New World listens to its players, significantly weakens drastic change for 2022

The developers of New World had announced a drastic change for 2022. According to this, all equipment should be scaled with the new competence system. As a result, a legendary item with an armament value of 600 could suddenly become weaker. Now this change has been revised again and the players are really satisfied with the new version.

What was originally announced? In the big December update, the watermark system will be revised and replaced by the competencies. For 2022, the developers then wanted to completely adapt the equipment system to the competence:

• Competence alone should determine the strength of the equipment
• Anyone who has a competence of 520 but equips a level 550 item automatically scales this down to 520
• The strength of the character should only increase through higher competence, which one gets through grinding on mobs or through the new plaster system
• This was to prevent players from simply buying the best equipment at the trading post rather than grind for it like the others

The announcement caused a shit storm in the community, especially among the crafters. They feared that the change would make them useless because they can produce what they want, but still have to grind in order to benefit from the items.

What’s new now? On the night of December 7th, the developers announced adjustments to the equipment system (via New World Forum). And they sound really good.

Although the equipment should continue to scale with competence from the beginning of 2022, there are exceptions where you retain full strength. They are:

• Any item that you make yourself
• Any item that you earn through quests
• Any item that you can buy from the faction vendor

Another change is the type of scaling. A mean value is now generated from the equipment and the competence. That means: If you have an item with an armament value of 600, but only a competence of 500, then the item will have an armament value of 550 in the future.

In addition, the developers have promised that players who wore stronger equipment before the update would also keep this strength. This is to prevent players from feeling weaker with the new update.

“This system is now a big improvement on the current state”

How are the players reacting to the announcement? The new adjustments to the competence system are really well received by the players.

This is because the new system is more transparent than the old watermarks and, thanks to the plaster, offers new opportunities to improve competence in a targeted manner. In addition, Crafter are not punished, but to a certain extent even given preference, which creates a positive mood among these players.

At the same time, the actual goal of the change will continue to be met. In the future, players should not simply be able to buy the best equipment at the trading post, but rather develop their strengths.

• Reddit user Larkenx praises the change: “That’s probably the best thing you’ve ever written on the forums, to be honest. Pretty big concessions on all of the major pain points people have brought up. You definitely feel heard ”(via reddit).
• The user _ENERGYLEGS sees a big improvement in the new system: “Very good changes. I am glad you listened. The new system is a big improvement on the current Watermark system and removing it is a good thing for all players ”(via reddit).
• Mehjai is delighted that Amazon is listening to the players: “I pretty much beat them up, but this change is excellent and at least it shows that they have listened and thought about it. They even admitted they were wrong on the dev blog ”(via reddit).
• The user Soluss even apologizes to the developers: “Thanks Amazon Games. I was pissed off about the change and didn’t hide it. To be honest, I didn’t think you’d listen to us and change your mind. You showed today that if you make big changes, you will do the right thing. For this I want to praise you and apologize for the nonsense I said ”(via New World Forum).

Plaster costs are greatly reduced

What else did the developers announce in the thread? In addition to the adjustments to the competence, the new plaster system was also discussed.

In the current version on the PTR, it costs 600 gold to make a plaster cast of your equipment. If you want to bring your entire equipment from competence 500 to 600, you need 200,000 thalers, in addition to the grind of materials.

These costs are now drastically reduced. You only pay 7.5 thalers per plaster cast. The reasoning states that the developers at level 60 do not want players at level 60 to have a grind for thalers in addition to the grind for equipment.

In addition, the cooldown for earning plaster of paris has been reduced from 23 to 18 hours to give players a better time to complete quests and daily faction missions. In addition, the cooldown for the production of Topaz plaster is reduced from weekly to daily.

What do you think of these changes? Do you think the new system is a success or do you still bother that equipment will scale with competence in the future? Feel free to write it in the comments.

We have summarized the preliminary patch notes for the upcoming update 1.2 here for you: New World shows preliminary patch notes for update 1.2 and a lot sounds really good.