We’re losing players because of few reasons. Some of these reasons are very easy to fix, some of them - no.
Lack of endgame content. This is number 1 reason why people leaving. How to fix it easily - add repetitive PVP content with SPECIAL REWARDS (yep, good pvp items like in WOW). Change rewards to make skillplay worth (your kill count logic is wrong; your outpost rush points logic is wrong). Later - add arena and ranks ( it is big work, I know). Maybe we should add/replace current outpost rush to something smaller and WITHOUT PVE PARTS.
Dupes / exploits / etc - I think it’s clear
PVP balance. Here we go. What you should do to make enjoyable balance pvp?
a) Nerf great axe and warhammer. We need huge nerf here.
b) Revert bow/fire/ice changes. Reduce bow max distance.
c) Nerf life staff a bit
d) Buff musket damage, buff bombs, make it momentary and add some damage. BUT: REDUCE MUSKET MAX DISTANCE. It is toxic. I can find my musket balance post from 1 month ago - where I wrote same things. Big musket distance is toxic for everyone. Good players can dodge and outheal it (and it is toxic to them and musket players). Bad players just die from nowhere (it is toxic to them). Current OPR situation shows it VERY clear, musket spam is very annoying and toxic. Btw: I have 20 level on: musket, bow, rapier, fire, ice, warhammer.
e) HEAVY ARMOR. It is too strong. Nerf it, add some debuffs, etc.
f) Potion spam. In ~24 seconds (default is 30 but I have refreshing toast) I can drink 2 health potions (~80% HP, btw I have divine perk), 2 regen potions (~80% HP), 3 mana potions (~30%HP). 190% HP at 24 seconds? REALLY? Imagine tanky guys in heavy with 12k+ HP… healing 190% hp at 24 seconds. Lol. Pls increase cd time; maybe we should think about make it non-consumable in outpost rush (it’s very toxic to spend 300+ gold for 1 outpost rush).
Lagfest in mass pvp. It would be great to fix but, as a dev, I undestand - it’s kinda impossible. Because it is your core and netcode. Next.
Dead servers. Yep, I understand that 2k limit is your core problem and it is impossible to fix. It can be solved by cross-server arenas / battlegrounds / wars (special wars without territory).
You know what is nice about 3) ? It is very easy to do. Just 1 day from 1 developer to change perks (and some time to test and release, but when you just change numbers - it is not dangerous). And 1) is not that hard too.
I agree to adjusting bow, a lot of people said touching up the dmg instead of reworking it’s functionality would have been a way better approach. No, do not fully revert FS/IG, it needed a Nerf, now it’s much more skill based. If you miss every skill you should be punished, people are just spamming skills and getting kills with old method even though they miss 4 abilities if they hit you with 2 you die. Tomb was broken, you have a safety net that you could get healed through, I think the hp on tomb was nerfed a little too hard, but it’s way better than the 3 people whacking and it’s barely ticking.
The problem we are facing is too many large adjustments instead of smaller safe adjustments. I 100% agree heavy is crazy, but it’s because mitigation in general is insane.
The grind endgame is long and full of RNG. It aint other games with very distinct paths forward to getting the end game gear you want. Sure in WoW I would have to grind arena for hours or ESO play through some dungeons to get the set pieces I want, but it is very direct at what I need to do to get where I need to be.
You can do anything to get anything in New world, or phrased another way…no matter what you do you can’t guarantee the item you want. So it is a battle for finding the most optimum path to get the most gear so that hopefully one of them is useful enough to replace what you have.
End game is a slot machine, but there is no content once you get your payout.
The game simply isn’t a fair playing field anymore.
The exploits and dupes are bad enough, now it’s the bots everywhere, because no action has been taken and they were allowed to level up so much it means they are in most zones running every node and now at 150+ fishing spots. This is part of what killed Archeage in the end, but you’d expect that as it was free to play game so no real way to counter bots, this game however is not free to play so people don’t expect it to be infested so badly.
I am currently asking why should I even try to play the game anymore since the economy is wrecked and I can’t make money via gathering as there are so many bots doing it. Aside from that most of the fun was running round in a big group to SM and Myrk but now that’s been taken away with the new scaling.
I’ll share my view as a player: I feel disrespected. Massive changes a few weeks into the game changing weapons, professions and gear we already have. They asked for our feedback and ignored it all. Bottom line is that the developers can and will change the game willy-nilly on their whim; everything the player is working toward could be useless tomorrow. I expect to have this happen in a beta phase but not after a game is launched.
NW has potential but wether that is actual real potential or just imagination of the players (red dead online, Anthem) is everyone’s guess.
The best part of the game currently is the sandbox world. Every actual “MMORPG” system/mechanic of NW is just not there. It’s either not implemented or extremely undercooked.
The game does more or less every PVE feature much worse than the competitors and it seem like AGS does not play the game and also have no experience with playing other current MMORPG’s.
Levelling just like dungeoneering and PVE combat in NW is uneccessarly restrictive and unrewarding which goes against how MMORPG’s have worked for the past 20 years.
NW basically feels like a mobile game (expedition orbs, tedious crafting, boring questing) where the company (AGS) will start selling the solution to these “issues” through their ingame store in the form of EXP boosts, storage boosts, expedition orbs… you name it.
Now when I typed it, it really hits me how much NW feels like one of those trash mobile games with artificial gating.