New World Tips: the DOs and DON'Ts for Beginner Players

Beginner friendly guide for New World for the key basic mechanics. Includes DO’s and DONT’s and some great tips and tricks for new players!

This guide is aimed at new players, focusing on a variety of useful tips to help with everything from crafting to combat. Even if you aren’t a new player, you may not have discovered these tips and they could help you out as well.

This guide is does not contain any story-related spoilers. The images included below are primarily from low level content and not related to the main narrative of the game.

Should you party-up or play solo
Should you try Every Weapon
Why you must Collect Resources as you explore
How to make the best use of your Faction
Should you keep raw materials, even when crafting
How to plan out your Territory Reputation Ranks
Should you be Flagged for PvP
Why you shouldn’t rush your quests
Should you Fast Travel and why
Should you get rid of things you don’t use
Should you buy refined materials
Learn to Manage Your Attributes

Should you party-up or play solo

While partying has its slight drawbacks like Weapon XP always being split (within ~150m), it does have quite a few advantages. These advantages include being able to fight tougher or multiple enemies, which can very easily offset this initial drawback.

Spawn rates of enemies and resources are also affected by the number of nearby players, with large groups increasing the rate by a significant amount. I don’t expect Gathering Parties to be too common for things other than Logging or Fishing; but they can be an effective option with a coordinated group or just as a guild.

Areas like the Wolf Dens that you get sent to very early on also tend to have really high spawn rates due to the above reason as well. If you have the patience you can easily stockpile a ton of Rawhide and Meat, as most players won’t stop to skin they’ll finish the quest without a thought. This will give you a good boost to your Skinning, Tanning and Cooking skills. I did this one night during beta with a friend, we collected a few thousand hides and got 20+ Skinning and Leatherworking levels each. It took a few trips back and forth to get that many but it was time well spent for us.

If you’re planning on diving into PvP, it’s always best to never PvP alone. Even if you just bring one friend with you, the odds of losing out on a 2v1 fight are low which can prevent a lot of attacks on you. While there could be bigger PvP groups out and about, they’re less common around the lower level areas and tend to show up a lot more when factions and Companies start taking over.

Should you try Every Weapon

While having a main or preferred weapon is great, it also hinders your flexibility. Even if you don’t plan on using it for damage, Weapons like the Great Axe, Hatchet and Fire Staff can make great secondaries with their mobility skills.

If you do have a preferred or stronger weapon, it can be used to level a weaker weapon slightly faster. This can be done by tagging an enemy the weapon you want to level, then swapping to your main weapon. The XP will be split between the weapons, making it easier to level.

If PvP is your focus, It’s highly recommended to focus on both a Melee weapon and a Ranged Weapon of your choice. There’s also a few pairings that work rather nicely, like the Rapier and Ice Gauntlet, as the Rapier benefits from Intelligence as well as Dexterity. In addition the Rapier Will also benefit from the Slows and Freeze statuses the Ice Gauntlet can Inflict giving more windows for burst damage.

We have a great Beginners Guide to all Weapons and Abilities in New World. And if you want to go more in-depth, check out the individual Weapons Guides and Best Builds for each one.

Why you must Collect Resources as you explore

Gathering resources in general, as well as specifically Logging and Skinning resources are good to stockpile. They can be used for Crafting, but also more importantly they can be used to complete Town Job Board Quests, and even quite a few Side Quests. Every Gathering Skill and Crafting Skill has its time on the Job Board, being prepared for any of them will allow you to progress just a bit faster.

Even collecting a ton of Flint or Green Wood from Bushes can net you an additional resource, Fishing Bait. In addition to being used for Fishing, which helps get resources for a lot of other Trade Skills, Bait is a common Job Board Quest.

Leveling these skills is also important, as doing so improves how quickly you will be able to gather resources. In addition, you may end up being able to craft upgrades to your armor long before you find really good drops.

How to make the best use of your Faction

Factions are more than just an icon and part of a larger territory control aspect for PvP. They also provide some of the best XP granting quests early on outside of main quests. They tend to offer three at a time, and the odds are pretty likely that the area for 2 or more of these quests will overlap or at least be very near each other letting you double down on your XP and reputation gains.

In addition to this XP, you also get Tokens to spend on various items, ranging from Weapons to some Crafting items. These crafting items are unique to the faction shop, and are easily the most valuable. One of the most useful things you can get early on is the Minor Rune of Holding, which will let you craft a Satchel. Satchels will expand your carrying weight, allowing you to collect more resources before having to take them back to town.

Why shuld you join a Company in New World

They also provide easy access to half decent weapons if you’re not working on your crafting, or don’t plan to for a while. Each tier of your Faction will offer different levels of gear, Starting at Level 10-15 and moving up to 20-25 with your first rank up.

Should you keep raw materials, even when crafting

As your Refining skills and crafting skill go up in level, they get bonuses that allow them to increase their output, or increase the chances of getting bonuses like Perks for Armor and Weapons. These upgrades are all applied at the current level of crafting, and will not increase until after crafting is finished. It’s best to craft these in smaller bundles, which comes at a small cost of time, but can net you some extra resources to craft with.

Occasionally Job Board Quests, especially Armor and Weapon Crafting ones, will also ask for or make use of the raw materials, like Rawhide or Iron Ore. Having these set aside for specifically these situations will be helpful to your progression. I tend to keep roughly 100 – 200 of a resource unrefined just to be prepared for these tasks. These tend to be great sources of XP for crafting skills and very recommended to do.

In the first few weeks, there’s bound to be a high player population in low level areas. This will leave some resources feeling more scarce than what they are. Iron Ore and Hemp Fiber are both fairly common resources used for a lot of early crafting, but can often be hard to track down during peak hours or in low level areas that are already crawling with lots of players.

If your stockpile becomes too much, you can however condense the weight by refining them down a bit. The Raw materials will almost always be heavier than the refined counterpart, usually cutting the weight down by 25% or more.

How to plan out your Territory Reputation Ranks

Each of the territories offer a lot of the same things, but it seems pretty random as to what gets offered to you. Bonuses from XP, to Gathering speed and more. Since this has a cap of 200 levels, everything may not be able to be maxed out. You can tailor them to different reasons though.

Personally, what I’ve done is gotten an increased Reputation the first few times it pops up. As the early levels go fast enough, this bonus is more meaningful at higher levels. After this, I prioritized Gathering Speed and Storage. This helps me to gather a bit faster, while it’s still at its slowest, and still have extra space to store things later.

From my experience though, trading and crafting fees aren’t too bad until you get into crafting higher tiers of gear. The fee reductions are very small and aren’t worth taking right away and saved for later on when you’re trying to make huge sales. XP is an okay option if the other decent ones aren’t there, as for most areas you’ll be in, you’ll be there for at least 10 levels or so and it will add up if you’re gathering or questing.

If you want to learn more about New World’s Territory Standings, check out dedicated guide. In it we have a few helpful priority lists for you to follow to maximize the Reputation Bonuses and Perks you earn as you play.

Should you be Flagged for PvP

This is going to be a weird one to suggest, but hear me out. Flagging yourself for PvP can be very beneficial. Even though you’ll have to keep an eye out for other players, you get increased XP across the board for it. The only penalty you suffer is having respawn and your gear taking durability hits, which is mostly a minor inconvenience. You don’t lose any drops, or anything in your inventory.

In addition to the general XP boost, you can also get XP bonuses from taking down other players. This is both character XP and Weapon Mastery, which are both worth getting more of. You’ll also gain a pretty decent amount of gold, which is always nice too.

Should you be Flagged for PvP in New World

Depending on how long a player has been flagged for PvP, the more they’re worth trying to take down. The XP, Weapon XP and Gold gained from a take down all increase over time, making other players a fairly good source of bonus XP if you can take 1v1s.

While flagging in itself is a risk, it’s often worth taking. The benefits do generally outweigh the downsides. The only time I recommend not flagging for PvP, is if you’re going out to specifically gather crafting materials. Since this won’t be combat heavy, the bonus XP isn’t nearly enough to make it worthwhile.

Why you shouldn’t rush your quests

This is more for those that are going to absolutely never PvP. It should be obvious early on, but following the roads will only get you so much. Sometimes you have to go off the beaten path to find the resources you’ll need. Most resources next to the main trails are both limited and will be in areas that are frequented enough for them to not be reliable.

Segment of the map of Aeternum in New World with different types of markers on it

On top of resources, there’s Landmarks, which also grant XP and Territory Reputation when discovered. Both of these will help with progression, early on they’re pretty sizable boosts. Territory Rep in particular gives you boosts across the entire territory; making it easier to gather or just add bonus XP, among other bonuses.

Rushing your quests and making heavy use of Fast Traveling to do so will also take a toll on your early Azoth, which is harder to collect at low levels.. This resource is used heavily in both crafting as well as Fast Traveling. the farther you Fast Travel and the more weight you’re carrying can really up the expenses of frequent using Fast Travel.

Should you Fast Travel and why

Fast Traveling helps a lot with some quests, but it can be worthwhile to sometimes make those 1-2 km walks. You’ll be able hunt, gather and train all while doing an otherwise mundane task. Unless you’re trying to speed your way through areas, or it’s an even further distance away, a walk won’t set you back much.

In addition to Fast Traveling, which costs Azoth, there’s a couple other useful tools that can be used to help you get around. Camps and Inns. Inns in particular are nice to have registered. When it’s registered, it will also be a respawn option when you die, provided your Inn Recall isn’t on cooldown. Otherwise, In Recall is the only means of fast travel that isn’t limited by your location.

Camps really help when quests send you to far off locations and there’s not a nearby fast travel area. On top of dying to enemies, you can also use the respawn option in your menu to also move to a camp you’ve assigned as your respawn. There are a lot Main Story Quests where this is helpful, but it can be incredibly helpful to use in areas where you know you’ll get multiple Faction quests or side quests done at once. Having quicker or easier access to them can make your life easier.

Should you get rid of things you don’t use

The biggest offender for this tip is a shield. If you’re not running Sword and Shield, stash the shield. It will only add to your weight class. This will let a DPS or Support focused build still have max damage or max supporting power while allowing you to wear some heavier armor to survive easier.

Make sure if you swap weapons you have the gear to support it, or it will be much less effective. You may still have off stats, but that’s not going to help as much as the main stat would in terms of damage. Stat scaling is very important to getting good damage out of any weapon.

New World weight system benefits and drawbacks

If you’re planning on doing PvP, the best combination of armor you could use is Heavy Armor, with just Gloves being light enough to keep you in Medium. This means you’ll get the majority of the defensive stats to soak a bit more damage, while only losing a small bit of damage.

If you’re focusing on PvE however, you may want to do the opposite, and just use couple Heavy Pieces while maintaining your Light Armor bonuses. It has largely the same effect as the set above does, but keeping you in Light Tier for the damage instead of Medium.

Should you buy refined materials

If you’re a low level in refining, or only buy mats to craft, then sure you could. The biggest reason you should consider buying raw materials though, at least for T1 materials is that you’re likely going to get more out of a large batch of crafting for less cost.

As you level Refining Skills, you get a higher and higher chance to craft more of the refined material. Even that small bit of extra can mean a lot when it comes to building up a stockpile.

So when it comes to Ingots, Leather, Linen, or Lumber; Try to avoid buying them refined unless you’re buying a small quantity for a single craft to avoid making a gathering run. This will also ensure that you’re getting the necessary XP for these skills to refine higher tiers of materials.

Learn to Manage Your Attributes

Early on, while trying out different weapon and seeing what you want to stick with; It’s very worth taking Constitution instead of a damage stat. It’s neutral and won’t require a respec to swap when you change weapons or gear. It’ll also help you with early PvE and PvP encounters, letting your survive more hits.

When you get to the point where you do know what weapons you want to focus on, see which stats overlap, if any. Making that Attribute the one you focus on for increasing damage would benefit both weapons, otherwise it comes down to optimizing to get certain Attribute perks that benefit one or both weapons.

Where to find your attributes in New World — Your character’s core attributes are displayed at the bottom left corner of your inventory screen. The green numbers are bonuses from your gear and buffs.

Though due to diminishing returns it’s very ill-advised to try to take a single stat to the absolute maximum, which rests just short of 500 points currently. Doing so will give you more damage or health, but usually at the cost of the other. There’s also much less benefit to going past 300 points as there are no additional perks.

If PvP is your focus, Constitution will be a highly recommended secondary stat in addition to your primary damage stat. In PvE you can get away with picking up less health and going heavier on damage, especially with weapons that have two stats to scale with.

To learn more about stats and how they work, take a look at our deep dive into how Progression works in New World, where you will learn more about your Core Attributes, Trade Skills and Weapon Mastery.

We have a lot more beginner friendly guides for New World. And we have a ton of in-depth Weapon Guides and Builds for when you are ready to start mastering your skills on the battlefield!

If you’re looking for Leveling or Endgame builds, check out our Builds Section for more information. There we cover various builds, from basic to more advanced concepts.

Here on VULKK.com you will find everything you need for Amazon’s MMORPG New World. We continue to build our collection of guides while keeping you up-to-date on the latest news and updates, patch notes and all things New World!

New World Beginner's Guides

A collection of must-read Beginner Friendly guides for Amazon Games' MMORPG New World. Learn the basics of the game, how to level up quicker and easier, how combat works, which reputation perks to get first, what to do and not do as a new player in Aeternum!