I have seen plenty of good ideas come through for where to take New World in the future. I would like to propose some ideas I’ve heard and some personal suggestions. I do personally believe that the player is always right about what the issue is, and almost always wrong about how to fix it. Though I propose some specific solutions, I would rather the core ‘want’ be resolved than to see my specific solution implemented.
Transmogs
-I agree that I would like to see transmogs in some capacity in the future. However, I do not want to see some generic list or menu accessed in the inventory screen or through some NPC. The core of this game is PVP and crafting. I recommend that there be some way for crafters to learn transmogs and then apply them to their crafted items. This could be part of the salvage process, maybe a recipe you complete with a selected item, maybe a set of quests that would allow you to turn in bulk items that otherwise flood the marketplace (ammunition, minor hp potions) bringing value to those items, or something else. You could also potentially have a component that would be used to apply these transmogs and they could be different rarities. Rare/cool transmogs would be coveted by crafters. I feel like this would add content instead of a menu.
-With a system like this you could breathe life into the equipment rewards on the faction PVP vendors. Removed the equipment options and replace them with transmogs or leave them as equipment that can then be turned into a transmog. I would recommend increasing the cost significantly. The would really benefit from additional art assets as you would likely want a unique transmog for each equipment type for each PVP rank for each faction. I understand that this may be too much, but it would be a very fun addition later. You could instead make allow fifth tier PVP equipment to be “salvaged” to add to the crafters transmog list.
Mounts
-Please no. Feel free to stop here on this one.
-If you want to add some sort of mount, I recommend instead of a speed boost you treat it as a pack animal. You could do some cool things with pack animals, like require PVP to be flagged and implement consequences for your mount being killed. This would open some kind of quests for transferring goods between towns or some kind of “too heavy for a player to carry” item.
Economy/Crafting
-Some settlements have thriving economies; some are absolutely barren. As far as I can tell only the starting zones get significant use. One way I would consider resolving this would be to have the marketplaces faction-specific. This brings the number of markets down to three and makes trade in higher-level areas more viable. Trade in higher-level zones may become more viable as people reach those zones, but even those in the between zones will never compete with the starter zones and highest-level zones. You could either make these markets only accessible by characters of that faction, or (I’d prefer) only accessible from a Settlement controlled by that faction. If you went with the latter, I would personally like to see an increased tax on people of different factions from the Marketplace (frame it as a discount in a friendly marketplace because the human brain likes that better).
-To transfer items from one city to another requires a substantial gold investment or to run from settlement to settlement. I personally always choose running, but that also means that I feel I have wasted however long it takes me to get from one place to the other. I understand that this is required to prevent your storage capacity from effectively being a massive, joined box. So much of this game revolves around weight and carry/storage capacity that this must be preserved. I would therefore recommend another option that allows you to transfer between storages at no cost or a reduced cost, but the transfer takes a significant amount of time. There is still a cost associated with it, but now I can play while I wait for that stack of wyrdwood to make it across the map. (I understand how fast travel mitigates this, but it is just a different currency cost from gold.)
-I have come across a few items that are cheap to craft bulk quantities of to get through low levels of a Trade Skill. These items flood the market and wind up not being worth the effort to sell so I just drop them on the floor. I would like to see a use for these in the future. Maybe allow them to be salvaged for a minuscule chance to get the components back, Maybe some kind of crafting quest that allows you to turn in these items for a marginal boost to that Trade Skill’s XP. Honestly, I would rather have a “craft XP” item that does the same thing without generating 1000 (not hyperbole) Minor Health Potions that I then have to drop in a sack (please do not actually implement a “craft XP” item).
-I’d like to see a more developed in-game way to see what all a resource can be used for so that I don’t find out that I should have been saving a resource for the past few weeks.
Resource tracking
-There is a lovely utility for tracking all of the resource nodes online on a third-party site. My recommendation for this is to implement the exact same thing in the game. However, instead of just showing you where all the nodes are, you have to have unlocked tracking for that material and you must have gathered from that node already. This preserves the wonder of entering a new zone but allows veteran players to easily map a farming course. I would be comfortable with this completely replacing the current tracking system but I could also see the arguments for a hybrid system.
Social
-Something that has bothered me about MMO’s for a while is that Guilds used to be a primarily social thing. Now there are so many functions for guilds that they are utilitarian. This means that it can be hard to find a social group and instead you find a “raiding” group and suffer the people that you don’t like. My recommendation would be to add a “Chat Channel” system. Now, this is nothing new, but every time I’ve seen it implemented, it has no features. I recommend allowing users to create chat channels, then advertise those chat channels with the attributes and intent of those channels. Have the admin fill out a form with silly versus serious, adult only, questing/social/dungeons/PVP (faction locked or not), RP/RP allowed/No-RP, public/private, level range, etc.
Personal/small things
-Gathering water sucks. Please allow me to turn off ‘F’ canceling the gather water action in Settings. Otherwise, this task requires just enough attention that I can’t watch Malcolm in the Middle with my full attention on my second screen.
-Fix the head clipping on hoods. My head is bald, I have the hood because I don’t want to see it.
-A black dye option
-A guided auto-run feature where the character follows the road.
There are other things but I can’t remember them right now. I purposefully excluded a lot of things that are already so discussed that I’m sure they will be in one of the next patches and I wanted to avoid discussing bugs for the same reason. This is a really solid game and I’m excited to see what comes of it. Like so many others, I just want more and I mean that as a compliment.