New World offers both PvP and PvE gameplay, and balancing these two modes is as important to us as it is to many of you. As we work toward launch and continue to introduce new features and content, we’d like to elaborate on our vision for PvP. If you’d like to jump directly to the April Alpha Test Release Notes, you can find them here.
PvP Goals
Coexist & Complement
It’s important to us that players choose how they want to play. Our vision for New World is to have PvP and PvE gameplay not only coexist, but complement each other so players can bounce back and forth between focusing on PvP and PvE. Our goal is for players to receive equal rewards for the same time invested with similar risk.
Unique Opportunities & Activities
While a player will never be required to flag for PvP, we certainly want PvP to have a unique and meaningful role in Aeternum. Open world PvP and Wars will allow players to lay claim to Aeternum through conquest and provide benefits to all players in their faction. Our April alpha release introduces new features to further support these goals.
New PvP Features
Faction Control Points
Since other major PvP activities like Wars and Outpost Rush are scheduled or instanced, we wanted to create PvP hotspots in the open world to help foster and concentrate PvP. We also felt that the forts found in each region were underutilized, and we wanted to give players reasons to adventure into these locations outside of Wars. We’ve turned each region’s fort into a PvP control point that will provide both territory and global rewards for the controlling faction. These faction control points will give players a way to engage in open world PvP that directly benefits their faction.
How to Participate
Territory forts will now require players to be PvP flagged to enter them. Forts will have a control point which players will battle to claim. If a faction has more players inside the control point than any other faction, that faction will begin to slowly capture the control point. The more players that faction has inside the control point, the faster they will capture it. The status of each fort will be visible on the world map, so everyone can see which factions have claimed forts and which forts are currently being contested. When rival factions are assaulting a control point, region-wide messages will alert players that the location is being contested and draw further attention to the location. Control points will be available to contest immediately upon another company claiming that territory. The only times control points will be inactive will be just before and after Wars and Invasions.
Rewards
Faction Control Point rewards are about long-term value and controlling specific locations to earn buffs specific to that location. Control points don’t grant immediate rewards, but instead provide faction members with a 5% increase to experience gain and 20% increase to influence gain within that territory. Additionally, each fort location has a unique global buff for their faction, such as decreasing specific taxes or decreasing Azoth costs for fast travel. You can find the full list of rewards and buffs in the April patch notes.
Looking Forward
We will be monitoring player reception and activity at each of the control points for data and feedback to help us further tune the mechanics and rewards.
Territory Control Incentives
Territory ownership is a big part of the New World experience. With the inclusion of territory control incentives, our goal is to entice more players to take part in claiming and protecting territory by making the rewards of settlement ownership more appealing. Benefits to being part of the faction that owns specific territories include linked storage between settlements owned by the same faction and a resource cart in each town that provides small amounts of crafting materials to faction members, in addition to the previously existing benefits related to fast travel, gathering volume, luck, and more. These bonuses will be suspended if a territory’s taxes are not paid. Read full details in the April patch notes.
Outpost Rush
To provide an alternate PvP experience to the ongoing War for Territory Control and open world PvP, we introduced Outpost Rush into the Alpha Test last month. Whether you prefer PvP or PvE, Outpost Rush is an endgame 20 vs. 20 battle where teams must coordinate and balance their time gathering resources, building up their outposts, capturing objectives, and defeating enemy players. Level 60 players can jump into Outpost Rush solo or as a group of up to 5 players.
How To Participate
Each team will start in their own fort on opposite sides of the map. Between the two forts you’ll find three outposts: Luna, Sol, and Astra. Each outpost can be captured by standing inside its capture point. You gain points for holding outposts and killing enemy players. Outposts grant 1 point every 3 seconds, and PvP kills are worth 1 point. The first team to reach 1,000 points wins! While the rules of engagement are straightforward, there are several components to each Outpost Rush match, so you have multiple ways to secure victory.
Gather infused resources (wood, ore, hides, and Azoth Essence itself) to help your team’s cause. Resources can reinforce your outposts, so grab any that you find!
Each outpost has the following structures in place by default which can be used by the controlling team:
An Armory will allow players to spend Battle Tokens earned in the match to purchase ammo, potions, items to help in defense and offense, and strong food buffs.
Players can use Storage Sheds to share infused materials and Azoth with their team. It’s also a great place to store resources so they don’t drop for the enemy team if you fall in battle.
Once an outpost has been captured, a team can gather Azoth-infused materials to build and upgrade the following structures.
All of these structures can be destroyed by the enemy team, so each team will need to stay vigilant to keep their structures repaired.
Gates can be upgraded twice, becoming stronger each time.
Protection Wards prevent capture of an outpost and provide a respawn location for the team that owns the outpost.
Different types of siege weapons can be built on the ramparts in each outpost.
A Command Post will provide your team with increased damage, armor, and a steady stream of battle tokens. This building can be upgraded twice to strengthen the effect.
Objectives: There are several objectives located around the map:
Baroness Hain spawns every 10 minutes. Team who dealt the killing blow will gain a strong buff that increases their health regeneration and defense for the next three minutes. At the same time, the enemy score will be frozen, preventing them from gaining any points for three minutes.
The Corrupted Portal is a portal guarded by Corrupted creatures. Teams can deposit Azoth Essence into the portal, and when a single team has committed 500 Azoth Essences, it activates and the player that made the final deposit is granted an item to summon a powerful ally.
Summoning Circles are stone platforms found in various key locations around the map. There, any player who has acquired a summoning item can summon a monstrous ally who will defend that location from enemy players.
Turret Emplacements are defenses that can be found at each fort and the Astra and Luna outposts.
We understand the importance of meaningful and rewarding PvP for our players who love that gameplay. We will continue to collect data and feedback on existing PvP features and content from our alpha testers. We also have plans to to grow our PvP offerings in our post-launch roadmap—after all, launch is just the beginning! As development continues, follow @PlayNewWorld and stay tuned to this site for more updates.