can have in a build is 1 weapon, 1 armor, and 1 jewelery artifact) and 700 on the rest.

While not your traditional "rewarding loot drops" of other MMOs you can set your sights on the gear you want and work in PvE towards it.  Crafting is also a source for tons of end game gear and plenty of PvE activity can be done to earn gold to fund your own crafting or buy from crafters/trading post.

I personally really like that as a mostly solo player I can play this game and match the hardest of the hardcore in builds and capabilities on my character.  Having a group makes it easier to get stuff like the raid or mutated expeditions done, but not a requirement at all in this game.  That is the biggest selling point for me.  As I said I am 4,000+ hours in, have maxed everything, have a maxed build I love playing, and dabble in PvE and PvP.