General Discussion

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When it was announced last year that Pearl Abyss America’s former CEO, Jeonghee “JJ” Jin was leaving the company she helped to build, I’ll admit I was pretty stunned. As the face of Pearl Abyss America, JJ made the company much more approachable, while also creating a culture that both celebrated its people as well as the BnS NEO Divine Gems players who make up the Adventurer’s in its flagship Black Desert Online.

So when the announcement came that she was moving from Pearl Abyss to rival NC America (the Western publishing arm of Korean MMO giant, NCSOFT), I had quite a few questions. One major question that lingered was just what exactly was NC America? We had heard of NC America for a while, always seemingly alongside NCSOFT West’s operations, but it was hard to pin down exactly what this offshoot of NCSOFT’s role was within the company.

“It was also kind of unexpected and a very difficult decision for me,” JJ said. She continued, “I did a lot of things at Pearl Abyss America, and [I’m] very proud of my team ex-team - there.” JJ says that while she wasn’t looking for something new, conversations kicked off with NCSOFT several months before the decision. NCSOFT, over the last few years, has gone through quite a bit of organizational and leadership changes, layoffs across the company as recently as last October, while in 2023, NCSOFT West was hit with layoffs that saw 20% of its total staff affected.

These changes were made with the idea of potentially strengthening its global publishing capabilities, though it has been far from destitute here in the West thanks to Seattle-based ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2, which continues to release stellar expansions including our pick for Best Expansion in 2024, Janthir Wilds. However, NCSOFT’s own developed titles, especially its legacy brands such as Lineage, cheap Blade and Soul NEO Classic Divine Gems and more have often struggled with a Western audience. This is what JJ was brought on to help bolster: reaching the broader market here in the West for some of the most popular games NCSOFT has developed.

"We want to avoid what we've seen in other games, such as my adventures occasionally in Diablo IV Gold," Luis continues. "Depending on how you play what luck you have, sometimes you may be wearing head to toe gear that never dropped for you, it was all fully bartered for. We want to make sure that we are in control of these knobs. I feel pretty great that our balance team can fix those knobs accordingly too, but it's still early days so that I can't tell you which items go in which bucket"

"We want to avoid what we've seen in several other games, such as my experiences sometimes in Diablo 4." Coming in Diablo 4 is going to be PvP, that will arrive in the kind of PvP zones that are particular. Will feel more dangerous and hostile than others due the danger of Nephalem. "We are not promising players it will be a fair fight.

John and being two vs one that is not fair and you might be murdered by us and I could run into you. There is no expectation it will be tuned, but we are constructing the game with PvP in mind from the start. And that is as it's hard to sort of back to PvP later." Stay tuned for the final part of our Diablo 4 discussion build doctrine, and the game's state.

It's a narrative that is virtually videogame folklore at this time, the example of a game which was able to flip things around and resolve some fundamental issues which were holding it back from greatness. With the release of the Reaper of Souls growth for d4 mats, two years following the 2012 launching of the base-game, the arrival of Loot 2.0 and more open Adventure Mode end-game led to among the industry's more well-known redemption stories.

Each map will now feature a guaranteed minimum number of rare monsters, ensuring that POE 2 Currency Orbs players encounter more opportunities to earn valuable drops. The increased average number of rare mods per map will further boost loot quality.

Unique monsters will no longer drop more than 50% gold, and act bosses and map bosses are guaranteed to drop at least one rare item. These changes aim to balance the risk-reward dynamic, ensuring that tougher encounters feel worthwhile and that players have more consistent access to loot essential for crafting, upgrades, and trading in the game's economy.

Another area of concern addressed by GGG involves dodge rolls. Players reported frequent instances of being trapped by monsters, leading to unavoidable deaths. While GGG maintains that getting trapped is an intentional part of the game's design, the frequency was deemed excessive. Adjustments to dodge roll mechanics will make it slightly easier for players to escape tight situations without removing the underlying challenge.

GGG is also actively rebalancing skills that are considered overpowered. For instance, the Raging Spirits skill will be nerfed to limit players to summoning five spirits per cast at all levels. Additionally, spirits can no longer be summoned from triggered Fire Skills. While these changes are aimed at balancing gameplay, they've sparked calls from the community for a full character respec option to allow players to adjust builds affected by the nerfs.

GGG is rolling out changes in phases, with patch 0.1.0c addressing many of the immediate concerns around loot drops and POE 2 Currency for sale gameplay mechanics. Players can expect more updates as GGG continues to gather feedback and refine the game during Early Access.