So, Black Desert Online just went incredibly pay to win today.

[Ploid 6.0]

And things have been pretty crazy, and in a way hilarious in the community.

BDO has a pretty annoying gear progression system where past a certain gear rank you take a good chance on going backwards in progress when attempting to go forward (this is a house always usually wins kind of chance). Today they implemented a system where you can extract, from Pearl Shop Costumes, materials that can prevent this downgrade of gear in non accessory items (accessories will probably just not blow up and instead downgrade).

There's also a failstack system in the game where the more you fail to rank up an item, the more you'll increase your chances in the future. You also get something called a Valks Cry which can increase your fail stack number from the costumes you melt.

https://community.blackdesertonline...em-upgrade-options-coming-august-29th.283242/

Greetings Adventurers,

The enhancement system in Black Desert Online is an important aspect in strengthening your characters. Upgrading is an essential part of your character's progression and successfully enhancing a high level item is truly an exciting moment. However, it is also true that many adventurers face numerous failed enhancement attempts in their journey of achieving higher stats. As adventurers ourselves, we understand both the thrill and frustration that you experience. In order to help you overcome these challenges, we will be introducing Valks' Cry and Caphras Stones during our August 29th update maintenance.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Valks' Cry, using the item will increase additional enhancement chance up to +10, which accumulates on top of your current enhancement chance. We are also acutely aware that players have voiced their opinion in the past regarding Valks' Cry and have implemented alternative methods in which adventurers can obtain it through in-game features without Pearl outfits.

The original enhancement system was designed with a steep difficulty. Valks' Cry was initially added with the intention to help adventurers new to the unique enhancement systems of Black Desert Online. In a recent internal study, it was concluded that NA/EU players were far less likely to engage in enhancement than other serviced regions. We believe the introduction of Valks' Cry will add to our ongoing efforts to lower the hurdles of enhancement.

Valks' Advice and Blacksmith's Secret Book are the results of such efforts. These items act as supplementary features in obtaining the desired enhancement rate necessary to upgrade their gear. Along with the recently added Guaranteed Enhancement, we hope that this addition will better assist character progression and thereby allowing more adventurers to engage in core game contents such as Node War or Conquest War.

How to Obtain

Purchase from the Loyalty Shop
Valks' Cry will be obtainable through the Loyalty shop for 100 Loyalty each. A maximum of 5 Valk's Cry items can be purchased in the Loyalty shop per week.
Fairy's Blessing
Fairy's Blessing will work exactly the same as Valks' Cry mechanically. 10 Laila's Petals can be exchanged for 1 Fairy's Blessing when you visit Fairy Queen Theiah or Ceilyn. Laila's Petals are obtainable through defeating monsters, gathering, and fishing.
Extraction from Pearl Shop Outfits
Valk's Cry or Cron Stones can be extracted from Pearl outfits through Blacksmiths or Armor Vendors. Pearl Outfits purchased via in-game Marketplace with silver can also be used for extraction.

As previously mentioned, we will also be releasing the long asked for Caphras Enhancement, a new method to enhance high-end gear. Caphras Stones are added to balance the difficulties of RNG in the current enhancement system. Long-term adventurers will be able to obtain TET or PEN items without relying on enhancement chances.

Using Caphras Stones, which are obtainable in-game, the stats of TRI or higher gear can be enhanced up to 20 stages. Each stage will increase the stats of the item on a small scale. Once it is enhanced to its maximum stage, you will be able to enhance the gear to its next enhancement level with 100% enhancement rate. Please refer to the detailed page for more information on Caphras Stones.

Finally, as Valks' Cry and Cron Stones can be extracted from Pearl Outfits, it has become necessary to reflect its increased value in the marketplace. This is also adjusted in regards to inflation and the overall wealth of the player base. We hope this stimulates the market and gives everyone the chance to acquire pearl shop items through in-game means.The registerable quantity of pearl items will stay unchanged, up to 5 items a week. This change will also be applied with next week's maintenance.

To help introduce these revisions and ensure everyone has a chance to familiarize themselves with them, we'll be hosting a series of events.

A Late Summer Night's Dream
You can obtain Late Summer Night's Wish Box, or Late Summer Night's Dream Box via Challenge Tab by playing 1 hour or more, and open the box to randomly obtain one of the rewards including Valks' Cry, Dandelion Weapon Box, Kzarka's Sealed Weapon Box, Ogre Ring, and more.

Valks Attendance Rewards
Valks Attendance Rewards will be back with even greater rewards such as Valks' Cry, Advice of Valks, Sharp Black Crystal Shard, Hard Black Crystal Shard, Memory Fragment, [Event] Shakatu's Luxury Box, and more.

Black Spirit's Adventure
Everyone's favorite minigame, Black Spirit's Adventure will be added with Valks' Cry as its reward. Roll the dice to find out what rewards await you!

Hands of Gold
Defeat Monsters/Gather/Combat with other Adventurers to collect [Event] Golden Troupe Coin and exchange them into valuable rewards including [Event] Shakatu's Luxury Box. Note that the more you play during the event period, the more Coins you can collect.

※ More details of the events will be released on Aug. 29th.

We are also preparing a series of new and exciting events for adventurers to enjoy over the upcoming weeks! Thank you for your continuing support.

- Your BDO team

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People have been buying a ton of those costumes all day today. The amount of silver you can get from them on the in game marketplace has also been greatly increased by the developer. More incentive to buy on the pearl shop and sell if you need a lot of silver. On average the price was 30million per costume pack (skin costume set for body, hat, main/sub/awakened weapon, etc.), and now the price is 100million. You can tell people have been buying by how many more max ranked gear that has been crafted (on a EU sever they were counting the max ranked gears collectively as they were made), and how much the pearl item section of the market place has been constantly filled. People don't congratulate a new PEN (max rank) owner anymore, someone wondered why recently, probably just logged on. They are printing money right now, and it's a PVP world game where you can be forced out of a grinding spot by a better geared person, oh and node/guild wars.

Now for some of the images that I'm enjoying. Also isn't this game coming to console soon? This can't help that launch right? haha

Forced that PEN. Normally this person would have to regain IV, then try V again, which would take a ton of silver, and time. Now they just spam.

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[Kyoufu]

"swipe card to pay respects"

haahahaha

 

[Einbroch]

Such a shame, but the second they started introducing costumes that increased stats and skills was the second I bailed.

Such an amazing game ruined by greed.

 

[doublechocochip]

 

[Strakt]

Black Desert Online Remastercard. (Hopefully someone gets the joke hehe)

 

[GLHFGodbless]

Jump to the superior Blade and Soul. It's only sorta Pay to Win every couple of months.

 

[texhnolyze]

RIP.

Seems like I'll keep going back to Guild Wars 2 for non-subscription MMO for a little while longer.

 

[TheZynster]

RIP.

Seems like I'll keep going back to Guild Wars 2 for non-subscription MMO for a little while longer.

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That's literally where im at, finally got myself a 2700x Zen and can finally enjoy frames not completely thrashed

 

[LightKiosk]

Someone help explain this phenomenon these MMOs seem to go through. Do these developers enoy shooting themselves in the foot over and over?

Called ArcheAge, killed Rift, looks like it's killing BDO and I'm probably missing a lot more.

 

[Patazord]

It was already pay to win, it's just a natural step from them, i feel like every F2P MMO end up like this.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Black Desert Online Remastercard. (Hopefully someone gets the joke hehe)

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Today has been good and so so stinking sad. Death by snu snu.gif sums up my feeling.

RIP.

Seems like I'll keep going back to Guild Wars 2 for non-subscription MMO for a little while longer.

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I have that, I didn't get the expansion. I'll see what things are like there. I enjoyed GW2 enough to feel guilty for playing it with no sub that I bought a lot of their gems. I didn't feel I needed to, and I could barely find something I wanted to spend the gems on.

 

[Strakt]

Today has been good and so so stinking sad. Death by snu snu.gif sums up my feeling.

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I quit a while back.. i had tet boss weaps, some tet boss armor and tri accessories. I knew this day would eventually come. They release stuff like this instead of real content like Dreighan.

 

[kurahador]

Par for the course for most korea mmos. It's like instead of fixing and supporting the game properly when it didn't hit their target mark, they all scramble to get as much money as possible before shutting down.

 

[Illusion]

Damn. I've heard nothing but goods things from this game and I was going to preorder it before its US release, but decided against it, because I knew I wouldn't have the time.

Sad to see it come to this.

 

[Deleted member 5864]

Someone help explain this phenomenon these MMOs seem to go through. Do these developers enoy shooting themselves in the foot over and over?

Called ArcheAge, killed Rift, looks like it's killing BDO and I'm probably missing a lot more.

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Game probably hits a magic number of users or months without growth, or underperforming according to projections or whatever metrics they use and they deploy a pre-approved plan. I think it's very rare the studio that really tries to put itself in its customer's shoes when they begin to sell power or release incredibly overhanded systems. It's just a needle moving up or down on a spreadsheet.

 

[Qvoth]

only touched this in the japanese beta, i uninstalled in like an hour or so
a literal auto run to next quest marker is insulting

 

[Mochi]

Man that sucks. I quit last year after a year of play, where there was already some p2w stuff implemented but progression was still largely rng based.

There's a really good game in here, from the music to the combat to the awesome open world, all completely ruined by these kinds of greedy schemes. Just makes me sad.

 

[Takatomon]

As shitty as that is, it's not that surprising coming from a korean MMO.
I used to play Priston Tale as a kid, and it had a very similar gear upgrade system in which you could fail the upgrade or outright destroy the gear, but there were cash shop items that lowered those odds.

 

[Ryengeku]

Not surprised.

 

[Remember]

Condolences to their playerbase. Sad to see it happen to another Korean MMO.

I remember the sinking feeling of the grind getting worse in one of my favorite MMOs Vindictus. Eventually they just made late game quests the biggest(and most difficult) grinds in the universe even if you did pay to win. It's always the worst way to go but I guess someone out there is making what little money they can before people lose interest.

 

[Syder]

Just like Bart egregious money scrubbing.

 

[TheMan]

lol, shame it turned out like this. I haven't played this game in ages, I remember when it was new it was a GAF darling. I had fun with it but even then the grind was kind of daunting for an MMO casual player like myself. I was thinking about jumping back in actually to check out the new classes, now it looks like I might not even bother.

 

[Remember]

lol, shame it turned out like this. I haven't played this game in ages, I remember when it was new it was a GAF darling. I had fun with it but even then the grind was kind of daunting for an MMO casual player like myself. I was thinking about jumping back in actually to check out the new classes, now it looks like I might not even bother.

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I think it was a GAF darling mainly because it was a visual showcase like a lot of Sony and Xbox exclusives and that's rare to see in an MMO. If Everquest Next had actually come out it would have blew this game out of the water visually.

 

[Snormy]

If I'm honest, as a super casual player who is in the game mostly for PvE, exploration and some occasional event and life skill stuff this doesn't really concern me as much as I thought it would. I haven't and still won't be purchasing stuff to fuel my gear progression. Since I'm not really competitive it doesn't matter to me if I'm at +13 on my gear across the board rather than the +15 cap.

My annoyance I guess is more to do with how they did it. Previously you used in game silver to buy items like Cron Stones. Buying and selling costume boxes was a pretty common method for P2W people to spend cash and allow the f2p community to buy costumes with in game silver. Now however they are better off keeping the costumes and dismantling it for materials meaning less on the market. They of course also increased the cost of these costumes on the game market from 30m to 100m. So basically for me it just means people who be stronger than me if they spend some money on it, not exactly different from before they just get further now. But I also need to work harder for free costumes and such. Kinda lame.

I'm hoping the focus on the Remaster launch is mostly done. A bit of odds and ends but they can start looking at balance and meety expansions again.

Also. While it doesn't really get to me that much it is still distasteful in practice.

 

[Flappe]

Yeah i am not suprised they went further down this road. It was bound to happen.

The upgradesystem in BDO has annoyed me like no other game have even come close to.
Reading what they are implementing now, just makes me shake my head in disbelief. They make it ALOT more complicated then they have to. How about just selling an item in the Pearl Shop, that upgrade your gear to TET? I know thats pay to win, but so is the system they are implementing now., and the system they had before, for that matter. For people who love the endless grind, it shouldnt make a difference anyway. People who do NOT like that (like me) would cough up some money to get the gear we wanted. But no. Lets make every consumer into a gambler. That way, we can potentially make more money.

What consumer would EVER invest into something like this? Its simply a bad product, and they seem hellbent on making it even worse.

Disclamer: i left the game a year or so ago. The upgradesystem is the most insidious system i've ever seen, and i have played lots and lots of F2P games. So i left.
Remember Battlefront 2? The system in BDO is worse. Just imagine the rage if the cards (or whatever) you got to level with in BF2 had a chance to fail, and you lose a level instead of gaining one, so you had to start the grind all over again. Imagine EA releasing an item that would give you a better chance of leveling up(which you must buy for real money), (and remember, a better chance, not a guarantee). I imagine the outrage would be alot worse for EA than it was. Yet Pearl Abyss gets away with it.

sorry for ranting here, but that upgradesytem really gets to me, and the sheer unwillingness to do something about it, is infuriating.

L&R

 

[Frozenprince]

Fail stacking was the biggest bullshit anyway

 

[Ferrs]

Meanwhile the class balance is a disaster and the game turned into a haven for incels with the mods inactivity.

 

[abrasivemurk]

That reminds me of Knight Online. There is always going to be people who pay 30 bucks a month for these pay to win MMORPGs.

 

[KillLaCam]

Sucks because the remaster looks so good. I just got back on today and was gonna buy an outfit. but not anymore.

I wish there was another mmo with good graphics

 

[Deleted member 4434]

Yikes...
Granted, I was a super casual player, because 1) the game runs terribly on my prehistoric PC and 2) my main MMO is GW2, but I heard about the remaster and a free t7 horse so I planned to check out what's up.

Now I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't bother..
I was also really looking forward to the XBO version since then I'd be able to play the game properly.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

I'm looking forward to seeing how the xbox version launches. Will they try to give the illusion of a even playing field, well of course not so even due to costume buffs, pets which were required for me to pick up loot at a reasonable pace and the pet buffs, then the ghillie suit that hides your name and stuff so you can confuse players, or become a hard to track target for situations where players would fight each other (example, ghillie suit player wants a exp grinding spot that a person without the ghillie suit or pets have).

I will be watching Xbox streams of that for sure.
"Picking up loot is tedious man!" - "Oh dude you gotta buy pets, or wait for events that give pets."

"I think a player killed me forest. Maybe it was a quest boss? There was no name and it looked like a bush."

 

[Ploid 6.0]

This is a translated reply from a Community Manager.

The original version (Spanish)= https://community.blackdesertonline...tas-del-parche-–-29-de-agosto-de-2018.285652/

https://community.blackdesertonline...oming-august-29th.283242/page-40#post-1545672

"Hello everyone,

First of all, I tell you that I understand your anger and frustration regarding the announcement of these new objects. I will go in parts explaining why the implementation of these as clearly as possible.

Our developer, Pearl Abyss, who make the decisions in everything that happens in the game decided some time ago to try to make a global version of the game, that is, that all versions have all the things they have available and that none of them will stay back in terms of content.

At this point we were asked to implement these objects and we did not agree, so we suggested several solutions, including the creation of an object similar to Valk's Cry / Grito de Valk but could be obtained in the game without paying . So they decided to create the Blessing of the Fairies, which is the same as Valk's Cry / Grito de Valk but with a different name and can be achieved by exchanging fairy wings.

We know that two years ago it was said that these objects would not be implemented, but at that time there was no way to get them in the game and they were exclusive to the Pearl Bazaar, for which we categorically refused.

Also the reason for the implementation of all this, according to the developer, is that the Reinforcement of Caphras could not be implemented, which offers a secure way to reinforce TRI to TET and PEN, without first implementing Valk's Cry or the extraction of garments. .

We always keep in mind your comments and we are always attentive to what happens in the game, so do not doubt that every week we send all your feedback to the developers. But you have to keep in mind that always, always, those who make the last decision in what happens in the game, absolutely EVERYTHING, are Pearl Abyss.


Translated from Spanish forum from
@CM Servantes

That's the reply he gaves concerning the changes"​

There's no stopping that train. What a pitty, the game looks very pretty (hah that wasn't intentional).

 

[Ravelle]

Every MMO goes this path sadly.

I was a big fan of ArchAge in it's early beta phase but the moment it officially released the company that published it to the west ruined it with its Pay to Win and ruined the whole economy.

 

[Deleted member 46568]

I tried this out a few times but always kinda bounced off it. I guess now it's time to uninstall it permanently.

 

[Deleted member 17402]

What you described sounds very much like scrolls in Maple Story... from what I remember.

 

[Chopchop]

BDO has a pretty annoying gear progression system where past a certain gear rank you take a good chance on going backwards in progress when attempting to go forward (this is a house always usually wins kind of chance).

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Oh man, I hate shit like this in games. "Retry over and over for a small chance of not getting fucked over!"

And of course they add a way to pay to get around this shit.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

They should just go all out free to play at this point. I kind of forget that I paid about $30 or so, and I stupidly got the most expensive pack, lesson learned. Games that sell monthly membership things, pets that do a lot, and tier X mounts shall be avoided by me in the future, especially games I have to buy. Haha what was I thinking? It seems so stupid of me when I look back on it.

All this stuff I never got a chance to use, the first four seem useless though. The 30 day thing is good if you play constantly and use up of the 7 day versions they gave out randomly for logins.

 

[Sargerus]

A Korean MMO is P2W?

 

[SlightlyLive]

I managed to quit just a few months back. Woo!

 

[Dimple]

I was really looking forward to this coming to Xbox when it was first announced having not heard of it before, but after reading about it being a complete grindfest and now this stupid bullshit, I will be noping the fuck out on this one.

 

[brainchild]

Black Desert Online Remastercard. (Hopefully someone gets the joke hehe)

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Bahahaha

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Just saw this on reddit, still enjoying the funny stuff people are posting. This one got me good though.

"Skilled players vs Gear carried players after patch"

And this reminds me that I still haven't seen the new Star Wars. Rey looks odd with that headset on. The top Rey pic looks a bit fake though. Maybe the headset in both are fake.

 

[abrasivemurk]

A Korean MMO is P2W?

Click to shrink...

Silkroad Online was the king of P2W MMOs.

 

[data]

With Black Desert becoming like this, what's the next mmo to move onto?

I hate how this is an inevitability, but I'm always looking for the next big MMO if only for the initial.

 

[Musubi]

You know. I bought this thinking I'd get into it one day when my plate started to clear up a bit and yeah.... maybe I'll just call it good.

 

[Sabot]

There is none.
Black Desert was the one for me. There really isn't that much for MMOs in the future.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Elder Scrolls seems to be alright. I should have gotten that a long time ago, I went for the pretty graphics of Black Desert. Guild Wars is good but a bit old, it's PVE seems a bit weird with no trinity but it works. I could go back to that and do the dungeons. Their pay shop had name change, storage space, and things. I don't remember any thing bad. The store costumes had no extra stats and the dungeon costumes seemed to be better looking to me.

 

[Qvoth]

lost ark is the next big hype, but it'll probably be 1-2 more years until the west sees it

 

[Deleted member 5864]

Silkroad Online was the king of P2W MMOs.

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$30 Golden ticket for priority login and XP boost (1 month's worth)
$15 Pet to pick up loot (1 month's worth)
$5 Illegal auto-bot because lol grinding by hand (1 month's worth)

Leave it running for 6 months 24/7 and still not reach level cap = Priceless.

edit: I just found out that the game is still going. WTF?!

 

[Ploid 6.0]

There is none.
Black Desert was the one for me. There really isn't that much for MMOs in the future.

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I just think I'm done messing with MMOs. I'm glad to have experienced an amazing MMO in my teen years with FFXI. After FFXI I just don't want to sub to a MMO, and FFXIV wasn't good to me even if I didn't mind subbing.

I got Pillars of Eternity, and Tyranny from Twitch Prime, and GOG Pillars of Eternity 2. These are going to last me a while. Oh and I have FFXII The Zodiac Age, I play a ton of Dragon's Age Inquisition, and I love Origins and a modded DA2. I'm probably set for life actually hah.

lost ark is the next big hype, but it'll probably be 1-2 more years until the west sees it

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I can't wait to play this though. I didn't know it was a MMORPG, or a MMO. I just loved that first trailer and it looked like a Diablo style ARPG.