A proposed endgame system for New World will see some meaningful changes following widespread community backlash.
Amazon announced a new endgame system called Expertise for New World–one that would make all purchased, crafted, or quest gear significantly less powerful unless players spend hours raising their Expertise levels for each gear slot. This did not make the community happy, obviously.
Many on the game’s forums and subreddit threatened to quit the game entirely if this new system was released to the public servers. Following this swift outrage, Amazon had decided to make some more changes, stating in another new development blog that “it is now clear we were wrong.”
“When we thought about it more, reducing power for existing players is just unacceptable and something we will not do,” Amazon writes. “We initially thought it being only temporary and giving a new path with to gain back that power with Gypsum would be acceptable, but it is now clear we were wrong.”
Expertise is still coming to New World, but with more adjustments tagging along this time. Crafted items, items players earn from quests, and gear acquired from faction shops will not be affected by the Expertise system. Items sold by other players on the game’s auction house or earned from endgame activities following an early January 2022 update will be affected by Expertise.
Amazon is also making adjustments to the way gear scales with Expertise. Instead of the effectiveness of the gear being reduced to a player’s Expertise level, it will instead be reduced to a middle ground area between the gear score and the Expertise level of that slot.
Another change is coming to an endgame system thanks to the PTR. Cooldown timers for new endgame crafting ingredients called Gypsum have been adjusted, and the coin cost associated with new endgame crafting items like Gypsum Orbs and Gypsum Casts have been reduced significantly.
These changes seem to be going over better than the previous adjustment, but this is just the latest drama to surround New World. The last couple of months saw two economy shutdowns, time traveling servers, and a number of issues stemming from a large update.