Node wars in BDO have been the end game content since its release back in 2016, but seem to have fallen out of favor to the new 3v3 Arena of Solaire that has just had its first Beta release in June/July of 2022. This is not a bad thing in any means as Solaire is a wonderful and much needed addition to the game, but that’s not what this rant is about. Node wars, why is this content dying, why is it not as fun as it was 4 to 5 years ago, and what could be done now to help popularize node wars in 2022?

Issues with Node Wars:

Back on October 20th in 2021, Node Wars were reworked to feature a territorial expansion system to allow guilds to control multiple connecting nodes and claim a large portion of the map if they were able to protect it. The idea behind this new system was that if a guild held onto too many nodes, other guilds could attack them on multiple fronts to stop that from happening. Instead, a number of problems arose because of this new system.

1. There are too many nodes for the current player base size.

2. 99% of the time, fights are required to be pre-planned days in advance instead of being able to be held spontaneously.

3. Not enough incentives to zerg out a stronger guild if they own a lot of territories.

Node War Revamp Patch Notes Oct. 20, 2021:

https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=1950#Node%20War%20Revamp

Further changes were made over a couple of patches, the one from Nov. 10, 2021 being one of the bigger ones.

https://www.naeu.playblackdesert.com/en-US/News/Detail?groupContentNo=2083&countryType=en-US#Conquest%20War,%20Node%20War 

Solutions to the Isssues of Node Wars:

Some solutions that could be put into effect that would improve the QoL of node wars could include the following. Further reasonings for each solution will be given further below.

1. Decrease the number of nodes by increasing the size of the node war area. 

2. Allow guilds to abandon their territories to allow them to place on another node.

3. More frequent rotations of node war region tiers. 

4. Revamp the reward system for winning nodes:

   1. Like siege, give rewards to players after every win (e.g. 100 mil + Medals)

   2. Increase the amount of silver given to guilds to make payouts relevant again

   3. Give streak bonuses & bonuses for stopping streaks

1. Decreasing the number of Nodes: 

There are currently 76 nodes that can be fought on each day: 7 in Balenos, 13 in Serendia, 13 in Mediah, 15 in Valencia, 15 in Calpheon, and 13 in Kamasylvia. The reasoning for increasing the amount of nodes from the previous node war system was to make node wars a “war game”, so that bigger guilds could expand for more territories, while the smaller guilds with less members could find openings to try and grab nodes from them if the bigger guild spread themselves to thin. In theory this system sounds like it benefits both the top tier and lower tier guilds, however this is not happening because there are not enough guilds that are participating in node wars, and no one wants to contest the top tier guilds for territory.

Currently the guilds that claim the most territories in NA, are the small to middle tier guilds with snipe guilds here and there, and occasionally one of the top tier guilds have a node or two. The reasoning for this is because when a top tier guild takes a large number of territories, no one tries to fight them. Instead they would go to other nodes that they were not on, preventing the strongest guilds from getting any kinds of fights. Decreasing the number of nodes would limit the playing area and would force the smaller guilds to work together to claim territories. Below you will see an example of how they could combine nodes together.

7 Nodes in Balenos (No Changes):

6 Nodes in Serendia:

6 Nodes in Mediah:

9 Nodes in Valencia:

9 Nodes in Calpheon:

7 Nodes in Kamasylvia:

By following the examples I have given above by combining some of the existing node war regions we could shrink the amount of node wars from 76 to 44 nodes per day. With a reduction of the amount of nodes however we would need to reduce the amount of nodes a guild can hold in a region from 10, to 4. This solution has some flaws as it could push out guilds from participating in node wars at all, however with a combination of the other proposed solutions, it could breathe some life back into the scene.

2. Abandoning Territories:

As stated before, a majority of the top guilds are not claiming a large number of nodes simply because they would be locked in place and wouldn’t be able to find fights or join pre-set fights without dropping their nodes a day or two before. Although this is not a big change, it is a big QoL change that would allow more spontaneous fights to occur in the current node war system. The cutoff for abandoning your territory would be 2 hours before node wars (1 hour before cutoff), to allow for guilds to adjust for the abandonment. With the cutoff being 2 hours before node wars, the guilds would forfeit the guild funds they would receive.

3. Frequent Node War Rotations (Node War Seasons):

With the system of tying node war tiers to certain regions, it would be really refreshing if tiers of node wars would rotate regions as well every so often. Other competitive games use “Seasons” as a reason to swap things up. It would be very refreshing for node wars to have seasons that could last a couple of months with rotations of the node war tiers along with siege gear caps. It would also give the developers a dedicated period to implement any balance changes they think is needed to the node war/siege scene. 

4. Revamping Node War Rewards:

Now this is probably the biggest change that I would be suggesting as it would not only affect node wars, but also would affect how people think about the game as a whole. Adding meaningful player income to node wars would incentivise guilds to want to hold territories, and incentivise players to participate in the node war scene. 

The current system is that for each node a guild owns, they will get a certain amount of guild funds (depending on the region/tier), per day they hold the territory. The amount of silver each guild would get from holding these nodes has not scaled with the economy of the game making this reward kind of irrelevant. Payouts, which were once kind of meaningful, are a pretty big joke now. The other current rewards from node wars are the exclusive node war shop, and medals. The exclusive shop was a very good addition to the game, but it feels like they could do more for it (maybe add event items to it every so often?). Medals are also a decent reward to have but the rewards from them have become a little outdated.

Back on November 10th, the biggest change and most impactful change to siege was made. This was adding income to players for winning or even participating in siege. This one change made people and guilds that were not really interested in siege, want to start. I believe something similar can be done with the node war system. 

In the hypothetical world that all of my previously listed suggestions are put in place (the reduced number of nodes per region, being able to abandon territories, and node war seasons), These would be the rewards and systems I would suggest to be implemented into the game. 

1.  For each node a guild has, each participating player will get an appropriate amount of silver corresponding to the Nodes Tier: T1-100 mil, T2-200 mil, T3-300 mil, T4-400 mil. The max amount of silver a player could get if they are in a guild that owns 4 nodes (new proposed cap) would be: T1-400mil, T2-800 mil, T3-1.2 bil, T4-1.6 bil.

2. For each active node war day a guild owns a node, an accumulating “Bounty” gets added to the node. The “Bounty” would take into effect after a guild has owned the same node for more than 2 active node war days (Saturday & Monday not counting), and would accumulate for each day past. Specifics on the amount the “Bounty” would be: T1-100 mil, T2-200 mil, T3-300 mil, T4-400 mil (the amount you would get for winning the node)  with 10% more each day after the “Bounty” would be added to the node. An example would be: If ChoNation owns Trina Fort for a week (5 active node war days), the bounty on Trina Fort would be 480mil, and if Barcode wins the node from them, each player would get 880 mil. The reasoning for adding the bounty to the Node, is that if ChoNation decides to abandon all their territories, the bounty still exists for other guilds to fight for it. Guilds could also coordinate with each other by planning to zerg off a guild that owns multiple territories, and instead of having to plan days in advance, they could abandon territories to do so.

Yes, there already is a lot of silver in the game and adding more would make this problem worse. But shouldn’t end game pvp be somewhat rewarding to the players and guilds that dedicate their time to it? Why is it bad that guilds and players that spend hours planning out fights actually get some money from winning wars. Instead of grinding mobs on repeat for hours on end, there should be a meaningful reward for guilds and players that take node wars seriously. There should be more incentives for wanting to progress your gear, instead of just being able to grind a little faster. There should be a way for players that exclusively want to PvP to make some silver asides from RBF’s (god forbid they give some rewards for AoS outside of the top 100 players). The amount of silver I proposed may be a little too much, and possibly could get outdated if the numbers do not adjust with the economy of the game, which is why adding seasons to the node war scene could be beneficial, as it would allow for the developers to make changes at a specific time, instead of randomly whenever they feel like it. There are bound to be concerns & flaws in my suggestions, but this is just what I have come up with based on my recent observations of the node war scene, and time I have spent playing this game. 

Thank you for reading this far, if you have, that just means you care about this issue as much as I do so please share and discuss this topic with those around you. 

nodewars are absolute sadness these days, every patch manages to make them worse than before.

they should basically scrap everything and return to 2017 setupd with minor tweaks and iron out known bugs/exploits. also should take in consideration number of actual players per region. 

This is 100% accurate. Something needs to be re-imagined about node wars.  Rather than a delicate hand, I'd even say PA needs to consider drastic ideas. To make a medical analogy, things are terminal and we want the experimental treatment options. 
  
The current NA scene is like....  
  
Top several guilds coordinate together to schedule fights with each other somewhere, so they can't really hold their own nodes during the week because they will need to drop them in time to place for the one genuine fair and real fight they are trying to arrange. There is no point in collecting land in Mediah if you know you will need to drop it all to fight in Kamasylvia. We want good fights, but the system doesn't give it to us naturally so we need to go out of our way to carefully schedule them in spite of the system. 
  
Nobody fights those guilds ever outside of those planned get-togethers. There is no incentive to even try, so no one bothers to commit to an uphill battle or an automatic loss of a fight. The guilds that do hold large swathes of nodes unopposed are guilds that are not fighting to do so. They spread across the map not because they are conquering the map, but because nobody is opposing them. This is simply NOT how Node War should be. The system does not funnel the participants into combat, the system does not incentivize conquest. In fact, the system as it currently is, discourages good fights and makes it painful to arrange things.    

Node War guilds should actually want to govern as much territory as possible, and defend our land when attacked, and we should also want to try to aggressively usurp the territory from its incumbent governors. But currently, the entire node war system seems to just getin the way of the few actual fights we can manage to schedule with our peers, so it's just.... inconvenient baggage. It needs revitalizing. 

Yep pretty much nail on the head from what i can tell and having only done t1 for a long time i dont know about t2-4 but it feels like there is no fight its just die to a flame tower over and over for 2hrs

The elephants hwatcha and flame towers on t1 are just stupid they can kill you in 1 hit through block with PA when the hp caps gets below about 3.5k

Honestly i dont think they could have wreck nw's more if they did it deliberatly and i think AOS has saved them from a huge backlash over it and they should just completly scrap the new system and go back to the old one i would happily give up rewards for some fun content again.

at least a capped nodewars u can use that lightstone set that reduces damage from siege war machines by 30% no? :)

what was it called? Protection set?  Roots+Swamp+Boulder+Mind

This is the node war scene in SEA.

If you noticed, almost certain that only 1 guild is conquering a region.

Except for Balenos / Serendia, the other regions are being camped by Top Guilds.

Balenos

Serendia

Calpheon

Kamasylvia

Mediah

Valencia

The state of node wars shows the state of  pvp. Why do a node war when you can queue into something. Especially when most of the classes aren't that good at large scale???

Also doesn't help the node wars that have more equalized gear aka T1s have terrible mechanics now added to them. PA doesn't know what they are doing with the node wars any more.

It doesn't make any difference the hp caps will tick down one more time and you get 1 shot again its better to just keep you damage if they just removed every change the devs have made to nw's in the last 2 yrs they would be way more fun for everyone and i bet it would get way more people playing it.

The only real exeption is seige were they actually done an ok job

I think tldr for t1 it needs flame tower, elephant ,elephant spears and hwatcha damge need to be reduced by atleast 50% even that mite need to be more and hp should be capped at around 4k hp this would atelast i think make t1 a playable experience.