On this week’s Forged in Aeterum, Amazon’s Senior Systems Designer Tony Morton and Product Owner Phil Bolus sit for a discussion on New World’s loot and reward progression.
“Our vision for how we perceive rewards in the game is that players should be making measurable progression every time they play the game,” Bolus says; even when it’s the “hundredth time” you’ve done something, you should still be making “progress toward some goal” or at least “have the opportunity to get something really cool from it.”
The duo do add a caveat that what you’re doing does matter here; they have a little laugh over the idea that “just dancing in the middle of town” might deserve a reward, though of course other MMOs have certainly done this to great effect, as our readers already know, and indeed New World has a fantastic music system that provides buffs all around.
But in any case, they’re talking here about dungeons and crafting and how to balance time investment for players vs. the rewards they get and how long that content lasts. It’s worth a listen, particularly for the consideration for the economy when it comes to self-sufficiency and bind-on-pick up craftables, as well as for the discussion on “pity ticker” when it comes to grind events.
