I am a fairly new player (~1y) and love so many things about this game I couldn't start to list them.  One thing has left me baffled though: Swimming.

Now I'm not the greatest swimmer in the world, nor am I terrible.  Players in this game are essentially demi-gods, from what lore I absorbed while r-mashing through quest-lines, but they swim like a brick with tiny little guppy fins on the corners.  Your average swimmer, not to even mention your average demi-god swimmer, would be more closely related to a sealion or an otter than a brick.

Also, how many times have I been unable to get out of sedentary knee-deep water?  It's like the character can't stand, climb, or swim, yet they're stuck somehow.

In reality, turning in water is trivial.  It's a non-issue and happens instantly, actually far more easily than out of water.  In the game, turning is not a thing?  Or the character turns like they're riding a horse or something?  Again, like a brick with tiny guppy fins.  A vast departure from anything remotely comprehensible.

To reiterate, I love the game *so much*, but this is just confusing to me, why they'd leave this one aspect very obviously broken.

Agreed. Swimming is BAD in this game. Wish it was more like GW2 or even Archeage. Swimming in this game is one of the MANY things that need to be fixed...

Even with Corsair (the 'mermaid' class) it's rather rough. Even with those horrible costumes (Fisher's Splat and Da-Dum Da-Dum Diver's Set). Wish those weren't even a thing to be honest. They're ugly (in my opinion) and stupid (again my opinion). Actual swimwear/gear (bathing suits or diving suits) would have made MUCH more sense. Even a swimming life-skill that you could improve over time like any other life-skill in the game.

I hope they overhaul the swimming and underwater content in general at some point. But I'm not going to hold my breath...

BDO is just a perfect example of half-assed content, nothing is ever complete or work as intended *sigh*

thats why most hate anything water related. you blitz through the game with horse and skill and become a snail in water, true cockblocker

It's not faster than the shark suit...

I know, you get that from the sea palace event.

What I meant was, the shark and fish outift never made sense (to me at least). Those just don't look like something you'd swim in. And as Pickle stated, the bubbly diving suit is not better than the others (shark and fish costumes). They should have had the diving suit from the get-go rather than the fish/shark costume and the bathing suits should also help you swim much better than what they do. The bubbly diving suit, splat fisher's clothes, and da-dum da-dum diver's set does NOTHING for the horrible swim mechanincs/animation. The splat fisher's should have looked like a normal fisher outfit (like how the training outfit looks like a normal english riding outfit.) We don't dress up in a horse costume in order to train mounts (don't get any ideas Pearl Abyss), so why do they make us dress as a FISH to get bonuses in swimming and fishing...

Swimming/water content in general needs a good overhaul.