Yay, more opinions on New World…
I think the fresh start servers right now are premature. I will do my best to list why below.I know AGS is looking for a surge, but right now, it would be a band-aid over a bullet wound type of situation. There are a few things still not right with the experience of New World. A lot of quests are still broken, even after the update, I had to redo quests simply due to a bug. This has occurred countless times, and I feel like AGS has left the community to deal with it themselves… I mean how is saying “just reset it or abandon the quest and restart it” acceptable? it should be fixed and designed in a way that allows for smooth playthrough.
The banking/storage system is kind of a mess. I know it was adjusted, but it is still kind of a mess. When I am searching for an item in my storage, I have to select each individual area separately, even when using the search bar filter.So, if I have let’s say, salt, but I do not know where, I will have to type ‘salt’ in the storage UI search box, then from the drop-down menu select each area 1 by 1, until I come across what I am looking for. Now this is FAR from ideal… and such a simple problem in 2022.Maybe think of adding “tags” to the banking, for example, in the drop-down where it shows “Everfall” , it’ll allow the player to add a tag so it can maybe say: “Everfall -Cooking-”
All in all, I just think storage still needs to be redone.
The crafting is still a bit too complicated for new players. What I mean is, the learning curve is too large to get started in the first place. To retain interest, I believe there needs to be a smaller learning curve to get started, then complexity can rise as you go deeper into it. But the way it is right now, it is pretty dense right from the start.
PvP is just not balanced. PvP needs to be separate from the PvM aspect as much as it can! If people have not grinded to 625 gear score, they are at a big disadvantage… this just should not be the case… what a huge barrier of entry. A game can hold both a PvP and PvM community, but this game does not have a PvP community that has not grinded through the PvM fully to endgame (hence why the slow PvP scene). PvP should be about your skills vs another player, not what you have. There needs to be a complete rework of PvP gearing. Boosting below 600 gear score to 600 gear score is not the solution. It must be equalized completely. You can make it so that a player must reach a minimum level to start PvP, but once the criteria is met, it needs to be completely equalized.
With all the things mentioned above, I will mention what is great about the game. The graphics are amazing. Nothing more to be said, they are amazing.The combat. The combat is great. It feels smooth, modern, what I expect from a AAA game studio. I think this is the most important part of the game, and they got it right.
I think fresh start servers right now will see a big surge, as there are lots of new things for people to do. But I think people will eventually run into the same fundamental problems that made them quit in the first place. And if people leave again, they are even less likely to return. And what we will be looking at is new fresh start servers every year or two that get merged as the population comes down, this will become the new thing.
PS. I do not hope for Fresh Start servers to not come ever. I want people to get what they want. But I would like for certain things to still be on AGS’s radar, and it seems like they may get forgotten in the ‘Fresh Start’ hype.