New World 1.3: Expedition Mutators and new Gear Score cap now on PTR

“Introducing a new end-game feature: Expedition Mutators! Mutators change the familiar by augmenting “Elite” and “Named Enemies” found within expeditions, changing the way encounters play out and what strategies players should consider before battle. And as combat changes, so do the rewards! New bespoke gear and resources can be found, providing additional means to increase your power level.

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, with the aim of eventually reaching the max difficulty.

Please be advised that “Recommended Gear Score’” levels for a Mutated Expedition is important, as it directly factors into enemy scaling — and by consequence, your chances of success.“

“Score is performance based, taken from a combination of categories. Score is also a shared value for group members.

The following categories count towards the group’s overall score value:

• Time: The better the time, the better the score. Calculated at the end of a run.
• AI Kills: A target value for killing a predetermined amount of enemies within the expedition.
• Takedowns: A target value for killing “Named Enemies” within the expedition.
• Team Wipes: Each team wipe during a boss fight reduces the score by a significant amount.
• Respawns: Each respawn reduces the score by a moderate amount.

There are also Bonus Multipliers for run efficiency, minimal respawning/wiping, speed, and taking down all targets. These are calculated at the end of the Expedition run. The score ranks are Bronze, Silver, and Gold.

Advancement through each Mutator difficulty level requires reaching a predesignated level of proficiency within the highest achieved level. Higher scores mean advancement to higher difficulties, which in turn lead to bigger rewards.”

“Mutation effects are broken down into three categories: Elemental (Mutation), Promotion, and Curse.

Elemental mutations infuse enemies in the Expedition with a specific elemental damage type, increasing their resistance to that damage type, converting a large portion of their damage to that type, and giving them powerful elemental-based abilities.

Promotion mutations grant creatures in the Expedition powerful new abilities.

Curse mutations apply dangerous effects to players, forcing them to work together to overcome the curse’s power. At the highest difficulties, Curses become Empowered, creating additional tactical challenges.”

Please note that this list is not all-encompassing and is intended as an early look into a number of changes included within the most recent PTR build. This change list will be regularly updated, up through the retail release of the game version.

World Experience

Expedition Modifiers: Mutators

• We are introducing a new end-game feature: Expedition Mutators! Mutators change the familiar by augmenting “Elite” and “Named Enemies” found within expeditions, changing the way encounters play out and what strategies players should consider before battle. And as combat changes, so do the rewards! New bespoke gear and resources can be found, providing additional means to increase your power level.
• 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, with the aim of eventually reaching the max difficulty.
• Please be advised that “Recommended Gear Score’” levels for a Mutated Expedition is important, as it directly factors into enemy scaling — and by consequence, your chances of success.

Entering a Mutated Expedition

• Upon approaching and interacting with the Expedition Menu, players will be able to see the type of mutator available, the mutation level, Gear Score recommended to advance, and lastly if they meet qualifications for entry.
• Mutator Orbs are universal. Players can craft 1 per week and will be able to purchase additional orbs in the Faction Shop.

Scoring & Advancement

• Score is performance-based, taken from a combination of categories. Score is also a shared value for group members.
• The following categories count towards the group’s overall score value:
  • Time: The better the time, the better the score. Calculated at the end of a run.
  • AI Kills: A target value for killing a predetermined amount of enemies within the expedition.
  • Takedowns: A target value for killing “Named Enemies” within the expedition.
  • Team Wipes: Each team wipe during a boss fight reduces the score by a significant amount.
  • Respawns: Each respawn reduces the score by a moderate amount.
    • There are also Bonus Multipliers for run efficiency, minimal respawning/wiping, speed, and taking down all targets. These are calculated at the end of the Expedition run. The score ranks are Bronze, Silver, and Gold.
    • Advancement through each Mutator difficulty level requires reaching a predesignated level of proficiency within the highest achieved level. Higher scores mean advancement to higher difficulties, which in turn lead to bigger rewards.

Mutation Effects

• Elemental
  • Elemental mutations infuse enemies in the Expedition with a specific elemental damage type, increasing their resistance to that damage type, converting a large portion of their damage to that type, and giving them powerful elemental-based abilities.
  • Hellfire: Hellfire infuses enemies with fire, allowing them to burn players who oppose them.
  • Eternal: Eternal infuses enemies with void, granting them abilities that debuff players or buff their void-infused allies.
• Promotions
  • Promotion mutations grant creatures in the Expedition powerful new abilities.
  • Savage: Savage AI applies healing reduction and cast damaging beams around themselves.
  • Indomitable: Indomitable creatures persist through damage with life-stealing abilities and are able to summon a phalanx, blocking all incoming player projectiles.
• Curses
  • Curse mutations apply dangerous effects to players, forcing them to work together to overcome the curse’s power. At the highest difficulties, Curses become Empowered, creating additional tactical challenges.
  • Desiccated: Desiccated players will occasionally combust with elemental energy. When the curse is empowered, players will need to cleanse themselves by approaching the combusting player.
  • Censored: Censored players will find their abilities turning against them. After players in the group have used a certain number of activated abilities, explosive silence zones will appear on all players. When the curse is empowered, players will lose natural mana regeneration and must enter the silence zones to regenerate their mana.

Expeditions Changes

• With the release of Expedition Mutators, we’ve made some balance changes and updates to existing content.
• We’ve made expeditions more enticing by updating rewards and drop-rates, bringing them in-line with other end-game activities:
  • Drop rates for “Named Enemies” in expeditions have been significantly increased.
  • T5 gear have been added to Dynasty Shipyard loot-tables when playing in the mutated expedition.
• We’ve adjusted certain enemies counts:
  • Lazarus Instrumentality: Reduced the number of enemies when sealing the Ancient Azoth Portals in the Ostium.

Fast Travel Costs

• We’ve heard your frustrations with the cost of Fast Travel, and this release includes an update that dramatically reduces the distance factor in the amount of Azoth required for each trip. Accordingly, the Faction Control Point bonus associated with Fast Travel now reduces the distance factor to zero.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed inconsistent spelling for the player facing name of Eridanus.
• Fixed an issue with Windsward Patrol Faction Missions displaying inconsistent or wrong values.
• Added code to prevent duplicate objectives from being given to players.
• Yetis converted from Elite Boss to Elites post the Winter Convergence event.
• Added additional enemies to an abandoned camp site in Restless Shore.
• Added longer spawn times to level 35+ POIs to account for longer time to kill enemies.
• Fixed an issue where a tree can fly into the sky after being chopped down.
• Fixed an issue where the Disciple of Disorder only spawned once in Myrkgard.
• Fixes made to a data that was causing longer than expected load times.
• Fixed an issue where a fence was not rendering for all players in Weaver’s Fen.
• Fixed an issue with a small patch of invisible water present in Everfall, North of Orion, that can slow player movement or cause the player to drown.
• Fixed issue with an elite chest clipping through an orchicalcum vein making it difficult to loot in Myrkgard.
• Various fixes to gatherables and vegetation below or inside world collision.
• Various fixes to holes in world collision.
• Fixed bug that did not allow Ancient Bear Paw to be used in crafting.

General AI

• Bears
  • Increased the hit volumes for Bipedal bears so that players can more consistently damage them.
• Skeletons
  • Reduced the amount of health that Skeletons will revive with from 70% to 40%
• Villagers
  • Reduced the amount of healing that is granted from Villager potions from 35% to 20%.
  • Increased the cooldown on the Potions.
• Varangian Knights
  • The Varangian Knights celebrated the Winter Convergence by laying down their weapons and painting them to match the color of their armor.
• Tendrils (Corrupted and Angry Earth)
  • Reduced damage of Sweep attack by 40%, reduced frequency of this attack, but increased reaction to a knockdown
  • Reduced damage of Stab attack by 50% and removed stagger reaction
  • Reduced damage of Thrash attack by 40%
  • Reduced damage of Projectile attack by 50% and removed stagger reaction

Combat

Mutator Perks added

• Weapon Perks
  • Flame Attunement – Attacks deal an additional 15% weapon damage as Fire. (Cooldown 2s)
  • Frost Attunement – Attacks deal an additional 15% weapon damage as Ice. (Cooldown 2s)
  • Arboreal Attunement – Attacks deal an additional 15% weapon damage as Nature. (Cooldown 2s)
  • Abyssal Attunement – Attacks deal an additional 15% weapon damage as Void. (Cooldown 2s)
• Armor Perks
  • Flame Conditioning – After being hit with Fire DMG, gain 4% Fire absorption for 5 seconds. Each piece of armor with this perk increases the potency of the effect.
  • Frost Conditioning – After being hit with Ice DMG, gain 4% Ice absorption for 5 seconds. Each piece of armor with this perk increases the potency of the effect.
  • Arboreal Conditioning – After being hit with Nature DMG, gain 4% Nature absorption for 5 seconds. Each piece of armor with this perk increases the potency of the effect.
  • Abyssal Conditioning – After being hit with Void DMG, gain 4% Void absorption for 5 seconds. Each piece of armor with this perk increases the potency of the effect.

PvP damage formula update

• We adjusted the way armor mitigation is calculated to use enemies gear score value instead of your average gear score.
• To adjust for the difference in armor mitigation, we increased the damage low level players do to higher level players and reduced the damage the higher level players due to lower level players.

Notable Fixes

• Fixed an issue that allowed Musket and Bow light attacks to be activated underwater.
• Fixed an issue that blocked Bow from entering aim down sights if swapping to Bow while in Musket Sniper Zoom.
• Updated the Rapier Tondo Ability and the Bow Barbed Arrows Rain of Arrows upgrade tooltips to state the damage per second instead of overall damage throughout effect for the damage over time effects.
• Fixed issue where player movement speed was sometimes increased while placing a camp.
• Fixed tooltip for the fine corrupted sigil incorrectly stating lightning damage instead of strike damage.
• Removed text that flies out when triggering Quick Shower.
• Fixed issue where if shift was being held while aiming down sights with a bow or musket, or if a player used any navigation action, the animations would stutter.
• Fix to issues with player becoming stuck after interacting with NPCs.
• Fixed issue that would cause you to cancel out of Poison Shot or Penetrating shot if you were holding RMB while activating the ability.

End Game Update Part 2 & Umbral Upgrade System

Umbral Upgrade System

• Players can upgrade individual gear pieces from GS 600 to GS 625, by spending Umbral Shards
• The ability to upgrade items of any type is unlocked when players hit 600 Expertise for that item type
• Players can acquire Umbral Shards via 3 methods:
  • Expedition Mutators are the most efficient way to earn Shards. The higher the difficulty level and the higher the Score Rank achieved the the more Shards a player will earn
  • Opening Gypsum Casts, once the expertise of that type has reached at least 600 Expertise
  • Crafting 600 GS items, once the expertise of that type has reached at least 600 Expertise
• Upgrading any item via Umbral Shards binds the item to player

Expertise System now goes to 625

• Players raise their Expertise from 590 to 600 through the current means – Gypsum Casts and random open world bumps
• Expertise is increased from 600 to 625 via the Umbral System

Expertise Gear Scaling

• Any item that is purchased from the trading post or acquired through P2P after the January patch, will have its effective gear score scaled down to the mid point of players Expertise and the items gear score, if their Expertise is lower than the item’s gear score.

General Enhancements & QoL Improvements

• Whenever you craft a GS 600 item, if your Expertise for that item type is under 600 it will trigger an Expertise bump. This will be another great way for crafters to get their expertise to 600 (in addition to the already released Emerald Gypsum from Trade Skill Aptitude Reward containers)
• If you get an Expertise bump from random drop in the open world, the loot ticker will now show which item gave you the Expertise bump
• If you get an Expertise bump from opening a reward cache, the opening sequence will highlight which item gave you the bump
• You can now craft the Topaz Gypsum Attunement Potion at any Arcana Station as well as any T5 Camp
• Increased the odds of getting Topaz Gypsum when killing enemies and attuned

UX, UI, & Social

Game Entry Navigation Assistance added to the game

• This system will help visually impaired players enter the world of Aethernum, through voice narration of some of critical steps needed to create a character and get to the starting beach
• Removed ability to give gold to individuals outside of the P2P trading system

Notable Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Outpost Rush reward screen would only showed one reward even if multiple were awarded
• Fixed a bug that caused the Territory Standing Upgrade UI to stay on screen if player starts a trade while its visible
• Adjusted many Void Gauntlet icons to match the gauntlets model color

RubyRose

Ruby loves all things RPG and has a passion for similar genres including MMORPGs, ARPGs, and Looter Shooters. She excels at creating diverse playstyles through theory-crafting and rigorous testing, and particularly enjoys uncovering hidden secrets within each game.

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