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My BDO Experience [Korea]
ankhfnkhonsu
Member UncommonPosts: 93
Hello Everyone,
I have been playing BDO since Korea's open beta launch in December. I have played most classes up to level 50 and have spent many hours PvEing, PvPing, and grinding. During my time playing BDO, I have seen a lot of different posts here and on other websites making claims that were completely untrue, and I decided to go ahead and address some of these fallacies as well as give a brief overview of what I find strong and weak about the game.
Claim #1: The game is pay-to-win.
This is completely and utterly false. While they are plenty of items on the auction house that you can sell, there is absolutely no reason to do so. An entire costume costs ~$50 USD and it sells for ~10 million silver. Now that may seem like a lot of silver.. but at level 50 I can make over 2 million silver per hour grinding, and much much more depending on how lucky I am. One earring drop sells for 7 million silver, I have found over 10 of them.
Claim #2: The best items are in the cash shop.
This is true to some extent. The best costume items are, in fact, in the cash shop. Costumes give you things like 20% additional combat experience, or 20% additional horse experience, faster gathering, faster swimming, increase your drop chance by a small amount, etc. However, these are just convenience items. They do not make your character more powerful, they just make hitting the level soft cap a little faster.
Claim #3: Black Desert has no open world PvP.
This is false. At level 50 you can literally kill anyone you want to kill who is above level 50 (or die trying). I have killed plenty of people who have infringed upon my grinding spot or being aggressive vocally. However, you have to live with the consequences of killing people. I will not go into detail about the karma system here, but I believe the system works well to prevent players from trolling other players just to troll. Additionally, if you are in a guild, your guild can literally declare war on any other guild in the game. When your guild is at war with another guild, or another guild is at war with yours (or you are both at war with each other), you can kill anyone in that guild (over level 50) without losing karma. Yes, guild wars cost money which you have to do guild missions for. However, I am in a PvP guild that has 800 million silver in the guild bank - it's 1m silver to declare war, and 300k silver every 2 hours to maintain a war unless the other guild declares war back.
Claim #4: Black Desert was publicized as an Open World PvP game.
It was.. and it is. It was also publicized as a guild vs. guild game.. which it also is. End of story.
Claim #5: Black Desert is for "casuals".
This is false because it implies that hardcore players are non-existent or will not have fun. There are a good handful of hardcore guilds on my server - 10+ - that PvP, do guild wars, and guild sieges constantly. Now I am sure that not every server has had this kind of experience, but it has been non-stop action for me. Now, if you are playing at NA prime time, you are missing Korea's prime time and so you probably aren't seeing any activity at all. Node wars and Sieges only take place at predetermined times (that correlates with Korea's prime time.. 6-10 AM EST).
Claim #6: Black Desert is already dead.
I'm sorry to say, but whoever says this is an idiot. The game is far from dead. Firstly, Black Desert is in Open Beta still (or as I like to call it.. soft release). They are constantly balancing the game, adding new classes, and adding new content. Yes, it is true, the game has less players now than it had in the first week. But please, show me a game that doesn't.
Claim #7: Black Desert just have full loot drop.
No. Just no. Stop it. Please play the game before you make such insane statements.
I think I have gotten all the important claims out of the way so I'd like to quickly address:
The Good
- Combat is fast, fun, and can be complicated depending on the class you play.
- Node wars take a lot more strategy than you would think. Alliances are constantly being formed and falling apart.
- Castle sieges are fun, however I do think their mechanics could be adjusted.
- Getting to 50 is very easy, and that's good because that is when the game "starts".
- There are many ways to make money: breeding horses, trade runs, farming, playing the market, crafting, praying to RNGesus for rare drops.
- Although upgrading/enchanting your gear has some RNG components, it will eventually succeed. At least until +16. (After +16 when you fail your item downgrades).
- Combat is skill based, I have beaten other players that have significantly better gear than I do.
- PvE bosses are too easy. I have been able to solo every boss in the game since level 50 with HP pots. And at 56 I can solo every boss in the game with great ease.
- The game requires a good graphics card to run at full settings in any intense activities (node wars, guild sieges, etc.) Otherwise you will get insane graphics lag.
- The gear grind can be tedious, but it's made less painful by doing everything the game offers rather than just killing the same mobs endlessly.
- The karma system is a little too punishing, additionally, there is no incentive to kill someone outside of a guild war.
Comments
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Anyone who tells you differently isn't playing at the right times
DM can reply all he wants. I'm sorry that his experience was different than mine. He should probably join a Korean guild, play during Korean prime time, or switch to a more PvP focused server if he wants to have a better experience. I think most complaints about open world PvP are from people who don't understand or participate in guild wars.
Also, you should state what you think p2w means(define it) so others know what you think is p2w. Others will not agree what is and isn't p2w.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
I'll put it this way. The small bonuses given by costumes are almost meaningless. I have a character with a costume and a lot of characters with no costume, I cannot tell a difference. P2W, to me, means a cash shop that increases your fighting potential or gives you an unfair advantage over another player in PvP or in PvE. If the costumes gave additional damage, additional stats (such as evasion, crit, defense etc.) then I would consider it P2W. There are items on the cash shop that can be used to gain advantage in things like horse breeding, gathering, fishing, crafting etc. But the advantage is small.
I read in another post someone saying that 20% extra experience is a huge benefit over someone who doesn't have that 20%.. but let me just stop that right here. When you hit the soft cap, your experience gain is so small it hardly matters. Players who are level 57 are lucky to get 1% per day. Before anyone hits 58, Valencia will come out next month that will give people higher level mobs so that they can easily level to the "new soft cap" of 60-65.
This is how Black Desert leveling works:
Soft cap gets released with content -> players level to soft cap, and the more hardcore players get a few additional levels -> new content is released raising the soft cap -> players get level soft cap, more hardcore players get a few additional levels.... etc.
The stat increase you get from those few additional levels are so insignificant it's not even worth mentioning.
tl;dr - IMO PW2 = advantage in combat, BDO doesn't offer items that give you combat advantage.
Thanks for sharing your experience from playing the game. Coming from Lineage 2 this game just sounds so much like what I have been waiting years for.
Not really contradictory considering they are costumes.
Its F2P so I wont play. I don't like hanging out around F2P players. There I said it.
The list of MMO's that I will play is of course small very small, but the experience is 10x better than anything that ships day one as a F2P.
I will play games that shipped originally as box plus sub that are now F2P but only if they have a sub option.
You can create as long a list as you like of reasons why this day one F2P game is okay, but the very foundation that this game was built on is flawed.
You either didn't read/understand the whole post or you just don't know what p2w means. (Hint: Cosmetics are not p2w)
Red: I can see the merit behind having a "labor point" system.
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
I can see the merit in that too but... I dont see the merit in allowing it to be bypassed using the cash shop.
I understood fully what was written by the OP, apparently you did not even read what the OP stated. Here, just for you: "
Claim #2: The best items are in the cash shop.
This is true to some extent. The best costume items are, in fact, in the cash shop. Costumes give you things like 20% additional combat experience, or 20% additional horse experience, faster gathering, faster swimming, increase your drop chance by a small amount, etc."
You should think before you type next time.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
Red: How do you expect a F2P game to make money?
Originally posted by laokoko
"if you want to be a game designer, you should sell your house and fund your game. Since if you won't even fund your own game, no one will".
Does BDO really have the labour point system or are people just arguing for the sake of it?
Any way, labour point is annoying and there are many other better ways to do cashshop.
Black Desert does have a labour system similar to Archeage, but it's so much more forgiving. You increase your max "labour" by gaining knowledge and labour's not used for every little thing.
It's mainly used for gathering materials yourself and gaining intimacy with NPCs (and some other small things like hiring workers). You don't need to use labour points for fishing, crafting, processing, cooking, alchemy, gathering with workers (there's certain material you have to gather yourself like blood, hide, and meat), etc.
You gain 1 labour point back about every 3 minutes. You use 1 labour point every time you gather (at higher gathering lvls you can get 2-3 items at once). Also, there's daily quests that give you labour back.
There are no labour potions in the cash shop, and can't buy labour via the cash shop.
As I mentioned in my follow up post, I don't find this to be P2W. The cash shop items are 80% cosmetic 20% utility with no combat benefit. If you read what I wrote in my follow up post I think I stated my position on the matter as clearly as possible. I'm sure that many people have different definitions of what P2W means, but I think in general terms, my definition is on par with a large majority of players. Also, you can buy (most) cash shop items with in-game currency from the auction house.. so everyone has access to the same items regardless of whether you want to invest money in the game or not.
Since we're on the topic, I'd also like to mention that F2P games are providing a service, if there is no incentive to buy items off the cash shop then the publisher will not make money, and if the publisher doesn't make money, they will shut down the game. I think BDO has done an excellent job with their cash shop, they have a good mix of utility items without selling gear etc.
"Actually killing someone outside of guild war = might as well throw away your character due to karma penalties, just start over with new character"
This is probably one of the biggest exaggerations I have heard in my entire life. I have killed plenty of people outside of guild war.. and I definitely have not thrown away my character. What are you even talking about? Have you even played the game? Seriously.. I honestly can't tell if you're just trolling or if you're really that dense. Since you have the tendency to misinform people, I will go ahead and inform people of the karma system.
A player can have 300k karma max, when you attack someone, you lose 10k karma. However, when you kill someone you lose 200k karma. Being under 300k is definitely not a big issue unless you are drastically undergeared and get destroyed by other players.. in which case you probably shouldn't be randomly attacking people in the first place.. but that is neither here nor there. I can get 210k karma (the cost of attacking & killing someone) back in a pretty brief period of time.. ~1-2h of grinding.. which I was probably doing when I PKed someone who was trying to kill mobs that I attacked first.
But that really doesn't matter. You can declare war on anyone you want at any time for any reason. My guild maintains 4 guild wars indefinitely, and we have 4 completely different guilds who have declared war on us. I literally have an endless supply of people to gank. If I get bored, I can run around and find people to kill. When I hear people crying about the Karma system it makes me think they just want to kill noobs because they can't play the game well enough to kill other equally geared players.
tl;dr - DMKano has no clue what he's talking about (did he even play the game?), BDO is more about guild wars than randomly ganking noobs.. get over it.
HINT: Cosmetics are not p2w, exp boosts are not p2w, convenience items are not p2w
What are dungeons like in Black Desert?
You all have to excuse DMKano because he knows that Black Desert is the ArcheAge killer.
OP, How much Ping do you have?
I have tried to play, and it was near impossible. If you play from any country in West Europe (Spain, UK, France etc.) in the Korean server your ping will be between 400 to 550.
Coming from Lineage 2 and after playing it for 6+ years, BDO is my last hope, but I'm scared... because so I said with Tera, Aion, Archeage and so with bad results (huge disappointment after few weeks playing).
I have played BDO but only up to lvl 15, and although I love the game, I have stopped playing it for two reasons:
1- It's impossible to combat with 400+ ping. Your character does the animation and the hit effect, but the mob does not react until 0.4 segs later... I have not PvPed but it would be the same or even worse.
2- I'm not sure if I will love the game to the extent that I can play it again since the very begining when it comes to EU. I could spend 6 months playing the game in the Korean server, but I will need to take a decission when it comes to EU. Keep playing in the korean server with 500 ping or enjoy the game without lag but start over again loosing 6-months-efforts? To avoid that difficult decission, I just don't play it.
To sum up, I have learned to hold or directly avoid the hype. Hype can be very dangeours because once you read game info/news you automatically start creating imaginary castles in your mind, but when you finally play it, although the game is a good one, it will not be like you imagined it.
For this reason, I'm going -to try- to play BDO without prejudices. Just play it and see what the game has to offer, and discover things on the way. Like I did with Lineage 2, a game I started to play without knowing absolutely nothing about it.
I will just wait patiently until it is released in EU and have a proper ping to enjoy the whole experience since the first moment (because remember, you only have one chance to have a good first impression).
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