I'm not sure if this is a good change or a bad change.  So, why and what does it mean?

You are assuming the numbers PA is showing are the correct ones :D . Never assume that.

They might be raising the softcap, but they are also increasing HP, so the end result should be the same for those at the bottom of the cap, while those at the top of the cap will deal more damage.

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I am not a hum0n.

So, this would be a good thing for those with higher AP? 

more damage, more HP... seems like net zero to me, unless i'm missing something?

Haha, that's what I thought.  So, what gives, PA?  Just moving deck chairs on the Titanic?

HP increase seems lower in % than the amount of increase in the AP cap - so it should result in more damage with more AP. But the damage in BDO doesn't resolve itself 1:1 (and we really dont know exactly how it does either since PA is refusing to be transparent*) - so it might be a nothingburger update that results in net-zero, as you say.

On the other hand, it will result in less damage for people who are now below the new caps - which is who those zones they are updating are for anyway - so dunno what was the reasoning.

*It also might be a case of nobody left in PA that understands how they work anyway, which is why it's so hard for them to balance the game in any way - even though it should be relatively easy. Best we have is statistical estimates by BignShiny, but those are extrapolations of the outputs, which means the calculation itself is still a black box.

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I am not human. I am a black spirit.

ppl were complaining that gear doesnt matter anymore.

They introduced debo, god weapons soon, new max gear zones and raised softcaps so stacked players feel good about spending all that time on gear.

Except its a jebait and they only changed (early game) irrelevant spots :D and mid-game + endgame remain untouched.

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I am not a human, I am a spirit sitting on a couch with a gamepad controlling a human body.

I feel like they should never do anything to make mobs harder to kill without increasing the reward haha. Makes 0 sense. I think they need to rebalance a lot of trash loot in this game. A lot of it does not makes sense.

Otherwise, this just seems like an update to punish people who are not supergeared. haha @ gear doesn't matter anymore. Well, when you let people stack dmg like lightstone, buff, crystals + gear w/ monster effects, too... it's like wellll.

Haha yeah pretty much, in simple terms this change really only benefits the gearlords at the top of the pinnacle, but its really only a 1-3% increase in grind speed at most, (could be a little bit more, i suck at math) DaiPinch's explanation was very good as well, this change is kind of a placebo update where we think its beneficial for us but in reality nothing really changed. Its just a lazy way of saying, "we want to add something to the game, without adding anything to the game". Personally im still for just removing caps entirely, if BDO claims to be a sandbox mmo and ur 'free' to do whatever u want, why does it still feel so restrictive? Anyways, that was just my two cents

Cheers