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0s Our vision for how we perceive rewards in the game is that players should be making measurable progression every time they play the game.
9s Even on the hundredth time.
10s There it is.
11s Even the hundredth time.
12s So like when you're doing something, if it's 100th time you're on an Expedition, you should still feel like you're making progress towards some goal or have the opportunity to get something really cool from it.
28s Hey, everybody.
28s Welcome to Forged in Aeternum, the show where we talk about all-things New World.
32s I'm Phil.
33s And with me today is Tony.
35s And we're going to be talking to you all about general loot, rewards and progression and how you're getting the good stuff in the game.
42s The goods.
42s The goods.
44s The chase.
46s And so we get a lot of questions.
49s And I think a topic that we talk about all the time in the studio is really just like, How do we make sure we're giving players generous chances to get good stuff in the game?
62s And that they're going to get rewarded for...
64s what they're doing is going to get them what they're looking for.
66s And so that's kind of where I want to chat a little bit about, you know, how we talk about it and how we think about it and and share a little bit of insight with our players.
76s So it's funny, I think what you should do is you should tell them what the main pillar is for the rewards team that you say every sprint planning.
84s And oh, sure, for that everybody's sick of me saying this.
87s For the hundredth time.
87s Yeah.
88s That's part of it, right?
91s I mean, our vision for how we perceive rewards in the game is that players should be making measurable progression every time they play the game.
100s Yeah.
101s Even on the hundredth time.
102s There it is.
102s Even the hundredth time.
103s So like when you're doing something, if it's a hundredth time you're on an Expedition, you should still feel like you're making progress towards some goal or have the opportunity to get something really cool from it.
113s Yeah.
113s Yeah.
114s So no matter what you do in the game, ideally, I mean, if you're just dancing in the middle of town, that's going to be tough.
120s But you know, generally playing the game, you should feel like you're making progress and working toward something.
127s Yeah, I think one of the - so, one of the big...
129s that breaks down into many different buckets, right?
133s Because like you said, there's the Expedition side of things and then there's the crafting side of things and there's a lot of different rewards tracks.
138s And so like, one of the main things that we are looking at now and probably by the time that you're watching this, you'll be experiencing it - hopefully - is, you know, just give me more control over some of the crafts.
152s It's, I think, an interesting place to be from a design side, because the more control we give, the less runway we have.
161s And if we go too short on the runway, then everybody chews through the content and everybody's done really quick.
165s And so like, this is a balance of like, we don't want people to be, like, really upset, but we all seem to balance out like how long the concert lasts.
173s And so...
174s It's a it's a fair time to return.
180s It's how we kind of try to look at it as, you know, putting an X amount of time in this portion of the game.
185s Try to make that equitable, too, if you were doing a different activity that you like, you know, if you if you want to run Expeditions.
191s But let's - you brought up crafting, let's talk about crafting first, right?
196s What are some of the things that you've been thinking about recently and how we can really help our players, I think, get a little bit more control and dial in what they're getting in our crafting system?
207s Yeah.
207s I think one of the big things was...
210s that was just recently is the addition of the golden scarabs and stopwatches to tools and bags.
217s Those two items were just missing the ability to do that just outright.
220s And so that kind of filled that in completely.
223s Some of the other stuff.
224s What does that do, Tony?
225s So the you know, when you use a golden scarab, you're able to select two additional perks for your craft, and then a stopwatch raises the floor, if you will, of the gear score.
238s So it allows you to get a better chance of.
240s Getting that 600 roll.
242s That 600 roll, exactly.
244s And for tools and bags, it's really critical because they both have unique perks that only show up when you get a 600 roll.
252s And you can't upgrade, you can't upgrade those items at all.
255s You can't use umbral on those items.
256s You can't - you have to craft them out of 600.
258s And so I think that's really, really, really key and critical for just increasing those odds and increasing those...
264s it's a better loop, right?
265s You can invest a little bit more in terms of material, but you have more control and you have better odds, which is big.
272s And then the other side of it, I think, will roll back to some of the other things that we've been discussing internally, which is, you know, do we lean into bind on pick up more for our crafters?
285s I think you said it really well earlier - before this video started - but we can't have, you know, a crafter, a single crafter stand up the entire server with just insane items because they can control everything that they...
299s Well, if we do that, then the game just becomes: buy.
301s Stuff from the trading post.
303s Yeah, exactly.
304s That's not what we want.
305s No, not at all.
307s And so you know, if we can lean in to, say, you have more control over items but these items are bind on pickup, now for yourself you can be more self-sufficient.
315s Super self-sufficient.
316s Which I think is great.
317s Get a really rad BIS item.
319s Yeah.
319s And have a cool story maybe of how you actually had to get all the required materials to do that too.
327s So like, if we look at crafting right now, you do all the work, you get to 200, then you go spend the money or you go grind out all the clothes and then you go grind out all the trophies and I mean, the food is simple, but by the time you get all this stuff done at the end of it, you are hoping for good roles to pay off for that investment.
349s Yeah.
350s If you could be more self-sufficient and make yourself some pretty sick stuff then now you have other motives to go through that huge loop just to guarantee that you've got something at the end.
360s And there's like that...
361s As an endgame crafter, right, if I'm trying to be self-sufficient, we have the opportunity for crafters to roll the best items in the game and craft those and make lots of money selling those.
373s Yeah, but also I think where the rub comes in is the cost of those items.
377s And I'm trying to make something for myself too.
380s Having that kind of RNG is a bit frustrating.
383s It is.
384s I remember I went through the whole thing - and this was obviously a while ago - and I hit 200.
387s I was like, sweet, I'm gonna make some stuff and it was just like, the complete wind was knocked out of my sails because it's like it was just like, What else do I need to do to get what I'm after?
396s And it's very hard, I think, to get be like, I want this, how do I get this?
401s And right now this is...
403s That's the theme of the conversation, right?
405s It is.
406s And so in crafting, I think we are leaning more towards being a lot more generous with self-sufficient crafters while keeping in mind we still have a player-driven economy.
416s We can't just allow, you know, a hardcore crafter to dominate.
421s Dominate.
422s Yeah, yeah, exactly.
422s So, so there's a balance there that we got to keep.
424s But, you know, that is how we're looking at that.
429s Other areas in the game.
431s I'm, you know, participating in an event, let's say maybe.
436s And I want to know...
440s I want to know that my efforts are gonna return something, right?
443s And I want to know what I'm working towards at all times.
445s I think this is something that we talk about a lot.
447s And we've learned a lot.
448s Mm hmm.
450s Like, let's go back in time real quick, Tony.
453s To our Rabbits Revenge event of 2022.
458s So my interview.
459s Yes, actually, you brought this up.
462s I bring this up constantly,.
463s Constantly.
464s For anybody who doesn't know, I was interviewing for my job, and Phil happened to ask, Hey, what did you think of the the Rabbit event, in which I told him that I had skinned just under 3000 rabbits to get the chest for my house.
479s And I asked, why did it take so many?
481s And I could hear the sigh and feel his emotion over the phone call.
485s And it was pretty great.
487s So.
487s Still there.
488s For 2023, that's changed a bit.
490s A big bit.
491s Just a little bit.
492s Yeah.
492s I mean, in hindsight it's a little boneheaded, I think, on our part, just to not give back.
498s But we didn't really have that.
501s I mean, it's referred to as a pity ticker in a lot of spots, kind of tech.
505s And so now we do.
507s In this year's event, you probably noticed that like we had very explicit thresholds that if you actually didn't get a lucky roll by then, but you did put in an effort, you killed just maybe a couple of hundred things, you're good, you're good.
521s We don't want - we don't want, we really it it goes back to that equitable time stuff that we talk about all the time.
528s And we really try to boil that down to like, you know, what am I getting for what I'm doing in the game?
534s And so that was a big lesson that we're taking forward and we're trying to work into more aspects of the game.
539s Right?
541s What about as an endgame PVE player, if I'm doing chest runs or running Expeditions or something, how do I know that where I'm going to do this stuff is actually going to get me what I'm looking for?
557s Yeah, yeah.
558s What are some of the thoughts that that you've got about how we can improve that for our players?
563s Yeah.
563s So I mean, like right now there are...
567s Oh, man, there's so many ways to tackle some of these things.
571s Because like, even when you go do it right now, it's still that random shot on what rewards are going to drop.
576s And so it may take you ten runs, it may take you 20 runs, it may take you 50 runs.
581s There are, I think, there's a lot of examples out there where whether it is a pity ticker that's running behind the scenes or forms of drops and things where you can go trade in to get what you're looking for.
595s So like you only have to do it so many times before you have a thing where you can go and like, just give me what I'm after.
600s The materia update we did, I think, was a big way we aimed to address a little bit of that randomness, right?
605s Like you put in the time, you've done it enough, you can go then craft your reward that you were hunting for if you got unlucky, right?
615s However, I think there's something cool that we're toying with right now, this idea of exclusive kind of perks or locations for certain items and things like that.
630s It's a kind of a gleam in our eye right now, but making sure that I know if I'm like...
637s in this Expedition that I have the opportunity to get something really special.
643s I think that is something that we could do a lot better on.
647s Yeah, I would say our - how do I say it non-internal terms?
651s Our global random bucket is a bit too wide.
654s And I think if we can hone that stuff in, you know, we have a lot of analytics and a lot of data.
660s We know what people are hunting.
661s We can definitely kind of segment some of that stuff and be like, Oh, I'm going to go run a gem for this or run last for this, or do whatever.
667s For a very pointed reason versus like, you know, I'm just going to go run some content and hope for the best.
676s Exactly.
677s I feel like that that's a little bit of the feeling that you can get into right now.
683s And it's really not the intention as per our goals.
686s Right?
686s And so we, you know, looking at ways that we can make that a lot more special for players and they, I think, have that fantasy fulfillment of hunting for a boss's special, you know, artifact or something like that, like, whatever that is.
704s Special item, I should say.
707s That could be really, really cool.
708s I think so, too.
710s And then what about for the PVP players?
715s Yeah.
716s So, yeah.
716s So because, I mean, like, right now you're looking at the...
718s you have the reward track.
720s Which I believe there's a lot going on right now, it's currently getting some love.
724s It's getting a lot of love right now.
726s And that should be debuting with Season Two.
730s We're amplifying the rewards.
732s Oh yeah, just a quick overview for Season Two.
735s We're amplifying the rewards.
736s We're guaranteeing where prestige items will show up.
741s We're taking a pass on all of those to make sure that they are really good with the current meta.
745s Yeah, and like every fifth level you achieve on the reward track, you're going to get...
756s you're going to have access to dedicated drop for that.
759s And then as you get past level 20 as well, you're going to get very, very frequent named item drops and prestige drops.
767s So that players are going to at least be able to find what they're looking for a lot easier.
773s And I think that's like back to the whole theme of this thing, right?
776s So we can look at the track, figure out what is where, and then be like, Oh, well, I'm gonna go grind this because eventually I will get to this point.
783s Then I'll get the thing I'm after versus, you know, how many boxes do I need to open until this thing drops?
789s Yeah, I think right now it's a little too opaque, right?
791s It is.
791s Very.
792s You know, you're just home and you're throwing darts and praying for the best.
795s Yeah.
795s And so that's really where we notice, like, we we need to do better.
799s We were taking a lot of steps right now to try to improve that across the board.
802s Yeah, that's really cool.
805s Okay.
806s Well, that brings us to this week's Community Question, and that is going to be, Dear New World.
812s What quality of life improvements are you looking forward to for crafting?
817s Absolutely.
818s And yeah, so hopefully if you all enjoy the video and you like we're doing here, please like and subscribe.
823s It would really, really help us out and we will see you in Aeternum.
828s Well, you have to answer the question, dude.
829s I don't have to answer the question.
830s That's for them to answer.
831s It's the Community Question - it's not my question.
833s I thought you were going to answer the question.
834s My job is to answer that question.
836s Yeah.
837s I mean, I wrote you slacks and emails about that.
839s I need to know what they want, because that's what we're - that's why it's the Community.
843s It's not the Developer Question.
845s Ah, I see.
846s That threw me off.
849s Makes way more sense.
850s If I want to make that harder than it needed to be.
853s Put it in.
854s Classic Phil.
855s Do you watch the show?
857s I haven't watched an episode recently, no.
859s Man, you just throw yourself under the bed.
861s I watch every single one of these.
863s I love them.
863s I know, you send them to me.
864s When we're planning for a major update, that's a huge undertaking.
870s That's months and months and months of work and preparation and planning.
874s It's not the same for a minor update.