C8-10, assuming it's similar to earlier Bamboo Legions, is an excellent addition. Bamboo Legion is one of the less buggy Black Shrine bosses; so long as no new buggy mechanics are added, things should go well. Increasing boss requirements is somewhat reasonable given the sovereign sub-weapon. However, please don't make the bosses tankier, they are too tanky already, if anything boss defenses should be reduced.

We are seeing positive developments along these lines in Edania, as Jordine and Enslar are getting reductions to their tankiness. Also, the one-shots and iframes are being curbed.

Dark Rifts are getting smoothed out, another nice change. (Hoping that loot improvements come soon, to make it more worthwhile to run the Dark Rifts, (for example the boxes could have a chance of dropping a TRI accessory, to improve the lantern fuel quality, and the bosses could also drop Crystallized Energy of Endtimes/Herald's Crystal/Choose Your Own Paint Box).

Sycraia Abyssal is getting paint. Here's hoping this is only the beginning of improvements to the spot. It should also drop the Great Marni Stone, have improved odds of providing Ring Piece, in general a rework putting the spot on the level of Dehkia Map/Compass spots would be nice, in terms of gear requirements and increased profits/treasure piece chance.

Reducing screen shake is always nice (regarding black shrine). We need less visual clutter.

Overall, this was a good patch. While we are not seeing the major changes everyone wants (based on popular feedback thread posts, for example applying 5% AP cap sparingly, removing 50% boss cap, fixing tank meta in PvP, and adding Character Slots back to loyalty shop), we are seeing steps in the right direction and solid quality of life improvements. Holding off on making major changes in the wrong direction is good in and of itself.

Oh boy, you in for a wild ride!

Not only the 5% AP cap should be removed but no cap should exist in an MMO, only this company cap things, I never heared of any other game to have this huge disrespect and acting in this way, its just a straight mocking players and forcing them to swipe card for trash things.

Remove all the PVE caps, should not exist, if without the ap cap I'm able to do 4 packs of DSR thats because I have that gear and more ap the spot requires, its my gear my time my decission where to grind not yours. Poor management.

It exists because most spots give a similar amount of money and if you can one-shot the mobs, those old spots will give more money than the new ones. That's why they nerfed us with the 5% cap. Instead they should have nerfed the droprate and removed all caps.

Nope, don't agree with that sweeping statement across all MMOs. For the context of BDO, this makes sense, given how the game is designed.

I agree, but let me keep it a buck fifty: we would have complained, especially if the nerfed droprates were heavy handed.

Most spots giving similar amounts of money despite different gear requirements is part of the problem. Every gear upgrade costs more than the last, so higher gear requirement spots should earn more to balance it out, and allowing more gear to improve profits from spots that require less gear is also good. There are a few super strong midgame spots like Honglim where you can make a reasonable case for capping the spot, but for most spots this reasoning does not apply, very few people grinded at most spots in the game in recent memory (a few months before caps, or the time after them) because even if you could one-shot packs at Kratuga for instance, the silver was not competative with other spots such players could grind at. There were caps in the past, but they were 30% or 70% (depending on spot), along with workarounds such as species damage, a system which overall had a lot more acceptance from the playerbase. Apart from this, it's not simply a question of silver per hour. Treasure item grinds got nerfed, so did boss clears. Whaling just to make a little more silver per hour at a higher tier grindspot doesn't make all that much sense unless you like the new spot better than the old one, most whales have enough RL money that they don't need to grind for silver. Many players whaled so that they could gear up for a chiller, smoother, more efficient treasure grind or boss clear, however since gear has limited effect on these areas the motivation for whaling fades and PA's revenue fades along with it. PA has reduced the importance of gear, increasing the importance of sweat, spending, skill, class and luck instead, which alienates many players who feel as though the progression they had earlier means much less than it used to.

I am snipping this segment out of context as well as changing the point you made here, but this should really be understood. There are spots that players simply like and making it all about silver won't matter to these players. They do exist and a couple of them spoke up about it when we first got hit with the AP cap here on the forums. We also know that class balance doesn't exist and it's really a lesson in futility to make them all balanced, but that's not the point of this statement. The point is some classes just feel better at than others at certain spots. I main deadeye, but at dehkia hystria, despite deadeye clearing faster, the timing of these clears gives me 0 breaks between the next wave. Awakened dosa clears slower, but the clear timing leaves me with breaks here and there between waves. I'm grinding on dosa there now because grinding on deadeye leaves me with severe muscle cramping in my arm. I'm not inflicting myself with harm because the devs implemented multiple design choices to 'force' you to grind for at least an hour. That's also a different argument, but something the AP caps are forcing me to deal with and forcing me to use the tag system to overcome a bad game design. Being able to overcome bad game design does not make the design good or an achievement.

Then there are specialty spots, which haven't had another implementation of. As far as I know, Underground Gyfin is still the best experience spot. Treasure spots shouldn't have AP caps and screw the painting system.

I want BDO 2020 back.  That would be a nice update.  Everything in the game had meaning, and questing was actually worthwhile.

Yes, there are obvious QoL improvements, but I'd trade those for the value actual playing had back then.

BDO is in sad shape right now...... practically all gear is worthless and dead-ends, and there is only one way to play the game: one, bumpy cron-studded road to take...... we've been going down the wrong road for years now.

Agreed. By making progression not matter, PA has tanked engagement (for example, interest in grinding) alongside revenue. At a tower spot, having your silver per hour be capped by respawn timer feels relaxing as the more gear you have the more leisurely your clears are. However having your silver per hour be capped by 5% AP cap feel sweaty, making for a more stressful and less sustainable experience. PA relies on progression to sustain the game but trivializes progression at the same time, this is not sustainable design.