In the MMO New World, you create a character and can level it up and equip it. Now, new details have been released that deal with the topics of attributes and abilities.
What does character development look like? In New World, which is currently still in alpha, your character starts at level 1 and without special equipment or skills.
During your adventure, you level up by collecting experience points up to level 60. With each level up, you receive attribute points that you can spend in five different primary attributes. Additionally, you learn new weapon skills through the use of weapons.
Furthermore, in character development, there are “civil skills” related to various skills like gathering or crafting. These allow you to gain new equipment where weight plays a special role.
The latest blog post from New World now reveals more details about character development. These have been positively received on reddit, also because the structure is kept simple and intuitive.
Simple systems for attributes and weapons
How are the attributes structured in New World? Your character in New World has 5 different attributes:
- Strength – Determines how effective melee weapons are. Heavy weapons like a warhammer depend solely on strength, while light weapons like one-handed swords also benefit from dexterity.
- Dexterity – Determines your skill in ranged combat. Light melee weapons also benefit from it.
- Intelligence – Determines how well you can handle mage weapons like fire staffs. Also enhances weapons with magical effects like the flaming sword.
- Focus – Improves mana regeneration and reduces cooldowns of skills.
- Constitution – Determines the value of your hit points.
At the start, each character has 5 points in all primary attributes. With each level up, you receive a new point that you can distribute.
When you reach 60 distributed points, you hit a soft cap, beyond which the distribution of further points loses effectiveness. In addition to level-ups, you can also obtain more attribute points through jewelry.
Can I redistribute attribute points? If you have distributed your points incorrectly or want to change your build, you can reset the attribute points. However, this will cost you gold.
Upon release, however, the redistribution is supposed to remain free at first, so players can try things out.
How do I learn new weapon skills? Whenever you defeat enemies with a weapon, you gain experience points for wielding that weapon. Each weapon has two skill trees with active and passive skills.
For each level up of a weapon, you receive a point that you can spend in the trees. This distribution can be reset for Azoth.
New World offers 16 different “professions”
How are the “civil skills” structured? In addition to attribute points and weapon skills, you can learn additional skills that resemble professions or life skills from MMORPGs.
Available options include:
- 4 gathering skills – Mining, Skinning, Logging, and Harvesting.
- 5 refining skills – Smelting, Stone Masonry, Woodworking, Tanning, and Weaving.
- 7 crafting skills – Weaponsmithing, Armoring, Jewelcrafting, Engineering, Arcana, Cooking, and Carpentry.
In New World, however, you do not have to choose one skill; you can learn and level all of them simultaneously. However, if you want to reach the highest levels in all areas, you will probably have to invest a lot of time.
Is New World a full-fledged MMORPG?
Officially, Amazon calls New World an “open-world MMO” and has so far avoided the term MMORPG. However, on reddit, the presented content related to character development was immediately compared to other MMORPGs:
- Elveone writes on reddit: “Well, I already knew that, but now it’s official for me – this game is an RPG and not just a survival game. The skills for weapon mastery make the difference for me.”
- Another user Nevada955 is excited: “Finally some RPG content, I’m happy and hyped, great news.”
Other users in the thread, however, are skeptical and describe New World as a “lackluster MMORPG without special features” (via reddit). For them, Amazon’s game looks more like standard fare.
There seems to be ongoing criticism that has existed since the highly publicized overhaul in December 2019. Back then, New World moved away from forced PvP and began focusing more on PvE content. This led to two groups fighting over the soul of the game.
