New World Major Trophy Grind (Guide)

 With the upcoming Season 2 changes for New World there will be new "ultimate" trophies that let players combine their major trophies into a single ultimate trophy that can be placed  in one house (5 trophies in 1 trophy slot).  Effectively this will let players never have to swap trophies again as they can just combine all major trophies together and slot them in their houses.

 This is a huge quality of life change but it is coming with a cost (45,000 gold and 90,000 faction tokens per ultimate trophy + the cost of the major trophies themselves which are 10-20,000 gold each themselves).  

 So in typical MMO grind fashion I've now made it my mission to grind the major trophies out (helpful guide posted here) so I can be ready to grind the gold and faction for the ultimate trophy when Season 2 drops.  This will be hundreds of thousands of gold and/or hundreds of hours of grinding.

 The irony I am finding as I venture into this is that farming for the trophy materials is significantly less efficient than just farming materials to sell.  I tried to get the corrupted trophy material but its so annoyingly slow; you either get lucky and get the legendary trophy mat or after 100 attempts get 100 shards to craft it... for one trophy.  Repeat 3x for each major trophy. 

 The legendary material itself is 8,000-10,000 on the market.  I can make 10,000 gold in about 2 hours of material grinding (such as skinning).  After 2+ hours of grinding blue shards (again needing 100) I only had 30 for the corrupted trophy.  Lost was much faster; I finished my lost trophies within a couple hours which also explains why Lost are dirt cheap on the market compared to the others.  But for corrupted I am way way way better off just farming for gold and buying it out right (which I've now done and have 2 of 3 trophies done).

 Once past the combat trophies it is on to crafting and refining.... a grindin' we shall go!

I AM .heartlessgamer (Discord rant)

 I own the domain: heartlessgamer.com

 I have the gmail: heartlessgamer_at_gmail.com

 I have heartlessgamer in almost every online game service since the dawn of the Internet.

 But I guess having it since the dawn of the Internet is not enough for services like Discord to ensure I get to keep it when they randomly decide they need to change their username system.  So now on Discord instead of being heartlessgamer I am relegated to .heartlessgamer (yes a DOT f'n period in front).

 This is the dumbest change I've seen any system make in a long time.  There was literally nothing wrong with the username system in discord that used random numbers afterwards.  All of us heartlessgamers of the world existed just fine.  But now someone else is heartlessgamer and I am DOT FREAKING .heartlessgamer

 First it was losing my Youtube handle (a true headscratcher considering I own the domain via Google's blogger platform and gmail for the "handle" of heartlessgamer) and now it's Discord.  Screw these platforms changing their username systems and not giving priority to clear long term owners!

New (World) Ideas: Honing Stones and Coatings

 New (World) Ideas is a series of posts in which I present small changes that New World could make that would improve the game.

 Honing Stones and weapon coatings are a key element to maxing your character's damage in New World.  Forgetting to apply them (or re-apply them) is a rookie mistake that many veterans make as well and forgetting is easy to do as they are often buried in your inventory waiting for you to remember to use them.

 New Idea: allow players to attach honing stones and coatings directly to their weapons via slots on the inventory and gear sets.  Player's can put a pile of stones or coatings in these slots which will then automatically be consumed (or not; it can be a player controlled setting). 

Vehicles in Starfield?

Caught up to the recent gameplay deep dive for Starfield.  One missing piece for me was ground vehicles such as a rover.  Does anyone know if the game will feature vehicles?  How cool would it be to land your storage ship and drive off into the planet on your custom land cruiser!

New (World) Ideas: Buy/Sell Umbral Shards

  New (World) Ideas is a series of posts in which I present small changes that New World could make that would improve the game.

 Umbral Shards in New World are the main currency for upgrading gear to a max gear score of 625.  They are also now part of multiple crafting recipes and in the Season 2 patch more uses are being brought forward.  The only problem: umbral shards are bind on pickup so you have to earn them yourself.

 New idea: Let players buy and sell umbral shards for gold directly.  There are already numerous ways that gold is converted into shards (shard selling via mutated expeditions, buying flame cores to use at the forge, infused salvaging scraps turned into gypsum orbs and then casts, etc) so it's not a leap to just let the shards themselves be traded amongst players.

New (World) Ideas: Attribute Respecs

 New (World) Ideas is a series of posts in which I present small changes that New World could make that would improve the game.

 It costs 200 gold to respec attributes in New World even if all you are doing is adjusting a few points.  This cost isn't much fun in a game where players are encouraged to change gear often for different content (for example: changing from one ward gear set to another inside a split ward expedition).

 There is a stark difference between hitting an attirbute bonus or not (i.e. if you make 299 CON you don't get the 300 CON perk).  For all practical purposes players have to respec attributes whether they need to just adjust 1 point or reset all 190 -- the bonuses are that important to hit.

 New idea: instead of attribute respecs costing 200 gold it should be a sliding cost based on number of points being changed.  This way if you just change one piece of gear out and need to adjust 10 points it's only a few gold vs 200 gold for a full reset.  This would make it feel less penalizing for having to change out gear.  Simply go into the attribute and change your attributes and a cost will be displayed on screen to save.

 Even better would be to tie attribute respec to azoth instead of gold so it is consistent with weapon skill respec, but let's not get crazy on ideas here.  This is an MMO after all and what MMO doesn't need a gold sink!

Bike stolen

What a great way to start vacation.  Sigh.

Vacationing!

On vacation.  A couple posts scheduled to go out but otherwise see y'all in a week 

New World 200+ Everything

 Checked off a personal goal today.  I hit 200+ in every gathering, refining, casual, and crafting skill in New World. The last one to finish out was music.

Note: the one's that show a number other than 200 indicate the 200+ aptitude level.  For example Weaving on the bottom left is level 27 aptitude (meaning I've leveled it up 27 more times since hitting 200).

All About Me

 I'm honored to have fallen on the field of battle!  Yoink!