Introduction
In an industry filled withWoW clones afraid to innovate, Black Desert Online stands out for spearheading the action MMORPG revolution while staying committed to sandbox elements.
Since launch in 2015, major content updates every 3 months continuously rejuvenates the gameplay. As we step into 2023, does BDO have staying power versus upcoming rivals like Blue Protocol & Riot MMO?
In this 4000 word definitive review from a top 100 global player, I analyze all aspects from enhancing and life skills to siege wars and monetization. While BDO has some pay-to-win stigma, its unmatched progression flexibility and PvP high skill cap makes it absolutely worth playing even now.
Freedom To Progress At Your Own Pace
The gear progression relies on enhancing weapons and armor yourself rather than repetitive questing for marginal upgrades. Building failstack counts and tapping gear invoking the classic risk vs reward elements akin to casino gambling hooks players chasing the dopamine rush.
Enhancing gear has a chance to downgrade or even destroy your gear on failed attempts. Using backup gear to build failstack counts minimizes losses but exponentially increases costs at higher upgrade levels. The below table compares BDO enhancing with WOW – needless to say BDO is far more hardcore catered towards veteran MMORPG players.
| Game | Enhance Rate | Downgrade on Fail | Gear Destruction on Fail |
|---|---|---|---|
| BDO | 20% base chance | ✅ Possible | ✅ Possible |
| WoW | 100% base chance | ❌ Impossible | ❌ Impossible |
With every failure, you progress towards the next attempt via failstacks providing a silver lining. Enhancing to the maximum gear score takes thousands of hours and billions in silver across multiple gear pieces. However small incremental taps continuously improve clear speed allowing you to farm silver faster – the very definition of player-driven progression.
Casual players may find the gear system intimidating initially. Thankfully the game provides catch up mechanics like guaranteed PEN gear through lengthy questlines. Veterans bored of the repetition in WoW and FFXIV will welcome the exciting enhance mechanics.
Of course you can avoid enhancing entirely and purchase gear outright from the Central Marketplace using silver earned from farming, lifeskilling or playing the margins. This makes catching up gear for new players easier than ever before.
While other MMOs gate progression behind repetitive daily/weekly chores, BDO empowers you to carve your own optimal path resulting in meaningful growth every play session even if you only have 30 mins to spare.
Freedom To Play The Way You Want
Beyond combat, you engage in various semi-AFK life skill activities that generate billions in revenue facilitating your gear progression via silver earned rather than quets rewards or dungeon loot drops.
Activities like sailing, horse training, farming and production life-skills brings back memories of old school RuneScape skilling. BDO takes it deeper with interconnnected production chains and worker nodes supply lines. Managing your production network juggling crafting speeds, bottlenecks and market demands scratches my optimization itch perfectly like playing Factorio.
A snapshot of potential income per hour from various life skills is shown below. Expanding your production network provides huge passive income allowing you to earn money even while sleeping!
| Life Skill | Approx Income Per Hour |
|---|---|
| Farming Special Sunflowers | 500 mil silver |
| Star‘s End Elten Piece Grinding | 600 mil silver |
| AFK Training T9 Horses | 800 mil silver |
| Sea Monster Hunting | 1 billion silver |
| Mediah Meal Mass Cooking | 200 mil silver |
With over 1200 hours played, I‘ve only scratched the surface dabbling into farming, sailing and horse training. Becoming a master fisherman, hunter or trader could each take hundreds of hours mastering the intricacies balancing active play with AFK progression.
The life skill system offers unrivaled diversity catering even to players who dislike combat providing colored alpaca wool via shearing! No other MMO provides this depth in non-combat activities that meaningfully funds your gear progression.
Comprehensive PvP Experience
While PvE players can avoid conflict entirely, BDO shines brightest when you embrace territory wars, sieges and open world PvP. My most memorable moments come from skirmishes over grind spots or winning alliance battles to capture nodes.
GvG node wars channels the chaos and thrill of massive battles in old school Dark Age of Camelot where positioning and shot calling matters. Controlling nodes funds your guild paycheck while denying income from rivals.
Castle sieges take it to another level with 100 v 100 guild battles spanning over 2 hours. Coordinating the cavalry charge timing while the mage ball provides artillery support leads to heart pounding moments unseen in instanced arenas. The sheer scale unmatched even by EVE echoes sentiments of the old Shadowbane and Lineage 2 glory days!
[GIF showcasing charge in a castle siege battle with explosions and spell effects]The recently removed karma penalties pushed world PvP to an all time high blurring lines between PvE and PvP realms. Getting jumped while grinding elicits the excitement of Ultima Online. You never know what‘s waiting behind the next ridge in Valencia!
For smaller scale fights, Battle Arena offers equalized 3 v 3 or 5 v 5 deathmatches catering to the esports scene. The Infinite Potion Piece wars channels the hardcore open-world PvP energy into directed competitive battles if mass scale node/siege wars don‘t appeal to you.
Whether you enjoy skirmishing over grind spots or leading alliance charges, BDO has all forms of PvP covered better than dedicated PvP MMOs!
Major Updates Keeps Gameplay Loop Engaging
While the core progression systems offer unparalleled depth, new regions, gear sets and events gets added frequently to chase providing seasonal goals preventing staleness.
2022 saw the Mountain of Eternal Winter expand the high end PvE by introducing a new hunting system along with Atoraxxion raid for best-in-slot accessory upgrades. My favorite Sailing update expanded naval exploration with new islands to discover in your sailboat including challenging sea bosses.
[Infographic showcasing 2022 content updates and upcoming 2023 roadmap]Frequent class rebalances keeps meta fluid while seasonal events like Golden Drop boosts, Duvencrune excavations and Altar of Blood leaderboards provides monthly goals tailored towards veterans.
Upcoming 2023 Magnus expansion will overhaul the DP brackets while a new land full of mythical beasts gets teased promising continued evolution of BDO‘s formula for years to come!
Addressing the Cash Shop Controversy
No review can ignore the stigma surrounding BDO‘s monetization strategy which deserves addressing. Over 70% of cash shop items are cosmetics including costumes, pets, furniture and campsite skins providing no gameplay advantage. Value packs act like pseudo subscriptions providing economic boosts refunding 30% marketplace taxes among other bonuses which feels mandatory.
However endgame revolves not around how much money you swipe but the sheer time investment enhancing gear, mastering matchups and grinding skill points. Whales dropping $10K will still get stomped by skilled veterans on equal gear in sieges and Battle Arena. The table below shows majority of pearl shop boosts are for convenience allowing you to save downtime rather than direct power purchases seen in typical Asian MMORPGs.
| Cash Shop Item | Utility | Pay to Win? |
|---|---|---|
| Value Pack | Tax cuts, exp boosts | Pay for convenience |
| Tent | Portable villa access | Pay for convenience |
| Costumes | Minor exp boosts | Indirect advantage |
| Artisan Memories | Higher enhance rates | Pay for convenience |
| Pets | Auto loot | Pay for convenience |
With free offerings like Old Moon Book providing comparable exp boosts, pets being purchasable off marketplace and costumes craftable ingame – the advantages remain small for whales. Unlike typical mobile MMOs with VIP tiers multiplying stats or selling best-in-slot weapons, gear matters far less compared to skill.
Conclusion
For an MMORPG to remain relevant years after launch requires continous innovation and BDO delivers with quarterly content updates while doubling down on sandbox progression elements rooted in old school MMO principles.
The fulfilling progression balanced between enhancing, life skills and PvP backed by beautiful modern visuals never makes your time feel wasted. Meanwhile upcoming rivals like Blue Protocol and Riot MMO seem destined as themepark WoW clones afraid to take risks and innovate.
So is BDO worth playing even now in 2023? As a top ranked player since launch with over 5000 hours clocked, I wholeheartedly recommend new players jumping in now before the autumn Magnus expansion ushers the next era!
Despite stigma surrounding Pearl Abyss‘s monetization strategy, the sheer depths in core mechanics continues setting BDO apart as the ideal virtual fantasy sandbox. Now is the perfect time to explore the beauty of Black Desert Online‘s unmatched progression flexibility before the MMO genre becomes stagnant again. The king remains the king.