Black Desert Online 1st Impressions 2024

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Hello everyone and welcome to the Tank Club! Black Desert Online, a high fantasy MMORPG
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by Pearl Abyss, is known for its stunning graphics, detailed character customisation
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and expansive world. Launched in 2015, it is available on multiple platforms including
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PC, PS4, Xbox One with optimisations for PS5 and Xbox Series S and X through backwards
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compatibility. The game features dynamic, skill-based combat and a range of non-combat
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activities like fishing, crafting and trading. The game's open-world exploration is complemented
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by a player-driven economy and housing system. Despite criticism of grind and pay-to-win
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elements, its immersive combat, vast landscapes and in-depth life simulation aspects make
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it a favourite among MMORPG players. I've personally never intended on playing Black
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Desert Online, mostly because people have always mentioned the insane amount of grinding
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that's involved with the game, but when I saw it for sale for just a dollar on Steam
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I thought to myself surely it's worth a dollar, or in my case 80 pence. I then noticed
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that the game appears to have a high popularity with daily active players, a high amount of
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Twitch viewers and a lot of general Google searches, so I decided to give it a try. This
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review is my first impressions of the game as a brand new player and we're going to
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look at whether this $1 MMORPG is any good in 2024. So getting started, BDO can easily be installed via Steam and this will also create a Pearl
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Abyss account, linking your Steam account or from the Black Desert website as well
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Once into the game you can begin the character customisation which is a big part of the game
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A huge standout at the very start is the sheer amount of different classes to play. While
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it can seem quite overwhelming choosing one, it's also great to have a lot of variety
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as these all have their own individual combat playstyles. Upon choosing a class, a thing
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to note is that you are limited on certain aspects of your character's physical appearance
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I picked a Guardian for example and I'm locked in as being a female character with
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certain characteristics, so for the first time in an MMORPG game, I am playing as a
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female character. While some aspects of the character creation are limited such as gender
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there's also a vast amount of detail that you can customise on your character. BDO has
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one of the most in-depth character creation menus that I've ever seen. You're able
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to choose every little detail of your character. The hair alone allows you to choose a hairstyle
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then customise the front, the middle, the back length of the hair, then adjust the amount
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and length of the curl on the hair, then adjust the colour, the shine, along with the tips
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and the root colour. Each sub-menu is just as detailed giving you unlimited options on
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how you want your unique character to look. I typically always play as a tank. If it's
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an MMO where tanking isn't really valuable, I always go for a tanky sort of melee DPS
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Going off my usual gameplay style, I chose Guardian as it was wielding a one-handed shield
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so I maxed out my character's height as I always do, which I'm now very regretful
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about and you'll see why in a moment. When first starting out, you have the option of
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a seasoned character. This is definitely the option to go for if you are new to the game
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as it acts as a catch-up method for new players. You'll gain lots of materials, upgrades and
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gear by levelling up and completing certain tasks and quests relating to upgrading gear
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Once you complete the season pass and claim everything, you can graduate your character
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and you'll be geared and prepared for the later game content. So first, gameplay experience. Upon starting the game, I went through the movement tutorial
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which also acts as the main story starter, and after a cutscene, the combat tutorial
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and then the main story cutscene as the plotline unfolds, bringing you to the first area, the
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Forest of Seclusion. The beginning of the game is dominated by story quests and I didn't
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fight another enemy from the initial tutorial until about 65 minutes into the game, when
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I was finally directed to kill some wolves. I then spent a good 10 minutes killing them
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trying to get to grips with the detailed combat system. During my first session, the surrounding
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visuals were the big highlight and the main story was also very interesting and engaging
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but the black spirit was kind of annoying and it kind of seems evil as well. But it
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looks like I'm stuck with the little fellow for now. With the tutorial being entirely story related, you don't really learn a whole lot and throughout
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the beginner area, you aren't really taught very much about the game. Everything is kind
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of left for you to figure out by yourself. With combat, there's an on-screen help which
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is showing you how to use each skill and also different combos you can use and it will change
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depending on different situations as well. So when in combat situations, this is a big
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help early on as you try and figure out how to do damage and how to kill enemies effectively
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Navigating all of the menus and UI was a bit of a task early on. There's so many things
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on the UI, there's so many things on the screen, so many red dots, so many notifications
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with basically no information or explanation on what they are or what they do. I did try
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to make some changes to my UI. One of the main ones was I wanted to turn off my character
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name above my head, but this setting didn't seem to exist anywhere
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So gameplay mechanics. The first major one is questing. As expected, the early phases
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of the game are largely dominated by quests and story missions. I found the early phases
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of this to be largely enjoyable and I was more than happy to sit through the voice acted
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cutscenes. This was where my character's height began to become a bit of a problem
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During various cutscenes, I began to notice that my character simply didn't fit into the camera view. So this is something to look out for when making your character and NPCs
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were often talking to my character's stomach as if it was her face. This made quite a few
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of the cutscenes seem a bit ropey and it was quite comical more than anything else
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especially when my character was towering above everyone else in the cutscene
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The story is overall very engaging in the beginning and you're fully involved and
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it's fully voice acted as well. This was quite a surprise to be honest, but after a
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while things did change quite drastically. Once you do a quest that makes you leave the
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first main town and area that you're in, all of this comes to a sharp halt. The main
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story quest suddenly has a lot of dialogue to read and almost no voice acting at all
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Where you were originally part of the story, your character was physically in the cutscenes
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you were part of that story, it all changes into a really weird situation where you're
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now watching cutscenes of events that are happening that you're not part of anymore
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And you're just kind of seeing what's happening and then you have to do tasks related to that
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event for an NPC based upon that and you're just not part of the story anymore. So it's
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really weird how it goes from you being part of the story to no longer being part of it
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whatsoever. At this point it does become much less enjoyable and I did become a bit disinterested
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in the game because of this. So originally I was really enjoying the main story quest
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and then it just kind of went off the rails and I really didn't like it anymore. Many
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of the quests seem to have a ton of dialogue, it's very boring to read, there's very little
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useful rewards as well, especially experience rewards. And these quests are just necessary
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for the main story progression rather than any sort of character progression benefit
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When you combine the lacklustre reward and the lack of enjoyment and the reduced engaging
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plotlines, it makes questing become a bit of a chore compared to at the start where
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it was actually really, really enjoyable. One of the other gameplay mechanics is combat
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and I am a very kind of experienced MMORPG player with over 20 plus years playing different
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MMOs. But figuring out the combat in BDO was admittedly a bit of a challenge at first
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I'm very used to just straight up remapping my skills onto the F keys and then using them
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on the side of my mouse, but BDO has a very different combat style. In this game you have
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this real time action combat where you need to combine different keys to do different
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combo attacks and performing abilities felt much different to most other games that I've
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played. It does require good knowledge of the system to use it effectively, but that
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does make it feel engaging and skillful. Once you kind of master it and you start to use
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the right skills and combos and along with the dodging, aiming and strategically taking
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down enemies, it does feel like a very, very good combat system. I did keep the on screen
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prompt initially to show me which skills to press and sort of the timing of when to use
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them and what combinations to use, which was a nice touch for beginners, but it takes a
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lot to get used to and a lot to remember what to press and when to do it. After a little
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while I figured out a nice few skills that combine well together and I pretty much just
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blasted through all enemies repeating those same few button presses. I guess it was quite
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boring in some ways, but it's largely down to just not having enough stuff unlocked in
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the early game and obviously the enemies being quite simple and easy. I did really enjoy some of the more challenging fights, especially the bosses. When I did meet certain
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bosses this combat style of just kind of blasting through with a few presses suddenly was not
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as simple as just hitting those combos. You have to play through a range of different
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mechanics while using strategic skills at certain times and the fight designs were fun
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and engaging while also a decent challenge. With the visual and audios overall, visually
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Black Desert Online is a great looking game with vast landscapes and beautifully designed
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areas, which really matches up well with the detailed character design and visuals. There's
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a lot of intricate details such as little things with character breath when it's in
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a cold area, you can see that coming out of their mouth. It's those kind of little details which make the game feel more alive and real. The lighting in underground areas and inside
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buildings is fine, but the torches are not lit, making you wonder where the light is
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actually coming from. The sounds and visuals of the cutscenes are absolutely fantastic
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and really well done, those were really the highlight of the early part of the game. The
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music is very fitting of the game but does sound very much like your standard generic
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MMORPG music. This does change the ambience effectively though in certain situations depending
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on the area that you're in and in different combat situations the music and sounds help
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to create that real fight ambience. In the early stages of the game it is fully voice
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acted and aside from the mouths of the NPCs not moving in time with the audio, it's
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done well and makes the early game engaging especially when you have so many quests to
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do. The combat animations and sounds are great and make every hit seem really impactful and
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make it more exciting, so overall the visual and audio is really top notch. With the community
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and player interactions, BDO has a very busy general chat but a lot of it can be hard to
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understand for new players. There's lots and lots of in game terminology used which
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I had no idea what any of it meant. Players did seem friendly enough and would occasionally
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help each other out especially players who were asking questions which was good to see
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This is likely because I was on a novice server. As you progress in the early phases of the
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game you are basically playing a single player RPG in a shared world. There's no incentive
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really to communicate or group up with other players which is a shame. This doesn't really
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seem like it's going to change anytime soon until I'm really high leveled and farming
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specific items and end game content. During some boss fights you would see other players
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fighting but you can't see a boss or the enemy they're fighting which was really weird
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When you reach the same quest though you're then able to see a boss, but only your own
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boss and everybody has their own individual boss. It's a really odd system because it's
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actively discouraging group play which is the fundamental reason why I personally play
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MMORPGs. Later down the line guilds become more of an integral part of the game which
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is good where you'll do guild missions, guild vs guild combat and fight over territory and
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resources. There's a big focus on world bosses, group quests, monster zones and scroll groups
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for PvE alongside trading, crafting and even fishing. And then you've also got siege wars
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node wars and red battlefield for PvP content. So looking at my early verdicts of the game
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it's somewhat mixed. The game is beautiful, the world is highly detailed and it's one
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of the best looking MMORPGs around. With a vast open world that looks and feels very
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alive. The combat is exciting and different. It's action packed, real time, action combat
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system that requires real strategy and I was really engaged by the early game story but
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upon leaving that starting area the questing became a real chore and very off putting
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There's a lot of activities to do with the life skills, constant events, there's always
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events going on and the character development that's the main part of the game is upgrading
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your character, developing your character and building up your character. The early game character development is well paced and you can level up pretty fast just by walking
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around AoEing packs of enemies but this does slow down as you get closer to level 60. As
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you get into the end game there appears to be plenty to do and being part of a guild
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seems like a vital part of the game which I'm yet to fully explore. There is a downside
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to things such as inventory management being an endless issue which is something you don't
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really want to have to worry about early in a game because you just get given so much
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stuff from rewards, events, daily logins, twitch drops, coupons. You are constantly
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battling with your inventory and that is a bit of a frustrating thing when you're
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first starting off in a game. If you don't like to grind then this won't really be the
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game for you. Both levelling and improving your gear can be quite a huge grind but as
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you progress towards the end game it will require considerable amount of time to do
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both and when enchanting gear it's also heavily reliant on RNG which can lead to a bit of
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frustration. While there doesn't appear to be any forced purchases in the early phases
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you are constantly badgered to look at store items, some with big discounts which try to
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persuade you to buy. Over the years BDO has gained a reputation for being a pay to win
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game and while purchases aren't essential, spending money can significantly make progress
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much easier. The lack of traditional end game MMORPG group content can be a particular issue
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if that's the content you mostly like doing. During the early stages of playing as mentioned
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already there's basically no reason to group up nor does the game encourage it in any way
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While there are late game activities to do as a group both for PvE and PvP BDO simply
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doesn't have the typical content you might expect such as dungeons and raids. If we look
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at a few pros and cons, with the pros you've got the fantastically detailed customisation
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of your characters, stunning graphics and world design, that unique combat system is
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a real strong point of the game to make it really interesting, huge open world and lots
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of things to explore. The game does receive frequent updates which is nice to see and
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there's lots of support from the developers. One thing that can be seen as a pro and a con is the AFK gameplay, it is possible to set up waypoints to do certain activities
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in the game while not actually doing them. So that is something that some people might
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see as a pro because you can advance your character while not playing but for other
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people that might be something that's a bit off putting. Guilds and PvP is a big pro as
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well along with all the different activities such as the life skills, the trading and the
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end game. When it comes to the cons, the major big one is the huge grind, it's going
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to be off putting for a lot of people, not something that a lot of people like to do
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but this can be alleviated slightly by the AFK gameplay possibilities. The RNG gear enchanting
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is one of those really frustrating things, you could spend a lot of time and a lot of
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effort doing gear enchanting with no benefit. The pay to win elements can be off putting
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for some people but it is possible to just ignore them and just enjoy the game without
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worrying about it because it's not a super competitive game or at least it doesn't feel that way. So speeding up the process just means you're going to run out of things to
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do faster. There have known to be some balancing issues with the different classes since there
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are so many classes in the game, trying to balance them out is an obvious difficult thing
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to do and there is concerns that you will find that some are really much weaker compared
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to some others and there'll be others that are much stronger. There is a lack of early
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game group content, there's no traditional MMORPG end game content like dungeons and
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raids. The main story quest does become extremely boring after the starter area and inventory
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management is just never a fun thing. In closing, it's not an accident that this 8 year old game is one of the most popular
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MMORPGs out there. Black Desert Online won't appeal to everyone as there are some fairly
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drastic downsides to it, especially those pay to win and AFK elements, but it's a game
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that requires time and patience to enjoy. If you can get involved and familiar with
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the game and the combat system, this could quite easily become your next main MMORPG
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but it will require a decent amount of learning and a huge amount of time to grind through
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everything that you need. If you do enjoy a range of activities including questing, killing
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enemies, farming, fishing, all those kind of life skills, gathering, trading, PVP, guild
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combat and hunting down world bosses, then you will likely enjoy what Black Desert Online
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has to offer, along with some of those roleplay aspects that are quite frequently seen
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In the early phases it will feel like a shared world single player RPG, but the game thrives
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much later on when you join a guild and start participating in those group activities. The
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game is so cheap at just $1, you'll frequently find it on offer and you can get a lot of
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enjoyment out of the game without purchasing anything else. With the possibility of creating
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a seasoned character, you can progress through the game to a decent stage and collect a lot
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of items to help you catch up and participate in the guild and end game activities
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Is this game worth playing? Well for a dollar, absolutely yes. So that is everything for this first impressions video. Have you played Black Desert Online
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before? I'd love to know your thoughts and opinions on the game along with your favourite
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things to do while playing, please let me know in the comments below. Thank you very
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much for watching and I'll see you next time, bye bye for now

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Black Desert Online 1st Impressions 2024

thetankclub.com