You all probably don't care much, but I'm quitting BDO. I haven't actually been playing for 4 months, but I've been looking at what new systems and content are available for the new region and i dont like what i saw. Why I'm quitting, on the other hand, might interest some and reflect what many old players feel.

BDO's current direction is a 180° turn. BDO used to be unique in what it offered in the MMORPG genre. A high quality full open world sandbox PvX (PvE and PvP unseparated as a system) game. Since PA took over the game I haven't seen a single new system or content in the sense of the old vision of a sandbox PvX game. All new systems and content went more towards theme park casual, like almost all other MMORPG's on the market.

1. for the casual and solo player
With the introduction of Season Servers, accessibility was made easier for casual players, but at the same time it devalued the early game experience, the joy of first armor upgrades, the free discovery of the world and the own looking for a adventure.

Forcing a new player to chase through the MSQ and complete a linear task list through Battlepass contradicts the concept of a sandbox game.

Simply getting TET Boss Gear directly or indirectly devalues any other armor that has been hard earned.

It also devalues the immersion of the game world, as there is hardly any difficulty level. Even new players have little trouble defeating NPC enemies with the armor you get through the season servers. Therefore, except for the echo rifts, you don't have a single reason to ally with other players during the leveling phase. What's the point? You manage everything on your own. This reduces social interaction.

Also indirectly, the hard-earned armor is devalued by the fact that the last major updates don't require any gear at all. In Magnus and AoS you get gear.

2. separation of PvP and PvE (with instances)
The great and exciting thing about PvX content/systems is that it creates dynamic gameplay. While you are grinding in one spot, at any time at least one player can come and attack you. Those are the moments where the dull grind is broken and perhaps friendships or enmities are created, where memories are made.

Sure, that still exists, but PA did a lot to make those experiences less and less. You have a lot more good alternative spots to grind today than you used to. Competition, that for many was the main reason for alliances or war, is becoming less and less. Again, reduced social interaction.

If you want PvP action, you go to AoS, which is in an instance and freed from the influences of the open game world. Dynamics in the sense described above is no longer present.

We have also seen the first steps towards instanced PvE content with Marni's Realm. More will be added with the upcoming Boss Rush.

3. more theme park
With Magnus and the reworking of the first chapters of MSQ, there will also be a much greater focus on voice acted storytelling with cutscenes. All development effort and resources that could flow into other things. Effort that could have gone into systems that are not just played once and never touched again. A typical problem of theme park MMORPG's.

4. last thoughts
Someone who likes this development might now object:
"It's all good. BDO needed this change of direction. An MMORPG should offer something to as many types of players as possible. BDO had its weaknesses in these areas".

That may be true. I don't see more players playing BDO (it feels like as many players stop playing as new ones join), but this is probably a long-term investment and change. PA has noticed that the casual/themepark/PvE game design is more successful and want to get on the mainstream bandwagon before it's too late.

I think it's too late for that though. The competition is now far too wide and numerous for it to have much success. Every successful MMORPG today is a casual/themepark/PvE MMORPG. Another one like BDO won't be able to do anything about it.

The only possible successful strategy in the MMORPG market is either you manage to combine everything good from the other MMORPG's into one game and bring it out more optimized or you develop a unique MMORPG that offers concepts/systems/content that very few or no other MMORPG has.

BDO had that uniqueness. The only thing BDO is known for today is the combat system. There is no good, successful and high quality sandbox PvX MMORPG to this day, except Albion Online, but this is a PC-Moblie Isometric low poly game with a ass combat. However, the demand for such a game is very high but BDO is all about to replace the Game Concept from the Ground until its a whole other Game, that is like all others.

And i dont think that they will stop this direction at any Point. The current direction attracts more players that like it and they give there Feedback. This feedback of such players will have an increasing impact in BDO when more such players come to BDO, and when more such player come to the game the impact increaseing and so on.

peace out

cya

Dionysosx:

I resonate with your words, and appreciate the battles you fought for BDO's soul.  I am always reflecting on my own losing battles against an entity that seems to destroy what made this game great, and replace it with.........

I just can't understand what goes through their minds.

I can appreciate your decision to leave, and I wonder why I haven't yet.  I guess this game was that amazing a few years ago when I started.  It's not getting any better, I know that much.

Anyway, good luck and good fortune to you!

You kind of lost me with "when PA took over" ... since BDO has always been a PA title, there was nothing to take over.

Not every game is for everyone, and doesn't hold their interest forever. It's a game, go find something else that you like.

Cya ! GL. PA added those changes, because players had demand them. It's not only this game but almost in every MMO 80% of community demand solo content and playing in peace. Nowadays is hard to find a players who want to create small community like I had in Albion.

It's been 7 years since PA took over BDO. Jus to clear that bit out.

Now to butcher your arguments a bit, if you don't mind.

1. For the casual and solo player

- The fast progression through the starting content happens in pretty much any game. What devalues anything in the game is the couple overtuned grindspots, if that.

- No one's forcing anyone to do anything at all either. You weren't forced to enhance before either. You could just grind and buy. Same now. No one's stopping you. 

- When the items' value is in the tens of billions, you're advocating for a slow crawl through 500k/h spots? You want new players in 2023 to spend 10 hours grinding normal servers giants to level 51 for... immersion?

- Lastly, the game was always for the solo player. Teaming up has been discouraged through the loot distribution system and the scarcity of resources favored conflict, not cooperation. There was no reason to team in 2017 either. Or, well, there was: to bully other players and that didn't change. What was added was actual reasons to team up. True, they botched the LotML boss rush (promised to be for both solo/coop), but here's hoping that'll change.

- And to your last point of this section, you mean to say that with the introduction of AoS and LotML, all other content is rendered obsolete? No one will do NW, Sieges, RBF, no one is gonna grind anything but the once-a-week boss rushes? What? It's a good thing to level the playing field every now and then. Let people (be they new to BDO or new to the competitive side of it) properly try out pvp in AoS without having to roleplay a doormat. Also, LotML will be a new starting area. Leveling the playing field for it is a major QoL improvement compared to EW where a new player would just R-spam the quest and see other players play content they'll need months of "grinding giants for immersion" to reach the gearscore requirements for.

2. Separation of PvP and PvE

Imagine, just imagine people not wanting to spend their 1-2h of gameplay being harassed at every corner in their effort to progress their gear and character. Uff! The nerve! Aion had owpvp and even then, you had a good amount of time to just pve if you so desired, with the rifts not being opened all the time. It would make sense, maybe, to create a "Tiamaranta's Eye" in BDO, on Arsha, so that those interested in high risk, no reward (cus time wasted on pvp) grind can have their full.

3. More themepark

Some people like playing games that have some lore. The richer and better delivered, the better. Even in games focused on bullying others and grinding 10 hours of normal Calpheon giants for immersion.

4. Last thoughts

People have been asking for dungeons and group pve since 2017. People have been asking since then for QoL improvements that we kept getting "since PA took over" (I wonder how much game development the previous publisher was doing in your opinion). I'm guessing those weren't done in the developers' free time, right? I'd like to see the other stories being refined (maybe with better delivery and fewer translation mess-ups - I mean, why, PA, why is Kzarka a she in the O'dyllita main story?). I'd like to see world bosses being reworked and made relevant. Outfits being less shabby. Newer regions being populated by more than just trees and roads.

Most of all, I'd like to see an engine upgrade and new graphics systems being implemented, so that desync stops being an issue, crashes to desktop stop being the norm and so that the game can regain all its glitter that it had at launch.

The overall thoroughly hostile attitude of BDO players towards each other, when resources are really scarce, is a much stronger incentive to quit the game than having dungeons that no one is forced to play is.

Good luck, have fun! I hear Throne and Liberty will release soon. Maybe you'll find your spot there!

I know of course that PA are the developers of BDO and have always ruled the game. With my statement "since PA took over BDO" I was trying to make a point about time. Since PA is the publisher of BDO there is more of this 180° turn. You could have thought of that yourself.

If u by "butcher" mean that u randomly attack points not included in my argementation, then yes, u butchered me.

And because everyone is doing it, BDO should do it too? Instead, you could have changed the starting content so that it is fun for a certain target group to play in terms of Sandbox Gamedesigne, no matter how long it takes.

Here I was talking about new players. Yes, actually they are not forced to go to a season server and do the linear tasks. But it would be pretty stupid not to do it as a new player, wouldn't it? There are enough players who come to BDO thinking it's a sandbox MMORPG and hear about how effective the season servers are. Then they see the Battlepass that they should struggle through if they want to keep up. No one is forced to do anything, but that's not how the human psyche works when you have a choice between "play the way I want to" and "play the way it's most effective". No matter what you choose, you feel bad about it.

No, I don't. I think our misunderstanding is that you think I want everything to be the way it used to be. Whereas I wrote in a few places that my desire would be for BDO to evolve in the sense of sandbox/open world/PvX. so they could have changed the starting level experience, just not by simplifying it.

My understanding is that it wasn't a solo game, for the reasons you mentioned. Forming groups because you felt pressured to do so due to the dangerous game world (both because of other players and strong NPC enemies), the loot system and scarce resources, is the most natural form of group formation or group combat. When resources are scarce, you also have to form a group because you can't do much on your own. Works the same way in real life. If we weren't dependent on each other due to the conditions of the world, then real life would be much more of a solo life.

No, that's not what I meant by that. With the introduction of instanced PvP or PvE content that doesn't interact with the open world, the more instanced content is added, the more the open world gradually devalues. At the same time, it systematically separates PvP and PvE content, which contradicts the PvX concept. This is a development that has already been completed in many other MMORPGs, in which the open world only serves as a backdrop. In BDO, exactly such a shift is taking place right now.

I know that many (maybe most) don't want to do that. If they do PvE, then they don't want to be bothered by PvP players and those who want to do PvP don't want to be killed by an NPC at 5% HP. All understandable. It's just that it all contradicts the PvX concept, which is what I personally prefer.

Also understandable. I don't care about such things though, which is why I used to like playing BDO instead of other MMORPG's. I wouldn't mind that there's something like that in an MMORPG that I play if I didn't know that it's all a lot of development effort and resources that go into it, and therefore less elsewhere.

I'd like to see all that too. Group dungeons doesn't have to contradict the sandbox/open world/PvX concept. Albion Online shows very well how this can look.

It's wrong. Such conditions equally strengthen groups and guild building. Also something that has been implemented very successfully in Albion Online.

This part, soo much this...I was there...when TRI boss gear was the soft cap...I remember going through the gears, even used grunil for a long time, and it was amazing, I remember almost getting killed by a Cadry Commander when I only had roaring magical armor and other quest gear, and eventually I returned there with TET grunil and TRI boss weapons and stomped it.

Even the PvP, sometimes getting killed on the road, but, due to gear not being as ridiculous as it is now, it was an actual fight, not just a stomp one way or the other (and also killing a lot of people at Sausans cause (was grinding for exp), ya know, grunil and TRI boss weapons did make quite the difference among players at these places back in the day, and there were newer players sometimes you fought, other times, made a small 2-3 man team to keep the grind up, not just sweaty tryhards all over the place already with big gear for new characters).

This and many other situations (including the immersion of going through the main storyline without it being a chore like it is now), it gave such life to the game for me, it felt, like a sandbox game should, and the grind felt much more rewarding than it does now, due to the slower, but steady progression in gear and exploration (cause you couldn't just breeze through the whole content, so you had to grind a bit to get to the tougher content and stuff, and you had to grind a lot more, so for it to feel more rewarding despite that, yikes PA).

I feel like seasons did soo much more damage than good to the game (but not PA's wallet, so, they don't care). New players will be on the easy road and be able to actually enjoy nothing of the older areas (which are actually the better regions of the game) and suddenly, hit the bumpy road of having to immediately get on the grind for the PENs, which is such a contrast to what they had until that point, that most just seem to quit, or wait for new season.

ty for ur kind and honest words. i hope u find ur place some day like i try to find. maybe with new amazing memories in a new world, because this game is at least not made for us anymore. wish u the best.

I know of course that PA are the developers of BDO and have always ruled the game. With my statement "since PA took over BDO" I was trying to make a point about time. Since PA is the publisher of BDO there is more of this 180° turn.

Yes, ur right. This Game is not for me anymore.