Amazon is back with another episode of Forged in Aeternum this week, this time homing in on New World’s combat, although technically, player experience design lead J.R. and combat designer Josh Hurley begin by addressing the messy launch of season five, promising to continue to work on shoring up the update.
Hurley then outlines what’s on deck for the May update, including a major damage buff for siege weaponry (+50%-ish), a decrease for ammo resupplies, increases to threat generation as well as threat bonuses for melee, new functionality and better crit for specific underused artifacts, tweaks for equip loads, and buffing some weaker perks. Several weapons are on deck for changes as well, including nerfs for bow (mostly DOTs), blunderbuss, and spear, along with buffs for fire staff, flail, rapier perks, sword/shield, warhammer, and hatchet. Expect a removal of the accuracy penalty for swiveling the camera with muskets too. Further down the road, the devs are considering defensive buffs for siege weapons too and a rework of sword/shield’s reverse stab.
J.R. does note that Amazon is going to cut back on the Balance of Power episodes when there’s nothing new to share.
