Ok, just posting my thoughts on how to solve the problems with rich in-game folks just buying all the resources they need to refine till all refining skills reach 200, and then using these materials to craft until they have all 200 crafting skills.
As we all know, folks use their Gathering skills to collect resources.
They then use these resources to refine them into materials.
They then use these materials to craft items.
Had I known about the “central core” of the New World’s economy being the really bad idea, that PvP groups, (called companies in game) were going to be getting massive amounts of gold from all the ingame taxes and fees, that these same groups can control and change whenever they like, with the resultant impact on EVERY players experience, I never would have purchased this game.
But even this really bad mistake (player ownership of territories) pales in the face of the most game breaking thing that this wealth concentration concept (designed to drive folks to strive for awesome PvP, what with all this loot being up for grabs, and totally ignoring the non-PvP players of the game), and that was combined with the above system, that still exists today, and that is folks just being able to buy their levels.
A simple solution, don’t allow any XP for Refining nor Crafting using anything that your character did not gather with their own 5 gathering tools.
This would force all would be crafters and refiners to go out and Gather all the resources with their own tools, and then only those resources personally gathered, could be then Refined into materials and award XP points to level up these skills, and only those personally gathered and refined materials could then give XP for the crafting skills.
Remember, all the nerfs that we have seen, were to prevent everyone from having “200 everything”, and were caused by the uncontrolled “Buying levels”, so if we were given a game, where purchased/gifted resources/materials cannot give any experience points, only those that went out and did the grind of gathering their own resources could level up their refining skills, and only those materials could give experience points to level up their crafting skills, so no matter how much wealth a character has in New World, they either Gather, or cannot level up their refining and crafting skills.
This simple change would allow for the initial releases leveling values (or something far closer to them) to be reinstated, so the grind would not be all that bad compared to the current system, but each and every wanna be Master Crafter would have to put in the time, not just buy their levels.
As proof, let us look at New World today.
4 months into the game, and folks hit 60th level in days, bought their “200 everything” ASAP, crafted BIS gear because they had the wealth to do so, beat the game, and then started complaining that the game was TOO EASY, and so it should be made harder, and…
Then we end up with the game as it exists today, with a broken economy, vast numbers of “200 everything” folks that have mostly moved on to other games, while leaving behind the smoking ruins of a (Potentially Great) game, that has been ‘made harder’ to the point that no one can simply log in and enjoy playing solo through the games storyline.