new players coming to bdo right now whether from crimson to try the other game or from lost ark thats crashing and burning.

I think PA is hitting some very big pain points I had going through BDO when  I was new  which one of them was the group content was insanely limitted outside PVP. the other is what there was to actually do which if you dont lifeskill it was grind or PVP that was it.

We have this incredible combat and it was only being used killing mobs in circles I get it its a korean grinding MMO but also the only reason I grinded back then was to gear up to PVP. Thats gone now for the most part so you need more things to use your gear on and I think im finally on board on what PA is going for.

The new player onboarding needs to be changed

The season system being used  to instantly  catch players up to roughly mid game isnt the play. The whole game is about the  marathon  and goals you set as you gear up. skipping players to  such a high gear score isnt making thier experience better its making it worse as well as effects the economy in a huge way.
The market cannot be saturated with early game materials if no one is every in those zones, Players dont get to experience all the different areas in the world as they gear up going region to region they are instead boosted  to Land of the morning light tower grinding  with the inevitable +1 AP per upgrade tapping in an extremly short timeframe. which  +1 AP gains dont feel as good or as fun as the old game felt with each tap you hit.

rushing people through the early gearing doesnt do anything to improve a new players experience its skipping them through what makes BDO good the sandbox and world.   And riding around the world at least like 75% of the map is an empty husk because theres no new players in those zones doing anything they have all been rushed forward for no reason shortening thier adventure...... I think maybe the old rates might be to brutal for new players sure absolutely but lets slow them down a little bit so they actually spend time in the early game zones and actually experience the early game of BDO that they arent getting to experience anymore.
plus  I think the group  content  in the mid game is a very nice incentive to grind up and get out of the early game It sets a nice goal and destination to achieve. Plus there are the weaker versions of the same group and solo content for them to run before they reach midgame.

Once you actually hit that mid game though we do have a lot of stuff to do which I think is great and I finally am understanding thier design dirrection. I mean look at this list now.

throughout a week we now have the following:

Solo stuff:
Solo Bosses
Dark Rifts
world bosses
Pit of Undying
Edania Bosses ( If you have the gear)

Group stuff:
Altar of Blood
Group Bosses
Guild Bosses
Group Dungeons

PVP:

*AOS ( this needs to be permanent and always active and each season patch need to reset the ranks but it should alway be ranked or people dont bother to do it)
*Guild League ( I think this content sucks and needs a rework in how it works)
*Node Wars ( Needs a lot of work to undo its bad changes)
*RBF

Optional stuff durring downtime
. AFK Fishing
. Grinding with Agris
. Group Grinding
. All the different lifeskilling activities

Notice the stars in front of all the PVP stuff every single PVP thing that currently exists in the game is time gated to either specific times of the day or Is limitted on its availability or in AOS  and guild leagues case they straight up RIP it out of the game.

BDOs PVP modes need the most help out of everything else in the game.

It needs PVP that you can join at any time. It needs a Cerodil like mode like ESO has where at any point you can jump in solo or with friends into a never ending on going battle within BDOs world. Honestly this could be a reworked WAR OF THE ROSES and be something that is always active and maybe resets with each patch?  IDK but the current PVP all being gated by a time  of day  in order to even do it I think is incredibly flawed. When you look at  the other weekly stuff there is to do all of it can be done at any point in the day but PVP is gated for some reason..... This is a big flaw and as someone who worked 2nd shift for a long time I could not actively PVP because its all time gated every day.

I think PA is really trying to hit a perfect balance of stuff to do but I think they are still falling short in some areas that if they adressed them the ammount of players they will retain will increase quite a bit. As well as people that cant PVP but want but cant do to IRL stuff  would be able to. I also strongly believe populating the early game longer would fix a lot of what is wrong with the games Market board.

The ONLY PVP I want to do is BBF, but I will never get to because it is right during my dinner time with the family. RIP to me.

i'd like to see the 'old game' be relevant to new players and also to old players doing new characters, but unfortunately...

I get the idea of it though.  It's about the gear max and guild wars, basically, group pvp, gvg.  That's the shiny of BDO.  People do MMO to be with other players and compete together against other groups of players.

A way to do this would be world factions, like split the MSQ into two or three or more paths.  You have to pick one, and the others are locked out for you (on that character).  Then you have a reason and a way to world pvp.  Otherwise, it's a bunch of weebs whacking on each other for really no other reason than to whack.  Which of course, that's video gaming, but a MMO is supposed to, or should, or maybe would hope to be better than just basic whacking for the sake of whacking.

Make quests exp scale to the player, and the difficulty of the mobs as well.  It can be dynamic scaling, the mobs get harder the more you whack them, till maybe you have to take a break, cool down for a bit, or move to some other mobs.

Things can be done.  IDK if they will hear or listen, but I think it is worth trying to talk about it.

Green gear, it can be upgraded to blue and gold, so then on to orange and red.  Add variety of extra abilities to weapons, as you like.  Add jumping +25 or w/e, to the weapon, or passive healing aura, or aggro aura.  Of course pets can aggro, fairies can heal, crystals can add jump.  The point is, if you want to keep your green weapon and upgrade it endlessly, why not?  Make it a reality.

At any rate, the one true upgrade path is neat and shiny and cute, but it's also kind of boring.  I hope things can be re-imagined.  It's 10+ years now.  What can we do that's fresh and new?

I also miss all the quests they have removed, and some other things that have been changed.  But I do like the new stuff as well (though Academy and Season I do feel are unnecessary and a bit of a mistake; kiddie stuff).  Make a male counterpoint to the Shai class.

Anyway, glhf.

sosfree, the key, yo

Solo stuff:

Solo Bosses - TIME GATED

Dark Rifts - TIME GATED

world bosses - Certain Hours/slightly improved the rewards

Pit of Undying - TIME GATED

Edania Bosses ( If you have the gear) - TIME GATED

Group stuff:

Altar of Blood - TOO LATE, added in 2019 - removed in 2021-22 and readded after 4 years now in 2026, took 4 years for a company to revamp a simple content as this

Group Bosses - ???

Guild Bosses - TIME GATED 1/w

Group Dungeons - TIME GATED 1/w not worth anymore

PVP:

*AOS - GATED, out of the event there are too less people playing

*Guild League - GATED - need participants

*RBF - AVAIL but still GATED when its an event otherwise none will join for bad rewards compared with time wasted

They still refuse to work harder on end game which on most of mmo's like this the end game is PVP but on bdo there is way too much instability on class balance and lack of pvp content, lack of diverse maps lack of pvp game modes etc

Have no clue whats their vision but for me there was no point to keep playing, I still looking into global lab patches but most of them are just waste of time, looping and messing around with UI and so on with small improves here and there. Take a look on last 6 patches and tell me that patches aren't just a loop

BDO has a lot of interesting stuff.  It can be fun to do all the different things.  Ultimately that is a waste of time bc you want to PL character and gear to max for end game content and top PVP.

The solution is to combine these two things, casually enjoying all the different content, and doing the one true path to ultimate power.
This is the trick they are faced with, any long-term ongoing and updated game.  Make the old content relevant to the top end game players.
Obviously we have examples of this, but nobody does it well, only just more than zero, if at all.  Token efforts.  The top gear is the top gear.

So, make any gear the top gear, potentially.  Make a shabby wagon upgradeable into a (equavalent to) forest path wagon.  So, I could run my shabby wagon around and be shabby, but still have my horses leveling equivalent to a forest path wagon.  Maybe that would mean 4x the leveling power, as I can only use 1 horse with a shabby wagon.  Or perhaps I could hook up 4 horses in a single line?  Also, you can make a new wagon like santa's sleigh that can do 8 horses, and fly!  And then I would expect some upgrade potential for my shabby wagon to equate to that, somehow.

So, apply this principle to all your game content, and you will see that people will enjoy the game more.

the just do this one thing and only that and you can't do anything else kind of gameplay is... self-defeating.

PA's game loop in 2026 is.

Wage paycheck - buy rng boxes - fish - do weeklies - repeat

The most efficient progression method remains grinding in circles. Daily login rewards are also very good these days, alongside afk fishing and party black shrine. It is difficult for PA to change the fundamental direction of the game, because that would likely lose the current playerbase who stay because they like the current game focus, and PA would have to attract a different playerbase that would enjoy the new game focus, most likely through marketing.