Heidel Ball: AT Home - Global QA [PART 3]

[h3]Part 1 of the Q&A <HERE>[/h3]

[h3]Part 2 of the Q&A <HERE>[/h3]

Q. Before I ask my questions, I’d like to first explain why I have them. Due to the nature of the MMORPG genre, I believe the barrier of entry is something that is always on the mind of both the developers and players. I understand it’s not easy to preserve the value of the effort players put into growing a character, and at the same time, being able to offer a chance to new players to catch up. Black Desert previously implemented limits to AP/DP for Tier 1 Nodes to try to revitalize Node War, but I feel there are still a lot of problems. If you look at the guilds that are winning in Node War, you’ll mostly see a couple of guilds just holding a majority of the Nodes. While these guilds have invested time and effort into winning Nodes, over the course of time they’ve started to monopolize them and have just become a hurdle for guilds first starting out in Node War. So, here are my questions.

1. Thoughts on a specific guild holding multiple Nodes (Question regarding the possibility of 1 guild, 1 node)
2. Additional limitations besides AP and DP for closing the gap (limits on HP, resistance, etc.)
3. How to prevent guilds that sit on a Tier 1 Node for a long time and enter Node War (Possibly introduce Guild Fame that increases when a guild wins in Node War or gains several Nodes, and use this Guild Fame number to adjust profits from lower tier Nodes or just make participating in lower tier Node Wars not possible)

I hope to hear your responses regarding these 3, thank you.

Q. There are currently not enough guilds in Node/Conquest War. While I do believe that the introduction of the War Hero and Guild Alliance system brought a breath of fresh air to the somewhat stagnant Node/Conquest War, these systems also had several negative side effects once they became a fixture. First off, since War Heroes can participate in Node/Conquest War even if their guild isn’t, some players just participate in Siege War as War Heroes without a guild, and there are even mercenary-focused guilds for players who just participate as War Heroes. As a result, not only is the number of guild members who participate in Siege War decreasing, but the number of guilds that participate are decreasing as well. So every week, guilds that diligently participate in Node War only encounter the same guilds over and over again or stick guilds, which causes a cycle of declining interest. Not that long ago, the number of Nodes that Node War occurred in every day was reduced, but that seemed to only be a partial fix and there currently isn’t a lot of guilds properly participating in Node War. All these problems about Node War are getting worse and worse as time goes on.

The same is true for Conquest War. Since the attacking side can accept the maximum number of War Heroes, while the defending side can’t accept War Heroes, this makes the attacking side way too advantageous. Furthermore, guilds that usually have a small number of guild members can still accept a lot of mercenaries to fill their ranks. The problem is that guilds which accept the most powerful mercenaries are the ones that are most dominant in the Siege War. All this leads into incentivizing low guild membership and accepting as many mercenaries as possible, so the end result is a declining sense of accomplishment for winning Siege War as it becomes more about the strength of your mercenaries instead. Naturally this makes the number of guilds participating in Conquest War to decrease. So, I’d like to hear the developers’ thoughts on these problems regarding Node/Conquest War, and if possible, your plans on solving these problems.

A. Node/Conquest War is one of Black Desert’s characteristic content many guilds, big or small, take part in. With so many guilds taking interest and enjoying it, we’ve received and compiled a variety of feedback which we used to make our changes so far. While we will continue to make changes in this manner, let us speak about this topic a bit more today.
One of the biggest current issues of Node War is relatively powerful guilds joining Tier 1 Nodes and making it harder for “novice guilds” to participate in and have fun. (We tried to solve this problem by introducing limits on AP/DP and War Heroes, and while at first it was better, over time stronger guilds once again took over Tier 1 Nodes.) To solve this problem, we believe our first priority is to find a fundamental solution, so that stronger guilds will challenge higher-tier Nodes instead of Tier 1 Nodes. While we do have many ideas, we are examining ways to bring new change to Node War in the near future, including making the rewards better.

As for guilds that are having trouble in the beginning stages, we are considering making lower tiers that are PvE based. This will be akin to an introduction-based Node, and we plan to set it up as a fun goal for guilds that are starting out. But since this is an introduction-based node for a novice guild, guilds won’t be able to keep at it for a long time as it is just meant to encourage them to participate in the original Tier 1 Node Wars.

Of course, we also plan on changing the way you’ll take Nodes. Right now (if Conquest War isn’t the goal), a single guild can take a Node and comfortably try to take another Node over the course of the week. This is where we want to make some changes. We described it as a “hopscotch” or “capture-the-zone” at the Heidel Ball, where if Guild A takes Node B, then afterwards, Guild A can try to take Node C that is connected to B, but we plan to make it difficult or impossible to take the remaining unconnected nodes D and E. Guilds will be able to expand in this way and grow their influence, but it’ll also be more damaging if they lose control of a connecting Node. Additionally, this format will make it harder to defend 2 or 3 Nodes while attacking, so we are considering improving the already developed Alliance system to encourage cooperation when needed. These node connections will also be set up differently for each territory. (The changes are still under development and are subject to change.)

War Heroes, which many players call “mercenaries”, was first introduced as one of the ways you could participate in Node/Conquest War if you were a member of another guild or weren’t a member of a guild. We intentionally didn’t set a limit on more Adventurers participating, so that even weaker guilds could challenge Conquest War, but there have been cases where the strength of the War Heroes has gone beyond that of the guild itself, so as a result, we want to limit that. While we could just limit the number of War Heroes that could participate in Conquest War, we are also considering limiting the participation costs to enable more tactical management. We want to set maximum limits for participation costs according to guild or territory, and the total combat rating calculated for each War Hero’s level, gear, etc. would not be able to go over the maximum. Therefore, guilds that need a War Hero will need to weigh the cost of choosing a select number of the best Adventurers or just a bigger number of average Adventurers depending on the situation. Once we’ve tested and deliberated over this a bit more, we will make an announcement through the Black Desert Global Labs after we’ve finalized our direction. Also, we plan to allow the defending side to have War Heroes as well.

Lastly, adjustments to certain siege weapons. Siege weapons currently each have their own roles and are organized into a kind of rock-paper-scissors set up, but monster weapons, Troll and Ogre, are relatively too effective. Thus, we’re considering keeping their current direction, but adding limitations or changing their roles altogether, so that they can be utilized in other ways.

We understand we cannot 100% satisfy all the guilds and Adventurers who participate in Node/Conquest War. Nevertheless, even though we’ve continued to make improvements to problems to prevent them from becoming fixtures, we apologize for the state of the wars to have remained in its current state as long as it did. We will not be stopping our constant attempts at changes and our final goal is to make Node/Conquest War into something you can challenge and enjoy like a sport. What we mentioned today is only a part of the overall picture, and we will continue to take your feedback and make announcements as soon as our development is finished.


Q. Can you let us lower Guild Incentives to tier 0 for certain guild members?
Q. The Guild Incentive system is way too inconvenient to use. It’s a tiring process every time I give my guild members incentives.
Q. Could you make it possible to let us set allowances for mercenaries in batches or collectively? For instance, the guild master has to give out allowances after defeating Khan, but it requires them to click everyone one-by-one to send it out, which takes way too much time. Please fix this.

A. Regarding this UI quality-of-life change, we will work on this immediately once we’ve set a schedule, and we will do our best to update this as quickly as possible. Additionally, we are not considering a tier 0 for guild incentives yet. We know some guild members might not be able to play or have the best behavior, but they are still your guild members who share your guild mark. (We believe that adding a tier 0 payment will cause more attempts at exploitation)


Q. Are there plans for enhancements levels higher than PEN (V)?

A. We currently don’t have any plans to add higher enhancement levels than PEN (V).


Q. Are you going to expand upon content that uses musical instruments?

A. For Shai, we plan to improve upon her Talent and add more system features like musical/performance techniques & sound modulation effects. Once we’ve added this, you’ll be able to play the same instrument with a different kind of feel, and you’ll be able to tune your sound with audio effects. Beyond this we don’t have any other definite expansion plans yet, but we’ll let you know once we’ve finalized our development direction.


Q. Please let other classes use the Compose/Play system.

A. Since this is content created exclusively for Shai, we expect to keep it exclusive for Shai for now. Once we expand the musical instrumental content in the future and if Shai can treat her musical composition/performance more professionally, we will consider allowing other classes to be able to use it on a limited-basis.


Q. At the Heidel Ball: AT HOME, Adventurers worldwide were able to meet online without space constraints. Going a step further, I hope to see Pearl Abyss’ direct service bring Adventurers from all around the world in one server, so I’m wondering if this is a possible update if the technology is developed in the future.

A. This is a very difficult task, but it’s not a challenge we will not shy away from. Rather than try to accomplish this in one go, we will be trying our first attempts with Thailand and Southeast Asia, and go on from there using the experience we gain.


Q. I hope you’ll look into optimizing the game and servers a little more closely. There’s hunting grounds (e.g. Sycraia) where I get 30 FPS even with a i9 9900k and RTX 2080TI.

A. We plan to update certain areas of Sycraia where frame drop issues occur. If you experience frame drops in other areas, please let us know and we will carefully go over them again.


Q. Are there any plans to lower the Silver you can earn from Ocean Bartering and add more exchange amounts for Crow Coins? Currently, there aren't a lot of Manos accessories, so it’s difficult to get a supply in the Central Market and you can’t buy enhancement materials due to the large volume of Silver.

A. Recently, we’ve made an update to replace the Silver made from Bartering with Crow Coins by making it possible to exchange Level 4 Trade Goods for Crow Coins and introducing “Gold Items” to Material Bartering. We believe the main enhancement materials, including Manos, should be obtained through the original method, so we plan to keep Bartering as a supporting role.


Q. Are there any plans to add a larger variety of Carrack equipment similar to Ebenruth's Nol? For example, an equipment that lets you fire from the front of a ship! Instead of adding more mounts/ships, how about updating things like this?

A. We’re open to the possibility of adding more Carrack equipment, but we haven’t had any specific discussions yet on what kind of equipment we’d add (and what effects they’d have). We agree that there should be more ways to attack and we will keep this in mind when developing the next Treasure Item. However, considering the historical precedent, we would also like to say that placing a cannon at the prow of a ship might not be right for a Carrack.


Q. Will there be an outfit that allows Ninja to equip 6 great swords?

A. We feel that 6 great swords would be too out of character for Ninja, so we’ll do our best to create amazing outfits that really highlight Ninja’s theme instead of giving him 6 great swords.


Q. I’m someone who loves PvP. Will there be any new major content updates from a PvP perspective? Such as Territory War, more interesting Conquest and Node War System, which encourage more team play and objective-based playstyles, or different RBF game modes?
Q. Just like with Bartering, Gathering, and Defeating Monsters, PvP content also needs to be updated. (Letting Adventurers earn silver from PvP, etc.) The reward you get from Red Battlefield is basically just “Fame”. There are zero rewards for open world PvP, so it’s turning into content that feels like a waste of time, since defeated Adventurers can just come back right away. Please give us more reasons to participate in PvP content.

A. In regards to PvP content, we’ve added and improved Team Battle, Final Battle, and Arena of Arsha after the introduction of the Red Battlefield. As for Red Battlefield, we’ve added rewards, including Combat EXP, so you can still somewhat grow your character and farm while doing it. At the early stages of Black Desert, there were 1:1 and 3:3 matches akin to ranking matches, but they weren’t enjoyed by many Adventurers, so we ended up completely removing them. Recently though, more and more Adventurers have requested for the past ranking matches. We are currently developing Thornwood Battlefield, but afterwards, we will look into our Adventurers’ feedback, and promise to continue to gradually expand on more action-packed and thrilling content for PvP-loving Adventurers.


Q. Are there any plans for a PvP mode where players are equipped with the same level of gear?

A. We currently don’t have any plans for such a PvP mode yet. We want to focus on PvP content that rewards the effort Adventurers put into growing their characters. Black Desert is an MMORPG, which means it is a game where Adventurers strive to become stronger through their hard-work and efforts. We plan to continue to stay loyal to this basic philosophy. Of course, we will continue to implement a variety of features such as Olvia servers, Season servers, Tuvala gear, etc. to help new Adventurers starting out to get stronger faster, and if they put in a certain level of effort, be able to be on a similar playing field with existing Adventurers.


Q. The current skill system for classes seems too simple and mediocre. How about making the skill mechanisms a little more complex by introducing more unique skills to each class?

A. We don’t have any plans to make major changes to the skill system for all the classes. Black Desert at its core specializes in fast combat with a lot of room for freedom of choice. At first all skills had cooldowns, but this felt too limiting, so we made a number of skills be usable even during cooldown. We believe adaptation and assessment during this process are a part of the “Combat Method”. That’s why we won't implement skills that are more complex than what we have now.
Black Desert is meant to be a place where you can have fun with many other Adventurers. Instead of more complex systems, we will continue to look into and examine skills that are more intuitive or have new forms, functions, and abilities. Additionally, we will consider things to make certain classes feel a bit more demanding control-wise by clearly bringing out the concept of the class.


Q. Can you share your thoughts on changing up the current meta of PvP in Black Desert? Because I think that there should be a diverse choice on the stats that you put in on your character, unlike now where evasion is a step above. I think creating a diverse set of choices can make Adventurers choose their weapons, armors, and accessories more differently.
Q. The current meta is for evasion gear, which is stronger than damage reduction gear, so I want to ask your thoughts about the gap between evasion and damage reduction gear.

A. To be frank, this is what we debate about the most internally. Black Desert’s evasion system at its core will ignore an opponent’s attack all together, which makes accuracy incredibly important from the opponent’s perspective. However, while accuracy can be gained from gear, there also exists a discrepancy depending on the skill effects of each class. What we’re considering is giving all classes more basic accuracy, along with changing the accuracy number for skill effects, so there isn’t that much of a gap between skills, and changing evasion from avoiding all damage to some damage (e.g. evading takes only 1/10 of damage instead). As for damage reduction, we are discussing various possibilities, including supplementing defensive skills with additional effects like with accuracy or even a formula of maximizing damage reduction effects through add-ons.
However, we haven’t been able to easily come to a decision due to how much of an impact they have to the game. Even though we haven’t decided upon what exact method we’ll take, we won’t give up, and we’ll continue holding discussions until we come to an answer. If you have any good suggestions like these questions, please feel free to submit a ticket to our Support, and we’ll read them all closely.


Q. There are many theories and assumptions about RNG. Some Adventurers even think that certain accounts are “chosen” (horoscope, character creation date, enhancement date/time, etc.) So, is there anything that actually affects RNG? Or is RNG really just pure luck?

A. There are no “chosen” accounts. Everyone's the same and this will remain the same in the future. As the person writing this answer though… I always talk to Crio before enhancing. It makes me feel happier when I see his face, even though the end results are the same… Queek...