This article is part of a directory: New World: Complete Guide And Walkthrough
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New World is a brand new MMO from Amazon, and it's a huge, huge game. Though it has many archetypes that are typical of MMOs, there is a lot to be said about the uniqueness of New World's crafting, resource gathering, and Expedition systems.

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New World is also a class-less game, which means you're not forced into choosing a certain way to play. Your power instead scales with weapon masteries. These tips will cover everything you need to know about crafting, gathering resources, completing quests, and choosing the right build for the start of the game.

Updated October 18, 2021, by Harry Alston: New World is officially out. We're updating this beginner tips list with everything we've learned so far. There is more info here about which builds are recommended, as well as loads of extra links to our substantial New World coverage, be that tier lists and guides, or walkthroughs and leveling tips.

6 Quick Beginner Tips For New World

New World ebonscale reach
  • You can use water in an inventory slot to use a health consumable. It's free!
  • Salvage your excess weapons and armor. You will need the repair kits.
  • The first house you purchase in New World is 50 percent off. Save this! You might want to use it to buy a house quickly, but it's better to wait for a more expensive house. Beware! There are taxes you have to pay, so keep that in mind before buying a very expensive house.
  • Harvest everything you can! You never know when you might need those berries or that type of Mote.
  • Try and focus on one or two trade skills rather than everything at once.
  • Light armor is better for PVP builds. Heavier armor weighs down your character and prevents you from dodging quickly.
  • Equipped items do not count for character weight. Equip heavier items to carry more, and then take them off at the nearest town. Can make it harder to sell items if there is the "bind on equip" status.
  • Azoth cost for fast traveling is actually impacted by how heavy your inventory is. Want to save a few Azoth? Store your items before traveling.
  • You don't need to repair your items whenever they're damaged, only when they completely break. Repair damage does not impact the effectiveness of the gear.
  • Loot drops from Expeditions, monsters, and chests are based on your highest total gear score. You can swap out to an item with a higher gear score a chance to land better loot.

5 How To Level Up Fast In New World

New World characters

Like any MMO, leveling up fast is pretty much the entire point of the game. While New World sometimes promotes a slower pace of gameplay (cutting down trees, smashing rocks, crafting useless bits of armor) most players will want to race toward level 60 to begin the endgame content and PVP.

Here are our tips on how to speed up your leveling:

  • Pick the right build. We've got a full write-up of the best build to level fast here. It involves taking a Hatchet and a Bow to speed up all the running about you're going to have to do.
  • Complete the right quests. It's a good idea to balance out completing town quests with plenty of side quests and streamlining the main questline. More on that below.
  • Use the respawn function to cut travel times. Because fast travel is a bit harder to do in New World, it's a good idea to place down your camp and then kill yourself so you respawn back at the quest-giver location. Can save up to twenty minutes while completing a quest. The direct respawn functionality has been removed from the menu as of the open beta, which means the only way to do this is to actually die. There is a 500m limit on camp respawns.

Here's a list of all our builds in New World:

You will also want to try out one of the various class archetypes in New World. Healers and tanks are desperately needed for PvE and Expeditions. Here's our guide to these two: Support Healer build guide and Tank build guide.

4 Best Quests To Complete In New World

New World player killing a bear

At the start of New World, you spawn in one of the starting locations: First Light, Windsward, Monarch's Bluff. You can complete the starting quests in any of these areas. However, an area like Everfall typically has higher-level mobs to kill, which can make completing side quests just a bit harder.

What Is The Best Starting Region In New World?

We've played through a start in each of the starting regions, and it's probably Windsward that takes the spot as the best place to start in New World. It's centrally-located, has plenty of the necessary resources, and puts you closer to completing the necessary quests to progress through the story and level up quickly.

However, this does mean that region is very busy. You might want to head toward First Light or Monarch's Bluff for more resources and less server clutter around the main towns.

Other missions to complete:

  • Town missions, collected at a town board. Some of these are a lot of graft, like finding a bunch of chests, though some, like collecting iron or killing 20 elks, are much easier to complete. You can finish them while doing other tasks.
  • Faction missions are a great way to get some XP, Gold, and to improve your faction rating in that area. These are given out by your faction representative, depending on which faction you've joined. You don't get much XP, so just pick up the ones that can be completed while doing other sidequests.
  • You want to work your way towards Expeditions as soon as possible. These are New World's dungeon events, of which there are currently six in the game. The first is the Amrine Expedition, which is available at around level 24.

3 How Crafting Works In New World

New World crafting at smelter

Crafting is one of the key parts of New World's gameplay. Since the Alpha, crafting has had a lot of work done to it, and in the beta, the system is very compelling, and it makes those long resource-gathering missions a lot more enjoyable.

That being said, crafting definitely feels like an endgame component of the game. Sure, you can spend time crafting random linen armor in the early game, but it's not until much later that you can start to craft more powerful items and gear, and more importantly, start to sell them for a hefty profit.

  • Areas with rare resources are often covered in high-level monsters. You will still need to level grind to tackle these areas.
  • Crafting has loads of separate skill trees, like Weaving, Smelting, and a whole set for gathering materials, such as Logging and Mining. You can either work on these steadily as you play or really focus on one area.

Check out our full crafting guide here.

RELATED: New World Standard Edition Vs. Deluxe - Which Is Better?

2 How Combat Works In New World

New World musket character

New World has a classless system, which means you're not tied to becoming a Support character or a Tank right off the bat, although you will still want to specialize in a certain build or playstyle.

This is done by creating a build. During the first few days of your time in New World, the build you use should be something that helps you complete quests quickly and eventually perform strongly in Expeditions, the game's dungeon system.

Different weapons have different mastery trees with points and tiers unlocked by killing enemies. The Life Staff, for example, is a classic support weapon with AoE heals, whereas the Hatchet is a versatile weapon with speed, sustain, and damage, but a lack of defensive abilities.

You can always have two weapons in a build: a primary and a secondary. Creating a build that has a balance between the two weapons is a lot of fun.

  • Weapons and armor can be imbued with Gems later in the game. For example, you could have a gem that boosts a specific mastery skill, or grants you Taunt on your armor.
  • High-tier weapons, those of greater rarity, come with extra gem slots and other innate buffs.

1 Understanding The Faction And Territory System

New World faction fighting at fort

At the start of the game (at level 10), you have a choice to join one of three factions in New World: The Marauders, The Covenant, or the Syndicate. Different factions have different cosmetic sets, but other than that function mostly in the same way.

However, choosing the right faction can be very important, though this will be different on each server. Factions can basically dominate large parts of the territory, increase taxes, and consistently win battles against the smaller factions. It's probably a good idea to go for the faction that is most dominant on the server.

New World will apparently have the functionality to make sure that one faction doesn't just eat the entire server, but that isn't really that clear in the Beta. Choosing a smaller faction may have greater benefits with the full release.

  • Pretty much every scrap of land in New World can be purchased and fought over. This makes up a large part of PVP in the game. Different factions will war over land.
  • Once an area is owned, the faction can set a tax rate, get rewards, and choose which projects to complete (like leveling up the blacksmith so all players can smelt better gear.)
  • It's essentially a race over the first few days to see which faction emerges as the victor and will be able to claim forts and towns.

NEXT: New World: Complete Guide And Walkthrough