How is the peek on a weekend a "slow" time?

Prerelease day up until launch day Lost Ark Viewership was 100 times that of BDO, by Saturday afternoon it was only double, on Sunday it was down to 10%.

Just about every hyped up game on launch day has a massive amount of players, then the number of lauch day players drops to about 20% remaining in Pay to access games.  In Free to access games the number of lauch day players drops to ~1% after 2 weeks.  There is nothing new about Lost Ark, it was over hyped and players will get burned out and/or bored really quick.  From the over seas statistics the average Lost Ark player sticks around for 5 weeks, I don't see that changing in NA/EU.

I purchased Lost Ark early access.  Sadly, couldn't play during the few days pre-release because of schedule conflicts.  I did play yesterday.  Anecdotally speaking, I couldn't play for more than a couple hours...the questing experience was so boring for me.  I've heard similar complaints when previewing the game via Reddit and TouTube, but I didn't imagine it being that boring for me lol.

I really want to get into Lost Ark PvP arena and raids.  It does look pretty fun.  The combat feels good, if you're into top down isometric gameplay.  But getting through the main questline there is making me appreciate BDO's main story questing - and that's saying something lol.  (PS - This is just personal opinion, do not flame).

This is only your personaly perception.

Players in general dont need pvp or worse a forced pvp to want to power up ( there is enough pve focused online rpg game to show this)

fact
 

Funny because I don't see any reason to grind with open free pvp. So how do you explain that?

Grind in order to improve your character to be able to grind in the next more difficult places.

Problem: in BDO it does not work because:
- drop is almost non-existent

- exp in lvl above 61 practically stands still

- money from thrash are ridiculously small in relation to the prices of the items

- you can't progress because the enchantment system doesn't allow it (item lvl degradation  / disappearance of an item worth a fortune)

- you notoriously meet players with higher statistics against which you cannot defend yourself because PA does not understand that pvp must be fair and independent of our character's statistics.

That's why pvp modes are separate from the game, often pvp requires completely different items useful only for pvp.

Bdo offers a lot of pvp, so open pvp in pve content is redundant and harmful.

NW devs were taken as an example because they decided to make the pvp impossible without pvp activation on both sides, as "requested". It didn't prevent the game from quickly losing its population, and with the nice list you made, it's even easier for you to realize there are many factors which can make players leave. Aren't you the one saying that 99% of BDO players quickly leave, mainly because of owpvp? So it's the main reason in BDO, but nearly irrelevant in other games? Sure. 

Still, face the fact. Since launch, without the 4 steps you mentioned, BDO is still here with a constant population, unlike many games who lost more than 50% of their population during their first MONTHS.

And NO, you don't endlessly afk on a game if you really don't want to play it anymore. XD

Muuuhhahahahaa. 

And in this population 99% are people who have played since the premiere who have achieved too much and invested too much money in the game to abandon it now.
So why does Pearl Abyss allow new players to join the game when it doesn't make sense to them (players)?

Players find a reason by themselves. That's why your maths are always wrong. ^^

Interesting, because the numbers say I'm right.

You know Cabal Online still exists, just who cares about this game today? Only those who have been playing it for 10 years.

And in BDO situation is the same. Game does not attract any new players for a long time. On the other hand, it keeps successively losing the old ones.

Proof or it never happened. ;)