The developers of New World announced a drastic change for 2022. After this, all equipment would scale with the new expertise system. As a result, a legendary item with an item level of 600 could suddenly become weaker. Now this change has been revised again and players are really satisfied with the new version.
What was originally announced? In the big December update, the watermark system will be revamped and replaced by the expertise. For 2022, the developers wanted to completely adapt the equipment system to expertise:
- Expertise alone should determine the strength of the equipment
- If you have an expertise of 520 but equip an item of level 550, it will automatically scale down to 520
- Only through higher expertise, which you gain by grinding mobs or through the new gypsum system, should the character’s strength increase
- This should prevent players from simply buying the best equipment at the trading post instead of grinding for it like everyone else
The announcement caused a shitstorm in the community, especially among crafters. They feared that they would become useless due to the change because they could craft whatever they wanted but still had to grind to benefit from the items.
What is new now? On the night of December 7, the developers announced adjustments to the equipment system (via New World Forum). And they sound really good.
Although the equipment will still scale with expertise starting in 2022, there are exceptions where you will retain full strength. These are:
- Every item you craft yourself
- Every item you earn through quests
- Every item you can buy from the faction vendor
Another change is the way of scaling. A mean value of the equipment and the expertise will now be generated. This means: If you have an item with an item level of 600 but only have an expertise of 500 yourself, the item will henceforth have an item level of 550.
In addition, the developers promised that players who already had stronger equipment before the update would retain that strength. This is intended to prevent players from feeling weaker due to the new update.
“This system is now a significant improvement over the current state”
How do players react to the announcement? The new adjustments to the expertise system are being very well received by the players.
Because the new system is more transparent than the old watermarks and offers new opportunities to specifically improve expertise through gypsum. Additionally, crafters are not penalized but rather favored to a certain extent, which creates positive vibes among these players.
At the same time, the actual goal of the change is still met. Players should not be able to simply buy the best equipment at the trading post but should work for their strength.
- The reddit user Larkenx praises the change: “This is probably the best thing they have ever written in the forums, to be honest. Pretty big concessions regarding all the major pain points that people have raised. You definitely feel heard” (via reddit).
- The user _ENERGYLEGS sees a big improvement in the new system: “Very good changes. I’m glad they listened. The new system is a significant improvement over the current watermark system, and the removal of it is a good thing for all players” (via reddit).
- Mehjai is pleased that Amazon listens to the players: “I have quite criticized them, but this change is excellent and at least shows that they listen and have thought about it. They even admitted that they were wrong in the developer blog” (via reddit).
- The user Soluss even apologizes to the developers: “Thank you Amazon Games. I was really angry about the change and did not hide that either. I honestly didn’t believe that you would listen to us and change your mind. You have shown today that you will do the right thing with major changes. For that, I want to praise you and apologize for the nonsense I said” (via New World Forum).
Gypsum costs will be significantly reduced
What else did the developers announce in the thread? In addition to adjustments to expertise, the new gypsum system was also discussed.
In the current version on the PTR, it costs 600 gold to create a gypsum cast of your equipment. If you want to raise your entire equipment from expertise 500 to 600, you need about 200,000 coins, in addition to the grind of materials.
These costs will now be drastically reduced. You will only pay 7.5 coins per gypsum cast. In the justification, it says that the developers do not want to impose another grind for coins on players at level 60 in addition to grinding for equipment.
In addition, the cooldown for earning gypsum has been reduced from 23 to 18 hours, giving players a better window for completing quests and daily faction missions. Additionally, the cooldown for crafting topaz gypsum has been reduced from weekly to daily.
What do you think of these changes? Do you find the new system to be successful or does it still bother you that equipment will now scale with expertise? Feel free to share it in the comments.
The preliminary patch notes for the upcoming update 1.2 have been summarized here for you: New World shows preliminary patch notes for Update 1.2 and much sounds really good.
