I kinda like this.

This is such a waste of time, if you've played this game since beta, you will know it to be true.

No matter how much we complained and protested about changes like these in the past, PA always commit, it is a given.

I for one, don't even care anymore, the owpvp has been complete dogwater for years, and we have marni realms to surpress most of these griefer issues.

Grind an hour, take a break and do something else, or keep grinding and understand you're risking yourself to a griefer.

If you fall victim to a griefer, then simply just turn your general chat off or don't type ANYTHING... seriously, it's that simple, you deny them content to post on some channel on their discord.

If you don't have patience, switch channel... its 5 minutes, if you still have an issue, just wait for your marni and play something else or do some chores.

Or, downvote, complain to me and still end up with the changes and adapting to it anyways.

Congratulations PA. You have successfully bred a new playerbase of complainers with Seasonal Servers by design and I don't blame them for complaining.  It is an issue that instead of fixing the design flaw, you are catering to the issue you created in the first place.

Lets examine the issue for a moment shall we. Suppose I'm a new adventurer. In almost all cases I have been told to create a seasonal character because of the benefits it offers. (XP, Gear, all the bonus elements involved).

As I explore the world and learn the basics of Black Desert in an environment composed of both new players like myself and experienced players doing seasonal for rewards/alt characters/etc, I begin to learn the ropes and enjoy learning how to use my character for a few months grinding away on whatever mobs are alive.I finally graduation because the season is finished (pre recent season changes) or because I want the rewards and take my first steps into the big bad world of the normal servers.

I head out to grind as I always have and instantly I get killed by a non Tuvala Timmy player and think to myself "THAT'S NOT FAIR!... why did he/she kill me? I'm just trying to grind like I always have. WTF! This is so frustrating!". Naturally I would assume they are in the wrong because I am playing the way I learnt to play over the last few months and have never had the chance to experience needing to respect other players grind boundaries as that simply was not possible on season servers in their current state. All grind zones were a crowded free for all (Especially if we look further back when there were less servers) with a "grind what I can while I can" forced mentality.

In essense, I was raised over the past few months to be a griefer and see nothing wrong with it as that is how I learnt to play Black Desert in the environment that was provided for me. I have literally zero reason to think I was doing something perhaps I shouldn't and the person who killed me was in the wrong. (Of course there can be exceptions to this as the game isn't that simplified)

THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM! I can't even blame the complainers at this point as they never given the option to feel otherwise. The season servers should have NEVER BEEN free of PVP. However, of course full on PVP allowance would have been a chaotic issue as well so what could have been done?

A few examples. :9
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- The PVP ready mechanic at level 50 is from 2016. lol. That should have been raised to atleast 61 a long time ago.

- MORE Seasonal servers obviously. Semi recently more servers have been added which is great however, they should all be PVPable servers. (Not Arsha servers, just "normal")

- Seasonal only BA. A gear fair place to practice PVP using only what you get from seasonal.

- A seasonal only crystal set should have been created. It would allow players to still get the benefits of crystals but limit how OP they can become for PVP reasons. This would also discourage red players as you would not be able to just buy protection crystals off the market place and would need to grind them out/quest for them or risk downgrading your seasonal gear. (After all, you might as well have the option to learn what the risks of being a red player are as you learn the game). It also prevents more vetted players running season from bringing their more rare sets over giving them the advantage over new players as that could also feel very discouraging in PVP.

- Same thing for artifacts/lightstone sets. Only allow what is obtained on seasonal to be used on seasonal and make them convertable upon graduation.

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With the above changes you would have allowed players to not feel completely safe after they have hit a certain level and they can ease into the state of the big bad world "normal" servers without the initial shock of meeting much more geared players killing them for "No reason". Also by adding more servers, you have allowed them to have more space to find their own grind spot and have it less of a free for all. Just by the natural progressive course of gameplay, they would learn that it can get annoying once other players come into your grind spot in the free-for-all mentality and grief you while there are plenty of open spots still available for them. It also gives them the chance to PVP with someone on fair terms.

"WHAT ABOUT LIFE SKILLERS!? WE DON'T WANT PVP!" - Its a dangerous world out there kiddo. You will meet bad people sometimes. I have personally managed to lifeskill since 2016 without having game breaking issues with other players though. I'm pretty sure that you can too. It really isn't easy for someone to hunt you down if you swap off of your home server rotation. If someone really goes out of their way to constantly hunt you, that isn't even a mechanic, that is something you can report as harassment as it goes against ToS. I'm not saying begin reporting people for PVPing a lifeskiller, but if it really got to that point that they somehow follow you across all servers which is very difficult to do unless one of your guildmates updating them with which server you are on (guild/guildmate problem more than anything).... you have that option.

RIGHT, THE POINT IS... the above issues should have been handled rather than just  the "new players feel its unfair, lets change a huge PVP aspect of a game on ALL SERVERS regardless that it has been working well (not perfect) since 2016 just to make a smaller portion of the new player population happy. Our supportive long time players who have enjoyed this aspect of the game for so many years....  well they don't matter so much anymore." approach. 

My apologies for this long post, I have been a BDO player since the beginning and it is very frustrating to see the upcoming changes about to take place as it really does alter certain important aspects of the game. Alot of the most memerable moments over the years have been from GvG on both sides on the coin (Getting my butt kicked and winning). It looks like that is MOSTLY coming to a sad end shortly.

Alright let me give you a brief summary of how things will go if they choose to go through with this patch.

Once patch hits most players will indiscrimantely kill everyone out of spite, it will actually cause "PK griefing".

Up until now I have only seen it happen about 5 times since 2017, usually by some red players. 

The words of others saying that people are declaring out of ego or bullying is nonsense, 99% of declares are related to siege/NW and players who are grinding on some spot and someone just chooses to grind over them.

Adding Marni realms is great, it actually would be fine to just add it without changing the declaring system, because you can just grind in peace. 

Why should I as a hardcap player go to a Marni realm because a newbie decided he's going to grind over me for whatever reason, even tho he might not even be able to make full use of the rotation and could do fine on a side spot while I would overclear?

Once some players decide to go red and just kill indiscrimantely, what's one more kill? It will literally not matter how many you mow down once you're already red. A lot of people will also run full dp builds and feed people to mobs so their crystals break.

Instead of reverting the declaring change, PA will probably crack down on PvP even more or even disable it.

This is where we hit rock bottom, people will just quit, all their gear is pointless anyway.

You can only grind to grind more faster.

The quitting wave will happen, PA won't even realise how many players they have lost.

By the time they notice their profit drops, probably in around a year, they might try and revert changes and bring PvP back.

However by then most will find another MMORPG or just another game to play.

BDO's betrayal will still sting them and they won't come back.

All that will be left are PvE players. Once they are tired of grinding to see numbers go up even they will quit.

That is when we will see the sad death of Black Desert Online.

Honestly its surprising to me how many people are saying these changes shouldn't go through because the people who don't want them to go through will just resort to mob feeding. "You can't remove my ability to exploit this system or I'll just exploit a different system." Flag up and fight like the game always intended you too, and stop trying to hold the rest of us hostage with your threats that can and honestly should get you banned should you follow through on them. 

Sad as it is the % of the playerbase that likes pvp is incredibly small compared to casual playerbase numbers. Even worse, pvp players bought their weight and their tent and their horse horn years ago. They have an outfit that they like and t5 pets and pretty much are done with spending on the game for the most part. ..so they dont care if you quit. Or they think so anyway.

It also turns out that most of the most dedicated and passionate players in community friven games like this are pvpers. ..and when they quit many guilds will lose officers, guild leaders and core members. The very skeleton of the community will be gone.

I already moved on some months ago when they announced these changes in KR, as I knew it wouldnt be long before they were shipped here.

You can kick and scream and cry and beg. Curse and wail and pound your fists all you want, but nothing yopu do will ever stop this change from going livem because the company you support dont ever read these forums. Id suggest quitting. Thats really the only language they understand. Dont keep playing and paying. Dont just leave your machine on whille you afk fish. Actually uninstall and quit. ..not to hurt them but because there are some pretty goddamn good hgames out there now. You dont have to keep playing this shit. It is their game after all. They can drop a juicy green loaf of shit onto it if they want. But ill be somewhere else.

What's your evidence that the most passionate and driven players are pvprs?

I mostly agree with your post, but I don't understand your point about activating pvp at lvl 61?

By doing so, as gear is the real determining factor, you'd allow players to hunt on most spots, even some high ones, without any pvp interaction, while some other player would have to deal with owpvp.

Isn't it going in contradiction with the main idea of your post? If the goal is to reestablish owpvp as something obvious in BDO, what would be the point of having similarly geared players being in different game settings?

Pvp activation should depend on another factor, like reaching a definite GS. It looks like the most logical answer to me. 

Seems pretty self evident. BDO has fun combat, but no game system is going to keep you riveted to your chair for 700 hours in a vacum. You need a community for that, and you need stakes usually. Community and competition are the elements for long term player retention. Competition isnt always pvp. theres competition in pve or like leaderboards, or even competition with yourself in speedrunning. trying to get bettertimes.

..but in the case of BDO very few people I knew in the game were really all about going out and hitting another green split at orcs. They wanted to push more accuracy for GvGs.