Territory Control Economy Overhaul

Portfolio / New World: Territory Control Economy Overhaul

Territory Economy Overview

New World featured a nearly fully player-driven economy. Players earned Coin and items through adventuring, but there were no NPC vendors to sell to — nearly all goods had to be traded through the Trading Post or between players. This made economic balance especially sensitive to player behavior and population distribution.

Territory ownership was a major economic driver. Companies could control one of roughly a dozen territories per world and earn Coin from housing taxes, crafting fees, and Trading Post transactions. They could reinvest that income into upgrading crafting stations and infrastructure, but were required to pay a recurring upkeep cost to maintain ownership.

Why an Overhaul?

Originally designed around PvP and territorial competition, New World later shifted to be more PvE- and casual-friendly and we made small tweaks to the Territory Control game to compensate. While this broadened the game’s appeal, it created economic imbalance: players gravitated toward centralized territories with better amenities and social density, leaving peripheral territories underutilized. As a result, a small number of Companies earned massive profits while many territories became financially unsustainable, reducing competition and undermining the territory control fantasy.

Design

In partnership with Product Management and the Economy Designer, I designed and implemented a pooled territory payout system. Instead of each territory keeping only its own revenue, all territory income on a world was combined into a shared pool and redistributed. Territories still had different relative values to preserve a “chase” for premium locations, and Companies unlocked higher payout percentages as they upgraded their settlements.

While implementing this system, I identified an additional structural issue: upkeep costs were flat across all territory levels. This disproportionately harmed low-value territories on low-population worlds, which often operated at a loss regardless of performance. We were already seeing this as an issue in certain worlds and it would only be exacerbated by the new pooled payouts. To address this, I introduced tiered upkeep costs based on territory progression, allowing lower-tier settlements to remain economically viable.

Finally, because pooling removed the incentive to compete via tax rates, I standardized taxes by category across all territories. This eliminated exploitative tax behavior, reduced player frustration, and ensured Companies competed through territory investment and control rather than punitive pricing.

Outcome

Together, these changes stabilized the territory economy, increased the number of viable territories worth competing over, and aligned the economic system with New World’s evolving PvE-friendly direction while preserving meaningful territorial competition.