+1 on all this especially last part. I left last week. I wish i didn't because I enjoyed game so far but lot of things also happened in direction I hoped I would never see. The crystal restore item in pearl shop and new "immersive fashion" was clear sign they just don't care anymore. Realized the game is nothing what its been even 1 year ago when few problems just started to pop up but didn't bother us yet. They don't care to patch up actual issues, they keep putting pearl items as solution and keep delaying the improvement on server stability and game performance. They keep taking our money from EU/NA (which they mostly come from us, yes) but ignore all we say. Enough is enough. 

Sitting past 700gs there is literally no point to grind for anything because "they will make it easier for sake of catch-up". Ahhh some time ago it made sense, being geared up to defend your spot while this part of conflict was still alive, now it just turned into "swap server -> go marni -> stop completely any interaction with players". And if u dare to try defend your spot from griefers then either they take your tools away (which was dec) or punish you till u downgrade. Arsha really starts looking nice these days. Introduction of Marni was okay for people who just wanted that 1h of peace but now it feels like you are in world full of just afk ppl being a single player game with poor optimization of such amounts. 

Also for an MMO im amazed how little the pve team content still is. Just dungeons and oluns? Really? Dungeons are so bad right now, since they didn't balance the rewards due to market prices.  Nothing like getting basilisk belt after 1h of dungeon round eh? Its better to afk brain scrolls with group if its memes one wants. Sometimes dungeons still even bug, are unecessary long and they prevent any kind of speedrun possible (looking at you sycraia). Thread been made to improve reward and some issues there -> still ignored.   

All new content released is rushed and unfinished. They abandoned all thats been already made and flawed over years and old zones - Eternal Winter was hyped to be something much bigger and its just dead and unimprotant zone for flame only - just like Ulukita but still with signs they wanted to do something more there but left it. Yzrahid had potential to be great group pve grind spot but ofc they didn't take opportunity. Trading? *cough* what trading? Tagging is still restricted to some lifeskill activities and people begged for years to drop it. Boss blitz rewards are low, we asked for improvements on fights there too and not losing buffs? Feels like our words are going into the void. And instead they plan to just add more content on top of unfinished content on top of servers that can barely handle this anymore.  

All the new gear and deborekas and hammers, no point in them and all the copy paste dekhia zones. There is nothing to use that gear for anyway. (I don't count PvP as content since its so bad with d-syncs and unlimited fps and balance). Guaranteed PEN bs will arrive, i am sure of it, for sake of catching up ofc. Also the whole crystal issue, people said and asked for years. No one will risk bilions of silvers to try something new and challenging IF the biggest enemy is crash/freeze of your client. Leaving your end game zones just for minority of people who either deal with that risk or don't experience the issues or just still want to grind debos. 

Also OP said: "The pretty graphics, intricate combat, vast open world, thats the allure. You make the game look all shiny, with all the nice bells and whistles, so players are more inclined to shut their mouths and open their wallets."

And then u realize how bad the game runs these days and u cannot enjoy even pretty graphics once u hit the real grind zones because fps is still related to how efficiently your class fights. FPS = dps = speed. And lastly the game looks and optimization has been constantly downgrading over years. Muddy mountains and other details, crashes being so random and fast u don't know anymore when will u crash, avoiding towns like Heidel because of players overload and mounts (nothing like seeing players freezing in air or wagons riding upside down), fps still affecting how fast some classes are attacking which forces downgrade of those pretty graphics for sake of efficiency and better gameplay. 

GM events were last joy when it came to interaction and some fun but due to poor optimization and flood of players, fps and game can't even take that anymore at times. 

I feel like PA lost the idea on what game they made in the start and forgot everything about it. Being lost now trying to make everything easy and put bandages all over the place but destroying everything in a process - because you can't fix whats broken already with some shiny rainbow bandage. They no longer have idea what do they want to do with their game.  

You know how you don't get angry about the pearl shop? Ignore it, use it for Value Pack and Karma blessing for 90 days then block it out of your eye sight problem solved, im at hardcap and used it for only those things 

genius idea, you've saved the MMORPG genre. now devs won't dare to add p2w predatory stuff to their games

They already allow you to recover broken crystals 3 times which was not possible in the past, if you then send money you have another 3 times chance of recovering crystals either you do it or not it doesn't change the game we are talking about crystals that you can redo or buy back at market with little money. Better to talk about other more serious things.

Brain Dead Online)))) a bright example of "thirst" for profit clouds the mind". clouds to the point when "cows" starting to walk away. it's kind of fascinating, they created modern, shiny, colorful milking machine and failing to get milk. 

there is two ways to get milk, one is to make good game, with dungeons, raids, pvp, guilds etc.  all this stuff that called 'content'. so players can be occupied 24/7, solo, with friends or just randoms. then you can start milking your players, periodically throwing in some new attractions. 

another way is to create milking machine, bright, shiny, colorful. don't forget to tell everybody that it is marathon. the magic word that gives an empty shell a "full game" feel. since there is little to no content, thing must work like swiss watch, no lag or ctd. and of course you need balls to charge for such "game"

you can guess in one try which option is bdo. there is just no balls to start slapping price tags. players always will be blabbing about p2w. one will say it is, others will say it is not. for children of nature that too often touch the grass, i'll explain what you "win". by buying anything that have any ingame stats, you win most precious thing in universe, time. your time. since pa designed bdo the way it is, p2w blabbing is not one of their concern. 

it's not surprising that OP got pissed by monetization of crystal recovery, on the other hand it's surprising, since it was clearly designed with monetization i mind.  but i guess we all have our own points of boiling. my was today's "update", in particular how nice they dumped all this crap from cm to hidel storage. so "skilled devs", they moved it, but somehow they couldn't convert it on the way. and then i started count what they couldn't.  for one and half year that i played this game, they couldn't fix trading, on third try they just deleted it. they couldn't fix sailing, not sure they even know how sail work irl. perma lag in velia and hidel. overall server lag and worstened game performance with new anti-cheat and of course anti-cheat loading on top of everything on desktop like it's most important thing in the world. for those who made it this way i wish you that every trash app that you run, will pop usless loading screen on top of all, preventing you from doing anything. for the rest of yr life. ... even such simple option like "hide other adventurers" works 2-3 times out of 10, rest of the time wb is slideshow till random point when "hide others" kick in.

i can go on and on as anybody who played bdo for some time. but it's pointless, since for them it's easier to throw some free bs or t9 to get players numbers, than fix that tiny bit of "content" they created and make it work.

so if pa don't care about their own game, why should I? and with this simple thought, i think it's time to move on.

Good Luck! guys and gals.  Don't forget! they need us, not the other way around 8)

If you sent in a ticket with video evidence of a bs foul play death they would restore crystals every time. Now you only get 3 regardless of how you die so uhhh idk what you gain by being dishonest. 

Imagine being so far gone that you don't realize you're already part of the problem.

No, you did not have to pay for the Value Pack anyway, now it is for you to reap what you have sown with that behaviour...

Game's pretty much on life support. Pearl Abyss isn't doing so hot at present. Can't imagine why...