To get access to important Content or Systems as a player these days, you have to do a lot of storyquests. Really every piece of content or important system from the last few years is locked behind storyquests. This is even not enough. No, you also have to do unskippable cutscenes.

Here is a list:

- Season Completion: To complete the Season, you have to do the Storyquests until Mediah, although there is a simplified way. Why?

- Magnus Questline: To unlock the Magnus Start questline, you must have done the Main questline Balenos or Mountain of Eternal Winter or the Simplified questline of the Season. To do all Magnus quests, you must also complete Serendia and Calpheon main story questlines. Even questlines that have no direct story connection are locked behind questlines. Why?

- Connected storage: In order to access all other storage from anywhere, you must have completed Magnus. Why? (I know this will soon no longer be the case).

- Atoraxxion Vahmalkea: To have access to this dungeon, the following questlines must be completed: "[5-person Co-op] The Last Stronghold, Atoraxxion". This requires completing the following questlines: Black Spirit Main Quest (I's Invitation), Mediah questline, Awakening or Succession questlines.

- Atoraxxion Yolunakea: To access this dungeon, the following questlines must be completed: "[Atoraxxion] Ruined Plans". This requires completing the following quest lines: "[Atoraxxion] Talibre's Tear" from the Atoraxxion: Vahmalkea quest line.
"This quest line begins with the quest "[Atoraxxion] SOS of Yaz".

- Atoraxxion Sycrakea: "To enter the dungeon, you must complete the Atoraxxion main questline "[5-person co-op] The Last Stronghold, Atoraxxion." This is a family questline and you can get the first quest "[Atoraxxion] Edan's Letter" from your black ghost who has the following requirements to start: Completed "The Last Stronghold, Atoraxxion: Vahmalkea" questline."

- Boss Rush: To unlock Boss Rush, you must complete all 5 chapters of the Land of the Morning Light region.

- Land of the Morning Light: To unlock the 5 chapters of Land of the Morning Light that you need for Boss Rush, you must complete the following requirements: "Abyssal Vein: Land of the Morning Light", Complete all "Abyss One: The Magnus" main quests, "Complete the series of abyssal pocket quests for the Magnus in the Land of the Morning Light."

At least that's all the content/system gatekeeping stuff I could find off the top of my head (add more if u know more). There are certainly more. How long does it take a  player to get through it? 30 h? 40h?
Surely that's not much time and not much effort by BDO standards, but that's not my point. It's more about the fact that it's just annoying and unnecessary. In the past, I sometimes liked to do story quests and I was really interested in the story quests. Nowadays it feels like I'm not doing the story quests because of the story, but just to unlock some system or content.

Today, BDO just feels like I have to fulfill a lot of in-game requirements to play the game. Back in the days i create a character and start grinding and doing open world PvP with friends. I had little to no disadvantage if I didn't do a story quest. Since the introduction of the season server, it's just a matter of following a red line until I finally have the freedom to do what I want. Back in the day i was free from the beginning.

Edit: Because some have misunderstood me here, I'll try to make this clear: I'm not here to demand "rewards" without putting in effort. From that point on, it's about understanding or deciding for yourself what a reward is. PA has decided that something like Boss Rush is a reward. For me Content like Boss Rush, Atoraxxion, Quests, Nodewar, RBF, Grind Spots and Systems like Magnus Teleport, connected Storage, Lifeskills, Enhancing are not Rewards. Silver, Gear, Mounts etc. are Rewards.

But what is Boss Rush? Boss Rush is functionally nothing more than a content to make silver. And with this silver we buy our reward. That's exactly what Grind Spots are functionally. But I don't have to unlock Grind Spots after doing an 8 hour quest line. I can just go to the grind spots and start.

Its a other topic if i do it well at the spots. Fur sure higher Spots requires higher gear, but the grind spots is still unlocked for me to go there and try my best. New Content and Systems today are not open to try. I cant try Boss Rush for the rewards, i cant go to Atoraxxion for the rewards. I need to do long Questlines and there is no way around.

The reward is what I want at the very end. If I grind, then my reward is either an item that can drop or silver/h. But I don't have to unlock the grind spots first though, do I?
If I want to enhance my gear, I don't have to unlock the enhancement system first, do I?

If I want to lifeskill, do I have to unlock the lifeskill systems first?

If I want to play RBF, I don't have to unlock that either.

If I want to play Nodewars, I don't have to go through a questline to unlock it, do I?

But that's exactly how it works with almost every new system or content that is added to BDO these days.

Imagine you had to go grind at spots to unlock quests, not because its part of the Quest itself (that would be reasonable in terms of Story maybe, that would be okay), no, because PA wants that u just go grind to unlock a Questline in general. For each new main questline you have to grind at certain grind spots for 6-10 hours, that dont have any story relevant direct connection.

This is exactly the structure of PA's current content/system gatekeeping. You have to do questlines to unlock systems or content that I in turn have to complete to get my rewards.

In the past, there was no such thing. I didn't have to unlock things to make content or use a systems. They've always been open because the content and systems weren't seen as a reward, but as the meduim for the rewards. At least I can't think of anything. Any content or system that I used to do in BDO to get my reward was not locked again by other systems and content that had nothing to do with the first one. I mean, just think about that: i cant do Boss Rush, if i dont did the first Main Quest of BDO´s old story. Today, it is a red line for that everyone has to take if they want to unlock certain systems or content, which again is not actual reward, but just a medium for the reward.

In dont want that Questing dont have rewards, i just want that its not have locked importent systems and new content, that attract player that dont like story. Give Story fans something story relevent, like Roleplay Skins or something that u also can get from other sources like Silver. Give alternatives like a Sandbox Game should be.

I actually have to agree here. Its been spoken about before by lots of others concerning the new player experience but whats bringing people to the game is not the deep lore of black desert. It isnt cutting edge quest design or dialogue writing. When people hear about black desert and are excited to try the game what they are thinking about is the massive uninterrupted open world. The best in class combat. The spectacle.

Imagine then the absoloute momentum killer it is of having to endure some of the absoloute worst quest design possible for hours and hours and hours. It is a tragedy. The amount of new players we lose because they want to go outside and kill shit, but instead they have to pres T, then spam R for a million years before they can actually play any of the fun parts of the game.

Ok, I'm going to rewrite my response because I didn't really get it right the first time. But first, are you new to video games? Because if not, you would know that gating some content behind other content is a staple feature of games, even as far back as tetris which required you to do level 1 before you could do level 2. BDO does it in other places as well, other than just story. More on that in a moment. 

Games gate content, features, or rewards behind other content as incentive or reward for doing it, continuation of the story, or even just ease of introduction to the world or new content. Sometimes it's because new content is harder than old or builds off it, such as for dungeon or raid series like Atoraxxion. But whatever the reasons above, they also do it to increase engagement time, to keep you playing longer, and to make creating content worthwhile. If you can skip everything to get the reward and most people do that, why bother creating the skipped content to begin with? A valid argument here would be that if said content was good enough it would be worthwhile doing on its own merit, and I would absolutely agree with that for most games other than BDO. Perhaps unique to this game, a majority of the community sees time as silver. Time spent not maximizing silver or the ability to gain more silver in the future is time wasted. Not only is time spent and silver gained evaluated, but time spent against silver you could have otherwise gained. For example on the latter, if you grind a 300mil/h spot, most people aren't looking at like you're gaining 300mil/h, but losing 500mil/h by not grinding at an 800m spot. Changing how the community approaches the game, to make doing "side" content appealing, would require fundamentally changing core facets of it, such gear progression, gear loss, or the economy.  Or, follow industry tried and true methods by dangling a carrot at the end of it. The altar of dead content is filled with ideas that PA just didn't make worth the time to do for most players, some of them since removed entirely from the game.

For magnus, several such carrots were dangled. Free pen, unique skill, and the most impressive convenience feature to be added to the game in years. Said feature is now being made a base part, accessible from the start, but that carrot got a lot of people to do magnus that might have otherwise ignored it. With LOML, that teleportation is now a lot more appealing as well. 

For seasons, you have to remember that they are first and foremost targeted towards new or returning players. Forcing them to go through at least mediah is to help guide them through the game and its regions to areas appropriate for their gear progression. Although, with how fast gear progression and leveling are now, Balenos to Valencia could probably use reworks in required/recommended gear, levels, and loot. Tossing them out in Olvia and giving them no direction to follow is more overwhelming than requiring them to follow a path, eventually, is annoying. While seasons can and should be done even by vets, we're not the target audience. 

For boss blitz, each boss only requires their story. Sure, if you want to do 5 every week you need to do 5 stories. But again, carrot and content. They could have just made everything immediately available, no questing required, but why even make the questing at that point? And to take this further and bring everything to a point, why is questing the problem here? All of your complaints are about certain content being gated behind quests to acquire the rewards. But if I want to grind for the Orzeca outfit, I need to have 680+gs. Why do I need that? Why can't I just get it, without having to do the work to access the content? Why is it that questing is the required content that is evil, but grinding as required content is not? Or practicing to become skilled? Or progressing to be able to kill Rawr Rawr? Or sea content to get caravels? Etc. Everything in BDO is gated behind something in order to access, unlock, or participate in content or rewards. 

Log in grind and so pvp in open world ? In 2023 ? Bro we have snowflakes gen everyone want to play in peace ow pvp is dead, even on Arsha is hard to find anyone. Secondly u want ow pvp as a new players? It does not have sense people will just keep oneshoting, firstable u should reach 680-700 GS and at least make a proper gear, 700 GS is now entry level to pvp you can participate in ow pvp, RBF etc. Still hard capped 730+ GS players are out of your range but its hard to find them in OW.

Why is it that questing is the required content that is evil, but grinding as required content is not?

Because questing is dogshit in this game thats why... @Deleastre

You're right. Magnus did have a bunch of carrots at the end. ..but the experience of the actual content was fucking excruciating.

Like, if someone wanted to beat my feet with a hammer i'd say no, that dont sound very fun. If they offered me a suitcase filled with 75 million dollars at the end, yea I'd probably let it go down. ..does that mean getting my feet blasted is fun? No.

when i was done at long last at the end of the LomL questline I diddnt think "Whew, what an accomplishment." I thought "Fucking finally, that was bullshit."

You dont need to stick new players with this massive wall of horse shit right at the beginning. Questing through the MSQ all the way to mediah. Its boring. They dont wanna do that. they wanna experiment with the combat system.

Open world PvP in BDO is not dead because of snowflakes. Open World PvP in BDO is not very populated, because of the fact that the bar of entry to be a factor is in fact 700 GS. Tell me this, what is going to entice a PvPers to spend thosuands of hours of in game grind to get to 700GS to be able to PvP in the open world. When those people can just turn off BDO and go play GW2's WvW, Eve Online, or any of the E-Sports titles and gain PvP entry competitively in less than 50 hours of grinding. That's why Open World PvP in BDO is so niche.

If you people want more people doing Open World PvP in BDO. Then as a community, you people will have to convince the Devs, to fix the oppressive progression system. Outside of outright P2W MMOs only New World outclasses BDO in the number of hours need to gain entry into Open World PvP. Very few PvPers are going to be ok with that, meaning you are going have low Open World PvP interest in BDO.

New World ..  doesnt you can get into open rush with 20 hours. Any way if you said the game had a lagging issue sure but it is the easiest game to get  into pvp resilent on armor with skill cd reduction an aversion ... Litterally given it. Bdo also has capped servers called seasons using tuvala an also nodewars an sieges are capped . 

Pvp is having a hard time not because of gear its because PA have classes that take no skill being near the top an people are sick of meta hopping. PA are more interested in milking fotm classes instead of sorting core problems for class they have no idea how balance anything in the game without unintentionally nerfing classes or over tuning them for zero reason. 

Edit: Part thats missing PA listen to forum users who complain about the game who have zero idea on the game mechanics so they complain that they got beaten by a better player. 9/10 times this how the carebears get on here as they expect to be best in 1v1 with zero ingame knowledge 

While you're absolutely right about what you're stating here in general about design choices in video games, at the same time you've completely misunderstood my point about BDO. This is not about removing the effort to get directly to the reward. This is about PA locking content and systems that then actually lead us to our reward behind questlines that follow a red line for several years now. I used to be able to get to my rewards through a lot of different content and systems (that weren't locked behind questlines). Today, I have to do questlines to unlock certain content that in turn can lead me to my reward.

The reward is what I want at the very end. If I grind, then my reward is either an item that can drop or silver/h. But I don't have to unlock the grind spots first though, do I?
If I want to enhance my gear, I don't have to unlock the enhancement system first, do I?

If I want to lifeskill, do I have to unlock the lifeskill systems first?

If I want to play RBF, I don't have to unlock that either.

If I want to play Nodewars, I don't have to go through a questline to unlock it, do I?

But that's exactly how it works with almost every new system or content that is added to BDO these days.

Imagine you had to go grind at spots to unlock quests. For each new main questline you have to grind at certain grind spots for 6-10 hours.

This is exactly the structure of PA's current content/system gatekeeping. Except you have to do questlines to unlock systems or content that I in turn have to complete to get my rewards.

In the past, there was no such thing. I didn't have to unlock things to make content or use the systems. They've always been open because the content and systems weren't seen as a reward, but as the meduim for the rewards. Today, there is a thread for everyone to take if they want to unlock certain systems or content, which again is not actual reward, but just a medium for the reward.

U asking "why even make the questing at that point?" - In dont want that Questing dont have rewards, i just want that its not have so importent rewards like systems and new content, that attract player that dont like story. Give Story fans something story relevent, like Roleplay Skins or something that u also can get from other content like Silver.