Choose My Adventure: Amrine Excavation and other flail-based New World adventures

I wasn’t sure that I was going to be playing with others this week in New World. That’s not to suggest that I’ve been alone or lonesome in this game – far from it, actually – but there was a period of time when I was almost positive that nobody was going to be joining me in the Amrine Excavation as last week’s poll had commanded me to do.

Luckily, I was able to find myself inside of a group through the game’s piecemeal group finder utility, but only after a couple of community-crafted hurdles like restrictive item level requirements, and even then my time within the expedition was not quite what I was expecting. It was a sneering bit of sarcasm on Amazon Games’ part.

Allow me to explain this sensation within Amrine itself. Last week I had said that I didn’t recall having done this particular dungeon, but when I came in I actually remembered that I had attempted to do this a long, long while ago and never actually completed it. That was owing to the fact that I wasn’t technically a tank because I didn’t have a taunt gem equipped and skills didn’t have latent taunt ability at that point, which ultimately saw me get to the final boss but fail over and over to the point that I had to quit.

This time around was much easier. But also laughably so, frankly. Gone was the semi-measured pace that I vaguely remember from my first delve into Amrine, replaced instead with a manic level of speed that brought to mind every uncomfortable multiplayer experience I was forced into with Warframe or certain Final Fantasy XIV dungeons. The party makeup made almost no sense and had no worth in a supposed holy trinity class setup, except that maybe the healer was actually doing healing, but for the most part it was pretty much all DPS plowing through things in a very loosey-goosey Guild Wars 2 sort of manner. Except even more slippery than that MMO.

As for roles, it didn’t really make sense where my flail/gauntlet build fit into things. I assume my selection of DPS as chosen role was accurate, but I didn’t really get the impression I was doing much damage, and I sure as hell don’t think I was able to apply debuffs effectively. This is primarily because of the fact that even larger enemies that would have a health pool large enough that my skills would have worth kept being melted even before I got to apply a debuff – and also because enemies were whipping back and forth between aggro targets, making it nearly impossible for my debuff skills to actually land.

Now I don’t necessarily mind if things are faceroll easy. That situation isn’t what I’d call ideal, but it is at least something I can cope with. Doing this New World dungeon wasn’t just faceroll but chaotic. Unstructured. Unfocused. Set to a pace that felt practically satirical, as if Amazon Games tuned things to lampoon the GamerSupps-chugging, livestream screaming, cartoon-like Gamer™ subset.

As I said earlier, it felt sarcastic. It felt as if the studio just decided to make its first dungeon a paper tiger, give up on dungeon design entirely, and move on to appeasing the shrieking baby birds of PvP balance. It was uncomfortable, unhinged, infuriating in points, but ultimately depressing from both an MMO gamer’s standpoint and someone who was hoping his build had something to offer.

Maybe Amazon got its act together in later dungeons (endgamers, you tell me!). Or maybe I won’t actually feel like my flail/gauntlet build has a distinct role to slot into until much, much later. But this was still an absolutely poor showing, and it honestly took a lot of the wind out of my sails, at least for a moment. I still love the weapon combination, but it has made me think a bit more; I’ll circle back to that point in a moment.

The rest of my time was otherwise focused on getting affiliated with the Syndicate as asked, moving forward in the main story, and slowly coming to enjoy the weapons combo I had more and more. At one point in the Syndicate story, I was able to take on enemies that were about seven levels higher than I am with my weapon and skills pairing, which felt extremely good. I nearly died during fights, sure, but the point is I didn’t die, and that felt extremely gratifying.

I also have to give a nod to the horse stuff that I was able to get into as I went along. By and large, most of the horse activities in New World are wildly divergent from anywhere I was going to or anything I was planning on doing, but they were still a welcome distraction. Basically I’m echoing Tyler’s sentiments about mounts and the flail.

This all does lead me into this week’s poll questions, starting off with another question about overall focus. I’m at a point where there are more than a couple of extra activities for me to engage in right now, and while I’ll once more be doing a bit of everything in this list, the first poll question is about what to put as the primary focus.

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The second poll is about that earlier sensation I described with regard to the flail and void gauntlet. The time spent in Amrine put into stark relief just how pointless my build is in a group setting, and I really want to be prepared to do more group stuff. But at the same time it’s probably not something I need to worry about until I’m at cap or otherwise doing later game activities. Probably.

The point is I would like to either think about whether I should continue on my chosen course or shift directions a bit with an eye to be a better support-based and team-worthy character. Thus, poll two:

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Polling will once more close up at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, October 20th. In the meantime, I think I’ll just continue on my merry little random way. And maybe I’ll pick up a life staff from the market (or craft one) so I can get myself a little bit prepared. You never really know, right?

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.