I respectfully disagree!  By "going like this", I will assume you mean how grindy the game is and how gear-gaps play a huge role in PVP and income per hour.

BDO will not live forever, yes, common sense.  However, the game has at least another 3-5 years left in the tank, IMO, and I'd argue that it is because of the heavy grind and gear-gaps.  BDO is about the "Adventure that never stops", according to one of their tag-lines.  The game is grindy, progress is slow at higher gear and levels, but there is no cap to how high you can go - even with gear = new gear is released fairly regularly (usually around regional releases), giving players more goals to attain.  This doesn't stop.  Even Biohack, who has capped gear (good luck to your RNG and your IRL money if you want capped gear), will have new gearing goals when new items release -- and he still needs PEN Fallen God, which is nigh impossile to get.  Even at 1,000+ FS, the success % is, like, 0.22%!!!  Always something to chase, reasonable, or not.

And this aspect....the "never ending adventure", is one thing that will keep BDO alive for the next 3-5 years.  Who knows what lies beyond the gates of Haso?  Could be an entirely new continent, similar to current main-land!!

Unless another MMO can amaze the core-BDO playerbase enough to leave, but I don't really see that happening soon.  Time will tell.  BDO fills a niche.  And does it pretty well IMO (many improvements still could be had, of course).  Hopefully BDO can welcome new players while keeping the existing playerbase happy at the same time, this will help with the game's longevity tremendously.

*Sigh* I have to explain everything to you as usual.  How about the direction of PVP in Lineage II?  When it went Free to Play they essentially removed PKing.  In fact they had actually done it earlier then that with things like equipment that would prevent exp loss in PK and 100% res.

The savage PVP game wasn't suitable for the masses even for one of the most hardcore PVP games and their developers starting stripping PVP from the game.

Isn't it AMAZING how ALL of these companies where stripping PVP away from their games.  I wonder WHY that is? LOL

JK WE all know why, YOU DON'T.

Wow, bold, all caps, hostile verbage, dang dude. It's sad to see you stoop this low. Is life treating you okay buddy? Need a hug?

You present a false dichotomy. Lineage 2 hasn't been relevant for years, while BDO is going strong. You're comparing a dead game to one that is still quite successful and active, despite all the flame from haters like you.

Hey, so when are you going to meet me in-game? Never. Thought so.

>> Ironic, how you can type in bold, caps, and make sad attempts at causing unrest, yet hide yourself on the forum, refusing to show face in-game. XD what a tool.

Wow, bold, all caps, hostile verbage, dang dude. It's sad to see you stoop this low. Is life treating you okay buddy? Need a hug?

You present a false dichotomy. Lineage 2 hasn't been relevant for years, while BDO is going strong. You're comparing a dead game to one that is still quite successful and active, despite all the flame from haters like you.

Hey, so when are you going to meet me in-game? Never. Thought so.

>> Ironic, how you can type in bold, caps, and make sad attempts at causing unrest, yet hide yourself on the forum, refusing to show face in-game. XD what a tool.

the purpose of catchup mechanics in bdo is a marketing gimmick to try and pacify new players long enough so that they spend some money before quitting. It's called a turnover model. The reason they're not doing seasons anymore is because they were benefiting more than just their target audience. It was too beneficial to the community at large so it's been pulled. Just like shadow arena.

Actually I WASN'T playing the game...  I was gone for 2 years so your Assumption was just proven completely wrong.  (I wonder what else you've gotten wrong??).   The entire  point you missed, and so did most people who responded, was:   This isn't about Wellfare.   No one even wants wellfare.   The problem again is the "returns" the gear provides:

T h e 

E x p o n e n t i a l

s c a l i n g

of

p e r f o r m a n c e

It's literally the title of the post?

Which is a completely irrelivant topic as it is utterly fake news.  AP scales exponetially until 261 AP...a number easy to reach...and than it falls off actually.  DP is completely linear.  Peoplehave turned to discussion that actually matters and ignored you rather false assumption because it is so easy to know it is false when you look at any AP/DP bracket chart unless the person does not know what those words mean.

If this why true why is it that someone with 261 AP doesn't do any damage to me when they have 500 Accuracy, but someone with 285 AP can two shot me? If it doesn't exponetially scale than why is a 24 AP difference the difference between doing zero damage and two shooting someone?

A minor correction - Ap scales exponentially until 269* (265 being 21 ap bracket and 269 is 15 ap bracket in comparison to 261 which being 18 ap bracket) after it each bracket is 4-7 ap each.

Anyway, even with 269 ap you will probably get out healed by a full c9 pen enemy pots (of course, depend on classes of both sides and the evasion/dr of the enemy) which honestly gives a bad taste for a game that call itself a pvp game.