New World’s endgame loot system, the High Water Mark (HWM) system, is one of the most criticized aspects of the game. Amazon Games themselves admit that it promotes a monotonous, RNG-based grind fest to gear up your character at max level. As an MMORPG, it’s important to have a progression system that feels rewarding, and Amazon Games is hoping to accomplish that with their new Expertise and Gypsum system.
High Water Mark will still exist as part of this new system, but it will now be called Expertise. It still determines the highest gear score drops you can get per slot, exactly as it did before. However, it now also determines your gear’s effectiveness. What this means is that if your Hatchet Expertise is 510, and you equip a 590 gear score Hatchet, the new gear score of that hatchet will be 510 while it is equipped.
The primary purpose of this Expertise change appears to be to completely eliminate the possibility of skipping endgame gear progression entirely by simply purchasing high gear score items from the Trading Post.
There’s another half of this equation, though, and that’s the Gypsum system. What Gypsum aims to do is completely remove the RNG aspect of grinding for specific types of gear in the endgame. It will allow players to guarantee an Expertise bump in a specific item slot. It does this by introducing a resource called Gypsum, which players can obtain by doing seven activities:
- Obsidian Gypsum – defeating level 60+ open-world named bosses, typically found in Elite Landmarks
- Sapphire Gypsum – defeating the final bosses of The Lazarus Instrumentality and Garden of Genesis
- Ruby Gypsum – found in Outpost Rush Caches
- Emerald Gypsum – found in Trade Skill Aptitude Reward Containers
- Citrine Gypsum – found in Arena Caches
- Amethyst Gypsum – found in Breach Caches
- Topaz Gypsum – found on hostile creatures Level 55+, but only after consuming a special Attunement Potion that can be crafted at a Tier 5 Camp.
The Gypsum collected can then be turned into Gypsum Orbs, which can be turned into Gypsum Casts. Gypsums Casts are a way you can guarantee an Expertise bump for a particular item type. The idea is that you can now target farm for specific armor or weapon types and work on linearly progressing them to the maximum gear score.
When players get enough Gypsum Orbs, they can craft a Gypsum Cast of any weapon, armor, or trinket type. These can be crafted once per day, and opening them guarantees an expertise bump for that class of item, along with a piece of loot with a gear score equal to your new expertise level.
Gypsum Orbs and Casts will be crafted at a brand new station called the Kiln, available in all end game zones.
To further improve the endgame experience in New World, Amazon Games is also making some changes to expeditions. Each boss now guarantees a random expertise bump. Chests are fixed in Lazarus, Garden, and Genesis so they provide endgame expertise bumps. Item Shards and Sapphire Gypsum are now guaranteed from expedition bosses as well. Item Shards are a new crafting ingredient that lets crafters make an item with specific Attribute Bonuses without taking up a Craft Mod slot.
