New World starts new alpha - The 5 biggest changes

At the end of August, a public test took place in New World. Following that, the MMO was revised for the first time. On October 20, the next alpha phase started with some changes. We at MeinMMO present you the biggest innovations.

How did the public test go? From August 25 to September 5, all alpha testers, pre-order customers, and players who registered for the beta were able to test Amazon’s new MMO.

The first reactions to the test were mixed. There was mainly criticism regarding the quests, the combat system, and the lack of incentives for PvP.

During the test, the mood changed a bit but remained critical. We at MeinMMO concluded that New World has many good approaches but still needs some fine-tuning:

1. Changes to old weapons and the combat system

What was the problem? The weapons and the combat system had several points of criticism:

The weapons shared a common cooldown for the abilities
With the life staff, one could jump from A to B “at light speed,” making enemies in open-world PvP uncatchable
The axe could keep enemies in “stun-lock”
Healing did not always count towards progress in staff mastery

What was changed? The new update addressed some of these criticisms:

All weapons now have independent cooldowns
The weapon switch has been sped up so that one can switch between them faster and execute combos
Attacks and abilities that are interrupted or canceled before their execution no longer incur a cooldown
The axe has been nerfed
The range of “light speed” with the life staff has been reduced by 50%, and the recharge time increased to 25 seconds
Healing now contributes to progress in the game

In addition to these requested adjustments, there was also another innovation regarding weapons.

2. A completely new weapon

What was the problem? A relatively minor criticism was that the selection of weapons in New World is very limited. So far, there were only 7 different types.

What was changed? With the new update, the spear was introduced as a new melee weapon. It uses two talent trees: Spear Mastery and Area Control. The latter allows keeping enemies at a distance and throwing the spear.

3. Changes to quests and XP distribution

What was the problem? The quests in New World mainly consisted of killing enemies and collecting items – often even both at the same time. Since the Corrupted were primarily targeted, the whole system played out very uninspired and monotonous.

What was changed? With the start of the new alpha, there were adjustments to the distribution of experience points, but fewer changes to the originally mentioned points of criticism:

Generally, level-ups have been slowed down, so more XP is required. Players are primarily supposed to earn these through quests.
Breach, killing creatures, and delivery quests now give less XP than before.
However, the required experience points for weapons were reduced so that they level up about as fast as before.

Additionally, a new quest for the legendary spear has been introduced with the update. No other changes to quests were mentioned.

4. Adjustments to enemies

What was the problem? The hostile NPCs in the first test were quite predictable. Their attacks followed a specific pattern, and there was generally little variety among the enemies.

At the same time, a random factor played a significant role. The enemies had no clear threat system, and even if a player fought with an enemy for some time, that enemy would suddenly run to another player who had just made their first attack.

What was changed? The patch notes do not mention anything about the predictability of the enemies, but rather about their aggro behavior:

There is now a new threat system, through which each player receives their own threat value.
Currently, threat is primarily generated through damage. In the future, there will also be abilities that increase and decrease threat. Healing does not yet create threat.

5. Overhauls of attributes

What was the problem? There was actually little criticism regarding the attribute points. With every level, there was one point that could be invested in attributes like strength or intelligence.

What was changed? From now on, you will receive multiple attribute points for level-ups. You can distribute them as you wish. The increased number of points is intended to slightly enhance build diversity.

Additionally, there are now extra attribute points for gear, and gems no longer grant attributes.

There is still a lack of changes

Based on the patch notes, it is still not entirely clear whether and, if so, how significantly the quests have been adjusted and made more interesting. Additionally, no changes were made regarding the situation surrounding PvP with these first adjustments.

This directly leads to several problems: