Sunday 11/19/2023 Post

 After some early Xmas gifts from the Chargers the Packers walk away with a W.

Turkey Screenshot

 Turkey Terror in New World! Turkulon!

One big gobbler!

Boom; great arena!

 

Reddit Prompt: Why do you play New world over other mmos?

 The question was posed on the New World subreddit: Why do you play New world over other mmos?

 There were a lot of great answers in the thread, but wanted to weigh in on my top reasons for New World.  As background  I never intended to play New World.  I happened into one of the early New World preview events while playing the Crowfall beta.  My normal road to an MMORPG involves following it for years through development and betas before I jump in.  To say I was pleasantly surprised by New World is an understatement; one backed up by my almost 4,000 hours of play time!

 So what keeps me in New World (which is likely now my most played game ever)?

 First is the combat system.  I never fancied myself for action combat (getting old with slower reflexes), but after playing New World's combat I really can't see myself going back to tab targeting.  I tried Final Fantasy 14 for a brief period and while I conceptually like the global cooldown slower combat model it just ended up boring me.

 Not only is the combat system action based but it also does NOT do the typical MMORPG thing with five hotbars and fifty choices at any given time.  Players have two weapons and only three abilities per weapon.  Then there are four consumable slots (and next patch you can no longer use consumables from inventory in combat).  Add in the light/heavy attacks from left click, dodging, and that is a max of ten possible actions to take.  That is the sweet spot.

 The combat is also based on the gear you have equipped.  No classes.  If you want to tank; put on heavy armor and grab a shield.  If you want to use a Firestaff and a Musket; go ahead.  There is a ton of opportunity to carve out the way you want to play with the weapons and armor you want to.  Not everything works great but it does work and my favorite builds prove that point.  I run heavy armor Firestaff/Sword and Shield and do everything from PvP to DPS and tanking in PvE expeditions.

 The second big thing I love about New World are the graphics and audio.  The game looks and sounds amazing.  It is hard to go back to other games or even look at newer games that are nowhere near the visuals of New World.  The sound and visuals of chopping down a giant tree in New World are unmatched!

  Then the third, and biggest attraction, for me is that I have the same opportunity as any other player to make it to the end game progression without having to be a hardcore-focused player.  Don't get me wrong; I play the game a lot so I am not casual in that aspect, but I am also not a tryhard trying to cut a minute off an M3 completion time or have my VoDs reviewed so I can make a war roster.  I can play the game the way I want and make progress and end up in the same end game spot as any other player.  

 I find New World to be rewarding to how I play MMOs and that is the top reason I stick around.

 

 

Sunday 11/12/2023 Post

 It's that time of week again where we watch the Green Bay Packers come up short.... again.  Did I say again?  So many games this year going out on a whimper.

Yes I know it's the wrong coach.

If Heartless was an advertisement!

 A little fun from Tipa over on gamepad.club where she uses some AI to generate fake advertisements for a few of the bloggers out there.  Thanks Tipa (check her blog out at Chasing Dings)!

New World Economy

 New World's dev team recently released an edition of Forged in Aeternum talking about the game's economy.  Anyone that knows me knows that online game economies are my jam!

 I missed commenting on this video when it was fresh but something in the patch notes yesterday brought it forward in my mind.

Temporarily adjusted the drop amounts for Mythril Ore veins until we can place more in the world.

 This is... odd.  Even odder when you consider the economy video where they talk about how they closely watch and monitor raw materials to see what may be too abundant and what may be too scarce.  They talk in the video about changing crafting recipes to consume more materials or giving new uses to things like Wooden Coins.

 Anyone looking at the current state of Mythril Ore knows Mythril Ore is not the problem.  The problem is Orichalcum Ore which is the bottleneck.  My own storage tells that tale.  I have thousands of Mythril Ore and I've never once gone out to farm it so this is just from passing by a node and getting it.  I can't refine that ore because I can't get Orichalcum Ore and I'm not paying the market price for it.

 To illustrate those prices further (thanks to New World Market Prices)

• Starmetal ore 0.22
  
• Starmetal ingot 3.82
  
• Orichalcum Ore 0.81
• Orichalcum Ingot 10.79
• Mythril Ore 0.20
• Mythril Ingot 22.99

 As you can see Orichalcum Ore sticks out like a sore thumb.  Higher cost of "ori" shows its a clear bottleneck.  As ori ingots are required to make mythril ingots and thus a lower supply of ori means more expensive mythril ingot costs so less refining and thus mythril ore is becoming worth less and less.  

 And... the answer is to make more mythril ore available?  What the heck.  This single example trumps the content of the video.  The ores are the center piece of New World's economy just as "metals" are the center piece of most fantasy RPG crafting systems.  It really bugs me that they are increasing mythril, which is not hard to get currently, while ori still remains way too rare.  Ori should increase first before messing with mythril.

 Ah!!!! But that is economics sometimes and if books like Freakonomics has taught me anything it is that sometimes its not always obvious why something has/does not have an effect. So maybe, just maybe, increasing mythril will do something we are not expecting.

The Changes No One Asked For

 New World posted the patch notes for the upcoming PTR for the Eternal Frost update.  There were some unexpected changes buried within the notes.  Some which I don't think anyone was asking for!

The biggest area of "no one asked for this" is a nerf to 3v3 PvP arenas and the rewards they grant.  Effectively nerfing rewards by 40%.  I will let the developers own notes speak for the change:

We originally wanted 3v3 Arenas to be a more challenging space with additional value for the winning players, so we greatly improved the PvP XP and Salts given by the mode in the expansion update. It was a successful change in that sense, but now our other PvP game modes are suffering. We're reducing 3v3 Arenas so they don't overshadow other modes as much. As a result, Outpost Rush and War will grant greater rewards.

The maximum reward given by 3v3 Arenas has been reduced to 1200 XP and 500 Salts. The other contribution tiers have also been updated in a similar fashion.

 That is down from 2500 XP.  So instead of 4 wins unlocking a PvP track it will now take 8 wins; even more if you are not a winner like me.  That sort of sucks; both for the future but also anyone that hasn't gotten to enjoy the current reward structure.  This will make unlocking the PvP artifacts that much longer of a process compared to folks like me who have them all done already.

 The good news (I guess) is that other PvP game modes such as Outpost Rush (OPR) and influence races are being buffed to give more rewards.  This was definitely a change needed as the time investment in those events did not match how long they took to complete, but at the cost of arena rewards it feels cheapened.

 On to other changes no one asked for...

Increased maximum non-sprint move speed to 4.0 m/s.

We just got mounts and now.... NOW.... we're increasing base move speed?  I'll take it but really?

Fixed an issue that prevented all of the Elk related creatures from being skinned.

The irony in this one is everyone assumed that elk could not be skinned unless you owned the territory; sort of like the "king's woods" concept where only the king can harvest the male animals.  Guess it was just a bug!

Removed the consumable heal mod PvP adjustment. Consumables now heal at normal amounts in PvP.

In Season 3 potion heals were reduced in effectiveness in PvP.  Now they are being moved back to normal.  Ping meet pong.  I personally enjoyed less potion healing in PvP.  Fights felt a lot better.  My main fear is this makes healers that much harder to kill since they can self heal + pot at 100% effectiveness again.

Updated the Ankh Artifact heal mod to also decrease lifesteal healing (gives bigger trade off and creates additional differences between it and the Blooddrinker ring).

Blooddrinker Artifact - Added a 5% bonus to all lifesteal healing while active.

This one actually makes sense.  I personally was using Ankh with leaching/lifesteal because... well... I get all the 25% bonus heal with none of the downside of Blooddrinker.  Now Ankh will mostly be for group play (which I think is what it always should have been) and Blooddrinker actually has a purpose and increased effectiveness to go with it!  Nerf buffs are the best!

I doubt I am getting a refund for the time and effort + materials I dumped into upgrading Ankh though...

Anyways.

Tons of changes to gems... which are fine but not sure anyone was out there asking for them.  One pretty big nerf though:

Gambit (Opal) - By far the most used Gem. Reduced damage values from a range of 6% to 15% to a range of 4% to 12% while stamina is not full.

 And another one that makes sense.  You almost always used opal because it was just mathematically better as it was active more of the time.  Now other gems have higher % damage compared to opal and thus makes sense to try other ones out.  Still think even 12% is high for opal; should be more like 8% since it is easily active 2x more often than ones that do 16% damage.

Updated the Life Staff Sacred ground upgrade "Anointed" heal mod to not affect consumables or lifesteal healing.

Updated the Life staff Sacred Protection passive to not affect consumables or lifesteal healing and buffed its value from 5% to 10%.

 The life staff/healing nerfs we all wanted! Yes!  This actually is a good change. It was comical being able to stand in a sacred ground circle and basically be unkillable.

Brutal Road Map Update for New World

 Ouch.  The November New World developer update was brutal.  Most of the final road map for 2023 has been cut and/or delayed.  Coming off the expansion, which was rightfully criticized for lacking in content, a lot of players expected a full course from the Season 4 road map.  Instead only a couple of items are going to make it.  Check out the cuts below.

Sunday 11/5/2023 Post