Hello,

This post is just an opinion from someone that experienced the game for a while, but is still in no way good geared or all knowledgeable.

Maybe I need someone to open my eyes to be able to see this situation in a new light and be able to continue playing this game which really has its good parts...this is why I am writting here.

First a bit about my experience:

I started during the Nova season in winter (last year's Christmas). To be honest I was completelly disappointed when I found out about seasons, I wanted to quit right then, few days into BDO, but I said let's give it a try, thinking it won't get worse and the game looked cool and the combat system was interesting and was totally new to me...But I enjoyed the game and in less than 1 month I was already full PEN tuvala, farming for the infinite hp pot pieces, ready to grind Kamasylvia and Aakman and UNABLE to play my class because I was just rushed into the game.

Due to my job, I didn't have time to play it constantly, but I got the infinite HP pot and I also tapped 2 PENS and a TET blackstar and I'm working for my next PEN attempts...and I'm kinda proud of my achievements in this time.

That being said...I keep seeing new players being rushed to get PEN acc, now PEN boss gear (with the season+ addition) and I start to wonder...what's the point of this? You take new player's feeling of achievement away, you rush them to PEN gear...most of them will quit when they hit the softcap because that's the kind of player you attract when giving stuff away...and you also impact old and dedicated players that worked for their PEN, because now their PEN items lose their "value", their time investment loses its value, the grinding of HP pot and obtaining it loses its value (from what I understand they'll add an alternative way of getting it?).

So now I just wonder what's the point to attempt to progress in the game...it has no value...in 1 or 2 years everybody will be full PEN...but why should everybody be full PEN? Where's the sense of achievement there? I also got a compass part (the Elten one actually!)...but I feel no incentive to complete the compass because I'm afraid that in 1-2 months they will just make it easily available....it's a treasure item for God's sake! It should be difficult to get, same goes for the HP pot..

Anyway, that was my rant/concern...and I kinda feel a lack of motivation to continue playing...I'm ok with adding new, stronger gear for no-lifers or  new enchants/progression ways and I agree that this kind of ppl should be on top, BECAUSE they invest all their life in this game and grind for that top gear. But I don't agree with catch up mechanics (or at least such strong catch up mechanics)...first is the lack of feeling of achievement, second is that old player's time investment is devalued! When you get to the point where you offer treasure items or almost fully upgraded items to everybody...something is wrong.

It feels wrong...maybe it's not my type of game and I will just have to quit...I thought BDO was a marathon and a long time game, where I could come back everyday after work and make some progress towards my goals...because after all, having goals is what drives us to play BDO...dreaming of getting full PEN and fallen god armor...but getting this easier than other older players is just disappointing.

Maybe I'm just a minority and they did case studies and they saw that most of the players would come back to BDO if they did this...idk man, I feel a bit disappointed.

All that being said...let's wait and see what the "easy" PEN boss gear is all about...maybe it's not that bad, maybe it still costs 10 billion per piece and then it's okish...but one can only think what they'll come up with next...

If they are afraid of ppl leaving the game, or not joining...maybe new systems like arenas with rewards, dungeons and battlegrounds (that are actually worth doing) would be a better solution...more content without having to boost people and rush them high gear levels.

I think the essnce of this post could be summed up in 1 sentence: give people something to work for, a hard to achieve goal and don't devalue their time investment.

I know that there will be people that don't agree with me and I would also like to hear their opinion, maybe I'm missing something, but I really don't see the point of abusing catch up mechanics...to achieve what? If everybody has it the same, where's the achievement in that? I want to log in and still feel good about my PEN items which I failed over 30 times to get...and if you think of the average I might have been a bit lucky!

--Cheers

A PEN means nothing today. The hard cap today is the full PEN with caphras. Getting one for free only makes the first part easier, the rest you have to make them or buy them yourself. I am fine with helping people in this way, otherwise you would never get new players. What do you want a new player to spend thousands of hours just to get TET equipment? and other hundreds of hours for a first PEN? they would leave the game much earlier. With this help you can quickly reach 261 kutum? the hardcap of about 2 years ago.

Well... Even if you get everything that's given or guaranteed, you still have a long way to go.

Moreover, should a treasure be defined by the RNG wall that protects it ? Getting a Garmoth's heart through the quest IS hard ; fighting against RNG can be boring, exhausting, infuriating or whatever, but not hard.

A treasure that can drop after a few mobs if you're lucky is a cheap treasure. And it's a lazy game design you should not encourage anyway, I decided to do it for the infinite HP pot because I felt it was needed for me and my sometimes reckless playstyle but in the end, there was no satisfaction, only relief when I dropped the last part.

So, if you don't feel like grinding for the compass because they may make a pity system for that too, please do so. 

And as a veteran, I remember every success I had in progressing and making my gear, and the fact that they're making it easier now does not erase my past personal accomplishments. I did it, the old way, I got a benefit from it and that's all that matters. 

I agree, they need to add more gear based PvP only competition, rewards, and incentives. Especially on the Arsha channels. Players lose purpose once they reach their gear goals without PvP incentives. Then what players can achieve is balance if one feels all they do is hand out stuff. Once gear balance is achieved, then we can focus on class roles, and what purpose they fill in pvp situations.

For those who hate PvP though..well this was always going to be what everything boils down to. Lack of content. There will never be enough. That being said, even with full PEN, and TET accessories there is still 2-5 years left of grinding getting C20, and fallen God to PEN. So I dont understand the complaint, those will never be just handed out, and ur just as far from the top as your play history dictates. No where close.

The point used to be visual progression..but thats all P2W, so ur just farming the wrong thing if you want that.

Thanks for the responses :)

I'm not totally against catch up mechanics as long as they are somehow limited and not agressive. 

Also, I do agree that RNG sucks and I consider they should do something similar to Garmoth's heart for other items as well, as long as they don't lose value...even the treasure items could be made more reliable to get that way...but now getting the first PEN accessory is 6-7x cheaper...that's a bit agressive, this raises some concerns for me, but at least they time gated it behind those repeatable quests...

But after all it's the dev's decision and if they consider more ppl will play/pay for their game if they give away stuff much easier, then they will do it. It's just a bit discouraging for a player with my view of the game, hence the post :)

Anyway, I'm curious to see what they come up with regarding the PEN boss gear...is it time gated or not, is it much cheaper? Only time will tell and knowing them, you'll still have to put a lot of work in for it which is ok and it should stay so...a PEN is still a PEN, for most of us mortals xD

My concern is actually that - 2 years ago the hard cap was 261k as per Tupu's mention in above post...now they will give away gear to get there or almost there.
So this is why I complained, giving stuff away too agressive ruins the fun for me. I can be years from the top and I wouldn't care, as much as I don't feel my time investment is taken away from me, I'll get there someday...it's a journey and since BDO has no strong PVP content or PVE, the grind and journey is a big part of the game...

And yes, the pvp content can be greatly improved...and that would even make the game more competitive and even if u were full PEN with c20 you would still play for the fun of it, to be ranked #1, you know :)

Then it would have made more sense to rush players so they can experience the same (then u be proud of your arena ranking rather than gear, which is even better because it also reflects your skills at the game),.

Let's hope we get ranked arenas sometime and I'm pretty sure it'll be fun and even new players will get to learn their class better than they would if they were rushed to x AP :) Ofc people with best gear will be on top, but there will always be people at your gear level that you'll fight in arenas...and learn from that.

Hell, they even have that in the mobile version xD 

I will try not to make this too long winded but this same exact thing i have been talking about for the beter part of the past few years.

Catch up Mechanics are def needed in BDO, the problem becomes diluted when we start to discuss how much help is needed. There is a major gear score dispearity within the community AND there is a major lack of motivation from players that are used to playing games were everything is given just by being involved.

BDO is a long term game that takes a lot of continuous effort and Commitment to get to a gear score that is viable for the higher end content in PVP and PVE, even a swing of 50 or 60 GS can pretty much shut you out of PvP or GvG's as well as leave you wanting in defending your grindspot.

In the Current form of Catch up one of the presiding factors that is causing issues is the market, the original Soft cap was Tri accessories and now its TET. Leaving the market valueation of accessories like Tet Ogre in the 5-6k range when they used to be 10k+ this issue presents another problem in that those that get TET can no longer use it as a stepping stone to go after PEN especially when we are talking a 60% loss of price. This leaves a wider margin when you try and upgrade this may not be a big deal when we are talking about 1 item but when all items Belt,earing,rings have lost 60%+ over the past year and a half and still have yet to recover makes certain aspects of enhancing to TET not worth the 100+ FS this also makes those looking at selling TET's in favor of just trying to enhance them (then losing in the casino further pushing players to quit instead of playing).

Now we add in the ability to make PEN armor/weps (granted we dont know the hoops we will have to jump through to make them.) But the problem yet again puts another stress on the market, players with PEN currently will do this season+ then sell there PEN's even at a lower $$$$ this wil in turn bring down the value of the over all PEN market that TBH is already hurting while raising things like Black star's.

The above is based on a market Stand point BUT lets be honest here even with full PEN at base you are still a LONG way off from being in the top % of gear and even base PEN Armor/weps and TET acessories wont get you into the competitive scene.

There are other issues here:

#1 you are not full TET accessories you still have to make or buy an earing and ring at TET and for the most part the earing is a Narc not a full AP or accuracy.

#2 It will still take you 4 season or a full year + to get all 4 accessories at PEN Capotia.(most daily players will be past this faster than seasons anyway)

#3 the PEN accesory quest will take most 3-4 months AND cost 11-13 bil for 1 single accessory only

#4 tuvala season armor and weps are GARBAGE and a complete money sink, noob trap with this addition to the game in season+ TBH should of been there from the start to transfer all armor/weps to boss AND this should include the ability to do DR build not just evasion hybrid.

#5 personally i dont like the idea of working on something that is not sellable in the market BUT in no way will i turn down the ability to make a 2nd set of Boss to PEN.

Over time this change will benifit new AND returning players and i am OK with the catch up mechanics i think this is a positive step forward but Trust me when i say this, Base PEN gear will become obsolete in the comming year or 2 as new fallen god and higher end gear become the next upgrade. in games like this progression can be speed up but in no way will the game ever end progression.

I promise you this, a simple bit of coding can open up fallen god armor to caphras enhancment for more DP and DR as needed for balancing and or there may end up being new stones for this who knows what the future will bring BUT one thing is for certain PA would not make these moves in BDO unless there are plans in the works to make current gear stronger and there for make these catch ups seem like big stuff now but in a year or 2 it will be similar to the Tri soft cap back in the day.

Well, as you said BDO has no strong pvp content or pve, but I think that's precisely the mix of both aspects that makes BDO interesting.

Let's analyze 2 trends on BDO : the rise of the minimum GS though the catch - up mechanics, and Elvia realms. Seperately, they may look irrelevant or even hurtful for the game, but both trends at the same time makes things more attractive. 

Right now, our world map has content from 0AP to 300+AP.

By giving an easier access to a higher minimum gear, devs can concentrate on making grind spots for this GS at the minimum.

So, in the end, if we have a nearly complete map with content from 250 to 300+ AP, decent solo and group spots in every region, less difference in income between similar spots, BDO would have more populated Elvia realm servers, so more interactions between players of similar GS, more potential conflicts between players due to the supposition of having similar GS and, maybe, the presence of the infamy /sheriff system...

BDO clearly has the potential to be a good pvpve reference, and a demanding game even with the current catch-up mechanics. 

But we can only wait to see where BDO devs will lead the game... 

Yeah, I  would expect them to add more fallen god pieces and/or stones to improve them. As to markets...yeah, they tanked...the advantage is that u get cheaper PEN acc attempts, the disadvantage is that you just lost silver by holding on to your TET acc....win some, lose some.

I think what they should do is find the right balance between helping new players and dilluting the value earned/time invested by old players...as you said, those catch ups really seem OP at the moment. :)

What I actually liked from the start at BDO is that it kept old zones relevant....(WoW for example, never did that and I hated it)...like for example as a starter u go to Heidel, u have your storage there...I still have it there even after almost 1 year...it's my home. The game feels alive...you go there at low lvl/gear and you see people of all gear scores going about their business...that creates a true mmo feeling for me...anyway...100+AP zones are also part of the game and should be experienced when progressing, same goes for 200+, etc...I guess they shouldn't rush players that much to make those obsolete, you know. For example if you wanted PEN, they should make sure you go through quests in all zones like Mane, Sausans, Naga, etc maybe even randomized quests where you never know what u get the next day....the money is not a concern because they are giving away PEN gear anyway with which u can then grind Elvia spots, or whatever new spots they decide to add...but getting to grind Elvia spots should not be a 1 month job tbh, this game is already great as it is imo, no need to rush everybody to max level, the slowness of it gives it something special.

Even better...think of it if they enhance the main story, or add more side stories and make you go through them for the starter gear (whichever GS they chose it to be)...that would sound interesting, more interesting than "here, grind those spots, get tuvala ores and keep tapping your tuvala for a few days to get it to PEN because we made it easy to upgrade". I made my own blackstar and got it to TET and I can tell it was interesting and I enjoyed every bit of the quest...it wouldn't be a bad starting point for the game that way and people would still have to work for their gear (ofc I expect the quests for PEN to be more difficult).

For the moment I might grind for the other compass parts and hope they won't devalue that xD So at least I have something to show for all the time that I invested in it xD 1 poor little compass.