Region NA

Family Name Metillius

I wanted to show a friend of mine black desert and we both made a season charakter and since i didnt know the new starter area we both choose the winter area.

First negative impression was the unskipable tutorial followed by way too many unskipable cutscenes !!!!

We spend over a hour just to run from npc to npc and pressing R like mad and skipping whatever is possible after that we was like level 20 and had skipped so many dialouges no one cared about and fought not even a hand full of mobs. Sorry but thats overkill, my friend was at the end of his nerves and from the 4+ hours we planned he just quit bdo and played something else because all he wanted was to play the game and not a hour long tutorial we didn't even finish.  All this story and explaining is irrelevant for someone who dont know a jack about bdo yet its too much too fast and nobody who wanna try the game is reading that WALLS OF TEXT , also unskipable cutscenes are just reinforcing the urge to quit.

He critized that he was showerd with levels and all he did was running around pressing r over and over from npc to npc and running from a to b to a to c to a.

***

This was a terrible expirience , the starter area is overloaded with lore , its too much at this point. Less talk more action and more explaining how things worth with less words.

Getting showerd with items for doing nothing feels not statisfying

My friend lost direction more than once because he missed to talk to a npc because at some points you talk to 3 or 4 npc's at the same time switching forth and back to them at the same spot.

bdo you can do better !

First off all. Everything that is being done for the first time, is unskippable. Next time 90% of those scenes can be skipped.

Second of all. When you created a char and had the option to choose the path. It literally says that starting in winter area is for veterans. You could have read that and pick the other one, since you're not a veteran and have no clue about the game. 

Levels means nothing, you can level up to 61 in less than 1.5 hour. So being "showered" is common. Since the real grind comes after lvl 62. 

Just read what you're getting into next time.

Yeah the old questline was significantly better, but PA "improved" it.

Clearly new starter is not for new players, and i think game even tell you about it.

Unskipable tutorital once is okayish and its in a lot of games.

Unskipable cutscenes thanks to a buds who spammed R and b1**d out that BDO have no lore,because they didn't read text lore, now you forced to watch it at least once, because bi**h less next time. Fyi those R spammers also cryed whe they can't skip what they asked for. As for quests, quests is same everywhere, in every game, talk to NPC> run to point> do action> run back.

Last I checked it stated that whether you're a vet or not it didn't matter which is why the zone has two types of power brackets but I'm going to assume it's genuinely much harder regardless. If it truly were the case where it's for only veterans, the option wouldn't be there or at least shouldn't be would be the more appropriate thing to say. Lastly, people tend to overestimate other people's ability to care to read. If it's snow, it's pretty and attractive so click that. That's how people work. Most people would assume that if you have a choice between two things as a new player, it's just based on personal preference. It's winter now, so more people are likely to try that first too. If PA designed it too hard for new players, they need to address this and I'll back you guys up 100% on that.

I agree with OP on many points, there needs to be some fighting here and there between the very long tutorials. The worst part of FF14 was ARR (first part of the game) and it's because it had like 100+ fetch quests and talking to NPCs for no reason. It literally took over 100 hours before the game started to get interesting. PA did a great job with the voice acting, the narration and stuff... But forcing players to not skip unless you have already cleared it will only push players away from the game. The first time someone plays a game is to figure out whether or not the combat or lifeskills are fun. If they can't get to this fast enough, they'll quit, especially at times when there are no financial commitment (trial / free pass). As I remember it took over 20 minutes just to speed run the first part of the winter region questline. I did go through it normally the first time though for lore /story reasons.

This was PA's first attempt at trying to introduce a proper narrative to BDO. There were some positives but the negatives are pretty strong, strong enough to push players away I think. Personally I don't think the winter story should be offered to a new player, it is too overwhelming.

The EW storyline spoils the entire plot up to it. It's that why it's not recommended for new players. 

Aside from that, yeah, EW had waaaaay too much exposition and too little action. 4 fights in what can take 2 days of playing, if R doesn't go brrr. And the only bit that was new and interesting turned out to be forced, glitchy and a 1-time experience (talking about the giants clumped together in that swap). Nothing came out of it afterwards. Mountain of Eternal Winter had all the good things going for it. Ended up a major flop. Campaign arc is just and exposition dump with no time to actually play the class. The place feels empty. A lot of trees and nothing else (not when compared to all the regions that the game launched with, for example). Speed tree went brrr. A damn shame.

As a player that remembers what the MSQ used to be at launch, I actually quite enjoyed the EW arc. The voice-acting was a much needed change that helped immensely, and the characters were all memorable.

I do agree though that the balance between story and combat was very off, I had no idea what any of my abilities on my new character were until I finished the whole questline and went to practice on actual mobs after. A good story shouldn't be completely devoid of action or consequence.

I also hope that they return someday to revamp the zone itself, it does feel quite empty D;

If you can skip a scene the second time dosn't matter at all when you uninstall the game after the first time because you was forced to watch it. If you can start in a new region as a bloody newcommer that is for veterans something is wrong with the design, apart from that nothing in this region was too hard for a newbie because all you do is to run to npcs and hammer R trough walls of text wich makes uninterruptable cutscenes even worse because you have no idea what they about.

Also a new player dont know about the real grind and certainly can't reach 61 in 1.5 hours without help , and if you spend your first hour or so just running around collecting items levels and skills you not use because no combat happens in that hour thats a terrible first impression. Its also not common i seen better tutorials in other games that give you breathers in form of quests and not try to shove you the full lore from day 1 to present day down your throat when nothing of those matter to new players at all. 

This starter area is wonderful for people who know bdo and its bdo celebrating itself for being so awesome but i dont want to know how many people trying out bdo stopped after a half hour to a hour and uninstalled because they got bored to death.

If they get bored to death in BDO after 30 minutes, then it's not a game for them.  Bdo is grinding simulator where you do the same circles and skills for ten thousands of hours. If you quit after 30 min, then move on. You're not forced to play every game.

Sure, these players don't care to read the obvious explanations given under the 2 possible choices but they do not hesitate to come on the forums to complain through a "suggestion".

From the opening post you can see that they didn't read and dashed through the quests and story. You can see that they simply want to binge play BDO. So obviously, they didn't pay attention to the available choices and their explanations. 

I personnally won't blame BDO for this situation.