Sandbox MMORPG Black Desert Hits PS4 August 22

[Rumi]

I play a bit of this late last night and while it looks decent, I really wasn't into the whole control system, especially playing as a magic user. I also wasn't super invested in the characters or story they were trying to tell, even if the world itself looked a bit more natural than in most MMOs. Might play a bit more, but it didn't really grab me like some other MMOs I've played in the past.

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Game honestly looks like poo on consoles which was expected. The usual pop in / slow down in towns doesn't bother me at all though.

What's wrong with the controls though? I've seen this a few times now and I'm wondering what others are referring to. The combat on controller is honestly pretty fluid once you learn your skills/combos. Witch/Wizard are two of the most user friendly classes in the game as well.

The story in bdo is very text heavy. You have to really go out of your way to learn the story/lore. The game is very limited on cinematics so players won't be able to figure out much if that's all they're paying attention to.

 

[OG_Thrills]

Is this game still PTW?

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If the answer is no, I'm all in.

 

[Ryuhza]

The UI options need work, there are a lot of buggy oversights (like going into character customization after the start and having the right stick control camera movement and adjustment bars at the same time... plus being unable to save any changes), and the overall presentation feels cluttered/poorly organized, but there's potential here.

Hopefully this gets worked on, optimized, and ported/enhanced for next gen consoles, as I would like to check it out eventually. What I'm seeing in this beta (weeks from launch) is a bit too rough for me at the moment.

Combat is cool, but also feels kind of disorganized/unintuitive, with certain inputs just feeling kinda bad to do (R1+R2 for instance), and the placement of others not making much sense (there's a random attack on back+square for warriors, where almost everything else uses the bumpers/triggers and circle). The directional stuff works pretty well though.

 

[Liliana]

If the answer is no, I'm all in.

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This game is insanely P2W. I feel bad for excited, gullible new players, to be honest. Also, the developers are extremely greedy and will nickel and dime you to hell. Aside from P2W, where there is drastic power creep from higher AP brackets, you'll need to Pay4Convience and spend around $200~ for comfortable grinding and QoL. If you decide to switch mains, you'll have to spend another large chunk of change for new inventory slots and weight for said new character.

You're going to see a honeymoon phase where everyone is on the same field because the devs won't release higher gear enchantments right away, where P2W is always bought up in chat. You'll then get tons of uneducated-on-the-matter players saying how it isn't, usually very hostile at the notion. A few months in, though, and that'll be gone because everyone will see that it is. It's actually funny how fast people realize it unanimously.

I can go on and on, but there are already hundreds of anecdotes a quick Google search will show you.

 

[OG_Thrills]

This game is insanely P2W. I feel bad for excited, gullible new players, to be honest. Also, the developers are extremely greedy and will nickel and dime you to hell. Aside from P2W, where there is drastic power creep from higher AP brackets, you'll need to Pay4Convience and spend around $200~ for comfortable grinding and QoL. If you decide to switch mains, you'll have to spend another large chunk of change for new inventory slots and weight for said new character.

You're going to see a honeymoon phase where everyone is on the same field because the devs won't release higher gear enchantments right away, where P2W is always bought up in chat. You'll then get tons of uneducated-on-the-matter players saying how it isn't, usually very hostile at the notion. A few months in, though, and that'll be gone because everyone will see that it is. It's actually funny how fast people realize it unanimously.

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[cyress8]

This game is insanely P2W. I feel bad for excited, gullible new players, to be honest. Also, the developers are extremely greedy and will nickel and dime you to hell. Aside from P2W, where there is drastic power creep from higher AP brackets, you'll need to Pay4Convience and spend around $200~ for comfortable grinding and QoL. If you decide to switch mains, you'll have to spend another large chunk of change for new inventory slots and weight for said new character.

You're going to see a honeymoon phase where everyone is on the same field because the devs won't release higher gear enchantments right away, where P2W is always bought up in chat. You'll then get tons of uneducated-on-the-matter players saying how it isn't, usually very hostile at the notion. A few months in, though, and that'll be gone because everyone will see that it is. It's actually funny how fast people realize it unanimously.

I can go on and on, but there are already hundreds of anecdotes a quick Google search will show you.

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Pretty much how it went down on PC and Xbox.

It is a fun game though.

 

[Loudninja]

This game is insanely P2W. I feel bad for excited, gullible new players, to be honest. Also, the developers are extremely greedy and will nickel and dime you to hell. Aside from P2W, where there is drastic power creep from higher AP brackets, you'll need to Pay4Convience and spend around $200~ for comfortable grinding and QoL. If you decide to switch mains, you'll have to spend another large chunk of change for new inventory slots and weight for said new character.

You're going to see a honeymoon phase where everyone is on the same field because the devs won't release higher gear enchantments right away, where P2W is always bought up in chat. You'll then get tons of uneducated-on-the-matter players saying how it isn't, usually very hostile at the notion. A few months in, though, and that'll be gone because everyone will see that it is. It's actually funny how fast people realize it unanimously.

I can go on and on, but there are already hundreds of anecdotes a quick Google search will show you.

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goddamn lol thanks for this, its a real shame.

 

[Hentailover]

I feel like base ps4 version runs worse than it does on my laptop... and my laptop is a potato. And controller support is a nightmare, everything is an unintuitive mess.

 

[Gloomz]

Every time I check this game on Twitch - no matter who it is I'm watching, they're all doing the same thing - spinning-to-win doing AOE damage grinding mobs. Just endlessly. I was so stoked for this game when it was first announced.

 

[OgTheEnigma]

Every time I check this game on Twitch - no matter who it is I'm watching, they're all doing the same thing - spinning-to-win doing AOE damage grinding mobs. Just endlessly. I was so stoked for this game when it was first announced.

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Obviously the PvE grind is a big part of the game, but something I do think the game gets right is that it feels interesting to wander in a random direction and explore. You've also got areas like life skills and node management, which are in-depth alternatives to combat. The PvP is still the most fun I've had in an MMO, also.

 

[Rumi]

This game is insanely P2W. I feel bad for excited, gullible new players, to be honest. Also, the developers are extremely greedy and will nickel and dime you to hell. Aside from P2W, where there is drastic power creep from higher AP brackets, you'll need to Pay4Convience and spend around $200~ for comfortable grinding and QoL. If you decide to switch mains, you'll have to spend another large chunk of change for new inventory slots and weight for said new character.

You're going to see a honeymoon phase where everyone is on the same field because the devs won't release higher gear enchantments right away, where P2W is always bought up in chat. You'll then get tons of uneducated-on-the-matter players saying how it isn't, usually very hostile at the notion. A few months in, though, and that'll be gone because everyone will see that it is. It's actually funny how fast people realize it unanimously.

I can go on and on, but there are already hundreds of anecdotes a quick Google search will show you.

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So can you go into the pearl shop and buy max weapons/armor that offer advantages? Like a pen zarka or pen dim tree?

Any items in the pearl shop that give you a 100% enchantment success? Tri to tet and so on?

Can people buy lvl 55 and so on character vouchers? That skip leveling and fast forward you to a certain part of the game?

What about cash shop items that let you skip boss fights/dungeons(bdo has no dungeons) like in lost ark?

 

[Deleted member 13645]

Obviously the PvE grind is a big part of the game, but something I do think the game gets right is that it feels interesting to wander in a random direction and explore. You've also got areas like life skills and node management, which are in-depth alternatives to combat. The PvP is still the most fun I've had in an MMO, also.

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There's a lot of issues I had with Black Desert, but for the first bunch of hours I played (up until about level 50 or wherever the XP wall starts to really hit) the game was incredibly immersive. Something about the world lends itself to it really well, probably the most i've been immersed in the world of an MMO since original WoW release. I think a big part was the lack of fast travel -- or I wasn't aware of fast travel if it exists -- so I'd take out my slow horse and slowly ride across this big place. I remember one of the times it was raining and I was riding through this beautiful looking forest with great ambiance sound design and just felt so immersed in the world as I traveled from one town to another to do some basic work stuff.

Once I hit 50s and saw what the real end game of it all is I got really turned off, but I think the game is worth hopping into for all the fun it can be up until that point.

 

[Grimminski]

Skyforge has a good action control scheme and a beautiful game. Shame it kicks you in the face every 5 minutes to buy something

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I was playing the shit out of Skyforge back in May, had like a month of Premium built up and evrything. Then I finished what I assume was the main story, and became so lost that I never logged back in.

Plays perfect with a controller, though.

 

[Slayven]

I was playing the shit out of Skyforge back in May, had like a month of Premium built up and evrything. Then I finished what I assume was the main story, and became so lost that I never logged back in.

Plays perfect with a controller, though.

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Yeah it did, I should give it a shot again

 

[Ploid 6.0]

More like an impossibility. I don't think I've run from a game faster than I have with Black Desert -_-

It's perfectly playable tho, I hope y'all like it!

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I only played it with controller on PC. Steam Controller, it worked very well, I enjoyed it more than KB/Mouse, this is with full custom control configuration (steam input) though. A lot of the combat combinations consist of a small amount of buttons anyway. Like Shift + Up, or F + Left for a ability each.

The bad part is the game being incredibly pay to win annoying though.

 

[Saint-14]

This isn't for someone who is into raids and dungeons right?

 

[Snormy]

I've put a lot of hours into this on PC but I definitely consider myself a casual player at best. While combat is what drew me in and also what kept me amused a lot of the times I didn't really have the time or ping to bother with any serious PvP. Even world bosses was a bit of a laggy mess for me though they were fun in their own way I guess. I do encourage people to give this game a shot, there is some fun here certainly before any p2w stuff is noticeable. More frustrating is probably some of the QoL features that require payment such as weight, inventory slots and pets (loot pickup). But I played a month before getting any of these it was still enjoyable. I would definitely try without before diving in with the cash though.

What BDO offered was interesting and unique enough for me to stick to it since I couldn't find the same sort of experience elsewhere. Notably the node/worker system where you connected parts of the map together and hired workers from each city to go collect resources and haul them back the local main town. I think FF14 has something similar with retainers but I fully admit I haven't looked into this to see if they are actually comparable in any sense. Mapping out how to spend my contribution points, expand my node network and gathering resources I needed was more strategy and sim like than I expected. This was much more amusing than I had anticipated.

Character creation is fun but also oddly and frustratingly limited in dumb ways too. It also looks like they only have one of my preferred classes there. I can't deny the effectiveness of Witch and Wizard but Sorceress is my favourite of the lot there. I went in originally expecting a ranged magic slinging character but instead found this aggressive, lunging in your face magic claws or near point blank magic blasts with lots of flipping around. I'm also assuming awakening isn't in the game yet which means you have basic sword and board warrior and valk 😿

As with most MMO. BDO has heaps of side activity. How much of it is compelling vs boring chores/time sinks is probably personal preference and based on what you have played already. For a casual like me, I liked experimenting to see what different things in game offered but I didn't dive deep enough to make good income off anything. Similarly I have more than 10 classes at fairly high levels because I liked trying them but I don't have any that reaches soft cap or have competitive pvp gear.

This isn't for someone who is into raids and dungeons right?

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Definitely not for you. There are no raids nor any real dungeons.

 

[Armaros]

This isn't for someone who is into raids and dungeons right?

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The only pve is mass AoE grinding endless weak mobs, or zerg big world bosses with hundreds of other players and grind them down. No real mechanics to peak of.

 

[Xeontech]

It's a shame. The open world, character creation and combat is some of the best in any mmo out there. PvP has incredible moments and there are extremely varied mobs all over a huge map.

But in the end, it's a clusterfuck of grind fest, players fighting over grind territory, and sone of the worst and most tedious gear degradation and upgrade mechanics in any game that is only 'slightly' less tedious if you pay real money.

There's no story to speak of. They literally cut the story out of the game cause it was so bad, questing is meaningless. The crafting and building has so much potential but is so time consuming and tedious there are mechanics to hire workers and leave your computer on for WEEKS at a time to get enough material to the right place.

It's such a huge fucking waste of potential that just turns into a p2w mess.

What I wouldn't give for a decent story and a few instanced dungeons dropping decent gear in this game engine. Dammit.

 

[Rumi]

The only pve is mass AoE grinding endless weak mobs, or zerg big world bosses with hundreds of other players and grind them down. No real mechanics to peak of.

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Plenty of the mobs in bdo have the ability to CC/one shot you if your not managing your skills properly. All world's bosses have mechanics that you have to learn. Grinding high tier mobs for hours just for a piece of rare gear is no different than running the same dungeon over and over for a rare drop.

 

[PrismStar]

The PVE in the game is really bad. Not fun at all. It's a shame cause the skills are so flashy and cool looking and I'm not into PVP content. But the thing I really love about the game is its life skills. Gathering, fishing, processing, training... very addictive imo