Hello, so I was thinking about getting back into the game. I would mainly like to play New World for the open world PvP aspect of it, but is there any point in doing so? With a char that is not lvl 60 yet, am I right to assume that you would just get wrecked by other players with lvl 60 and good gear (assuming I would find flagged players in the first place)? Is there any balancing in place? Is there any risk involved to run around in very expensive gear and stomping low lvl or under geared players?
Somehow, the core game design seems to be flawed when you look at it as a whole. The only thing that one can do would be to grind non flagged towards lvl 60 and get good gear and then participate in PvP right? If this is the case, what is the point of this? Am I missing something here, or is this the result of the major change in design when AGS decided to make it a non loot PvP game? Compared to something with a good implementation of full loot PvP like Albion Online, which has a healthy economy with a great risk vs reward gearing loop, New World seems to lack all of that, at least from an outside perspective.
I would love to hear from longtime players or even AGS staff if I’m missing something here, or if this is just broken game design at this point that doesn’t work. This game is too good in all its other parts (World, Sound, Combat, and so on) to die to bad decisions or lack of knowledge. I hope there is something to explain this or future plans to change the state of the game.
If you were to compete against a level 60 right now, assuming that you’re in the mid 40’s and upwards, you’re gonna want to be some kind of range against a melee or something with a spear so that they cannot move. Trading blows won’t be viable unfortunately, I’d stick it out till ur 60 or test it out! The only incentives currently are a varying amount of gold/faction tokens, terrible gear drops and getting your name out there as an open world titan (ego).
PvP death consequences have been greatly reduced so you can die what feels like 20 times before needing to repair. Join in on influence pushes if you don’t already and see how they feel, no reason to wait till 60 to join group PvP. They happen more often now due to war changes and keep an eye out for changes to how influence pushes work as that will greatly affect the amount of open world pvp encounters.
Windsward is also generally the duelling hub on each server and while it doesn’t compare to open-world, it will allow you to see the common patterns of each build.
Hope I answered something here but to compile it, you cannot compete with competent level 60’s, no real incentives to open world pvp, learn and have fun in influence pushes/duels for potential content to come.
Open world PVP is essentially dead, at least on my server. Usually being flagged for the bonus or doing PVP missions, most people will leave you alone as they are doing the same thing and it’s annoying if you die.
Why is it like this? For one the fort bonuses are for the most part, trivial, not worth fighting over. Forts are stupid easy to take, you literally, walk in, stay in place till it caps. Bad design.
If I were in charge, I would create several smaller scale PVP type events in each zone. Points that DO something, either globally or for that territory (more mining, lumber, etc yield). Give players a reason to fight.
In my mind if AGS stick with making expeditions as their main content as a focus, this game will die. The world is large and there are a ton of things they could do to make it more interesting. I always point to Guild Wars 2 as a rubric on how to craft a world.
Personally I think it’s like this because the core Settlements/War/Invasion system was bad design. There’s really nothing in the open world worth pvping for outside of when people push influence. I think a better overall design would have been coop servers that were single faction where settlements were just automatically run by town boards and no governors. Invasions In these settlements would be open world dynamic events that people don’t have to sign up for.
THEN have 6-7 cross server zones where if you go you are auto flagged for pvp. Have a server from each faction contest those zones continuously as opposed to an instanced, exclusive war. Rotate the servers every 3 months so outclassed servers don’t despair. Create PvP specific resources in the cross server zones that can be farmed and used to craft pvp specific armour/weapons. Give bonuses to the server that holds certain territory in the contested zones. Create a special dungeon that opens if you control the majority of the contested territory. Also, create a prestige/reknown system for open world where players get points for kills and lose points for deaths.