Amazon is hoping to improve the endgame experience in its fantasy MMO New World with a new feature called “expedition mutators,” which will modify the complexity and severity of combat encounters and reward players who are up to the task with “new customized armor and resources.”
“Mutators change the familiar by augmenting ‘Normal’ and ‘Named’ Enemies found within expeditions, changing the way encounters play out and what strategies players should consider before battle,” Amazon explained in a blog post.
“This system is intended to rotate through a unique combination of Expeditions and Mutations each week, with 10 difficulty levels per Expedition Mutation. Players will be challenged to climb the ladder, to eventually reach the max difficulty.”
Total time, enemy kills, the player respawns, team wipes, and various performance-based bonus multipliers will all be used to determine expedition results. If you perform well enough in a mutated expedition, you’ll be promoted to the next mutator difficulty level, which offers bigger and better rewards. It won’t be easy, though: Amazon noted that the recommended Gear Scores will be crucial for mutant missions, “since it directly contributes to opponent scaling,” and that higher difficulties will be incredibly challenging.
On the New World public test realm, which went live yesterday, expedition mutators are now available. The mutator rotation will operate on an expedited timetable during the test period to enable testing and guarantee that players have access to a variety of mutations in multiple endgame expeditions.
Every 48 hours, one of the three excursions (Dynasty Shipyard, Garden of Genesis, or Lazarus Instrumentality) will mutate. To begin, all PTR players will be given a 600 Gear Score loadout, as well as a “large quantity of keys to run Expeditions,” and during the last week of testing, all PTR players will be given a maxed loadout (Gear Score 625) so that every one may take a proper run at the level 10 difficulty mutations.
Expeditions have been adjusted to align with other endgame activities to accommodate the mutator changes: drop rates for named enemies have been “significantly increased,” T5 gear has been added to the Dynasty Shipyard loot table when playing it mutated, and the number of enemies players face when sealing the Ancient Azoth Portals in the Ostium during the Lazarus Instrumentality expedition has been reduced.
Since its release last year, New World has had some glitches and vulnerabilities, but endgame content has also been a problem. In a December 2021 interview with PCGamesN, game director Scot Lane noted, “We have to do a better job of attracting gamers to all of our endgame activities.” “Right now, they’re just getting exposed to a small percentage of our endgame mechanics, and they’re rightly hungry for more.”
The PTR also includes Umbral Shards, a new resource that allows players to increase equipment with a Gear Score of 600 to 625, which Amazon describes as “essential if you want to dive into higher-difficulty Mutated Expeditions or acquire a competitive advantage in PvP.” In addition, the Expertise cap has been raised to 625. There are three ways to obtain Umbral Shards:
- Completing Mutated Expeditions.
- Crafting a Gear Score 600 item when your Expertise with that item is also at 600.
- Opening a Gypsum Cast when your Expertise for that item is also at 600.
In addition, the PTR raises the cost of summoning Brutes, adds a few combat-related changes, and lowers the cost of rapid travel.
All-New World players are welcome to join the PTR, but you’ll need to download and install a separate PTR client and create a new character to do so—live characters will not work on the test realm. Newworld.com has all the details on what to anticipate and how to get in.
