[Megathread] Amazon's New World MMO

[rhorle]

How is it bad design if they wanted to use water as a barrier/no-action zone? I mean the expectation is that we can swim in it etc., but it's hardly uncommon for water to have literal invisible walls preventing the player from interacting with it at all.

Because of how often you interact with it. Pulling crocs away from water still doesn't change the fact that they often put them right near the "no-go" zone for abilities and dodging. Or that animals you "hunt" (bison, elk, etc) will run across the to deep water and can even die over it. The barrier is only on the players and some times doesn't even make sense given the rest of the area.

[oplawlz]

How is it bad design if they wanted to use water as a barrier/no-action zone? I mean the expectation is that we can swim in it etc., but it's hardly uncommon for water to have literal invisible walls preventing the player from interacting with it at all.

It just doesn't work in the context of this game. Particularly when you get to swampy areas, it's really obnoxious to constantly have your character forget how to swing their weapon because their shins are wet. I would actually rate their handling of water in my top tier of game issues, because it actively detracts from the gameplay loop. If they wanted to use it as a limit they should have made you swim slowly with a stamina bar like other open world games have done successfully for the last 20 years and made sure it doesn't deactivate your skills until the waterline is above your center of gravity.

[Lex Icon]

i really don't get all the complaining about no swimming. rarerly do you ever spend more than a few seconds in water while traversing but somehow people act like this is Water World where no swimming would be a real issue.

it's not really that hard to see where shallow or deep water is and move accordingly.

[rhorle]

it's not really that hard to see where shallow or deep water is and move accordingly.

Really? Is there a way to tell that I am missing? The only way I've found to tell is once the camera goes below the water surface and you can then see how deep it is. You can't judge it from the surface. I'm playing with whatever default graphics settings the game picked so maybe it works better with better graphics?

[Lex Icon]

Really? Is there a way to tell that I am missing? The only way I've found to tell is once the camera goes below the water surface and you can then see how deep it is. You can't judge it from the surface. I'm playing with whatever default graphics settings the game picked so maybe it works better with better graphics?

yes it is visible. but yeah maybe if you're playing on a suboptimal setting and a small screen it may not be?

[Nyel]

could you swim in a full set of armor with 1000kg of stuff in your bag, swimming is no big deal since it doesnt do anything.

Ah okay, so it's better to let us walk underwater like it's no big deal at all? These excuses are funny, honestly.

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You can't even swim when you are naked and have nothing in your bags so there's that.

I mean the reasoning to justify no swimming was as silly as it can be in a fantasy MMORPG.

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But as Edge said, it's purposely designed that way to be a barrier, but the way it plays out...with a human walking along the sea floor like we're made of rocks, or like Link wearing the Iron boots or something, to then drowned, is just weird.

Elder Scrolls Online actually has this exact same barrier, but we're still able to swim there. But if we swim too far, we're killed by piranhas. Pretty bad way of handling this as well, but at least we can swim.

[Fencers]

To be fair though there are a lot of "water crossings" that the developers could have actively made shallow enough to cross. A lot are but some go deep for no design reason other then to make people drown. It isn't as noticeable unless you travel a lot in a zone like Weavers Fen that has a lot of water. The amusing part is how you can start to drown collecting water (or skinning near water).

There are also the times where you fight near water but have your skills limited (and can't open inventory) because you are "in shallow water". There are a lot of active decisions by the developers regarding water where swimming or other things should have been added in my opinion.

This is intentional to those areas as I was told and by demonstrated design. The developers wanted certain areas to have "terrain" be a factor in combat or limiting your ability. Deepwater you are obviously supposed to drown in and is an intentional barrier. The times when deep water is supposed to limit traversal is the case usually there is a nearby path or POI the devs wanted to funnel you toward.

For example, almost all of the Forts/Outposts are near water. And typically have shallows that are intended to present a "dangerous" crossing such as North and South of Monarch's castle, Reekwater's NE tip, or the crossover to Restless Shore.

I have seen PVP groups and portal running groups get caught out here and it's intended to be so. If you look at the bric-a-brac around these areas; there is often something for you to caught on too; abandoned rowboats, sunken ships, reefs, etc.

They do this with other types of topography besides the water such as in the Great Cleave, Ebon, and Morniungdale. Where cliffs, waterfalls, thick forests, elevation differences, and so on are supposed to make fighting in the open world a little more dangerous.

I am not saying it is necessarily super effective in practice as in theory. However, the design indicates many areas are supposed to be interesting to fight over and not let you just swim from Monarch to Ebon and avoid what is normally a very dangerous crossing.

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i really don't get all the complaining about no swimming. rarerly do you ever spend more than a few seconds in water while traversing but somehow people act like this is Water World where no swimming would be a real issue.

it's not really that hard to see where shallow or deep water is and move accordingly.

People get used to certain conventional mechanics. Like how some people just could not wrap their heads around the idea GW1 did not have jumping. Despite the design decisions of the game having no need for it at all.

It's not bad people have these expectations either. I would in fact love to just swim and cut through a lot of bullshit in NW. The burden of travel, so to speak, is a big complaint I have with the game because it actively works against the design intent to "explore" and stumble upon things. But travel is a pain in the ass a lot of times in my opinion.

That being said, the devs just did not see "swimming" as an action relevant or at least a priority to their game design. That's life.

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Really? Is there a way to tell that I am missing? The only way I've found to tell is once the camera goes below the water surface and you can then see how deep it is. You can't judge it from the surface. I'm playing with whatever default graphics settings the game picked so maybe it works better with better graphics?

It's marked differently on the map and has a different graphical look.

[rhorle]

They do this with other types of topography besides the water such as in the Great Cleave, Ebon, and Morniungdale. Where cliffs, waterfalls, thick forests, elevation differences, and so on are supposed to make fighting in the open world a little more dangerous.

Have you never received fall damage in the game? It is so low that it might as well not exist. Elevation does not make the game more dangerous at all. It just provides a small escape window in PvP and a large escape window in PvE since the AI uses pathing that doesn't allow it to just jump off after you.

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It's marked differently on the map and has a different graphical look.

Not every instance. The major routes are clearly marked but not every depth is indicated on the map with a difference.

[Fencers]

Have you never received fall damage in the game? It is so low that it might as well not exist. Elevation does not make the game more dangerous at all. It just provides a small escape window in PvP and a large escape window in PvE since the AI uses pathing that doesn't allow it to just jump off after you.

Terrain can be dangerous without just killing you outright. I have fallen running away from PVE mobs and died. The same can happen in PVP.

As long as it is there, it is an element of the design. That you may have never fallen to your death does not make the terrain any less interesting or potentially dangerous when engaged in combat or exploring.

Not every instance. The major routes are clearly marked but not every depth is indicated on the map with a difference.

Well, that's true in some cases I guess. I am assuming you are talking about some of those areas in Restless shore and Edengrove that have like mini-lakes. Those are hard to judge the depth of.

[kenn9530]

Ah okay, so it's better to let us walk underwater like it's no big deal at all? These excuses are funny, honestly.

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I mean the reasoning to justify no swimming was as silly as it can be in a fantasy MMORPG.

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Elder Scrolls Online actually has this exact same barrier, but we're still able to swim there. But if we swim too far, we're killed by piranhas. Pretty bad way of handling this as well, but at least we can swim.

Well you can just walk underwater as long as you are weighted down in real life, still swimming doesnt add anything to the game, i would much rather them actually add other gameplay than add in swimming just for reasons, its hardly even an issue to even bring up.

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Right. They still had to intentionally design some of the water areas deep enough to drown and limit skills and abilities when in "shallow" water. Even though you fight crocodiles near shallow water often. It is just silly to say "well they couldn't do better here because the rest of the game is terrible". Something are lower priority but bad design is bad design.

Its pretty stupid to fight something that has an advantage in water, you bring it on land, you cant fight properly in water at all in real life why do you expect that in a game.

[crusadernero]

Swimming is not required, its much more essential we get more content than a character animation, some things are just more important for a game. If you dont want long travel times after dying remember and use your camp otherwise you can use drowning for free death travel.

I agree its not requierd, but its still very weird to not have in the game. There are several parts of the game where swimming would be ideal. But in the end - its just very weird and shouldnt be a thing at all.

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The weird part isn't that we can't swim, it's that we can't float, there's no buoyancy at all.. You just slowly walk on the ocean floor and slowly drowned. It's bizarre.

But as Edge said, it's purposely designed that way to be a barrier, but the way it plays out...with a human walking along the sea floor like we're made of rocks, or like Link wearing the Iron boots or something, to then drowned, is just weird.

Barrier? For what? Just give us fatiuge if we swim off to far. One would imagine swimming at the very least would be in a MMORPG made by a big company in 2021. Its just bad, plain bad. Nothing else.

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Well you can just walk underwater as long as you are weighted down in real life, still swimming doesnt add anything to the game, i would much rather them actually add other gameplay than add in swimming just for reasons, its hardly even an issue to even bring up.

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Its pretty stupid to fight something that has an advantage in water, you bring it on land, you cant fight properly in water at all in real life why do you expect that in a game.

I get that - theres always something more important to fix, and I agree on that. Theres lots.

But its just SO bad and very weird they havent solved this from the get go, before game launched. I mean, theres alot of water around in this game, one would imagine swimming would be somewhat of a thing to have in the game from launch. Its weak and just bad.

Theres nothing more to it really than its bad.

[kenn9530]

I agree its not requierd, but its still very weird to not have in the game. There are several parts of the game where swimming would be ideal. But in the end - its just very weird and shouldnt be a thing at all.

NW forces you to find proper crossings currently or risk drowing if you try crossing a wide river, it makes the player plan a route instead of just walking in a straight line, you will just have to wait until the swimming dlc to be sold.

It may be a design choice or whatever but its more realistic because you wouldnt just cross a random river in real life, but since you can do it in lots of MMOs players just expect it to be an option.

[rhorle]

Its pretty stupid to fight something that has an advantage in water, you bring it on land, you cant fight properly in water at all in real life why do you expect that in a game.

Ahh right realism. We can carry a thousand pounds but realism is the limiting factor for shallow water combat. Not to mention you can effectively fight in shallow water or that you can't even use a musket ability when your gun is clearly way above water. But sure lets discount it as a bad design because realism.

[crusadernero]

NW forces you to find proper crossings currently or risk drowing if you try crossing a wide river, it makes the player plan a route instead of just walking in a straight line, you will just have to wait until the swimming dlc to be sold.

I mean.. Im not really planning my routes a whole lot. I just run straight forward to the point I want to go. They could even make swimming very slow so its not even worthwhile, not really complicated.

its somewhat telling of this game when they dont bother with it. Its nothing but bad. Instead of doing something, they didnt do anything.

BUT! The swimming dlc will be dope.

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Ahh right realism. We can carry a thousand pounds but realism is the limiting factor for shallow water combat. Not to mention you can effectively fight in shallow water or that you can't even use a musket ability when your gun is clearly way above water. But sure lets discount it as a bad design because realism.

oh yeah thats so annoying, cant use musket when above water. I've done that in real life, so its not realism :P

[Edge-]

Swimming is to this game what jumping was in GW1. Something that everyone expects since it's in every other game, but something that's absolutely unnecessary as the world is designed, even if it feels weird at times.

And despite being a fairly minor aspect of the whole game, will be a topic of great attention and discussion.

[kenn9530]

Ahh right realism. We can carry a thousand pounds but realism is the limiting factor for shallow water combat. Not to mention you can effectively fight in shallow water or that you can't even use a musket ability when your gun is clearly way above water. But sure lets discount it as a bad design because realism.

Its just simply a game you are not supposed to fight in water with, i have had no issues running around a swamp killing/farming crocs, you can also use some abilities in water like the fire staff flame dash, and rapier forward spinny thing.

[rhorle]

Its just simply a game you are not supposed to fight in water with, i have had no issues running around a swamp killing/farming crocs, you can also use some abilities in water like the fire staff flame dash, and rapier forward spinny thing.

You are not deep enough in water. At some point, while still shallow, you can't use abilities or open up your inventory. They make a point of having small differences in depths making stupid limits. I wonder if it is a side effect from the fishing system. As it has "depth" as a variable that has a different effect based on shallow and deep. They might draw from the actual terrain for that and as a result we suffer some stupid shallow water mechanics.

Edit: Actually it does look like you can use any ability when in water as long as face is above the water. Once you get under enough to lose breath you can melee attack or use a melee ability. If it requires a cast or throw it doesn't work (Hatchet throw doesn't work but the jump back ability does. Healing abilities don't work). You can't dodge, jump, or open inventory while in water though if it is beyond a certain point.

[crusadernero]

Swimming is to this game what jumping was in GW1. Something that everyone expects since it's in every other game, but something that's absolutely unnecessary as the world is designed, even if it feels weird at times.

And despite being a fairly minor aspect of the whole game, will be a topic of great attention and discussion.

ouuuf games without jumping is just wrong. Swimming not far off.

[Edge-]

ouuuf games without jumping is just wrong. Swimming not far off.

Weird for sure but also...clearly not needed if the game world is designed around the lack of an ability to jump. Or in this instance, swim.

[crusadernero]

Weird for sure but also...clearly not needed if the game world is designed around the lack of an ability to jump. Or in this instance, swim.

Sure, I get that and I can live fine without it. Its still just weird hehe.