LOL, imagine wasting so much time on a game that revolves around gearing for PvP when no one takes unevenly geared fights seriously and the combat is just about rotating protected skills until you randomly get a catch or grab. No esports or FGC support. You lit your life on fire. Inb4 cope.

PVP wasn't removed from the game.  Nor was the value of progession due to PVP.  In fact there is MORE PVP in BDO today than ever.  More avenues to PVP.  Additional PVP servers.  A true hidden name open PVP server.

The only thing that was removed was the harassment and griefing.  Anyone who wants actual PVP has 24/7 access on multiple PVP servers.

The "decline" was just the dishonest players "claiming they want PVP", but really their interest was mob feeding ;)

Sit down buddy, you're clearly lost to say something like that lol... either you're trolling or you've never played PvP in this game.

My Facts > Your opinion

PA removed OWPVP due to the documented stream harassment, general harassment, statistics about how many 1 way dec where declared, massive amounts of complaints, and how much time their staff had to waste on kids griefing each other in a video game.

The FACT is anyone who wants to OWPVP can do so 24/7 and has multiple other competitive PVP modes.

I see, you are one of those who only complains for the sake of complaining, or you are talking about something you don't understand very well, nobody is talking about the issue of harassment or the problem that streamers suffered in kr and Lost Ark Exodus, which by the way was changed mainly for them, something that in one way or another could have been implemented better so as not to be so radical... however your "fact" is not a fact buddy, it's simply an erroneous point of view that you have, pvp modes are not the same as saying that pvp is more alive than ever when that is a fallacy, I invite you to participate in some of the activities you mention and tell me how active they are nowadays. Instead of arguing nonsense on the forum 24/7, first dedicate yourself to being objective with the current state of the game, I know that surely someone had to traumatize you in the game and you feel identified by defending all these anti-owpvp decisions, but your frustration is not something that all of us who have played this from the beginning should pay, this game is simply making wrong decisions THAT'S IT, introducing pvp "MODES" is not the same as saying that pvp is alive, not to mention the absurd amount of capped content that makes it pointless to push more gear if everything is going to be capped, all of these "PVP MODES" were simply measures to compensate for the organic pvp that we used to have, something that used to give a purpose to getting more gear and being in a good guild, all of you who are usually against owpvp won't understand that this was the core which forged many of the great communities and guilds that this game had, ofc you will find annoying kids, but they are everywhere, limiting all of this to a simple matchmaking style mode kills the purpose that this game once tried to have.

Instead of wasting time doing "chat-pvp" with people who have already left you in a bad position by not knowing how to bear your frustrations in a forum where little or nothing is usually resolved, you should rather dedicate yourself to understanding the reason why this game is at risk of dying without real changes to the PvP aspect, everything should be in the right balance (PvP - PvE) and BDO isn't doing any of that.

I'm not going to answer you more, it seems to me that you are a clown with a lot of accumulated frustration and I don't want to keep wasting my time with someone who doesn't understand the root of the problem, peace.

I see, you are one of those who only complains for the sake of complaining, or you are talking about something you don't understand very well, nobody is talking about the issue of harassment or the problem that streamers suffered in kr and Lost Ark Exodus, which by the way was changed mainly for them, something that in one way or another could have been implemented better so as not to be so radical... however your "fact" is not a fact buddy, it's simply an erroneous point of view that you have, pvp modes are not the same as saying that pvp is more alive than ever when that is a fallacy, I invite you to participate in some of the activities you mention and tell me how active they are nowadays. Instead of arguing nonsense on the forum 24/7, first dedicate yourself to being objective with the current state of the game, I know that surely someone had to traumatize you in the game and you feel identified by defending all these anti-owpvp decisions, but your frustration is not something that all of us who have played this from the beginning should pay, this game is simply making wrong decisions THAT'S IT, introducing pvp "MODES" is not the same as saying that pvp is alive, not to mention the absurd amount of capped content that makes it pointless to push more gear if everything is going to be capped, all of these "PVP MODES" were simply measures to compensate for the organic pvp that we used to have, something that used to give a purpose to getting more gear and being in a good guild, all of you who are usually against owpvp won't understand that this was the core which forged many of the great communities and guilds that this game had, ofc you will find annoying kids, but they are everywhere, limiting all of this to a simple matchmaking style mode kills the purpose that this game once tried to have.

Instead of wasting time doing "chat-pvp" with people who have already left you in a bad position by not knowing how to bear your frustrations in a forum where little or nothing is usually resolved, you should rather dedicate yourself to understanding the reason why this game is at risk of dying without real changes to the PvP aspect, everything should be in the right balance (PvP - PvE) and BDO isn't doing any of that.

I'm not going to answer you more, it seems to me that you are a clown with a lot of accumulated frustration and I don't want to keep wasting my time with someone who doesn't understand the root of the problem, peace.

It's simple, you can never come to the right conclusions because everything you state follows a false premise that the PVP community wanted competition and to actually fight over resources.

You CAN recognize the dimishing player base and lack of OWPVP.

You CAN NOT recognize this is due to a non existant player base that refused to fight under the very conditions they claim they wanted

You can NEVER accept true statements that come into conflict with that false narrative.

There is no amount of data, no argument, no evidence that will EVER suffice because someone that is not reasoned into a idea can't be reasoned out of it.

PA doesn't make very good decisions often, but they obviously looked at the DATA which CHANGED their minds and attitude.  They cared about the TRUTH because it cost them $$.  That is WHY all the changes occurred.

If you want the truth look at Shadow Arena and Arsha before the PVE boosts.  COMPLETELY DEAD.

All those LIARS didn't show up did they ;)

All those people looking for "so called competiton" & "fighting over resources" Nowhere to be found! (Unless you looked on NON PVP servers LOL where they HID)

We saw their TRUE colors SHINING thru!!!

Shadow Arena was one of the most popular contents in BDO ever, and droves of both PvP and PvE players went on to play it. When it was removed from the game, and subsequently changed and released as standalone, all of the appeal of the game mode was removed that way (no progression in the main game, no simple & short games, no choice on graphics, overcomplicated mechanics and characters and the need to use a second game instead of playing in the game you want) and thus the entire playerbase broke away for it.

Arsha is not and never has been a pure PvP battleground, as its main incentive to play there is a PvE buff. While in the early days of BDO, a quick swap between kutum and nouver was enough to change from PvE mode to PvP, over the years many more additions were made that now make the difference between someone geared for PvP and PvE insurmountable (accessories, crystals, lightstones, artefacts, consumables) and thus making it harder for anyone grinding on arsha to actually defend themselves when attacked. Grinding in PvP gear is also no alternative, as you would be lacking tons of stats and the increased droprate would no longer be enough to balance it out or even give an incentive. Following that, the population on arsha also declined. (Note that class balance and gear balance / guild platoons are other factors decreasing the individual enjoyment of arsha, which also has decreased over the years)

Your argument that the declining population in these settings shows that people do not want competition is thus unlikely to be the cause, as this decline was noticeably caused by issues that do not relate to mindset, but rather to unwelcome shifts and changes to the scenarios themselves.

Looking at competing evidence, that PvPers are actually looking for competition, we can list the following:

- Class discords & guild communities: These educate new players on how their class is played and what tips and tricks are there, leading to the generation of new competitors to the field. Many of these active communities are spearheaded by people engaged in PvP content in one way or another, and many of the community members who give advice and tips also belong to that faction

- PvP events and competitons: Over the years, many PvP events and competitions have been hosted by both PA and the playerbase themselves, often leading to record numbers in viewer engagement on twitch and youtube (e.g. the AoA class tournaments in 2021, where the finals beat the Heidel Ball / Calpheon Ball streams in number of twitch viewers). Many PvPers love these tournaments and are always there to defend their titles / try to beat the competition in equalised tournaments. Player-organised events even go so far as to add additional rules to combat some imbalances, as shown in the Solarix tournaments hosted by Armin earlier this summer. These tournaments get promoted by streamers, youtubers, PvPers and viewers alike, leading to more signups, and thus more competition, which is welcomed by the organisers and participants

- Player numbers during PvP events: On steam, player number hikes can be identified during the times AoS ranked is available, clearly showing a favourability to competitive gameplay. When receiving feedback from PvPers who choose not to engage with AoS, reasons are generally clustered around lack of income (issue with most PvP modes) and lack of balance (reducing competitiveness of the game mode), thus giving another argument why fair competition is preferred

- PvP based feedback: Most of PvP feedback tries to even the playing ground, bring balance to class or gear imbalances, or advocates for more income for PvP modes (making them more attractive for other players), all of which will increase the number of players engaging with the mode and thus the amount of competition. Regarding open world solutions, many suggestions penned by PvPers still offer large penalties for PK on undergeared / afk players, while providing rewards for engaging with those with similar gear / combat readiness. While bad eggs are clearly around, those are inherent to every community and should not be given the spotlight simply due to the negative connotations associated with PK by those sensitive to it.

To summarise, we see many attempts of PvP players to increase their community numbers, train new players in the art of PvP, and spread the word about PvP modes and competitions so more players can take part in those. Conversely, abandonment of PvP modes is heavily due to changes in the modes themselves that often reduce competitiveness and most importantly fun. Especially for AoS, recent feedbacks show that a lot of players stopped playing the mode because it is boring to always fight the same people (as less and less people queue), which is a self-reinforcing feedback loop, leading to an ever decreasing amount of players. It is to be assumed that similar situations happened with other PvP modes that got largely abandoned (e.g. standalone shadow arena, arsha, rbf, nodewar). To combat this, increasing competitiveness by increasing balance / fairness and increasing fun by giving more incentives to play are both necessary and vital to revive these game modes. Acting on the assumption that competitiveness is not desired, e.g. by catering to meta classes and meta builds has only lead to a decrease in population (as seen during succ maegu, awa drak and succ zerker reigns in AoS, during which a clear decline in people willing to play the mode was visible), and is thus both a misunderstanding of the past development and destructive to the end of increasing popularity of game modes and their engagement numbers.

My Facts > Your opinion

PA removed OWPVP due to the documented stream harassment, general harassment, statistics about how many 1 way dec where declared, massive amounts of complaints, and how much time their staff had to waste on kids griefing each other in a video game.

The FACT is anyone who wants to OWPVP can do so 24/7 and has multiple other competitive PVP modes.