How does this compare to Black Desert Online?

[Nubadak]

I know its a big question but thought I throw out a short general question and maybe get a few responses from you folks.
Combat?
Gathering?
Ships?
Mounts? Pets?
Player/ Guild housing?
Story?
Grinding?
Population
And really anything you want to say about the two :)

[The Former]

Combat: This game is better, IMO. But that's IMO. Just has a more rewarding "feel". A sort of "weight" that Black Desert's animations lack. In terms of gameplay, the two are somewhat similar on this front.

Gathering: Different and parallel. Can't make an apples to apples comparison here.

Ships: None. Black Desert's the way to go here.

Mounts: Black Desert gets the edge on mechanics, SOLO gets the edge on looks and animations.

Pets: About the same? Judgment call.

Player Housing: 100% SOLO, zero contest. Best housing system I've ever seen in an MMORPG without any competition whatsoever.

Guild Housing: Non-existant. Black Desert by default.

Story: Definitely SOLO, though it falls into a niche genre for the western audience.

Grinding: This one's less grindy level-wise, but moreso with regards to crafting and such.

Population: Black Desert definitely has more players, but the population for SOLO is pretty steady at the moment.

As for what I want to say... This game looks a bit better overall, has much better animations, and the gameplay is... comparable, I'd say. Black Desert offers things SOLO doesn't on that front, and likewise, SOLO offers things Black Desert doesn't. I will however note that SOLO is really built around the xianxia mindset. It doesn't just use it as a backdrop, it considers the genre in its mechanics. So if xianxia isn't up your alley, you probably won't enjoy it for very long.

[Elenoe]

Well, first off, SOLO is themepark to the core. BDO is much more open world experience.

Combat itself is ok in both. SOLO is PvE oriented so 5 dungs, 1 raid, 4 trials and that's it. Classic mechanics, not exactly hard or top tier, but that's the main content, timegated, once a week each. There is very little world running, no world "grind" (mobs don't drop pretty much anything, no xp, no loot, they never stop aggroing you, you kill them because they lock you from sprinting but that's it).

Gathering(crafting) is definitelly for BDO by long shot where it actually exists. In SOLO you have few resources randomly scattered around the map (classic WOWlike style) with WEEKLY respawn timer (including few scattered fishing spots!) - all gatherable within 4hrs after weekly reset). Crafting pretty much consists only in combining limited resources into potions of only like 3? are viable and sellable. As pro gatherer/crafter/manager SOLO is even worse then the classic themepark crafting systems. Nothing compared to variability of activities in BDO.

SOLO doesn't have ships.

SOLO have extremelly limited "pets". All in-game collectables. 90% of which is "just a shape", not even a "existing thing". So 90% uses the same cat they get on max level. Nothing compared to BDO cuties kitties (tho expensive)

SOLO uses flying mechanics which is much much faster so you are using flying mount effectivelly disqualifying 90% (and all free mounts) you ever ger. Land mounts are decent (but very few compared to let's say FFXIV) but uterrly useless. Flying mounts, only one is free (flying sword looking like standing on a broom when mounted) and the rest is from shop only (and most if not all are making annoying spoken line everytime you mount them, can't tell how people can stand it, it's annoying even for bystanders). Due to line they do they are unusable for me so default "broom" it was for me during the whole game.

Player housing is for SOLO. It's instanced in special zone so you need to know the exact address if you want to visit. It gives you litterally empty area about 50x50 meters large and you can place any object anywhere (all three axes) in any angle and size. The item list is not exactly star, but enough to create some nice things (UI and building process is terrible tho). So if you have reaaaaly huge imagination to clip different completelly unrelated things together to make them "look" like thing you want, you can create anything. If you are just limited to put things from inventory to places then it's not that great but still manageable. Imagine Valheim with more garden/china themed items, timegated houding resource management and very expensive price tag on every single square of floor. BDO is just "put few things in very limited room-like structure, so way below SOLO.

Guild housing doesn't exist in any form. Pretty much no shared/guild projects at all.

Story is about the same. It makes same "sense" to me. Was overall pretty uninteresting, even for MMO (like FFXIV/Runescape/Secret World actually has a great background/stories, STO/ESO has at least understandable one). BDO/SOLO are the same bland nothing (in SOLO with excrutiating translation which often doesn't even make sense, and some lines are still left in Chinesse, so...). I would add "questing" is kinda new level of lazyness. It goes beyond "fetch quests" to the point the targets are 5-15m away, like litterally you are "saving daughter's life" of nameless NPC by running to the next door in the village to pick flowers and back.

Grinding... there is no "grinding" in SOLO. Everything is strictly timegated and the even few activities there are in the game are locked behind preset time schedule (not everything is open all the time). Your main progress comes from the weekly dungs/raid/trials mentioned above and from doing the same daily chores every single day (done in 30mins, then you will be desperate to seek "meaningful" things to do as nothing will give you reward beyond the strict daily/weekly limit). A friend once said; "there is more offline activities in BDO then the most MMOs have during the playtime" and it never felt more true then this.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Elenoe:

Well, first off, SOLO is themepark to the core. BDO is much more open world experience.

Yeah, that's another point to keep in mind. I'm not sure I'd go as far as calling SOLO theme park "to the core", but certainly at its core. Whereas BDO is so sandbox that the main quest is practically an afterthought.

[Dark]

Originally posted by Nubadak:

I know its a big question but thought I throw out a short general question and maybe get a few responses from you folks.
Combat?
Gathering?
Ships?
Mounts? Pets?
Player/ Guild housing?
Story?
Grinding?
Population
And really anything you want to say about the two :)

BDO combat is by far the best in the world atm. No game comes remotely close.
Gathering is hands down leagues ahead of solo.
Ships bdo wins again.
Mounts bdo just has horses so I would give that to solo.
Pets are required in BDO and extremely expensive in endgame needing 5 t4 pets.
Housing hands down goes to solo.
Grinding well if you enjoy spending 1000s of hrs well bdo wins again.
Population bdo wins agains
I do not want to make this a super long post but solo legit has almost nothing to bdo. Bdo graphics and world are 1000s of times better.
However I will say after 5yrs of bdo the gear grind has gotten to me, which is why I have been trying new mmos.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Dark:

BDO combat is by far the best in the world atm. No game comes remotely close.

Hoooo, that's a heavy claim.

Not as much as the one about graphics though. I can see the argument that BDO's graphics are a bit better, but to go as far as to say "thousands of times better"? Now you're just looking through rose-colored glasses.

Take them off and have another look.[i.imgur.com]

[Dark]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, the Paradox Knight:

Originally posted by Dark:

BDO combat is by far the best in the world atm. No game comes remotely close.

Hoooo, that's a heavy claim.

Not as much as the one about graphics though. I can see the argument that BDO's graphics are a bit better, but to go as far as to say "thousands of times better"? Now you're just looking through rose-colored glasses.

Take them off and have another look.[i.imgur.com]

You must have a potato pc, I run bdo on ultra remastered and solo looks like a pile of garbage compared to bdo maxed out. Solo combat is to static and boring lazy action hybrid which comes no where close to the action combat of bdo. I have over 23,000hrs in BDO while granted afk time is there.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Dark:

Originally posted by Lockfågel, the Paradox Knight:

Hoooo, that's a heavy claim.

Not as much as the one about graphics though. I can see the argument that BDO's graphics are a bit better, but to go as far as to say "thousands of times better"? Now you're just looking through rose-colored glasses.

Take them off and have another look.[i.imgur.com]

You must have a potato pc, I run bdo on ultra remastered and solo looks like a pile of garbage compared to bdo maxed out. Solo combat is to static and boring lazy action hybrid which comes no where close to the action combat of bdo. I have over 23,000hrs in BDO while granted afk time is there.

The caps I used up there came from publications showing off BDO, not my PC.

I can only suspect you've not yet discovered the options to tweak SOLO's visuals. I suggest heading up to the top left corner the next time you're ingame.

[Dark]

Originally posted by Lockfågel, the Paradox Knight:

Originally posted by Dark:

You must have a potato pc, I run bdo on ultra remastered and solo looks like a pile of garbage compared to bdo maxed out. Solo combat is to static and boring lazy action hybrid which comes no where close to the action combat of bdo. I have over 23,000hrs in BDO while granted afk time is there.

The caps I used up there came from publications showing off BDO, not my PC.

I can only suspect you've not yet discovered the options to tweak SOLO's visuals. I suggest heading up to the top left corner the next time you're ingame.

Thos screen shots of bdo are nothing compared to ultra remasted. As 90% of the player base can't run ultra remastered. Those aren't even remastered. Solo looks like garbage. The world is flat with no feeling of life.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KL5fpjMO_Ng

[CaS]

BDO has by far, far, far the better combat. It's not even funny. SOLO is a game for people with 2 hours each week to play and still want the MMO experience with a variety of fairly casual sideactivities in case you have more time.

Housing was good, it's not mindblowing but if that's what you are looking for SOLO will give you plenty of content.

Story, it should be decent if you speak chinese. If you do not speak chinese, translation was google translate, at times it's very hard to follow what is going on.

It has mounts, most of them are goodlooking but the only relevant ones were the flying ones. You get one for free, all others are cosmetic anyway and many are in the cashshop.

Population is low but stable, I haven't played in a while but people have said that outside of reset day finding pugs for pve can be a challenge aka the niche title experience.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Dark:

Those aren't even remastered. Solo looks like garbage. The world is flat with no feeling of life.

I know. I've played BDO's remaster. All it really does is pump up the bloom, sharpen the textures, and add some reflective surfaces. You're way overselling it. Here it is running on a GTX 1060; a five year-old video card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRUKR5twBWk

With regards to what I've quoted, again, all I can really suggest is that you click the top left corner ingame. I won't argue with you when it comes to the standard visual settings, but no one with any kind of graphics card wound run this game on standard settings. It's made to be customized.

Here's a screencap from your very video side by side with a screencap from my SOLO, for various comparisons. And mind, I don't play SOLO at ultramax settings. I sit on High, with a couple tweaks towards higher settings for taste. People with stronger cards than my 1080 Ti would have even better fidelity.

Comparing arid riverscape.[i.imgur.com]
Comparing water in general.[i.imgur.com]
Comparing arid mountains.[i.imgur.com]
Comparing thick forest.[i.imgur.com]
Comparing nothing in particular.[i.imgur.com]

Again, you can argue that BDO has the slight edge. That comes down to preference, and having a day/night cycle really does benefit BDO in the visuals category. But to suggest that it's "thousands of times" better, that SOLO "looks like garbage" and has a world that's "flat with no feeling of life"...

I'm sorry, lad, but you're objectively and demonstrably wrong about that.

[The Time Traveler]

Gathering is awful in this game. just awful. And craftting too. just terrible. Im not saying its insanely worse than other mmos. but its very bad. feels like im trying to learn a foreign language because there are too many menus and confusing icons with little to no explanations beyond the tutorial that teaches you how to make one simple thing.

[The Former]

Originally posted by Shadow:

Gathering is awful in this game. just awful. And craftting too. just terrible. Im not saying its insanely worse than other mmos. but its very bad. feels like im trying to learn a foreign language because there are too many menus and confusing icons with little to no explanations beyond the tutorial that teaches you how to make one simple thing.

I enjoy crafting, but there's no denying gathering is a grind. Granted, it should be, that's the genre. But I wouldn't expect such mechanics to catch on with the mainstream.