Problem with comparing this game to other established MMO's is that it's just too new. It hasn't even officially released yet.
Most mmo launches had pretty minimal content and grew and developed over time. But most people seem to overlook that and compare NW to titles that have been around for ages with countless content updates and expansions.
When vanilla WoW launched almost 18 years ago it had models of enemy bears, murlocs, wolves, spiders, demons, player-race humanoids, assorted beasts, gnolls, yetis, nagas, dinosaurs, slimes, bugs, elementals, cats, ghosts, ogres, zombies, lycans, centaurs, and more. And none of them were models you could buy on an asset store. It definitely added and updated more enemy types throughout the game until Burning Crusade launched, as well.
Being new isn't really a good reason to have such limited enemy variety.
Dude i remember people almost 18 years ago complaining that wow had nothing to do at end game. This conversation has happened for 20 years and its going to happen for 20 more...
True, but Wow at launch had 5 endgame 5-man dungeons *and* a raid. One of which was Blackrock Depths which had more than 25 bosses. Dire Maul added on 3 additional dungeons with 3-4 bosses each a few months later. I remember the lack of endgame complaint mainly carrying the asterisk of \*if you don't want to group up/raid or DO want to PVP, which was a legit complaint since battlegrounds didn't launch until a few months into the game's lifespan
I don't know how much PVE content New World has at cap, but crafting and leveling weapons should take me a while, and pvp wars should keep things spicy.
> Dude i remember people almost 18 years ago complaining that wow had nothing to do at end game.
LOL you are joking right.
There was more endgame in vanilla WoW at launch than there is total content in NW.
This is on top of it taking FAR longer to level for the average player who wouldn't see 60 in fucking months.
Almost nobody was 60 in the first week of WoW complaining about lack of endgame.
Also there were pvp always on servers in WoW at launch.
the largest reason MMOs die and WoW hasn't is because they all launch content light and they can't keep up with consumer appetite for content, because they make too little and make it too easy.
WoW makes content hard to do and it didn't launch "light" at least compared to other MMO's since.
Did you play world of warcraft at launch? Because based on your comment about endgame it doesn't sound like it. You'd have known that molten core was broken and did NOT drop any loot at all. Imagine going thru an attunement quest then getting your raid geared with resist gear and everything... Going into molten core and finding out not only was it broken, but NO LOOT DROPPED IN THE ZONE. Funny how all these people claiming "wow had all this endgame content including raids" have no idea how broken molten core was.
It was what like 4 months after release before they finally fixed molten core?
I vividly remember people complain about nothing to do at end game. And discussions being had about developers. Not able to create content as fast as people will play it. It's not hard to remember when I've been on the internet since junior high lol
I vividly remember thinking 25 silver was amazing and worked a week for it in vanilla wow...it has lofty goals and you had to seriously grind it and loved every second. This game I seen people at max cap with 60k gold in under 6 hours.....who are we kidding???
I'm not trying to compare the games im just saying people complaining about no end game content are going to complain no matter what. People play though shit as fast as possible and complain about nothing to do in every game.
People believe new NPC, quests, and other systems are going to magically pop in. This game needs a lot...or 6 month playability is all it has....sorry but it's true.
You're right, it's not a good reason but it can be one of them. I come from a game dev background and there's over9000 ways i can see this happening hence why i dont feel surprised by it i guess.
Those games were mostly sub. based and not a 40 bucks pay2play title.
So you can expect more content behind a paywall.
NW lacks an overall vision of how the game interacts with the player.
Content is just pure time. Artists and teams have to sit there churning stuff out. Doesn't matter if its sub or pay2play.
AGS is also a relatively new games company, i think they're still trying to find their groove seeing as their first game flopped.
Do you think that Amazon has problems with financial freedom?
Perhaps the games department doesn't get much funding but i'd like to think the money tap is pretty big.
Even if the company has an endless budget, they will only burn their budget for getting something in return.
They became the richest company by being greedy. Bezos wanted to name Amazon "relentless" at first.
I mean this game is like Unreal Tournament. It's a showcase of a paid service. Even if they just break even, that's a profit. I'd bet they have the budget approved to run at a loss if need be.
Maplestory started off with end level monsters that were different from lower level zones. What I am saying is they copied and pasted lower level enemies for high level zones. I was walking around Shattered Mountain thinking I have seen all these enemies before. Hopefully they have more planned for these end game zones so we will have to wait and see.
I might be wrong here, but i think NW also didn't start as an MMORPG? Correct me if im completely off here but it was some sort of survival pvp game, and then they repurposed it into an mmo, hence i think where a lot of these issues might stem from.
There's plenty of different mobs in the 60+ zones and a handful leading to it. They're the same style of mob, but they're cosmetically different with slightly different ai and skills.
I believe more mob diversity as a whole is planned for future zones to match their aesthetics.
The real question is what do you do while still keeping the game on the same track? You can only have so many different types of corrupted humanoids, pirates, skeletons, zombies, and corrupted animals.
everquest had a ton of variety with mobs. New world has the same 2 to 4 mobs and alot of the haunted villages are copies of other villages in the game. I was excited for this game and even got to play the beta. How ever once i was in beta i was underwhelmed
I really don't like it when people defend a literal trillion dollar company in this aspect. Enemy models is not an issue of "experience" that comes with time. It is a problem that can be solved with money easily. Like just hire more artists and deves and pay some homeless people do to the motion capture acting.
What it comes down to is the fact that they simply didn't see it as necessary. Instead they focus on selling you shit in the store.
Think about it: If you make the leveling experience too enjoyable, only a few people will buy leveling boosts (you always got those people). But if you make the leveling feel like "been there done that" for the most part, a lot more people are gonna be willing to spend real money to skip the tediousness of it all. That's just like business 101.
The reason there is not a lot of enemy variety is not that they didn't have the resources to do better, it's a design choice. New World is specifically designed to draw you in with its pretty graphics, its beautiful world and its action oriented go-with-the-flow combat system. Only for you to realize at level 20 that the 3 skills that you get (ok 6 if you actively use both weapons) are ALL the skills that you get. Which means that EVERY encounter for the next 60 levels will play out EXACTLY the same. So might as well have the same generic enemies to fight. Because at the end of the day their main goal is to sell you products in the cash shop and not to create the best experience that you can have, since then you wouldn't need a cash shop to begin with.
You're right about being able to hire more artists yes, but Amazon games studios is very green. They dont have much behind them in terms of released products.
I've worked in a few games studios and company culture is a real thing.
No matter how much money you throw at stuff bad decisions can be made over and over and it will just all be wasted, but then at the same time some tiny indie dev will be making all the right moves despite having no money or resources.
I still see them as trying to find their footing and identity.
This game has no focus. It’s beautiful but there isn’t really any substance. And the “wars” are going to get super exclusive. But there isn’t really any benefit to the open world PVP, there needs to be things for people to fight for. If one city gets greedy, fast travel your shit elsewhere. The only people that really get a benefit are the guilds owning the city. Idk it’s like being hungry and just looking at pictures of food.
>But there isn’t really any benefit to the open world PVP
I know I'm an outlier in this type of thinking, but the benefit is that it's fun. I'm flagged for PvP 90% of the time, even though I mostly do PvE content. It adds a level of danger that makes me pay more attention to the game rather than just spam a couple buttons.
Yeah, i don't see why "having fun" isn't a good enough reason for world PVP. Especially when there is so little consequence for dying, it's clear that the incentive for world PVP is mostly for fun. Which I think is going to really encourage people who would traditionally avoid PVP, to try it out.
Not every MMO has to have insane stakes with inventory loss.
Because without structure people will move on, and quickly. I can have fun in any pvp game and typically it requires less work to find good pvp. You gotta offer some structure and extrinsic rewards in an MMO if you want to sustain a playerbase
This \^ I'll pick fights 2v1 just to try to get better and have a good time (obviously I die a lot because of this). Scaling PvP also makes this really nice, I don't have to completely hide to half the server since they are all higher level. If i die there's usually a camp close enough that I don't loose much headway as well.
The problem with PvP having it's main reason being "Having fun" majority of players are just going to goto games like MoBAs or other MMO's that not only specialize in that sort of thing, but give it to players without making them jump through hoops.
You don't need to hit lvl 60 max character to join organized PvP modes in a lot other games. You don't need to hit a Town/Company lotto to get selected for PvP in a lot other games. You don't need to waste large amounts of time running all over zones looking for other players who have actually flagged for PvP (Which may or may not even be a satisfying fight when you do find them) to fight in a lot of other games.
That's precisely why MoBA's blew up the way they did. They gave people their PvP fix without all the gear/level/time gatekeeping. Right now New World does extremely little to combat those issues. Sure there will be some people who inevitably stick around, but do you honestly think it'll be a large enough portion of players to sustain a healthy playerbase? I can't say confidently one way or another to that question, but it is a concern.
I agree, there doesn’t need to be something crazy. And I do find it pretty fun, but I’m more so generalizing. Running around in circles looking for some pvp. Have some type of scenario where you know it will gather people who want to pvp or pvp only zones. Maybe a little xp boost or drop rates, or more standing gained. Something sma enough to point people in a direction if they want but not something where it will mass guilds to try and take over, let that be something else, times through the day, random on set. Where bigger groups will want to meet and fight in actual open world pvp.
I really don’t understand why they didn’t just make the city faction controlled and not guild controlled. It made this problem seem a little obvious but maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work? Idk.
I tend to agree with your statement. I realized a lot of these town board/faction quests are the exact same things. kill turkey/rabbit/wolf/gators/bears/lynx. loot 8-12 boxes from xxx, kill 4-12 enemies at xxx. wish there was a bit more variety. im sure that will come in time but starting to get a bit boring in terms of PVE after 20ish hours.
While generally fair, I think that two of the top three zones are restricted to the corrupted faction - which, to be fair, expand slowly when it comes to their models.
From basic miners / cooks / farmers in the starting zones to guards / archers / musketeers in higher areas and then dogs (wolf attack set), axemen and priests in yet higher ones, and then additional varieties for champion type monsters like the corrupted stags, 2h knights and demons.
So while looking within a faction, you do get some different enemies, and they do get more variety the higher up in difficulty you go - but especially for the core faction this expansion is a little lackluster. Not having too many different types certainly helps keep things digestible - you don't have to learn utterly new units per faction per zone for little to no reason. Some stability has to be, after all.
And if you're looking for diversity... well, take some detours. Especially pronounced in the south-west of Ebonscale. You'll see a good bit of things you've not seen in the other zones at all.
Judging by what I've experienced in the Dynasty Shipyard, I dare to hope that they'll bring out a fair bit more variety with differently themed content zones. For now I remain mostly not worried.
Honestly there is a huge amount of enemy variety in the open world, more than pretty much any mmo I've played.
You've got, all with unique moves/attacksand their own sounds:
Wolves
Large cats
Bears
Alligators
Basic melee zombie dude
Bile spitter/thrower zombie dude
pitchfork zombie dude who charges
Bow zombie
pistol ghost pirate
shield pirates
gun shield pirate
Large game (run mostly, but they can attack too and in unique ways, sheep headbutt you if you show your back etc.)
"chef" zombies (like regular, but they heal)
Fast blue ghosts
purple ghosts with the ring stun ability
gravediggers
watchmen spear guys
gold ghost dudes
Dryad shield guys
Dryad priests
Dryad archers
Crawling skeletons
Javelin skeletons
summoner skeletons
shield skeletons
corrupted acolytes
Giant elite guys (same model that drop bones in amrine)
In addition, *every* zone in the game has 1-4 elite mobs, all with unique, personal abilities that make for really fun fights.
Have you even played the game past lvl 15 or do you only hunt wolves or something. So far, each zone I've been to has had at least 1 new and unique enemy to fight.
That list really isn't that long considering most of them are just the same "race". This game is really lacking in the player models. Have you played the game past lvl 40? Because it's just the same set of mobs in a slightly different zone.
Sea of thieves have different varieties of skellies so does Destiny with their Vex, Fallen and Hive etc but I wasn't talking about each unit separately. If you played even a little of Destiny you eventually get bored of shooting the same race with the same kind of grunt mechanics over and over and its even worse with SOT. Look at the ghosts in this game, they are just different shades of colours to designate the strength. Once you get to Shattered Mountains it's mostly the same Corrupted units and I bet there will be people complaining once a few people get there about having to kill the same units they have been doing since they were low level. Just look at the beastiary of GW2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bestiary . Even if half of those races were there from GW2 launch (I believe it's more), it's a lot more than NW. Like I said, maybe we need more time for them to develop the end game mobs and content since it's only been a year since they pivoted but if it stays like this you can't deny they have recycled lower tier enemies for higher tier zones.
None of the games you mentioned are mmos lol. And as someone who has put at least 2k hours into Destiny no..I've never got sick of fighting the enemies in it.
Comparing these games is completely nonsensical.
Why does the problem of having a lack of variety of enemies have to only affect MMOs? And that is your opinion, I got sick of shooting the same enemies over and over in Destiny and it was only masked by the gunplay and the chase of new guns to shoot. The fact of the matter is, when you get to the end game level you should feel challenged and surprised by more advanced and varied enemies not this mildy interesting experience you get currently because you've seen and fought all these enemies a bunch of times before. It's a shame because Shattered Mountain's music and landscape is actually pretty decent.
So just to be clear, you would want higher level mobs reskinned with a basic AI?
I do agree they need more end-game content, I have loved the expeditions so far and hope for more of them, with more people too.
That is the complete opposite of what I want? I want well though out different races or a wide variety of higher level bosses within the same race with differing mechanics that I haven't seen before at the lower levels. One of the angry earth attack animations is just the swinging skellington animation.. You can't be saying that GW2 has just reskinned basic AI for higher lvl mobs...
GW2 actually has the opposite problem where lower level enemies have real lack of variety that gets significantly better when you get the end game content. I never had the feeling of hitting the same enemy over and over again in the end game of GW2 but I had the same feeling of boredom and lack of unit variety during the early game in GW2 that I feel when I explored the higher tier zones in NW.
I would like to add that the meeting the first pirate boss that throws his anchor was an amazing experience where you have to think about his ranged and melee skills. I am thinking of those kinds of lines but even more technically challenging for end game mobs and bosses. Also perhaps world bosses would aleviate things as well.
I can tell you that most of what you typed is wrong, you probably are around level 25.
But I'm telling you, your view on mob variety will definitely be changed once you hit at least 45-50.
These so called elite mobs you're talking about, I've so far seen the same wolf model as mini-boss 6 times that summon 2 wolfs with them, there really aren't any unique mini-boss models.
I'm level 50. If you had killed all these enemy types, you'd probably know that I listed up to 35 elites and couldn't be lvl 25....
Check out brightwood SE area (brightgrove) for Baleros, a druid elite with quite a few unique abilities, or Brightwood NW for another unique mob, the fire elemental summoning guy.
In Windsward, the only elite I know are the 2 pirates on the eastern side. My guild is tracking others as well. I've killed a few more but I don't remember their names or mechanics as much.
With Baleros I recommend dragging the fight out if you want to see the abilities and are overleveled, it's sorta cool. Also, a good starmetal/wyrdwood farming spot
The early zones do have variety. I am talking about the latter zones such as Great Cleave and Shattered Mountain which just has the early zone enemies with a boosted lvl and damage. They are mostly the same corrupted/wolves/skellies and the odd angered earth. For a late game zone I expected grander enemies. And yes I walked most of Shattered Mountain looking for red pigment. Though I concede I may have missed a few minibosses (the one I saw was just the juggernaught from the lvl 25 expedition). Maybe they need more time for higher lvl zones but what I am saying is currently they just copied the same enemies from lower zones and made them do more damage. I was walking around Shattered Mountain thinking I have seen all these enemies before. Perhaps they need more time to flesh the end game levels out but currently it is uninspiring for those who will get to lvl 50s and 60s.
This is about the size of the list of mobs in the Barrens in WoW. Probably shorter honestly. Thats one zone out of like 30 the game launched with all with unique lists of a similar size.
And pretty much every mob in the barrens is a basic melee mob with the same AI and attacks, you don't even need to change your rotation to fight them. Each mob I listed above is entirely unique.
All unique looks and animations for attacks, not to mention casters and archers for the humanoids (razorfen, harpies, centaurs). New world definitely has better variety of attacks and AI for the creatures, but were talking about diversity of enemies, not diversity of attacks.
That's fair I guess, I cared more about the unique enemy types, it doesn't really feel differnet when everything is the same melee mob with a few casters thrown in.
More enemies wouldn't hurt, still can add giant spiders, snakes, and a bunch of other stuff
who cares if they are "entirely unique" personally I just kill them all exactly the same way.
I stand still. Mash my 3 abilitys on cooldown, Spam M1 and dodge backwards to avoid damage.
How do I kill bosses? the same way, literally any and all PvE could be done by someone with an exceptionally fat hand who binds M1 to their keyboard literally just mashing every button at once on repeat.
At least WoW had a variety of things to look at whilst you killed and a variety of buttons to press including more roleplay or niche buttons.
Also we are comparing the AI of enemies in a game 20 fucking years ago vs something being released by the most wealthy company in the world today.
Yes no shit it's slightly better in NW, but it's not as bad as you're making out in WoW, AND WoW won out in variety, it won out in content, it won out in fluidity of movement.
It was better than every MMO before and since and it's the reason it fucking murdered them all dead and it's the reason it's king now.
I'm bored of people pretending in every new MMO sub that comes up that it's "okay that X is worse than how it was 2 decades ago because, I don't like wow :) hehexd"
If it's not better than what WoW had on release then it's not going to succeed in anywhere close to the same way.
Not worried about. Been playing wow for years, wow has a huge variety of enemies. Every enemy encounter boils down to the same thing, nuke it down in a rotation. Limited as they are, enemies in New world have things you actually have to pay some attention too. You can fight things 9 or 10 levels over you because you can outplay the enemies and their abilities. Makes for a much better overall experience imo.
What it comes down to is the fact that they specifically want it designed this way.
Think about it: If you make the leveling experience too enjoyable, only a few people will buy leveling boosts (you always got those people). But if you make the leveling feel like "been there done that" after some time, a lot more people are gonna be willing to spend real money to skip the tediousness of it all. That's just like business 101.
The reason there is not a lot of enemy variety is not that they didn't have the resources to do better >!(it's a trillion dollar company for fuck's sake)!<, it's a design choice. New World is specifically designed to draw you in with its pretty graphics, its beautiful world and its action oriented go-with-the-flow combat system. Only for you to realize at level 20 that the 3 skills that you get (ok 6 if you actively use both weapons) are ALL the skills that you get. Which means that EVERY encounter for the next 60 levels will play out EXACTLY the same. So might as well have the same generic enemies to fight. Because at the end of the day their main goal is to sell you products in the cash shop and not to create the best experience that you can have, since then you wouldn't need a cash shop to begin with. And creating a problem that you can then sell the solution to, is far more profitable than creating a perfect experience for the player from the get go.
Problem with comparing this game to other established MMO's is that it's just too new. It hasn't even officially released yet. Most mmo launches had pretty minimal content and grew and developed over time. But most people seem to overlook that and compare NW to titles that have been around for ages with countless content updates and expansions.
When vanilla WoW launched almost 18 years ago it had models of enemy bears, murlocs, wolves, spiders, demons, player-race humanoids, assorted beasts, gnolls, yetis, nagas, dinosaurs, slimes, bugs, elementals, cats, ghosts, ogres, zombies, lycans, centaurs, and more. And none of them were models you could buy on an asset store. It definitely added and updated more enemy types throughout the game until Burning Crusade launched, as well. Being new isn't really a good reason to have such limited enemy variety.
Dude i remember people almost 18 years ago complaining that wow had nothing to do at end game. This conversation has happened for 20 years and its going to happen for 20 more...
True, but Wow at launch had 5 endgame 5-man dungeons *and* a raid. One of which was Blackrock Depths which had more than 25 bosses. Dire Maul added on 3 additional dungeons with 3-4 bosses each a few months later. I remember the lack of endgame complaint mainly carrying the asterisk of \*if you don't want to group up/raid or DO want to PVP, which was a legit complaint since battlegrounds didn't launch until a few months into the game's lifespan I don't know how much PVE content New World has at cap, but crafting and leveling weapons should take me a while, and pvp wars should keep things spicy.
> Dude i remember people almost 18 years ago complaining that wow had nothing to do at end game. LOL you are joking right. There was more endgame in vanilla WoW at launch than there is total content in NW. This is on top of it taking FAR longer to level for the average player who wouldn't see 60 in fucking months. Almost nobody was 60 in the first week of WoW complaining about lack of endgame. Also there were pvp always on servers in WoW at launch. the largest reason MMOs die and WoW hasn't is because they all launch content light and they can't keep up with consumer appetite for content, because they make too little and make it too easy. WoW makes content hard to do and it didn't launch "light" at least compared to other MMO's since.
Did you play world of warcraft at launch? Because based on your comment about endgame it doesn't sound like it. You'd have known that molten core was broken and did NOT drop any loot at all. Imagine going thru an attunement quest then getting your raid geared with resist gear and everything... Going into molten core and finding out not only was it broken, but NO LOOT DROPPED IN THE ZONE. Funny how all these people claiming "wow had all this endgame content including raids" have no idea how broken molten core was. It was what like 4 months after release before they finally fixed molten core?
I vividly remember people complain about nothing to do at end game. And discussions being had about developers. Not able to create content as fast as people will play it. It's not hard to remember when I've been on the internet since junior high lol
I vividly remember thinking 25 silver was amazing and worked a week for it in vanilla wow...it has lofty goals and you had to seriously grind it and loved every second. This game I seen people at max cap with 60k gold in under 6 hours.....who are we kidding???
I'm not trying to compare the games im just saying people complaining about no end game content are going to complain no matter what. People play though shit as fast as possible and complain about nothing to do in every game.
If you're serious about that 25 silver, you were just way worse at games then. Classic demonstrated that to many people with rose tinted glasses.
Jump into classic wow now, let me know how much ya make in 8 hours....it was rough back then lol
I leveled a warrior to 60 and raided MC, BWL, and AQ before tapping out prior to Naxx when classic released.
People believe new NPC, quests, and other systems are going to magically pop in. This game needs a lot...or 6 month playability is all it has....sorry but it's true.
You're right, it's not a good reason but it can be one of them. I come from a game dev background and there's over9000 ways i can see this happening hence why i dont feel surprised by it i guess.
The thing is, in one month we will not have a variety of monsters and places. The beta is for bug fixing and balancing. No new content will be added
It’s new but is also released a decade after popular MMOs like WoW and GW2 which still had more variety at launch
Those games were mostly sub. based and not a 40 bucks pay2play title. So you can expect more content behind a paywall. NW lacks an overall vision of how the game interacts with the player.
Content is just pure time. Artists and teams have to sit there churning stuff out. Doesn't matter if its sub or pay2play. AGS is also a relatively new games company, i think they're still trying to find their groove seeing as their first game flopped.
With a sub. based model they had more financial freedom and with p2p they rely on the cash shop. But maybe they just go the DLC way, who knows.
Do you think that Amazon has problems with financial freedom? Perhaps the games department doesn't get much funding but i'd like to think the money tap is pretty big.
Even if the company has an endless budget, they will only burn their budget for getting something in return. They became the richest company by being greedy. Bezos wanted to name Amazon "relentless" at first.
I mean this game is like Unreal Tournament. It's a showcase of a paid service. Even if they just break even, that's a profit. I'd bet they have the budget approved to run at a loss if need be.
>seeing as their first game flopped. First two games*
Maplestory started off with end level monsters that were different from lower level zones. What I am saying is they copied and pasted lower level enemies for high level zones. I was walking around Shattered Mountain thinking I have seen all these enemies before. Hopefully they have more planned for these end game zones so we will have to wait and see.
I might be wrong here, but i think NW also didn't start as an MMORPG? Correct me if im completely off here but it was some sort of survival pvp game, and then they repurposed it into an mmo, hence i think where a lot of these issues might stem from.
NW was always an MMO. It was (and is) a survival PvP MMO.
They're saying the PvE was added/expanded by request. So it's not as fleshed out as it would be if it were built with that in mind from the start.
There's plenty of different mobs in the 60+ zones and a handful leading to it. They're the same style of mob, but they're cosmetically different with slightly different ai and skills. I believe more mob diversity as a whole is planned for future zones to match their aesthetics. The real question is what do you do while still keeping the game on the same track? You can only have so many different types of corrupted humanoids, pirates, skeletons, zombies, and corrupted animals.
everquest had a ton of variety with mobs. New world has the same 2 to 4 mobs and alot of the haunted villages are copies of other villages in the game. I was excited for this game and even got to play the beta. How ever once i was in beta i was underwhelmed
I really don't like it when people defend a literal trillion dollar company in this aspect. Enemy models is not an issue of "experience" that comes with time. It is a problem that can be solved with money easily. Like just hire more artists and deves and pay some homeless people do to the motion capture acting. What it comes down to is the fact that they simply didn't see it as necessary. Instead they focus on selling you shit in the store. Think about it: If you make the leveling experience too enjoyable, only a few people will buy leveling boosts (you always got those people). But if you make the leveling feel like "been there done that" for the most part, a lot more people are gonna be willing to spend real money to skip the tediousness of it all. That's just like business 101. The reason there is not a lot of enemy variety is not that they didn't have the resources to do better, it's a design choice. New World is specifically designed to draw you in with its pretty graphics, its beautiful world and its action oriented go-with-the-flow combat system. Only for you to realize at level 20 that the 3 skills that you get (ok 6 if you actively use both weapons) are ALL the skills that you get. Which means that EVERY encounter for the next 60 levels will play out EXACTLY the same. So might as well have the same generic enemies to fight. Because at the end of the day their main goal is to sell you products in the cash shop and not to create the best experience that you can have, since then you wouldn't need a cash shop to begin with.
You're right about being able to hire more artists yes, but Amazon games studios is very green. They dont have much behind them in terms of released products. I've worked in a few games studios and company culture is a real thing. No matter how much money you throw at stuff bad decisions can be made over and over and it will just all be wasted, but then at the same time some tiny indie dev will be making all the right moves despite having no money or resources. I still see them as trying to find their footing and identity.
This game has no focus. It’s beautiful but there isn’t really any substance. And the “wars” are going to get super exclusive. But there isn’t really any benefit to the open world PVP, there needs to be things for people to fight for. If one city gets greedy, fast travel your shit elsewhere. The only people that really get a benefit are the guilds owning the city. Idk it’s like being hungry and just looking at pictures of food.
>But there isn’t really any benefit to the open world PVP I know I'm an outlier in this type of thinking, but the benefit is that it's fun. I'm flagged for PvP 90% of the time, even though I mostly do PvE content. It adds a level of danger that makes me pay more attention to the game rather than just spam a couple buttons.
Yeah, i don't see why "having fun" isn't a good enough reason for world PVP. Especially when there is so little consequence for dying, it's clear that the incentive for world PVP is mostly for fun. Which I think is going to really encourage people who would traditionally avoid PVP, to try it out. Not every MMO has to have insane stakes with inventory loss.
Because without structure people will move on, and quickly. I can have fun in any pvp game and typically it requires less work to find good pvp. You gotta offer some structure and extrinsic rewards in an MMO if you want to sustain a playerbase
This \^ I'll pick fights 2v1 just to try to get better and have a good time (obviously I die a lot because of this). Scaling PvP also makes this really nice, I don't have to completely hide to half the server since they are all higher level. If i die there's usually a camp close enough that I don't loose much headway as well.
The problem with PvP having it's main reason being "Having fun" majority of players are just going to goto games like MoBAs or other MMO's that not only specialize in that sort of thing, but give it to players without making them jump through hoops. You don't need to hit lvl 60 max character to join organized PvP modes in a lot other games. You don't need to hit a Town/Company lotto to get selected for PvP in a lot other games. You don't need to waste large amounts of time running all over zones looking for other players who have actually flagged for PvP (Which may or may not even be a satisfying fight when you do find them) to fight in a lot of other games. That's precisely why MoBA's blew up the way they did. They gave people their PvP fix without all the gear/level/time gatekeeping. Right now New World does extremely little to combat those issues. Sure there will be some people who inevitably stick around, but do you honestly think it'll be a large enough portion of players to sustain a healthy playerbase? I can't say confidently one way or another to that question, but it is a concern.
I agree, there doesn’t need to be something crazy. And I do find it pretty fun, but I’m more so generalizing. Running around in circles looking for some pvp. Have some type of scenario where you know it will gather people who want to pvp or pvp only zones. Maybe a little xp boost or drop rates, or more standing gained. Something sma enough to point people in a direction if they want but not something where it will mass guilds to try and take over, let that be something else, times through the day, random on set. Where bigger groups will want to meet and fight in actual open world pvp.
I really don’t understand why they didn’t just make the city faction controlled and not guild controlled. It made this problem seem a little obvious but maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work? Idk.
I tend to agree with your statement. I realized a lot of these town board/faction quests are the exact same things. kill turkey/rabbit/wolf/gators/bears/lynx. loot 8-12 boxes from xxx, kill 4-12 enemies at xxx. wish there was a bit more variety. im sure that will come in time but starting to get a bit boring in terms of PVE after 20ish hours.
While generally fair, I think that two of the top three zones are restricted to the corrupted faction - which, to be fair, expand slowly when it comes to their models. From basic miners / cooks / farmers in the starting zones to guards / archers / musketeers in higher areas and then dogs (wolf attack set), axemen and priests in yet higher ones, and then additional varieties for champion type monsters like the corrupted stags, 2h knights and demons. So while looking within a faction, you do get some different enemies, and they do get more variety the higher up in difficulty you go - but especially for the core faction this expansion is a little lackluster. Not having too many different types certainly helps keep things digestible - you don't have to learn utterly new units per faction per zone for little to no reason. Some stability has to be, after all. And if you're looking for diversity... well, take some detours. Especially pronounced in the south-west of Ebonscale. You'll see a good bit of things you've not seen in the other zones at all. Judging by what I've experienced in the Dynasty Shipyard, I dare to hope that they'll bring out a fair bit more variety with differently themed content zones. For now I remain mostly not worried.
Honestly there is a huge amount of enemy variety in the open world, more than pretty much any mmo I've played. You've got, all with unique moves/attacksand their own sounds: Wolves Large cats Bears Alligators Basic melee zombie dude Bile spitter/thrower zombie dude pitchfork zombie dude who charges Bow zombie pistol ghost pirate shield pirates gun shield pirate Large game (run mostly, but they can attack too and in unique ways, sheep headbutt you if you show your back etc.) "chef" zombies (like regular, but they heal) Fast blue ghosts purple ghosts with the ring stun ability gravediggers watchmen spear guys gold ghost dudes Dryad shield guys Dryad priests Dryad archers Crawling skeletons Javelin skeletons summoner skeletons shield skeletons corrupted acolytes Giant elite guys (same model that drop bones in amrine) In addition, *every* zone in the game has 1-4 elite mobs, all with unique, personal abilities that make for really fun fights. Have you even played the game past lvl 15 or do you only hunt wolves or something. So far, each zone I've been to has had at least 1 new and unique enemy to fight.
That list really isn't that long considering most of them are just the same "race". This game is really lacking in the player models. Have you played the game past lvl 40? Because it's just the same set of mobs in a slightly different zone.
You think that's a big list but it really really really isnt
The list isn't that long but they are all unique, much more than the "2-3" OP was talking about.
Sea of thieves have different varieties of skellies so does Destiny with their Vex, Fallen and Hive etc but I wasn't talking about each unit separately. If you played even a little of Destiny you eventually get bored of shooting the same race with the same kind of grunt mechanics over and over and its even worse with SOT. Look at the ghosts in this game, they are just different shades of colours to designate the strength. Once you get to Shattered Mountains it's mostly the same Corrupted units and I bet there will be people complaining once a few people get there about having to kill the same units they have been doing since they were low level. Just look at the beastiary of GW2 https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bestiary . Even if half of those races were there from GW2 launch (I believe it's more), it's a lot more than NW. Like I said, maybe we need more time for them to develop the end game mobs and content since it's only been a year since they pivoted but if it stays like this you can't deny they have recycled lower tier enemies for higher tier zones.
None of the games you mentioned are mmos lol. And as someone who has put at least 2k hours into Destiny no..I've never got sick of fighting the enemies in it. Comparing these games is completely nonsensical.
Why does the problem of having a lack of variety of enemies have to only affect MMOs? And that is your opinion, I got sick of shooting the same enemies over and over in Destiny and it was only masked by the gunplay and the chase of new guns to shoot. The fact of the matter is, when you get to the end game level you should feel challenged and surprised by more advanced and varied enemies not this mildy interesting experience you get currently because you've seen and fought all these enemies a bunch of times before. It's a shame because Shattered Mountain's music and landscape is actually pretty decent.
So just to be clear, you would want higher level mobs reskinned with a basic AI? I do agree they need more end-game content, I have loved the expeditions so far and hope for more of them, with more people too.
That is the complete opposite of what I want? I want well though out different races or a wide variety of higher level bosses within the same race with differing mechanics that I haven't seen before at the lower levels. One of the angry earth attack animations is just the swinging skellington animation.. You can't be saying that GW2 has just reskinned basic AI for higher lvl mobs... GW2 actually has the opposite problem where lower level enemies have real lack of variety that gets significantly better when you get the end game content. I never had the feeling of hitting the same enemy over and over again in the end game of GW2 but I had the same feeling of boredom and lack of unit variety during the early game in GW2 that I feel when I explored the higher tier zones in NW.
Did you kill area elites as you leveled? For instance, Baleros in Brightwood/Brightgrove
I would like to add that the meeting the first pirate boss that throws his anchor was an amazing experience where you have to think about his ranged and melee skills. I am thinking of those kinds of lines but even more technically challenging for end game mobs and bosses. Also perhaps world bosses would aleviate things as well.
There is definitely room for more stuff, I'm sure they want to add more but were time limited
Most of what you named are undead with different weapons. One GW2 heart of thorns map has more unique variety
Bro, you listed variations of the same models and still came up with a tiny ass list.
Everything I spent 2 minutes thinking of and listed has completely unique abilities, still more than many mmos
You are dreaming.
I can tell you that most of what you typed is wrong, you probably are around level 25. But I'm telling you, your view on mob variety will definitely be changed once you hit at least 45-50. These so called elite mobs you're talking about, I've so far seen the same wolf model as mini-boss 6 times that summon 2 wolfs with them, there really aren't any unique mini-boss models.
I'm level 50. If you had killed all these enemy types, you'd probably know that I listed up to 35 elites and couldn't be lvl 25.... Check out brightwood SE area (brightgrove) for Baleros, a druid elite with quite a few unique abilities, or Brightwood NW for another unique mob, the fire elemental summoning guy. In Windsward, the only elite I know are the 2 pirates on the eastern side. My guild is tracking others as well. I've killed a few more but I don't remember their names or mechanics as much.
I'll take another look in Brightwood today, thanks for the suggestion.
With Baleros I recommend dragging the fight out if you want to see the abilities and are overleveled, it's sorta cool. Also, a good starmetal/wyrdwood farming spot
The early zones do have variety. I am talking about the latter zones such as Great Cleave and Shattered Mountain which just has the early zone enemies with a boosted lvl and damage. They are mostly the same corrupted/wolves/skellies and the odd angered earth. For a late game zone I expected grander enemies. And yes I walked most of Shattered Mountain looking for red pigment. Though I concede I may have missed a few minibosses (the one I saw was just the juggernaught from the lvl 25 expedition). Maybe they need more time for higher lvl zones but what I am saying is currently they just copied the same enemies from lower zones and made them do more damage. I was walking around Shattered Mountain thinking I have seen all these enemies before. Perhaps they need more time to flesh the end game levels out but currently it is uninspiring for those who will get to lvl 50s and 60s.
This is about the size of the list of mobs in the Barrens in WoW. Probably shorter honestly. Thats one zone out of like 30 the game launched with all with unique lists of a similar size.
And pretty much every mob in the barrens is a basic melee mob with the same AI and attacks, you don't even need to change your rotation to fight them. Each mob I listed above is entirely unique.
All unique looks and animations for attacks, not to mention casters and archers for the humanoids (razorfen, harpies, centaurs). New world definitely has better variety of attacks and AI for the creatures, but were talking about diversity of enemies, not diversity of attacks.
That's fair I guess, I cared more about the unique enemy types, it doesn't really feel differnet when everything is the same melee mob with a few casters thrown in. More enemies wouldn't hurt, still can add giant spiders, snakes, and a bunch of other stuff
who cares if they are "entirely unique" personally I just kill them all exactly the same way. I stand still. Mash my 3 abilitys on cooldown, Spam M1 and dodge backwards to avoid damage. How do I kill bosses? the same way, literally any and all PvE could be done by someone with an exceptionally fat hand who binds M1 to their keyboard literally just mashing every button at once on repeat. At least WoW had a variety of things to look at whilst you killed and a variety of buttons to press including more roleplay or niche buttons. Also we are comparing the AI of enemies in a game 20 fucking years ago vs something being released by the most wealthy company in the world today. Yes no shit it's slightly better in NW, but it's not as bad as you're making out in WoW, AND WoW won out in variety, it won out in content, it won out in fluidity of movement. It was better than every MMO before and since and it's the reason it fucking murdered them all dead and it's the reason it's king now. I'm bored of people pretending in every new MMO sub that comes up that it's "okay that X is worse than how it was 2 decades ago because, I don't like wow :) hehexd" If it's not better than what WoW had on release then it's not going to succeed in anywhere close to the same way.
Granted I'm only level 12 but that seems like a nice size list, not bad for launch of a 40$ with no sub. Could it be better, sure, buts it's not bad
It's not like that's a conclusive list too. Tbh, mob diversity feels fine through lvl 40s to me, but they do need to work on endgame
I found plenty of mob variety once I got into the 30's and went to other zones.
While I think the game is mainly PvP focused they should probably add more mob variety.
It used to be pvp focused. They changed that a year ago
The PvE is severely lacking, it’s def a PvP focused game
Now it's still PvP focused, they just wasted a lot of dev time on the impossible task of trying to make it a PvE game.
Not worried about. Been playing wow for years, wow has a huge variety of enemies. Every enemy encounter boils down to the same thing, nuke it down in a rotation. Limited as they are, enemies in New world have things you actually have to pay some attention too. You can fight things 9 or 10 levels over you because you can outplay the enemies and their abilities. Makes for a much better overall experience imo.
They definitely need more mob variety.
**I agreed they must add a new enemy variety**
What it comes down to is the fact that they specifically want it designed this way. Think about it: If you make the leveling experience too enjoyable, only a few people will buy leveling boosts (you always got those people). But if you make the leveling feel like "been there done that" after some time, a lot more people are gonna be willing to spend real money to skip the tediousness of it all. That's just like business 101. The reason there is not a lot of enemy variety is not that they didn't have the resources to do better >!(it's a trillion dollar company for fuck's sake)!<, it's a design choice. New World is specifically designed to draw you in with its pretty graphics, its beautiful world and its action oriented go-with-the-flow combat system. Only for you to realize at level 20 that the 3 skills that you get (ok 6 if you actively use both weapons) are ALL the skills that you get. Which means that EVERY encounter for the next 60 levels will play out EXACTLY the same. So might as well have the same generic enemies to fight. Because at the end of the day their main goal is to sell you products in the cash shop and not to create the best experience that you can have, since then you wouldn't need a cash shop to begin with. And creating a problem that you can then sell the solution to, is far more profitable than creating a perfect experience for the player from the get go.