Late Night Talks with PA – 27th October 2023

Introduction

The latest Late Night Talks with Pearl Abyss broadcast took place on 27th October 2023 and revealed details about various content, including the recent class balance changes on Global Lab.

You can catch the official stream at the following links:

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

PA also announced that the next Late Night Talk may be in November, and Calpheon Ball is currently being prepared as it is scheduled for December.

Class Balance

• Class balance patches are currently taking place on the Global Lab Testing Server.
• Many players are asking why so many classes are being buffed and just how strong Woosa is.
• The class balance is to bring up some of the classes that weren’t performing as good as Woosa.
• Woosa had forward guard on her skills and high damage which made her easier to grind with.
• At the moment, PA are buffing many classes and then will be going through phase 2 of the class balance to fix more issues.
• Classes that will not recieve a PVE buff include: Guardian, Witch
• They wish they had more time to explain this decision, but wanted to quickly improve class balance so didn’t explain their direction properly.
• It takes a long time to fix and buff the damage of so many classes, but they are trying to push these balance changes through quickly so that players can grind again on the class they love.
• PVE class balancing will start to come to the Korean Live server on November 8th, 2023.
• Once PVE balancing is completed, PA will focus on PVP class balance.
• Some classes are better than others in 1vs1, Arena of Solare, or large-scale PVP, and PA want to keep this and improve so that each class has a PVP specialization.

Asia PVP Championship

• The first Asia PVP Championship took place recently.
• PA knew there were still many problems and are sorry that it was not prepared properly. There were issues with lag, ping, schedule, etc.
• All players who purchased a VPN for the Asia Nodewar will be compensated, but it will take time.
• They have hosted championships before in the past and thought they can do it again with minimal changes, but were busy preparing other content such as War of the Roses and promise they will do better next time.
• For the next Asia Nodewar Championship, they are changing the servers to cloud servers to improve the ping problems.

Guild War Decs and PVP

• PA apologize for the lack of communication when they announced the guild war dec changes.
• They thought about this decision for a long time and some developers argued against the change.
• PA feel that war decs were a positive part of the game at the start, but now are used to harrass and bully other players.
• They introduced many patches to try and alleviate the issues, but many players were being harrassed so they decided to finally change it.
• In Russia, they introduced a specialized server and normal server, and found that more and more people were moving from the specialized server to the normal server.
• In Japan, one sided guild wars were not very common at first, and many players had positive experiences with node war, siege, guild, etc.
• Jae hopes that players can understand the decision and will not be reversing the guild dec changes.
• More PVP content going forward and improve existing PVP content, such as Arena of Solare and Red Battlefield rewards.
• However, they don’t want to increase silver rewards too much (and the rewards will not be the same as grinding/lifeskills) due to players going AFK and only doing the content for the rewards.
• Jae also said that if War of the Roses is popular, it might be rescheduled to be more often, and a 3rd Faction may be added.
• When you use a cannon, you will now get a message to confirm a hit/miss.
• Kill/death scores in wars will be intergated into a score system.
• Arena of Solare will be made permanently available starting next season.
• Finally, in Arsha server, the message saying that someone was killed will be removed and family names will be hidden. There are plans to provide an enviroment so that even guild members can kill each other.

Dark Seeker’s Retreat (Artifacts and Ator’s Shoes)

• PA was very busy with other content when developing the Dark Seeker’s Retreat monster zone.
• Therefore, the zone had bugs, lack of mechanics, low silver per hour, and was too difficult for players to grind.
• Many players are already tired of grinding Dark Seeker’s Retreat for the flame to craft Ator’s Shoes.
• Even with the new boss added to the area, players do not like the monster zone.
• To reduce some of the stress to obtain the flame, the Caphras Event will be extended until Nov 29th, 2023.
• The monsters AP will also be reduced, and embers will be more obtainable through the boss spawn.

• You can get 2 artifacts from Dark Seeker’s Retreat while grinding for the flame.
• However, it is an RNG and some players are struggling to obtain it due to bad luck, so pity pieces will be added for the Artifacts (similar to the flame).
• 100 pity piece items will be needed to craft the artifact and you will be able to obtain approximately 3 pity pieces per hour.
• Players will also be able to sell and buy the pity pieces on the central market.
• This update is planned to arrive on Global Lab Test Server next week (Nov 3rd, 2023).
• The suggestion for pity pieces is not final and depends on player feedback. PA would like to stress that it will not affect the chance of flame/ember drops.

Monster Zones and AP Caps

• Currently there are 2 types of monster zones: places where you make silver from grinding trash items, and places where you make silver from rare drops.
• For example, Stars End is a place where you can obtain rare drops, and Elvia Orc Camp is a place where you can obtain high trash loot.
• PA says that you need more requirements to grind these places with rare drops due to needing high drop rate buffs, while trash loot spots only require agris.
• Therefore, they will be making drop rate increase buffs more impactful.

• AP caps are there to try and prevent high geared players from grinding at spots that are designed for newer players.
• New end-game grind spots weren’t added for a while which meant that a lot of veteran players felt it didn’t matter if they got stronger.
• This was Jae’s mistake and more end-game grinding zones are planned.

• Kratuga and Thornwood Forest silver per hour were recently nerfed, as were too over balanced.
• PA are sorry for the nerf and will be doing more grind spot balancing.

Crystals

• More ways to obtain crystals will be added.
• PA feels that if they made crystals unbreakable then it will cause too many other changes.
• Instead they are trying to make rare drop grinding better and introducing more ways to obtain crystals.
• Crystal inventory will continue to be worked on as well.

Elixirs

• Materials required to craft Elixirs are going to be improved so that they are easier to obtain.
• PA said that elixirs also require better organization, and talked about the idea of merging party and normal elixirs.
• Other ideas included making Draughts stronger than elixirs, or introducing a item where you can combine 16 elixirs into 1 infinite item.
• The idea for an infinite elixir would be similar to Infinite potions and not easy to obtain.
• In korea, a lot of players don’t like treasure grinding, so the idea is not set in stone and feedback is needed.
• PA would also like to improve alchemy, and food buffs in a similar way to the suggestions for elixirs.

Damage Numbers

• PA stated they will never add damage numbers to the live servers and these will remain on Global Labs Testing Server only.
• They feel that you don’t need damage numbers because you can feel your damage without needing to see the numbers.
• If they added damage numbers then players such as your guild master may complain that you don’t do enough damage.

Cron Stone Prices and Costumes

• In August, the prices of costumes and cron stones was increased.
• This price increase also happened in 2019 and 2021.
• After the previous price change, they added many updates to try and improve grind spots and silver per hour to match the price increase.
• For example, at Gahaz, in 2019 the average silver per hour was 100 million, and now in 2023 it is 650 million.
• This is also true for many other grind spots and silver per hour has increased over the years.
• Thefore, if silver per hour is increasing, the costume and cron stone prices also need to be changed to reflect that.
• Although it was talked about, the price increase was delayed many times and that is why it is now such a big change. In the future they will try to voice these changes before implementing them.

• Lots of players also asked about an appearance toggle for Berserker Beast mode This is not possible due to current technical limitations.
• To solve this they would like to make 2 versions of the skill, one with the Beast appearance and one without the Beast appearance.
• Players also asked for more modern costumes and better costumes for their class.
• Jae feels that BDO has unique costumes that fit into the world. He said that even the developers wish they could transform into tigers or bears, but if a new player arrived in Velia and saw a bear and tiger costume, he feels that it wouldn’t fit into the world of BDO.
• Costumes like the Coco outfit and Salanar Outfit were made to try and introduce different costumes that players wanted without breaking the immersion of the game.
• PA also explained that although a lot of players ask for longer capes on their class, it is something that is not easy to fix and would require a big change like the Wizard body rework which took a year to complete.

Field Bosses and Garmoth’s Heart

• The HP of field bosses will be merged for all servers (like world bosses  – Garmoth, Vell, etc.)
• The rewards for Field bosses will also be improved

• Garmoth’s Heart is an important item for improving your damage, but is very difficult to obtain.
• PA are currently discussing ways to make Garmoth’s Heart more obtainable.
• One suggestion was to increase the max price of the heart on the central market, and another suggestion was to add pity pieces for Garmoth’s Heart.
• PA would like to hear players feedback regarding these two suggestions.
• The questline to obtain Garmoth’s Heart will also be improved.

Life Skills

• PA will continue to fix and improve life skills.
• They are aware that sniper hunting is strong at the moment.
• Although Liana’s Toolbag was implemented, they would like to make gathering easier by adding ways you can gather without tools.
• More information will be revealed soon.

Other Content

Dark Rifts

• Dark Rifts will be reduced from 12 bosses to 6. The boss that spawns in Valencia and the Mediah Dark Rift will be removed.
• The respawn time for Dark Rifts will be the same, but there will be more rewards added so that 6 bosses still give the same rewards as completing the 12 current bosses.
• Tier 10 horses will also randomly drop Mythical Feathers when running around, and there is a rumor that Feathers have been showing up in the Dark Rifts.

Mythcial Horses, Horse Racing, Yarr

• Horse racing and Yarr Card Game will get a matchmaking system like Arena of Solare.
• This update is not high priority so it has been delayed in the past.
• You will also be able to get Mythical Feathers from Horse Racing (as well as Dark Rifts).
• Royal Fern Root will be balanced again.

Daily Boss Scrolls

• At the start players really enjoyed the daily boss scrolls.
• However, now players don’t pick up the scrolls every day because they forget or don’t want to.
• The boss scrolls will be changed to (Y) Challenge rewards so that they are easier to obtain

Lakiaro

• Lakiaro is not popular anymore and the rewards are going to be improved to encourage more players to gather Lakiaro again.

Altar of Blood/Savage Rift

• Altar of Blood and Savage Rift are still being reworked and when it is ready it will be shown on Global Lab Testing Server.
• PA are currently questioning whether to remove this content and not continue with the rework.

Adventure Logs

• A lot of the feedback about Adventure Logs is that they are too hard and players rely on guides to complete them.
• They will make the Adventure Logs simplified and easier to complete.

Red Battlefield

• The EXP and rewards for Red Battlefield will be improved so that more players will be encouraged to participate in Red Battlefield.

Black Stones

• PA recieved feedback that there are too many different versions of the Black Stones (Time-filled Blackstones, Flawless Black Stones, etc.)
• This is difficult to fix because of techincal limitations, but PA are considering merging Black Stone Armor and Black Stone Weapons together.

Ocean Content

• PA are developing a sailing mini-game.
• Sailing daily quests will be made easier to complete so that players can complete them solo and don’t have to rely on others or finding a party.
• More ocean content updates are planned for the future and will be continiously updated

Weekly Quests

• Weekly quest reset will be changed to Wednesday for all content so there is less confusion.
• Black Shrine Bosses were made to reset on Sunday, because a lot of players are more active on weekends and are able to do 2 weeks of Black Shrine over one weekend.

Quest Items, Event Items

• Many of the left over quest items from Main Story Quests will be removed.
• These were souvenirs and small rewards for players but in many cases they are not worth keeping and are taking up a lot of space for players.
• Many event items will also be reorganized.

Abyss One: Magnus, Black Shrine Bosses

• PA are considering changing the Magnus so that players do not have to go through so many loading screens.
• They acknowledge that to travel to Land of the Morning Light for Black Shrine is annoying and will try to improve this.
• They are also aware that the red AOE warning zones in Black Shrine bosses are not always at the right times with what players see on their screen.
• It is not an easy fix to do in a short amount of time, but PA will keep trying to fix this issue.

Instruments, Music

• PA noticed more players are using instruments, and the ability to play instruments together with other players will be improved.
• Music ranks will also be improved

Land of the Morning Light

• The potion that can be bought in Land of the Morning Light will be removed.
• They originally made the potion due to inflation so that players would spend more silver for PVP
• However, it was adding extra stress to players and will be removed from the vendor next maintenance.

Crashing Issues

• There have been a lot of reported crashes recently (in the last 2 weeks).
• This crash is completely different from the crashes before and isn’t logging crash errors.
• They are using all test computers in the PA office to test for these crashes, and currently 50% of the developers are working on fixing the crash.
• PA found a potential issue that was causing crashes but when it was implemented it caused more issues so the fix was rolled back.
• They are sorry that this is not a fast fix and working on resolving the issue.

RMT/Account Trading

• PA are aware that some players share accounts and take part in RMT (real money trading). This is against the terms of service.
• Even with OTP (one-time passwords) activated, accounts are being shared.
• PA think they found a way to securely detect this and will be forcing punishment for those caught breaking TOS.