Thoughts on Umbral Shards and Impact to Endgame & Economy

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I know there are a lot of people complaining, expressing their interests, etc so I figured I would jump on the bus. People might see this, they might not, but my hope is that there are some people out there who share the same thoughts as me.

We all know the game needs work (i.e. weapon balancing, bug fixes, bots, PVP, PVE endgame loot, etc) but with the release of some new content coming up and the Umbral Shard system, I have some concerns about the fate of New World endgame.

I could be wrong, but from what I understand, only 600 GS items (Legendary items) can be increased to 625 using Umbral Shards. If this is the case, I can only foresee major negative impact to the gameā€™s economy and endgame progression for those players whose company does not own a major territory. I say this because if legendaries are the only items that can be upgraded past 600, then all crafted or dropped items are useless for the elite endgame. Meaning, companies who own major territories pulling millions of gold per week will hyper inflate the gameā€™s economy. We have seen it in waves on Calnogor server where companies will buy ALL of the Asmo, Orichalcum Ore / Ingot, etc on the Auction House which allows them to control the market price. Making it extremely difficult to solo players or ā€œpoorerā€ players to participate in crafting their own items. (Im not going into the discussion of ā€˜gather your own matsā€™ā€¦bots make it almost impossible /end).
TL;DR Rich companies buy all the mats, they make all the crafts they can. They keep all the legendaries (or only the good ones and sell the garbage ones), flood the AH with purple 595-599 gear that is borderline useless, etc, etc. Now the 95% of players who arent in those rich companies have to roll their own (ex. 1/66 per piece for a legendary with specific perk) and hope its Best In Slot, OR, they have to buy a Best In Slot crafted by the rich companies for HUNDREDS of thousands of gold. In doing so, it allows the rich to get richer, allows the controlling of the market making it more difficult for other players / companies, and most importantly of all it makes the powerful even more powerful.

I hope with all of the feedback that the community is providing that some additional thought is going into this system and how it will impact the elite endgame. In my opinion, dont make only 600 legendary gear the only gear that you can upgrade. Allow players to upgrade 595+ gear. It will make these items still viable for players and not make them useless. There is a slight disadvantage since they are missing one additional perk, however, BIS items should be legendary items for that exact reason. There shouldnt be penatly to players who have spent time, gold, and materials to buy, grind or craft purple items only for them to be useless in the elite end game.

Let me know your thoughts. I could talk about this all day. Its all my buddies and I talk about (aside from the awful stun lock VG / Ice gauntlet / Rapier mode that is OPR)

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I feel this. The Upgrade system is probably the most unnecessary feature theyā€™ve brought into the game so far. On the spot, I could easily think of a thousand other Changes that would be super well received by literally every single player and probably take far less development time and effort.

Itā€™s a shame that they constantly create these complex, interconnected systems and almost every time severely hurt another aspect of the game in the process, especially since there is so much quality feedback on the forums that couldā€™ve prevented them from making rookie-mistakes like that.

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What economy been broken since launch with item and coin dupe. Also tax revenue has been rampant for months.

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I think people are getting worked up over nothing. From what I have read, the difference in a 599 item and a 625 item is trivial. You gain 1 stat point. The value of 590-599 items is not going to drop; for the exact reasons you listed. 600 is difficult to get. This patch isnā€™t going to flood the market with 600 items. Lots of people will still have to use 595-599gear. I would definitely expect it to increase the value of 600 items. The whole thing seems like a way to give hardcore players, who already have 600 items and max expertise, something to work on.

Can you imagine if they gave us a way to roll 590-599 into a 600. The cost of a purple item with good perks would explode. Thatā€™s if the crafters even sold them anymore. I assume lots of people would start rolling them into 600ā€™s instead of selling them at all. I doubt they let us convert an item without binding it to the player.

Personally, Iā€™m not a fan of another shard system and have mixed feelings about the whole patch.

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From what we know from PTR legendary drops are massively increased in dungeons which means we all get a lot of legendaries just from spamming dungeons. You donĀ“t need crafting to get legendaries anymore.

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Saw that too and I wonder what impact its going to have on crafting. Cost over 200k to max weaponsmithing on my server with mat prices. And for example a greataxe cost 10k per attempt to craft for mostly RNG trash. Then with the new system people are getting 5+ legendaries per dungeon run.

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If all that crafting of <GS600 gear wasnt useless enough, now theres even more reason you have to craft 10-20 of the item you actually want, crafted a 599, sorry you just wasted your mats and aint anyone buying that shit. Devā€™s cant design a single system that isnā€™t rife with low % RNG just to keep you from playing the rest of the game as there is no ā€œrest of the gameā€

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Hey Chiefzu! Didnt expect to see you respond to my stuff lol

In regards to your comment, dont you think that it will still drive the cost of materials and increase the volatility of the market though if people are chasing 600 items through crafting even more so than they are now? Especially since they are the only items that can get a player to 625.
Part of me expects that crafting material prices will continue to rise almost exponentially unless perhaps purple items could be used to rank up via Umbral but at the cost of not having an extra perk and those additional attribute points.
I see the pros and cons of both our statements. I guess my worry is that this system may further the negative impact the economy in the game

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imho i feel like asmo prices are going to go up pretty hard as voidbent will be a popular 600 choice vs crafters attempting random range stuff.

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Additionally, one of my company buddies (Collision) added a great point. Why not allow for purple items to be increased by the Umbral system by a +25 GS. For example, a legendary 600 ā†’ 625 while a purple 590 ā†’ 615. Still down a perk and not reaching cap. This would still allow players to grind their gear to higher GS and participate in harder dungeon mutations while chasing down better legendary items to swap out for. Otherwise, at some point, the purple gear that cant be upgraded wont be helping players out enough the harder the dungeons get

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I feel this already. Just yesterday I was looking for ā€˜OKā€™ melee gear on the AH and almost ALL of the voidbent set pieces have been bought up. They are the easiest to craft because of their set perks, and Resilient is one of the most popular defensive perks to begin with. Its a guaranteed, fairly decent, set of gear that will allow someone to craft and carry themselves through more difficult dungeon mutations

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This is just incorrect, the new dungeon mutations, and future dungeons scale off gear score. You literally have to throw your 599 gear away and replace it with a 600 gear that you can level up to progress through the mutations. If you donā€™t do this you canā€™t level your weapon up to 625, now you are 25 GS behind on weapon in PVP and every other activity. Also I am not sure if you knew, but there are purple, blue, and green 600 items. Increasing a purple 599 to 600 doesnā€™t mean it becomes legendary.

It is an astonishingly bad decision that could have only been made by someone who doesnā€™t exactly understand how the game works. 595+ pieces with two perks are currently considered end game gear.

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you can have purple 600 gear.

just let them upgrade all of them to max 625. it doesnt really do anything.

a purple 590-600 with good perks is good enough.

letting us get it to 625.

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Thats what im saying! The only person it truly affects is the player using the gear. Because no matter what, its still down a perk and down one attribute points. They could change the system to allow purple 590-600 gear to scale just like the legendaries but at a slight disadvantage which is currently how the system works anyway lol. I dont know why this wasnt thought of when they came up with the Umbral System in the first place.

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I think the cost of crafting will go down eventually because it wonĀ“t be so needed to get endgame/bis gear. We will see.

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There are good sub-600 armor pieces on the TP right now, but no one is buying themā€¦.

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good i need cheaper gear sets to mess with normal open world farming chest runs. especially since im no where near ready to do these mutated dungeons which really sucks because that was what i was most excited for.

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Omg small world man! I didnā€™t even notice you posted this! I expected everyone to tell me Iā€™m crazy since I posted an unpopular opinion. I wasnā€™t even going to come back and read the replies until I saw your name.

I totally agree itā€™s too early for a gear score increase but itā€™s not as terrible as everyone seems to believe it is going to be. Maybe Iā€™m biased though since most of my slots are 590 and I crafted myself 600 armor. I just joined chest groups and farmed my own crafting mats. I rolled decent legendaries after 2-3 weeks. Not BIS, but good enough.

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I disagreeā€¦ spending umbral shards on voidbent would be a colossal waste of a limited time gated resource. Iā€™m sure SOME people will do it but God I hope youā€™re wrong. Voidbent is bad. Lol

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Yeah dude! Too funny!

The Devs are listening to what the community is saying so I have a feeling they will end up making it more beneficial for everyone. At least that is my hope. Im still working on getting my jewelry and weapons to 590 lol