Family Name: Imminent
Region (NA/EU): NA
I’ve been playing BDO for the last six years. During these past six years, it has been the game I’ve devoted the most time and money to. I can easily say it is probably one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. I’ve done everything in this game from lifeskilling to PVP. I’ve competed in small guilds all the way up to large siege guilds. The past 6-12 months have felt like the worst state this game has ever been in. I feel like I can speak on behalf of many other players in my position, we are losing interest fast. It seems to stem from some knee jerk reaction changes and overall questionable changes in general.
Open World PVP
This game used to thrive on open world PVP. There were so many more PVP guilds than what exist now. You had constant player interaction all over the map. Over the years, the map has grown so more people have gotten spread out. The introduction of Elvia and Marni’s realm further thinned the number of people you run across. With this game being an MMO, it’s weird the world seems dead outside of major towns.
We’ve been witnessing the constant PVP vs PVE player debate. Each player base wants changes that benefit the way they play the game. The way BDO was designed, it can’t support the wants of both players. I think at this time, it makes sense to split the player base. The best way to do it would be to take the Balenos, Serendia, and Mediah server groups and turn them into PVE only servers. Basically, make them similar to season servers. Remove any sort of PVP from them. On the Calpheon, Valencia, and Kama servers, make them PVP servers. On the PVP servers, revert all the recent changes to open world PVP. Completely remove the karma system. Allow guilds to have one sided war decs again. You could even introduce a faction system where the two factions would be at constant war with each other. Could be an interesting concept.
With these changes, you would give each side of the player base what they want. PVE players would not be forced into PVP. And PVP players would get to relive what is considered the glory days of BDO. Make it so players can swap between the server types. Maybe a PVE player wants to PVP or maybe a PVP player wants to have a chill grind or gather night on a PVE server. It’s a win-win for all.
Structured PVP
The node war change has been a hot topic since it came out. I think the new node war system could be good but it needs a couple of changes. To start, I believe the node war system should be changed to show how long a fort was held for. The guild that held the fort the longest amount of time should be the winner of that fort. The last minute sniping of forts really makes the current system not fun. Second, I would make all the forts last for the entire hour of node war. 10 minute node wars are not fun. The question marked forts are also not fun. A guild could hold a question mark fort for 45 minutes only to get pushed out and have the fort timer end at 46 minutes. That’s a really dumb mechanic.
As time has gone on, the number of node war guilds has been steadily declining. Look at all the changes to node wars over the years. All the major changes have reduced the number of nodes. It has happened more than once. The node war player base has been shrinking even more recently. At this time, I think we need to revamp the guild and alliance system. I think the alliance system needs to be removed completely. I think guilds need to have a max number of players of 75. Node wars should be changed to have 50 cap max. Siege can have a 75 man cap.
The current system has 150 players in an alliance. Most node war content happens on 30 man caps. That means if ten 150 man alliances drop on a 30 cap node, 300 people get to participate and 1,200 get to sit on the sidelines. How does that make any sense at all. Obviously, guilds won’t have a full 150 man attendance every night. But if the node wars seem dead, it’s because the current system doesn’t work with our current alliance system. When you have a shrinking node war community, you cannot concentrate all the players into a handful of alliances. I think if you make guilds 75 man caps, the new nodewar queue system will work really well. I know during the Heidel Ball, they mentioned developing a MMR/Elo system for node war guilds. That system will work really well with a large number of guilds. With the 6-10 active node war guilds, the system will flop.
One other thing regarding node wars, there is no reason to have T1, T2, and uncapped regions. Again, just another system to segregate the already small node war community. There should just be T2 level caps and uncapped. T2 caps are not difficult to meet. There’s just no reason to keep segregating what is left of the player base.
Gear Progression
BDO was a game where everything mattered around gear progression. It’s what made the journey fun. The Pen Debo and Wailing journey has not been fun. Back in the day, enhancing didn’t rely on cron stones. Now, all you do is grind to put up orders on outfits so you can make cron’d clicks. You have to use crons to enhance your gear because either the enhancement rates are extremely low or to save an accessory that would take months to replace. It’s just way less fun. I’m at 760gs and wonder if it’s even worth going for the last couple pen debs just to participate in T1 capped wars. Fingers crossed, Soverign weapons will bring some spice back into the game.
Balance
I don’t know how else to put this. The developers need to start listening to their player base immediately. Why succ zerker received buffs with this most recent patch is beyond anyone’s level of comprehension. It had forward guards changed to super armors. Now it can be completely protected almost all the time. And for whatever reason, the devs gave succ zerk 25% DR in SA. I genuinely believe the devs do not play their own game. Who asked for this. All classes should have the same level of DR % in SA. I don’t know why some classes are considered more special than others. The devs needs to start removing super armors from some of these classes. If some classes can remain in SA almost 100% of the time, it’s not possible to play this game without a grab. Not to mention, if I need to SA trade a class with 25% DR and I only have 10% DR, I'm just going to lose assuming gear is at a similiar level. This was very poorly executed and needs to be revised.
Thank goodness you didn't post "funner!" <3
Family Name: Imminent
Region (NA/EU): NA
I’ve been playing BDO for the last six years. During these past six years, it has been the game I’ve devoted the most time and money to. I can easily say it is probably one of my favorite games I’ve ever played. I’ve done everything in this game from lifeskilling to PVP. I’ve competed in small guilds all the way up to large siege guilds. The past 6-12 months have felt like the worst state this game has ever been in. I feel like I can speak on behalf of many other players in my position, we are losing interest fast. It seems to stem from some knee jerk reaction changes and overall questionable changes in general.
Open World PVP
This game used to thrive on open world PVP. There were so many more PVP guilds than what exist now. You had constant player interaction all over the map. Over the years, the map has grown so more people have gotten spread out. The introduction of Elvia and Marni’s realm further thinned the number of people you run across. With this game being an MMO, it’s weird the world seems dead outside of major towns.
We’ve been witnessing the constant PVP vs PVE player debate. Each player base wants changes that benefit the way they play the game. The way BDO was designed, it can’t support the wants of both players. I think at this time, it makes sense to split the player base. The best way to do it would be to take the Balenos, Serendia, and Mediah server groups and turn them into PVE only servers. Basically, make them similar to season servers. Remove any sort of PVP from them. On the Calpheon, Valencia, and Kama servers, make them PVP servers. On the PVP servers, revert all the recent changes to open world PVP. Completely remove the karma system. Allow guilds to have one sided war decs again. You could even introduce a faction system where the two factions would be at constant war with each other. Could be an interesting concept.
With these changes, you would give each side of the player base what they want. PVE players would not be forced into PVP. And PVP players would get to relive what is considered the glory days of BDO. Make it so players can swap between the server types. Maybe a PVE player wants to PVP or maybe a PVP player wants to have a chill grind or gather night on a PVE server. It’s a win-win for all.
Structured PVP
The node war change has been a hot topic since it came out. I think the new node war system could be good but it needs a couple of changes. To start, I believe the node war system should be changed to show how long a fort was held for. The guild that held the fort the longest amount of time should be the winner of that fort. The last minute sniping of forts really makes the current system not fun. Second, I would make all the forts last for the entire hour of node war. 10 minute node wars are not fun. The question marked forts are also not fun. A guild could hold a question mark fort for 45 minutes only to get pushed out and have the fort timer end at 46 minutes. That’s a really dumb mechanic.
As time has gone on, the number of node war guilds has been steadily declining. Look at all the changes to node wars over the years. All the major changes have reduced the number of nodes. It has happened more than once. The node war player base has been shrinking even more recently. At this time, I think we need to revamp the guild and alliance system. I think the alliance system needs to be removed completely. I think guilds need to have a max number of players of 75. Node wars should be changed to have 50 cap max. Siege can have a 75 man cap.
The current system has 150 players in an alliance. Most node war content happens on 30 man caps. That means if ten 150 man alliances drop on a 30 cap node, 300 people get to participate and 1,200 get to sit on the sidelines. How does that make any sense at all. Obviously, guilds won’t have a full 150 man attendance every night. But if the node wars seem dead, it’s because the current system doesn’t work with our current alliance system. When you have a shrinking node war community, you cannot concentrate all the players into a handful of alliances. I think if you make guilds 75 man caps, the new nodewar queue system will work really well. I know during the Heidel Ball, they mentioned developing a MMR/Elo system for node war guilds. That system will work really well with a large number of guilds. With the 6-10 active node war guilds, the system will flop.
One other thing regarding node wars, there is no reason to have T1, T2, and uncapped regions. Again, just another system to segregate the already small node war community. There should just be T2 level caps and uncapped. T2 caps are not difficult to meet. There’s just no reason to keep segregating what is left of the player base.
Gear Progression
BDO was a game where everything mattered around gear progression. It’s what made the journey fun. The Pen Debo and Wailing journey has not been fun. Back in the day, enhancing didn’t rely on cron stones. Now, all you do is grind to put up orders on outfits so you can make cron’d clicks. You have to use crons to enhance your gear because either the enhancement rates are extremely low or to save an accessory that would take months to replace. It’s just way less fun. I’m at 760gs and wonder if it’s even worth going for the last couple pen debs just to participate in T1 capped wars. Fingers crossed, Soverign weapons will bring some spice back into the game.
Balance
I don’t know how else to put this. The developers need to start listening to their player base immediately. Why succ zerker received buffs with this most recent patch is beyond anyone’s level of comprehension. It had forward guards changed to super armors. Now it can be completely protected almost all the time. And for whatever reason, the devs gave succ zerk 25% DR in SA. I genuinely believe the devs do not play their own game. Who asked for this. All classes should have the same level of DR % in SA. I don’t know why some classes are considered more special than others. The devs needs to start removing super armors from some of these classes. If some classes can remain in SA almost 100% of the time, it’s not possible to play this game without a grab. Not to mention, if I need to SA trade a class with 25% DR and I only have 10% DR, I'm just going to lose assuming gear is at a similiar level. This was very poorly executed and needs to be revised.
I pretty much agree with all the points, I think every long-time player have the same concerns about the state of BDO, and it worries me because those things will never get addressed/fixed.
Agree on all accounts.
Devs are asleep at the wheel.
Nothing they're doing makes sense, especially in the whole "class balancing" act they're putting on.
The last changes to Awakening Witch/Wizard were atrocious and then Succ Zerk buff baffles the mind.
Game is a lifeskill sim until someone puts on a thinking cap inside PA HQ...