Blog

Oct 06, 2023

New World Update 1.9 Changes Overview and Patch Notes

New World’s 1.9 “Fellowship and Fire” update brings a change to New World’s update cadence as well as plenty of new content and features. This article covers everything you need to know about the new

New World’s 1.9 “Fellowship and Fire” update brings a change to New World’s update cadence as well as plenty of new content and features. This article covers everything you need to know about the new content and features.

To save you time from reading the full patch notes, here are the most important and interesting features, content, and changes explained. Some of the Content listed below will also have dedicated guides.

New World is shifting to a seasonal model, which brings with it a Season Pass and Season Storyline every 3 months, alongside other features.

The Season Pass is New World’s version of a battle pass. Each Season Pass will last the full duration of the active Season, and comes with 100 levels of items and cosmetics.

Like any battle pass system, it has both Free and Premium Tracks, both of which offer a mix of rewards. These rewards range from XP Boosters, gear chests, coins, and of course cosmetics.

To learn more about the Season Pass, check out our New World Season Pass Guide. This covers the system in detail and how to get the most out of it.

Take a look at our Season 1 Full Rewards List and Overview for a list of everything included in the Season Pass that you can earn and claim.

This is a new storyline and set of quests that will only be available during Season 1: Fellowship & Fire. In this story, you’ll be assisting the Silver Crows and Syke the Spear-daughter as they confront a powerful Warlock and the Varangian Knights to stop their plans involving the Empyrean Forge.

The Empyrean Forge is a new Level 60+ Expedition located in the Great Cleave. This Expedition features the Varangian Knights as the primary faction. Filled with new puzzles and hazards alike, this Expedition will be a new experience compared to past expeditions.

This Expedition arrives with its own set of mutators. This can offer a much more difficult challenge for those up to the task.

Much like the revamped starting experience in update 1.7, the next section of quests that lead through Brightwood and Weaver’s Fen has been updated.

These quests span levels 25 to approximately level 40 and make up the mid-section of the story. This comes with a new questline that is more streamlined and easier to progress through.

Springtide Villages have sprung in four regions of Aeternum; Monarchs Bluff, Everfall, Brightwood, and Weaver’s Fen. Similar to the Winter Convergence event, these villages serve both as event shops as well as currency exchanges for the event.

You’ll need to seek out Wispyblooms, which can be found all over Aeternum. These springtime flowers are guarded by Wispy Wasps that can only be defeated using a unique consumable, Wispy Spritz. Both the Flower and wasp drop materials that can then be exchanged for various rewards.

This event will launch during the Season 1 Update. Springtide Bloom will start on April 26, 2023, and end on May 23, 2023. Event Details and Walkthrough will be included in our Springtide Bloom Event Guide when the event goes live.

Corrupted Rabbits can be found in Aeternum once again. These corrupted critters have special drops and rewards that can only be obtained by defeating them.

This event launches during the Season 1 Update. Rabbit’s Revenge begins on April 12, 2023, and ends on April 25, 2023. Event Details and Walkthrough are included in our Rabbit’s Revenge Event Guide when the event goes live.

This event is a new open-world encounter featuring the Angry Earth Dryads. You’ll need to take on the Dryads and their Spriggan to earn rewards. These can be defeated as many times a day as you’d like, but you get less rewards after the first three defeats.

This event will launch during the Season 1 Update. It will begin on May 24, 2023, and end on June 13, 2023. Event Details and Walkthrough will be included in our Fury of the Spriggan Event Guide when the event goes live.

This new Heartrune creates a tornado of fire that damages enemies in its path. This makes it a solid offensive option compared to some of the more utility-heavy Heartrunes.

This Heartrune deals Fire damage and burns all targets it hits while Empowering allies. Upgraded versions can deal more damage or expand its utility.

This new Quality of Life feature allows you to swap gear sets almost on demand. While there are still some limitations, you’ll be able to quickly swap between PvE and PvP gear, or multiple sets of either.

You’ll start with two Gear Set slots with the option to purchase more. You can also earn an additional Gear Set Slot by completing the Free Track of the Season Pass for this season.

For additional details on the Gear Set Storage system in New World, check out our dedicated guide. It breaks down the functionality of this new feature and how to use it.

This set of combat changes is mostly aimed are making Magic and Ranged Weapon more viable in PvE. This includes individual weapon changes, as well as the following general changes:

PvP also gets it own set of changes as well, notable to reduce the power of some outlier weapons like the Musket, as well as some general system changes.

Additionally, nearly every weapon has received changes with larger scale changes to the Fire Staff and some mechanical changes to the Musket. Below is a quick summary of the changes and the full details will be available in the Patch Notes below.

The Fire Staff got a big set of changes that slightly alter how the weapon plays. It’s still the same playstyle but most skills were changed to some degree.

Pillar of Fire is now slightly smaller in terms of AoE, but made much faster and more reliable. Meteor Shower is no longer a channel, getting a longer cast animation but no longer forcing you to stay still. Fireball loses it lingering AoE, instead getting more direct damage.

On the other side of the tree Incinerate gains grit, faster animation and more damage, but loses the double hit in favor of Empower. Burnout has its base range increased, gaining a new passive for additional burst damage. Flamethrower has been changed from dealing 50% Weapon damage every half second to 100% every second.

Spell Focus and Flare have been combined into Spell Focus, which makes heavy attacks free and restore 5% mana. Flare has been given a new effect, that reduce your projectile speed for heavy attacks by 25%, but adds a 1m AoE burst to them.

Rune of Helios has been increased in size, but grants 5% less damage. Reheat has been changed to instead detonate Smolder on a target dealing 100% Wapon Damage in an aoe around them, consuming the Smolder Stacks. Reheat requires the target to have 5 Smoulder stacks and can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

The Musket is now less accurate while moving or flicking your aim around. Greater Accuracy now removes the Hip Fire accuracy penalty. Ballistic Advantage is replaced with Steady Hand which tightened the accuracy of the musket after ADS for 2 seconds, or 1 second in Shooter’s Stance.

This is intended to make the musket feel fairer at longer ranges, and in particular, slow the pace at which shots can be fired with high accuracy. It’s meant to make the weapon less dominant as the go-to ranged option. It’s likely the Bow and Hatchet Build will take over as the top ranged build for the update.

Below you can read the full official patch notes for this major update to the game, as published and revealed by AGS.

The Season Pass gives players a variety of ways to earn new titles, gear, and more, including: 5 Seasonal Armor Skin pieces, 1 Seasonal Armor Set (5 pieces), 9 Seasonal Weapon Skins, 6 Seasonal Tool Skins, 1 Seasonal Emote, and 1 Camp skin. Our Free Track is available to all players, while the Premium Reward Track offers extra rewards for an additional purchase. The Season Pass also includes the introduction of the Season Journey, a series of tasks and challenges that send Adventurers around Aeternum, plus the Activity Card where players can earn Season XP through mini-objectives. The Season Pass ties into all of our seasonal content including the Silver Crow’s storyline.

Players can earn large chunks of Season XP though Journey Tasks & Challenges and Activity Card stamps. Smaller amounts of Season XP can be earned from the following:

A few combat balance topics have been on our radar and trending in the community: Magic and Ranged Weapon PvE Viability, Weapon Balance in PvP, and Equip Load Balance. Balance is an ever-evolving part of gameplay and we will continue to make further adjustments based on feedback to create the best possible experience for players.

Magic and ranged weapons have fallen behind melee weapons in PvE content, most noticeably in end game content like Mutators. We will continue to strive for viability across all weapons through the following changes:

Some melee and ranged weapons are currently more powerful than what we consider healthy for PvP gameplay. In pursuit of our balance goals we are adjusting the power, utility, and functionality of most weapons:

We want to have a larger diversity of equip loads and make more weapons viable for all playstyles. Ideally these changes allow players with more unique styles, off-meta builds, and personal preferences to participate in meaningful ways regardless of the game mode.

Assemble an elite team of mercenaries called the Silver Crows to help their first client, Skye the Spear-daughter, confront a powerful Warlock and the Varangian horde, and halt their ambitions amidst the flames of the Empyrean Forge.

Need to quickly swap gear for Mutated Expeditions? You’ll now be able to save and switch between your favorite gear sets after reaching level 25. Additional slots can be earned through the Season Pass or purchased with Marks of Fortune. Hotkey support for Gear Set Slots will arrive in a future update.

Create a tornado that damages targets in its path. You can also craft more powerful versions of the Heartgem to fit your playstyle.

The Empyrean Forge is a new Level 60+ Expedition set in the Great Cleave. Pursue the commanders of Sir Loth, a knight of Artorius, to stop the flow of elemental magic deep within an Ancient Forge.

The Weaver’s Fen and Brightwood Regional Main Storyline is getting an overhaul based on player feedback and improvements made to the revamped starting experience. Experience these two familiar territories through a fresh narrative, more quest variety, and a few new surprises.

Enjoy new and improved level 40 weapon and armor quests. Each quest will now require less travel and eliminations. Look forward to fresh rewards, narratives, and more.

There is now an improved flow for players to be aware of and claim special offerings from the team. This menu is accessible through a new button on the Game Menu. Look at the main in-game Nav Bar to find it. Previously, when mass granting items or coin to players, compensation would happen automatically on login. It was not always apparent to the player that they had received something.

Players with more than one character on a single server will now have to declare only one of them as their “PVP Active” character, with a 3-day cooldown on switching PVP Active status between characters. Only the PVP Active character may flag for PVP or fight in a War, but all your characters regardless of PVP Active status can still play Outpost Rush or Arenas. This new restriction will keep alt characters from being used as an unfair advantage in that server’s influence pushes or territory wars. (Note: there is a known issue with UI notifications while playing a PVP Inactive character after going into any instanced game mode. You will be unable to do PVP activities but the notifications will not appear until re-log.)

In response to feedback we’ve received, we are enabling the Legendary upgrading behavior on more items in the game. It was previously only present on weapons coming from Outpost Rush rewards. It is now present on the following item sets (The name of the sets of items is being listed here for clarity, as well as their source):

If these items roll as Epic (and are 590 GS and therefore eligible for Umbral upgrades) they can be upgraded to legendary. Upon upgrading to 600 GS these items will gain a 5th, random perk. This behavior is not present on Shields, as Shields cannot be legendary.

The official New World Update 1.9 patch notes are sourced from the official site of the game.

RubyRose