Introduction

The latest Late Night Talks with Pearl Abyss broadcast took place on 3rd August 2022.

You can catch the official stream at the following links:

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

Drakania Awakening and Class Balance

Drakania Awakening is different from other classes and took a long time to release. After the launch of Drakania Succession, it took time to get feedback and start developing the awakening specialisation. By taking time with the development, the quality of effects and animations that players felt were lacking in the succession, had full focus in awakening. Balance is something that will be continiously worked on and as the class has just released, will take time, but Pearl Abyss hopes that players enjoy the new Awakened Drakania.

A class balance patch is scheduled for this week on Global Labs. In addition, an internal testing phase based on data from players is taking place, and feedback is always collected through the suggestion forums as well. The patch is focused on making adjustments to classes that are too powerful in PVP, too efficient in PVE, and classes that have low efficiency in PVE. After this balance patch, more data will be collected for fine-tuning.

Since PVE balance is top priority, the direction is to reduce classes that are outstanding, while preserving their class characteristics. The classes which are currently showing excessive performance in the top PVE grind spots are Shai, Succession Musa and Succession Striker.

In the case of Awakened Corsair, there are difficulties with PVE because of the summon pets and Pearl Abyss is tyring to find a way to tweak their targetting or find a solution for summoned pets.

Arena of Solare

The first season will start on August 17th and run for about 2 months. There are going to be some changes made for the first PVP Season. For example, the result window where players can check how much damage was dealt and who is the MVP has been improved so that you can now see more information about the match. It will be possible to check the equipment and skill specialisation (Awakening/Succesison) of players. A seperate ranking page has been created as well to check the rankings by a specific class.

In addition, the matchmaking has been adjusted so that only 2 of the same class will be matched into the same team. The MVP criteria has also changed so that it is not only about which teammate does the most damage, but will take in their full contribution, such as number of CC, and other factors.

For the first season, high-ranking players will be rewarded with the Arena of Solare costume, and additional rewards that have not yet been shown.

For players who would like to practise their PVP outside the reanked matches, a practise mode will be added during the times when ranked queue is not available. Players can also form a party with a friend or guild member when entering practise mode.

Buff Items and Fairy Changes

In the last Late Night Talks, the convenience update of buff items was discussed. The ability to automatically consume food and elixirs will be added as a fairy skill called “Generous Touch”. Whenever the effect of a buff item ends, the fairy will automatically use the item. It will also be possible to customise which buff items the fairy will consume.

Fairy’s maximum level will be adjusted to level 50 for this change so that you can learn the new skill. Since there are many players who have already got their “perfect fairy”, the tiers will not be changed in any way. Instead Pearl Abyss will be giving Theia’s Orbs to all players through events and the loyalty store, so that players can easily obtain the new skill. This update will be taking effect next week (in Korea).

Based on the teaser image below, it seems players will be able to select multiple consumables to automatically use when the buff duration ends. There are also 3 save presets for different needs, such as life skill buffs, grinding buffs, pvp buffs, etc. The skill will have up to level 5 and the higher the level, the more different consumables you are able to select for the skill. For example, at level 5 you are able to select a total of 20 different consumables to be automatically used.

Node War/Conquest

Pearl Abyss are trying to improve the identification of enemies during Node Wars and Siege. This will be done by allowing players to select and assign a color to both friendly and enemy guilds. In addition, the conditions for constructing a fort will be relaxed and the installation time of Annex buildings will be reduced to 1 second when building before a node war/siege starts.

Currently the main tiers of node wars are in Calpheon, Mediah and Vlaencia. The official name has not been finalised yet, but interally an “Elven War” is being discussed, with new rules and designed so that more guilds can participate. Details will be revealed in the next Banquet (Heidel Ball) later this year.

Inventory Update

A UI update is planned for the character inventory so make it clearer and easier for new players. A function will also be added to make it easier to tranfer items to one place instead of them being scattered across multiple characters. This function will use maids and allow you to move items directly from one character to another as long as they are in the same region.

New Costumes

As the number of classes increases, more and more players are waiting for a new costume for their class. Pearl Abyss will be changing the way that costumes are released and want to try to put a story behind the creation of the costume. For example, they would like players to naturally understand the name of the costume and concept design by linking them to an in-game story. Whilst it may take longer to prepare, this new idea allows them to release a costume for 2 or 3 classes that share the story together. Through August and September, new costumes will be released every 2 weeks, then from October onwards, new costumes will be released in this new way.