Came back after awhile and saw some codes (especially the J's Hammer stuff).  Was going to start where I left off and try my luck on my TET blackstar and these have expired.

These items are so rare, they should just be given in game and not by coupon code.

Really not cool.

The reason why they give away such codes is to make you log into the game, so boost the palyer numbers. If it would not expire they would lose their point...

I understand why, but c'mon it's J's Hammer.  This shouldn't expire.

Why didnt you use them when they released the code?

Probably the same reason why I wasted like 20 of them. Didn't have the right equipment to try at the time. When the game makes it a chore to upgrade your equipment and force you to do dailies like it's a job, you tend to progress very slowly especially with a limited amount of time to play. Finding the motivation and right time to use J's hammer is what makes it really annoying due to its timer. So, unless you already have boss / manos gear to try and upgrade at at least TET level then you're really not going to be using them. You could use them for random crap but why bother?

Calling a tap attempt (RNG casino) after the director is fitting, especially considering it has an expiration time. It suits this game very well since this game likes to punish the players all the time.

How does the game "force you to do dailies like it's your job"?  I mean, first and formost - it's a video game, so you aren't "forced" to do anything to begin with -- don't play if you aren't enjoying yourself.  Secondly, BDO doesn't have actual dalies like other MMO's that give you a set amount of raids you can do per day.  You're free to do pretty much whatever you want, when you want in BDO, I mean, you can't drive a Carrack without building one first, but you get the point.

The only dailies I can think of in BDO are RBF daily Ancient Spirit Dust quest, Lara dailies for Scorched Fragments, and I guess you could consider Marni's Realm one-hour-per-day a psuedo-daily and these are completely optional.  AoS daily seals quest too.  I don't even do the Lara quests, personally, and some days I miss the RBF dust daily and AoS daily quests.  They're optional and won't hinder progress much if you don't do them.  So I'm really curious what you mean by "force you to do dailies like it's your job"? 

Is it that you mean the grind at end-game, for top shelf items like PEN yellow accessories, is long and arduous?  If that's so, then I'd say the game is doing a good job in that department.  Top-shelf items shouldn't be easy to get.  BDO was originally marketed as a "hardcore MMORPG" back in the day.  While it's gotten a LOT more causal over recent years, I'm glad they keep some hardcore aspects like top-shelf item grind (key word, "top-shelf") in tact.  Besides, players don't really need more than Season gear + Season V Capotia to enjoy the game.  Unless you fight in uncapped wars or GvG with strong guilds, why do you need gear when you can make ~500 mil per hour in Valencia / Kamasylvia?

BDO's a grinder my guy...what's the point of a grinder-game if there isn't anything to, well, grind for?

sorry dude, maybe you will learn for next time.

BDO is not a bad game for dailies, but there are more somewhat essential ones than you list. I very much prefer their model of incentivising logins with free handouts, rather than logging in then having to do a chore, but:

- The T10 dailies are a pain. You can just instead do the weekly, which is bearable, but if you're serious about wanting a T10 in any kind of sensible timeframe, the game pushes you hard to do them. There's no need for this, though, and I think most people would prefer a grindable, non-time gated way of getting the fern roots. 

- Once you have the PEN accessory, it's easy to forget, but that thing was a serious daily grind chore.

- Again with pities for pots, adding 5 on a weekly quest was better than nothing, but why not just boost the droprate a bit?

- You could lump a lot of imperial delivery into the category of a time-gated daily, but at least there, it makes sense it's there to protect the market. That's actually one example of a time-gated system that's good.

The thing is that whilst BDO has always been pretty good in letting people grind things at their own pace, they've leant more in recent 'big deal' things like the pots, T10, and pen acc, to time-gating with dailies. Imo these are bad for hardcore players - who hit the wall of having to wait - and also more casual players, who feel forced to log in or miss out. I really struggle to see the winner in this time-gated daily approach to content, and whilst I'm glad BDO is not that bad on it compared to other MMOs, it's a bit worrying it seems more and more a thing with the current direction.

Ah yes, those are big things that I missed.  Though, personally, I wouldn't go so far as to say "forces you to do them like it's your job", because jobs are needed in order to sustain life in modern society and BDO is a video game, there are some time-gated elements in the game.  About the Jetina PEN quests, the devs did mention they wanted it to be a "steady progression" type of thing, and for a 100% chance at getting a PEN, even an accessory of all things, I feel those time-gates are reasonable.  Some dedication being required doesn't seem too unreasonable to me.  T10 horses aren't necessary, but it would be nice if they could be traded in the horse market, or if getting fern roots weren't time-gated.  I guess they want T10's to be "something special" and by making them, basically, harder to get, does add to that IMO.  Same goes for pot pieces, but this one is a it different because players can grind as long as they can.  These are just some counter resaonings of mine, so grain of salt.  I do agree with you that too many time-gates doesn't benefit the players, and in the long run, could hurt the amount of freedom players have.  Freedom being one of the things that makes BDO a good MMO.

Welp, it would have been nice as a returning player to find some of these still active. :/

Now I have to wait again for another J's hammer giveaway to try even an attempt at blackstar TET => PEN attempt (don't feel like grinding for 3000+ crons per attempt).

As for the guaranteed progression path for PEN armor, I can see the appeal but wouldn't it just be faster to attempt a round robin TET -> PEN attempt with enhancing with a 100+ FS then selling failed TRI gear and then grinding and buying TET gear again and repeat?  I mean you can easily get about 500m silver per hour now?  *shrugs.

P.S. ~ I also have backup TET gear from previous seasons (for grinding), thus the reasoning above.