Like any MMORPG worth its salt Black Desert Online lets you collect, work and fight for pretty much all the things. Gear, wealth, property, mounts and/or vehicles, XP-based progression in all shapes and sizes, you name it.
In my opinion BDO does it even better than most of its competitors in that the ceiling for almost everything is extremely high (if there even is one), meaning that you won’t be “done” and get bored anytime soon, yet you can do meaningful things right from the get-go and don’t have to rush to the top as quickly as possible in order to get to the “good stuff”.
Since I first picked up the game in earnest towards the end of 2017 I’ve accumulated about two years’ worth of active playing time – active in my case meaning basically every day, sometimes an hour per, sometimes several hours – and I’m nowhere near feeling like I’ve got nothing more to do or see.
Here’s what I’m up to right now.
One of the goals I had in mind right away when I returned to the game in December was to continue working towards improving my trusty Epheria Frigate. I’d like to own a formidable Carrack eventually, but there’s an intermediate step I had to take care of first: upgrade the frigate to an Epheria Galleass.
Getting the required materials took a mix of bartering, sea monster hunting and collecting plain old land goods like ore and sap. It’s definitely advisable to also do Ravinia’s questline on Crow’s Nest as it generously rewards half of the needed amounts, as well as very large chunks of sailing XP and Crow Coins, basically just for sailing around a bit. Keep in mind that these quests are once-per-account though, and you can complete only one on any given day.
Overall the project didn’t take all that much effort – definitely less than building the frigate itself did – and before long the galleass was mine.
Somewhat anticlimactically it looks almost exactly the same as before, and for some weird reason it doesn’t even get the much cooler paintjob and black sails that the frigate got by equipping the old crafted gear (which is still good, hence I continue to use it for the time being).
Of course the more important question is whether the upgrade was worth it in terms of functionality. The answer: Hell yeah!
Unless you have a friend or two tagging along hunting sea monsters with a frigate is a rather arduous task because you have to let go of the steering wheel and man a cannon every time you want to fire, then get back to the wheel to reposition. The galleass’ cannons however are fired in broadsides directly by the captain, and it has four on each side to boot, adding some much needed oomph.
The second huge upgrade is the cargo weight capacity, which has doubled! This has transformed bartering from a time consuming chore into a somewhat enjoyable – yet still time consuming – activity that actually feels like making progress. By now I’ve built a considerable stockpile of bartering goods, so I can concentrate on the good deals and ignore the bad ones most of the time.
So yeah, worth it! Now I’m in the process of collecting the required materials for the crafted galleass gear, which is not only better than what I have, but also ultimately needed for the Carrack-upgrade. This is a really long process, but I’m having fun.
One of the game’s features I’ve been messing around with pretty much from the start is the taming and training of horses. It’s enjoyable if you’re into that sort of thing, and pretty rewarding too as not only can you get lucky and end up with a very skilled and fast steed, even the ones you don’t want to keep do sell for quite a lot of silver these days.
Despite that I had absolutely no intention to ever engage with the “Dream Horse” awakening system they added a couple of years back. Past tense because, well, as you can see above I eventually caved and decided to give it a go after all.
I still don’t think it’s a good system because there are just too many layers of RNG involved. It’s quite ridiculous, frankly. First you need a Tier 8 horse that’s eligible for awakening, which requires it to have a certain set of hard to get skills. Next up, the chance for a successful awakening attempt starts at a measly 1% and only increases by 0.2 after each failure. Of course the materials needed to even try are consumed in the process no matter what. Lastly, there are three types of dream horse, and you have no way to guarantee getting a specific one. The best you can do is a 50% chance at the one you want the most, the remaining 50% can be divided between the other two as you see fit (and have the materials for).
With all that being said, why do I still own a sparkly unicorn now? Well, after training many Tier 8 horses to level 30 I had not one, but two coursers (which is what a steed eligible for awakening is called) in my stable, so the first obstacle was already cleared. I also had lots of the required materials lying around, mostly from login rewards and playing the Black Spirit minigame. So I thought, heck, why not?
As it turns out you can get lucky and unlucky at the same time. I only needed around ten attempts to succeed, which, mathematically, is quite good of course. However, I did not hope to get Diné, the unicorn. It’s actually the one I wanted the least. I had the chance for Arduanatt, the pegasus, set to 50% (because it’s the fastest while auto-travelling and can glide), and for Doom, the…um…black fiery horse, to 30% (because it looks the best and is the fastest while riding actively). Thus only a 20% chance was assigned to the one I ultimately got.
It’s ok though because Diné is still a bit quicker than any of my Tier 8 horses, and its specialty is that it can ride at full speed in the desert – every other horse slows down to a crawl in the sand – which makes it much faster than even the best camel.
Now I’ll stockpile more materials for Arduanatt and Doom while selling those for Diné (not all of them can be sold, unfortunately), and once I have enough for 10+ tries I’ll go with the 50/50 method. Fingers crossed.
I’m still a bit torn regarding BDO’s housing. The instanced-yet-part-of-the-world aspect is pretty nifty, no doubt; it clearly has its drawbacks too though. For example, at least 90% of all available residences aren’t even a consideration for a somewhat serious decorator like myself because they’re just too damn small. Tiny, in fact. What’s worse, even many of the bigger ones somehow manage to feel kinda cramped to me. Maybe it’s the game’s camera angle or the lighting, I’m not sure.
Of course there’s also the universal truth of real estate in play: it’s all about location, location, location! What good does the fanciest of mansions if it’s rotting away in the middle of nowhere?
Which is why I’ve decided to relocate my main residence, which I moved into almost three years ago, from Duvencrune back to Heidel. I still think it’s one of the best residences available in terms of room layout (and the balconies are rather spiffy too), but it’s just not where I tend to be in the game.
However, here’s the thing…there’s a new region coming out soon, and there will be huge asian themed manors to inhabit!! I don’t know many details yet, and of course this, too, will be far away from the game’s usual main hubs. Still, I’m holding off on decorating my new/current home for the time being.
If I indeed make the move to the Land of Morning Light once it’s released you’ll be the first to know.
Mailvaltar 