Aeternum Update Patch Notes Revealed
Key Takeaways
- New World: Aeternum’s Season of Opportunity update brings PVP improvements, a new raid, and bug fixes.
- The new patch brings notable updates, such as AI improvements, new weapons, PVP zones, arenas, and a raid.
One day before the launch of New World: Aeternum, Amazon Games released the full patch notes for the Season of Opportunity update. Among the changes coming to New World: Aeternum are PVP targeting and matchmaking improvements, a 10-player raid, and numerous PVE and PVP content bug fixes.
Originally released in 2021 as a PC-exclusive MMORPG, New World takes place in a fictitious version of the 17th-century Americas, during the Age of Exploration. As players explore the vast wilds of the eponymous island of Aeternum, a mysterious substance called Azoth becomes a sought-after resource by different factions and monsters. Two years after its release, New World released its first expansion, Rise of the Angry Earth, which raised the level cap to 65 and added MMO staples such as mounts, flail weapons, and Artifact gear. New World and its DLC have Mixed to Mostly Positive reviews on Steam at the time of writing.
Related
New World Aeternum Can’t Repeat the Same Mistakes as Overwatch 2
If Amazon wants to ensure New World: Aeternum’s success, then it needs to avoid the many mistakes Blizzard made with Overwatch 2.
Three years after New World‘s launch on PC, console players will be able to experience the wonders of Aeternum. According to the patch notes, the Season of Opportunity update will bring some changes in response to player feedback from the open beta for New World: Aeturnum. One of the major changes was to the PVP targeting systems, such as line-of-sight being more aggressive in breaking. A temporary nerf to blunderbuss damage in PVP was also made to compensate for its guaranteed accuracy. Other PVP changes in the Season of Opportunity update include Cross-World Arenas, improved PVP matchmaking, and the Cursed Mists PVP Zone. A new 10-player raid, The Hive of the Gorgons, takes place following the defeat of Medusa in New Olympus. A new seasonal reward track and new Artifact weapons and armor will also be available for players to collect during the Season of Opportunity.
The New World servers will be taken offline starting October 14 at 11:30 PM Eastern. European and Asia-Pacific Southeast servers will go live a few hours later, at 3:00 AM Eastern, and all other servers across the Americas will launch at 9:00 AM Eastern. However, players with a New World: Aeternum pre-order or Deluxe Edition bonus must wait until 7:00 AM Eastern to claim them. Console preloads for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of New World: Aeturnum are currently available, while PC players can download the New World: Aeturnum game update during server downtime.
Between the new raid and various PVP changes, October 15 will be a good day for players to experience New World: Aeternum. It remains to be seen what Amazon Games will do to keep the momentum going.
New World: Aeternum Patch Notes (October 14, 2024)
Target Lock Changes
Thanks again to everyone that took the time to not only participate in Open Beta, but also leave extremely detailed, constructive feedback. We have made the following changes to target lock. Note that these changes only affect PvP—PvE still behaves as it did before.
- Killing a PvP opponent in target lock will no longer automatically switch to another target
- This led to situations where an ability in progress would instantly target another player when the current target was killed. This maneuver wouldn’t be possible with manual aiming on keyboard and mouse so we removed it.
- Target lock now breaks more aggressively when losing line of sight to your target
- Breaking line of sight even briefly will lose the lock which allows easier evasion and better preserves stealthy gameplay in PvP.
- A character’s turn speed is now slower when using target lock
- We’ve slowed the character’s turn speed when using target lock. This results in a slower tracking speed for targets, meaning that homing attacks will miss more often on a moving target.
- Temporary – Blunderbuss now deals less damage in PvP
- We agree with the player feedback that the guaranteed hit just doesn’t feel right. To mitigate this, we temporarily reduced the Blunderbuss’s base damage in PvP to compensate for the guaranteed hit. We will continue to investigate long term solutions to be implemented in the near future.
Cross-World Arenas And Improved Matchmaking
Finding matches in 3v3 Arenas will now be much easier thanks to cross-world matchmaking. We’ve also introduced skill-based matchmaking to both Arenas and Outpost Rush. Look forward to higher quality matches against other players of similar skill. Finally, we’ve added role selection to these modes. Similar to Expeditions, we will now split roles better between teams for a more balanced experience.
New PVP Zone: The Cursed Mists
The foggy southwest reaches of Cutlass Keys are a lawless place, where the “Golden Greed” curse of La Esperanza’s treasure drives fortune-hunters to murderous madness. Even the closest of companions are liable to lethally betray one another. Gather Cursed Doubloons and resources, but you’ll have to escape before other looters steal your spoils.
New 10-Player Raid: The Hive of the Gorgons
One of the most exciting new features coming is our first-ever 10-player raid, the Hive of Gorgons. After defeating Medusa in New Olympus, players will learn of a new threat. The Gorgons have risen, and they’re raising an army of the Hercyne. To stop them, you’ll have to assemble a team of powerful players, enter the hive, and navigate a gauntlet of challenging puzzles and epic boss battles.
New Artifacts
Turn your enemy’s Empower against them, improve your survivability, and more. These 8 new Artifacts, each featuring its own quest line for upgrades, will redefine your playstyle. Here’s a preview of what to expect from their unique abilities.
- Cowl of Power Light Headwear
- Desperate Energy: If you hit an enemy while your mana is below 50%, gain 25% increased damage for 4s (10s cooldown).
- Survivor’s Coat Heavy Chest
- Survive: If you get hit while below 50% health, you gain 50% stamina, lose all debuffs, and gain a potion surge that instantly refreshes your next used healing potion (120s cooldown).
- Ghostly Touch Medium Gloves
- Ghostly Embrace: When you hit an Empowered enemy, dispel two of their Empowers and you gain 10% Empower for 10s (4s cooldown).
- Azoth Conductors Medium Legwear
- Magician’s Boons: While in Medium armor weight, deal 15% more elemental damage.
- Elemental Band Ring
- Elemental Affinity: When you hit a target with an elemental attack (not Attunement or Damage over Time) gain 4% Empower for 6s. (10s cooldown per elemental damage type, max 1 stack per elemental damage type)
- Trsna Warhammer
- Consume: Gain 25% Lifesteal against knocked down enemies.
- Grace Greatsword
- Offensive Speed: When you enter offensive stance, gain +20% movement speed for 6s.
- Keen Speed: On critical hit, gain 20% Haste for 7s (7s cooldown).
- Power Stone Flail
- Heavy Burden: While above 90% health, attacks inflict 20% weaken for 5s (5s cooldown per target)
New Seasonal Reward Track
The Season Pass gives players a variety of ways to earn new cosmetics, Transmog Tokens, Artifacts, and more! Highlights on the Premium Reward Track include: 1 Set of Seasonal Armor Skin (5 pieces), 9 Seasonal Weapon Skins, 3 Mount Attachments, and 2 Seasonal Emotes. The Free Reward Track is available to all players and also contains unique cosmetic Items, while the Premium Reward Track offers the ability to earn extra rewards for 20,000 Marks of Fortune.
Additional Notable Updates
- Repeatable end-game Soul Trials
- The following content has been increased to Level 70 and now includes upleveled rewards:
- Sandwurm
- Hatchery
- Winter Rune Forge Trial
- Swimming
- New cinematic storytelling
- New repeatable Expedition quests
- New Fishing quest
- Fourth maximum character slot
- Cross-platform play
- New starting experience
- Performance optimizations
- New Standard worlds
- Enhanced controller support
- Player Archetypes
- Maximum Gear Score increase to 725
World Experience
Expeditions/The Lazarus Instrumentality
- Cilla and Chardis have received significant updates for the launch of New World: Aeternum. In addition to new mechanics, new enemies, and unique behaviors between Regular and Mutated difficulties of the Expedition, each of these encounters have received a number of quality-of-life improvements to provide a fresh, challenging experience. We hope you enjoy your next journey into the Lazarus Instrumentality!
Notable Fixes
- Water ripple effects now work normally when moving through water with the Beastmode Rune active
- Fixed an issue that caused the player to have the incorrect pose when sheathing and unsheathing weapons after sprinting.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Tondo upgrade, And Again, to not trigger when a damage over time runeglass was equipped.
- Fixed an issue that caused 2 handed weapons to not be wielded properly in certain situations, like the Transmog menu.
- Fixed an issue that caused other players to not see animation of applying weapon buffs and coatings.
- Healing numbers now appear when healing self.
- Fixed an issue that allowed players to move and attack after using Unstuck while auto-running.
- Fixed an issue that caused players to move at walking speed after shooting an arrow.
- Fixed an issue that allowed some weapon abilities to be used while carrying purifying flame.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Azoth Staff to appear as sheathed at the waist during specific circumstances.
- Fixed an issue that prevented the inventory menu from opening if opened at the end of certain animations.
- Fixed an issue that caused players to slide when backpedaling and casting while fishing.
- Fixed an issue that caused player momentum to continue while Gathering.
- Fixed an issue that caused going prone to prevent drowning in water.
- Fixed an issue that caused a short slide animation when weapon swapping and immediately running.
- Fixed a rare issue that caused players to get stuck when falling.
- Fixed a very rare issue that caused Soul Trials to fail to start.
Camera
- The self-correcting follow-camera has received some tweaks to make its pitch changes smoother and better conform to the terrain.
- Fixed an issue that caused the player character to always face the camera while rotating in the store.
- Fixed a camera glitch that was caused when changing from locked-on state to aim-down-sights state.
- Disabled free-look camera during interaction camera states.
- Camera freelook and cycle weapon modifier cannot be bound to the same key anymore to avoid confusion when cycling weapons while changing camera view. Camera free-look is now unbound in default settings.
- Fixed a reduced vertical camera movement issue caused by jumping onto an inclined object such as a rock or hill from a lower elevation.
- Defaulted Camera Aim Retargeting option to true across all platforms.
- Free-look camera now remains functional while in Inventory screen and is now not permanently toggled on when entering Inventory screen.
AI Updates
Staggers
- Hitting an AI enemy with any light or heavy attack, as well as certain abilities, will now cause an interrupting reaction to a hit called stagger. The stagger caused by those attacks is limited by a cooldown that is triggered after a certain number of staggers (tuned per weapon and attack).
- For melee attacks, the cooldown generally takes 2 to 3 staggers to trigger and resets after 2 seconds of the enemy not being hit.
- For ranged attacks, the cooldown triggers after a single stagger but resets after 2 seconds, regardless of additional ranged hits.
- Abilities described as causing a stagger will always cause a stagger regardless of the state of the limiter cooldown.
- AI enemies with Silver and Gold name plates will be less susceptible to staggers.
Notable Fixes
- Fort Targeting Dummies don’t show their health bar anymore.
- Fixed an issue where health shown on nameplates wasn’t consistently updating properly.
- Fixed an issue where ranged AI can sometimes narrowly miss the player when shooting.
Threat Generation
- Increased threat generated via blocking by 100%.
- Increased threat generated from Sword light and heavy attacks.
- Increased threat generated from the Shield Tree Passive Final Blow from 15% to 40%.
- Increased the taunt threat boost percentage from 15% to 35%.
- Reduced threat generated from Life Staff and Void Gauntlet heals.
Combat Changes
General
- Updated damage scaling to lower damage increase when using only one weapon.
- Fixed an issue that prevented attacks or abilities when accepting an activity invite while in certain menus or interactions.
- Fixed an issue where the weapon reticle would briefly flicker when sheathing or switching weapons.
- Fixed an issue where weapon reticles would not reset when sheathing ranged weapons.
- Fixed an issue where ranged reticles would persist if a weapon was sheathed just before a cutscene.
- Fixed an issue that caused impact effects to play even though no damage was dealt to the target.
- Fixed an issue that caused the 50 Constitution Attribute to unintentionally stack repeatedly. Also removed the health condition and reduced the value to compensate for it being always active.
- Constitution 50 Attribute Bonus now gives 1.5% gathering luck instead of tool durability.
- Updated stamina damage values to be consistent across all tiers of the same weapon types. All tiers will now match the value of the Tier 5 item’s stamina values.
- Removed accuracy reductions while jumping since you cannot fire a ranged weapon in that position.
- Improved animation blending when canceling dodges, full body attacks and reactions with a ranged attacks.
- Made magic basic attack projectiles spawn a few frames sooner to make them line up better with the animations.
- Updated the tooltips for some mastery points to better call out that they increase the base damage of varying attacks.
Target Lock
- Added bindings for allied target lock to the controller remapping screen.
- Fixed an issue with target lock where being close to your target would cause your attacks to miss.
- Decreased sensitivity for selecting new targets with enemy and ally target lock on.
- Fixed an issue that caused target lock to not turn off auto-run.
Notable Fixes
- Fixed an issue where holding basic attack and block at the same time could sometimes prevent players from blocking.
- Fixed an issue where entering in-game cutscenes while performing various aim/block actions and swapping weapons would cause players to get stuck.
- Fixed an issue where depleting stamina while blocking would cause a desync.
- Fixed an issue where if players die in the air while in motion they would remain in motion.
- Fixed an issue where players could get a double dodge with half the stamina loss while using ranged weapons.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Phalanx Affix to result in projectiles being stuck mid-air.
- Fixed an issue that allowed attacks and blocking to cancel sheathing animations.
- Fixed an issue that caused the wrong animation to play after sheathing a weapon.
- Fixed an issue where players could be pushed when uninterruptible if they were hit with attacks that did not trigger a stagger.
- Fixed an issue that allowed target spells to be aimed on targets out of range despite being unable to cast.
- Fixed an issue that caused the player to walk in place when holding forwards and backwards simultaneously.
- Fixed an issue that caused knockdown while prone to put players back to where the impact was received.
Weapons
Bow
- Fixed an issue that caused rain of arrows to not consistently trigger when using the ability button to activate it while aiming.
- Fixed numerous issues that caused abilities to not buffer correctly.
- Updated the aimed abilities (Penetrating Shot, Poison Shot, and Rain of Arrows) to not cancel when pressing aim, but when releasing aim while they are active.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Rain of Arrows ability effect to not spawn at maximum range.
- Penetrating Shot should now support smart cast.
- Penetrating Shot and Poison Shot can now be fired while crouching.
- Fixed an issue that allowed faster firing than intended through ability canceling.
Blunderbuss
- Fixed an issue that caused Double Down to not affect Mortar Charge.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Blunderbuss to not reload after certain cutscenes.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Incendiary Burst from applying its effect when swapping weapons.
- Double Down now works properly when weapon swapping after using Mortar or Splitting Grenades.
Fire Staff
- Pillar of Fire will no longer slightly push back enemies.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Fire Staff Burnout explosion audio to play even when the Heat It Up upgrade wasn’t unlocked.
- Fixed an issue that allowed jump to cancel Pillar of Fire aiming.
- Fixed an issue where Pillar of Fire triggered two instances of damage with a single use.
- Fixed an issue that prevented Pillar of Fire and Meteor Shower aim from canceling into other Fire Staff abilities.
Flail
- Fixed an issue where Arcane Eruption could sometimes miss knocked down or crawling enemies.
- Fixed an issue that caused Barrage’s first hit during the leap to not hit.
- Fixed an issue with the Bulldoze upgrade not properly reducing stamina cost to zero.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Ironclad Superiority mastery point to always grant Fortify. It now correctly only grants Fortify when a Tower Shield is equipped.
- Updated the Wording of the Flail Ability, Arcane Smite, to make it clearer how the Impairment debuff works.
- Updated the Deflecting Frailty tooltip to make the functionality clearer.
- Fixed an issue where the Flail would rotate too much when holding rotate with a controller.
Great Axe
- Fixed an issue that caused the Great Axe Gravity Perk to not always appear by modifying its functionality.
- Previously it was a 0.25s duration (Even though tooltip said 0.33), but it would be applied 0.33s after the pull, to allow the pull to finish before triggering the root. Since that duration was so low, it caused issues where it was added and removed before the visuals could appear on the target.
- To address this we increased the duration slightly, but added a slight cooldown timer to prevent the increased duration from being too strong.
Greatsword
- Updated the Unflinching Blade passive for the Greatsword to grant grit after 10 frames into the charge of the heavy attack to match the functionality of similar passives for the War Hammer and Great Axe.
- Fixed an issue where Roaring Rupture could pull targets past the player instead of the center of the impact point.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Greatsword Onslaught stance heavy attack charge speed to increase when in an exhausted state.
- Fixed an issue issue that caused the Faultless Defender Passive to not trigger properly.
- Fixed an issue that allowed the Greatsword offense and defense stances to both be on at the same time.
Hatchet
- Fixed an issue that prevented attacks from buffering during Infected Throw.
- Raging Torrent can be now be redirected using directional inputs when camera direction for melee attacks is turned off.
- Fixed an issue that caused animations to freeze when throwing a Hatchet while jumping.
- Fixed an issue that caused Feral Rush’s dispatch upgrade to not properly apply the damage increase to both hits.
Ice Gauntlet
- Fixed an issue that caused Ice Pylon to shoot over enemies.
- Fixed an issue where deactivating Entomb via the breakout would activate Defiant Freeze.
- Fixed an issue where increased mana regen would persist briefly after breaking Entomb.
- Fixed an issue that caused characters to become unresponsive if opening the Inventory while activating the Entomb ability.
- Fixed an issue that didn’t clear Entomb properly when a Heart Rune was activated.
Life Staff
- Fixed an issue that caused Life Staff ability buffers and cancels to not work in most cases.
- Fixed an issue that caused accidental basic attack buffering on the Life Staff and Fire Staff.
- Fixed an issue that allowed Orb of Protection and Beacon to be canceled as soon as their projectile spawned.
- Added an option menu setting to automatically lock-on to target when starting any Life Staff healing ability.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Bend Light passive to not refresh the duration of the buff for the full 5 seconds with each dodge.
Musket
- Renamed the Musket Backdraft ability to Ignition so it didn’t share a name with a Fire Staff ability.
- Fixed an issue where critical reload was able to trigger with more than 5 seconds between headshots.
- Fixed an issue that caused musket projectile visual effects to sometimes appear in the wrong place.
Rapier
- Fixed an issue that caused Tondo to go on cooldown with no effect if it was canceled at certain frames using evade.
- Fixed an issue with the Backside Rapier perk that caused the 15% damage increase to apply to all damage, not just crit damage.
- Fixed an issue where the 25 bonus from Strength worked with the bleed from Flurry.
- Reduced Rapier’s damage over time duration from 12s to 10s
- Rapier: And Again Perk now works properly when weapon swapping after using Tondo on a single target.
- Reduced the damage of Evade’s Adagio upgrade from 15% to 10%
- Fixed an issue that caused ‘And Again’ to only apply after blocking.
Spear
- Fixed an issue that prevented weapon swaps from buffering during the Javelin animation.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Spear’s Javelin ability to not activate during a dodge.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Merciless Strength passive to not trigger.
- Fixed an issue that caused Cyclone’s invigorating combo to inconsistently track the two hits.
Void Gauntlet
- Fixed an issue where Scream could hit blocking players.
- Fixed an issue that caused unintended speed boosts when canceling attacks or dodges with certain abilities.
- Slightly increased the hitbox on Void blade’s heavy attack to make it properly match the attack visuals.
- Addressed some Void blade hit registration issues by increasing the size of the hitboxes slightly.
- Fixed an issue where the Void Blade attacks triggered the ranged sprint delay.
War Hammer
- Fixed an issue causing the War Hammer’s Shockwave ability to stun enemies 6 frames later than intended.
- Path of Destiny can be now be aimed while starting the attack using directional inputs when Camera Direction for Melee Attacks is turned off.
Game Mode Updates
3v3 Arenas
- Fixed an issue where the Phoenix Artifact could trigger after a round ends and leave a player dead for the next round.
Duels
- Fixed an issue where players in a Duel could receive buffs from players outside of the Duel.
Outpost Rush
- Fixed an issue that caused players to teleport behind a door barrier after use (e.g. Outpost Rush fort walls).
Economy, Progression, and Gear
General
- Invasions have been disabled for the first week of Standard Worlds to give Companies time to gear up and prepare.
- Battle Bread is now set to not be cleansed by the Nature’s Wrath Artifact.
- Coatings now work more like Honing Stones. They aren’t tied to a specific weapon, and will instead last for their full duration even if the current weapon is unequipped or changed.
- Fixed an issue where potions purchased from the fort armory during War or Invasion did not play animations.
- Fixed an issue where the Odo Artifact unique perk was not triggering.
- Updated the tooltip for Scorpion’s Sting, Sting perk to clarified how it is set to a flat value and cannot be reduced by non-conditional cooldown reductions. Any sort of conditional cooldown reduction will still reduce the cooldown after it is set.
- Transmog Tokens can no longer be obtained from Elite Chests.
Perks
- Fixed an issue where Shirking Elemental Damage perks were improperly flagged as Empowers.
- Reduced Shirking Elemental Damage perk’s max power from 45% to 30%.
- Made functional changes to Healing Breeze:
- Increased value up to 16%
- Removed the activation cooldown for the ability and changed it to be an application cooldown for the status effect and not the perk activation. Cooldown is now per target it is applied to. So it will be more beneficial to use this when healing others as a healer.
- Added functionality to reduce the potency of Healing Breeze when applied to self by 35%
- Fixed an issue where the Healing Tomb perk would not always be applied.
- Fixed an issue where Brutal Stoneform applied more Fortify than other Stoneform variants.
- Fixed issue where Heartrune activation would not consistently trigger the Purifying Heart and Healing Heart perks.
Notable Fixes
- Fixed an issue causing Pirated ranged weapons (certain items from the Barnacles and Blackpowder mutator) to roll with the Rogue perk, a non-functional perk for their weapon type. These can no longer roll in this way. These items will now roll with Keen Speed. Previously acquired items are unaffected by this change.
- Fixed an issue where Premium Glow Worm bait incorrectly said it worked in fresh water.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Mastiff’s Pet animation to not loop properly.
- Fixed an issue that caused players to randomly lose 1XP.
Mounts
- The first mount quest now shows the hotkey needed to summon the mount.
- Fixed an issue causing large positional desyncs when auto running while mounted after an extended period of lag.
- Fixed an issue that caused the mount UI to remain active when entering an Expedition.
- Fixed an issue where reduced vertical camera movement did not apply when jumping while mounted.
- Fixed an issue where the player’s stamina bar would remain hidden if they logged out while mounted.
- Fixed an issue where some mounts would not appear in the collection screen on first open.
UI/UX/Social
General
- The maximum character limit for character names has been updated to 15 from 16.
- Faction switching cooldown, which activates after your first Faction switch, has been reduced to 30 days.
- There is now a Zero Tolerance filter aimed at very specific terms sent through in-game chat whether or not the Language filter is enabled. If the filter picks up any instance of these terms, the chat message will be rejected by the server silently and the message will not be sent to the world.
- The UI now closes when using Unstuck, similar to how Recall to Inn works.
- Increased the disconnect/rejoin grace period in cross-world modes, War, and Invasion from 1 minute to 3 minutes in response to player feedback.
Notable Fixes
- Fixed cooldown UI not being updated properly with cooldown reduction abilities.
- Fixed an issue where the target lock icon could appear out of place on resolutions other than 1920×1080.
- Fixed an issue where the number of revives remaining while on Death’s Door could be higher than what was actually available in instanced game modes.
- Fixed an issue that caused the global refining buff provided by the Weaver’s Fen fort to not show as applied.
- Fixed various issues with the in-game scoreboard in Outpost Rush (team colors not applying, teams being swapped, scores not updating).
- Fixed an issue where characters in Standard Worlds (formerly Fresh Start Worlds) couldn’t transfer to other Standard Worlds.
- Fixed an issue where matchmaking queue HUD would persist into matches.
- Fixed an issue that caused post process FX textures to get stuck on the screen.