Challenging No More

 And we're back (nothing too major; thankfully).

 While I was away New World decided things needed to be less challenging.  Update 1.9.3 is on the live servers as of 5/10 and with it numerous season pass challenges and activities were dialed back making them challenging no more.

As an example; this challenge was reduced:

Outpost Rush Domination
    Reduced required Outpost Rush wins from 100 to 30

 The season is approximately 97 days long (Apr 3 - July 6).  For this challenge at its original goal of 100 it would mean a player would need to net at least one win a day if they play every day.  That seems like a good challenge.  It is not something everyone will get and feels like an accomplishment if you do make it.  But moved to 30; that isn't much of a challenge and many more players will hit the challenge complete.

 If you follow the release notes an axe was taken to many of the challenges.  This is unfortunate for anyone that was pushing for the original targets in the hopes of gaining the coveted "look at what I did!" feeling.  In my own experience I logged into several challenges and season journey steps being completed; netting me 5 pass levels (putting me at 90+; cruising to 100).

 On one hand I am a fan of when things are made easier on players, but at the same time I like actual challenges.  So I'm on the fence with all these changes; though considering I am pretty much done with the season pass and journey it doesn't really matter much.

 My hope is the New World dev team learns from Season 1 and makes future season's and their challenges actual challenges.  Tie unique rewards to them so that players can feel rewarded for hitting the challenges.  These don't have to be game changing rewards, but there is nothing wrong with throwing out some unique housing items or cosmetics or titles.

 With that said I do want to give credit to the devs on other changes that made things less challenging for the better.  My favorite is the reduction of Flame Cores required for a cast; down from 10 to 3.  Also you can now create 6 casts per day - up from 3.  Also the gear you get from the casts is much improved.  This will make the "craft X casts" season challenge really easy now, but there is some great benefits from this.  

 The change opens another path to turn gold into umbral shards as you can just buy 18x flame core each day, craft 6 casts, and each one rewards up to 400 shards for up to 2,400 shards a day (not to mention you get improved Human Ward/Bane gear from the casts as well).  Combine these shards with shards you can "buy" via infused fragments and there is a good path for converting gold into umbral shards for those players that don't want to get them via other means (players like me!).

 Anyways; I am off to grind more named gear drops which is my current kick in New World.