Late Night Talks with PA – 11th November 2023

Introduction

The Late Night Talks with Pearl Abyss broadcast took place on 11th November 2023 and discussed upcoming content, such as Ocean Content, Arena of Solare Changes, Shai Weapon upgrade, and the Skill Add-on Update.

You can catch the official stream at the following links:

• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEExGXSozNsReY3i3s4yhhQ
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/blackdesertkr/videos

Calpheon Ball and J’s Hammer

• PA announced that the next Late Night Talk will be at the end of November, and the Calpheon Ball is scheduled for December 16th.
• Before Calpheon Ball there will be a raffle event where players have a chance to obtain various rewards, including Vell’s Heart, Garmoth’s Heart, and Girin’s Tear. Players simply need to log in to enter the raffle and there are 1000 of each item to giveaway!
• Even if you don’t win anything you will be able to exchange the coins for other items such as Royal Fern Roots, Mythical Feathers, and the J’s Hammer!
• All players will be able to obtain the J’s Hammer by participating in the event and can claim the J’s Hammer after the maintenance on 22nd November 2023.
• The J’s Hammer will not have an expiration date.

Event Page: https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=6167&countryType=en-US

Arena of Solare

• Arena of Solare will be permanently opened starting November
• The rewards will be improved and your reward will depend on your rank.
• However, PA does not want the rewards to be “too good” and it will not be competitive with Life Skills or grinding.
• A custom match mode for Arena of Solare is also being prepared at the moment.
• The custom match mode will allow you to create a match that can be accepted with an invite only. Players will be able to select the map and invite their friends to join.
• PA are also working on a spectator mode for those who would also like to watch matches to help them learn.
• PA is aiming to complete this update by the end of this year.

Costumes and Appearance

• The Marchele outfit is being revised after a lot of players gave feedback asking to remove the cape. The revamped version is almost complete and will be finished in early December.
• PA will allow players to exchange any costume parts they currently own, so you can keep the original design or swap your costume to the new version.
• A lot of players felt that this took longer than expected, but costumes are not something that can be made quickly and require time for editing, there were also other costumes being prepared at the same time so that there was not any disruption to the usual schedule.
• A new costume (pictured below) has been completed to celebrate Farmer’s Day, which is an important holiday in Korea.
• The Farmer’s Costume is scheduled for live servers on 15th November and will be a functional outfit for the Farming Lifeskill (similar to the processing outfit).

• PA also said that in the past they have focused on bringing outfits for certain classes that they felt matched the design of the costume. However, lots of players were always asking “When will I get a costume for my class?”. Moving forward, when PA designs a new costume, it will now be released for all female classes, or all male classes at once.
• As well, there are some costumes such as event items that are currently stored in the normal inventory and not the pearl inventory. This is inconvenient for players and there is an update planned for next week to convert these items to a pearl item.

• A dying preset is being prepared. Players may want to make the preset to change the hair color easily for their character or their costume.
• Once the dye preset is finished, they will be updating the Beauty Album so that you can share your dye preset with other players through a Dye Album.

Ocean Content

• PA are currently preparing an updated Guild Galley, Sub-Captain, and Sailor Presets.
• The Guild Galley update is expected to be ready for next week’s update (15th Nov), while the Sub-Captain update will take a bit more time.
• While preparing for the new Sub-Captain concept, they have also prepared sailor presets at the same time.
• This week on Global Lab, PA also reorganized some of the reefs and cleaned up the sea to make it easier to sail using auto movement.

Carrack Ship

• They said that although many players want more customization for the Carrack ship, it took 2-3 years to develop the ship, and adding customization or new skins is not easy.
• For example, some players want to remove some parts such as the posts using an ON/OFF button, but this would not be easy, and PA are planning to make a separate version without the pillars.
• Players also gave feedback about issues with being able to play the game during nighttime or if it rains during the day since there is a heavy fog at sea or it is too dark to be able to do or see anything.
• Some people suggested adding a lantern or lights to the ship to address the visibility issues, but this is something that would also be very difficult to do.
• PA will look at other solutions and also want to focus on the looting issues at sea so that the loot is more visible.
• They also explained that dying boats would be difficult due to the structural problems, but promised that more ship skins are planned for the future.

• Originally, the Carrack: Volante was the fastest ship, and each ship had its own strengths and weaknesses. But players still chose the Volante for its speed.
• Now that the number of sailors has been increased, the gap between the ships has narrowed but Volante is still considered the best option. PA said that they will be adding more sailor slots to help balance the ships further and allow more customization with the stats that players want.

Lifeskills

Sailing Lifeskill

• This week a new sailing tool was added called the “Navigation Log”. This is a tool similar to the Loggia and Manos Riding Crop but is used to increase the speed of ships.
• The Manos Navigation Log can be crafted using materials that are obtained through sea monster hunting, while the Loggia and Srulk (blue-grade) versions can be bought from NPCs in a town.

Farming Lifeskill

• Another suggestion that PA see a lot is about stacking seeds. PA explained that since seeds are an installation item (similar to furniture items) it is not easy to make them stackable.
• Instead, they are considering other options and solutions.

Mini-games

• Some players found the mini-game for capturing horses difficult, so it was improved earlier this year and made much easier.
• The other life skill mini-games such as the gathering mini-games will be made easier and more fun as well.
• In particular, many people felt that the Butcher Knife and Hoe Gathering mini-games were very difficult.

Purchasing Materials on Central Market

• Players asked if primary materials/ingredients, such as wood, ore, and cooking ingredients could be changed so that a higher quantity could be purchased at once from the Central Market. PA said that it is possible to change but they are worried that materials will be bought all by one person and then another player may come along who also needs the item.
• The limit is in place so that it is more fair and all players have an equal chance of obtaining the materials from the central market.
• PA will continue to watch the data and make adjustments as needed, by checking the volume of materials traded and increasing the quantity where they can.

Lara’s Daily Quest

• PA will be making the daily quest from Lara easier to complete.
• There are a few solutions that were discussed during the stream, such as changing the quest to only require one material, or changing the quest from a daily quest to a weekly quest.
• PA would like players to give feedback on which of the options they would prefer. Many players in the chat said they would prefer the weekly quest option, and PA said they would change it to weekly or they might even just implement both of the suggestions.

Open World PVP & Arsha Server

• Arsha server will be revamped slightly so that you can no longer join a platoon while on the server. This update is planned so that you can only join a party or grind solo, and to try and prevent players from roaming the Arsha server as a platoon to interfere with others.
• The lawless area change from Valencia to Ulukita has been canceled. Originally, PA was going to change the lawless zone from the Valencia Desert to the Ulukita zone, however, they felt that this area has very difficult grinding zones that are already stressful for players, as well as important and desired objects such as Artifacts, Lafi Bedmountain’s Telescope, or Ator’s Shoes. PA did not want to add any additional stress or difficulty to this area by making it a lawless zone.
• Lots of players are also asking at the moment whether killing players is against ToS and can lead to account bans since there was recently a player in KR that was banned after PVP in the lawless zone. PA would like to assure players that killing others in a lawless area is fine and you can send players to jail as intended, but when some situations go beyond that and become harassment it may need to be stopped.
• To clarify, PA stated that harassment counts as continuously hunting one person, and in this case, the player was warned for serious harassment, but can’t give more details due to the privacy of the banned player.

Class Balance

• PA started by discussing the feedback board on the official KR website. There are currently 11 articles being discussed and class balance remains the largest topic on the feedback boards, with almost half of the suggestion forums being class discussion. Sage, Sorceress, Ninja, and Witch are classes that have been mentioned recently.
• One adventurer said that the stamina and defense judgments were disappointing for Sage, and took the time to video various skills and give feedback. Another spoke about mobility issues for Sorceress, which is disappointing in both PVE and PVP and mentioned it is difficult to disengage and engage. A Witch player mentioned that in small battles such as Arena of Solare, they are usually the first target and easy to pick off, which makes it difficult for them and makes them feel bad for their team members. Finally, a Ninja player mentioned that some skills are not useful or good to use.
• With the recent patch, it is planned to be patched in 2 phases, and currently, the 1st damage patch has been completed. There are many players now waiting on phase 2.
• Detailed adjustments will be made to take stability and PVP characteristics into consideration. The damage of many classes has changed significantly, and PA said that this data needs to be thoroughly checked.
• The Skill Add-on update was also added this week on Global Lab and has been unified.
• With the help of continuous feedback and monitoring internal data, classes will be balanced and PA said this is something that needs to be done well and not with haste.
• So PA has asked for patience while waiting for Phase 2 of the balance and asked players to send suggestions on the Feedback Board, since they want to know what you feel is lacking for your class.
• Another concern is with evasion classes having problems at the new end-game grind spots, where the monster’s damage and accuracy are much higher than in previous spots. PA is aware of these problems and will take into consideration and adjust the monster AP and accuracy so that players with evasion builds can grind at these spots.

Damage Numbers

• Damage Numbers were discussed at the previous Late Night Talks stream, but PA felt that they did not explain properly and players felt the reasons given were not satisfactory.
• There was a conversation asking why damage numbers are displayed in Global Lab but not on live servers.

To explain this, “Black Desert is a large-scale MMORPG. As a result, there are many skill hits, and due to it being an action-based game, there are a lot of technical challenges and server optimization work that has been done in many different areas. If these hits are sent one by one from server to server, the amount of processes is very large, so optimization work has been done to combine the number of hits and send them according to the server environment. For example, if there is a skill that deals 20 damage per hit, 20 times. This skill deals 400 damage, and depending on the server situation, sometimes it is only sent in 2 parts, sometimes it is sent in 10 parts, and sometimes it is sent all at once. This is how it is optimized so that the actual damage is still applied correctly. Since there are not many players on Global Lab, there is no optimization on this server. There are also different aspects, like if you look at the world bosses on the live server or during node wars, these are peak hours when damage is sent together for better optimization, while quieter hours will have the damage sent to the server in parts.”

“There are many cases where adventurers take a lot of hits. This is why server optimization is very important. There are other cases such as Battle Arena which are in an independent space, but it still uses the same server. A lot of people said the main reason that damage numbers are needed is because of mistakes, constant number mistakes, etc. They are worried there will be problems such as whether the damage is applied or not, or the number says 100 but actually was 110, or the description in-game was incorrect, etc. First of all, in the past, we were writing class skill descriptions by hand, but instead are preparing to improve by scraping the actual data. If this happens, there will not be situations where the descriptions are incorrect, and the damage shown will match as it is. Ultimately, this is a matter of trust, and when you do a lot of work, you’ll make mistakes. It is a big mistake when it is for the class that adventurers play, so I agree with the concerns these players have and understand their anxiety. We will do our best to fundamentally solve the problem.”

Shai Clas – Sol Weapon

• Recently, many players gave feedback on Shai and their talent weapon.
• With the changes to overall class balance, Shai was left behind when it came to PVP balancing since many classes received attack damage increases on their skills. The update to add an upgrade to the Shai Sol was added to adjust the damage differently since Shai has some limitations in terms of gear.
• After this update, many Shai players voiced their opinions about the limitation of tagging, and PA are sorry that other classes had their damage increased without the additional cost that Shai now has to pay.
• Many players gave feedback such as “Can’t we just release a Blackstar Talent Weapon?”. PA explained that they are looking at ways to improve so that players can transfer from Shai to other classes more easily. However, they have concerns that if they release a Blackstar Sol, it will also become easier for players to tag to Shai, and that players will create Shai parties of 5 people playing Shai because of the performance due to the buff abilities.
• At the same time, PA is aware that Shai players are limited and can only change to another class using Weapon Exchange Coupons, which are not easy to obtain and in the past were only available through the Pearl Store.
• Therefore, PA would like to make some changes so that the Shai class can tag to another class as long as they have a Dandelion or Blackstar Awakening Weapon (for any class) in their inventory. They are aware that you still need another Garmoth’s Heart, but hope this will be less of a burden than before.

New Classes

• In a post written by a KR player (갓서님), a lot of things were criticized and a lot of feedback was given about the previous Late Night Talks Stream, such as class balance, elixirs, weapon concepts for Drakania and Corsair, Infinite Potions, etc.
• PA said that they have read this feedback and would like to comment on a few of the points made.
• First of all, PA said they would not release a gun class in the past, but then the awakening weapon for Corsair was a gun. They also said that the Infinite Potions would not be put in the family inventory, but then after lots of feedback PA changed this so that they could be put in the family inventory.
• They said that they always try to think of what the players want when creating a new class and try to create a class that is unique and different from the others. In the end, they decided that Drakania needed a greatsword but did not want to make a copy of Warrior, and for Corsair they wanted to make a character that made sense in the lore so a gun class was created even if it is not called a gun.
• There are also other reasons why PA does not want to make a gun class, since it is often hard to balance and would mean that other technology in the world would also be available, such as steam engines, which does not match the medieval Europe genre the game currently has.
• However, if PA continues pursuing new classes, designs, and new weapons, at some point they may introduce a class that uses guns.

Node Wars and Guild

Cannons

• Cannons were mentioned in the last stream and PA is currently preparing a system message that will appear when a cannonball successfully hits a building.
• There was also talk about cannons disappearing in certain situations, or that before Node Wars, there is a ping on the map but then it disappeared, making it difficult to fire your cannon accurately.
• PA thinks it would be nice to give titles to other roles such as cannonners and defense team as well, but creating new titles is a bit difficult. PA is considering allowing the guild master to award the title to the player instead, such as the title “Artilleryman” which would have an effect to match the title.
• Right now the most urgent priority is adding the cannon system message.

Guild Improvements

• There are also lots of other suggestions for Guilds. There have been updates to Guild Missions, but not a big enough change to satisfy players. There is also the inconvenience of needing materials every time you use a guild skill, and other areas that need improvement such as Guild Drilling, distributing Incentives, etc.
• PA said it took 7 years for them to make it possible for guild invites to work across servers, and that they will not give up and continue to improve guild systems. They first want to develop things like guild workers and guild-related QoL.
• Another suggestion was to allow one guild member to complete guild missions on their own. However, PA does not want to do this since guild activities are supposed to be for many players working together, and they are worried that if players were able to generate silver with a solo-player guild, it would bring more cases of RMT (real money trading).

Node Wars

• There are concerns at the moment because players on capped node wars are using builds that are optimized specifically for the caps and this causes there to be a big difference between new and experienced players.
• The caps were added as a solution so that new players and guilds could experience node wars in an easier environment without the pressure of gear or knowing exactly what to do. Limited node wars were meant to be fun and beginner-friendly.
• Therefore, the node war tiers 1 – 5 were changed to add caps for attack power, damage reduction, evasion, special attacks, resistances, etc. The max HP limits were also changed for tier 1 – 2 to create a fair environment for these newer players.
• There is a lot of talk internally about how to resolve this, and PA is considering removing the cap limits and coming up with other solutions.

Gear and Crystals

Upgrading Gear

• Players are currently concerned that there is not enough motivation to upgrade their gear.
• PA understands that if you want to play PVP content then you have to get stronger and currently the rewards for PVP are not as good as the rewards for PVE. Players feel there is virtually no profit in PVP content so they lose interest. In the last Late Night Talks Stream, PA promised that the rewards for RBF (Red Battlefield) would be improved and EXP gain would also be improved.
• They are also considering other challenging content, including new or reworked PVP content such as War of Roses.
• In PVE, PA will continue to create new, challenging, and unique end-game grinding spots.
• PA is also working on an update to enhancing that will make enhancing less of a burden to players. The details of the update is not ready to share just yet and will be revealed at a later date.

Crystal Inventory

• Players gave feedback that a lot of crystal slots are needed for the different life skills and that there are not enough slots in the current crystal inventory.
• PA is preparing an update to address this.

Karanda’s Heart/Kutum’s Heart

• If you obtained the Karanda’s Heart/Kutum Heart and didn’t need the heart you can use Simple Alchemy to obtain materials instead.
• When the Karanda’s Heart was first released, the materials you gained were needed and the item didn’t feel useless or like it was going to waste.
• However, now players aren’t as excited when they obtain the rare drop, so PA is going to make Karanda’s Heart and Kutum’s Heart sellable on the central market.

Other Content

UI Improvements

• As mentioned in the previous Late Night Talk Stream, many players use the notepad UI to write skill commands for their combos or use it to help remember skill buttons by placing the text next to the Skill cooldown slot.
• PA is developing a “combo UI” which is now in the final stages and will be finished soon.
• PA also spoke about the recent change to the horse skill UI, which moved the lock icon from the right side to the left side of the skill name for better visibility. They said that they are always thankful for these QoL suggestions and that they are currently preparing some other improvements to the Stable and Wharf UI since these windows in particular have not been updated for a long time. The update will be quite large and add new functionality since searching and sorting is currently not possible. Due to the size of the update, it is only expected to be finished next summer.

Old Moon Grand Prix (Horse Racing) and Yarr Matchmaking

• The Old Moon Grand Prix matchmaking is now in the final stage of development.
• Originally, PA was going to compelte the Yarr matchmaking first, but the Old Moon Grand Prix matchmaking already had a foundation to work on so they changed their priorities and completed the Old Moon Grand Prix matchmaking first. Yarr matchmaking will be completed after.

Black Shrine, Magnus, Adventure Log, Elixir, etc.

• PA assured that they haven’t forgotten about the other updates mentioned in the last Late Night Talks Stream (such as Black Shrine improvements, Magnus accessibility/loading screens, Adventure Log revisions, Music Album, etc.)
• They said that updates such as the Black Stone improvements and Elixir changes need to be completed quickly to improve player’s enjoyment, but it is old content that is expected to have a large impact on multiple systems, so it is something they don’t want to rush and will be checking carefully before bringing the update live.
• Once these updates are ready to share, it will be added to the Global Lab testing server.

Black Spirit Adventure

• Players mentioned the cooldown to the Black Spirit Adventure Board, and the cooldown will be reduced since many players wanted this changed.
• There was also other feedback mentioned like being able to automatically roll your dice while AFK horse riding, and roll all your dice at once with no cooldown.
• However, PA is concerned that removing the cooldown completely so players can roll all of their dice at once would be a lot of data at once and would overload the server.
• Instead, they are adding the automatic dice rolls suggestion and reducing the cooldown a bit so players won’t feel as frustrated.

Boss Latent Auras

• PA will be changing the Boss Latent Auras so that they can be exchanged for Memory Fragments at one universal NPC instead of players having to go to different places for each of the different Boss Auras.
• For example, in the past, players had to go to one place to exchange their Kzarka Latent Auras and another place to exchange their Karanda Latent Auras. In the future, you will be able to exchange all the different types at one NPC.

Furniture Buff via Tent

• PA received feedback that furniture buffs should be obtainable from your tent.
• They feel that this is a good suggestion and there may be some problems with development but they will try their best to implement this.