Hey, 

I don't know if this is sacrilegious for some of the player base here and as a more casual player, who doesn't strictly follow everything that is going on in BDO I might say something, that people think is an absolute no go, but please hear me out, and tell me how I can fix this issue for myself and others, if you have a better idea. "Git Gud" is of course one fix, but my point is exactly that "Git Gud" is not necessary for everyone to have fun nonetheless.

Problem:
I dig the PVP in this game far more than questing or PVE and would rather casually earn my silver in RBF and other PVP features, than fighting countless mobs in PVE. I may be particular in this regard, as I like PVP while I have no drive (or time) to really get myself to the end game gear and even though I play this game since it has been published, my main character still has only about 530ish in AP+DP with lvl 61. I am always lagging behind and can never really participate in any kind of official PVP feature.I never played any nodewars, even though they seem to be more interesting to me than questing or PVE. I see PVP guilds want a minimum GS of about 600 today. To have some kind of PVP, I am happy to go to RBF, but needless to say, most players there have a huge gear and buff advantage and I'd say they're even a majority of players there. That's all fine, actually. I still go there, but then again really can't do much, even if I try to stay behind, every other minute some ninja or whatever pops up, kills me in a split second, even without downing me and rinse and repeat. Being a help to other players as some kind of CC support doesn't really work either. So, it's rather frustrating without having to be and I think I am not the only one, who actually made these frustrating experiences. A lot of players simply don't go there, because there is a broken experience for lower geared people.

Suggestion:

I think my suggestion actually doesn't ask for much and probably won't even change anything for many other end gear players but open up PVP for a lot other players who usually cannot participate until they've grind away to reach end-gear.

Since there are so many empty RBF servers, wouldn't there be a chance to include 2 or 3 gear capped Servers from let's say 450 to 600? They can also bring you less profits, if you want to keep the edge and incentives for end-gear. 

I guess there would be more people who will be interested to check out RBF and get into PVP, without creating enemies in the open world or be ridiculously outmatched. End Gear players can still play on all the other uncapped servers as they did and people like me, who spin up the game for a less grindy round of PVP can join those other servers. I think RBF would be particularly more fun for a lot more people if they can play on eye level.

And also, I know there were unsused soft capped servers, but I considered them broken because even me with my super casual gear was already above the highest cap. I suspect it would have been more used, if the cap would have been set higher and reflected the actual gearscore of the mid-geared people. Something along 500-550GS.

What you think? Thanks for considering.

The class inbalances not gonna vanish just cause the gear is capped, hence it won't be any less AIDS than the current ones are.

These existed, and there is a reason it doesn't anymore. It's very unpopular and unless there's a streamer or some kind of event regarding it, it will always be empty.

I used to be in this same, exact boat.  Not really sure what to say other than what I did. 

I used to loathe grinding mobs or lifeskilling back in the day, but loved the PVP, similar to what you're describing.  Because of this, and because of how BDO is hyper-focused on "the grind", I was behind in gear for a long time, like 2.5 - 3 years, as a rough estimate.  Everyone around me was progressing in GS, while I would make zero gains for months.  Be it due to the enhancement system, or not finding the drive to grind for silver (without blowing it at the casino), or whatever, I was lagging behind IRL friends and guildies.  Did a rage enhance sesh where I blew up all my TRI accessories and blew up all my TRI and TET armors and weapons down to PRI.  Quit BDO for like 6 months.

Came back because there wasn't anything to play.  I like to think that over this past 6 months I matured a bit.  A lot happened to me during this time which made me reflect on life.  LOL what does this have to do with BDO, you're probably asking, like, STFU and get to the point already x'D

OK.  Point is, maybe a different outlook may be the best immediate fix, given the tools readily available to us.  Personally, I wish BDO had more avenues for casual players to enjoy PVP.  BDO's combat, aside from it's imperfections, is quite good, so I get why you like it.  Unfortunately, reality slaps hard and says that in BDO, PVP can be seen as a "reward" or sorts....grinding it out and gearing up results in better PVP performance.  So that's the logic I followed to get to that conclusion, considering there are no equalized PVP modes in BDO, at least not yet.  Well there are T1 node wars, maybe you can join a T1 guild?  It's T2's and up that look for 600 GS min.  BDO Mobile, I hear, has awesome PVP modes to play in, I'm not sure exactly how they work, but maybe BDM might be better for you?  IDK.  Don't get me wrong, I am not trying to throw shade, am really trying to explore different readily available options that will be good for you.  I would LOVE for more equalized PVP avenues in BDO, purely for the reason of "so we can all have fun".

But as of now, for a more immediate solution, I can only suggest to grind it out if you want to be more competitive in PVP.  We've all done it.  If I may provide a direction, I'd say get PEN Tuvala's to fill out any missing TET armors or weapons and TRI accessories you may be missing.  After that, set a daily silver goal for yourself, starting at like 300 million...with this, you'll be able to purchase a PEN every month and a half or so.  Build that daily silver goal to 400m, 500m, and beyond, and you'll be full PEN with TET accs before you know it.

Complete agree, though.  I wish PVP avenues were available that are all-inclusive.

I know full well, that these existed. I hoped people, who are knowledgeable more than me on the game would also realize, that these existed from the beginning till end with a max cap of 350 or so. It was an absolutely way too low cap for casual mid-gear people like me even years ago, let alone today. The cap was never increased. I bet you a 500GS or 550max cap would definitely be used more. 

Many players snippily say "there is a reason" and yes, the reason is not that capped servers are bad, but that the max cap was way too low. If you have a better explanation or I am missing something, please let me now. If not, I don't think you are on the right track as to why they are not being used. I have already found a bunch of people who think the exact same way, some of which even stopped playing RBF or BDO alltogether because of this.

I beg you guys to not always brush away everything, without thinking it through.

There isn't going to be a huge difference between a low cap and a higher cap. What's difference is just the number and spoiler alert, when both ap and dp is capped moving the numbers along the line doesn't do much. 

If you realise or took time to read the literal 1 sentence I posted after I said it existed, you would realise I never said that it's bad, I said that it's not popular. There is a difference, and history has shown that gearcapped rbf has not succeed. Season RBF was a thing as well, and that died after the first 2 days. 

I don't quite understand what you are saying with the spoiler alert part.

But generally, the difference between those old low cap servers and a higher cap I am asking for is that you have to take off most of your equipment, losing all your crystal combinations that you need to have a solid fighter. That is huge in itself.

I also think it is quite obvious that a group of max 550GS players will be definitely a different experience, than a group with people from 450 to 650GS. I hope you see that.

3 super low 350GS servers simply doesn't make half as much sense than 3 increasing from 450 to 550 servers (or whatever brackets fit today, maybe more, maybe less). If this was ever tried out but still resulted in no activity, then I am happy to accept it. In fact, it could not die, because I would sit there all day long, being even happier to fight 1v1 or 3v3. That'd be better than getting smashed around (or ignored) in the normal battlefield. 

But I guess member PeaceInChaos made a more important point already. PVP is meant to be locked away for the people who "earned" it and that is probably the main reason for devs to do it the way they do it.

Very unlikely because of the reasons you mentioned, even though you think this might be the case. Unless I am missing a key info, which is not, "some capped servers existed"
Sason Servers is also a completely other topic. Thanks, though.


p.s: the point of "bad" and "not popular" is insignificant. I understood what you said. I am saying it is a wrong conclusion, the reason behind it I have already explained.

I see what you're saying, but it still doesn't change that it existed and it has died. 

No reason to do it when historically it has shown that it won't work. Season RBF is essentially a gearcapped RBF at max season gear, which is pretty much what you're asking for. That died within 2 days of coming out. 

Also, I wonder if the devs has already implemented gearcapped pvp content in the game? One where you're capped to a certain ap/dp depending on the difficulty? Maybe Easy, Medium, Hard? Maybe it can be the base, T1, while higher tiers can be uncapped! 

Saying it's not popular is not a wrong conclusion, it's fact. Anyone that played the game back when it existed can tell you they've almost never seen it filled. That is the "reason" it doesn't exist anymore. You saying that I said the gearcapped rbf is bad, on the contrary, is a wrong conclusion. 

Look, I personally enjoy T1 nodewars and gearcapped content and have done so over the last few months , but gearcapped rbf has shown to just die after it loses its initial appeal time and time again. No matter the reason why, it has shown time and time again that it doesn't work. 

Then you are not seeing what I say. The cap was always way too low to really be able to safely come to the conclusion that generaly capped servers are unpopular. If the cap was at 100GS and therefore no one was able to join, does it mean that the idea of capped servers in general would be unpopular? Of course not. It just means 100GS caps is unpopular. Quite obviously. As long as there were no 550 cap servers (where I don't have to start a new season char to be able to join, but play my main) I don't think we can conclude anything about popularity or that it is going to fail like the early capped servers.

Yes, I am hoping for something like that since the beginning of the game. Adding 3 Servers with an increasing cap would be the easiest way to provide such things. 

read above, bro. It is a wrong conclusion to think capped servers are unpopular, just because there were capped servers, when these servers had a ridiculously low cap. it's getting a bit ridiculous now, we repeat ourselves here unnecessarily.

I don't know about season RBF, but I am quite certain, especially casual players, who are the only ones interested in capped servers don't even play season chars. I for example don't. That's speculation though. 

When gearcapped rbf existed the gearscore average was much lower and the 350 cap wasn't exactly low. 

What I described already exist. 

The demographic of "casual players, who are the only ones interested in capped servers don't even play season chars." is quite a narrow one, and very targetted. On the other hand though, I can safely say that everyone that started the game since june 2020 has play season, almost everyone below 540 gs before that time has also played season, and people that is looking to progress and get free tet accessories has played seasonals. 

Season RBF was heavily popular, activity was high and it was booming... for the first few days. we can speculate from the fact that

1. It had a healthy population and 

2. It died after a while

that if it is ported over to real servers with real cap, the same thing will happen. Just because you don't do it and had no knowledge of it doesn't mean that it didn't exist or that people didn't do it. 

I don't know what world you live in, but something doesn't have to be bad to be unpopular. I thought this was common sense. Content exist, no one does it. It's unpopular. Doesn't have to mean it's bad. It's unpopular. Get that in your head. What you're arguing is your speculative version of a gearcapped rbf will be popular/unpopular. What I'm saying is that the previous iteration was unpopular, which is by meaning a fact. I then expanded on that based on current conditions and actual current versions of this which also failed. Not only that, I gave you a version of a gearcapped rbf with a much higher cap (season cap around 540gs) that became unpopular. so your argument of a low cap doesn't even work.