While the Brimstone Sands Update itself isn’t slated until October, AGS has added pushed the update to the PTR for testing. This has a number of changes and additions, most notably the Brimstone Sands region.
While this is all on PTR and likely won’t arrive to live servers until mid-late October, it’s good to talk about it now, as the new region is not the only major thing happening on this PTR. Alongside the new region, there’s a huge overhaul to the Early leveling experience, The New Greatsword, and of course some balance changes and additional gear.
Early Leveling Rework
This set of changes impacts Levels 1-25, from the start of the game up to the point of taking on the first Expedition of the game, The Amrine Excavation.
This is honestly going to be a huge change for anyone that starts the game (or starts a new character) after this goes live. It smooths out a lot of the leveling process, offering good rewards and better pacing with less running back and forth. Gone are the days of walking kilometers in-game to save your early Azoth.
It also features two new distinct storylines for the Monarch’s Bluffs and Windsward starting zones. Both of these are fairly well done, and a bit more engaging overall than the previously bland storyline.
There’s a good chance we may be down to just these two starting zones early on as First Light, the remaining starting region, didn’t receive a new story of its own, or hasn’t yet.
The other big point with this rework is the addition of several new Points of Interest (POIs) alongside changes to existing POIs. This ends up making the world of Aeternum a LOT closer to what you may have initially expected early on.
A lot of these new POIs are even used for the updated starting quests, so you will get to see quite a few of them. The three major starting areas that you visit in the path from 1-25 are Everfall, Monarch’s Bluff, and Windsward.
All said and done, between not playing for a while and this being the first experience I gave myself with the game again it felt fantastic. There were a lot more dynamic things that happen in and around these new storylines that just felt refreshing like this is what the game was intended to be.
New Weapon: Greatsword
The Greatsword is easily New World’s largest weapon. Compared to other weapons, it actually has a really unique twist that allows it to work well with many other weapons in the game, barring most magic Weapons.
For Starters, a big component of its flexibility is that it scales equally with Strength and Dexterity. This allows you to easily pair it with Any Melee or Ranged Weapon of your choosing. Not every pairing is equal of course, but most work well enough or are able to shore up some of its shortcomings.
The other component of it that allows for it to pair with any melee weapon is its stance-switching property.
The Greatsword has two Stances you can switch between as you use skills or certain passives, Onslaught Stance and Defiant Stance.
Onslaught Stance prioritizes Offense over Defense; increasing your damage taken but increasing your damage output both directly and by doubling the speed of Charged Heavy Attacks. While Defiant Stance is the opposite, increasing your defense but lowering your damage.
Between those two properties and the amount of power the weapon itself has, I can see it becoming a highly popular and widely-used weapon. It has access to a lot of effects that lend themselves to doing well in both PvE and PvP; Disease, Execution, Fortify, and Rend to name a few. It has a lot of tools to play with, so look forward to our Greatsword Weapon Guide which will be available as the Brimstone Sands update goes live.
New Region: Brimstone Sands
The central focus of the Brimstone Sands update is well… Brimstone Sands itself. This massive Egyptian and Roman-themed region is larger than all of the other regions we’ve been to so far.
The Devs even claim the quests and additional content in this region is roughly equal to three of our existing regions.
This also includes its own self-contained storyline and new Expedition, The Ennead. The Ennead has you taking on the giant pyramid at the heart of the Brimstone Sands that’s complete with new mechanics, traps, and puzzles.
The Brimstone Sands Storyline will start from Ebonscale Reach, Great Cleave, or Shattered Mountain Outposts based on your current faction. For Syndicate, this would be Shattered Mountain; For Marauders, this would be Ebonscale Reach; and for Covenant, they’ll start the quest from Great Cleave.
Combat Additions and Balancing
While direct changes to weapons this time around are mostly bug fixes or correcting tooltips there were a couple of minor changes. The real balancing changes, however, come from the addition of Runeglass Gems and Heartrune Skills.
Runeglass Gems function similarly to the gems currently found in New World, but allow you to craft Gems that have fixed secondary effects added on them based on the components used. These effects are purely offensive bonuses, ranging from damage, lifesteal, Elemental DoT, Stamina Recovery, and Mana Recovery effects.
Heartrunes are a new gear slot that unlocks during the Brimstone Sands Questline. These powerful runes unlock various “Ultimate” skills that you can use in addition to your weapon skills. These skills are mostly damage-focused but offer additional utility such as Roots, Crowd Control Immunity, Damage Reduction, or evasion in addition to a damage effect.
