I feel like Pansy is transforming into his "I love this game, but I'm fed up and tired" alter-ego arc and i'm loving it. Way to keep it 100 Pans.

You saved me 1,000 hours by watching this video and I love you for that. I love BDO but honestly the grind just isn't worth it when there are so many other games to play.

Realistically, the average player with Seasonal Tuavala is not making 700+mil/h consistently. They aren't grinding with Agris and Max drop rate on all the time, so the average time it takes from Seasonal Gear to Soft Cap 293/381 is gonna probably be more like 600+ hours, not 300h.

Update: Debo prices are capped at 126b, mb. Let me know in the comments how high on #copium you gotta be to justify spending 500 - a thooousand hours grinding

My main issue was always enhancing, you have 2 options grind for 37 hours and then buy outfits and not get the upgrade or grind for 100 hours to buy the upgrade and it doesnt actually make a noticeable difference

My reason for giving up on this game was the progression. I was already in the end game, I loved the grind and rng to me isn't terrible by any means. Most MMO's depend on rng like boss drops etc. HOWEVER, this is the only game that progression can mean regression. Instead of having a grind finally pay off and feel great, BDO can make you grind for weeks and than you lose. When you inevitably succeed its more of a relief than rewarding. Toxic and unfun. The best example of BDO I have heard was that the developers had created a mona lisa but than decided to draw all over it in crayon. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I dont really think the time getting gears the problem as much as the problem being the shit you do to get said gear. If this game had more fun variety of ways to getting the gear i doubt nearly as many people would care if it takes as long as it does. Game needs more activitys that competes or at least comes close to silver per hr at grind spots. Personally i enjoy the idea of long term gear progression, i just want more shit to do with my friends.

Black desert is a sandbox mmo so trying to get to endgame in it is like saying I’m trying to get to the endgame in gta. That’s why they say enjoy the journey it’s a marathon not a race.

@imPansy I think there are alot of factors that keep the game from being mainstream and honestly super successful. 1. The one you heavily addressed which is the gear grind, and the gap between someone who no lifes the game and lets be real someone who has a life and other interests. BDO feels like a game that if you stop you fall further behind others and get punished when you can't fight back. 2. Lack of customization. Character Creation is fantastic, but this is one of the most limited MMORPGS out there in outfit customization. WoW, SWTOR, GW2, FF14 to name a few have an unholy amount of outfit combinations. In BDO you don't have that many, and not all the outfits can have gloves and such modified. If you are gonna have a long grind at least let me spend money and customize. 3. Content, with such a cool combat system there is very few ways to actually use it. 4. Breadth and not always alot of depth. Many of the life skills for example have fallen so far behind and if you get into the game to that point can feel like a waste of time which could kill motivation. 5. Aggressive shop, I would rather pay 14.99 then buy 3 different buffs. (like why jesus). 6. Alts are a big part of mmo's how about the fact if i make a new character i need to rebuy all my inventory and weight like jesus. Just some of the stuff beyond just grind alot.

Quality content, Panz! majority of the players already know this but some won't admit, The video is not negtive at all. Keep it up! Updated Awa Striker guide next!!!

I dropped because of the mindless grind. Hours and hours of grind doing the same rotation. Plus the gamble gear upgrade system. Don't get me wrong, the game has a lot of strong points but when things u do at the game start to look like a chore it is time to drop it

Thanks for the vid Pansy. I’m with ya man. I love BDO, been playing since 2016 and I just recently hit 600 GS. PA is going in the right direction to increase the player base but they’ve really still got a long way to go. Hopefully they pay attention to videos like these. Thanks man.

I'm new to the game and it has soo much to do. Of course leveling gear is the main stuff but I'm loving the grind to max my horse's skills. I love the fact that you have to walk all the way through to actually get to places. It makes you feel the need to level up your horse and get that professional on training as I just did today. I didn't even start fishing but I always see a ton of people doing it close the the storage guy. I'm playing it for less than a week but I'm really loving it.

I love BDO, I have free time and I can grind in this game for years. Other MMOs I run out of goals so quickly and then stop. But BDO continues to satisfy. It is not for everyone though, it is very very repetitive.

I had completed seasons, and within 2 months reached 272 kutum, 327 dp. Had one pot piece too. i decided to quit while grinding the second pot piece. the amount of time to gear up in the game is too much for me. I can not live in an Mmo, especially when the "frontier" time has long since passed. it feels like i just have another job. and trying to convince friends to play was sad af. Unless you start at the same time, good luck talking them into catching up to you after a couple of months. I dont think them changing how easy it is to gear up would change anything. because there IS so little at end game. the fun of the game is the journey to end game, that is very clear. Class balance, metas, FOTM aside, the game is decent. its just a lot of time that youll never get back, doing things others have done, and streamlined all the fun out of. Just my opinion.

I feel like the enhance mechanics they implemented on black desert mobile are superior to the ones on the main game, it is still rng based but the fact that you can increase the odds by simply sinking more enhance materials (black stones, etc) it would be great if they implement something similar on the main game imo.

I been playing this game for quite sometime now (5yrs +), causally, 2-3 hours per day. The game is a grind. Finally hit 685gs with double pen bs =)

I think it's both a combination of how long it takes to get gear, and the utter lack of endgame. You can pvp way before 720gs. Even if you get to the endgame pvp of 720gs, that's it. It's just pvp, there is no endgame content aside from pvp. That's a huge issue (imo), like why would you play the game for hours on end grinding for gear when you can't really enjoy the fruit of your labor. As I said, pvp is unlocked way before 720gs. So I ask, what do we have for endgame content aside from just the pvp? Other than 300ap running in circle spots, we have nothing.

Growing up I did play a lot of MMOs that required nonstop grinding, Ragnarok online, runescape, maple story (dear god that game was next level monster grinding), Mabinogi (those who have played this know the life skill grind was brutal way back when) and more. Now I casually play black desert but I truly feel that grind no longer sells. The ironic aspect is that many people complain about there not being enough to progress towards in their mmo (as the genre becomes more story oriented) yet dislike having to work towards a long term goal for hundreds of hours. Goal/gear grinding can be quite relaxing if well paced and ultimately I feel MMOs should be about chipping away at immense goals day by day. The satisfaction is unrivaled once you obtain what you've worked for.

The biggest reason why they wont ever become mainstream is literally the gear progression, you cannot expect NA players to accept gear loss/progression loss. The fact that gear and equipment can break is the biggest dealbreaker for the casual player. Overlooking the mandatory world pvp , and cash shop, the whole matter of gear breaking on fail enhancing is complete BS to the T. Even Lost Ark does NOT break your gear on failure. BDO will Never succeed beyond the current status until the gearing is adjusted and made more forgiving. I couldnt grind hundreds to thousands of hours just to see my progression poof out of existence.

I played BDO for 2 years for 1 hour or less a day and still have 642gs in game it's slow progress but never get burnout and still happy to play the game ❤️ the combat is make me keep playing this game 🔥

I hope they add more group content to bdo like more dungeons to party up and go do with boss mechanics like in your other typical mmos. They are just so fun to do with friends

I tried the grind, but gave up around 590/600 mark, seeing that 730 so close but still SEVEN MONTHS of work away, it broke me. So, I went back to the games I enjoyed. Left a lot of good friends behind, wish I could go and tell them why I left but the guild leader kicks anyone who is absent for a month or more, this was two years ago. The game is truly stunning, the level of depth and realism behind it all is impressive! For anyone who thinks otherwise, just look up how to trade. Look up for yourself, the level of complexity TRADING takes, and that is one of like, 15 or so lifeskills you can level. Farming, hunting, mining, voyaging, trading, flower picking, mob-killing, cooking, alchemy, hell even the auction house. And speaking of house, you can own homes for restocks on energy or crafting last minute items on your journey, so yes, I have spent the time. Over 1300 hours, and yet I was still very far off. BDO is a very, very special game and I wish it had more people looking into it, but I cannot in good faith say it is for everyone. WoW fell too hard for me to think about returning, so I had to find a new niche, Dark Souls and the FromSoft games as a whole but damn do I wish to go back and just get lost in Pearl Abyss' fantastical world. Oh! Forgot to mention back in the lifeskills for outsiders still thinking there isn't too much depth. Breeding mounts...look up a video about that stuff too, you'll be lost even after rewatching it for sure! And yes, those mounts ARE tied to ANOTHER lifeskill, Training. Sorry for the long rant but, this video made the memories flood back and damn does it hurt knowing how much I loved the world, until it crashed down on me with the cold number of hours to jump just a little bit higher

Great video. I used to play and got tired after grinding mindless with nothing to show but 16 failed tet accessory attempts after hitting soft cap back in the day. You're definitely right about the shift to make it easier to obtain end game. That's one reason I came back. Lots of guaranteed pens, bunch of freebies, and more importantly, the low barrier of entry to make serious cash. The grind is still bad like you said, but if they keep this direction of appealing to the new players while still validating end game players, lots of good will come of it.

I really love BDO and currently still playing it. However, I really wish PA consider revamping the whole gear and weapon system in this game to be much more friendly...

Great vid. Def. enjoying the game, just started this week, and to say that this numbers didn't scare me off, seems encouraging. Loving your content =)

I am playing BDO since 2017, and I can tell u- You're sooooo right xD I also don't have patience to grind hours and hours like some people do. With my 690 GS I found myself decent geared. And yes I am doing Nw's and that is something I rlyyy enjoy. People can also make a lot of moneys this day's doing lifeskilling. For a long time I tried quite a lot different MMO's but on end BDO is only one I rly stick around. Everyone can find something they enjoy in the game because of the complexity of the game, and that is what I love about BDO. I rly enjoyed your video, keep a good work man! :)))

Started bdo less than 2 months ago, never fel pressure to go nolife on it, log in when i want, do what i want, so far no objection about it, loving it. Got to give due where it is, PA is on point with updates,patches ect. I can see where is cash shop money going. THey are makin it casual friendly too

This is always what I feel and realize every time I sell part of my pve/pvp gear for life skill gears xd. Gearing up is not the problem of the game cause it is what defines bdo other than it's combat. The problem of the game are the lack of content other than pve because most of other contents are not rewarding e.g. pvp stuff and other lifeskilling contents. World, rift and guild bosses should be a lot harder but more rewarding.. If only you can gear up by doing what you like and feel rewarding and efficient this game will be a lot better.

i have played BDO on ps4 for the last 3 years, since it hit ps4, and there has only been a 6 month period that i wasn't playing. i currently have just over 17,000 hours into the game, mostly afk tbh to keep my 75 artisan worker empire going 24/7, and i just hit 660 gear score. i did zero grinding for a long time and just made silver off life skilling. it has paid off that my shai makes it on the leaderboard of every server i go on for life skill rankings. i have a Volante and a Valor Carrack and lead a 25-30 person guild. i thoroughly enjoy this game and how much endless content it has to offer. definitely the most detailed and complicated game i've ever played to date.

I feel like you kept calling soft cap "imo" because it's kinda hard to place a marker on BDO soft cap/hard cap. For arguments sake just call full Pen Tuvala soft cap, 670 mid cap, and 730 hard cap. Reason I say this is because there are still a LOT of people that won't ever pass Tuvala due to "the journey".

I've quit bdo for a year but returned recently. It's still so addicting. I loved the qol updates and new player experience. I decided to take it slower this time and not to get burned out.

Still the best combat system mmo I’ve played will always leave a mark for me in mmo combat just waiting patiently for a clone with less rng that’s it really. Throne and liberty looks dope so waiting to try that out.

Great video. I loved bdo, played for several thousand hours. I don't play anymore because the progression system is just too painful. Do I miss bdo? Yes. Would I ever go back to it? No, at least not in it's current state. If they somehow implemented what you said, "6 months to hard cap" and maybe made a new hard cap with each story expansion, I would be in love. Is that going to happen with BDO? I think not. The community within is already so balls deep that it would anger too many, and to gamble the existing community in hopes to attract new people is a risk that BDO is not willing to take in my eyes. My hope is that with what pearl abyss knows now, they make a new game with a new community and a more balanced progression system, this is possible. Let's make this new game, mainstream. Grab a huge audience and change the mmo scene. PA are definitely the ones to do it, and if BDO was this from the get go, I truly feel that it would be the biggest mmo in the world

what In needed to hear, you are just working a part time job, something clicked in my head, I will look for an actual part time job and start making more real money, thanks my dude

This was a very unique and a different kind of video, really loved it

Good video, very informative. One question though, *new player here*, how are you supposed to gear up to base level for a non-seasonal character? Is it best "not to" and only use seasons for alts gearing or is there a good way to catch-up?

I agree, I have been playing for 3 years and haven't broken past TET. I hate the grind bullshit even for the T9 I spent way too much time on...

So very true, endgame gearing is too much when it takes over a few months (most of the time its longer) to get a few points in GS increase. That is including a good passive money making ways.

Thanks for this breakdown, it's very helpful and eye opening. I got my first "true" realization of what end game looks like just 2 days ago from a video on YT... I watched this guy blow up 74 TET boss acc to make 8 PEN acc. The amount of silver involved in the end game chase is way, way more than I thought by orders of magnitude.

Such a nice video. The one more thing is also that 1000 hours is not about whole game, its about only grinding. It's like you logs in game, not checking your auction, not making some money from alchemy or trying to learn your class in pvp, it's only about grinding. So actual time you will spend in game to reach this level of gear comes from 1000 to infinite, if you're not grinding at least 2-4 hours per day in top-tier spots using top-tier class. I pretty like that they made Centaurus such profitable, that even newbies can start grind lots of money, but its still about only killing mobs, not about getting deeper into pvp or peaceful jobs

I'm coming up on 2,400 hours in BDO. My main is 602 gs. I spent the first couple years playing alts, so I have every class at 61 (my family fame is as high as it can go), but I only recently started trying to push my gear a bit. Funny fact, I didn't grind at all for the first couple years, so I just sat on all the stuff I was getting, and STILL have 500+ hours of loot scrolls I had saved up from that time.. Calculating how much time and silver it would cost to get to 700+ gs just makes me laugh when I consider how many hours I already have in it. I don't mind so much. I enjoy the game because there is a million things to do and work on, always something to keep me engaged. I'm personally a big fan of the regular flow of new classes to the game. As an altoholic, it keeps the game fresh constantly.

Im still new with this game playing for almost 2 month...currently on 233ap/290dp. Still faaaaar away from end game..and i love it... i build my char from step to step becoming more and more stronger then open a new and new spot and item. its so friking good when i reach my objective. My currently objective is reaching 260 ap and if i follow my plan carefully i will reach it at the end of this month. The key to enjoy this game is make ur own pace and try not chasing people. I grind when i want and if im bored i can do lifeskilling. Its not for people who love chasing end game like a racecar...just like my friend who stop playing coz he tried to chasing the other guildmates..... Just enjoy the progress...

This video is a godsend, I'm a new player to bdo who just graduated from seasonal and traded my tuvala with boss gear. after a full month of being overwhelmed by the game. I'm sitting on a 240 ap and 300 dp. It was fun at the start when i played levelling up and doing quests, but now, after the graduation it's just grinding the horses in the desert. I don't think that I'll continue, I'll just to try to get close to the soft cap, so i can solo the pve content, I'm not looking into pvp because it seems that it need a lot of time that i can't afford to waste.

They can't just make gearing too easy since it's the main "content" of their game. The only way they could do that, in my opinion, is to shift the game's goal away from grinding and toward other aspects of the game, such as creating an engaging story and lore, world-building and exploration, overhauling lifeskilling to make it less tedious, better social interactions and social content, and so on.

thank you for saying it, is hard as f bring friends to bdo, "too complicate" and "there's only grinding" is what i hear everytime.

bdo is tekken with a 1000 hour grind wall

How long is max gear? Answer = Never Before: PEN Boss Gear = Tapping / Gambling Now: PEN Boss Gear = Guaranteed PEN Boss Gear = Not best In slot e.g. Fallen God / Labreska = Tapping / Gambling You get PEN Ogre? Congrats! now get PEN Deboreka Necklace You get PEN Belt? Congrats! now get PEN Deboreka Belt What PA wants? You get killed by geared players to frustrate you and buy costumes and progress your gear You buy costume for crons You buy value pack You buy old moon / kama blessing You buy weight / inventory basically buy convenience buy everything that inconvenienced you Gear Progression? Very simple really: Luck > Effort They say the journey is better than the destination: Here you go: You - Grind 2 years + to save money for the gear Other player - Felt lucky, tapped and succeeded They will never change it and it will never be fair.

Man this kinda hurst me, i have around 5k hours on bdo almost Bis life skill gear (had) 1 day decided to tap it failed it all dropped the game still miss it but there is no way im going back to that. 5k hours of work down the drain in a mere 17 minutes.

a metaphor for black desert would be me putting out my cigarette when it’s half done with the intention of quitting then pick all the half burnt cigs up from the ashtray and smoke em up when i’ve run out rn i’m currently sitting on deleting the game at least twice a day

The brainstormers are still on the 2010ish era mindset were gearing up should take millions of yrs.

I found my niche in playing new classes when seasons release, loving the experience, no pressure

I do a bit of grinding spend a lot of time Life Skilling these days but at the end of the day i can just spend the whole weekend just living in the game doing i have not got a clue but i must be doing something, i don't worry about my stats, yeah i would love 720gs and full Manos but i am just having fun playing and i think there are a lot of players doing the same otherwise its just going to burn you out, gear will come just enjoy yourself along the way, oh i main Mystic as well and would not have it any other way lol

A casual player here playing for around 5 years.. I always had a degree a of fun and because I play so casually and f2p I never really burnt out however its always been a gear check situation. I've always had less gear than my opponents so node wars and siege wars always resulted in low kills and high deaths.. Everytime I wanted to quit I tapped a pen or something valuable then I kept on playing. I finally reached the new softcap at 673gs and now 680gs after some rng luck. Now after 5 years I started having fun in pvp with some gear. For the amount of effort (not time) I put in I have way more gear than I should have so I am fortunate. With the new capped content the last 2 years with the reward system in siege I honestly had way more fun..Capped siege and now AOS was truly some of the best content we have. I could enjoy pvp whilst working on my gear and still use it in Open world, Arsha and RBF

After reaching 660 gs, I stopped the hardcore grinding, and picked up the torch i left in the dirt with lifeskilling. Mainly because I have been missing a Tycoon type game. So that's how I'm playing BDO right now. That in my opinion is the true beauty of BDO, play like you want, make sure you're having fun. cause it truly is all about the journey and not the destination. You just have to figure out how/what the journey is for you. Great vid Pansy :)

Love your content, champ. Thanks for all your hard work.

I love this game but never felt I could ever compete in a pvp scenario. Which this game is ment for. The skill difference is hard enough to learn. But maybe that's just me expecting to be able to play the entire game and make a difference. Anyway your vid sums up nicely why I still play GW2 and not BDO.

I haven't really grinded since 2019 and am still playing it. T1 nodewars, trial chars is all I need. PvE is for whenever you feel like it. "Endgame" starts at lvl 1. PvP content can be enjoyed very very early.

that's why they have season games, new class , and also having that broken centaur spot its for NEW PLAYERS

Love your content, Pansy. Out of curiosity, have you ever thought about playing on a private server?

Was grinding for a pen dimtree but eventually just got bored of the constant grinding. Tried to vary the things i could do in the game but the thought of never getting to endgame without no lifing for 4-6 months dosent sit well with me :(

Bdo is my favorite game, only because I had 3 years worth of time put into it, but coming back after getting falsely banned was probably one of the worst experiences ive gone through. Being so much weaker then everyone was off putting and grinding back to were I used to be took months to do, I used seasons to help speed up the grind and it helped but unfortunately I couldn't go through the grind again so I dropped it 😕

All of this is the reason why, as a new player, I'm enjoying more making new characters and slap Narchillan gear on them and grind some of the good spots for money until I can buy gear. Mind that Narchillan gives you around 170AP and with some PRI/DUO accessories (got those as daily rewards) you can easily reach 200AP and 300DP. Grinding spots until 240 AP are doable if stacking all buffs on AP, Crit and Accuracy. Now my main character is sitting at 540GS because I didn't play that much during season, can't find the will to grind on it and gear it up more, but if I can earn some silver while trying out different classes I'm all in.

If they added a pvp server where your max GS was determined by the area you're in and you actually got resources from player kills, it would make grinding less of a chore. That way OG player's could still have their high end grind spots, while newer players would have a chance to enjoy some fair PvP without a years worth of repetitive prep gameplay.

thumbnail : how long you take to have a capped gear? me : yes

We are not talking about playing 4 hours a day, we are talking about the actual grinding for 4 hours a day

that is why you lifeskill and cook/alchemy in underwear. and BDO chat is endgame so im alredy there

the grind is not as painful, the most painful part is the backwards progression, like having a small chance of upgrading is fine, but the punishment for failure is just too much, and this is coming from a guy who is a failure to his parents, and even they didn't punish me this hard. like even in gambling, if you brought $50k to a cassino, the worst thing that could happen is that you gonna lose $50k, but in bdo, if you bring 10B silver into an enhancing session, you can not only lose 10B but also some pieces of gears that's worth hundreds of hours of grinding, in essence, you bring 10B you can lose 50B or even 100B just from enhancing, this shit is worse than a damn cassino.

I agree with all your points. I just recently hit 62 and my gear is pretty trash. and looking into gearing up and calculating the grind really is discouraging. I'm at a crossroads...should I grind it out? is it worth it? or should I just not...

Ive been playing since console release and I have stopped playing probably 5 different times. I get on, grind to 56-58, do main story then get sick of the life wasting grind before I even get into it or even learn what to do lol.. All my income is literally from just having a few characters, idk what else to do and its a horrible feeling because everyone seems mean and unwilling to help

Hey man,thanks for video, could you share the link where I could see those built in video :) thanks

Man I'm the only one of my friends that stuck with this game only to get to base line gs and a carrack on the side. Honestly if it was brought to average mmo grind I think they'd give it another shot and I would play it more seriously. To put it into perspective I have bordering 5k hours in this game, 2k in warframe, 1.5k in destiny, 1k in ff14, 700 in ESO, and 400 in OG PSO2 but among all of those I have reached/beaten the endgame in all but BDO. Edit: I do like the idea of BDO becoming more mainstream, all of my irl gamer friends avoid it like the plague because of the hopeless grind. I came back this week because I heard of Arena of Solare and have been liking it although I wish they'd fix desync.

to be honest thats what killed it for me. i was about 600hours in. quit shortly after nova release,as far as i remember. a lot happened in my life and summer and so on. now i started it back up. well. first i cant even remember half of the important stuff because it is so much in this game. i was like wtf is this item for, wait how i feed my workers, where did i store pet food. what houses did i even own and in wich town i stored what. skill rotation what was that. skill points all reset at some point, thats a problem after such long pause. and a hundred things more. did the new questline for global storage and a pen. then i went to the grind spot i liked back then. because i did not remember my buff setup correctly nor perfect skill roatation i died 3 times in 2 minutes. even with a new pen boss gear i did not had back then. then i kind of remembered how much effort and knowlage this game takes to kinda be efficient, even then you have to dedicate half your free time to it to get anywhere. back then i had no job. it was the perfect game. it kinda felt like a job. so much to do, so much to learn. but to be honest. i now have a decent paying job, also a hobby that takes up my summer free time. as much as i want to play this game, i just cant. the effort is not worth it. the rewards come so slow. i could dedicate a couple hundred hours through the winter, but it does not feel worth it. i can play escape from tarkov, or call of duty, or diablo, or PoE, borderlands, the division 2, hell even league of legends. my mechanics would suck at the beginning, i would need a couple guides to get back in. but after 50-100 hours in one of these games as example i would be back to my former glory and even made progress. in BDO 50-100 hours would be"now i know what im doing again, but i have to dedicate the next 300hours to kinda make a bit of progress. and still after the winter i would not be like end endgame gear.

I'd say if you don't have fun grinding/life skilling to get money to get gear. Then I would say Quit BDO now lol. The whole game is designed to constantly work on gear upgrades FOREVER, as PA will ALWAYS add NEW gear that you have to grind out. Constantly upgrading gear is the "endgame" and that will never change even with future gear upgrades. I've been playing since launch and I Personally LOVE the slow gear grind even with a full time job. WHY? Because MMO's nowadays are too easy. You get max gear within 6 months and then get bored because you beat all endgame content and have no goals to accomplish. BDO always gives me that Diablo feel to it, where I always have gear to obtain or the next goal to achieve. Which makes BDO more fulfilling than most mmo's imo.

Imo the hours you put in arent necessarily the issue, cause if the game is fun id say you can play it for 7-9 hours daily, the thing is the grind or the silver making methods bdo offers arent fun.. its impossible or very unlikely that someone truly enjoys doing 1 combo of skills for hours to achieve gear in a game, it gets to a point its exhausting. Also theres no goal in reaching endgame, theres no reward in doing that. Even if you tell me that you can now do Big D PvP i dont care cause theres also no point in doing it, so my take is that bdo players burn their ass just to have the satisfaction of hitting certain gear objectivss that eventually will be pointless cause its a gearing simulator

All I've ever done in this game is play seasons. The leveling process is pretty fun for me. Learning the class and what not. After that, when I see the absolutely ridiculous amount of time you need to spend playing this game to accomplish the smallest thing, I can't help but drop it. BDO does not respect your time. One of my favorite things about ffxiv is that it respects your time. Haven't played in months? No problem. You can gear up in a few days and jump into the most recent content. Want to try a new class, but it's not max level? You can level up in a couple hours. There are too many good games out there to spend 7k hrs on just one. The only thing BDO has going for it is the combat and the world, which is why it's so frustrating that it's like this. There's a great mmo in there, but the never ending grind and the p2progress aspects kill it for me.

i quit bdo a year and a half ago and seeing videos like this CONSISTENTLY make me not want to come back..... ever.

I have been grinding Red Orcs for like 2000 hours or more now :D and I am still need of upgrades. The grind never ends in BDO.

Yeah, bro I just grinded trees after taking a year break. 1 hour in. Went from 5% to 7( lv 61 btw). Like bdo is my favorite game but the grind here makes other games more exciting to play.

I can't help but agree with everything in this, as someone who started on Xbox way back I believe in 2018, to now playing it on PC it's been one heck of a journey. From amazing character customizations and even getting all of the armors off the shop. Yes I am someone who spends quite a bit of money on the game especially on my archer. In leveling up most of my characters to level 59 and 61. I can say that it sucks grinding so much, now if you're someone who has the time and the energy and the patience to grind about 5 or 6 hours a day hats off to you. But if you're someone who works and has tons of responsibilities this type of game really does cut into your time to stay current. I can tell you I haven't been current with the rest of the community for quite some time even with all improvements they made to help you get pen gear. I know the point of MMOs is to grind and take your time. But this has been hell on earth. To the point that even I have stopped grinding so much and just accepted that if I need a rare drop or something or I want to meet that 3,000 enemy quota that we need I'm just going to have to take my time and play casually. Just got into the point that I have even forgotten what endgame is for BDO. Even doing their new expansion in the winter region that they just had. It's just been very very challenging I just wish it was a better way to progress our armor so we can get to end game content and actually feel like we're achieving something. Rather than spending hours at a time grinding and four spots because we can't go to the other spots because we are too under geared.

Never played BdO .I bought it but never started yet to be working so much. Not thinking about end game, just do get the platinum on ps5 how many hours would you guess will take? Just have fun and platinum the game. PvE only

All I can say is Amen. Honestly, I don't even see my self ever getting max power. I take breaks to keep my enjoyment from it. But I have put in 6 months so far and I am barely pushing 270 ap.

The more I look at the amount of time I have too invest into bdo, the more I feel discouraged

I mean, the mmo genre wont be mainstream ever cuz they are meant to make you live in the game. If it bothers you to invest so much time in the game, maybe this genre is not for you. If you try to please the more casual players by making it easier for them to get to the endgame, you will lose the players who are willing to play many hours because they will have nothing else to do afterwards. I've played 2.5k hours and I still don't reach the endgame because I don't burn myself out grinding and I enjoy the game doing other activities.

Good analysis, but I would argue the reason BDO managed to survive this long is exactly because it's not trying to be mainstream - countless games that have come and gone have tried to imitate WoW. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with games being a huge grind, and Runescape is a good example of that - a timeles game that is still extremly popular. I don't think cutting down the gear curve will do much to help with BDO's longevity. The moment you remove any kind of long-term goals, the game instantly loses the appeal for a lot of people. What I think PA needs to do instead is keep adding more and more gameplay that doesen't require hardcap gear to have fun, and things like Arena of Solare are exactly that. Keep up the good videos!

Don’t worry y’all they are supposed to release crimson desert soon.

as an intermediate player myself what is the gear you would need for the hardest PVE mobs? not PVP just pve

The big thing you are forgetting is all the free stuff we get from events and login rewards, giving a player potentially billions and can, especially for newer players, be a huge boost.

BDO is complicated yet it's why figuring it out feels rewarding. You do not have to only mob grind to get to the end game gs. Life skilling is something everyone should do! If you don't life-skill then you're an idiot and wasting your time. There are so many different routes to get silver. BDO rewards consistency. If you want something (and you don't want to be a pearl shop selling on the CM noob) then you're going to have to work for it all. They have made this grind easier and easier over the years with quality of life changes and especially the season event servers. Anyone playing now will have their grind cut in half compared to older players. You also can have alts with the tagging system. Give BDO time and it will keep getting better and better. Also your gear breaking because you decided to enhance without cron stones or keep track of your durability is your fault, not the game's.

I burned myself up several years ago due to pointless grind. My friends who i started playing with progresses much faster since the game love them more and gave them a higher chance of success. They all started doing elvia, node war and my gear couldn't keep up so i grind the lower spot alone, 7-10 hours daily while still trying to upgrade my gear which almost never happen. So i stop playing like 1-2 years. Last year i started playing again because i love this game combat mechanics, some of its character skills and combo, but very casually. Login couple of days a week, grind for an hour or two, do event stuff if there is one, chat with friends, stroll around on a horse or sail the sea and logout.

Why do you prefer a PEN Kutum with lvl 7 of caphras and not a TET Blackstar?

i wouldnt really say bdo "stood the test of time". the playerbase is a fraction of what it was. lets be honest, most ppl still playing, play bc theyre addicted or bc they invested so much and dont want it to be "wasted". if the metric for "standing the test of time", is that a mmo isnt shut down yet, there are plenty off mmos that stood the test of time, which is contradictory to what you said.

MMORPGs were originally about the journey. And prior to WoW obsessing over streamlining every last aspect of them, that's how players approached them. They were the computer analog to table-top, pen and paper role play sessions. On-going, long-term adventures. Not short-burst races to a finish line. It's players weened on single-player games - where you're supposed to "beat them", and doing so as fast as possible is a badge of honor - flooding into the MMO space and bringing that mentality with them. They did it to themselves, and then forced everyone else down with them, as developers - ever chasing the money - started changing the games to cater to them. It was shown in a variety of ways... When MMOs first blew up into the mainstream (thanks to WoW - because Warcraft was a huge franchise with a massive built-in fanbase), I saw a variety of the following from those people: 1. Many would go into forums complaining that MMORPGs didn't have an end, insisting it was designed that way just to keep you playing and giving them money. They completely missed, or rejected the idea that MMORPGs are *not* "one and done" experiences, like single-player games; that the experience is *supposed* to continue. 2. Players new to the genre unironically believed WoW was the first MMORPG and any other similar game was a crappy rip-off - including games that came years before, and directly inspired it. I corrected more people on this notion than I can even recount. They didn't understand that MMORPGs, their playstyle, pacing, etc... was already well-established years before Blizzard decided to create one. 3. They would care more about "the fastest way to level to cap" or "what the best class is to level up fast" - before they'd even created their first character - than they would what content was awaiting them. 4. They started to value their own experiences not based on their own adventures and achievements, but by comparing it to those who started weeks or months before them. They somehow decided this was "unfair" and started demanding things be made faster and easier so they could "catch up" to the people who'd been playing longer, in less time. Pure jealousy. 5. They wanted everything faster and easier, but with more and greater rewards. 6. They wouldn't do any content that they deemed "a waste of time" because it didn't level them up fast enough and/or give "worthwhile rewards". Simply enjoying the content never occurred to them. 7. They started making up lame excuses for making everything faster, like "I have a job and responsibilities. I don't have the time I used to to play these games, but it's unfair that I can't keep up with people who have more time"... always ignoring the fact that MMORPGs had ALWAYS been mostly played by folks with a job and other responsibilities. The only difference is, the first people to populate MMORPGs were actually in it for the adventure. They didn't care how long it took. Leveling up was something that happened while you were having fun doing content. Level cap would be there when ever they reached it. It wasn't a competition. It wasn't a race. 8. They pushed, continuously, for years, for the genre to be made more and more and more soloable so they wouldn't have to play with other people. Folks, like myself, who warned about going down that route were called "chicken littles" and "paranoid". I, and people like me, were told "we only want it a little bit more soloable. We're not trying to make the whole game soloable. Raids can never be soloable. Group content can never be soloable. We just want some stuff we can solo while waiting for groups. Stop being ridiculous". Fast-forward to the present, and the "standard" MMORPG experience has become almost entirely soloable. Not too long ago, there was a thread on a forum where people seriously argued that raids should be soloable, and requiring groups is unfair. Those of us cautioning against pushing for more soloability weren't so "paranoid" or "ridiculous" after all - things have gone exactly as we'd warned they would. 9. Once upon a time, a "productive gaming session" (which is an oxymoron in itself) was logging in, gathering up some folks into a party, and spending the next few hours delving some dungeons or working on some quests (actual quests, not the "kill x of y" style chores they've devolved to - again, thanks to the impatience of players complaining that quests "took too long"), or do some crafting, or whatever. Leveling up or getting some grand reward wasn't considered "mandatory". Now? I've seen people complaining and calling the game "too slow and grindy" if they're not getting at least 5 or more levels in a two hour session. MMO players have been reduced to trained rats, hitting a lever over and over to get a treat. The impatience of players has ruined this genre. It's easy to blame "big bad developers", except the devs and publishers are just chasing what the players want to make the most money. If the players rejected all the shiny instant gratification and cash shop crap, and demanded more emphasis on making the journey more exciting and rewarding... that's the direction devs would have gone in. MMO players are their own worst enemies. Their constant hurry to do everything, and unrelenting demand for faster, easier and more frequent gratification, with no thought to the long-term repercussions, has destroyed what was once a deep and enjoyable genre. For me, seeing a game where the adventure is on-going and getting "to the end" takes a long time is actually exciting. I don't *want* to reach the end that fast... and so many MMOs these days are designed to push you there as fast as possible, so you can start the end-game grind, hoping you'll find the cash shop more appealing. But here we are, with the genre having become nothing but a bunch of lame, uninspired, cookie-cutter cash grabs. And now, many people who spent years pushing them more and more in this direction are complaining that they've become "too cookie-cutter and boring". Well imagine that. They got exactly what they asked for, and now they don't like it. Again, MMO players are their own worst enemies. I only wish I could find all the people who insulted me and told me I was paranoid and ridiculous when I warned of the direction they were pushing the genre almost 20 years ago. A good "I f'ing told you so" is in order.

i used to think like that till i realised i had 2600 hrs on league of legends ranked only

I made 20 boss clothes and jewelry in 2 months. I haven’t started the Black Star and the Dead God yet, I’m doing all sorts of quests and storylines. On a private server, of course) And on the office I stopped at 19 for 3 years of inactive play from 2015

All these estimates of silver/hr are absurdly overexaggerated and rely on valuing items like Mass of Pure Magic and Shards that cannot be immediately converted to silver. If you are FTP and don't regularly have a value pack running, it is skewed even more. You also don't have an infinite supply of loot scrolls, and most people who over exaggerate silver/hr are assuming you run perma 200% loot scroll and have infinite Agris points.

Played Ragnarok online, WoW and other mmo shenanigans before, got my lessons. Log in to BDO just to goof around, I'm not trying to reach certain score or milestone, just playing for the sake of playing. That way I won't burn out, and the game serve its true original purpose, to make the player have fun.

The biggest thing that hurts bdo is their gear system. The guaranteed quests are about 3 billion silver more expensive than just saving the silver to buy it on the market. They need to fix the balance to players see their progression and don't lose interest. Its a good game with good fast paced combat but there are points where moving forward feels almost unobtainable without several hundred hours of work.

If you enjoy the gameplay and enjoy grinding you can reach "soft-cap" in seven or eight months. Less if you're a bit sweaty. If you don't enjoy grinding then end-game gear progression isn't really for you and you should consider other activities, like life-skilling, exploration/questing, gear-capped node wars, or the new gear-capped arena system. I started a fresh account in january and got invited to a random life-skilling guild. I immensely enjoy the combat system and I can grind non-stop if I have the time for it. I just hit 680 gs, and at this point I am massively outgearing everyone in the guild. My point is, they don't care at all. They're focusing on horses, gathering, bartering, weekend atoraxxion runs, and in the months I've been in the guild I have heard mentions of gear less than a handful of times. Not everyone plays for the same reasons. BDO has a lot more activities than grinding mobs.

exactly, after running around in circles for 30min i want to hit my face on the table. how anyone can do this and having fun while being at it is beyond me. if the game wouldnt have good graphics and a nice combat system i doubt anyone would be willing to tolerate this bs