That's blatantly false and a ridiculous thing to say with the recent release of so many end game locations.  Whether it's Odil, Hadum Servers, Ash Forest etc you will need end game gear to grind these locations effeciently.

The Crypt is nearly impossible regardless of your gear score.

in its early days, black desert was a challenge similar to other modern mmorpg`s while leveling, leveling in itself took quite a while too. the issue is, that youre getting fed insane gear instantly compared to what we had on release.

if you want to increase your challenge, or want a "vanilla" bdo leveling, i suggest you dont exceed +5-10 green armor and +9-12 green weapons without any good accessoires  until youre level 50, then you can get a glimpse of the original leveling experience.

that being said, bdo is still a grind-heavy game and the combat doesnt really get challenging until the grindspots after aakman/hystria. (past level 61, about 261ap/300dp)

you can always mix in some life-skilling to freshen up the bdo grindfest. :)

Technically you can do that at any gear score.  All you need to do is grind an area that is challenging, but feasible.  Whether you have 300-700+ GS there is an area that will push the limits.

Once you reach a certain AP range, things are pretty much mash buttons. However, when your AP is equal to mobs, you need to start using your brains. BDO is like any other MMORPG out there: gear makes content trivial. Nothing wrong with that.

The problem with BDO is that level 1 mobs still drop stuff to level 999999 characters. With that knowledge, you exploit it to go against weak mobs for maximum profit. It's a no brainer, on many levels.

Gear makes content trivial in any game I will agree but at-least in other game's the mobs actually have mechanics were you need to time dodges, blocks, an use skills at key times to match what NPC it is your fight or what the NPC doing. But BDO lol what is AI? Literally every PVE combat encounter is you walk up to the a mob or group of mobs and literally spam skills until the mob dies an the only mechanic that exist is using your still so you keep your AP buffs up, and DP debuffs on the mob, that it literally during the entire time your killing the mob you just ignore everything it doing cause what it doing doesn't even matter unlike other game's were mobs actually have mechanic you need to pay attention too. ESO a good example of this is cause if you ignore the archer mobs in the back they'll be spamming snipe attacks at you that chuck your HP, if you ignore the caster they'll spam CCs on you and heal other NPCs, if you just try skill spam the mobs with shields they'll block your attacks and set you off balance than knock you down for not paying attention to see if their blocking or not. An yes enough gear will make any content or mechanic pointless that just the flaw with vertical progress in the end, but at-least with adding mechanics beside spam skills until mob dies you still have to remember them an play around them otherwise you'll just pointless struggle for no reason.

This is only the... Very early game for any char. It's true, that even without an enhanced gear just "auto-attack"(for some classes) will be enough to wreak havoc on the mobs. The skills aren't something fancy, until you get somewhere like 30+ lvl. But as you progress with levels you might consider enhancing your own gear and from time to time use a skill. Or buy something from the MP which is optional. At least a +15 gear to faceroll the mobs at low levels. But if you want to feel more challenging to you, you can just level with Naru gear and enhance it yourself. The main quest line gives you the needed materials for it.

This is an Action MMO, think of the game play like diablo 3. This is not wow for FFXIV.

Combat is amazing to me.

You missed nothing that's the entier BDO "pve" from olivia to the lastest grind spot in date

Well they just increased the HP pool, so it will requier more skill to use to kill. But overall, yeah BDO just have a sandbag AI that never was worked on to offer fun challenge to face.

Even the rift boss which are the most "challenging" pve fight you could have, have so many design issue ...

Not quite. After 10 level difference or so the drops start to fall dramatically. Go fight any low-level zones with your level 62+ and you'll see what I mean.

Obviously this is generally not a problem since any mobs worth grinding in the game are lvl 56+

Well, that's pretty much what my obviously obcene exaggeration implies.