Late Night Talks with PA – 30th November 2023

Introduction

The Late Night Talks with Pearl Abyss stream took place on 30th November 2023 and focused on addressing the issues recently developing in Korea, where players have been protesting due to several concerns. First of all, players felt that J was not listening to feedback, and making big changes to PVP based on popular streamers or new players only. There was also a case where a popular streamer was reported for potentially using macros, and the report was not properly investigated, so players felt that PA gave better treatment to streamers.  In addition, players felt that J was stubborn when it came to certain suggestions and topics discussed in the previous Late Night Talk, instead of giving players what they really wanted.

This time the stream was kept short, and J spoke to us alone to discuss PVP and Service issues only.

J’s Apology

• J started today’s stream on his own by bowing his head to the players.
• He said he wanted to apologize and talk to us directly and honestly, which is why he is alone this time.
• He said that the last stream was not good enough and he hopes this time will be better, because they wanted to cover many topics and that meant they didn’t go into enough detail with them.
• J also said he was stubborn with certain things like the damage numbers, and he is sorry about that.
• J now regrets many things he said from the last stream and apologizes that players worldwide do not feel heard. This time CM Endlaive from EU/NA servers gave an official English recap for the first time.
• J has been with players since 2013 and hopes he is seen as a fellow player since he is one of the oldest developers for the game.
• Recently there was a large surge of new players in Korea, with many big streamers trying the game. PA felt overwhelmed and a little scared by this.
• Some players abused the guild decs and these new players left the game because of it. He said new players are important for the game and lots of new players were leaving the game because of being harassed.
• That is why the dec was removed. He said that he should have talked about this more before the changes were implemented, and explained the reason at the time.
• For other content, even though players feel it was implemented because of new players, it was actually under development already and not added for streamers or new players.
• J thought he was working hard and giving us what we wanted, but he says he did not communicate well enough which caused more problems.

GVG League War

• When people talk about PVP, they often think of open-world PVP and group PVP.
• J would like to introduce a Guild League War, a ranking PVP arena for GVGs.
• There will be a matchmaking system with multiple rules and maps and they are considering the matches to be 10 – 20 players per side.
• There will be no restrictions on gear and there will be 2 league division (1st and 2nd division) which will depend on skill level.
• J wanted to introduce this new PVP system so that people can PVP as they like without affecting those in your guild who don’t want to be involved.
• This update will arrive next month as a pre-league for testing without ranking.
• Rewards will be added for both individuals and the guild.
• They will also remove the “Final Battle” GVG content since it is unused.

Node War Rework

• There are currently some problems in node wars, which have been discussed and contemplated a lot. This is now a top priority for PA and the rework will be developed as soon as possible.
• Some issues include barrier of entry, lack of guilds participating, and difficulty for base builders.
• If some guilds are too strong then the winner is already decided before the fight happens, and players know that which is why they don’t want to fight.
• Other feedback J has received is that it is too much work for Guild Masters to run a node war, so in this new system, the guild will not have to build their fort anymore and there will already be a fort and buildings when you start. This is so your guild can focus more on fighting and not on building your base.

Red Battlefield

• Currently, some players leave Red Battlefield deliberately to try and re-enter so they can swap to the winning team.
• This will be changed so that when you re-enter, you will join the same team as before.

Hate Speech and Macro Issues

• There is an offensive hand gesture in Korea which is linked to an extreme group, and players found this gesture in-game, such as a Shai dance animation, and the Black Spirit Claw icon. This is why these were recently changed because Pearl Abyss does not support this and the link was unintentional.
• J said that any form of hate speech will not be tolerated.
• He also explained that when there is a report into a user, they should temporarily ban the player first and then proceed with the investigation.
• However, this did not happen in this case and J is sorry and said it will be improved, with changes to the ToS to prevent this from happening again.
• The punishments given to macro users are not perfect and need to be case by case, because of this it takes a long time to discuss and review.

Communication

• J said that they are sorry that players get late replies to their questions.
• They get lots of tickets with questions and it is hard to keep up with them all.
• In the future, they will develop a system so that you can see an estimated time of when you will get a reply.

Regrets from last Stream – Gun Class, Costumes

• Despite the previous stream, J said they have now started working on a gun class, and it will be released next year.
• He also said that they will introduce more unique and different costumes from what we have now. Previously, it was decided that this would not happen because they wanted to keep the theme of a medieval game and these outfits felt out of place, but they have prepared a new costume and shared it with us today.

Conclusion and Calpheon Ball

• J apologized once again and promised that there would be changes going forward, starting with himself.
• He said he knows he needs to change and will show the players that he has changed at Calpheon Ball.
• The Calpheon Ball will be taking place on 16th December 2023.