Newbie Question: Exploration and Adventure?

[Jowain]

I tried this game a while back, dropped it because of the Anti-Cheat that was employed, then with the change in systems, I thought I'd give the game another try.
I am aware that I have most likely lost all the things I gained when I tried it the first time (wasn't much, I don't see it as a huge loss) and that EAC is just as nasty as the previous one, which makes me feel stupid since I've been totally fine with it on other games I play a lot lol
I'm also aware that this technically makes me a returning player, but since I didn't get far enough to know what the so called Black Desert is, what the inky little blob demon that's following you around and grinning at you is or why everyone seems to go "Morning, nice day for fishing ain't it?" I'd say I'm still fairly new. Maybe with a few dents and lack of polish.

In any case, looking at the various things BDO has to offer, what got my attention was the Corsair class and the prospect of getting a ship and sailing, but I've also seen and read threads about PvP, griefing, grinding, Pw2, that it's worth it, that it's not worth it, etc etc.

I don't see much about exploration and just casual adventuring; BDO's character creation system is fantastic from my first play of it and the combat was interesting. For me, the grind is definitely bearable if the gameplay is fun; it's what kept me playing games like Warframe and For Honor for such a long time; they are flawed in their own way, but their gameplay can be excellent.

So how is adventuring and exploring in BDO? Can I just not care much for upgrading gear and just walk along with what I find, run around the world killing monsters, build a ship and sail the seas?
Can I just be a casual (and filthy) adventurer? Is the gameplay (combat) in PvE engaging enough to keep me playing for hours (I know this last one only I can answer, curious about others thoughts on that)? When all else fails, can I just whack a monster with a stick and still have fun?

[kitty]

Originally posted by Jowain:

Can I just not care much for upgrading gear and just walk along with what I find

lol
of course no. you won't find a thing, all your gear comes from beggar's bag ("free stuff" they give for login and such) and from buying it directly from market or npc shops.
you can only loot trash to sell for silver.

exploration - not so much. do main quest and you've seen all. most quests are just go kill X monsters, return and kill more of them, once again x5. it's not advised to read quest lines, you'll scream how bad it is.

no, you can't kill monster without appropriate weapon. this is gear based game. your gear stats is what makes the kill possible. having no weapon means you won't stand a chance to hit monster that needs certain AP. even if your AP only lacks 20 from required 160 you'll spend very long time at trying to hit that monster for damage. same thing for armor. you won't be running without armor because mobs will one-hit you (everyone who forgets to swap fishing costume with armor before riding their horse knows the feeling of fast death on the road from trash mobs :))

do main quest, explore areas around as you progress. that will give you some 100-200 hours to decide if you like it or not. after you explored all zones you will be left with grind, that's another story. many people stop at that (pointless) point and either abandon the game or go after life skills.

to sail and barter you'll need special sailboat that can be built (months of gathering resources) or you can buy it from market for ~500 mil. i'd suggest to save money so you don't have to chop 10-20k trees. no one sells logs needed for construction.

you have no freedom. if you want to kill something the only option is to follow main quest (and get free gear) or do life skills for silver and buy gear for silver. monsters need certain AP and character level. if you're low level you'll have big accuracy penalty against higher level monsters, so you will have to wear very good gear to negate that penalty.

[Schwift Master]

I've been playing since 2018 on and off.

I've enjoyed BDO but always left because of frustration with gear progression. When I played it was always hurry through the quests get to spots, grind rinse repeat.

This was an extreme disservice to myself and the game. Ive pretty much been a casual single player for 90-95% of my time in BDO. It cam definitely be played without much if any interaction with other players.

This time around I've been taking my time. Picked up farming and cooking and processing. Got a worker empire going. Most of the life skills on my main character, and made a new seasonal one.

I actually slowed down and read the quests and watched the scenes. It was entertaining to follow and now I know the lore. I can see they did a lot of improvements with quests and early game.

They also improved gear progression tremendously. Seasonal characters get a much smoother leveling experience than years ago.

This time around I haven't worried too much about gear. I've been questing and life skilling and hardly any grinding so far. Yes, some of the quests are grinding but a lot more
aren't. There is a ton of variation.

I'm tempted to try getting a boat as well, haven't looked into that much yet. There is so much you can do. Try it out again, sounds like your the type to take your time, and this will help you reap far more from the game.

It rewards exploration a lot through knowledge. As you talk to more npcs, discover new places and creatures.. you gain energy. Which is gained on all characters and used for a lot of different things.

Hunting animals with a match lock and sea monsters and fishing are all things that aren't gear based.

Gear doesn't work like you would think. And you don't have to deal with the enhancing system if you save up and buy it. Which will almost always be the least expensive way to do it.

You can find different gear and weapons everywhere. But as you progress you will always have to level up your gear as well.


TlDR.. Yes you can be a filthy casual. You can kinda not worry about gear at a point. But that poi t isn't hard to get to. Yes. You can adventure and sail the seas and explore and do so much. Combat is awesome and flashy and comboey.. Can you wack stuff with a stick , yes. Will it be fun? Not for me lol

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

Sea life in Black Desert is probably the most chill things to do and in most respect the least P2W. There really are not many short cuts and it takes a fair bit of time, but you can autopath to most of the destinations so you can go afk for 5-15 minutes at time. Come back to BDO, do your barter and then go afk again for 5-15 minutes. If you sit there and watch your ship the whole time or actively steer it, I could see this getting boring to most people fast. If you are doing other things around the house, watching videos, trolling the Steam Forums, managing the worker empire, checking the marketplace; these can all be easily done while you autopath from barter point to barter point.

I'll give you some useful links: grumpygreen cricket is the go to for sailing and bartering as far as upgrade paths, mats, quest lines, and anything related to this area:
https://grumpygreen.cricket/category/black-desert-online/life-skills/sailing/

Black Desert - Sailing Discord
https://discord.gg/BwrgJFtc

Their are basically 4 tiers of ships for bartering in BDO.

Tier 1: Bartali Sailboat and you can get this free by doing the quest in game or from Loyalty Points in the Pearl Shop or with Shikatu Coins. 99% of the people will do the quest line and get it that way.

Tier 2: Epheria Sailboat or Epheria Frigate. These can either be purchased on the marketplace(MP), built from an upgraded Bartali Sailboat, or build from scratch by using the Port Epheria ship building.

Tier 3: Caravel and Galleass Caravel is an upgrade from the Sailboat and Galleass is an upgrade of the Frigate.

Tier 4: Carracks(There are 4 of which 2 are upgrades of the Caravel and 2 are upgrades of the Galleass.

The question really becomes if you want to go down the Frigate/Galleass line or the Sailboat Line.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

Part 2 of my previous post.

Sailboat or Frigate?
Buy it off of the market or build it myself?

I initially bought a Sailboat off of the market about a year ago and since has built a Frigate from scratch.

Sailboat and Frigate are about equal for bartering. Sailboat has a slightly more capacity, I think the Frigate is bit faster or at least it seems like it. Frigate is way better for sea monster hunting and you need about 150 or 300 sea monster ooze in order to upgrade to the Tier 3 ships in both cases depending if you do all the quest or not. If you are a solo player, the frigate is definitely easier to hunt sea monsters with. If you have a friend to help you with the canons or join a discord group or sailing guild and group up with some people, you can go pretty quick with the sailboat.

Buying or buidling?
If you are going to build, then you absolutely need to go through the Processing quest line to unlock skills to make some of the products. If you are going to go down the Sailboat path, then I would probably just buy it off of the market. From a person who builds ships, selling Epheria Sailboats for 530 million is charity work. I am actually kind of surprised to see a few on the market now.

The frigate is a bit of mix bag. You can certainly buy it, but they are about 4X the price of the Sailboat and they are roughly equal in bartering potential. If you want to really get into gathering and processing as maybe even start your worker empire, building is a viable option here. With that in mind, the best option is to take the Bartali Sailboat and upgrade it to the Frigate since it doesn't require any workers and is done in an instant once you acquire the upgrade materials.

This is where the building gets a bit messy for newer players. It takes roughly about 18 logs to make each Timber Square and you need 1000 of them. When logging or gathering with the lumber axe the base dice roll is 1-2 for logs for an average of 1.5. 18,000/1.5 = 12,000 gathers. Even with a T4 hedgehog, that would cut it down to around
8000 gathers.

The good news is that you can buy Magic Lumber Axes off of the MP for around 20K and they have 250 durability and but can't be repaired. They also set your gathering mastery at 650 which means that instead of rolling 1-2, you will now start rolling 4 too and you should get a fair amount of 4s compared to 1s. It won't halve the amount of gathers, it should cut it down to around 7000 or so which is still a lot. The other good news is that gathering from trees is pretty decent XP, so you will gain mastery pretty fast which will help further down the line. The other good news is that you can do Pine Trees which will help on the plywood, so you are kind of killing 2 birds with one stone. The other bit of good news is that you get fair amount of Caphras and Ancient Dust while gathering from trees and as long as Caphras are max price with pre orders, its decent money. If I have sold 1 Caphra, I have sold 10K of them. I am at around 1250 mastery and Caphras along with hards and sharps are probably around 40-50% of the value on tree gathering run. My gear score is 63 by the way. I do have a full set of TRI Manos Accessories though. A lot of that was financed selling Caphra Stones.

The bad news is that Logs weigh a lot and that the timber outside of the logs isn't really worth much. If you are just going to sell the pine, cedar, birch, etc on the market, its pretty awful and they also are heavy. So you need to plan your gathering rotation on being able to dump your inventory periodically. You can also get Trade items(Amber) that weigh a lot. They are not bad if you are invested in the node that you are gathering from where you are selling them at and you want to increase your trade mastery, but outside of that they just weigh you down and probably just as well to discard them.

The other bad news for building one from scratch is that it just takes time and fair amount of contribution points in order to make a ship. My first frigate that I made took 11-12 workers about 3 weeks to make with me leaving my computer on 24/7 or as much as possible. The frigate takes 3875 assembly operations and each one is about an hour for a Professional Workers. So you need to have enough housing and feed them for the whole time. If you are not willing to afk your computer and leave it on 24/7, I wouldn't even think about trying to build a ship using the shipyard.

[Jowain]

Originally posted by kitty:

-snip-

Originally posted by Schwift Master:

-snip-

Originally posted by Fredericks of Cursewood:

-snip-

I don't want to be rude, but damn, reading all of this puts some serious fear into me, I thought this was a game, not irl work disguised as one. I get grinding for resource for crafting and items is par for the course, but here, even with the combat, it all sounds immensly boring.

The monster hunting aspect does sound interesting, only because of what I've seen from the gameplay, but worker empire? Feeding and sheltering NPCs? Really? Chopping down a 1000 trees and do heavy amounts of math, going from point A, to B, to C and back to A in order for B or C or D to get anywhere?

I feel especially bad reading Fredericks response because of the effort wasted trying to explain things and all it does is draining all interest right out of me, I suppose getting workers to do part of that work load is why but damn...

The duality of the answers too, one side says "no, you can't" the other says "yes, you can", I guess the answer lies somewhere in between and goes something along the lines of "yes, but it'll be a slog up a hill".

I'm glad there are players willing to take their time to answer and explain, pardons that my reaction to the answers I am given is to shrivel up into full on terror.
Don't misunderstand, I'm not against grinding; I've spent more than 1000 hours in both Warframe and For Honor, one is famous for all the things you must do and gather for anything, the other is an example of how acceptable someone like myself can be towards repetitive gameplay, the latter having less to offer in comparison to BDO.

My thoughts in general was that yes, this game has a lot of grind, but if the gameplay, such as combat, such as exploring, such as the rewards for it, is as engaging as these other two, then maybe it can be worth suffering through it.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I would either buy the Sailboat or the Frigate off of the market then. Then start pre ordering Acacia and White Cedar sap. I must have missed the quest that reward the Adhesive, but you need 100 adhesive for the next upgrade and each adhesive takes 100 sap from Acacia, White Cedar, and elder tree plus a monster ooze. So you need 5000 if you complete the quest and get the rewards or 10,000 of each if you did like I did twice and missed the quest. It might take a month or maybe less to buy those off of the market. I think most of the other mats can be purchased off of the market with relative ease. Collecting sap in Mediah is some of the worst gathering that I can think of.

There are a few mats that can only be collected with barters such as seaweed stalk and things like that. The only really time consuming grind on getting to the tier 3 ships is getting the 220 Verdant Black Stones to upgrade the canon, sail, prow, hull, to +10. The good thing is that there is no RNG on these upgrades. 100% success for everyone. The bad news is that you need to trade a Tier 1 barter item to get a coupon to get a verdant black stone. Obviously, they can't have a coupon without having to travel 20 minutes to turn it in. That's not the worst part. You can't exchange the tier 1 barter mat for the coupon unless it is on your character and you are not overweight. Since they weigh 800 LT each, you can only carry one at a time unless you go full tilt on the Pearl Shop, but even then you can probably only carry two at a time. PA could have made this so much less painless by being able to trade from your ship or from town inventory, but you have to load each item on your character walk 3 steps to the vendor and exchange it. Turn around and get the wharf manager to load one more from your ship onto your character. Take 3 steps exchange for coupon. Rinse and repeat 218 more times.

On upgrading my frigate, it took me about 2 days of which half of that time was spent getting enough tier 1 mats, exchanging them for coupons, exchanging coupons for the stones. Upgrading and then repairing because of course you loose durability when upgrading.

I am not going to tell you about the Carrack upgrades, you will probably just uninstall the game if you have not done so far. It takes a special sort of crazy to build one of those and if you go down to Velia and see the number of Carracks in the harbor and know that there is no real P2W mechanic to get around making one of those and just how much time and effort that it takes to get one, should speak volumes on how mentally unstable the player population is in this game. Disclaimer: I am working on 2 Carracks simultaneously.

BDO is all about long term progression. Buying sailboat or frigate on the market and then upgrading it to the Tier 3 in a month or two is certainly very doable while still enjoying the other parts of the game.

[kitty]

one small thing - to even start bartering you need a boat with sufficient cargo weight. easiest one to obtain will cost 500 mil (if very lucky and can grab it from CM because it is indeed charity) or spending months chopping trees to get 10-16k logs. even if you have workers empire to get all other materials you can't get logs from market or from nodes.

yes, this game is an unpaid job. if you have workers you'll need to feed them manually and reload game multiple times a day because workers have bug and they stop working until you reload. afk activities like fishing also has bug where it stops in few minutes of inactivity. Auto pathing while sailing can take you to rocks, other players can destroy your boat if they want to attack you. so it's not like you're securing anything you achieved.

I'd suggest to play main quest, level to 61 by exploring all zones and then once fun is over just don't waste your time and play something different. this game is pretty short, they just artificially prolong it with "grind" and shallow life skills.

[Jowain]

Originally posted by kitty:

yes, this game is an unpaid job. if you have workers you'll need to feed them manually and reload game multiple times a day because workers have bug and they stop working until you reload. so it's not like you're securing anything you achieved.

I'd suggest to play main quest, level to 61 by exploring all zones and then once fun is over just don't waste your time and play something different. this game is pretty short, they just artificially prolong it with "grind" and shallow life skills.

Can't understand why anyone would keep going, what's the point of getting anything if you'll just end up losing everything because of PvE events or other players. If you're going to replace your life with this game, then at least it should feel like it's worth it.
I was hoping at least the gameplay, such as combat and exploration, would be worth it, hence why I asked.

Instead I'm being treated to talks of commerce, business, trading, logistics and work... I'm trying to get AWAY from the real world, not replace it with an identical version, but fantasy.
If you're going to have any of these things in your game, at least make it fun, interesting and engaging, so far all I'm being told it's the complete opposite.

If I'm going to chop wood or fish day in and day out, I'm sure I can apply for a job in the real world for that... and probably find more value in it too.
It's a shame, the game looked like a lot of fun.

[kitty]

that's why I'm saying the game is short. you do some PvE questing, see the world, experience combat and that's it. I have no idea why people stick to it for much longer. I uninstalled once I reached the point where it's no longer fun.

[Maconijnr]

Originally posted by kitty:

I have no idea why people stick to it for much longer. I uninstalled once I reached the point where it's no longer fun.

You may have quit the game but you are still here in the forum more or less every day usually having a rant at how bad you think the game is lol
Guess what I'm saying is if your not playing why are you still here?
because it seems like you hit the end of the season learn't how much of a grind it is to progress non season characters and decided it's too hard too boring and not fun, and thought it would be more fun trying to put off new players with constant whining lol

I'm not saying you can't not like a game or voice it, but I know if i'm not playing a game I never go in the hub, and never comment because, I just can't be bothered to waste my energy getting all stressed about a game I'm not playing lol

[kitty]

Originally posted by Maconijnr:

Originally posted by kitty:

I have no idea why people stick to it for much longer. I uninstalled once I reached the point where it's no longer fun.

You may have quit the game but you are still here in the forum more or less every day usually having a rant at how bad you think the game is lol
Guess what I'm saying is if your not playing why are you still here?
because it seems like you hit the end of the season learn't how much of a grind it is to progress non season characters and decided it's too hard too boring and not fun, and thought it would be more fun trying to put off new players with constant whining lol

I'm not saying you can't not like a game or voice it, but I know if i'm not playing a game I never go in the hub, and never comment because, I just can't be bothered to waste my energy getting all stressed about a game I'm not playing lol

I had my main char and my workers empire and artisan life skills without season. what are you talking about? I used season to grab few rewards and completed that in less than a week.
I uninstalled it only few days ago, should I also throw away my PC because I stopped to play? you fanbois are ridiculous.

but it is good you outlined one of the major problems with this game - it's no longer fun after season. or, if you play it on normal server, it's no longer fun once you completed main quest. which is exactly what I said earlier - this game is short. so if I say this - I'm whining, when you say the same - oh, wait...

[Maconijnr]

Originally posted by kitty:

Originally posted by Maconijnr:

You may have quit the game but you are still here in the forum more or less every day usually having a rant at how bad you think the game is lol
Guess what I'm saying is if your not playing why are you still here?
because it seems like you hit the end of the season learn't how much of a grind it is to progress non season characters and decided it's too hard too boring and not fun, and thought it would be more fun trying to put off new players with constant whining lol

I'm not saying you can't not like a game or voice it, but I know if i'm not playing a game I never go in the hub, and never comment because, I just can't be bothered to waste my energy getting all stressed about a game I'm not playing lol

I had my main char and my workers empire and artisan life skills without season. what are you talking about? I used season to grab few rewards and completed that in less than a week.
I uninstalled it only few days ago, should I also throw away my PC because I stopped to play? you fanbois are ridiculous.

but it is good you outlined one of the major problems with this game - it's no longer fun after season. or, if you play it on normal server, it's no longer fun once you completed main quest. which is exactly what I said earlier - this game is short. so if I say this - I'm whining, when you say the same - oh, wait...

Who said I was a fanboy lol I was just pointing out an observation that you are in a game forum a lot, for a game you no longer play complaining how bad it is lol

I never said I found the game boring or that i found it hard or not fun I said and I quote

Originally posted by Maconijnr:

it seems like you hit the end of the season learn't how much of a grind it is to progress non season characters and decided it's too hard too boring and not fun, and thought it would be more fun trying to put off new players with constant whining lol

Where does it say that I think the game is boring or too hard or not fun? lol personally I don't mind grindy games hence playing a Korean mmorpg they are all grindy long winded progression games it's just how they are lol I have a lot of free time to kill so don't mind wasting it in a game like bdo :)

[Schwift Master]

Lol, the thing about BDO is it can be as simple or complex as you make it. Ignorance is bliss in this regard.. for 10$, it can offer entertainment. How far you're willing to go, and your style of playing will make the amount of time spent in it vary greatly.

It can be a hack and slash, exploration, and casual experience. Or it can be a full on, hard-core, mmo with and endless grind to the top. If you want to be "at the top".

Funny thing is, I tried warframe with some friends the other day. And couldn't get into it. Mean while they're playing everyday and I can't comprehend how.

Everyone has their preferences🧏‍♂️


If you like For Honour, and Warframe...

Have you ever tried Conquerors Blade? It's another niche title, but similar to those two I feel.

Goodluck in your endeavors though😂 yea BDO can be super complicated.

[Jowain]

Originally posted by Maconijnr:

Where does it say that I think the game is boring or too hard or not fun? lol personally I don't mind grindy games hence playing a Korean mmorpg they are all grindy long winded progression games it's just how they are lol I have a lot of free time to kill so don't mind wasting it in a game like bdo :)

Spending 3-6 months gathering resources for a ship or a mount, only to lose all of it or have it downgraded when a mistake is made, you're attacked by players or you encountered an enemy above your level doesn't sound like fun.

This really is sounding like the kind of game that would go "oops, your ship sunk, you were gone for a month, all progress is lost and you have to start from scratch... unless of course, you'd like to Pay to Skip?" *corporate crook winks at you*

Being treated to walls of text that all talk as if you're being slowly inducted into a business doesn't sound like fun.
I do not CARE about the trading market or its economy, in all games I've played it's the least part of them that I would not shed a tear over if they suddenly vanished.
This just sounds like Conan Exiles minus the house building.

Originally posted by Schwift Master:

Goodluck in your endeavors though😂 yea BDO can be super complicated.

Tbh the more I hear and read into this game, it sounds like a business simulator with a disguise of action and fantasy on top.

Coming home from a hard day at work only to be treated to a hard day of fictional work (which has no reward unlike an irl job) sounds horrible, masochistic even and not the fun kind of masochism.

My question was about adventure, questing and exploring; not how much wood I need to haul back and forth to get a mast to a fishing boat, or how many workers I need to house, clothe and feed and freaking heck just writing this makes me age from boredom.

At least in games like AC:BF you gather crewmen to give you a better chance at sea, workers in this game just sound like tamagotchi.
And I somehow doubt after you worked your way towards a frigate you can't convert these workers into a crew, in place of players.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

Workers in the game are pretty effortless once you take a little time to get it set up. It takes about 2 mouse clicks every few hours and then just forget about them in between.

As far as losing ships, it just doesn't happen. You might lose some cargo, but that would be about it. I have never had another player sink one of my ships or even try very hard for that matter. You can do what I do and play for a bit and then quit for a month or longer and then when you come back, you are returning player and can use the Olvia growth servers for a month and there is no PvP on those and actually the population is a fraction of the other servers, so you don't even have to worry about contested grind spots for that matter. You can switch servers when world bosses(loot pinata) because they don't spawn on the Olvia servers, but other than that is pretty peaceful and smooth sailing.