Crows Corner Q&A Recap: Aeterna 1-2
Welcome to the Maxroll Crows Corner Recap: Aeterna, weeks 1-2. Crows Corner is a podcast-like livestream that occurs every Tuesday at 11 PM EST inside Torchlight Infinite's official Discord Server. The hosts are GG-Lawren (XD Community Manager) and our own Xtra37. Together, they answer questions submitted by the community, the livestream's audience, and even each other! If you'd like to ask XD developers a question about Torchlight Infinite, you can do so here.
For this Crows Corner Q&A Recap, we're covering everything that was asked, answered, and discussed during weeks 1-2 of Crows Corners during Torchlight Infinite's City of Aeterna Season. You can find our last recap which covered the 13th and final Crows Corners of Season 3 here!
Major News Recap
Below, you'll find a recap of the most noteworthy news to come out of Crows Corner and other places during weeks 1-2 of Torchlight Infinite's City of Aeterna Season.
Mid-Season Events
XD's been cooking up some content for everyone enjoy throughout the Season.
- The Demise of the False God Event (which is already live!) pits players against Uber Keegan and "Dog Keegan" to earn Jagged Primocrysts, and up to 15 Appearance Crystals (used for Appearance Boons).
- If you're looking for some builds capable of tackling this Event - or at least most of its stages - check out Milkybk_'s top Endgame Build Ideas.
- GG-Lawren has been talking about the Legendary Wish-List Event for a while, we don't know when within the Season it'll come out. What we do know is that it will allow players to select from a list of Legendary Equipment, the chosen Equipment's blueprint will then drop significantly more often.
- This Event should make the task of obtaining build-enabling specific Legendary Equipment much easier.
- GG-Lawren's previously described "Mid Season Mini League" is still scheduled to come this Season, though we don't know much about it. As always, it may be delayed in the event of something catastrophic occurring during development, so players should wait for it to be officially announced.
- Look forward to the Moon Appreciation Festival event launching September 29th.
- Participating players will obtain Tax Vouchers (used to reclaim Flame Elementium paid as Tax), and Hero Emblems.
- Hero Emblems are used in the Hero Shop to obtain Heroes and Hero Traits.
Bugs & Compensation
There's always bound to be some Bugs in need of squashing after the launch of a new Torchlight Infinite Season, and City of Aeterna was no exception. This time, XD's felt pretty bad about it and awarded all players 10 Appearance Crystals (used for Appearance Boons) in compensation.
Notable Bugs since patched include, but are not limited to:
- An exploit that allowed players to merge properties of their maps with Timemark 8. With this exploit, players were able to drop tons of Rank 5 Beacons for no cost, flooding that market.
- To stop the exploit ahead of its patch, XD disabled switching between Timemark 8 and Timemarks 1-7.
- Many players were thus stuck in Timemark 8 and had to wait for this to be fixed the next day.
- Players who abused this exploit received temporary bans.
- XD made an internal calculation error when developing Iris's To You Who Are Calm Memory, which allowed Summon Frost Spirit to easily achieve game-breaking damage output for not too much investment outside of the Memory.
- Summon Frost Spirit Can still break the game wide open, but you need to work quite a bit harder for that now.
- Turns out Spacetime Elapse had multiple of his Traits bugged to be dysfunctional.
- This is no longer the case, and he functions as intended now.
- Unfortunately, he's still the worst Hero Trait.
- A Reforge + Craft button was added to Targeted Processing, a welcome QoL addition, though the original implementation had a problem.
- The Reforge + Craft button's text was bugged, its text originally said "TextTable_...".
- This left players very confused until it was fixed.
Community Q&A
Every week, Torchlight Infinite's community submits many questions to ask XD. Every week, XD presents answers on Crows Corner. This section of the article recaps content from weeks 1-2 of Crows Corner during Torchlight Infinite's City of Aeterna Season. Below, you'll find:
- The Community's questions
- GG-Lawren's answers to those questions
- Xtra37's live commentary
- Editor's Notes that add context when needed.
Note that duplicate questions are not included and that all questions, answers, and discussions are paraphrased for your reading convenience.
Crows Corner Official Transcripts
We were told that Youga - Spacetime Elapse would get more affixes related to DoT and or Affliction. What we got was a small buff to Spacetime Speed-up, this adjustment wasn't enough and feels kinda pointless, what's the design philosophy behind this?
GG-Lawren: We adjusted Spacetime Speed-up's Affliction effect modifier to be an additional multiplier instead of just increased, so that this trait is useful for players who get increased Affliction effect elsewhere. We know that Elapse is presently weak, and we will consider buffing him in a future version.
Editor's Note: GG-Lawren confirmed to Xtra37 that the devs plan on buffing Elapse in the next Season, but they aren't sure as to how at the moment, as much of their balance change work occurs in the weeks before a Season starts.
Gemma - Flame of Pleasure is shown with intact limbs, the season preview doesn't exactly explain this. Is this a lore change, or did the designers just think she looked better with real limbs?
Xtra37 and GG-Lawren: Alternative Hero Traits are canonically parallel variants of the original, taking the origin story of the character and setting onto a different path. It's a "What if?" type of thing.
T1-T4 Beacons (used to access Timemarks 1-7) are extremely abundant, especially now that the Trader just sells them. Compasses were removed (mostly), perhaps the next step is removing or simplifying Beacons? How does opening up maps with Netherrealm resonance sound?
GG-Lawren: We currently have no plans to do anything like that.
You've said that "Calculation subtracts Armor Damage Mitigation Penetration from the Armor's damage reduction percentage", and that the result may be even below zero. But it's not clear how it works with non-physical damage. For example: enemy Armor reduces 25% physical and 15% non-phys dmg, my physical penetration is 35%, thus my physical skill deals +10% instead of -25%, Right? What will happen with elemental damage? Will it change from -15% to +20% in such case?
GG-Lawren: Your two conclusions are correct.
I noticed that Wilting Beam has had its damage buffed, but its DoT duration was reduced to 0. Does this mean that increasing DoT duration or using Reap Purification is now ineffective?
GG-Lawren: This is a visual-only bug. In reality, Wilting Beam's duration hasn't been changed and remains at 1.6 seconds.
Considering the vast difference between exchange rates in different regions, are you planning to enable purchase of content using Steam or Google, etc regional pricing capabilities. Maybe limiting this to only the season pass to avoid RMT if needed?
Editor's Note: GG-Lawren was pretty sure that XD already supports regional pricing and was confused by this question. Xtra37 was confused as to how this at all relates to RMT.
Hello, does Nourishment effect scale with Hero's Empower Skill effect stat, or with Spirit Magi Empower Skill effect?
GG-Lawren: It scales with the Hero's Empower Skill effect stat.
Hello. First of all, I want to applaud you for making a fun league mechanic, and dramatically improving crafting for early to mid game crafts. Thank you. My question is in regards to targeted processing. I am currently trying to place a mod on my wand, even t2 is fine, and the success rate is 5pct... This is far too low for ANY mod, much less a t2 mod. The cost to roll this is 1fe, with an additional 3 fe to reforge. This is crazy. Would you consider drastically increasing the success rates, or decreasing the cost?
GG-Lawren: Your equipment's item level may be too low, resulting in the highest possible affix being T2. Check the potential Affix Tier levels before crafting.
Xtra37: Sound's like your Equipment's item level is too low, your working with a mod that only has 3 tiers (2, 1, and 0) but the item level is blocking two of them, so the chances of hitting the mod are much lower than normal.
I found out "Precise: Cast while Channeling" skill is no longer on the drop pool of The Watchers, unlike other Precise trigger skills. Is this not a new change? Because I didn't find this information in the Patch notes.
GG-Lawren: At no point should Precise: Cast while Channeling have been dropping from Watchers, we're unsure where you've seen it preciously, because it only drops from Path of the Brave.
Xtra37: I took the liberty of checking a couple things while you were talking, I can verify that this has ALWAYS been a Path of the Brave drop. I have no idea what this question is on about.
Autoloot's became a bit more messy this Season, with Casting Wedge and Pages of Aeterna having the same background color as Flame Sand. Of these three, only Flame Sand is collected by Auto Loot, which I do not expect. Is this intended?
GG-Lawren: We're working on a customizable Loot Filter to allow players to solve this issue themselves. Auto Loot not picking certain items up is by design, if everything is automatically collected, the looting experience feels much worse.
Editor's Note: GG-Lawren noted that the devs are really pushing to get customizable Loot Filters out next Season. As always, it can be delayed if something deeply unfortunate happens during development, so Lawren wishes players to keep an eye for official announcements on the matter.
Does generic Max Elemental Resistance work for Gemma's Banquet of Bliss, or is it only specifically max Fire Resistance?
GG-Lawren: Both work.
Any chance that you'll allow Targeted Processing modifiers to be upgradeable with plasticity?
GG-Lawren: None, for now.
Do Auras affect Minions?
GG-Lawren: Yes, unless you have Selfishness or something else that would prevent Auras from applying to Minions.
Xtra37: Please note that Imbue Skills are NOT Auras and cannot apply to your Minions.
So, the description of the enhanced skill for spirit magus says we can increase chance up to 100. But this chance is not displayed anywhere in the game, and we can't find it in patch notes, TLIdb etc. So, what's the real BASE chance of a magus to cast an enhanced skill?
GG-Lawren: The base chance is 0. We'll think about adding this stat to a panel display in the future, but this could be difficult as this stat is extremely dynamic.
Hi, is the Shock rework still planned, or do you feel that it is good enough now? Do you like having 3 Ailments for DoT?
GG-Lawren: We continue to monitor Shock, though we do not plan any changes.
Xtra37: I don't think XD's ever talked about a potential up and coming Shock rework. Not sure where this thought came from?
Higher Tier Maps with lots of Rare Monsters have some serious visibility problems thanks to the plane-watcher-on-death mechanics they have. They hit really hard if you ignore them and they're extremely common. Will there be any "cleanup" to reduce some visual clutter, to make the dangerous attacks easier to notice?
GG-Lawren: Yes, we will improve the clarity and reduce the quantity of Watcher effects next Season.
Hello, I am a German player but I have the game language in English because all the guides are in English. In seasons 1-3, the chat language was still German, but now it's always in English. Couldn't you add an option to set the chat channel or chat region in the options regardless of the game language you chose?
GG-Lawren: You can switch to German channel in the chat (right side of the chat), the code channel for German is 1001 through 1200.
The sounds coming from the player or their summons are very loud when compared to the sounds of enemies. It would be useful if Watcher effects were also associated with a distinct sound, to be able to hear them coming. (There are too many visual effects going on in game).
GG-Lawren: Great suggestion; we will discuss it.
Xtra37: Yea, that's a really good idea. I know Path of Exile does this with a lot of their "on-important-enemy-death-effects", and it's quite handy to have there.
DoesResurrection Warcry Life Restoration effect get removed at full Life? This is not indicated in the Skill. Also, does the increased Warcry effect work with the -3 damage taken per affected enemy?
GG-Lawren: For your first question, Resurrection Warcry is a Restoration Skill, and the removal-at-full-Life property is shared between all Restoration Skills. For your second question, yes.
Xtra37: I've got a guide on Maxroll that goes over recovery mechanics, including Restoration Skills, if you need to make yourself more familiar with them.
On Deep Space maps with lots of loot (also applicable to the City / Ruins of Aeterna) performance is just bad, I can barely control my character. Can we get an option to hide 3d models of items dropped and hidden from loot filters, like in PoE for example?
GG-Lawren: We are currently working on this, targeting next Season. The plan is to regulate the upper limit of displayed loot models; after the upper limit has been reached, no additional models will appear. (Though the Loot itself continues to drop).
Xtra37: That's really good news, last season I'd have maps crash on me while playing on Mobile quite frequently because of this issue.
Is there any plan to add a feature that would allow you to be able to save multiple different decks? This would help you if you'd want to change your deck strategy. Similar to how you can do with pact spirits, where you have 3 loadouts.
GG-Lawren: We're considering this for the future.
When will we finally get Co-Op?
GG-Lawren: Co-Op is still being optimized, and there is no definite timeline for now. Please refer to our official announcements for updates.
Hi, I am using Order Calling Moto and am focusing on Spirit Magi, I have found a Mask of Calamity that has an affix: "for every 100 growth spirit magi has, 6% cooldown recovery speed for its Ultimate". Will this take effect if I equip this with my hero?
GG-Lawren: No, because only Iris is able to make a Spirit Magi go into Full Bloom and have access to its Ultimate Skill.
Editor's Note: Xtra37 raised concerns over the existence of non-Hero-Item affixes that are Hero specific, arguing that this helmet modifier probably should not exist, or that other Heroes should be able to access a Spirit Magi's Ultimate Skill. GG-Lawren said he'd give this feedback to developers.
Hi, I want to scale Cover the Sun's Triggered Skill damage and make a build around it. Could you please give us info about this Triggered Skill? Necklace of Firebird already does this in its description. Thanks.
GG-Lawren: Hatred of the Last Dragon consists of two Skills, both are tagged with Spell, Fire, Elemental, Area, and Active. The inflicted damage type is Spell Fire Damage.
Xtra37: What do you mean it consists of two Skills? What? That doesn't make any sense! Also, this answer doesn't include its base damage or effectiveness of added damage stat, which are very important to know.
I thank the devs for making the Crafting System attractive and for creating interesting content for the Season. However, the International version is still plagued with a small population and thus a smaller, less alive Trade House, and thus price manipulation is rampant here. I think it's imperative to either merge the Trade Houses between the International and Chinese servers, or to adjust the drop rates for the International Server.
GG-Lawren: We've done a lot this Season to alleviate the problems the International version faces, with the 3.5x drop rate buff for Legendary Gear. We also plan to introduce a Wish List event, allowing players to further boost the drop rates for some especially rare Legendary items. We do not plan to merge the Chinese and International server Trade Houses, and we neither plan to manually adjust the drop rates of the International version.
Currently, TM8/TM8+ Beacons cannot be sustained through playing TM8/TM8+ maps, and if a player doesn't want to buy those beacons, they have to run 7-0 maps (not 7-2, since that requires 2 more attention points for the Watcher). It wasn't a problem last Season, since all the setup was done in TM7 maps, but now players need TM8/TM8+ maps to progress. Are there any plans to make TM8/TM8+ beacons sustainable without running TM7 maps, or are there plans to rework Beacons?
GG-Lawren: Last season, T8 Beacons often depended on T7 for production, and the trend continues this season. Ideally, players should farm T7 for some time, progress to T8, and return to T7 or the Trade House to purchase T8 Beacons when none remain.
Xtra37: I think the point of this question was missed with that answer. It's a balance to be made, between TM7 and TM8 Beacons. Compared to last Season, there's now three times as much TM7 progression to do, and 5 times as much TM8 progression to do. That, and the Infinite City of Aeterna also further requires TM8 maps. Because of this massively increased emphasis on progressing through TM8, the balance is off, and it really should be easier (but not trivial) to sustain playing through TM8.
Editor's Note: GG-Lawren promised that he would give this feedback to the developers.
Sentries are entirely built around snapshotting single-use buff effects such as Darkchaser andMisfortune Watch. Will the devs change Sentry mechanics?
GG-Lawren: There are currently no plans in place to change Sentry mechanics.
Will Psalms of Aeterna progress carry over into the permanent server after the Season ends? If not, will it be possible to level up the Psalms in the permanent server without having them reset every Season?
GG-Lawren: Yes, we plan to carry over Psalms progress to the permanent server when the Season ends.
Hello, I want to ask a question about corrosion for the Darkchaser boots, what is changing by gaining a t0 mod? All I can see is that the wording gets replaced from "Loses all Mass Enhancement Effect when =CASTING= Attack Skills" to "Loses all Mass Enhancement Effect when =USING= Attack Skills". There is no difference in how the charges are gained in game, and damage numbers are still the same. Can you check if it's maybe an affix that you somehow skipped when creating t0 mods?
GG-Lawren: It is a literal distinction. After Corrosion, only using skills will lose the buff, while Triggers remain unaffected. It seems the English description lacks clarity, so we may need to optimize that later.
Xtra37: That's a bizarre Corrosion, the only good way to trigger attack Skills has to be Exquisite Box, so the use here is very limited.
The new Gemma Flame of Pleasure has the trait Sinful Entanglement that says "Brand records 40% of FIRE damage and Reap FIRE dot". I was testing this for about 2 hours and it does seem that the Mixture talent works perfectly fine for both the Path of Flames skill calculations and the Brand calculations. Is this a translation error on the Brand trait or does conversion apply after the Brand calculation? Changing into Mixture did not seem to affect my damage on the dummy at all compared to pure fire.
GG-Lawren: Damage over Time's damage type cannot be converted through any means, including Mixture.
Xtra37: I didn't know that. Oh boy, now I need to go update my DoT guide.
Great league! I feel like only one thing is really missing. What is your philosophy around not allowing us to filter by price when searching for items on the Trade House? It would be great to just see a list of the items you are searching for from least expensive to most. It would also help dramatically to bring prices for things down.
GG-Lawren: We've addressed this issue in previous seasons. Price sorting is not implemented as it would facilitate robots sweeping goods, thereby negatively affecting players' interests.
Related Topics
We hope you liked this Crows Corner Recap featuring questions from weeks 1-2 of the season, we've got plenty more of these to make as time goes on, and we've also got plenty more about the City of Aeterna for you to read about.
Top Endgame Builds
CC Recap Pre SS2
False Gods Event
Only More From Us, at Maxroll
The next Crows Corner is set to air on September 26th. If you haven't already, head over to our Discord and select the Torchlight Infinite role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Keep up the fight, Hunters!
Written by: Xtra37
Reviewed by: Tenkiei
