New World: Aeternum Sneak Peek

 New World: Aeternum Sneak Peek

A glimpse into the 725 GS Aeternum Life

With the Open Beta starting very soon, the clever folk at New World Database have kindly provided some insight into what we might expect for the New World: Aeternum update in October. We’re particularly interested in the paths to upgrading gear to 725, where we can get 725 gear score items, the interesting perk combos on the new Sandwurm gear, new perks and artifacts, and, of course, new Wraith Black dye and the details of its hex code.

Contents

Upgrading to 725

One of the big questions current players have had since June is what happens to my gear and how do I get to 725 Gear Score? Well, the good news is that you will be able to upgrade your Artifacts. The bad news is that the current Named items cannot be upgraded beyond 700 GS. The hoped-for umbral-like mechanic for upgrading has not eventuated. Crafted and dropped gear remains non-upgradeable.

Upgrading Artifacts

All artifacts will be upgradeable to 725GS, using a special ingredient from either the Raid or the PVP zone. This is a new move from AGS and hopefully indicates more options for acquiring the same gear from different areas of play in the future. Complaints about excellent PVE items (Serenity, for example) being locked behind the PVP track are ongoing.

Matrix, Chromatic Seals, Gypsum Orbs, and Dark Matter are still useful here, so make sure you hold onto yours or stock up if needed.

The 700GS Artifact upgrade recipes are still in place for both old and new artifacts, so it seems we will need to upgrade twice for maximum power.

With the Goldcursed Coconut being on a one per week cooldown, and the Gorgonite Inductor being linked to whatever the Hive of Gorgons loot limit is, and with both of them having other useful purposes, upgrading an Artifact to 725 isn’t something to take lightly.

Upgrading Apex Goldcursed Named Items

If you get an Apex Goldcursed item in an Apex Goldcursed crate or a Goldcursed Epic Crate that is lower than 725 GS, you can upgrade it to 725 at a Well of Fortune.

It’s very similar to our current Named items upgrades, but the materials you need all come from the PVP zone. Importantly, you don’t need any matrices or chromatic seals.

The Goldcursed Coconut is on a weekly cooldown, so you can only loot one per week. It’s also used in a number of other recipes (see Apex crafting below and Artifact upgrades above) so you’ll have to choose where you want to use it wisely.

Upgrading Hoplite Named items from the Hive of Gorgons

Hoplite items drop from the Hive of Gorgons Raid and are Named items with specific perks. If you get one that is lower than 725 GS, or perhaps just if you want to change the third perk, you can upgrade in the same way that Named items are done now.

Take the item to a Gypsum kiln and look for the recipe. It uses the same ingredients as 700GS Named item upgrades except you need a Gorgonite’s Eye as well. This is a tradeable drop from the Hive of Gorgons Raid, and it will be interesting to see how common or rare they are, as they are needed in quite a few recipes.

Upgrading Sandwurm Loot

The new Sandwurm items can also be upgraded to 725 Gear Score, and I imagine a third perk of your choosing can be applied.

Again, we’re seeing a Matrix, Chromatic Seals, Dark Matter, and a Gypsum Orb, with the addition of 2 Gorgon’s Eyes from the PVE Raid.

I wonder if this will appease the multitude of players who have been baffled by the lack of upgrade for this loot pool since Rise of the Angry Earth was released. The new Sandwurm gear is now some of the most interesting in the entire game, and with both illegal perk combos and the ability to reach 725 gear score, has the potential to be best in slot for certain builds.

Crafting 725 gear

Since Rise of the Angry Earth, crafting has enjoyed a prime position in the gear acquisition chain, with the most customised items being craftable by the most accomplished crafters. New World: Aeternum is set to change all that. While there may be more that we don’t know, so far it looks like there are two possibilities for crafting 725 gear and only one requires crafting skill. 

Gorgon Essence 725 crafting

So, you can still craft a 3 perker, and now you don’t even need crafting skills to do it. Just a pile of resources and some Gorgon Essence from the Hive of Gorgons Raid. Quite a lot of resources, actually. You can choose 3 craft mods, so can design the piece exactly as you please, much in the same way that Azoth Inductor crafts work now, except for 725 GS. 

Editor’s note: It has come to light that the NW:A  datamined files show a field for selecting the attribute in Timeless, Scarab, Prismatic and this should be the case for the new craftables too. I guess we’ll find out when someone clears the Raid and crafts something.

The Timeless Shards experiment seems to be over, and instead the devs have chosen the best attribute for the item. For armour and jewelry, this means Magnify, while weapons have their primary scaling attribute. There are some concerns about the implications for split stat builds, and I suggest that perhaps we will be looking at boots and maybe gloves that are 700GS with a chosen attribute, to get our stats right without losing too much gear score.

The other significant point here is that even though this isn’t strictly a crafted item, it still serves the purpose of creating a price ceiling for BIS, which is the total cost of the materials used. The value of the Gorgon Essence will be harder to evaluate, depending on how often you can run the Raid, as the required Gorgonite Inductor is a Bind on Pickup item, so this may be a very high figure, at least to start with.

Skill based 725 crafting

Before you start weeping and piling all your Ultimate Trophies and crafting gear into a bonfire, there are still 725 crafting options for, you know, actual crafters.

The new crafting recipes look like they come from schematics that can be received as loot rewards in the Hive of the Gorgons. The way it is listed as “Required Recipe (salvage)” looks like it may work in the same way as Furniture schematics, so you only need to loot it once and then you learn the recipe. The schematics appear to be tradeable, so there should be a nice market for these after people get their first one.

The other special ingredient is the Gorgon’s Eye, another resource from Hive of the Gorgons. This also looks to be tradeable and will probably be akin to Golden Scarabs in value. Initially very expensive, these should settle down to a stable market price, assuming the Raid is not as badly designed as the Sandwurm and regular groups can complete it with a bit of effort.

The prismatic materials needed for these crafts is similar to any other normal craft, but there is no guarantee of results. Presuming a steady supply of Gorgon’s Eye, this could be a good way to gamble on crafting and perhaps get a lucky roll and make a fortune from a BIS item.

Hive of Gorgons Loot

The Hive of Gorgons is the new three boss Raid and will drop items and essential ingredients for reaching 725 Gear Score. Let’s hope this is a more achievable raid than the Sandwurm, because the majority of the new content is locked behind it.

It’s not clear whether there is a limit to how many times you can do the Raid and get loot. Is it like the Winter Rune Forge where you can go in as often as you like, but only receive spoils twice? Or like mutations where you get 25 runs a week? The frequency at which the raid can be done will determine how quickly or slowly we’ll be able to get 725 GS items.

Artifacts

Three artifacts drop from the Hive of Gorgons:

Crafting Components

The crafting components that drop are key loot items for 725 GS:

  • Chromatic Seal – used for Named Item and Artifact upgrades.
  • Hive of Gorgons Token – used to craft Hoplite items.
  • Gorgonite Inductor – used to create Gorgon Essence and in Artifact upgrade recipes.
  • Gorgon’s Eye – used to create Gorgon Essence, to upgrade specific Named items to 725 GS, and in 725 skill-based crafting.
  • Gorgonite Schematics – needed for 725 skill-based crafting

Hoplite 725 GS Named Items

Hoplite is the family of Named items that come from the Raid. It looks like they can drop or be crafted.

The majority of the weapons have the new Distained Infliction perk paired with Keenly Jagged to make sure there is a DoT for it to trigger off. The exceptions are:

The armour is all very similar and generic, with Magnify as the perk:
  • Heavy – Enchanted Ward and Health – Boots Health and Hasted Vigor
  • Medium – mix of Enchanted Ward, Health, and Refreshing – Boots Refreshing and Hasted Vigor
  • Light – Enchanted Ward and Refreshing – Boots Refreshing and Hasted Vigor

The Amulet has a new perk on it and the Ring looks pretty good:

Hoplite Replicas

You can collect your Hive of Gorgons Tokens and craft your own Hoplite Named items at 725 gear score at the Gypsum kiln.

This seems like the current materia crafting from mutated expeditions, but uses a different resource, which is nice.

It takes 40 tokens per craft, so it will be interesting to see how many drop. New World database just shows it as a Raid drop, rather than dropping from individual bosses, so we may only get one, or a chance to get one, per Raid completion.

Gorgon 725 GS Items

These look to have random perks with fixed attributes. Following the pattern of other items in this release, the armor and jewelry has Magnify and the weapons have their primary scaling attribute, which keeps things pretty simple.

PVP Zone Loot

The PVP zone looks like it will be a chest run where everyone can kill one another and take their spoils. The two main things that seem to drop are:

Goldcursed Coconut

  • Goldcursed Coconut
  • Used for Artifact upgrades, Apex Named Items, and Apex Goldcursed Crates. 
  • Cooldown 1 per week

I’m not sure what the drop chance is but I hope it’s higher than Transmog Token Purses (which incidentally are missing from ptr.nwdb).

You can get them from large Cursed Hoards on the PVP island. Cursed Doubloons also drop, in quantities of 10-30, from all three sizes of Cursed chest. I believe these turn into Mystic Doubloons after you leave the PVP zone but I’m not sure whether it’s automatic or you need to do something. They also drop from mobs in Cutlass Keys, presumably in the PVP zone.

Mystic Doubloons

  • Mystic Doubloon
  • Used in the Well of Fortune to craft Artifacts, Named Items, Resources and more (see below).

These come from a range of sources, including chests in Cutlass Keys, Elite Doubloon Caches, Locked Doubloon Caches (contains 500 Mystic Doubloons, requires Glittering Gold Key), and as quest rewards for the new Cutlass Keys questline.

Apex Crafting

We can expect to find a new crafting station or NPC vendor called a Well of Fortune. Probably in Cutlass Keys, but possibly in all high-end settlements like the Gypsum Kiln is. This is where you can spend your PVP zone spoils.

There are a range of different things in the Well of Fortune and we can’t see them all yet. As well as items up to 725GS, there are also resources and craft mods that can be purchased for Mystic Doubloons. What we can see are:

  • Artifact – Ghostly Touch – 6000 Mystic Doubloons
  • Artifact – Survivor’s Coat – 6000 Mystic Doubloons
  • Glittering Gold Key – unlocks Locked Doubloon Cache – 5 Mystic Doubloons
  • Refined Resources Crate –  50 Timber, Iron Ore, Coarse Leather, or Linen – 5 Mystic Doubloons – 2 per day
  • Rare Resources Crate –  20 Wyrdwood, Starmetal Ore, Thick Hide, or Silk Threads – 25 Mystic Doubloons – 2 per day
  • Epic Resources Crate –  20 Ironwood, Orichalcum Ore, Iron Hide, or Wirefiber – 35 Mystic Doubloons – 2 per day
  • Exotic Resources Crate –  20 Runewood, Mythril Ore, Dark Hide, or Spinfiber – 50 Mystic Doubloons – 2 per day
  • Dark Matter, Gemstone Dust, Gypsum Orbs, Honing Stones, Oakflash Balm, Proficiency Booster potions – 5 for 10 Mystic Doubloons
  • Craft mods – Reflective Animus, Empowering Animus, and Abrasive Ore – 75 Mystic Doubloons – 1 per day
  • Goldcursed Rare Crate – a chance to get 650+ GS random Goldcursed items or T4 raw resources – 10 Mystic Doubloons – 5 per day
  • Goldcursed Epic Crate – a chance to get 650+ GS random Goldcursed items or T5 raw resources – 35 Mystic Doubloons – 3 per day
  • Goldcursed Crate – 705GS items – 250/375 Mystic Doubloons 
  • Apex Goldcursed crates – 725GS items – 1500/1800 Mystic Doubloons – 1 per week, see details below

Apex Named items

There is one of each weapon type available as a special Apex Named item. The majority of these have the new Penetrating the Empowered perk and Vicious or Keen, with the exception being the Living Mind life staff which has Refreshing Divine Embrace and Blessed.

It looks like you can get these items from:

  • 725 GS – random drop from Apex Goldcursed Weapon Crates – 1800 Mystic Doubloons, 1 Goldcursed Coconut, 1 per week cooldown
  • 710 GS – Craft with 750 Mystic Doubloons
  • 725 GS – Upgrade with 1250 Mystic Doubloons, 1 Goldcursed Coconut, 300 Dark Matter

So it looks like you can get a guaranteed item for a total of 2000 Mystic Doubloons, 1 Goldcursed Coconut and 300 Dark Matter, or you can gamble for 2-500 fewer doubloons and no dark matter for the chance once a week.

The Apex Goldcursed crates are split into the following categories:

1800 Mystic Doubloons and a Goldcursed Coconut

1500 Mystic Doubloons and a Goldcursed Coconut

The Armor and Trinkets don’t appear to have fixed perks at this point but that may be a Beta thing. 

New Sandwurm Loot

The Sandwurm loot has finally been upgraded. Let’s hope the difficulty has not been! The Wurm itself has been reduced to level 63 from 66 but had its HP buffed by almost 10 million and its Amor Rating only slightly reduced.

The new Sandwurm Named items are among some of the most interesting in the game, many having illegal perk combos. Including weapon perks on armor! These will drop from 700-710 GS and can be upgraded to 725.

New Perks

There are a few new perks in the files and craft mods to go with them. These perks appear on Named items from the new Raid and PVP Zone and the craft mods seem to be attained through this content as well.

  • Reflective AnimusThorny Reflection (chest and hand) – crafted at the Well of Fortune – 75 Mystic Doubloons – 1 per day
  • Empowering AnimusEmpowered Cleave (ring) – crafted at the Well of Fortune – 75 Mystic Doubloons – 1 per day
  • Abrasive OrePenetrating the Empowered (weapons) – crafted at the Well of Fortune – 75 Mystic Doubloons – 1 per day
  • Poisonous NectarDistained Infliction (weapons) – salvaged from Hoplite and Gorgon’s weapons – Hive of Gorgons
  • Natural FinishHasted Vigor (armor) – salvaged from Hoplite and Forgon’s armor – Hive of Gorgons
  • Silver OilUnimpeded (amulets) – salvaged from Hoplite and Gorgon’s jewelry – Hive of Gorgons

There are also Fishing crafting mods, for adding specific perks to fishing rods. I imagine some of you might be scratching your head, expecting that to already be a thing. Nope, no it wasn’t. But it is now.

New Artifacts

We have eight new Artifacts, some of which have already been mentioned. The full list is below, including where to find them and pictures of the item cards.

Solo Soul Trials

Apart from the new Flail artifact, the loot from the Solo Soul Trials seems to include a low-level loot pool, a Bag of Coin, and/or Dark Matter. The most interesting thing about this loot is that it has the appearance of past Season Pass free track skin rewards. So if you missed them the first time, you can transmog the items from the trials. There are 16 Trials, which will be available on rotation 3 at a time, with loot showing as follows: 

Bear in mind this is in Beta and the varied loot items such as the specific named items and the Butcher artifact may not appear in the live version. It does demonstrate some thoughts toward multiple pathways for getting rare items though.

New Dyes

And now the most exciting part! Not only do we have Wraith Black dye coming, we also have a new pure white and pure red dye arriving in the Cash Shop. Get your Marks of Fortune ready, my friends!

Interestingly, there are three more new dye colours, which seem to correspond to some colour names in the Season 6 rewards, so we might see them there.

Weapon Skill Tree changes

There are also a number of changes to some of the Weapon skill trees, of note Sword and Shield has had a bit of a makeover, with Reverse Stab reworked as Upheaval which deals Slash instead of Thrust damage, and Shield Bash moving up to the top row, while Shield Rush is now down on row 2. The Concussive Bash upgrade to Shield Bash now has different bonuses depending on what type of shield you are using, allowing for more build diversity, as does the Final Countdown upgrade to Defender’s Resolve.

For healers, Sacred Ground has been moved to the top row and Divine Embrace is now on the second row. Splash of Light has had a bit of an upgrade with a clear-out-style damage burst on the caster, as well as the group heal.

Spear has had Cyclone put on the top row and Javelin moved down to the third row.

The Greatsword has Roaring Rupture moved to the top row and Calamity Counter on the second row.

Rapier has had all the perks moved around, with Tondo on the left and Flurry on the right and down to the second row on the Blood side. Fleche has been moved to the left position top row, with Evade and Riposte both on the second row. The Adagio upgrade on Evade has been reduced from 15% to 10% on your next light attack within 1 second.

Fire Staff has had Fireball moved to the top row and buffed for PVE, with an extra 20% damage against hostile AI targets. Pillar of Fire has been moved to the third row.

For the Bow, Rain of Arrows has been moved to the top row and Evade Shot to the second.

War Hammer has also had perks moved up and down, with Wrecking Ball on the far left at the top now and Armor Breaker on the third row to the right of the Juggernaut side. Shockwave is now on the top row, with Clear Out on row 2.

Musket has had Stopping Power moved to the top own and Traps swapped down to the second row. The Crippling Powder Burn perk has also been reduced, from 45/27% Slow to 30/18%.

Hatchet has a minor change, with Torrent and Feral Rush swapping their rows 2 and 3 heights.

Net Shot has been moved up to the top row for the Blunderbuss, and swapped to the opposite side.

Great Axe sees Execute promoted to row 1, Reap moved down to row 2, and Charge moved down to row 3, while on the Mauler side Whirlwind is on the top row and Maelstrom has been moved down to row 2. 

Ice Gauntlet has Ice Storm and Ice Spike swapping rows 1 and 2.

Many of these changes just appear to be cosmetic, but whether an ability is on the first, second, or third row can impact your choice of passives, so it will be interesting to see how this affects builds.

Winners and Losers

One big loser is Azoth Inductors, as while being able to choose all 3 perks is still valuable, being restricted to 700 GS is not going to be desirable enough to justify the cost. Other losers are all our current Named items that are stuck at 700 GS, and mutated expeditions, which there will be less incentive to run for end-game players. Crafters are also losers, with control over crafting at the top level being taken away, as well as craft skills now being free and easy to gain with the Grandmaster Research Notes. I don’t intend to evaluate the weapons changes here but a big complaint in the community has been the removal of Grit from Light Attacks with the 300 Con perk. Finally, house decorators are losing, with no new furniture schematics to be found.

Some winners are PVE non-crafters, who can now make 3 perk 725 GS items without ever bothering to learn a single craft skill, as long as they have the money for the resources and can clear the Hive of Gorgons. PVP players are also winners, with new pathways to BIS contained within the PVP experience. Additionally, salvage is a new big winner, with the Infused Fragments being used in the new Grandmaster Research Notes which grant a generous amount of crafting XP for the related craft skill. But the biggest winners of all are, of course, the players who wanted Black Dye, as we will finally have it!

Final Thoughts

I think what AGS are trying to do here is create meaningful rewards for end-game content. So 700GS should be your regular gear and perfectly serviceable for all content. If you want an edge, say to score well on Leaderboards or win Wars, you can seek out 725GS items to boost your build.

The problem is, this isn’t how gamer mentality works. When there is a highest number, everything below that number becomes worthless. So whether AGS intended it or not, restricting 725GS items to those who participate in only two areas of the game – the new PVP zone and the Elite Trials – reduces end-game content instead of expanding it. Especially for PVEers, essentially putting all value on only two activities.

... all AGS needed to do was make the rewards an equivalent gear score and give them illegal perk combos.

Instead of making the rewards meaningful by increasing Gear Score, all AGS needed to do was make the rewards an equivalent gear score and give them illegal perk combos. The frustrating thing is, it looks like they did that with the Sandwurm loot, but then boosted it to 725 as well. The gear score increase is the entire problem with the update.

Now, for someone like me, I don’t need to feel like I’m at the apex to enjoy the game. I’m happy to potter along, run mutations for enjoyment, do Winter Rune Forge for virtually no rewards, play around with outfits and new builds. But it’s not me who AGS needs to worry about losing, I’ve been playing while the population plummets.

I’m just worried the masses may feel there is even less to do at end-game with this update, and after the initial resurgence of interest, we’ll end up back where we are.

From the source:

The information in this article has been sourced from the New World Database Open Beta site. Feel free to head over and browse for yourself, be sure to share any insights you discover in the comments below.

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Landi

Landi is an avid furniture collector and regular DPS for Don't Die Alone. She contributes to the Mutation Rotation and Faction Control series of articles.

7 Comments

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