New World: The strongest factions are now giving away their settlements on empty servers

An important part of the endgame in New World are the battles for territories. These can be conquered by factions and then expanded. In return, they collect taxes on trading, crafting or housing. But on servers with few players it happens more and more often that the dominant faction gives away territories.

Who is giving away settlements? There should actually be bitter fighting for the territories and thus for the settlements. In 50v50 battles, both factions should give their all, after all, in the end, they will be rewarded with control of the area and additional income.

But this is not so easy on empty servers. Because due to a lack of opponents, one faction often dominates and then holds most of the territories. This has so many disadvantages in places that some factions are now simply giving away control of the area to the attackers.

MeinMMO reader Chriz sent us a small excerpt from his livestream. There the marauders do not defend their fortress at all, but dance together on a small hill.

The victory over the marauders is said to have been agreed in advance, because the faction actually dominates Chriz’s server. In general, settlements should be swapped here on a regular basis. Lila is supposed to constantly control two areas, but they change regularly because wars break out.

However, not only Chriz reports about it. Several threads and comments can be found in reddit. In October we also reported on a then rare case where diplomacy brought a settlement. But now there are various reasons behind the donations.

Boredom, high costs and the fear that the server will die completely

Why are settlements being given away? One of the reasons for the donation is the cost of maintaining and expanding a settlement. In the peripheral areas in particular, it is not worth investing in them, as few taxes are collected there. Hardly anyone travels to the outposts to build or craft a house there. That is why these areas are often not fought properly.

Another aspect is boredom:

• Some people are bothered by the fact that they only ever play the role of defender and no longer the attacker. You also want to increase influence through Open-PvP in enemy territory and experience something “new” again.
• Still others simply don’t feel like going to war anymore, because whoever controls all territories has regular battles to fight. That is why the most unattractive areas are simply given away.

The main reason for many, however, is the fear that the server will die out completely. Because if one faction controls everything, wins all wars and receives all income, there is a risk that players of the other factions will stop completely.

This in turn would have negative effects on the entire server, for example when forming groups for PvE content, but also during matches in the outpost storm. The outpost storm is considered a good and, above all, lucrative game mode, but needs 40 active players at level 60 to register for it. Outside of prime time, this is a big problem on some empty servers.

Are the peaceful handovers well received by everyone? No, our reader Chriz is annoyed because he wants to experience real wars and PvP battles instead of having opponents dancing.

In addition, territories are often given away to known or friendly companies. If you are not in the “inner circle”, you will never get to an area.

Dying servers and problems in the faction balance are to blame

Why do these peaceful surrenders come about at all? Most of these donations take place on servers where the population is already low. Usually one faction dominates here because they were able to hold their guilds together, while players have just given up with the inferior factions.

Here the players urgently want the server mergers that are already planned.

But even on the fuller servers it happens again and again that a faction dominates. Usually this is due to large guilds that work together. Once the card is checked, new players usually join the strongest faction instead of one of the weaker ones.

So far, however, there is no real solution to the faction balance. The developers have only reduced the ability to switch between factions from 120 to 60 days and forbid switching from one of the weak factions to the strongest on the server.

What do you think about giving away territories? And have you already experienced something like this yourself on your server?