These past few weeks have been fantastic for gamers thanks to major new releases like Far Cry 6, Metroid Dread, and Back 4 Blood. Even more importantly, though, we finally got to experience Amazon’s New World in all its glory. While not without its flaws, the game is hands down one of the best-looking MMORPGs we’ve seen so far. The gameplay isn’t too shabby either, though it can feel a bit grindy at times. Luckily, you can avoid a lot of the grind if you know what you’re doing. And that’s precisely where this New World leveling guide comes in.
Progression in New World is pretty straightforward. If you’re familiar with other MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV or ESO, or even single-player RPGs, you already know what to expect here. There are several quest types in New World, some of which grant a lot more experience than others. Whenever you want to spice things up a bit, you can focus on other activities that grant XP. Such as dungeon grinding and Portal farming. In addition to filler XP grinding, there are a ton of little buffs you can pick up to increase your XP gains and reach New World’s level cap of 60 faster. That’s the basic gist of it but there is of course some nuance to all of this.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of things it’s worth noting that New World has three different leveling systems – character, professions, and weapons. Although we’ll touch upon all of them, this is primarily a character leveling guide. Make sure to check out a New World profession leveling guide or a weapon leveling guide if you want to learn more about those.
How to Get to Level 60 Fast in New World
New World quests are split into three basic categories: story quests (high XP), side quests (medium XP), and faction missions (low XP). In addition, you can also complete Town Projects to gain a significant boost of XP. But these require you to gather and refine a bunch of materials, some of which can be tricky to find. If you don’t want to go out of your way to gather materials, you can simply buy them from the market if you have enough gold to spare. Gold farming isn’t too difficult but you can already get New World coins from third parties if you don’t mind that sort of thing.
As far as the main quest types are concerned, you’ll want to always focus on the ones that advance the storyline. Story quests grant several times more experience than any of the other types and they’re generally pretty easy to complete. Most New World quests consist of killing and/or fetching stuff so there’s no reason not to focus on story missions if you want to level up efficiently. There’s only one little problem. You can’t get to 60 in New World just by completing story quests because those only unlock once you reach certain level milestones.
As any New World leveling guide will tell you, the most efficient route to 60 is to complete as many side and faction quests as you can on your way to the next main story quest. Unlike World of Warcraft or similar MMORPGs, New World doesn’t have any mounts. There is fast travel in the game but getting from place to place still takes a while. So don’t go out of your way to complete secondary quests unless you have time to spare.
New World Leveling Guide Tips and Tricks
Don’t Waste Time Trying to Punch Above Your Weight
If you’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft before switching to New World, you’re probably used to pursuing quests and killing mobs that are a few levels higher than you are. After all, doing so grants a lot more experience, right? Well, things work a bit differently here. In New World, there aren’t significant benefits to doing anything that’s above your level. Quite the opposite. As much as possible, you’ll want to only fight mobs that are a couple of levels below you. That way, you can kill them quicker, grab the XP, and be on your way.
Rested XP
Rested XP is by far one of the best, and easiest, ways to boost your experience gains in New World. Similar to a lot of other MMORPGs, New World applies a rested XP buff to your character when you log off in a settlement. The buff increases your XP gains from all sources by a whopping 100%. Be sure to make the most of it because the bonus only applies to a limited amount of XP. Still, this small bonus adds up over time and is particularly useful during 50-60 leveling when you need every advantage you can get.
Territory Standing XP Gain
Whenever you increase your Territory Standing in New World, you’ll be rewarded with cards that provide various benefits. The benefits only apply to that region and you can only choose one card each time you increase your Standing. One of these cards is called XP Gain and grants you 3% more experience from all sources while you’re in the region you got it from.
As you continue to complete objectives in that territory, you’ll be able to upgrade the card and eventually increase your XP gains by a huge percentage. However, unless you’re focusing on leveling to the detriment of everything else, you shouldn’t pick up more than one copy of this card. XP Gain becomes useless at level 60, making it a bad investment in the long run.
Don’t Shy Away From PvP
PvP in New World can be intimidating but it can also be rewarding. By flagging yourself for PvP you will gain a flat 10% XP bonus from all sources. This is a huge boost to your New World leveling experience. As an added bonus, it’s also a great way to increase your weapons XP. However, it does come with some obvious downsides.
While you’re flagged for PvP you can be attacked by other players at any time in the open world. Which may end up slowing your progression. We recommend experimenting with this one as its efficiency depends a lot on the server. If you find yourself getting ganked every time you leave a settlement it’s probably not worth leaving the PvP flag on. Unless you’re playing late at night when there aren’t many people around.
Town Projects
We touched upon these earlier but we wanted to talk about them in a bit more detail. Town Projects were nerfed after the Beta but they still grant a significant amount of XP. You can have up to 12 of these projects active at any one time. Town Projects rely heavily on gathering and crafting, so don’t neglect your professions as you’re leveling in New World.
You can increase your gathering speed in a variety of ways, including Territory Standing cards and Proficiency potions. You can either buy these potions off the market or craft them yourself if you have the necessary materials. Again, make sure to check out a dedicated New World professions leveling guide to learn more about that aspect of the game.
Faction Missions Bonuses
As mentioned earlier, faction missions don’t generally give great XP and you shouldn’t focus on them too much. However, there are some exceptions. Each day you will get three faction missions that grant bonus XP and those are definitely worth doing.
Don’t Worry About Your Class
If you’re switching from something like Final Fantasy XIV you may be tempted to optimize your character for a certain role while leveling. Well, you don’t have to worry too much about that because New World doesn’t have any classes. Your role is largely dependent on your attributes and weapon mastery. You will need to carefully consider your options once you reach the end game and start unlocking legendary weapons. You don’t want to go into Lazarus Instrumentality or Dynasty Shipyard without a decent build. But things are a lot more flexible while you’re leveling up since you can re-spec at any time.
New World Filler XP Grinding
Any MMORPG has filler XP grinds and New World is no exception. Even if you follow all the tips and tricks discussed so far, you’ll still need to do some grinding at various points throughout the game. Most notably, New World’s 50-60 leveling can be quite a chore if you’re not willing to do some grinding. You’ll also run into something similar during levels 25-29 and 37-43.
If you’ve been following our New World leveling guide so far you already know about some of the main side activities you can do while you’re not pursuing the main quest. However, there are two activities we wanted to leave for last – dungeon grinding and Corrupted Portal farming.
Much like in World of Warcraft Classic, dungeon grinding is an integral part of New World’s leveling experience. You can try to avoid them for a while. But eventually, you will need to jump into some dungeons if you want to speed up the leveling process. New World dungeons go by the name of Expeditions and there are currently only six of them to choose from. Half of them are intended for players who have either reached or are closing to reaching max level. Meaning you’ll spend most of your time grinding the other three as you’re leveling.
As far as Corrupted Portals are concerned, this is another type of group activity that will grant you some nice XP. In addition, these are also a great source of loot and weapon experience. People are banding together for Portal farming runs all the time so just check the chat and join the closest one to you.
Final Thoughts
And that pretty much does it for our New World leveling guide. The game is still fresh so there aren’t any complicated systems or gameplay mechanics you’ll have to worry about just yet. The basic gameplay loop is pretty similar to those of other MMORPGs, which is one of the main reasons New World has been doing so well. The game doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. And, honestly, it doesn’t have to.
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