How to play BDO without burning out

A Guide / Tips

Introduction

Black Desert Online is a competitive game and losing out on a single day might mean that you're behind by a week if you forget to do your weekly. Sometimes you might find yourself depressed over this or other annoyances that you've encountered. This guide is to help you not feel annoyed and to play in a way that prevents as much anxiety as possible so that you can keep playing without feeling burnt out.

Pace yourself

Whether you are just starting out or you've been playing for a while now, pacing yourself is the most important tip that can be given. Like a marathon, you will burn yourself out if you immediately sprint and you'll feel fatigued the entire time. Do not force yourself to grind as much as you can, do not try to overwhelm yourself by trying to complete every daily, weekly and event quests all together. Pick something and take occasional breaks. Pacing yourself over a longer period of time is more beneficial for your well being than burdening yourself like BDO is your job. Don't force yourself!

Reduce your Dailies and Weeklies

You can easily overload yourself with your dailies and weeklies. If you absolutely must do more than you normally would then I strongly encourage you to park alts in the location where your dailies need to be done. This way, less time is spent on your dalies and more time is spent doing the things you really enjoy. Just be sure to keep the next part somewhere in your mind "Dailies reset every day, even if you have to wait a day, it's not a big deal. A week is just a week, don't worry about it if you can't do it all". Trust me, your brain will thank you.

Variety - All the time

Some people focus too much on grinding. They think that if they reach level 63 all their problems will be solved, but in reality reaching level 63 is a difficult feat. It can take many weeks to reach that level and the amount of grind is a test of endurance for most people. That is why going from level 62 to level 63 is considered a test, a test that either makes or breaks you and a lot of people just give up never seeing level 63 or even playing the game any further. Avoid this death trap!

Instead, explore the game for the many things it has to offer besides grinding in circles. I suggest looking at expanding your knowledge, this is pretty fun and you get a lot of energy out of it. Learning about the different lifeskills and seeing if things like Hunting is something you can enjoy. Did you know there's harpoon and sniping? Have you ever tried exploring hidden unmarked locations found around the world both on land and in sea? Do you know much about the game's story and lore? Have you tried different classes yet? Who knows, maybe one day you will want to be a Witch and another you'll want to be a Berzerker. It's all up to you and having those options available is what also helps to destress. There are so many things you can do in this game, you should really try to branch yourself out. Take it slow, the game has been out since 2015/2016, you're not in a race to be the strongest.

Making friends, doing things together

BDO isn't very co-op friendly but there are many things you can do with others. You can do "sailies" which are your saling dailies. You can go fight co-op zones (or just regular zones), play in dungeons, race against each other, PvP, grind for treasure pieces, host or take part of community events, concerts and so on...

Helping others

Some people vent while others help other players. Both work at destressing but helping other players is much more rewarding. It makes you feel better, it makes other people feel better and it makes BDO a much more enjoyable environment to be in. The quality of the community really relies on more helpful and good people. Even if you're not wanting to write a helpful guide to others or if you're too shy to talk, you could always be a better sportsman and be more honorable. If you challenge someone to a DFS and you lose, be honorable and let that person be. Doing these types of things will make the game a lot more stress-free and help you prevent burnouts. There's nothing wrong with being a perma-red player but there is something wrong about being a douche.

Playing other games / Having another hobby

Should I be mentioning this? Yes actually. Playing other games while playing BDO is a great way to avoid burnouts. I'm playing 2 other games right now (one RPG and another Space Sim). BDO is my main MMO but I do like to explore other games from time to time especially a offline RPG which BDO is not. It gives variety and also with an offline RPG I can enjoy it in a different way. Just make sure that you don't just keep playing BDO 100% of the time, it will help you not get burnt out after a month or two. You can always minimize BDO while your character is horse training, fishing, processing etc while you're enjoying whatever other game. If you prefer, you can pick up a hobby in real life! Have you ever considered archery? There's a lot of hobbies to pick up! Try one or two!

Don't stress over season

Did you just create a new character at the end of a season? Don't let it stress you. Play as you normally would, delete the character later if you want.  There will always be more seasons and they're not adding new character slots since they reached their limit. * This might change in the future

I invited someone to play towards the end of last season, that person reached level 62 and learned a lot about the game in just a couple of days. This caused this person to quit after graduation never to be seen again.  I did the same thing when returning from a hiatus and quit for a month. Avoid the season stress, there's always a season to look forward to!

Eating well and exercise!

Playing a game too much isn't the only reason why you can get gloomy. A vitamin and mineral difficiency can easily change your mood and just as well, a lack of exercise can cause so many mood related problems not withstanding all the physical problems you'll encounter over life. Doing both of these things will not only improve your mental and physical self but it will also reduce the depression spiral that you may encounter playing a game. "This is trash", "This is boring", "I hate this" and other negative things can often be attributed to just your nutrition and exercise level. Bad mental/physical health may also mean not wanting to stay focused on one thing for long so please consider this if only to help you maintain a better health at least.

If it feels like work....

If playing BDO starts to feel like work I want you to take a moment of respite and contemplate what is wrong with this picture? Playing a game should NEVER feel like work, it should be a means to unload all your stress. What is making you stress so much? Is it the dailies? Is it the over-amount of grinding? Ask yourself these questions and once you find the root cause, stop it at once. I'm telling you from experience and understanding the experiences of other people, this will without a doubt burn you out. It might take a few days, a week, a month or two. People are different but one day you'll just quit for a very, very long time and perhaps never come back because you let it go on for so long.

Having clear goals / Don't be afraid to ask questions!

People are here to answer your questions if you have any. There is now a Q&A forum "Oasis of Knowledge" which can be found here. You can also ask questions in other places and in-game if you don't know what to do next.  Having clear goals is important to have and the reason why you are motivated to keep playing. Make those goals, ask advice on how to proceed or what to do next. Don't worry, people won't bite!

Conclusion

There is no set reason why you may one day lose motivation to play the game, but as long as you follow these tips, you should reduce the feeling of burnout dramatically. I hope this guide has been useful to you, I wanted to write a guide that people could benefit from but all the topics I wanted to write about were already taken. But maybe, just maybe this guide will help you and others feel more happy playing the game. I'll add more tips if I think about them. Thank you and have fun on your adventures!

I think you performed a nice effort here with this comprehensive piece of advise but honestly: It seems really perverted that one needs to advise people how not to treat a game like work.

It´s a game and games are meant to be played for fun, to evoke your creativity, to positively challenge yourself and your friends in a safe environment and to allow you to try things you cannot do irl.

Obviously a mindset of gaming as a dull drudgery is the diametral opposite to these core ideas of gaming. 

People who feel this game is their job might much rather be in dire need of an actual job that provides them satisfaction (mind you, I am well aware there are people who cannot perticipate in the normal worklife and I am not talking about these)...