For people that don't understand how much of a gear gap is and why so many quit the PvP...

[Nhika]

Casuals will probably be rocking full TRI gear.
Semi active players should easily be able to get full TET with caphras 3+ (easily 560+ gear score here).
Node war t2 guilds tend to only recruit 620+ now (I believe should be at least 4-5 pens)
There are players with 5,000 HP, so realistically even if you go for a T1 node war, there are players capped out with more health than you, and better buffs/set up. (I believe its 220 ap / 300 dp capped in T1 if you don't know)
Node war isn't even fun, it's a lag fest and gear flex, very defender sided btw. If you like grabbing players they will just V out of it. (Reasons why Wizard/witch is meta, then switched over to Sage).
In general PvP even when you are even in gear.. is luck/lag based. People can resist your CC, or mash randomly. There really isn't that much of a skill ceiling honestly (coming from someone that actively duels in the arena). Throw on the fact that the developers pretty much say you should reroll because the game is balanced around "group pvp" again a lag fest.
Then every day on forums I swear, people talk about pay 2 win... but most of them have put tons of hours into the game that they feel like it's normal; or they are contributing to the devs or some stupid idea like that. (Tent $60, no one uses the free one wtf, game added two additional "subscriptions" essentially - energy regeneration for gatherers).
The best silver in the game is extremely boring (auto pathing while you barter).
The only real thing that keeps people playing is because they enjoy gambling essentially. You hit a pen cool... but it feels like everyone knows that it's a bogus system in the end. To a point repairing gear gets annoying; why not use artisans.
When you are done with PvP, all you really do is grind/war dec/gank or arena and get gear gapped again.
The time for a fresh account to be able to be competitive is redonk, good luck to whoever is disciplined enough - cause I'm not! Those small purchases here and there for outfits, maids, that tent on sale, or the subscription adds up!
The devs with the whole "seasonal servers" thing is complete bull, because you know they can easily add more enhancement/repair materials from mob drops - but they don't (they want farming memory fragments/scrolling to stay in the game I guess).
Crons are 2mil, and not 1 mil, and conveniently outfits are around the same rate (1mil per cron when you melt the outfit)

[DarkFenix]

Cool story bro.

[Schwift Master]

It's like a Casino, and the house always wins.

You have valid points.. this game is actually so flawed. Yet somehow people line up say ,"Take my money and leave me with nothing to show for it please."

If you feed the beast it keeps growing! And it's appetite is insatiable, no matter how much you put into it, for BDO it will never be enough.

In other news: the New World beta was super fun, I personally enojoyed it's combat more than BDO's.. less gear based, much more skill based. Everyone is speculating on what their cash shop will bring.

And I would not blame them, or any other Devs for taking BDO's and other games pay2win, or sell your soul, approach.

Apparently it's very effective and very lucrative... and the brainless cattle line up saying "mooo" I want more.. consume.. buy..die.