TLDR: There was so much harrassment connected to open-world PvP system that PA decided to change the options that players have. The option to have an alt that can kill other players without any punishment was removed. The option do single-handedly declare war on a player's guild and kill the player endlessly without punishment was removed.

Some players (most often with high GS) are unhappy, because they considered open world PvP to be their endgame and they feel that the gear progression is losing value. Oftentimes, those unhappy players use the argument that other PvP options are not rewarding enough. However, please, note that there has not been any reward for open world PvP at all and there are options for PvP players with rewards where they can utilize their full AP (RBF, Arsha servers, consensual guild war). Considering gear-equalized arena, a funny resounding argument was that fighting people with the same gear level was unfair and unfun (uhm, right?). Considering Arsha servers, the argument was that it was "empty", which may simply show that most players don't want to get 1-shotted in un-equalized open world PvP and lose their time.

Another frequent argument was that those unhappy players cannot sufficiently deal with players who grind over them. In this case, please, note that server switching timer was reduced and Marni zones massively expanded, so getting rid of such griefers, whose presence is rather scarce anyways, is quite easy. Absurdly, some of those players decided that the right way to fight this imagined griefing and the changes to PvP was to "feed" random people to mobs to make them lose progress. So... they decided to demonstrate the dangers of griefing by griefing others (uhm, right?). Some of those people were banned under the "disrupting gameplay" clause.

Finally, there is the argment that the world feels more "empty" and less "dangerous" after the changes, since many people are grinding in their private zones. It is important to note that entering a private zone is consensual and players do ot have to use it if it is less engaging. However, this argument attempts to force all players to not have a choice and deal with non-consensual PvP. If the world really felt more empty (and I do not see any signs of this), players do not have to use private zones.

And now here we are. What you can see in this thread is some of those unhappy players trying to convince others that the changes were a bad decision. In my view, these attempts are not quite succesful.

Let me provide a different perspective.  I agree that the use of endless deccs for personal vendettas was out of hand and needed to be addressed.  However, some one sided deccs were legitimate uses of the mechanic - to deal with people grinding over one's rotation and griefing, for example.  ALso - to deal with players who needlessly bullied others.  At the same time, I think most of those legitimate one sided decced were of brief duration and were not abused.  As with many elements of MMOs, abuse ON BOTH SIDES created problems.  Unfortunately, PA took a sledgehammer to these problems, not a scalpel, making rapid, massive changes.  I think much less drastic changes would have eliminated 95%+ of the unwanted behaviors.  I hope that they reconsider.  

There is a philosophy and method in software and innovation called Agile.  I wish PA had applied Agile principles to solving this.

To bring this to yet another interesting perspective...

This was announced this afternoon in KR.

What is said is that the participants are refusing to participate.. I.e. they dont have enough interest to keep it going.

I mean when you pretty much crap all over the players that do PVP its kinda hard to keep the players that are left that have no interest in PVP to go in the same direction. Especially when you have a massive lag fest that has been War of Roses followed by the lag fest that was the Asian Tourny.

None of the PVP community asked for a 300 v 300, players were wanting 10 v 10 small scale stuff that doesnt amount to a massive Dsync issue.

So again the Van hail dictator Jae-Hee Kim is forcing more Dead content, end game trash that doesnt even really focus on PVP.

Instead of simply focusing on cleaning up the problems we do have, or bringing back popular content that literally spiked the game..

Alter of Blood has been gone for over a year..

I mean simply Bringing back the original version of Shadow Arena Back to BDO would automatically boost your player base by 50%. people loved the game when it was attached to BDO and the rewards for the time was outstanding and worth spending time in game to help progress by pvp... It was fun

Jae-Hee Kim did not unterstand that playing Shadow Arena helped progress our IN game goals (once seperated as a game NOONEwas doing it becouse it didnt do a thing for a game that required a massive time sink to play already) as well as provided a lot of fun (outside of the speed hackers).

What PA has yet to recognize is that making something worth while for players to do as an alternative to grinding would bring a massive amount of people back to the game.. for some reason these Developers simply ignore the corrilation between $$$$ and time... If RBF made as much money and benifits (i.e. 1.5 bil per hour if you win the whole hour 800 mil if you lose)   as grinding end game they would not be able to add enough servers to keep up. especially if they add in boxes that dropped rare's like debo necks, disto's , debo belts so on.

This also includes the abandon 10v10 arena that was supposed to happen in O'dyllita the map and castle still sits there empty.

Yet it was best for them to Tell us what we should enjoy and then PA wasted 1000's of man hours on a trash concept that there own servers cant even handle as is.

Good job Jae-Hee Kim your ass should be fired.

Let me chime in here for once.

There is interest in this contest, Korean players aren't actually bothered about the open world PvP changes, unlike the more vocal players in NA / EU. However, at least one of the guilds is boycotting this due to the gigantic shit show that is currently ongoing over in Korea for over a week already. 

Something, and I can't for the life of me figure out the exact core issue, if there even is one, as it might just be a problem of too many issues at once, is upsetting them. They complain / attack basically everything in or around the game currently, here is an incomplete list about it:

1. Dyes (i.e. Bright pink Zerkers | This stems from their comment about gun classes how it wouldn't fit into the world. Users then point towards those gaudy looking characters and question how those fit.)

2. Bikinis / Underwear not usable for grinding (This also leads to calling Jaehee Kim a feminist director)

3. Graphics (Not the pop in, but the graphics in general and how they are worse than newly released mobile games. Basically saying how the game has nothing going for it, as even its graphics aren't special anymore)

4. They're mocking certain posts, like the weekly Known Issue post that we also have. Or a Pearl Shop post because the class names are misplaced (in a sense of 'how incompetent are you to mess that up')

5. A financial firm evaluated their stock, claiming it isn't worth the current 40.000 Won, but should rather be 30.000 Won. (If you cared about that value, it should have bothered you earlier when the stock went from 140.000 down to 40.000 in the first place, but I also don't know why it was that high to begin with)

6. Crimson Desert delays (Idk why, probably another case of 'PA is incompetent')

7. Costumes (Apparently some don't like the farming costume and they link to previous concept art instead, which Pearl Abyss should release instead)

8. Pearl Fence 

9. Macro issue with a certain streamer (Someone, I won't mention who, accidentally used macros while streaming, not actually for BDO, but they are bothered by how Pearl Abyss actually handled that case, since it is technically ban worthy. A case of 'why do streamer have special privileges')

10. Asia Node War fuck up (And that users had to buy a VPN to reduce the lag)

11. Not listening to the playerbase or misinterpreting what they want.

12. That the core of the game is just grinding.

13. Class nerfs after the recent buffs (The ones that have been cancelled for now. It was said from the beginning that overbuffed classes would receive nerfs, but that is seemingly being ignored)

14. Raffle event (Feels bad not getting anything while others cheer)

15. Idea of the Treasure Elixir

16. Location lag and their response to it (Since there are software devs in the community, they consider it non sense that Pearl Abyss considers it "impossible" to fix)

17. Enhancing

18. Percentages are rigged (Failing four 95% chances while attempting t4 pets)

19. Viral marketing campaign problems  (More to it here: https://namu.wiki/w/%EA%B2%80%EC%9D%80%EC%82%AC%EB%A7%89/%EC%82%AC%EA%B1%B4%20%EC%82%AC%EA%B3%A0#s-9.4 )

20. Pearl Abyss is apparently 'fighting' users, might just be them referring to their stubbornness, like with the Damage numbers.

21. How Shai is being treated with some of the recent changes

22. If you 'defend' Pearl Abyss, or aren't on their side, they call you a part time worker.

23. They show how to block certain twitch streamer so that they aren't being recommended anymore, for the above reasons.

24. Lack of direction for the game.

25. Calpheon Ball leak (Basically what happened in the recent Late Night Talk)

26. Next Late Night Talk is on the 30th at 11 PM. As this is on a Thursday, rather than the weekend, they are bothered by it and are writing their own "fan fictions" how this will turn out.

27. Darkseeker's Retreat being bad initially(?), not sure if the complaints persist after the recent changes.

28. PK player getting temp banned after killing basically every life skiller not in a safe zone (He did not single out a specific player, he basically killed 100 different players, so they wonder why Alt+C is in the game, if that isn't allowed)

There are legitimate issues in this, like the macro / PK issue and how they enforce their ToS, their Asia Node War fuck up, them not listening / being stubborn, but it feels like a dogpile where everything gets 'criticised'. 

And they all blame Jaehee Kim for everything and want him to resign. Anyone who paid attention to Lost Ark this year in Korea should think maybe some steps ahead, but that is seemingly irrelevant.

I have seen many stupid arguments, this one takes the cake. 

People have been complaining about PvP not giving a way to progress for years. Choice even made one of the most upvoted post on this forum asking for more rewards for rbf. PA said don't care. 

Open world was a way to create player generated content, guild wars and drama kept people hooked. There were a reason a bunch guild were open world only and didn't care about node wars and sieges. In fact siege is such a laggy mess that people who do not siege are way happier then those who do. PA took that option away. In fact, I can probably even predict that with new upcoming new arsha changes PA is probably working on removing flagging up next. 

It is not NA that is angry at those changes, KR is too and according to a recent post in reddit they have started protesting and boycotting war of the roses.

PvE-er making every argument about themselves is cringe af. Nobody cares about you unless you start griefing somebody's rotation and even in current situation people have found a way to punish the griefer. 

On a side note. That drop is share price was not really because of PA pushing garbage decisions on us but another drama with a company that tried to sway user opinion and got caught. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackdesertonline/s/Js9MKZhmY6

A Korean player posted on Reddit. Apparently, KR is experiencing "accelerated user churn".  I don't have hard numbers, but anecdotally, yes, it feels that way in NA too.

Seriously guys, read the post.  It's about the War of Roses controversy Recon Kangas and Parvat brought up.  The post was posted by a KR player on NA/EU official BDO subreddit.  Interesting stuff going on.

Thank you.  This is enlightening.  I love the IDEA of the War of The Roses, but the implementation appears to be horrible.  More importantly, I see a leader who has lost his way.  Impulsive decisions, guided by personal bias and favoritism do not reflect well on leadership.

Yeah 100%. Thanks too. I know we all love this game very much, and even if people in the community don't always agree with each other, one things for certain and it's that the people who love bdo really love bdo. I just wish that these devs can find that love for themselves.

At this point, I think really fleshing out what BDO's endgame truly is should be #1. Because that's what will make player stay and hungry for progress. It used to be PvP. Open world, siege, uncapped wars - this was the reason many players geared up. Because the sky was the limit on gear, since BDO's gear treadmill is a hardcore grinder. We grind for thousands of hours for that edge in PVP. Not to mention many doing P2W for that edge too. Now that they've taken a huge chunk of that away, they need to think of something better than grinding for gear to keep grinding for gear to keep grinding for gear to grind in new areas. Because I don't think grinding is what will keep players here and motivated (personal opinion and observation).

BDO's appeal was the world itself...the sandbox...the sense of community, even against foes. This was us creating our own content and what made bdo so special. So much of that gone, it feels like. Weekly chores. Grinding is meta. Passive life skills nowhere near balanced with grinding like it used to be. Etc. So, to me, my hopium is clinging on with hopes BDO's endgame (getting 740+ GS) can be realized and revitalized somehow. As much as the PvE-ers hate it (I'm mostly a PvE-er, BTW, but consider myself PvX), PvP adds so much meaning and depth to endgame progression. It's undeniable and if people deny that, they're simply delusional.

As of now, what's the point in going past 720? And considering the grind from 720 - 750 is longer than getting to 720 in the first place, what incentive to we have to push that hard? Currently, those incentives are thin.  Sorry to sound preachy. I just love this game still and want to see it get better, more populated, and more "poppin'" with people running around doing stuff in the open world, and not just afk fishing.

Dark Age of Camelot had a realm point system that allowed you to (very slowly) improve your character via pvp kills.  I loved it.  It gave really cool improvements that you couldn't get any other way but were not game breaking and cost exponentially more realm points to buy.  It made pvp rewarding but not overpowering.  I wish PA would do something like this.

Three things:

- This protesting is going to go nowhere unless those protesting stop expending money. I know more than a few that actively complain but have purchased every single pearl deal this black friday. Doubt they are exceptions.

- Having so much gear capped content is just a side effect of the current gearing system and how much of a difference GS can be. When players feel they don't have a chance they will stop showing up at some point or another. This problem can't be fix without upsetting a good part of the player base and messing with one of PA main sources of income.

- Players need to accept that compromises are needed in order to accommodate a wide arrange of playstyles if we want to keep BDO alive and well for the foreseeable future.