No Post Today - Blame Starfield!

 Must watch Starfield streams.  This post still counts for Blaugust!

Summary of New World's Balance in Power Update

 This post is a placeholder for the summary of the recent Balance of Power update from the New World developers.  I will be referencing back to this post for my commentary over the next few days.  

 

Stuff from the news post on the New World site.

 

Price Discover Aeternum’s next chapter for $29.99.

 For Resilience, we’ve added crit reduction to all players via the equip load effects (Light -15%, Medium -20%, Heavy -25%). Current items with this perk will receive the “Health” perk instead which increases the player’s health as a certain percentage of their base health.

 NEW INFLUENCE RACES
Capture new Influence Towers and strike down enemy Factions in open world combat for territorial supremacy. Each Faction will compete for Influence in specific zones during scheduled times. If an attacking Faction earns enough Influence through PvP Missions, Influence Towers, and Forts before the race ends, they’ll receive bonus rewards, plus the opportunity to declare War. If the defending Faction prevents the attackers from scoring enough Influence within the time limit, they’ll earn bonus rewards for both the Influence Race and the next War. Regardless of who wins, the attacking Faction with the most influence can escalate the conflict into War.

WHAT CHANGES ARE COMING TO REVAMPED MUTATIONS WITH RISE OF THE ANGRY EARTH?
To further improve Mutations as an endgame activity, we’ve revamped the experience for level 65 players. As a result, you will need to purchase Rise of the Angry Earth and max out your character level to enter Mutated Expeditions. Based on player feedback, Mutations will have 3 difficulties and a weekly limit of 100 Mutations. This added accessibility means less time waiting for groups and more opportunities for players to help less experienced Adventurers.
Players can also look forward to more desirable endgame rewards. For example, players that complete Elite Mutations will have a chance to earn Artifacts. Here’s the difficulty breakdown.
Intermediate: Requires 650 gear, includes Mutation
Hard: Requires 675 gear, includes Mutation and Promotion
Elite: Requires 700 gear, includes Mutation, Promotion, and Curses

 

Mostly gathered from this Reddit thread.

Anxiety about Spending Umbral Shards:

• Players have anxiety about spending hard-earned Umbral shards.

• Items will now drop at appropriate higher item levels based on the content being played.

• No need to invest extra resources to level up items.

Expertise System Removal:

• Expertise system posed an additional barrier after reaching Level 60.

• Players needed to invest time and effort to increase expertise for different gear slots.

• This system slowed down gear progression and caused frustration.

• Devs recognized the disconnect between player experience and the expertise system.

• Decision made to completely remove the expertise system in Season Three.

New Approach to Gear Progression:

• Players will no longer need to grind expertise for different gear slots.

• Items will drop at higher item levels based on the content being played.

• Players can access higher-level gear more naturally and smoothly.

• Focus on aligning gear progression with players' engagement in the game's content.

Benefits of Removal:

• Streamlined gear progression process after Level 60.

• Eliminates the need for additional grinding to unlock gear potential.

• Offers a more intuitive and rewarding approach to acquiring better equipment.

• Reduces frustration and friction often associated with the expertise system.

Player-Centric Enhancement:

• Removal of expertise system reflects devs' responsiveness to player feedback.

• Aims to provide a more enjoyable and engaging gear progression experience.

• Allows players to focus on content rather than the grind for expertise.

• Creates a more balanced and enjoyable endgame gear acquisition process.

Umbral Upgrading Changes:

• Concerns about spending valuable Umbral shards.

• Items will drop at higher item levels, reducing anxiety.

• No need to invest additional resources for leveling up items.

Inventory Management Improvement:

• Currently, players receive too much loot after content.

• Goal is to provide less loot but make it more meaningful.

• Introducing "Loop Biasing" to tailor loot drops to player attributes and preferences.

Chase Items and Artifacts:

• Introducing impactful and unique "Chase Items."

• Artifacts with unique perks can drop from various sources.

• Named enemies, dungeons, PVP reward track, etc.

Crafting Changes:

• Crafting process involves too much RNG.

• Introducing fixed gear scores when crafting.

• Adding an item called "Prismatic Scarab" for custom crafting.

• Crafters can create items with specific attributes and perks.

Perk Changes:

• Analyzed existing perks for usefulness and engagement.

• Removing underutilized perks and adding new ones.

• Making perk selection more meaningful and dynamic.

Level and Gear Score Increases:

• Level cap raised to 65.

• More attribute points gained through leveling and gear.

• Introduction of attribute threshold bonuses.

Artifact Discussion:

• Artifacts are unique gear score 700 items.

• Drop from named enemies and various content.

• Unique perk with a quest to unlock additional perks.

Crafting Enhancements:

• Fixed gear scores when crafting.

• "Asth Inductor" guarantees gear score 700.

• "Prismatic Scarab" for crafting custom items.

Closing Thoughts:

• Introducing tournaments and mounts.

   
  

Lessons Learned: Patience Is Rewarded - New World: Rise of the Angry Earth!

Update: After posting this the New World team also posted a news article covering tons of details.  Check it out here. 

Original post below...

 Blaugust rolls on and today's lesson learned is: patience pays off.  Yesterday there was some frustration in the New World community with a developer update that basically said "wait until next week".  But they tricked us because the avalanche of information started TODAY with back to back videos from the New World team.  To say I am excited is a vast understatement and I am so glad I held back any complaints about the dev update.  My patience has been rewarded!

 The first video is the Balance of Power update which covered a ton of changes coming to the game.  I can't do justice to all of the changes in this post so I will link to the video and let folks consume it.  I will be posting more about individual aspects over the next few weeks as we learn more.  I am really excited for the changes though and in summary is "less, but more meaningful loot + new ways to get the gear you want".

 The second video, which just a cinematic, is the real HYPE video in my book. Not only is it a great cinematic for the expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, but it reveals some key pieces of information.

• Some big bads from the Angry Earth invasion
• A peak at the new weapon: the Flail
• A peak at mounts; we saw a wolf mount and a mastodon-like elephant mount
• Maybe a hint at not only mounts but animal companions / pets?
  
• A possible new enemy type and/or race maybe - there was a Minotaur-looking character featured
• Launch is 10/3

Watch the video below! 

Lessons Learned: Next Week

 It looks like Blaugust 2023 is going to finish out before we get the big expansion news for New World.  How do we know?  Because the most recent developer update from Amazon Game Studios, the makers of New World, can be summed up by the phrase "next week".

 There is a good summary of the video on Reddit: here.  But really the answer is "next week" as the team dodged many of the pressing community questions stating that we'll get answers next week with the Season 3 + expansion announcements.  I sort of give credit to the team willing to put out this video knowing that so many answers were "next week" and the community feedback wouldn't be that great.

 Lesson Learned: Be patient.

 Personally I think it's an odd week to try and plan any major announcements.  Starfield will be dominating the gaming community buzz so it will be hard to elbow out space for any other major news.  I know I'll be planets deep in Starfield and not as invested in New World next week.  I imagine many others will be as well.

 With that said I am excited for the announcement(s) and what the team is bringing us.  We know there will be the expansion, mounts, major perk reworks, combat balance changes, and the dreaded details of the "New World gear reset".  I just may be delayed getting around to viewing depending on how awesome Starfield is :)

New World: Finished ALL Ultimate Trophies!

 It is done.  All 9 ultimate trophies are MINE in New World!  A quick rundown of what that means

• 900,000 (100k ea) faction tokens earned and spent
• 405,000 (45k ea) gold spent on Ultimate trophy component
• All major trophies (500k+ gold estimate)
  
• 18x Major Combat
• 15x Major Crafting
• 15x Major Gathering

 So what has almost a million gold bought me?  Not much to be honest but the satisfaction that crawled across my face finishing this was unmistakable. With that said here are a few benefits:

• I never have to travel between houses again just to change trophies out; this is honestly the biggest aspect of these trophies and about the only reason to get them.
  
• I can have all tertiary bonus trophies active: 3x major loot luck and the thanksgiving trophy
  
• I have an open trophy slot now so ready for a future trophy

 As I said "not much".  There is also a big downside though: the ultimate trophies are bound to the player so cannot be resold/traded once crafted. Major trophies were NOT bound so have the advantage of being able to be "borrowed" by others or sold off if no longer being used.  Personally I don't trust anyone to borrow my stuff in a virtual world and secondly I don't get rid of stuff.

 Here are some screenshots to go with this.

Count 'em - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9!

Trophies on my Windsward house

 

Lessons Learned: Steam Backlog Is What It Is

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).  This post is ALSO a part of Blaugust 2023's lessons learned week. Why? Because my Steam backlog is what it is.

 I had set the year off to tackle as much of my Steam backlog as I could.  It was part reflecting on games that I played in the past and part playing games I never played (or didn't play enough to form an opinion).  The reflecting has been easier than the playing so I thought for Blaugust's "stay motivated" week I'd hit some of the "need to play" list.

 I stuck to my alphabetical approach and I'm still in the Bs which meant I hit some doozies.  First was The Binding of Isaac which just killed my momentum as I didn't really want to play it and just kept putting it off.  I should have skipped it but felt I needed to be fair to the objective of hitting the full backlog.  Putting this one off meant I put the rest off and thus didn't get anywhere and thus had to shift gears for "staying motivated" week for Blaugust.

 Lesson Learned: If a game in my Steam backlog is not interesting then don't play it.  Life is short; don't play crappy games.

 Going forward I will be more strategic in the games I play from the backlog. This doesn't mean I won't touch on all games, but some will just be commentary like I've done for games like the Bioshock series.

 I also picked up on a tool called Steam Completionist from a post on Aywren's blog so I am going to check that out to see how it can help me better track my backlog.

 

 

Lessons Learned: Final Thoughts on Linus Tech Tips

 It is ironic how the Linus Tech Tips saga mapped out to the Blaugust 2023 plan.  Started in the "creator appreciation week" and now wrapping up in the "lessons learned week" with: Here's the plan.  This will likely be my last commentary on this saga and can be summed up by: right message; wrong messenger.

 Before we get to the "right message" I want to note that I found the start of the video as a microcosm of what I see as the issue: the cult of Linus.  Linus starts by talking about being chewed out by his boss which he makes out to be the LTT community.  Linus Media Group (LMG) is a company with a CEO and that CEO is not Linus.  Linus' boss is in fact not the community; it is the leadership of LMG.  This is part and parcel of why there is a problem; Linus continues to treat this as though he's a small content creator on Youtube instead of letting the 100+ company that is LMG be a company.

 With the start out of the way I want to address the "wrong messenger".  I ask the question: is this Linus or is this Linus Media Group?  Like I said about the apology video we need to hear from the LMG CEO and not the personality of Linus.  Linus has avenues, such as the WAN Show podcast, to get his updates out.

 With that said I do want to acknowledge that the underlying message was the right message (finally).  The right changes are hopefully going to happen.  LMG seems like a fun place to work (though that "cool work place" may be part of the issues with employees feeling overworked -- no one wants to lose the "cool job").  

 I do wish them luck in their goals but right now I can't get past the apology video and the "cult of Linus".  I may watch a video that pops up in my feed but I will view it as a corporate production vs how I see most Youtube video content.  The LTT that was no longer exists.

The Build That Motivates Me: Wheelchair Mage

Updated: 8/29/2023 - added weapon tree builds - also this build is up to date for Season 2.

 I wanted to share the build that keeps me motivated in New World.  This is the gear for my "wheelchair mage" as we've dubbed it on Castle of Steel.  It is heavy armor sword and shield/firestaff; focused on stacking fortify and using flamethrower to mow the folks down.

Here is the gear:

Weapon Trees

- Fire Staff: https://nwdb.info/build?skills=0-igb4m8-q07kcg_2-m7scu8-oj0cao_8-ki8e4k-mhepts

- Sword and Shield: https://nwdb.info/build?skills=0-igb4m8-q07kcg_2-m7scu8-oj0cao_8-ki8e4k-mhepts

 Images in case the build tool goes away:

 

Staying Motivated NOT to play stuff!

 The Blaugust 2023 "staying motivated" week rolls on and as I mentioned a couple days ago I mistimed my "Steam Backlog" game playing to match up to this week's posts so instead I am going to talk about staying motivated NOT to play everything that pops up in my feed!

 The first temptation for my game time is World of Warcraft's launch of the official hardcore servers for Classic.  Willhelm over at TAGN had some commentary on the event and it seems there is a rough go of the launch impacting more than just classic hardcore so that is helpful to keep one temptation off my plate.

"... but the errors and issues, down to being told constantly that you’re not in a raid if you join the queue as a group, have been annoying"

 Next up on the temptation list is Skull and Bones which is supposedly starting a closed beta today.  It looks like a cool game and I applied for the closed beta.  However, based on some leaked rumors the game is in rough shape so I'm not sweating that beta invite landing.

 Wayfinder is also tempting.  There is early access for $20, but it has been a trainwreck of server issues for the game.  I played the earlier betas and the game was OK, but I couldn't get past the idea of picking a premade hero vs creating my own character.  Still on my "maybe list" but right now I'll pass with the early launch jitters.  As a note my main thoughts on the game mirror Massively OPs First Impressions: I honestly can’t tell whether I like Wayfinder or no.

 The last temptation is Guild Wars 2 launching it's Secrets of the Obscure expansion. I've said many times that if my fancy with New World ever wanes that Guild Wars 2 is the game I'd jump back to.  I have jumped to Guild Wars 2 multiple times before and each time I get the most recent expansion.  I also believe that the best times in MMOs are around launches; new games or expansions.  So there is a thread of me that wants to jump in at launch here but my brain can only take one true MMO at a time and the MMO of the moment for me is New World!

 I'll be over here motivating myself to stop being tempted by stuff :)

 

Staying Motivated for Starfield

 For Blaugust 2023 "staying motivated" week I also wanted to touch on Starfield as it is right around the corner (8/31 for early access, 9/5 for regular folks).  The game is shaping up to be a once-in-a-lifetime launch and every passing day requires more and more motivation to be ready for it!

  Outside of the fact that Bethesda is a huge name in the gaming world what caught my attention most about Starfield is the scope.  There are other games like, No Man's Sky, that compete on scope but for me the ship sailed on No Man's Sky with its subpar launch (though all reports are now it is a really great game with lots of updates).

 Seeing the early gameplay trailers and deep dives on systems for Starfield I was blown away by things like building your own ship module by module only to be followed up by "oh and you can collect your own crew to have on the ship".  Then you can take your starship to a thousand different planets (honestly once these games get past like 10 planets it doesn't matter if its 1,000 or 100,000).  On top of this there will be fully fledged storyline!

 Then there are things like building bases and factories to make you stuff. There is resource gathering and combat.  All of it affected by a planet's gravity and other environmental variables.  Honestly the only thing that caught me off guard that is not included in the game is ground vehicles but I can let that slide if I can just hop in my starship and fly around a planet.

 I am trying to control my hype here.  This is going to be a massive launch and I expect problems; no doubt some interconnected online service the game relies on will hiccup.  Additionally it is a solo game with no multiplayer and my history is I fizzle out on solo games (but surely Starfield will be different).  So I need to keep myself motivated because I really, really want this game to be everything it is being hyped up to be as it looks very, very fun.