MMORPG games such as New World are designed with character progression in mind where the player creates their character and proceed to play the game (and keep playing) due to some motivational source.
One of the questionable things with New World is whether their is enough reason to keep playing the game once you’ve finished levelling, building up your gear expertise and then finally grinding out your meta gear.
The big question is Does New World Have an End Game? And even more importantly, what content is there for Tanks?
End Game Content
The original plan for New World was for it to be a game where PvP was always enabled. This stance later changed as they began testing the game and realising players wanted more PvE content and the option of not being forced into PvP.
This lead to the game being seemingly unfinished when it released with very little challenging PvE content to do but things are improving, new content is constantly being released and the future of the game looks bright.
This is also great news for any aspiring New World Tanks.
PvP
A large part of the end game scene in New World was originally around PvP and alliance conflict including Wars. This is a good motivation to keep people in the game as they are able to hone their skills with the games combat system and use that to show dominance over enemy players.
By having companies control towns and fight wars over them it really helps to create communities with people joining companies and players working together to retain control of a town.
The problem with this is many MMORPG fans simply don’t enjoy PvP so this isn’t enough to keep them in the game and there is a certain level of reliance on PvE players and casual players. To maintain constant sources of materials, gear and an active marketplace you need those PvE players as they are committing their time to fighting PvE enemies, looting lots of items and gear, crafting, gathering and trading which is just as important as Companies and PvP players fighting in wars.
The problem with PvP for Tanks is at the start people would utilise Tanks in wars to act as a blockade and for crowd control. A year on from that and Tanks are not at all wanted or needed in PvP environments.
PvE End Game
The PvE end game revolves largely around Expeditions. These are essentially 5 players dungeons where you require a Tank, a Healer and 3 Damage Dealers.
Each expedition has varying levels of difficulty. There are some low level expeditions such as Armine Excavation that are aimed at level 25 and then there are a range of level 60 expeditions, some which are more difficult than others.
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The way that these expeditions become more engaging and “end game” is when tackling the Mutated versions. These are essentially harder versions of the same expedition. There are 10 mutation levels, each one increasing in difficulty and you have to complete the previous level before you can move onto the next one.
Mutations work on a weekly rotation where only certain expeditions become mutated each week. There are also 4 different mutation types so when an expedition comes back around for it’s turn in the mutation cycle it may be a different type but you still continue your progress on the mutated 1 to 10 scale even when its a different mutation type.
Expeditions reward players with more and more rewards the higher mutation level that they progress but the big issue is what is the point?
If we take Lazarus as an example, to do this expedition you are expected to be using Ancient Ward gear. The rewards for completing it include a higher chance at Chardis gear which has the Ancient Ward perk which isn’t very helpful since you already needed it to do the expedition in the first place.
You’re also rewarded with more and more Umbral Shards which is helpful as you progress through the mutation levels and need to upgrade your gear to max but what’s the incentive to keep replaying M10 expeditions once gear is maxed?
Other things you could class as “end game” for PvE includes crafting. There is a crafting end game essentially where you are encouraged to keep levelling your crafts and gathering even when it reaches level 200 since you’ll unlock aptitude levels which provide you with additional rewards and materials and some crafts can be really difficult to max out so other players rely on high level crafters to provide their wares.
Other PvE content includes Trials/Arenas such as The Siren Queen which is just a single boss in a room where you take your 5-person group into a 5 minute fight and kill it with reasonable ease.
Future PvE End Game
It can take a considerable amount of time to progress through the expeditions to get to a point where you have reached M10 in every expedition, since you will need 4 types of Ward gear and then you’ll also need enough Umbral Shards to max that gear to 625.
The positive side of it all is that there is plenty more to come for New World PvE content. Every couple of months there are new expeditions being released which arrive with different themes, new mechanics and provide new challenges for experienced PvE players. If you have all your gear maxed then you are already setup for the challenge.
A huge thing that is on the way that will drastically improve the PvE end game is Leaderboards.
Many top players in the PvE community enjoy the challenge of competing for score and bragging rights against other players. New World is on the verge of bringing weekly leaderboards to mutated expeditions which is going to be a great motivator for players who will not only get their names on the leaderboard, but they will also unlock exclusive character titles to show off their achievement.
The top 5 teams will get a title and then the top 25 teams will also get another title so this is a great way to rewards PvE players for their practice and commitment to perfecting the PvE content.
These leaderboards will not only be for expeditions, they will also have quarterly leaderboards and titles for the Arenas/Trials which are currently not highly contested or competetive so this will add a new thing for players to work on to pursue leaderboard scores and titles.
Upcoming New World Leaderboard Titles
Raids
Finally, we have Raids!
One thing that people love in MMO games is organised raiding with big teams of players and this is coming to New World.
Players that have put in a lot of time to learning and understanding their characters, the PvE environments and building up their gear and materials are going to be well prepared for when Raiding comes to New World.
So far we know that we are going to be dealing with a Brimstone Sands raid and it will be a giant Sandworm. The Devs want to make this raid “almost impossible” and it can already be seen jumping out of the ground when exploring in Brimstone Sands, you just can’t fight it just yet!
We’ll have more information about the New World Raid very soon so keep an eye on the New World Homepage.
What do you think about the New World end game? Let us know in The Tank Club Discord!