Forge & Fury Update: Patch Notes and Release Date

This page lists all information on the Forge & Fury Update for New World. Read on to learn more about its release date and patch notes.

Forge & Fury Update Release Date

Released on December 15, 2020

New World released this Alpha patch on December 15, 2020. The Forge & Fury Update focused on balance, updates to combat, a new weapon, and PvP duels.

Source: New World Official Site

Forge & Fury Update: Patch Notes

Vision for Combat

At the highest level, there are three design pillars for combat in New World:

Skill-Based, Action-Oriented

Emphasize positioning, timing, and aiming in a fast and fluid combat setting that allows player skill to shine on the battlefield.

Visceral and High-Impact

Attacks from both players and enemies should have a level of commitment and weight to them. Meaty attacks should have appropriate responses from characters which encourages active defense strategies in encounters.

Depth of System and Builds

Encourage creativity within the system to find the build that is right for you and your particular playstyle. The goal is to design and tune the system to reward a wide range of builds and strategies.

Recent Changes

Player feedback is an important piece to realizing the vision for combat. While feedback varies based on perspective and preference, there are some major trends and themes from players. Below are some of the biggest points of feedback received as well as the steps taken or being taken to address them.

Stunlock from light attack spam against either players or AI combatants isn’t fun

Back in October, a “free dodge roll” after being hit multiple times by enemies was added to combat attack spam stunlock. With today’s update, that is being expanded on by removing the ability for basic attacks, both heavy and light, to interrupt a combatant.

In addition, players are allowed to chain attacks by stringing 2-3 light attacks (depending on which weapon you’re using) together before the chain restarts after a short pause, which will add a bit more of a natural rhythm to basic combat.

Players want to use their abilities more (aka “Goodbye, Global Cooldown”)

The topic of ability use and cooldowns is a source of passionate discussion among players because it defines so much of the feel of moment-to-moment gameplay. In the October Alpha update, cooldowns were changed to be separate for each individual weapon, rather than being shared across weapons.

To go along with that, weapon switching has been sped up.

Weapon, block, and skill hit detection needed improvements

In an active, action-based combat system, the accuracy of hit detection is a huge deal and is one of the most difficult issues to address on a grand scale. Improvements for hit detection and synchronization are being looked at; some of those will be implemented in the near future. along with further improvement.

Weapon balancing is crucial

While the Hatchet was far and away the worst offender during the Preview event, weapon balancing is always going to be at the forefront of mind when making changes to combat. Changes have been made to the balance of weapons and skills in previous updates, and this will be continued in the future.

AI was able to interrupt players too frequently

While PvE encounters should feel challenging and have real threat, too many enemies were too good at interrupting players, which could lead to combat feeling less fluid. In October, a cooldown reset if a skill gets interrupted was introduced and in the future more changes will be implemented to the AI system to address these issues.

Healing other players is surprisingly hard

In the November Alpha release, targeted healing was introduced to make the Life Staff easier to use when playing in a group. The user experience for healing is improved in today’s release, with even more tuning planned in the future.

Body blocking makes ranged damage inconsistent in group play

Positioning and spacing should matter in combat. Currently, players are not allowed to shoot through each other. However, a dynamic scaling function for enemies was introduced. Elite and other high-profile targets are now easier to hit at range even when engaged in melee combat with other players.

Ability input needs to allow players to react to changing combat conditions

In action-based combat, being adaptable in an ever-changing situation is key, and some of the feedback received suggested that the skill queueing system, as it existed previously, needed adjustment.

As you fight, you are inputting actions. Those inputs are sorted into a queue (or buffer) that “remembers” what skill you want to start using next—in this way, you can queue one attack slightly before the previous one ends, which results in a more fluid feeling to combat.

Today’s update includes a clean-up of input buffers, which should make ability use more consistent and allow players to better react to new developments on the field of battle. The situation will continue to be monitored.

Patch Notes: Spotlight

New Weapon: Greataxe

The Great Axe is a new two-handed melee weapon that excels at large, sweeping attacks. While training with the Great Axe, adventurers will be able to progress two mastery trees:

• The Marauder weapon mastery tree focuses on high damage and multi-hit abilities to hack and slash your way through your foes.
• The Reaper weapon mastery tree focuses on crowd control and escape prevention. These skills will help you control the flow of the battle while your allies dispatch those who have have caught in your grasp.

The Great Axe will have 2 crafted weapon perks specific to it in addition to the perks that are broadly applicable to other weapons.

Legendary Great Axe Quest
You can also go on an epic quest for the legendary Great Axe, The Reformation.

• Level 60 adventurers can speak to Ranger Herb in Edengrove to begin this quest.
• Recover the components needed to create this powerhouse and then deliver them to Ranger Madaki in Mountainhome.

PvP Duels

Players now have a fun, consequence-free way to practice PvP combat and interact with each other:

• Duels can be initiated by any player over level 10, regardless of faction or PvP flag status.
• Duels cannot be initiated in settlements or during Wars or Invasions.
• Players can initiate a duel by hovering over another player’s name in chat or a social menu and clicking “Invite To Duel,” or by entering “/duel [playername]” in chat.
• Outside interference will end a duel.
• You can duel solo or in groups of up to 5 players per side.

Shield Update

Tower Shield

Unleash your inner legionary with the the new Tower Shield. The biggest and most powerful shield in New World to date, the Tower Shield can tank all but the greatest of blows from your enemies.

Legendary Tower Shield Quest

Players can gather components to craft the legendary Tower Shield Rook’s Defense.

• Level 60 adventurers can speak to Ranger Wardell in Edengrove to begin this quest.

Updated Shield Mechanics

Updated the way shields work for both armor and equipment calculations.

• Shields now add to your armor in addition to block chance.
• Note: Shield armor bonus is only applied when the shield is unsheathed and being wielded.
• Shields now always contribute to your total equipment weight.

Patch Notes: General Updates

Progression Updates

Progression

• Adjusted the leveling curve from levels 1 through 10 to better match the pace of quests.
• Rested experience so that it now starts accumulating after 12 hours (increased from 8 hours) and accrues at 2% per hour (decreased from 2.5%).
• Reduced XP from PvP Missions by 10%.

Economy

In this patch, a set of item changes were made to pave the way for future crafting system changes. New gathering milestones, resources, and crafting reagents were added. In a future update these item changes and how they fit into the overall crafting vision will be further discussed.

Patch Notes: UX / UI Updates

UX / UI Updates

Tooltips

Presentation of tooltips has been overhauled. Goal was to make them more compact, while making the categorization of information more clear and legible at a glance. A few more combat stats are also shown, and tooltips were made more responsive.

UI Polish Pass Continues

Updates are being added to the UI in key places like the NPC Dialog screen and Settings, but there are also small changes to various UI components across the game. Interactive components will be made more eye-catching and legible at-a-glance.

Patch Notes: Combat & AI Updates

Combat

Combat Systems

Large changes were made to address combat feedback from the Preview event.

• Removed interrupts from light and heavy attacks for all weapons.
• Light attacks now have chains, or strings of attacks that culminate in an ending attack, after which there will be a slight delay before the chain begins again.
• For all weapons except for the Hatchet, light attacks chain together twice. Hatchets chain 3 light attacks together before resetting the chain.
• The number of frames for which a player is committed to their own light and heavy attacks ("locked frames") has been reduced, allowing players to head into their next action or ability more quickly. Note: This patch note has been updated to accurately reflect the change made in the release.
• Adjusted input buffers so delayed actions happen much less often.
• “Input buffers” are an invisible system that allows players to start inputting their next action before their current action has completed - as an example, if you press Q to use a ability right after using the Right Mouse Button to do a light attack, your Q ability may execute a short while after you pushed the button for it, because your character was still completing their previous action. The input buffer allows small windows of time where a next move can be queued to keep combat moving and feeling fluid. Today’s update made the time window for each input buffer shorter so that you’re less likely to wind up committing to a queued action that is no longer relevant due to changing battle conditions.
• Reduced the amount of stamina damage that light attacks do versus blocking and Grit attacks.
• Reduced the recovery time after certain abilities.
• Players can now consistently cancel out of light and heavy attacks to begin abilities sooner - immediately after the attack’s active frames.
• Players can now cancel out of light and heavy attacks to dodge sooner - a few frames after the attack’s active frames have completed.
• Players can now cancel out of certain abilities sooner.
• Players can now cancel out of dodges sooner.
• Can now cancel out of attacks to begin blocking sooner.
• Removed the locked animation frames from blocking to allow for more free-flowing combat.

Ability Differentiation

• Adjusted a number of abilities in attempt to give each a primary focus. The goal is for each ability to have a clear purpose, such as sheer damage, applying a status effect or crowd control, damaging an enemy’s Grit, etc.

Critical Hit System (Part 2)

• Updated backstabs and critical hit indicators to match the visual look of headshot indicators for more visual consistency.
• Added sound effects to help signal when critical hits happen.

Targeted Healing Updates

• Added a visual effect to highlight that players can self-cast using CTRL + the ability hotkey.
• Added new visual effects to highlight which player is currently being targeted.
• Added options to the Gameplay Settings menu to allow players to customize their healing experience. Specifically, these settings allow players to refine their settings for how healing spells are targeted and how the camera behaves while targeting another player for healing.

Balance

Bow

• Spreadshot damage reduced 15% and cooldown increased to 22 seconds.
• Rapid Shot cooldown increased to 20 seconds.
• Evasion Shot cooldown decreased to 15 seconds.
• Penetrating Shot cooldown decreased to 18 seconds.

Shield

• Added 2 new Shield-specific perks. These are applicable to all types of shield.

New World Related Guides

All New World Patch Notes

Latest Game Patch

New World Update 1.2.1:
Patch Notes and Release Date

Previous Patch Notes

Previous Patch Notes
New World Update 1.2	New World Update 1.1.2
1.1.1 Update	Into the Void Update 1.1
1.0.5 Update	1.0.4 Update
1.0.3 Update	1.0.2 Update
1.0.1 Update	Launch Update
Open Beta Update	Closed Beta Update
June Alpha Update Part 2	June Alpha Update Part 1
In-Game Store Update	May Alpha Update
Ice Bound Update	Quest Design Update
The Empress of Ebonscale Reach	Forge and Fury Update
Honing the Craft Update	Secrets of the Swamp Update
Alpha Test Update