Honestly, compared to other MMORPGs New World has a lot of great things about it, and while I agree there are some issues that need to be worked through and there is a lack of content (consistent with all new MMORPGS), the biggest outlier causing people to leave in my opinion is…
- The overall server size.
I honestly believe the biggest problem with this game is that there aren’t more players able to play together making the game feel alive. So much of the content available (especially after the last patch) require group play. This is near impossible on medium/low populations, especially when trying to turn your PvP flag on and deal with opposing factions.
Example, if your server averages 400 players (low/medium) population, and then you divide that number by the three factions, you’re reduced to finding groups from 133ish players. Now subtract the bots, gold farmers, afkers, RPers, etc.
Point is, I bet the game will do a lot, LOT better if we switch over to a Black Desert Online channel system. Each server really should be able to have 40-50k players on it, but managed with said channel system of 2-5ksih players. <— This number will need to change based on content opening up as more of the map becomes available we will need more active players on each channel etc.
The current server system will not grow with the content and will constantly cause a divide in faction/player group activities.