Black Desert

Thanks.

This game has been out for over a month and I'm still playing it as much as I was day 1 and having fun doing it instead of the normal logging just because.

Can't tell you the last time that happened.

Bhrama, this game is just flat out fun. It has lots to do with lots of fiddly bits and knobs to tweak to suck away time, combat is fun, visceral with lots of classes that are well put together depending on the playstyle you like. The game is amazing looking with travel and scope that is unmatched since early Wow and EQ. (You can get lost if you ignore the giant map, and have fun doing so)

Highly recommend a purchase, only real dislike is how much you NEED to buy bag slots and weight headroom for your characters, but I am an Altoholic and a packrat, which is great for Daum games and rough on my wallet.

Brahma_sl said:

Sooooo.

Is this something guys see themselves playing long term? Is it worth buying yet?

Because I am lazy, is there end game PvE? What is the tank class,and is there a trinity?

I need an MMO!!

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If anyone here is starting, as in brand new, let me offer some advice. Make your very, very first stop a Material Merchant and grab some fluid collectors, along with pickaxes, and axes (for lumberjacking). Blood from Weasels, Wolves, and Foxes (the first three mobs you kill in the game) all sell for between 1,500 and 4,500 each. You should basically be using some sort of gathering/processing and keep your energy at 0, while you level. All the while, explore every area, talk to every NPC with a yellow ! mark, and kill (gain knowledge) on every mob that you see so that your maximum energy goes up.

By the time you hit 50, you'll have a pretty substantial economic base and your life skills should be into the intermediate stage.

Also make an alt fisherman, and get a boat as fast as possible and when you go to sleep at night put him at one of the hotspots:BDO Fishers HotSpot Maplisted here, using map coords, to make 1.5 million a night (depending on inventory size).

I never said I hate the game. I said I hate the RNG, which I think we all do.

Tuco_sl said:

We'll be in it long term.

The 'end-game PvE' is more about coordinating to know about and then eviscerate bosses before everyone else shows up than it is about killing bosses skillfully. We have a pretty good setup where we work with some other guilds to learn about and then prioritize boss kills.

There's no trinity. Everyone is more or less responsible for themselves and a few classes (valk, wiz) have some support skills.

Warriors, valks and zerkers are the tanks, with Valks seeming to be the tankiest.

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Berserkers are the best tanks as far as grind groups. No other class can jump into the middle of 20 Sausan's, stunlock, AoE knockdown, then spin for 8 seconds keeping their health from dropping below 95%. Berserkers just do far more AoE damage than Warriors, and are just so much better at engaging, debuffing, tanking, and most importantly killing groups than Warriors/Valks.

I have a warrior and having to block, and then wait, and then find an opening to combo to avoid taking serious damage was why I went back to the character that could just charge in recklessly and get shit done. Every grind group I've been a part of asks me to pull & lead after a few minutes.

Every class really plays so much differently than others. None of the melees feel the same, except Warriors & Valkyries. Sorceress, even though a melee, is drastically different from the two tanks, who in turn is different from the Giant. The Wizard can play as an AoE DPS, or very-well rounded support/healer. You can contribute greatly to your group without doing damage, but just by using your heals, buffs, protection spells, and status effects.
I'll invite a level 50 into a 53+ Grind Group if they're heal-orientated just because of how helpful they can be, especially if they cast Speed (Bloodlust) on CD. Ranger requires a lot of movement, and it's ranged DPS playstyle is nothing like that of the Wizard. So yeah, try each of them and really try to find that one that suits you.

It's not like other MMO's where all melee DPS are basically melee DPS. It's almost like playing a completely different game depending on which character you're controlling. God damn if it isn't nice having the Ranger's runbuff and +5 movement speed and basically being able to outrun horses on foot.

Two or three weeks ago: merge two level 9 tier 1 pets: get a tier 2 pet. Well, that sucked, my four level 10's had given me two tier 3's.
So, buy another pet. level the tier 2 and the tier 1 both to level 10 this time. (feed them both to max energy... just in case) merge.
Another tier 2 pet.
It was at that moment that Lasch realized he would never spend another penny on anything from Korea ever again. (Worst part, I still have ~40 dollars worth of pearls.)

How are valkyries at endgame? Enjoying mine now but i know i'll regret playing melee eventually.

Those fishing hotspots are legit. I have a +3 Epheria for overnighters with 60 empty spaces in inventory. Taking the Velia ones to Altinova on the last trip got me after bargaining I want to say 38k per yellow. My haul is typically 45% yellow 45% blue. I have a Balenos for workdays when I can do hourly runs.

Lasch_sl said:

Two or three weeks ago: merge two level 9 tier 1 pets: get a tier 2 pet. Well, that sucked, my four level 10's had given me two tier 3's.
So, buy another pet. level the tier 2 and the tier 1 both to level 10 this time. (feed them both to max energy... just in case) merge.
Another tier 2 pet.
It was at that moment that Lasch realized he would never spend another penny on anything from Korea ever again. (Worst part, I still have ~40 dollars worth of pearls.)

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I bought 2 dogs a while back (and my hawk from buying the game). Yesterday I decided to upgrade them. All three original pets were lvl 10. The dogs both got t3 on one combine with unleveled t1 dogs but it took me 4 hawks (plus the original) to get a t3. T1 lvl 10 + t1 got me t2, t2+t1 got me t2, t2 + t1 got me t2 again, then finally t2 + t1 got me t3. I don't think i'm going to go for t4s on any of them. Ended up with 3% fishing, 6% alch, 6% processing, +1 luck.

Still have like 5500 pearls, dunno what i'm gonna end up using them on (already have glasses/ear cuff/underwear/costume). I'd get a ghillie suit but I like the way my char looks in the outfit I already bought. Maybe some horse breeding resets/skill resets. Leveling two t4's to go for t6 atm.

My impressions of this game have been pretty erratic, but I'm convinced it's good. When I first tried it, I had written it off completely as just another grindfest with lots of deliberately convoluted systems to distract. Then I realized the game has some old school design that I haven't seen in an MMO since Vanguard's beta (no fast travel, xp loss on death, huge seamless world etc), as well as some seemingly interesting sandbox stuff.

From playing more though I've got a few concerns (from the perspective of a lvl25ish dude running around doing random shit):
- There's a lot of effort gone into a healthy economy for the game clearly (energy system, no secondary market stuff), but what I don't get is: There only seems to be like one or two different (viable) sets of equipment in the game, and it can be purchased at whatever level. You can buy pretty end-game stuff at like lvl20 and never need another piece of gear crafted, instead just pumping up the enhancement. So my question is: What's the poin of all these complex crafting processes? I get that you can craft stuff like wagons, boats, etc. But ultimately if gearing is trivial then what's it all for?
- On a similar note, Trading seems cool and Eve-y, especially as autopilot is a welcome replacement for instant travel. But again, does it actually mean anything? It feels like the trade system is just a minigame, with the trade market just being completely separate from anything player-driven. Prices rise and fall due to whatever reason, and players can basically just grind out some cash by moving stuff from A to B with no impact on the game world. Tell me I'm wrong? It feels like this game should've instead gone for localized AHs (one for each city or region) so that trade was an organic process that grew out of player trends.
- Instanced housing = boo

I could be way off on either of these things, would be happy to be proven wrong..

For gearing, there is BiS stuff but it's limited to a few items. I kind of like that aspect but yeah, I believe you could conceivably have an entire BiS outfit on a lvl 1 character if you had the funds to do so.

Trade has no impact on the world, at least not that I can tell. I mean, if too many of an item gets turned in at a trade manager the value goes down but when you're making a 200% profit regardless it's hard to see anything tangible there.

New blader awakening trailer was released today. Looks like a lot of long animations.

Gear is still rng dependent, so you need money. Enhancement takes durability which requires even more set pieces to fix, so you aren't buying 1 piece of armor, you are buying 10 of the same. Or you buy +15 off the bat but you'll need to be super rich regardless. Then you can still grind it to +20. Accessories can be upgraded by merging 2 accessories which has a chance of breaking them both (at the very least one is consumed). This means you are constantly removing gear from the economy. Yeah there is a lot of shitty gear now that the expac is out, but good gear will always have demand.

Woolygimp_sl said:

Berserkers are the best tanks as far as grind groups. No other class can jump into the middle of 20 Sausan's, stunlock, AoE knockdown, then spin for 8 seconds keeping their health from dropping below 95%. Berserkers just do far more AoE damage than Warriors, and are just so much better at engaging, debuffing, tanking, and most importantly killing groups than Warriors/Valks.

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With my Valk (didn't do Sausan yet) I basically just knockdown everything. Helms/Mans they just perma-sit while I grind them. I rarely take any damage and if I do, I can handle it. Every monster I grind is almost always knocked-down. I think Valkyries are pretty decent in PvE. I can recharge my SP and HP EASILY with Shift+E every 40 seconds. I can take a beaten IF one of the monster resisted my KD which is rare all the while I deal a pretty decent amount of damage (LMB+RMB+S).

Saban_sl said:

How are valkyries at endgame? Enjoying mine now but i know i'll regret playing melee eventually.

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Valkyrie is pretty nice in PvE. Good in small PvP encounter. SHIT in 10+ enemies shooting at you. In red battlefield, I HATE my valkyrie, I'm pretty much useless. You really can't do much in massive PvP unlike Rangers/Sorceress/Witch/Wizards who do much better in massive battles (10vs10 and higher).

How is the game for PvE? I remember reading pretty far back that this was only PvP at end game, and as I hate that aspect then I put it on the 'not for me' pile. Recently though it seems that there is still a lot to do that doesn't involve PvP, is that fair? I'm hesitant to throw money at this if I have nothing to look forward to at max level.

If Combat is your only thing you may want to wait until full pvp/siege/war is in. Otherwise if you play this game you will never reach the point of saying there's nothing to do in Black Desert.

Valderen_sl said:

I never really understood that to be honest. There is more PVE in this game than any other MMO ever made, the thing is there is no dungeons, and no raiding...aside from a few world boss. The PVE is all about the sandbox experience, if that's not your cup of tea than yeah I guess there is no PVE.

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Aren't dungeons and raids the definition of what you want end game?

Brahma_sl said:

Aren't dungeons and raids the definition of what you want end game?

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The real competition is against other players, but yeah I assume they'll add PvE shit down the road. Don't quote me on that, I'm not missing it. There's world contested bosses, scrolls which summon raid mobs, and plenty of shared dungeons (enemy fortifications, caves, mines, etc...), but nothing really like CRPG/MUD static dungeons. And I doubt they'll be adding those.



For the people playing....Honestly....if you changed all the in-game lore to Everquest, would it really be any different than what EQ Next was promising? Granted we don't have the functionality of the Korean servers yet, but based on what's yet to come with destructible landmarks (har har) and ownership of boats/horses/buildings/etc... I really have my itch scratched at present.