Running a character from 1st to 60th is a blast. This game is beautiful, the map is quite inventive, and the combat is very fun. Still, the endgame content is not equal to the first 60 levels as players feel trapped into long gathering grinds and chest runs which limit how they choose to enjoy the game. Here are the issues and solutions as I perceive them:
ISSUES:
Crafting: The dispersal of gathering nodes (or animals to skin) is not equal between the skills when it comes to crafting. It’s easy to cut wood or kill/skin animals, to refine thread and leather or make potions, but metal requires the most material to refine, is used in greater quantities on item creation, and has the fewest nodes available for T5.
If this is to be a design intention, the Mining and Smelting Aptitude boxes should have the best payouts and skinning and harvesting (the easiest to raise) should be the least.
Our team does every crafting/refining activity and the rewards for skinning and harvesting are unquestionably greater due to the speed with which they can be gained in comparison to cutting wood or gathering metal.
Azoth Vials: Azoth Vial drops have been significantly lowered, but teleportation has not been discounted much. I get that the intent is to drive players towards corruption content and Gate disruption, but in reality it reduces the time we get to play the content we want with our friends.
If you wish to keep Azoth Vials rare, then Azoth should be available in large reward from PvP and Gathering activities like it is from instances, quest rewards, and gates. Let the players play your game the way they want to. Give Azoth for PvP kills and increase azoth reward for gathering tools with Azoth perk.
Forcing PvPers to play PvE: At this moment endgame progression is all PvE. If I want to raise my Expertise I have to run instances, farm elite zones, and chest run. You really need to make bumps available from all PvP activity. Make Gypsum available from Faction Tokens maybe? Have a timer on it. Make gypsum a possible drop from PvP kills or PvP mission completion? Something!
Taxes: This one is listed so I can encourage the current dev direction. Houses are expensive and needed for endgame. Money was a problem for some time, but Presents from the Winter event and now Juniper Berry bags, and fishing chests keep the money flowing. This is great, please keep this trend up!
Bugs: I’ve seen the Dev Blog, so I know this is your goal in February. Good job! It really needs to be done.
GS 500-550: The endgame expertise ladder is most difficult from 500-550 as all the 60th+ content is crushing your <500 GS gear. This game needs a 55-60 elite area that drops early expertise bumps at a decent clip to help newcomers. The grind from pre-500 to 520+ GS is the slowest and most painful and I suspect many players lose interest here.
Once over 520, the grind becomes manageable and survival improves. We don’t need an adjustment for later GS grind, just that critical beginning time when EdenGrove and Reekwater are a bit much to handle.
These are my thoughts and I encourage others to comment.
I hope this helps Amazon, I would like to see New World succeed.