Crows Corner Community FAQ - March 8th

Question from the Torchlight: Infinite content creator:  Lexyu

1. At the beginning of Season 2, hotfixes disabled many sources of conversion, like cold to fire damage on Gemma's Hero Memory. Will this be reenabled, and if so, will Gemma be nerfed in other ways to compensate?

A：These affixes will be redesigned in the new season, and balance adjustments will also be made.

2. Is it intended to allow players to double dip damage bonuses through conversion chains?

A：Yes, that's correct. This affix itself has two effects, and the "conversion chains" does not add damage twice, but rather allows both effects to take effect.

3. Can we be allowed to use stored items directly from the stash? For example, entering maps using beacons in the stash, or using embers stored in the stash while crafting at the npc. This would improve quality of life for players with multiple characters.

A：That's a proposal worth considering.

4. Are there plans to implement special stash tabs that can stack more items?

A：We not have the plan to add special stash tabs for the moment.

5. Some builds are reaching 63B DPS or more. What is the acceptable amount of dps a build should have before it is nerfed, if any?

A：We keep our eyes on any abnormal damage data on our backend,and if we spot anything unusual, we'll double-check to see if it's reasonable. If the data is reasonable, we're okay with it, but we can't share specific numbers publicly."

6. Attack based builds are capable of reaching 63B DPS because they can increase attack speed to 30 attacks per second. Spell based builds are weaker, especially due to the 2.1B hit cap. Are there any plans to bridge this gap?

A：It's true, there is a 2.1 billion single damage per hit limit, it will be changed in the next season. It will reduce that gap to some extent. Spells will also be tweaked and enhanced in the new season.

7. I believe you are planning to remove the damage cap, which is good news for builds that don't hit as rapidly as attack based builds. Are there concerns that damage numbers will go too high, especially if there are limitations to the game engine? If so, what are the plans for fixing it?

A：Next season, we will increase the damage cap by changing the game engine, and we will continue to monitor damage data. If there are abnormally high damage values, we will investigate them.

Community FAQ

Q：Mobile users in my channel are requesting if we have an option to zoom in and out on mobile.

A：This feature is currently in development, but scaling is limited and may cause faster consumption on mobile devices.

Q：We already know that the Dev team wants seasonal life time to be 3 months, But since it needs a lot of content to play for that amount of time (Most players quit after the first month), is there any chance to reduce it to 2 months?

A：We currently have no plans to adjust the three-month season cycle, as each season's new content requires a significant amount of research and development time.

Q：Recent developer blog mentioned that many players defeated Lord of the Void Sea, ensuring that enrichment of game play content was needed. If so, could you show the percentage of players who defeated Lord of the Void sea? I mean, there was a 'certain game developer' who thought their game content was 'exhausted too fast' when only 1% of total players managed to defeat the final boss.

A：It is certain that the number of players who can defeat the highest difficulty Void Sea Boss is far more than 1%. When we are evaluating whether a design needs improvement, we take into account both data and community feedback to make a comprehensive assessment. From the overall feedback and data we have received so far, it is clear that there is relatively less content for players to experience and the playability of the season is still not enough.

Q：I want to know what the team thinks is the most valuable in terms of game design.  Specifically on character progression now that you have data collected from S2, where players were focusing on gathering elemental fuel.  How can this meta be altered so that players' time is respected and the game has more to offer than a singular farming strategy?

A：The real value lies in the enjoyment of the game. The previous strategy required "cards + compass + six god trials," which had a high learning curve and relied on luck. In the current Black Sail season gameplay, players can earn good FE rewards by choosing the right Seal Whisper with low learning costs. The current strategy for collecting FE is still within our expectations. However, FE is not everything for the game reward. We hope to see more valuable loot, such as the equipment foundation needed for the new crafting system mentioned in the dev blog, as well as new legendary equipment.

Q："Hi.  Are there any plans to improve in the game help section?

I'd like to see some structure or search, more articles and actual illustrations.

Also let us skip reminders for help with second and next characters, pls."

A：We will continue to improve the in-game guidance system step by step. In addition, we plan to add some content creator tutorial videos in-game to help players better understand the game.

Q："Hi!  Please, tell us more about exp penalty.

What level difference is minimal for it?

How does it scale?  What is the max value?

At which level difference does penalty reach its max?

Also it would be great if you add this info to ingame help."

A：This calculation is quite complex... However, we suggest that players keep their character level and map level within +/- 5 levels to obtain the highest experience rewards.

Q：I understand that whirlwind was very strong in season 1 and needed to be rebalanced.  Are you happy with the changes to whirlwind and do you think it is still a viable skill choice this season?  Currently, I find that whirlwind is only decent when you have very high +minimum channel stacks and 100% steep strike.  This is very difficult to achieve unless you choose a two handed sword for your weapon.  Are there any plans to add more ways to obtain +minimum channel stacks, such as crafts or corrodes to allow more weapon choices? 

A：The adjustment to Whirlwind is quite in line with our expectations. The minimum channel stack is one of the core cultivation methods of Whirlwind Slash in the last season. In this season, the probability of striking has been added, but the advantages of Whirlwind's mobility and large damage range still exist. Overall, its strength is within our expectations.

Q：I wanna know if there's any intention of making AH Premium Booths stop being seasonal to promote people to buy them overtime to increase their slots without the

feeling of a waste if they stop playing the season after they buy one.

A：For the time being, we will not adjust this aspect.

Q："Could you tell us what are Physique, In proximity , Shattering  on some items? I believe these terms should have their own tooltips."

A：“In proximity” means within 4 meters, “Physique” means the size of the character  model, which can also affect the range of melee skill. Upon defeating an enemy, the Ice Imbue skill triggers the "Shattering" effect.

We will gradually improve the explanations for these terms in the future.

Q：Beam skill's performance is limited in every single way possible.  1st, they have so little area.  A scorching beam and icebound beam are single target skills (which is ridiculous considering this game is all about decimating hordes of monsters) and all of beam skills are short ranged.  (They can never hit enemies beyond the screen) 2nd, they get no benefit from increasing max channeling stacks.  scorching beam, icebound beam, and wilting beam activate their core function(explosion, projectile, reap) at max channeled stack.  So increasing max channeling stack actually makes beam skills to activate their core function less, making them weaker.  3rd, they have minuscule damage.  Having so little range, game mechanics colliding with skill's core function is bad enough, but having so little damage is a nail in the coffin.  Combined with the fact that these skills require you to stop and channel to deal damage, basically no one uses these kinds of skills. Why are those skills designed like this?

A：Thank you for the feedback on the use of the beam skills. Scorching Beam had a decent performance during the Blacksail dark surge season. It may not be as prominent this season, but we will make balance adjustments in the future. We will also introduce new beam skills for players to explore.

Q："Are you happy with decreasing numbers of active players by just 2-3 weeks??

can we expect changes or additions in gameplay mechanics and events from the upcoming season?"

A：Indeed, the performance of this season did not meet our expectations. In the next season, we will add more content that is worth players' time and effort, and will provide better rewards.

Q："ailment damage modifiers, especially Shock & Wilt, are too weak.

Shock damage is not affected by bonuses, and there is 3% base damage of lightning damage hit.  So if I deal 1M per hit, it will be 30k shock damage per settlement.

Scaling the hit damage will be much more effective than finding ""Adds ### Base Shock Damage"".  Because the value of ### is the actual damage it will be added since it won't be scale by +##% element damage or something.  So those modifiers are useless.

Wilt has a weird mechanic, The duration of each stack of wilt is splitted, it won't refresh by adding a new stack.  So to maximize the Wilt damage, I have to find ""duration"" and ""damage"" modifiers, also ""attack or cast speed"" to fasten the stack up speed.

Since the base damage is small, it's hard to scale.  Even if I have 20K wilt damage per stack, I need 50 stack to deal 1M/s.  And need large amounts of ""duration"" and ""speed"" to keep the damage stable.

The most fast way to stack wilt currently is using Shotgun Effect of Lethal Flash.  I've crafted a full T1 set for ""Corrosive Throw"", I can have about 350 stacks on max.  & reaping every 0.5s.  But it is still way slower than dealing hit damage in T7 map.  It's totally not worth it, too much investment but too little damage."

A: Increasing shock base damage was originally planned as a gameplay feature, but we later discovered some conflicts during the design process, and currently, there is no ideal solution. We will likely remove most of the related affixes first, and then add them back later if we have a good idea. As for the balance-related issues with Wilt, we are still considering how to adjust it.

Q：Does upgrading Starfish Chanter to lvl3 increase her Passive's chance to double the effect of Sea Whispers from 20 to 40%?

A: Doubling refers to the additional affix effect +100%, which is an additional +8% drops

Questions from the chat

1. In proxminity：means within 4 meters. nearby: means within 6 meters.

2. Any plans to get rid of case sensitive search?

A: This issue has been fixed

3. When are you planning to fix the reaping bug and Blade of ring?

A: We are still trying to locate the reaping and Blade of ring bug(losing damage), it's a very weird bug. Now, there is no time frame for the repair.

4. Is there any plan on making switching builds easier? Like a build and skill loadout?

A: The function of Build switching is difficult to complete temporarily, because there are too many systems involved.

5. There are so many "expired items" & show the same item multiple-times in search of trade house, will this be fixed next season?

A: This issue will be fixed in the next season.