Just wanted to leave some feedback ahead of the upcoming Edania Part 2 in Black Desert Online.

At endgame, progression starts to feel less like something driven by player decisions or effort, and more like something dictated by time-gated systems.

Once you reach a certain gear and wealth level, silver and efficiency stop being meaningful bottlenecks. Even when resources are available for upgrades, progression is still primarily locked behind weekly material systems (Edania Stones and Aether Essence).

This creates a situation where players with vastly different playtimes, efficiency and wealth levels end up progressing at almost the same rate, because the limiting factor is no longer optimization or investment, but material throughput over time.

At that point, progression shifts away from 'How do I maximize my income' to 'Time to login and do my weekly taps'.

Time-gating works well as a pacing tool, but at the highest level it can start to override player agency if it becomes the dominant progression constraint. Even strong economic or gameplay advantages stop translating into faster progression once those caps are reached.

As an endgame player, I also want to add a personal perspective. At this stage, I currently only engage with the game for a few hours per week because there is very little meaningful progression left outside of time-gated systems.

This creates a situation where, once a certain level of progression is reached, there is effectively no additional incentive structure beyond waiting for weekly material intake. In practice, progression no longer scales with player agency or investment, but converges toward the same pacing regardless of playstyle.

From a design perspective, this can also create a feeling where players who are “ahead” of the curve do not gain additional ways to engage with progression systems, since they quickly hit the same gating structure as everyone else.

The concern with upcoming content is that if Part 2 follows the same structure of tightly time-gated progression, it risks scaling this issue further, where endgame progression feels increasingly disconnected from effort, decision-making, or investment, and instead tied almost entirely to scheduled material intake.

Just hoping this is something considered in future endgame system design.

Apart from endgame progression being time-gated, it also has limited value for money. In the case of defensive gear, it is still very easy to die at Orbita on up even if exceed the spot DP requirements. At least Shining Alchemy Stones can (theoretically) be bought from Central Market, but they are very costly and have but modest effects on grind efficiency. Endgame seems to be all about waiting a lot of RL time, grinding a mountain of silver, all for marginal gains. This is not a sustainable game design approach. As our gear improves, we want to kill enemies faster, get more silver per hour, and be harder to kill ourselves.

Hi! I saw you struggling with Orbita so I made a video to show you how to not die!

There will probably be some people who find the advice/guidance helpful. Personally, I find it more enjoyable to "tank and kill" than "dodge or die". More survivible spots let you play around lag and desync as well, which are growing problems in the game.

Allowing gear to provide meaningful protection at endgame spots would be good for playing around these problems, so I hope PA makes the needed reforms.

suffering from success (or swiping welfare money)

Time-Gate > Whale-gate.

Silver is useless in 2026,

Grind for what you need, anything that you cant just buy with the most commen item in the game (silver).

I upgraded all my armors to base Edana, and am boycotting the rest of the upgrade path.  I hate the Eddana boss fights.  I hate the way you have to travel to them, ya know the thing people complained about with LOML bosses.  I hate that you can't buy the gear or upgrade materials on the Central market, and I hate the fact that you have to enhance to progress.

There is no such thing as End Game in Black Desert 

Timegate is one thing, but Edania boss fights are quite annoying, and having to do them over and over again just to get progression can easily burn people out. Jordine got nerfed enough so that it's a realistic clear (assuming you outgear him), but the other ones haven't gotten nerfed much, so they are quite bothersome.

I do think time gated progression is a good thing.

Because of this:

-> People sitting on 2T silver

-> New gear content comes out

-> People day one tap every new gear to max

-> People complain, "content where"?

I am also almost hard capped and to me the game it the worst at that point. You have almost everything, there is no goal anymore, which removes motivation, atleast for me.

So moving away from progress through stockpiled silver to me feels good. Now i have a good reason to play each week for a bit to get the stuff i need for progress + a bit of silver. And removes the boring part of just grinding for hours just to fill the bank for the next update so i can day one everything.

I mean in general gated content is mostly a rich people problem, so i don't feel so bad about it. Because thats not the majority of players.