New World Talks Balance Changes, Including Some Changes on the Way in Season 2
New World has a second Forged in Aeternum this week, and this one is all about their approach to balance, including the most recent balance update, and season 2 combat.
This entry features Dave Verfaillie solo this time, andon the last balance patch, he speaks positively. That balance patch boosted melee, since melee was underperforming in OPR. and anyone who was paying attention noticed that Fire Staff and Ice Gauntlet were all over.
Verfaillie comments on that patch as having been successful in helping melee, allowing for more viable builds, and helping tone down the frustration from those two weapons. As for overall PvP balance, things are “in pretty good shape”, he says, with good performance in Arenas and Wars, with improvements in OPR. Ranged weapons still get the most use, and those weapons that got nerfed are still popular, though they're also solo friendly and easy to use, so this contributes to them being so common.
As for the next balance update, there will be some lighter tweaks to things like Heartrunes, but mostly, weapons will stay mostly consistent for a bit longer, since the team feels good about where that balance is at this time.
As for Season 2, there will be some major changes. They’re looking at what is underused and underperforming and want to change things to not only boost (or maybe scrap) some things, but to “shake up the meta a little bit”. One example he gives is Whirling Blade on sword and shield, since using it is more of a loss. We are looking at tweaking one or two abilities on each weapon to change things up a bit and enable more build options.
Blocking changes are also on the way. With blocking generally considered inferior to dodging, they are going to try and balance this
Read more on mmorpg.com
