New World’s next season will take a little longer to get here. Season of the Guardian has been delayed for additional work, following PTR feedback on some of the major changes, including the overhauled combat and animation system.
Season of the Guardian has several major planned changes, and the team has been previewing many of them over the past couple of weeks. These include a reduction in foods and updated food crafting to focus on the most effective pure foods, the addition of controller support, and a completely new combat and animation system. These are all major changes on their own, let alone for a season update.
In announcing the delay, there’s no new date just yet, but there are good reasons why. The team outlined a number of systems players weighed in on on the PTR and just what they’re looking to address before Season 5 can get a new release date. Some of the feedback was addressed, but a number of these still need work.
For the Cooking trade skill overhaul, two main concerns had to do with the increased resources needed to cook in sets of three instead of one at a time, and depleted resources in fishing spots. Both have been addressed, from reducing the number of required ingredients to boosting respawn times, including for Legendary fish.
Artifacts coming in the update are getting another tuning pass, since some of the concerns included being too overpowered (Phoenix Amulet) and the Venom Spear (risk vs. reward balance. Or adjustments are likely for both of these categories.
The new combat and animation system seems to be at the root of some issues that need more time. Also known as “Slayer Script”, this has been getting tweaks and bug fixes in the PTR build, but more work is needed. This makes sense since this system is responsible for a wide range of things, as their recent preview of the overhaul details.
Some things will just have to wait entirely. The update is set to finally add controller support, but testers found the current version to be wonky. Amazon will save improvements here for an update after Season 5.
See the full announcement at New World.
