Fellow adventurers, it's time we talk about the biggest crisis plaguing our beloved world of Black Desert: Cronflation.

Every day, hardworking players slave away at their grindspots, risking life and limb against Star's End goons, Olun's the overgrown lawn gnomes, or whatever horrific abominations lie in Elvia… all so they can afford a single enhancement attempt. And yet, what happens? The rich hoard all the Crons, while the poor are forced to raw tap like peasants begging for warmth from a cold-hearted blacksmith.

🔹 The 1% (Pen-Owners) vs. The Rest of Us
Meanwhile, the top 1% sit comfortably in their mansions, sipping Orzeca wine, clicking their off-set pens while trading amongst themselves, and laughing at us through their silver-plated celestial horse masks. Have you seen these people? They’re casually burning thousands of Crons per click, while the rest of us are out here debating whether we should use our Crons or save them for the next IV armor attempt that will inevitably fail. But where did their absurd Cron wealth come from? Years and years of Premium Outfit Box stimulus. That’s right, while we were out here grinding 300 hours for a single pen attempt, they were converting their fashion addiction into mountains of Crons—because nothing says “balanced economy” like a marketplace where the best way to get ahead is to build a time machine.

🔹 Ghost Jobs & Fake Cron Cuts
We were promised stable careers in RBF— but let’s be real: even mean anymore when the cost of a Cron is 3 million? Life skillers are being paid in monopoly money, while the cron barons are out here driving their yellow Doom horses over us in the marketplace and fishing for billions off the side of their yachts.

🔹 The Rising Cost of Enhancing
It used to be that all a simple adventurer could do was dream of owning a Pen Blackstar. Now? You either embrace a lifetime of gathering truffles or become an Arena of Solare gladiator praying for those sweet, sweet season rewards and a golden seat in a castle locked siege guild. Even if you sell your soul to the Shai Mafia for boosting gigs, one bad enhancement streak can wipe out your entire net worth faster than a red player finding an AFK fisher. Why you may ask? Because now Blackstar is just the beginning!

So I ask you, when will PA finally tackle cronflation? Do we need a Cron stimulus package? A minimum wage for RBFers? Should we unionize against the cron-hoarding whales and bring back spear fishing? Or is this all just part of some grand conspiracy where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the cron economy continues its ruthless cycle of despair?

It’s time for change. It’s time to demand economic reform (or at least a better way to get Crons). Until then, I’ll be out here raw tapping my accessories like a true peasant!

Hi-Ho Donkey, away!~

This was hilarious to read haha. I'm sold! It's time that the peseants UNITE!

They could at least start with halving the ridiculous sov pity.

Right now I don't see any point in going more than Pen/Hex sovs, that few little ap or acc is not worth it.
You will be way better off cronwise and ap gain wise if u just use 'em all for Pen > Dec Kharazads.

If you have patience, just save to buy pen debo > change for nov kz > save all crons for nov > dec, enjoy at most bout 30 pity taps, worth 3,5k crons each.

They could do many things to improve cronflation and the bad taste people are getting when they reach endgame and see that progress is all about grinding in circles and sinking cron stones in rng attempts, or hoping that u get outfit pre-order.

A year ago yet, I used to see "whales" dropping outfits on market fairly regular, especially after Sunday's pearl shop purchase reset or after a new update on wed/thur~, and now it's rather a rarity.

What I bet will happen is another tier of "cronflation" aka > raise some silver income from limited, choosen grindspots > raise crons obtained from melting outfits > raise blacksmith crons to 4-5m.

I'm here since pre-launch on EU and seriously nothing else ever happened in that matter. I will be very happy if future proves I'm wrong.

Strogly agree to buy PEN debos from market and change to NOV Kharaz acc, thats the simpliest way rather then enhancing from tet to NOV which requires insane amount of taps/ crons / dawn essences, got trapped into this like many others.

Weapons, got my pen sovr main with just 84b investment 29/30 pitty, HEX is 35 pitty which mean if i hit HEX again 34/35 = 137b investment, chances are extremely high to progress like this. Requirement increase if you succeed enhancing but the spots are exactly the same or even worse in therms of silver/h, so if there will be an inflation then its over for bdo, no one will continue playing. They need to reduce the cost of cron stone and halve the pitty number for acc's / sovr weapons OR they need to add spots worth atleast 3b silver/h from raw silver. Realistically, the ship start to sink again, upgrading gear give no satisfaction anymore but a very bad feeling as always in my case, no difference in PVE, possible to see just a tiny change in pvp but who's pvp-ing around? RBF? Never...

Short, inflation = game over, will remain only those who still throw money into pearl shop.

I don't know if I'm the minority here, but I thought Sovs and Khazarads made enhancing much better. We have more enhancement levels, but it's easier to get enhancements done than before. It does suck though that it's all a matter of Crons, but it's really been like that for years now. At least it has also become easy to make money. With 1-2 bil per hour and some lucky fishing, one can easily make around 25 bil per week now if they play actively.

And I honestly don't think anyone got super high stats just through melting costumes. That would require spending over 50k and would be pretty messed up even for a whale.

Definitely! Enhancing for sovs to pen and kharazads over all is less toxic, mainly because them not breaking upon fail, pity system existed already moment before. Taps from 0 to Pen don't feel too drastic. Getting sov is ez too cos of V Bs freebies, halved pity and Pen BS prices drop a lot, compared to what they were for past 2-3years.

Just from Sov Pen to Dec is insanity, regardless if u look at it from p2w side or grind the silver > buy crons from blacksmith.
You either d have way too much money irl or grind in bdo for silvers like your 2nd work.


Many people got high stats through melting costumes and protecting their attempts, especially before pity system - but as u said it's not because they d p2w it all. They rather mixed melting market bought outfits, freebie outfits and crons from events, blacksmith and maybe some p2w. Whales p2w to sell outfits and buy gear, not melt for crons themselves.

Tho be fooled, there are people spending still lots of money on gear rng, consider as well that not everyone can leave their pc afk with bdo for even 10h.
There was even a case where a guy spent like 125k usd. Amount of premium outfit bundles listed each update in shop suggests there is a demand for crons on marketplace :d (ofc maybe someone just buys it and gets all the outfits but i think its rare)

Don't forget of players who tapped Pen Bs pity over new count xD

Just 1x Sov pen > dec taps by worst case scenario p2w price (with 34€ per premium outfit, 970~ crons from melt), or grind time( 2b/h, 3m per cron at blacksmith = 667 cron/h ):

V    > VI   / 35 p(ity) /  1350c(rons) - 47 250mpc (max pity crons) - 50~ p(rem) o(utfits)/ 1700,- / 70h~
VI   > VII  / 50p   / 1550c - 77 500mpc      - 80po    / 2720,-  / 116h~
VII  > VIII / 75p   / 2250c - 168 750mpc    - 184po  / 6120,-  / 253h~
VIII > IX   / 165p / 2750c - 453 750mpc    - 468po  / 15,9k,- / 680h~
IX   > X    / 330p / 3920c - 1 293 600mpc - 1334po/ 45,4k,- / 1939h~
Totals      /  655p/   - - -   - 2 040 850mpc - 2116po/ 70,2k,- / 3060h~

Now better case scenario - your rng is okay and u ll use only 25% of that values to reach IX or X, it still looks gnarly on higher levels.

That's why stopping bout Hex or Sep sov seems the most reasonable for now, since there is no extreme benefit for being max endgame ap/dp, neither in PvE or PvP.

I will happily struggle with kharazads but pushing that 3-6ap max on sovs for the current value and perspective of using it - it feels bit too much even for hardcore grinders or money whales as u mentioned.

with all the new life skill stuff and the boss gear stuff i will never see a lot of silver anymore it all going for crons

spent 35b on getting a tri preonne to tet, a few years ago pen manos sold for 50b which equals an oct preonne. those are the lifeskillers i have to compete against on the marketplace.  kinda backwards isnt it ?

120Billion for PEN Preoone Belt to Hex, approx 130Billion for next as the Preonne acc are all using max pity anvil

Powercreep is always ridiculous, in every game.  It would be nice if there existed alternatives to help get us to the final goal, taking managable steps instead of the leaps and bounds demanded by a single track enhancement system of end-game gear.  it's great when you're lucky, but when you're not......

I loved Black Desert Online.  Cron Desert Online is not so lovable.