I think the most bizarre thing isn't that they are getting rid of openworld PvP. It's that they haven't replaced it with readily accessible PvP in any reasonable manner. A few more game modes which require strict time frames, only are active  every half hour for some of the time, have to be in a guild for, etc, are not a good replacement.

If they want to remove openworld PvP, they need to add things of equivalent or greater value. I get wanting to get rid of the constant griefing, but where are all of the que into 1v1, 5v5, 10v10 arenas?

Where is a game mode where you just que up and it's prebuilt NW forts where people can just go at it against each other without a bunch of politics or setup? Where's no gimmick AoS gear style RBF playlists for newer players to be able to dip their toes into the complex mechanics of the game?

Where are the goofy endearing rotating seasonal modes like a Snowball fight, or get the Flondor Egg back to your teams side and while carrying you have a DP buff?

You can't just take away a subpar PvP experience and replace it with nothing.

No thats not it at all. I've been playing mmos for quite sometime and one thing I know is openpvp never works. There is always these kind of issues. This is particularly in the west, in South Korea, the climate is very different. There is general respect among players. They didn't even know what "karma bombing" was. Because there is no such thing there. The only semi solution is to create a open world faction based pvp. It some what worked for Aion. But open pvp like this? Nah, it will always be highly toxic.

The thing is though what people have to realize is BDO has been out for 8 years right? And suddenly PA makes significant changes to their open world pvp system. What this should tell everyone is that it has not worked out for them. They changed it because it likely is harming their business. Remember to them BDO is not a game its a business. They are looking for growth, bigger numbers and likely they identifed the openworld pvp system as one of the reason that they are not growing. Hence the change, if it was working and numbers were growing they would of never changed it. Businesses don't change things that are bringing them success financially. This shows a few things imo. The biggest being that very vocal players who liked the old open world pvp system brought in very little money to them. If they did there would simply be no change. Things would just stay the same because its profitable. 

Why do you deliberately omit many other changes that were introduced into the game and that caused the outflow of players, such as increasing the price of crons from 2 to 3m?

And that's not all. For example, I know people who quit bdo because... after 3 months of constant grinding, they did not receive merchant ring part from oluns, and now the funniest part: these people have been playing since the premiere of bdo!!!
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why players leave bdo, but it is definitely not the restriction of open pvp, on the contrary, the restriction of open pvp had a positive impact on the number of players, the best example of which is the season.

Lineage 2, Archeage, there's always an audience for this type of owpvp. Always. Then, toxicity comes when players are beginning to come on the game while ignoring part of its features like the pk, and forgetting it may happen. And as BDO devs themselves made owpvp more and more senseless, yeah, players are more and more surprised when it happens. If it happens. Rocket science, for sure.

But when BDO launched, owpvp was an evidence, at the same time it was en efficient tool and something you would not use mindlessly because it could bite you back. YES, it was not perfect because the exp loss was overtuned, but removing it without replacing was the first mistake. Devs tried several things after that, always in the same direction despite our warnings, and GUESS WHAT? It still doesn't work properly.

And "suddenly", "significant changes"?
Where were you these last 8 years? Or maybe you're too narrow-minded when it comes to owpvp and its pvpve implications?

SO : exp removal, Arsha, additional karma loss based on gear difference, beginner/returner servers (talk about a stupid idea), then pve begginer and returner server, PvE seasons Arsha season but still no season server with "classical" owpvp rules (and you wonder why players are not getting used to owpvp, right?), Marni, removal of one-sided wars, extended Marni.

Nothing SOLVED the situation and still, they kept using more restrictions and seperations. Ah, my bad, they tried some solutions on Glab to bring more pvpve : a sheriff system, a pvpve battleground in O'Dyllita on glab. They didn't even bother to make them work. Lazyness at its best.

There's nothing harming their business here, they just became more greedy : they launched their game thanks to the usual loyal pvpve playerbase looking for such an owpvp, and now that they are confident that they can compete on the mainstream mmorpgs market, they're throwing us under the bus to capture mainstream players, even the ungrateful binge-players of this audience.

Owpvp and PvPvE is perfect to promote a game's difference at launch, but when it grows too much, devs want their share of the biggest cake. But how many will win such a bet?

When they announced Crimson Desert, I was hoping they could keep all the "mmorpg solo instanced gameplay" for this game, and let BDO on another part of the market. With BDO assets and the acquired experience, it didn''t seem crazy to me.
But no, maybe we will simply all get screwed together when they will decide to completely bury BDO. Because what you said can be applied on many levels : when BDO will bring them not enough money for their greed, they'll get rid of us. Pve players, pvp players, pvpve players, OUT !

What's wrong with seasonal servers?  I thought they were a decent idea.

Lineage 2, Archeage, there's always an audience for this type of owpvp.

What's wrong with seasonal servers?  I thought they were a decent idea.

There is, but there are far too few of them considering the number of players and the design of the game.

In an average MMO, many players can play in one zone, in bdo... 1-2. Yes, maybe even 3 or 4, but they will interfere with each other. But it's PA's fault that it's more profitable to play 1 hit kill zones than end game zones.

Marni was supposed to solve this problem, but until it is available 24/7 without any limits and for all zones in the game, the problem will always exist because even 30 channels do not solve the problem because 30 channels are still only space for 60 players in a given zone, and there are many more willing people.

Next problem: season is limited by seasonal items, so you can't play end game during season (or use life skills).

I played all seasons... outside season, losing seasonal drop but I could still make all tuvala pens using materials from main quests, pass challenges, weekly quests and zones quests.

Two s. crap games that no one remembers today and that have never had much success.
Why? Just because of open pvp.

On the other hand we have: WoW, FF14, ESO, GW2, NW. All without open pvp (which doesn't mean they don't have pvp).

There is only one problem: these are all "Western" MMOs, and almost all of them have subscriptions that effectively discourage them.
However, there are players who like mmo from the "Korean" mmo school but want this "Korean" game to operate based on "Western" rules/standards, one of such rules is the lack of open pvp.

Interesting fact: such a game was/"is", and it is Cabal Online. The rules in Cabal are simple: half of the channels are green - pve only, and half are white (open pvp), plus a war channel (like arsha in bdo). A simple solution and everyone is happy. Those who want pve play on green, those who want open pvp play on white (i.e. almost no one). Unfortunately, Cabal online has been vegetating for years, it has the same sick enchantment system as bdo, and in addition, p2w has grown to cosmic proportions.

BDO is doing well only because there is still no good competition for it, but all it takes is one new game that won't start pushing p2w, great for solo players, won't have open pvp, and will also have a logical, progressive enchantment system and BDO could get into serious trouble. And PA sees it, hence all these changes. Currently, a large number of players are waiting for Throne and Liberty, which so far promises to be very good.

There is, but there are far too few of them considering the number of players and the design of the game.

In an average MMO, many players can play in one zone, in bdo... 1-2. Yes, maybe even 3 or 4, but they will interfere with each other. But it's PA's fault that it's more profitable to play 1 hit kill zones than end game zones.

Marni was supposed to solve this problem, but until it is available 24/7 without any limits and for all zones in the game, the problem will always exist because even 30 channels do not solve the problem because 30 channels are still only space for 60 players in a given zone, and there are many more willing people.

Next problem: season is limited by seasonal items, so you can't play end game during season (or use life skills).

I played all seasons... outside season, losing seasonal drop but I could still make all tuvala pens using materials from main quests, pass challenges, weekly quests and zones quests.

Two s. crap games that no one remembers today and that have never had much success.
Why? Just because of open pvp.

On the other hand we have: WoW, FF14, ESO, GW2, NW. All without open pvp (which doesn't mean they don't have pvp).

There is only one problem: these are all "Western" MMOs, and almost all of them have subscriptions that effectively discourage them.
However, there are players who like mmo from the "Korean" mmo school but want this "Korean" game to operate based on "Western" rules/standards, one of such rules is the lack of open pvp.

Interesting fact: such a game was/"is", and it is Cabal Online. The rules in Cabal are simple: half of the channels are green - pve only, and half are white (open pvp), plus a war channel (like arsha in bdo). A simple solution and everyone is happy. Those who want pve play on green, those who want open pvp play on white (i.e. almost no one). Unfortunately, Cabal online has been vegetating for years, it has the same sick enchantment system as bdo, and in addition, p2w has grown to cosmic proportions.

BDO is doing well only because there is still no good competition for it, but all it takes is one new game that won't start pushing p2w, great for solo players, won't have open pvp, and will also have a logical, progressive enchantment system and BDO could get into serious trouble. And PA sees it, hence all these changes. Currently, a large number of players are waiting for Throne and Liberty, which so far promises to be very good.