First I would like to preface this post in saying that I am not level 60, and therefore have not participated in the High Water Mark grind. It is therefore true that the upcoming Expertise / High Water Mark system overhaul will not affect me personally except for the fact that I will be using the new system if this goes live vs. the HWM system.
That being said, here’s my understanding as well as some questions for the veterans of new world that have been doing the grind;
From what I understand, the High Watermark System’s basic intention was for you to grind elites and high level areas until you obtain a rare drop with slightly higher gear score, which would in turn increase your overall gear score and then allow you to rarely drop an even slightly higher gear score item going forward; increasing your watermark until you reach 600 being the highest at the moment. I also understand that yes, this sounds pretty insane of a grind, but a grind nonetheless in an MMO game where grinding is what you kind of do in these games.
Additionally, I am lead to understand that if you wished to bypass this HWM system, there is gear available on the market that you can simply buy with a higher gear score in which you can fully bypass the HWM grind if you just want to buy the gear for yourself.
Now question 1 :Would this increase your High Water Mark by equipping gear bought at the TP? If not, it would seem the only hinderance to equipping it would be your player level, and therefore you wouldn’t really need a High Water Mark in order to equip the highest gear in the game, right?
The next topic would be crafting gear. My question here is… currently… are max level crafters able to produce gear that has a gear score higher than THEIR current High Water Mark Level, like can an HWM level 502 create gear that’s 600 in a rare instance if they have level 200 crafting? If they can currently, it would seem that you can also bypass high water marking by crafting gear higher than your watermark level.
I guess the conclusion I’m left to reach here is that for people that grinded their watermark level up in the way that evidently AGS intended, those people will be rewarded by this change by being able to equip the gearscore that they earned through the grind. Those that bypassed the watermark system by buying gear that is higher than they could have gotten via their own participation in the content will be de-rewarded. Crafters would then still be rewarded by being able to craft gear up to their watermark level, but not beyond it, because if they can currently produce gear beyond their Watermark, that seems broken to me.
So - if the way I understand this is correct, this seems like a good change. What it’s doing from my limited understanding is fortifying the “high water mark” system in the form of modifying it to expertise. Similarly to how you cannot equip certain gear until you hit a certain player level, expertise is enforcing the current high water mark by reducing any gear that you did not earn via grinding to your current level merely so that someone that did not grind their gearscore higher won’t be able to essentially "pay to win’ by buying all their gear in the Trading Post.
For those that have their gear score reduced that purchased high end items… I believe they should be refunded the gold amount spent, yes. For crafters, maybe some other type of compensation akin to their effort. Overall though, it sounds like this rewards players that grinded the system as intended, and brings those down that did not and with that being said it sounds like a positive change to me “in the long run”.
If i have understood incorrectly, please correct where I am wrong. Also, if I am incorrect on these topics, no need to get angry or hostile due to my ignorance. I am just trying to understand the changes and express my opinion as I understand them. If my understanding is modified through discourse, then my opinion may be swayed. As it stands, this is my understanding and thoughts on the potential changes with the preface of not doing the grind myself as of yet.
Thank you community.