Kako Games revealed their roadmap for Black Desert Online during the the FESTA event. The game will soon get a new class and a new territory will be available in early 2018. Black Desert Online players will receive a free maid of choice in December after fulfilling a special Black Spirit quest.
Pearl Abyss held an event in South Korea last weekend. During the FESTA event, Kakao Games revealed their roadmap for Black Desert Online. A keynote session was held by JaeHee Kim, the Executive Producer of Black Desert Online who spoke about the current development challenges, planned improvements, and future ideas.
I'm here to compile those into bite-sized chunks of information that you can read. While on the topic of announcements, Kim spoke about a new martial arts class for the game. Her name is Lahn and she uses a unique crescent scythe with deadly flair and carries a short sword in the off-hand. Lahn can also dash through the air.
Kakao Games
Those of you with storage space issues will be happy to know that the Black Desert Online team managed to reduce the game's client size from 51 GB to 27 GB. Some performance enhancements included.
The improvements will be implemented this week and finalized by 13 December.
Black Desert Online’s UI is about to receive a makeover as well. You'll be given the option to decide how much information is displayed on screen. In Action mode, only UI elements that are connected with combat (HP, quick slots, buff/debuff icons, etc.) will be visible. In addition, Pearl Abyss is working on a 3D mini-map that not only highlights points of interest but also shows elevations in the landscape.
The "near future" will bring the option of making money in the Red Battlefield. Additional mini-games will aim to make material gathering more fun. On top of that, some improvements to training levels and fail stacks for horse Awakening are in the pipeline. Tutorials for players who are stuck in the middle of progress are almost finished.
Kakao Games
"To revamp the quest system, a new feature called the ‘Story Book’ (name tentative) will be introduced. With the Story Book, players can make money by doing quests all day and these quests will be made a lot more enjoyable. Story Book will allow not only a silver bonus but also gives a Combat EXP Bonus and Skill EXP Bonus" explains the press release.
Early 2018 will see a new territory added to the world of Black Desert Online. Dreegan will be inhabited by dragons and offer a new form of party play.
New rules and battle formats are coming to the conquest wars: The Guild Battle will consist of three options: a 20 vs 20 players mode, a 5 vs 5 mode or an all-out model. A new feature is under development: it will allow induvidual players, who are not part of a guild, to participate in guild battles.
Kakao Games
We've reached the "other improvements" pile.
First up are the standard main-weapon skills. They will increase in power to be on par with the current awakening-weapon skills. Absolute skills: these will allow players to switch combat strategies on the fly, making for even more diverse and engaging combos and movesets.
Pearl Abyss has announced they are working on an update to the skill customization system, where players can combine & fuse certain skills to create new ones. What's different with this announcement is that players will be able to fuse skills of their choice to create new skills instead of following the fusion formulas available.
A new "Character Tag" system that allows players to switch classes live without disconnecting from the game will be introduced in South Korea next week. Another new feature in development is the ‘Gear Imprint System’ that lets the players attach their Family Name to weapons and armour.
Kakao Games
Kim added that the team will deliver more detailed patch notes in the future, as well as communicate with the community more often about future updates and current topics.
Kim also mentioned that all worldwide Black Desert Online players will receive a free maid of choice in December after fulfilling a special Black Spirit quest, available to characters that are level 50 or above.
