New World Leveling Guide

New World has a lot of competition on the MMORPG front and while creating completely new and untested concepts is far from safe route, the same can be said for creating something wholly unoriginal. Meeting in the middle is where high-end development studios like to land, be innovative enough to keep people interested without changing so much to polarize the people you are trying to appeal to. Does New World hit this sweet spot? It might be a bit too early to say its impact as a whole, but we can take a look at the individual game mechanics to see how they stack up. While it may be too early to sell New World accounts, I am going to reference the leveling system specifically to give you a better idea of how it works.

There are actually technically three different systems that you will have to track while playing New World. You have your individual character level as is typical in RPGs but you also have the less typical weapon mastery levels and trade skill levels. Character levels, or attribute levels, are used gained and used to increase your base stats. Weapon mastery influences and is influenced by the weapon you choose to use in combat. Lastly, trade skills will affect the types of materials you can create as well as their quality.

Each time you level your character you can choose to put a point in one of the attributes. With the level cap, you have a total of 71 assignable attribute points. You need to make sure to invest these points with your desired build in mind. The attributes you can choose from are Strength, Intelligence, Focus, Dexterity, and Constitution. Constitution is the attribute that directly influences your base health. Dexterity has the most influence over your ranged weapon damage. Focus increases your total mana and how quickly it regenerates. Intelligence increases the base attack of your magic. Strength influences melee damage much the same way that Dexterity and Intelligence impact their respective damage.

So what is the best way to earn the XP for the attribute levels? There are a few ways and the good news is many of those ways do have combat so you can double down with these methods between combat mastery and attribute levels. In fact, one of the fastest ways to take advantage of mechanics and level both is to always hit monsters you see other players fighting. Even if you do just one hit you and the other player both get the full experience, so no one is being griefed and everyone wins.

Still, there are many others ways to boost your XP earning and gain those levels. Logging off inside a settlement, for instance, will guarantee that you have an XP boost when you sign back in. Building your standing within those sane settlements will also increase the XP you earn while acting within those areas, so it is worth investing in your standing. A lesser-known tip would be to take advantage of the fast travel points you can unlock. The faster you can get around, the faster you can complete quests and earn XP. Some players also recommend owning a house and registering in an inn in a separate region, so you maintain the ability to travel to both.

Additionally, if you need to specifically level up your weapon mastery and abilities, PVP-specific quests and tasks will be the fastest way for you to do that. So be prepared to put the hurt on some of your fellow gamers if you want to master the weapon of your choice.

Leveling up your trade skills will also award you base XP along with the trade skill levels themselves, so again doubling down is a feasible option between the two. There are three primary ways to level up trade skills, crafting refining, and gathering. Gathering activities include logging, mining, fishing, harvesting, and hunting (divided into tracking and skinning in the game). These activities will allow you to acquire the necessary materials to craft better tools. Those tools will allow you to gather better, which will essentially come as a surprise to no one. Refining will allow you to turn the materials you gather into higher quality and usable materials. Refining includes smelting, woodworking, leather-working, weaving, and stone cutting. Then you have the last part of the trade skill cycle, the crafting. Crafting skills include weapon-smithing, armoring, engineering, jewel-crafting, arcana, cooking, and furnishing. All of the above skills will contribute to the overall skill and level of your character.

Leveling doesn’t come with just the usual attribute buffs in New World, there are quite a few milestone rewards your character receives for reaching certain levels. Hitting level 5 gets you a secondary weapon slot. Level 10 will unlock a bag slot and allow you to dual other players. Level 15 will get you access to your first house and open third consumable slot along with opening up new quest lines. Level 20 gets you a bonus ring slot and level 25 will get your character their fourth consumable slot. Level 30 gets you a new bag slot. Level 35 will give you access to a second house, which like how many MMOs let you have more than one house? Seriously, that's good real estate opportunists. Level 40 gets you a new earing slot, and level 45 gets you another bag slot. Level 50 is when we hit those high-level rewards, unlocking invasions for you to enjoy. Level 55 will give you access to your third house (wow that’s a lot of houses). Level 60 will unlock the coveted end game content by giving you access to the Outpost Rush.

Leveling up should be exciting, but many MMOs are quick to push you to the endgame content and provide little to chew on in between, leaving the top-tier game content to the endgame. It’s too early to say if New World does this too, but for the time being it does certainly seem they have invested a lot in their mid-game content and provide you with many opportunities to play and enjoy those sections of the game.