So I’m only lvl 32 and posted some days ago about being worried about crafting in this game, fair enough I got some great response and looked a bit more into it and it is what it is… but then I realized something; everyone is really busy just chasing the GS and Expertise etc… like the “endgame” is to get better gear? Is that it?
E.g. in WoW you have a story with a raid that is the newest and the achievement is to progress in that raid. The gear is there as a means to an end to progress there but the endgame play is to “conquer” the raid.
What is New World’s real end game?
As I mentioned I’m only lvl 32 so I don’t see a lot of what is to come but is there a real end game or is it all only about the numbers on the gears?
New World has no real end game, that’s why everybody is complaining about the grind.
Your main task at max level is doing chest runs in elite areas. You can’t do the two endgame dungeons in a regular basis because their tuning orbs (aka entry keys) are so expensive to craft (you need days of farming specific resources for them) and the rewards in those dungeons are so bad that you might not even find a group anyway.
Then there is Outpost Rush, which in itself is not bad, but it’s just another pretty useless timesink as it doesn’t really reward you with anything worthwhile. The game lacks a proper endgame progression as watermarking clearly isn’t it.
But as you said it: gear grind is the only progress you make at max level. And yes, it’s the main incentive and task. You don’t do great content for better gear like in other games, you do watermark your gear in horrible content.
At first I thought it was dungeons/expeditions. But then I realized they’re too painful to grind entry mats for.
Then I thought it was watermark farming by killing elites. But then they buffed hp of elites according to ppl in the zone. So it’s not worth the time/effort.
I thought it was crafting, but now they say equipped GS will scale to match your internal Watermark/expertise. So I guess it’s not crafting.
Pvp (outpost rush) doesn’t really reward much in the way of watermark so that’s not a viable main path…
And now we are stuck with grinding elite chests as our endgame.
The end game is that you mindlessly grind stuff, then AGS decide you grinded the wrong stuff so they undo all of your grinding effort by rolling back your progress, and then you can start the grind all over again.
Quit while you haven’t invested any meaningful amount of time into this game.
The end game is literally running in circles in 2-3 areas and looting chests, over and over and over and over again. Crafting is viable but wont be once they push 1.2.
Invasions / Wars depending on your server and how “in” you are with the companies in charge of the respective warring / invasion territories.
Outpost rush exists (its basically CoD Domination + some PVE elements) but its rewards are pretty lackluster, something different but not terribly fun given how janky the combat is in New World (talking about the MASSIVE input latency, likely because everything is server side).
The precise lack of end game content is why everyone is up in arms at AGS for their ‘content’ patch with 1.2. They aren’t adding anything new in terms of dungeons, monsters, quests or other PvE Elements; rather, they are just adding time-gates to existing stuff that is really boring and mind numbing.
I have a friend who literally sat at this one tentacle for 8-10 hours a day, every day killing it (yes killing one mob) because it’s probably the best piece of ‘solo’ content you can do for end-game “progression”.
As background, I was the Governor of a dominant company on my server (held 4+ territories throughout most of the lifespan of the game) and we’ve never lost Windsward. We have multiple people with max crafting / trade skills.
Run while you still can; OR, play to 60 with the understanding that you will have nothing that is both (i) easily accessible; and (ii) fun to do.
TLDR: Get to 60 and say adios to New World. Crafting is good now, but will become irrelevant. End-game is just running in circles looting chests. The most interesting content is time-gated.
