Hi, I have like 70+ days /played in New World.
I have a certain kind of relationship with MMORPGs. I am that guy who plays the hell out of them, consumes all the content utterly. Then content runs out and you wait for more. Taking breaks is OK, all part of the process. But I want to grind dungeons. These new, mutated ones that just came out. I would play dungeons all day. Except, i’m time-gated in their creation and also time-gated in some of the rewards (gypsum) so if I want to just play the damn game I can’t, I’m being “sub optimal”. Dynasty is so bad this week, it is considered “sub optimal” to even pop a mutator orb on.
The Long First Week
Man Mutators were so good the first week. Laz felt fresh, and competitive. The loot had some issues both ways with the drops being better and the chests being worse. There was stuff to learn. The market was hot, too. Everyone buying and selling what they needed to progress. Everyone banking up things for next week, a 50/50 shot or hedging bets against both. Orbs started running out towards the end… People turned to other activities for a day or two during cooldowns.
Then the dungeon didn’t change. A dev post was made. The next day, still no change. Orbs were getting used to push farther on Laz since the period was longer. Extra +10s got cleared since people got to re-craft for the same dungeon. Any semblance of clean competition was gone, as was any hype for the next mutator since it hadn’t come.
Dynasty Shityard
Finally, it changed - and my server got Dynasty. Which unfortunately did not seem ready. On +1 there were things 1-shotting players in gear grinded up thru +6 and above. There were tier 5 versions of the drops, but they didn’t seem scaled correctly, lacking gem slots, getting their extra perks early and not “going orange”. People notice they aren’t getting their sapphire gypsums, so they still need to run gen/laz still on top of this.
Orb Anxiety
Suddenly, nobody wants to do M dungeons. Orb anxiety creeps in. Friends don’t want to play with friends because what if it’s the “wrong week”, or what if one person thinks it is and won’t “pay it forward” for the group with their orb when it’s their turn to activate. People start keeping track, “I used mine but you didn’t use yours” - relationships start getting scuffed over dumb video game stuff. A toxic system creating toxic players.
People recall their “orb mistakes” the first week and get cold feet. Even with the extra refunded, everyone holds back. This is a problem both with the design of the systems and the poor mutator experience in Dynasty, which just doesn’t feel “worth it”.
Nobody wants to play the patch, what now?
No dungeons means no content, as that’s all this patch was. There really isn’t any other content, and people know it’s getting easier on the PTR (some will infinitely do OPR rather than figure out how to win in PVE content).
People slowly stop logging in. “Maybe next week will be good?” By then, their attention is caught by something else. My server is still fairly populated, for now, and plenty of groups to be had. But mutators died this week.
Maybe it won’t even switch properly. Or maybe it will be Genesis and it will be a bugged hatchet-fest with extra points for exploiting to kill a boss a 2nd time. Or maybe it will be overtuned, undertuned, buggy, unfinished feeling. Or maybe, just maybe, it will work perfectly and we’ll be somewhat excited to re-run the same old dungeon again. I’m sorry to be so grim but this is the reality the players see.
Summary
You can release something new that has issues, and people will forgive time to fix it… Or you can release something recycled, but improve it and make it nearly perfect, and people will forgive it being recycled. But you can’t recycle something and then need time to fix it. That squanders what little good faith you had left. That’s why the Mutator system has failed.
- Based on my Laz experience, I complemented the system saying it was a reasonable substitute for mythic+. It felt good, fun, rewarding.
- Based on my Dynasty experience, I’ve cut my playtime down by 90% because the dungeon is in desperate need of QA. It felt awful, the rewards were bad/broken compared to Laz/Gen drops.
The flagship feature of the patch is dead this week, which means there is no content. PVP is currently overrun by weapon exploits, so that’s not playable either. The playerbase is running out of reasons to login a week after a “Content patch”, some even waiting for OPR to feed them shards for gearscore to even bother seriously playing. Which when that happens - will invalidate the actual efforts these dungeons took. The correct answer was a rated PVP mode for shards, but you haven’t the resources to do that properly.
Actual new content - a new zone with new assets, resources, crafting, enemies, places to explore, etc? Nowhere to be found except the datamining. Funny how the edge of the world killzone is one of the only things in the game that works consistently - Heaven forbid we see something new in the game.
I said earlier breaks are OK, and i’m cutting back my playtime because game is not good for me atm. But I hope there will be a reason to come back and play seriously. Something fun. Daily gypsum chores, Weapon Exploit Rush and the Orb-haggling-hoarding game just ain’t it AGS.
Thanks for reading this rant.