Can I?  Got my Zerk to 55 easily, very fun leveling process, and made a trial Archer.

Qued into Red Battlefield and everyone is warping around like the flash.

Turned my settings down, everyone looks like a muppet...no change.

I'm playing on a slow connection, with an older rig...

I'm reading there are optimization issues...

Will I be able to pvp at all in this game?  Are there work arounds?

Thanks!

Yeah, this game works weird... If you watch a warrior dash and run around on his screen, it looks completly different on your screen (teleporting). I've never understood how this works, but it affects all classes.

Essentially the answer is NO.

I'm getting that...O well.

LOL of course you can PVP.

Are you on Seasons?  If so, you can join Seasonal Red Battlefield, it is gear capped.  But you are only level 55?  You should at least hit level 60.  55 you don't have access to your awakened skills or succession skills, which are huge.  Level 60 unlocks the highest level of your skills, but you will need skill points to fill them out.  Look up EvilDoUsHarm's levelling guides on YouTube and I can fill you in on good spots for skill points, just ask.

Here's what to do if you want to have fun with PVP in BDO as a low level, and very likely, low geared new player:

1) Play Seasonal Servers.

2) Get to level 61.  I'm not sure exactly how much skill points Zerk needs, but I'd say aim for about 1,000 - 1,200 skill points, initially.  You earn skill points via farming monsters.

3) Get to full PEN Tuvala if you can.  Full PEN weapons and TET armors / accessories could work, but it's late in the season, so everyone's pretty much full PEN Tuvala already, so you'll want to be on equal footing.

4) Join Seasonal Red Battlefield.

Other means to enjoy PVP:

1) Play on Seasonal Arsha to enjoy some open world combat.

2) Meet people in game who are around your gear level, or who are willing to gear match.  You can duel them.

3) Join a Tier 1 Node War guild.  T1 wars are gear capped.  T1 guilds have lower gear requirements than other guilds.  So you can easily join a cool T1 war guild and have some fun in mass-PVP.

4) Create a trail character and enjoy duels in Battle Arena or normal Red Battlefield, though, normal RBF is where the geared guys go.  Seasonal RBF will be good for a newbie.

BDO doesn't have an "easy" way to PVP.  Can't just Q-up in an equalized, pre-organized mode.  BDO is focused on the grind and focused on gear, first and foremost.  So you can view being good in PVP as the reward.  So level up, gear up, get skill points, hone your skills on your come-up, and you'll be enjoying PVP in no time.

Focus on this:  1) Play seasonal.  2) Get as geared as you can.  Full PEN, ideally.  3) Play Seasonal RBF.  4) Join T1 node war guild.  5) Make friends. 

After that it's:  6) Gear up more.  7) Fight in T2+ node wars.  8) Get better at open world PVP.  9) Compete in regular RBF, a test of strength.  10) Join siege guild.

You should have paid attention to the OP and what he actually said

and everyone is warping around like the flash.

Turned my settings down, everyone looks like a muppet...no change.

I'm playing on a slow connection, with an older rig...

Under those conditions it's virtually impossible to PVP.

But you are such a nice person you would FORCE THAT PERSON to deal with a highly aggressive and toxic community for end game grinding locations.

Then try to tell him it's for his own good and the in the best interest of the game!!!

I wouldnt recommend any large scale PVP with a 10ft pole its just huge areas of spammable AOE CCs due to the witchards being more mobile then ever before.

open world occational fights and  skirmishes on arsha is where the PVP actually works.

Due to your lower end hardware you will have to upgrade reason being the game suffers from a huge issue they have yet to fix since launch.

The reason you see people warping around is because they are running higher frame rates then you. Yes you heard me right the better your PC the faster you will be...........

FPS= animation speed increases and increases your damage as well. Yes your damage is increased by your framerate!!!!!

The 1 shotting ammount of damage in the game has never been intended its because people discovered hey I can unlock my FPS with my graphics card software and be 10X more effective in the game. This is a huge game flaw it allows classes to be protected when they where they should not be due to canceling protections between attacks at insane speeds. This is one of the reasons sorcs are very difficult to CC even when thier whole thing is iframe but when I attack I should be vulnerable. The problem is vulnerabilities are so short  what ends up catching them most of the time is the huge AOE CCs. Now sorc is not the only class abusing the FPS a lot of the classes are thats just the main example. 

To top this off the servers cannot keep up with the unintended mobility and it causes a dsync fest like no other. as an example Im looking at a ninja a bit aways from me waiting for him to engage. Instead of seeing him move Im downed and killed because the server didnt update at a high enough speed to tell me hey the guy moved and because of the FPS= animation speed issue so it ends up updating late and Im dead. What it looked like to me is he warped to my position when in reality  its the FPS issue combined with not high enough tick rate servers.

Can the pvp be fun at times? Yes but its flawed and when the pvp consists of catching your oponent with CC to then 1 combo them the FPS issue should be way more of a priority to fix. And AOE CC shouldve been reduced significantly in PVP but nope.

FUN but FLAWED 

Better off playing the game to grind and progress your gear then for its PVP besides we the new Zones have added some pizzaz to the PVE and we do have a raid and possible dungeon coming so things to look forward to that arent just FPS=WIN PVP.

get new ryzen 5600x or better 

get at least mid tier GPU

get decent internet + exitlag

adjust for maximum fPS via guides easily found on intenet.

enjoy your character becoming super smooth, fast and definately with big advantage over others who dont use these things.

;)

you can still pvp in open world or ba i used to play this game on a potato with a keyboard attached just make sure all settings are on min and avoid big group fights like rbf and node war. you will prob have to play a low fps class as well like guardian if your fps is that low in battle arena

Well thanks all, if I can't do some large scale group pvp, I have no interest.

Cheers