Family Name: Ryjuk

Region (NA/EU): EU

Yes.  One should play the game to become powerful, not just goe through some catch-up mechanic  that makes everything below end-game pointless.  All green-gade and blue-grade gear except for some off-hands are meaningless because of Tuvala.  Once a year giveaways I think are fine, but to have a permanent skip-one-half-of-the-game-to-get-to-the-end-game-wall mechanic undercuts the immersion new players need to keep playing this game for the long-haul.

I don't think grinding hours to get Blackstar after playing a month to rush to TET-boss for new players is helpful or healthy.  And that's not even the top of the grind-for mountain anymore.............

I also don't think it's fun for new players to grind to progress. But I don't think it's fun to get it (nearly) for free either. But working hard for it at least gives you a sense of satisfaction.

I also think that the season and everything that comes with it has completely devalued the initial leveling phase. As a new player, you just follow a linear MSQ, one shot every NPC and skip everything in between.

You've traded a lot of immersion and meaning for convenience. That's what they call QoL. The season system wasn't needed. Power scaling adjustments, a few good QoL changes and well-explained in-game tutorials would have sufficed.

I really wish they just made enhancement suck less. That's probably my one issue with trying to get friends into the game. I have had multiple friends pick up the game and play season characters together and its always the same. First couple days, they find a class they think is cool, the most recent one being Lahn. He thought Lahn was awesome looking. He's playing it, I'm playing with him at desert nagas and we get him to 56. He's loving the game.

He then messages me at 2 am asking if he's doing something wrong because his accessories blow up when he's trying to enhance them and I have no choice but to be honest with him and say yes, that is just how enhancing accessories works. And he's tapping tuvala, some of the easiest taps he will ever experience in the game. It doesn't get easier. He hasn't logged on since. Didn't even want to give the game another minute of his time grinding to have his spent effort deleted by RNG.

The progression in BDO is simply bad. Blowing up your belt and having to start over, invalidating a lot of time spent in the game, is bad design. Having to grind out silver to fund cronned attempts is also bad, because you're working hard to not progress forward and spending resources to stay where you are. These are quit moments for so many people that would otherwise be sticking with this game and spending money to make their character look cool. I don't run a business, but I'm not sure if its a good tradeoff for PA to rely on people whaling and buying those idiotic 6x outfit boxes and selling them to make their money as opposed to getting long time players that would happily pay $15 a month to keep their value pack going forever plus maybe some outfits or horse/ship skins.

Sure getting carried by whales makes them plenty of money, but how healthy of a game does it result in? How sustainable is it?

Yes, the enhancing system in BDO is terrible. I personally don't know anyone who likes it. It's even worse in combination with this absurd power scaling. Even if the enhancing worked better, it would still be an unnecessary pain for new players to get to where you don't get one shotted all the time. It's just not fun. In most cases, you get one-shotted or you one-shot someone else. Very rarely do you have those moments where you feel like you have a chance against someone if you progress more.

It's part of the reason why BDO has such a bad PvP reputation.

The game has definitely become more unga bunga over the years which is something different from progression. Watch any node war, any RBF, any GVG activity and its both sides just aping at each other over and over until someone gets backdoor'd or enough kills happen to end the match

"Me smash!"

"No, ME smash!"

"Nuh uh, ME SMASH!"

And it has to be that way because there's classes that can zip in out of render distance and knock you over and then you're dead. There's only so much thought and strategy you can do when the game allows that to happen. I wouldn't call it skillful to have a zerker or striker sprint at you in super armor to grab you and then jumping away if it doesn't work and he tries again in 15 seconds. You also need a pretty tough machine to even have a functional experience in mid to large scale pvp and you still have to turn off a bunch of graphics settings to see in front of you.

The PVP is no longer a desirable thing enticing players to put up with the horrible progression systems to get to. This game surives entirely off whales and "Log in for free blackstar :)" type events. Its garbage.

These catch up mechanics are nothing, and if they weren't there, the game would lose almost all players because the enchantment system is ridiculous and doesn't give us any progress and even sets us back (item level drop/items (accessories) disappearing).

99% of people I know (including me) got their pen items from Jetina.
The conclusion is simple: 99% of bdo players would NEVER be able to get boss pen items and the game has grown significantly larger and more difficult over the years. Therefore, 99% of players would not be able to play in zones such as 260 ap and more (e.g. Stars End where the difficulty level increases significantly compared to e.g. 240 ap manshaum).

Tet bs costs around 11b. T9 horse also. Currently, even a casual player is able to earn 500m a day, so collecting 11b for a given item is not problematic. Except that bs tet is currently a... weak item.

The "pen" player will kill the "tet" player in a second anyway, so everything that the season gives is worthless anyway, and getting something better is impossible because at the moment we are talking not about 11b for an item but 150-300b for an item and someone who has one or even three tet bs will not be able to get such huge money in a reasonable time anyway, and currently the total cost of true end game items is over 3000b.

So yes catch up mechanics killed all the fun of progress that used to be there (my alt still has grunil tri) but without these systems 99% of bdo players would stand still for years with their boss tets (on the other hand, has anything changed? no, 99% of players had boss tet and now have boss pen/bs tet with zero chance of anything better).

I definitely think power scaling should be much adjusted for pvp AND pve. There is a dead zone of pve which is very sad, too. People say elvia orcs or something, but for some reason elvia SUCKS. When you have like 280~ AP or since they gave out the BS, I took it as awk, and bought a crashed main hand, so my AP is like 276 w/ BS. That should be enough to farm. I can probably farm most places, but it would be DISGUSTINGLY SLOW. I'm not gonna die many places. Then there is the -150 AP lightstone combo which is somehow useful for like farming blood wolves if eyes are dropping. It turns out to be some of the best money you can get at that AP.

People who have 300+ ap also have buffs, they have tents, they have PEN BS x3, they have those new artifacts... you see vids of guys w/ high AP + monster related mods just melting mobs that should really not melt haha. It's pretty obvious that they weren't really paying attention when they added all of those mods together, and that's kind of the way it is w/ PvP as well.

UNFORTUNATELY, I don't know how to balance it right because I do think people need some reward for getting 700+ GS. Even now, that's pretty admirable. But yeah they shouldn't just be like wahaha - one shot - or just stand there and out pot your dmg.

Catch up has been happening since I started the game, tho. I was using AKUM stuff before they gave out the tri boss armor, and that's when I finally decided to get full tet (lol and stayed that way for a LONG TIME) because I was ashamed. So, in some ways, it helps players like me when they give out something and it's like wait for me! But I am steady lifeskillin'.

Def agree that they should adjust the game a bit. I think there needs to be more tankiness in general, fewer one shots, but on the other hand, less people who can pot tank. A lot of these people would quit tho cuz I mean... I know they are kinda bad, even tho their gear is good. That's how I am able to tease them out of a spot because they are so carried. I can't even imagine how they got such gear.

I just want A CHANCE. If I can lower someone's health, I can find a way to kill them haha.

I have an alt bungling around with that tri suppressed boss gear they gave out a few years ago lol and that used to be decent! It used to be able to kill stuff!

I remember hitting tet boss weapons on my wizard and that MATTERED dude. I hit someone with my skills, and they'd actually take damage even if I wasn't ridiculously geared compared to the cutting edge of players. Now I have 272 ap full tet bs and I'm a noodle. Doesn't matter if I consumable up. I either smash them instant or they turn around and kill me with auto attacks bro. There's no in between. Someone runs up at my spot and starts farming over me, I just give it to them and hop channels or hop in marni. Even if I pick a fight there's no reward if I win besides I get to keep grinding long enough for them to respawn and run back and now I'm probably getting ganked.

exactly!! it´s these moments that motivate us to make more progress gear-wiese or skill-wise.