Welcome to this Beginner Guide for New World. In this post we will be diving into the BEST tips for New World, which the game itself often overlooks or doesn’t bother explaining to players when they start. The list of fantastic tips will continue to grow over time, so be sure to come back regularly!

Video Guide

This video guide was created for the final Beta Test of New World and covers the first 12 tips in detail.

Tip #1: Game Settings

New World has some important game settings that should be turned on by default but are not! Here are our favorite gameplay settings which you will want to enable as soon as possible:

• HUD – Always Show Weapons: This option displays both your primary and secondary weapon skills at all times with their corresponding cooldown timers.
• Show Extra Ability Cooldowns: This option gives you an extra cooldown timer on the screen which can be useful for tracking skill timers as well.
• Field Of View: This option is in Visual Settings and can give you a much wider view of the world when maxed out.

Tip #2: Cook Rations From Anything

New World’s early quest lines do show you a few basic survival skills such as cooking and skinning, but they neglect to explain the full depth of the game’s crafting system in detail. One of our favorite aspects of crafting in New World is that often times the crafting recipes in the game can be completed with a variety of ALTERNATE crafting materials, some of which you might not expect.

For example, the game explains that Rations, which are an important early buff food in New World, can be crafted from Meat which you get from skinning animals, but the game also neglects to show players how many alternate recipes exist. In fact, players in New World can craft basic rations from just about anything, including eggs, fish, mushrooms and even milk! This fact is amazing for beginners because most starting Settlements in New World have a cow near the center of town where you can obtain 10-20 milk for free. By milking the cow and then turning that milk into Rations you can quickly get set on your food for many hours to come.

Tip #3: Get Free Materials From Your Faction

If your faction owns a Settlement in New World you can claim free crafting materials every day simply by interacting with local carts throughout the town. The items you get vary from town to town but generally will include a mix of:

• Fruit or Vegetables
• Lumber
• Iron
• Hide
• Fibers

Tip #4: Using Stored Crafting Materials

One more tip that has to do with crafting and specifically your storage shed. That is, any crafting resources that you’ve stored in your settlements shed can be used at any of the crafting stations in that town. This is great because crafting materials can be extremely heavy to carry around on your character, especially with a large stack of them. The important thing to note about this tip is that you can only grab crafting materials from a Shed if that Shed is in the same town where you are currently located.

Another important thing to know about sheds is that the storage is unique to each settlement. This means that you have a different storage inventory in each settlement where you’ve actually used the shed – this is different from other MMOs like the Elder Scrolls Online where you have a consistent bank that’s accessible no matter where you are. Now you can transfer between sheds if your faction controls both territories. Keep in mind though that transferring items between settlements is not free, and you need to pay a price per item if you want to use this trick.

Tip #5: Damage Types

Combat in New World includes many different Weapon Types such as Swords, Axes and Staves which have just as many different forms of damage. Types of Damage in New World include Elemental Damage types such as Ice or Fire and various physical damage types including slashing, blunt and thrust damage. Damage type becomes important in New World because enemies often have specific resistances and weaknesses as noted by the color of your damage numbers when in combat against them. The Colored Damage Numbers in New World are:

• White – the target is neutral to this damage type
• Yellow – the target is weak to this damage type
• Blue – the target is strong against this damage type
• Orange – a critical strike which offers bonus damage

For example, most Corrupted enemies such as those that spawn near Corrupted Portals are weak to thrust damage from the spear’s basic attacks but are strong against slash damage which is dealt by the spear’s sweep ability. Keep in mind that one weapon can deal multiple different types of damage depending on the ability used.

An extremely powerful type of damage is Critical Damage which is expressed by Orange damage numbers. Attacking enemies with a melee weapon from behind is always a guaranteed critical strike, also known as a backstab which can makes for an extremely powerful way to start a fight or a great reason to use crowd control and move behind and enemy or to face enemies away from your group if you are a tank.

Tip #6: Armor And Equip Loads

You may have been wondering about armor weights in New World, which are also a bit tricky to understand as a new player. First, every piece of armor in the game has a designation as light, medium or heavy armor. This effects both the weight of the piece and the total physical and elemental resistance it gives you. Light armor will have the lowest resistances while heavy armor will have the highest.

This brings us to the Equipment Load system which defines your character as a light, medium or heavy build based on their overall armor weight and then gives you bonuses based on that type. For example, with mostly light pieces of armor and maybe one medium your build will fall into the light category. Each category of Equipment Load in New World provides specific benefits and drawbacks:

• Light Equip Load: grants you 20% increased damage and healing and gives you the strongest form of dodge possible – the roll dodge.
• Medium Equip Load: grants you 10% bonus damage and healing as well as a 10% bonus to crowd control durations and turns your dodge into a quick hop instead of a roll.
• Heavy Equip Load: grants no bonus damage or healing, but does offer a 15% bonus to block and a 20% longer duration to crowd control effects. Heavy builds have the weakest type of dodge in the game which is a basic sidestep.

A bonus tip here is that shields also make a difference to your equip load, even if you aren’t using the sword and shield as a weapon. This means you can equip a shield to increase your total equip load from medium to heavy, even if you’re not wearing enough heavy armor pieces. This is great for PVP builds and group builds like healers.

For more information on Equip Loads in New World, check out our Complete Equip Load Guide.

Tip #7: Reducing Your Encumbrance

Becoming Encumbered is one of the worst things that can happen to you as a player in New World. While there are buffs to how much gear you can carry including equipping bags and certain traits, even with those its easy to run out of space fairly quickly. 

What many players do not know is that once you equip an item or piece of gear that weight is then removed from your total Encumbrance score. This includes basic things such as Arrows, Ammo, food and even potions. If you are carrying these items but not equipping them they are adding to your total weight!

To fix this, simply equip those items to your character in their designated slots and watch your total weight drop!

Remember that stackable items such as ammo and arrows can become extremely heavy, especially if you have a big stack collected, so if you have them on your character make sure to also equip them to reduce their effective weight to zero.

Tip #8: Repairing Armor in New World

All Armor and Weapons in New World have a durability score. The higher quality your item is, the greater it’s initial durability score. Every piece of gear in New World will eventually lose durability over time, especially when your character dies. Once durability reaches zero, the item cannot be used until it’s repaired.

Speaking of repair, there are repair kits in game that you can use, but these are actually fairly expensive to obtain AND can only be used on specific tiers of equipment which is VERY annoying. Instead, a much better option is to use the Salvage system which destroys your unwanted gear in return for gold and Repair Parts. Repair Parts are essentially free and also not limited to working only on a specific tier of equipment, plus you’re bound to get tons of armor and weapons that you have absolutely no use for and are simply eating up your weight limit. So, Salvage those items right away so that you can repair and maintain the gear you actually use.

As a side tip here, you will see an icon appear at the bottom of your screen when a particular armor piece is broken to serve as a reminder to repair that piece.

Tip #9: Locking Your Items in New World

Locking your items is another important tip, especially if you carry multiple weapons or armor types that you frequently switch between.

Locking an item in New World turns off your ability to Salvage that item, meaning you won’t accidently destroy your prized epic quality, gem-socketed, perfectly traited weapon or armor piece if you accidently click on the wrong thing. Just right-click and choose the Lock option or hold down L and left click to safely lock your item so you don’t make a costly mistake!

Tip #10: Fast Travel Options In New World

Tip #11: View Items At ANY Trading Post

Tip #12: Hide Your Helmet In New World

Tip #13: Daily Mission Bonuses

Tip #14: Viewing Territory & Faction Bonuses

Tip #15: How To Dye Your Armor In New World

Tip #16: Leveling Two Weapon Skills In New World At The Same Time

Learn More About New World