I don't like Black Desert Online as much as I'd hoped. The things I don't like about it, weren't apparent when I was watching high level characters play. I wasn't able to play on Friday due to a bug that prevented some pre-order customers from logging in. The fact that I only played a few hours on Saturday was very telling as to how much it's not an ideal fit for me. Let's start with what I did like.
What I liked
I went in with the hope that BDO would be similar to ArcheAge minus the horrible cash shop grab that was implemented several months into the formal release. Along with many others, including the vast majority of my guild, I exited stage left shortly after one too many bad decisions on the part of Trion and XL Games. Daum Games, the group publishing BDO in NA have specifically said that they didn't want to make the same mistakes as ArcheAge which was very encouraging.
- Overall the game is visually attractive with the type of graphics and zones I prefer.
- Combat is fluid - after you figure out the difference between using hotkeys versus memorizing combos and going with those.
- Lots of quests. There appear to be ample amounts of quests available in the early levels.
- Some portion of the quests are delivered by a demon soul that's always with you. It avoids traveling to and from him as NPC.
- Your mount comes early enough. I received and completed the quest for it by level 13.
- The game has a housing system although it's instanced/phased like garrisons in World of Craft. I had my first one by level 10.
- There is farming available that's somewhere in between AA and WOW. It's not at your house like AA. There re specific areas more like WOW. An early quest lead me that way but since it's CBT I didn't bother.
- You can build different types of boats and fish. And you can use fishing as a way of leveling and earning money.
- Auto travel to quest locations.
So with that list, you might wonder why I don't feel like BDO is an ideal fit for me. Well it's the questing system. I'm not one of those race to max level because that's where the game starts. I enjoy savoring the journey, crafting, exploring and adventuring along the way.
I don't RP per say, but I do have a backstory and intention playing out for my character while I'm playing. It's one of the reasons I prefer to solo most quest content. My character is out and about "living" a life in that world. As such, very invasive questing systems don't work for me. It's why Final Fantasy XIV wasn't a fit.
While some players enjoy highly dramatized questing, I don't - at all. It feels too interruptive. Do a quest - have some long ass scene or dialog about the game - do one quest - have a long ass movie about the quest - do one quest. For me, this screams I'm in a game by constantly taking me out of the moment and the world itself, to watch something else. AM NOT A FAN. This is exacerbated by quest dialog windows that only have one or two sentences per screen, which means clicking through several screens before I can accept the quest. AM SO NOT A FAN OF THAT EITHER.
What I Disliked
- Far too many symbols over NPCs' heads. Not just quest givers - an ole NPC, which unnecessarily clutters what is a beautiful view.
- Questing system is much too needy. Too many dramatizations and dialogs to click through. Which is bothersome because they're not in a hub as much as other games, where you can go pick up a bunch of quests and then go off and do them which would limit the interactions. So far, the NPCs only give ONE QUEST AT A TIME.
- Only handing out one quest at a time, for the same area of mobs, forces you to go back and forth to the same cluster of mobs repeatedly instead of getting it done in one session. This feels like intentionally trying to stretch the content in a way that's overt.
As you can see it's not a long list, unfortunately, it's about the primary thing you do to level up in MMOs - questing. I'm wondering if I can get by only doing the quests from the little guy following me around - think they're called spirit quests, and just grind the rest to avoid the questing system. Seems like that should be possible since most Asian games are known for grinding and for me, that would be preferable to what I've experienced thus far. If I can get to the point where I can farm, fish, craft and mess with housing, I might still have a good enough time until Star Citizen releases more content. Going to give it a go and see. Not much to lose by trying. I'm miss having a beautiful fantasy world to play in.
Yeah, I don't think BDO is my cup of tea either. Beautiful game but I couldn't get over the localization issues and pacing. I don't know if I mentioned it before but the game I've been playing for a long while, Hex: Shards of Fate, has finally released out of beta with their first chapter of PVE content. You really should check it out (or again if you have already).
Posted by: Winged Nazgul | February 23, 2016 at 05:38 AM
Hi Winged!! Good to hear from you. Yes, thats a better word for it. That questing style for me destroys the pacing. Im not throwing in the towel yet because my old AA guild is going to play. I want to talk with people whove been on KR to see if its feasible to do the spirit quests which seem to be the ones giving gear rewards and skip the rest and just grind in areas I enjoy. Hadnt heard of Hex. Will look it up.
To: [email protected]
Posted by: Alysianah aka Saylah | February 23, 2016 at 09:20 AM