Black Desert Online

 PC
  • Publisher: GameOn
  • Release Date: Mar 3, 2016
User Score
6.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 1667 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,021 out of 1667
  2. Mixed: 105 out of 1667
  3. Negative: 541 out of 1667

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  1. SimplyMog
    Mar 5, 2016
    4
    This is a hard one to review, but i'll be trying to be as unbiased as possible... The game has a brilliant character creation system, by far the greatest i've ever used, to the point i spent hours in it. The graphics are nice and controls fairly easy to get the hand of. Unfortunately, in it's current state the game is in a bit of a mess...

    There is a point where everyone leaves their    This is a hard one to review, but i'll be trying to be as unbiased as possible... The game has a brilliant character creation system, by far the greatest i've ever used, to the point i spent hours in it. The graphics are nice and controls fairly easy to get the hand of. Unfortunately, in it's current state the game is in a bit of a mess...

    There is a point where everyone leaves their horses in certain spots, and due to not being able to toggle them from your own vision, the screen can get fairly clustered with other people's horses, not just yours. The game feels also quite like a mobile game, in the sense there's quite a few "waiting" portions, however, while some may have a problem, the game offers multiple ways to shorten that time, if you're observant.

    While my biggest complaint is directed at the character customization, and don't confuse that with character creation, it's much different. When you first receive new armor or a weapon, you're excited to equip it to change your characters default look, only to realize, it doesn't actually change. Some going in blind to this game will be incredibly disappointed, for a game that stresses character customization there is a significant lack of.

    One of the "best" ways to change your looks is through the cash shop, where my other large complaint comes in, through purchasing of costumes and accessories. I completely understand vanity items, and that they're not a necessity, but $30 for a full set, or $16 for the torso/main piece only. If this had been a F2P game, i would completely ignore this matter, but that isn't the case.

    However, this game does offer a lot in the sense you can leave your computer running, and it will accumulate points for various sections of the game, and even when offline. However, while this is a nice time saver, this relates back to the feeling of a "Mobile game", which it shouldn't be, it's an MMO on a PC.

    Combat is nice and fluid, but some classes are more interesting than others. The skill tree system (currently) feels vast enough for me to say it's enjoyable to try out new skills when I get them.

    Voice acting in the game is... actually really bad. It pains me to say it as they must have put a lot of work into it, as a lot of NPC's speak when you're simply idling in town. If i had the option to just have the korean audio, i would take it.

    Overall, BDO gets a 4, a deserving 4. Does this mean the game is crap, no, no it does not. Does it mean you should throw your wallet on the screen, as i did, no, no you should not. The developers need to really consider what it means to have a game "Buy to Play", for as it stands, it feels like i've been playing a glorified farmville, apologies for the analogy to those hurt by that comment, but think about it...

    You start out with nothing, go out do missions, eventually get to crafting and the core section, and things start costing points that are returned by waiting: making food costs points, chopping trees costs points, making swords costs points, and getting those points back takes literal time. There are ways to get points back besides quests and waiting, through "loyalties", or real money, speeding things up, like a mobile game.

    I, like others, believe Black Desert will go F2P if things continue as is, and that's a shame, as i would love to see it prosper.    … Expand
  2. OriginalConcept
    Mar 6, 2016
    4
    Black Desert Online is a game that's cool until you realize how much grinding everything takes. Wanna make a boat and go deep sea fishing? You'll have to spend 10 hours getting it.

    Combat involves pulling enemies into a group and dropping AoEs. Even the "bosses" have laughably telegraphed attacks. It's flashy but it's not deep. I haven't tried PvP. Sounds cool, but I'm not going    Black Desert Online is a game that's cool until you realize how much grinding everything takes. Wanna make a boat and go deep sea fishing? You'll have to spend 10 hours getting it.

    Combat involves pulling enemies into a group and dropping AoEs. Even the "bosses" have laughably telegraphed attacks. It's flashy but it's not deep.

    I haven't tried PvP. Sounds cool, but I'm not going to grind for 50 hours so I can be on level footing.    … Expand
  3. tuniel
    Mar 28, 2016
    4
    really enjoyed the game at first, but the further along you get the more shallow you realize this game is. the very satisfying combat system is wasted on terrible pve content (grind the same mobs thousands and thousands of times) and seriously unbalanced pvp (gear > skill, absolutely no question). when you can bring yourself to smash your face against the horribly boring pve grind, you'rereally enjoyed the game at first, but the further along you get the more shallow you realize this game is. the very satisfying combat system is wasted on terrible pve content (grind the same mobs thousands and thousands of times) and seriously unbalanced pvp (gear > skill, absolutely no question). when you can bring yourself to smash your face against the horribly boring pve grind, you're likely to be pushed out of your spot by the uber geared no-lifers that plague this game. you can be griefed to no end, and even worse, you can lose 1% exp at end game. this doesn't seem like a lot, but it can take hours to grind just a few percent of a level post50. open world pvp is fun at first, but eventually youll realize it doesnt matter how well you know your class or matchups, all the matters is your luck with loot RNG and upgrade RNG. pvp is also plagued by horrible desync and latency issues, as well as significant bugs with certain class-defining abilities. I will say, the gear upgrade system is the least awful system ive experienced in a korean mmo to date, but it still sucks. I really wanted to like this game, especially because of the hundreds of hours I spent playing it just in its first month, but it really sucks. Is it better than ArcheAge? Hell yes it is, but it's still a shallow, grindy mess. spend your time elsewhere… Expand
  4. nextgengameflop
    Mar 30, 2016
    4
    Between the stat boosting cash shop items and the childish community, this game is worth a fat zero.

    I don't care how good the mechanics are when a game is this much of a cash grab with that MTX shop slapped over it. This game is pay to win just like every other MMO to come out recently. On top of the **** cash shop is the horrid pop-in this game suffers from. The game has piss-poor    Between the stat boosting cash shop items and the childish community, this game is worth a fat zero.

    I don't care how good the mechanics are when a game is this much of a cash grab with that MTX shop slapped over it. This game is pay to win just like every other MMO to come out recently. On top of the **** cash shop is the horrid pop-in this game suffers from. The game has piss-poor optimization and a 15 meter render range that cannot be increased.

    Some examples (non-exhaustive):
    - You can spend real money to increase the value of your horse by resetting the death and/or breed counters. This means you can just keep breeding the same higher tier horses with out ever having to worry about breeding the lower tier ones because it failed.

    - All armor and weapons look exactly the same as the starter gear you have in the tutorial. If you expected your appearance to change equipping new items like I did, prepare to be disappointed. You will need to shell out an additional $50 for 1 costume for a single character if you want your armor to look different.

    - You can buy a ghille suit to hide your guild and character name from everyone on the server for PKing and griefing. Go to any town or popular farming zone and you can see someone exploiting this cash shop item.

    - You can instant revive anywhere buy just spending real money.    … Expand
  5. JimbotMeta
    Apr 19, 2016
    4
    Took an almost immediate dislike to this game. Most of the bad stuff has already been said - total lack of guidance on how to do things or why you should/nt, no customisation ofr armor and bad voice acting.

    Combat is really good and that format should be the norm for mmos moving foward but the real problem...the total lack of story, the incredibly bad voice acting and translations and    Took an almost immediate dislike to this game. Most of the bad stuff has already been said - total lack of guidance on how to do things or why you should/nt, no customisation ofr armor and bad voice acting.

    Combat is really good and that format should be the norm for mmos moving foward but the real problem...the total lack of story, the incredibly bad voice acting and translations and the really bad music throughout. It ruins the whole ambiance of the game.

    There might be a lot in it and a ton of depth - but if found myself saying "why should I care" - i dont care about this world at all or any of the characters in it. There is no lore, no history no story its just absolutely awful in terms of creating an atmosphere.

    If you enjoyed Wow or Swtor or any game with story/structure like that - this game is NOT for you.

    That said if you dont care about the things i mentioned and you love PVP and good combat then this would be    … Expand
  6. Troystorm
    Jan 15, 2018
    4
    They called it an ambitious game. So it's true, but it's all terrible. All Korean bells and whistles. The epilepsy combat system, the lack of a normal interface, the lack of variation in the choice of race / class, the absence of any division into roles in the game. Everything is done as inconveniently as possible. And most importantly - the lack of optimization. Gives out a 10-30 fps onThey called it an ambitious game. So it's true, but it's all terrible. All Korean bells and whistles. The epilepsy combat system, the lack of a normal interface, the lack of variation in the choice of race / class, the absence of any division into roles in the game. Everything is done as inconveniently as possible. And most importantly - the lack of optimization. Gives out a 10-30 fps on any settings.Constant hovering, crashes, do not give a normal enjoy the game.
    Of the good moments worth praising developers for a very huge open
    a beautiful world, a detailed customization of the character and unusual gameplay chips, in the form of sea battles, the economy, trade and other things, but unfortunately it's realized terribly, but at least somehow    … Expand
  7. crazyplanet
    Jul 10, 2018
    4
    STORY: (3/10) Boring and so generic (You are Naruto, born to tame your Kyuubi so maybe you can use it to save the world).

    QUEST SYSTEM: (3/10) Errand boy, Kill 500 enemies, Kill and collect stuff, Kill/gather with RNG, "snowballing" interview/survey, Choose A to become Hokage - Choose B to become Hokage. GRAPHICS QUALITY: (10/10) Best (only if you have beast PC otherwise it's still    STORY: (3/10) Boring and so generic (You are Naruto, born to tame your Kyuubi so maybe you can use it to save the world).

    QUEST SYSTEM: (3/10) Errand boy, Kill 500 enemies, Kill and collect stuff, Kill/gather with RNG, "snowballing" interview/survey, Choose A to become Hokage - Choose B to become Hokage.

    GRAPHICS QUALITY: (10/10) Best (only if you have beast PC otherwise it's still good looking).

    CONTENTS: (7/10) Rich (learn all of it from guides and tutorials on the internet, the game or the developer itself can't help you that much), Pay to look good (the best armor = mossy armor), frequent events, Dialogues are voice-acted (not all dialogues, I mean a most of them not), some confusingly in-game Wiki and item descriptions (All AP up?), mediocre cutscene.

    PROGRESSION SYSTEM: (3/10) RNG-based (Lv.58 full-DUO most likely will lose to Lv.56 full-TET), Pay to win (you can buy in-game currencies by selling microtransactions items-like costumes on the in-game market and then buy some expensive end-game gear with it), Gear (except weapon) isn't class-bound (good for trying every class).

    MUSIC: (8/10) pretty decent jukebox music

    COMBAT SYSTEM: (7/10) as long as not involving grab and war-scale battle, it is the best combat system for MMORPG (IMHO).

    CUSTOMER SUPPORT: (7/10) Responsive (DO NOT ask about internal figures like enhancement/breeding/item drop rate to game master), some people said the server is bad - some people said the internet provider is bad

    NOT-SO-SPOILER ALERT!
    RNG is going to be the one that blocks your way to enjoy endgame contents unless you have real money to spend or a LOT of spare time to mine silvers through grinding (or life skills) or just plain "lucky".

    Edit #3. Turned out BDO was a free-to-play game at first (Korean, JPN, and Russia servers) but changed to pay-to-play in NA, EU, SEA servers. Now I know why the microtransactions are BAD. So beware    … Expand
  8. Qjoo
    Apr 28, 2020
    4
    I've played 400 hours of this game and it feels like I did nothing, there is so much to do and so little to do at the same time!

    There is no endgame, none, you grind until 60 and that is it. when you reach the soft level cap you need to gear up to get more levels, so you can gear up and get stronger, to... nothing. There is no dungeon or raid, only word bosses with specific weekly    I've played 400 hours of this game and it feels like I did nothing, there is so much to do and so little to do at the same time!

    There is no endgame, none, you grind until 60 and that is it. when you reach the soft level cap you need to gear up to get more levels, so you can gear up and get stronger, to... nothing. There is no dungeon or raid, only word bosses with specific weekly schedule.

    I repeat, THERE IS NO DUNGEON OR RAID IN THIS MMORPG!!!

    on top of this, the amount of RNG and PAID RNG in this game in astronomical ffs, you pay to pay sometimes. yes, you can buy the economic package in the market, but with fixed prices no one want to sell it.

    Visual 8/10
    Gameplay 8/10
    Content 2/10    … Expand
  9. EmirhanSahin
    Jan 2, 2022
    4
    Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind Grind but graphics are good.
  10. thousandsof
    Aug 5, 2021
    4
    I read here on Reddit that it takes ~ 7000 hours to jump from level 65 to level 66. This is all, of course, fun and cool, but I'll probably stop playing.

    It was possible to do something similar to Borderlands, but not only with weapons but also with the generation of skills, so that the level could easily be at least a billion and you could get a level per week. Instead, the    I read here on Reddit that it takes ~ 7000 hours to jump from level 65 to level 66. This is all, of course, fun and cool, but I'll probably stop playing.

    It was possible to do something similar to Borderlands, but not only with weapons but also with the generation of skills, so that the level could easily be at least a billion and you could get a level per week.

    Instead, the developers broke the project's kneecaps, put it in a wheelchair, and made it trade in pearls. Another project that never went beyond the boring MMORPG genre (although it was sooo close to it).    … Expand
  11. BaldursThones
    Apr 15, 2022
    4
    Its just another grindy MMO. It has great combat and great graphics but every quest is the exact same thing.
  12. weallone
    Aug 1, 2022
    4
    Gear upgrade system is crap! Ruined everything good in this game. And quests like "kill 5000 mobs" is amazingly interesting
  13. PokyV
    Apr 7, 2023
    4
    The game is good, but all is ruined by the infinite buttons on your screen and menus popping at you out of nowhere that you don't know how to close. The best of the game is definitely the combat, with amazing combos and effects, but most of the time you will be skipping dialogues or trying to close annoying windows. A good game ruined by its UI.
  14. Dartza
    Aug 1, 2023
    4
    I have probably put about 5,000 hours into BDO. The problem is that about 4,000 of those hours were me leaving my computer on overnight and while I was at work, fishing or doing some other AFK activity. The combat is either a grind when you are trying to get .01% exp per hour at higher levels or it is getting one-shotted by a witch in pvp. There is amazing value in this game if you don'tI have probably put about 5,000 hours into BDO. The problem is that about 4,000 of those hours were me leaving my computer on overnight and while I was at work, fishing or doing some other AFK activity. The combat is either a grind when you are trying to get .01% exp per hour at higher levels or it is getting one-shotted by a witch in pvp. There is amazing value in this game if you don't value your time.… Expand
  15. archanjo
    May 17, 2016
    3
    boooriiiinggggg yawnnnnnnnn .
  16. kyriores
    Aug 1, 2017
    3
    Good game, but do yourself a favor and play on a private server. You won't have to deal with Kakao's greed, which is pretty much the only thing that's ruining this game.
  17. Barnews
    Jul 22, 2016
    3
    Black desert is MMORPG with a lot of great ideas. But after weeks/days of playing you will know there are a lot of bad mechanics. There good things and bad things and those bad things keep black desert from beying a top MMORPG.

    PROS - Big and beautifull world full of quests and things to do (Do not expect original quest. It is same repetitive bussines like in every other MMO) - The    Black desert is MMORPG with a lot of great ideas. But after weeks/days of playing you will know there are a lot of bad mechanics. There good things and bad things and those bad things keep black desert from beying a top MMORPG.

    PROS
    - Big and beautifull world full of quests and things to do (Do not expect original quest. It is same repetitive bussines like in every other MMO)
    - The graphics are one of the best among todays MMO's
    - Sandbox style of the game, you can be skilled gatherer, trader, fisher, cook, horse trainer, etc... Or you can skip that all and focus only on combat power of your character.
    - Itemization and overall game phylosophy. Doesnt matter what level you are, you can use same gear when you are 10 lvl or 50 lvl. You can use materials and items that you found during leveling for your high end gear and high end potions. Literally you are playing end game even on low level.
    - Levelling system (Soft cap 50 level - official max level, but you can get higher levels, but more slowly)
    - Contribution poitns system: When you play, you earn contribution points, that you can invest somewhere. For example to storage, your residence, some grinding location or some farm where your workers can gather materials.
    - Enchanting system where your gear get's more powerfull as you enchant it.

    CONS
    - Clunky PVP. Its just not fun for me. Unnecesary animations and some game aspects make PVP and combat not fun.
    - Boss scroll system is boring and not exciting.
    - Only posibility to trade between players is by auction house (marketplace) I do not have anything againts that, it fights againts gold sellers etc... But they have not implemented anything that let you give some good gear or materials to your friend you play with. You can only give potions to someone.
    - Grinding and fighting monsters is much more efficient over all gatherin, fishing or other activities. It is shame they allowed that. I agreee that fighting monsters should be essential to collect some thing you cant get by gathering, but right now it is best in everything. This part of game is not balanced and damage game itself.
    - Energy system that allows you perform some ingame actions is messed up and total chaos :-D
    - Other game aspects that are simply stupid and unnecesary.    … Expand
  18. thovader
    Mar 30, 2016
    3
    Since I do not like PvP and gathering stuff like fishing, cooking, mining, housing etc. I will NOT review those aspects. They are supposed to be pretty good though.

    I bought the game for one reason only, the combat system. And I was hoping to get enough PvE content out of it to keep me entertained for around 30-60 hours. I knew from the beginning on that this game's end content    Since I do not like PvP and gathering stuff like fishing, cooking, mining, housing etc. I will NOT review those aspects. They are supposed to be pretty good though.

    I bought the game for one reason only, the combat system.
    And I was hoping to get enough PvE content out of it to keep me entertained for around 30-60 hours. I knew from the beginning on that this game's end content consists of PvP only.

    For every fan of PvE content and challenging (PvE) combat I can now say: "stay away and do not buy this game!!!"

    There's pretty much no PvE content to speak of and the quests are just lame and irritating. For me, this didn't even matter that much since I only wanted to have fun with the awesome combat system. I don't even mind games where you have to grind a lot... and this game is grind in the truest form!

    Don't get me wrong, the combat system is great but enemies are way too weak and the game is way too easy :( ! I played for around 10 hours and the game never ever got even a tiny bit difficult. Those 10 hours I was wondering whether I did something wrong and never left the tutorial area... it seriously is that easy. At first I planned all those special skills and combos and tried to use tactics whenever possible. But very soon you ask yourself "why"? The combat is so easy that you could easily use the standard attack without having to dodge, block or use anything powerful.

    Later on you encounter world bosses that randomly appear and bosses that you can summon using scrolls. Those are more fun and harder to kill but those events occur far to seldom to be of any use for any fan of PvE.

    It's such a shame because I really wanted to like this game.
    Like I said before, I knew that eventually the game wouldn't be for me with its focus on PvP and all that, but I hoped to get at least some fun hours of PvE content out of it. This wasn't the case though.
    The superb combat system cannot shine if there's nothing worth using it for. I wasn't looking for a Dark Souls either, but this difficulty is ridiculous.
    Fortunately I "only" spent 30 € on my sad/bad experience with the game...    … Expand
  19. MechVampyre
    Nov 14, 2016
    3
    graphics of this game looks very promising but beyond that it has gotten nothing really entertaining.
    you can craft many things, breed horses, get a farm, buy yourself houses, fishing, trading system and so on...
    well theres a lot of content but it feels just like all of that stuff leads you to nothing and only wastes a lot of your time. in the end you do this for the money to buy equip    graphics of this game looks very promising but beyond that it has gotten nothing really entertaining.
    you can craft many things, breed horses, get a farm, buy yourself houses, fishing, trading system and so on...
    well theres a lot of content but it feels just like all of that stuff leads you to nothing and only wastes a lot of your time.
    in the end you do this for the money to buy equip and go out to slap mobs (instead of all that boring and time wasting things you can also grind mobs the whole day, buy equip and grind more).

    fighting system is somewhat fun.
    nice animations and a lot of combos but for the pve content you just don't need to learn any combos, cause the AI of the mobs is completely stupid, there are no really special mechanics any mob has except some knockdowns here and there. so even fighting through the pve content gets boring and repetitive really quick. no challenge here.

    pvp is nothing else than one big mess.
    in pvp it all comes down to gear. you got better gear than your opponent? gg.
    even in a fight between two guys with equal gear it just comes down to who hits first with one of the thousands of cc skills.
    this pvp is not competitive, challenging, fun... nothing but a big mess.
    if you're searching for a pvp game, you'll be wrong in black desert.

    this game got way too much rng in it. thanks to all that rng nearly everything in this game becomes a true pita.
    even landing a cc in fights is based on rng.

    there are so many occupations in this game you can do while being afk. it's worse than some browsergames and so few tools which benefit any kind of playing with other people. actually it feels the other way round. people try to avoid other players the whole day long (really awesome in an online game).

    black desert could have made it to a somewhat decent singleplayer game but as it is, not more than 3 points. at least for a while it is a little fun to grind throug the map.
    not to recommend.    … Expand
  20. CroGerA
    Mar 7, 2016
    3
    I played it for few days with an "guest pass", and this game is one of the most terrible mmorpgs i ever played. Really glad i didn´t pay for this **** Its like the most of asian mmorpg - they just cant do it.
  21. UNlVERSE
    Apr 19, 2016
    3
    This review is coming from someone who thoroughly enjoys PvP/PvE to the fullest. This game is beyond an utter disappointment.

    Leveling in this game takes little to no effort whatsoever, maxing at the soft-cap of 50 quite literally for anyone who simply looks up the correct areas to grind. When you get over the flashy combat, you'll realize this game is completely overrated. Best    This review is coming from someone who thoroughly enjoys PvP/PvE to the fullest. This game is beyond an utter disappointment.

    Leveling in this game takes little to no effort whatsoever, maxing at the soft-cap of 50 quite literally for anyone who simply looks up the correct areas to grind.

    When you get over the flashy combat, you'll realize this game is completely overrated. Best part? You forfeit your right to a refund. "Well you can try it for free from a friend!" Implying you know anyone that plays this game. Simply watching YouTube videos of this game is like any other, watching BF4 trailers and demos made BF4 look great, devs hyped it to all hell. What was the end product? A beyond overhyped and trash game.

    This isn't even counting the fact the character balance in this game is horrid, and to be expected. At-range characters will dominate PvP team-play, hence why a vast number of people who play this are Range/Wizard etc.

    PvE wise this game is obviously lacking. Just another run of the mill "spam spam spam" for your daily fun. Mod grinding is the same as any other game and the quickest way to level.

    For virtually $50 the amount of customization is an abysmal joke. Sure, you can toy around with the physical appearance of your avatar (their physical body), but other than that and dyes, you're left with a extremely lackluster customization for something you just blew $50 on. Lets also mention that you'll be spending another $10-20+ on the cash-shop cosmetics that for the most part look ridiculous.

    As most Korean MMO's are, they utilize gear enhancement. This game doesn't focus on skill, and rather focuses on who can camp and grind PvE for hours upon hours on end to enhance to +15 and above. Achieving such enhancements simply because you have less of a life than most people, and then entering into PvP where your "skill" (gear) will be made apparent is what does it for many people.

    To top it all off, this game has severe connectivity issues on the NA servers. Constant disconnects as well as authentication errors frequently make grinding out in this game that much more annoying when you're constantly having to relaunch your client.

    All in all, the only positive thing about this game are the graphics. Sure, there's some variety in this game, things that have already been done and quite honestly if I wanted to fish, i'd go to RuneScape and grind out a few hundred hours for 99.

    Maybe if their customer support and game-policy wasn't such an utter joke, I would have considered recommending this to a friend.

    Like many Korean MMO's, I really don't see this game lasting as many years as other more successful MMO's.    … Expand
  22. nomaddc
    Oct 19, 2019
    3
    A good example of a fun and good MMORPG getting ruined for the sake of extracting every single conceivable penny out of the player base. The game is fun and looks amazing with a few caveats.

    Updates to old classes are rare. They mostly focus on freshly released classes and make sure they are in a good spot balance-wise and get new paid outfits (although even this was in decline lately).    A good example of a fun and good MMORPG getting ruined for the sake of extracting every single conceivable penny out of the player base. The game is fun and looks amazing with a few caveats.

    Updates to old classes are rare. They mostly focus on freshly released classes and make sure they are in a good spot balance-wise and get new paid outfits (although even this was in decline lately). Older classes get largely neglected (DK, Valk, War, Kuno, Maehwa, Tamer, Ranger) and rarely get any fixes or costumes.

    Events have been using lots of recycled old rewards, rarely we get anything substantially new for Christmas/Halloween/etc.. It's mostly stuff from several years ago.

    Enhancing. It's the only means of gear progression (besides just buying what other people enhance for disproportionally more) and it's made to be as frustrating and infuriating as possible. It's made to irritate and frustrate the player to the point when buying some outfits to melt for enhancing "protection" starts to sound like a great idea. This is where they try to milk you dry. Repairing gear? 1 memory fragment restores 1/100 durability, unless you buy with $$ some Artisan Memories, and even then it takes a good amount. Upgrading past DUO? Gear will downgrade on failing unless you use Cron Stones ("protection") that you either get from melting paid outfits or buy using silver (although it's much worse ratio than buying outfits from the market that other players sell for silver). But even then the conversion rate of $ or your time to crons is awful. Of course, you don't have to spend a dime on any of this, but what people forget to say is that your experience with the game will vary depending on how much you spend. If you don't spend odds are it will be miserable. Alternatively, you can elect to upgrade your gear using Caphras stones, but this will take disproportionately longer than enhancing to the point of not really being viable.

    If they introduced more fail protection to enhancing and reduced Cron Stone prices from in-game vendors to make them worth buying over outfit melting it would improve the game a lot. If they started releasing new outfits and balance changes for older classes instead of having Artisans memory sales it would make BDO a really good MMORPG.

    I would not advise getting anywhere near this game if you are an impulsive person or have gambling problems - it will attempt to exploit you at every turn.    … Expand
  23. MonicaKeller
    May 22, 2016
    3
    BDO :: the POP-IN Simulator™ ©®

    I simply can't recommend this game in its current state: the 3d rendering is terrible, while walking or running 3d objects will pop in all the time, not only players but mostly grass, trees, buildings.. whatever... After popping-in the 3d model will switch from low to high just in front of you: if you'll walk towards a tree you'll see it suddenly    BDO :: the POP-IN Simulator™ ©®

    I simply can't recommend this game in its current state: the 3d rendering is terrible, while walking or running 3d objects will pop in all the time, not only players but mostly grass, trees, buildings.. whatever...

    After popping-in the 3d model will switch from low to high just in front of you: if you'll walk towards a tree you'll see it suddenly changing shape and textures.

    If you stand still you'll notice that the shadows of buildings and grass are not dynamic: they get updated with some interval and the new shadow position will pop-in without any transition or sort of effect to hide the annoyance.

    The graphic options the game provides are simple "presets": you cannot change anything to avoid the pop-in issues. This is how the game works now even on high end PCs.

    I never saw anything like that in any kind of MMO even if I go back with my mind to 2004.

    The gear progression in the endgame is RNG based and imo really frustrating atm.    … Expand
  24. Subastis
    Sep 20, 2016
    3
    I pay 30€ to this game and i completely regret, boring, unoriginal, pay per win, you have to play like 10 hours to get some weapon or armor and it can be ugly as hell. The gameplay dont have nothing new and you are always grinding, killing 20 monsters o gathering 20 flowers, again and again. The main quest its the same but with some easy and tipical boss. It have some things original likeI pay 30€ to this game and i completely regret, boring, unoriginal, pay per win, you have to play like 10 hours to get some weapon or armor and it can be ugly as hell. The gameplay dont have nothing new and you are always grinding, killing 20 monsters o gathering 20 flowers, again and again. The main quest its the same but with some easy and tipical boss. It have some things original like taming a horse but its almost impossible find a horse, theres is one for every hundred players and even if you find it and you are alone you can lose the minigame losing the horse and the money for the ropes. You can navigate with a boat and fishing but its really hard to get the first boat and when you are fishing literally you dont do nothing. I give the game a 3 because the graphics (not bad for a mmo) but overall its a boring grinding game like a lot others you can play for free.… Expand
  25. Nyakuya
    Mar 13, 2019
    3
    Un excelente juego empañado por un sin fin de problemas de planeamiento e implementación.

    - Primero: Es un Pay To Win. Pues todo el proceso de mejorar tu PJ va destinado al endgame del juego que es el pvp, y como podes comprar cosas con dinero real para sacar ventaja, pagando tienes ventaja. - Segundo: El juego te propone que inviertas dinero en él de forma MUY AGRESIVA. Okay, es un    Un excelente juego empañado por un sin fin de problemas de planeamiento e implementación.

    - Primero: Es un Pay To Win. Pues todo el proceso de mejorar tu PJ va destinado al endgame del juego que es el pvp, y como podes comprar cosas con dinero real para sacar ventaja, pagando tienes ventaja.

    - Segundo: El juego te propone que inviertas dinero en él de forma MUY AGRESIVA.
    Okay, es un juego coreano, allá por Asia la gente es MUY ADICTA y se deja todo su sueldo en videojuegos de este estilo. Pero vamos, que Asia no es el resto del mundo y si quieres sacarlo en otros paises no podes implementar las políticas abusivas de tu país en ellos. (Miren a Warframe, que es el juego con el sistema de monetizacion más light que he visto en mi vida. Lo juego hace 2 años y ya tengo todos los cosméticos sin haber pagado nunca, y según datos financieros de Steam 2018, Warframe fue el segundo juego de TODO Steam en más recaudar dinero dicho año. ¿Por qué será que Black Desert no estuvo en la lista a pesar de estar en steam?).

    Voy a seguir justificando por qué creo (por no decir "Es así") que este sistema es abusivo. Primero, hay MUCHISIMAS cosas en las que podrías invertir TANTAS horas en conseguir, que terminarías generando más gasto en electricidad que simplemente pagando por ello con dinero real. (Por dar un ejemplo MUY simple, la cantidad de peso que puedes llevar en tu inventario. Si quieres aumentarla debes mejorar el atributo fuerza, que por cierto tarda SEMANAS en levelear lo suficiente como para darte 50LT de peso extra, y es sumamente aburrido porque para hacerlo tienes que sobrecargar a tu personaje y correr. Eso es todo, sobrecargarlo y correr HORAS y DIAS y SEMANAS... Para conseguir solo +50LT, lo cual es MUY poco porque un cinturón pedorro te da +60LT extra. Ah, pero luego si quieres pagar con dinero real claro que puedes aumentarla al instante y en cantidades mucho más atractivas, como por ejemplo puedes comprar 1000 perlas (moneda de pago) y gastando 540 perlas consigues +250LT instantáneamente. +250LT por 5,40 dolares estadounidenses, o sino mantiendo la PC encendida SEMANAS generando gasto de componentes y eletricidad dejando a tu personaje corriendo para conseguir simplemente +50LT. (Que por cierto, a partir de esa cantidad se pone DIFICILISIMO relevar, porque cada nuevo nivel requiere x10 más de XP que el anterior, y que por consecuente requiere x10 más de tiempo que el anterior).

    - Tercero: Agregaron un modo battle royale llamado "Shadow Arena". Realmente es atractivo, pues hay cofres por todos lados y lo que looteas se transforma en equipo mientras juegas, y en dinero una vez terminas esa partida Battle Royale.
    ¿Cual es el problema de esto?... Pues hay más de uno. Primero el hecho de que no está siempre abierto, y que de hecho múltiples veces durante el día no lo está, (y de madrugada JAMAS lo está).
    Además no ocurren ciertas cosas que DEBERIAN. 1) Jamas te avisan que no está abierto siempre, tuve que preguntarle a amigos para saber por que razón me tiraba error. 2) Cuando está cerrado ell botón para entrar no se bloquea, por lo que no sabes si está disponible o no y clickear en él, te deja entrar, entra a una pantalla de carga, luego te pone el menú del modo de juego, le das a "Jugar", se pone a cargar otra vez, y recién ahí te dice, "Shadow Arena couldn't open". Osea "Shadow arena no se pudo abrir". No te dice "No esta disponible", dice "No se pudo abrir". Bien... Excelente mensaje. Tras darte cuenta por este cartel que no puedes entrar, solo te queda poner "Salir" y OTRA VEZ entra a una pantalla de carga y al terminar recién ahí puedes seguir con lo que estuvieras haciendo. (Es prueba y error todo el tiempo para ver si en algún momento está abierto o no. patético, terrible diseño, porque ni siquiera dan bien las intrucciones de a que horarios está abierto).

    - Cuarto: La traducción. Yo no sé que mierda hicieron, pero la traducción al español está hecha por un mono borracho, o literalmente metieron todo en un traductor y listo, a poner todo lo que el traductor diga. ES MUY MALA, tanto que múltiples veces no entiendes ni que carajos intenta decirte un NPC, y cito una conversación (este tipo de calidad de dialogas se repite constantemente), "Por favor a que le des prisa a que le haga la entrega el capullo". En realidad lo que este NPC quería decir era "Por favor dile que se apresure con la entrega DEL capullo", y se refería a un capullo de tela, (lo cual entendí recién al terminar de hacer la misión, porque con ese diálogo no sabia ni que mierda tenia que hacer).

    Quinto: No puedes sprintar hasta que la barra se carga toda, (aunque tengas mas de la mitad), y acabarás muriendo por esto (sobre todo en pvp cuando te persiguen).

    -----------------------------------------------------

    No tengo mucho más que agregar. Es un juego el cual disfruto mucho la mitad de las veces, y la otra mitad me dan ganas desinstar.    … Expand
  26. EpicJessey
    Aug 28, 2018
    3
    TL;DR: BDO is a full­time job you don't get paid for, but instead asks you for money.

    Still a Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Win game in it's core with a entry fee. No meaningful PvE content !. PvP with huge balance problems, exploits and server lags !. It is not rewarding at all. Almost all quest, event, loyalty, returning, login and what not rewards are crap. Pray to RNG to get something    TL;DR: BDO is a full­time job you don't get paid for, but instead asks you for money.

    Still a Free-to-Play / Pay-to-Win game in it's core with a entry fee.
    No meaningful PvE content !.
    PvP with huge balance problems, exploits and server lags !.
    It is not rewarding at all. Almost all quest, event, loyalty, returning, login and what not rewards are crap. Pray to RNG to get something usefull !.
    To many stacking advantages behind a paywall to reduce the annoyness. Some of them you can optain in the market with ingame currency and a ~0,0000001% chance... if they even appear at all.
    No visual changes on your character unless you pay, after hundrets of hrs you look as someone who just started the game.
    The few outfits you can craft look ugly af and the once you get for a short time don't count. Also always the same that no one wants.
    (you'll end up easly with a few hundret bucks for a semi-normal gaming expiriance.)

    While the combat is one - if not the best out of every MMORPG out there
    (and I hate all tab-targeting MMO's, this and ESO were the closest to a somewhat singleplayer experience I've found), everything else in this "game" is designed to waste your time as much as possible, timers and long♥♥♥♥♥animations behind almost every action you do like a stupid free mobile game and most rewarding with AFK activites everyone uses macros and/or bots.
    The world feels alive but at the same time, almost every player is AFK or set to autopilot because no fast travel and lifeskill.

    (aka - the game you will barly play, if you want to progress, only background / second monitor.)

    Have fun wasting time with killing the same mobs 10^12 times on the same spot, just to reach one level endgame and making a bit gold for RNG gear progression, that whenever it deciteds do fail, makes you grind for another dozen of hours and at the end, you'd never catch up unless you dedicate your life to it and your wallet. - the game.

    Not to mention the utterly bad optimization, servers and pop-in / draw distance issues.    … Expand
  27. OuterOcean6
    Sep 30, 2017
    3
    (Gameplay)
    Combat is the whole game that it defined it for everything in this game besides this is either dull or good or terrible.
    (Graphics) Best graphics for this generation of mmos, it has good immersion, npcs, enemies, structures, textures, buildings, etc. (System) The system like enhancing is really bad, equipment downgrades after reaching DUO gear level and nobody even    (Gameplay)
    Combat is the whole game that it defined it for everything in this game besides this is either dull or good or terrible.

    (Graphics)
    Best graphics for this generation of mmos, it has good immersion, npcs, enemies, structures, textures, buildings, etc.

    (System)
    The system like enhancing is really bad, equipment downgrades after reaching DUO gear level and nobody even likes this system. You have to build fail stacks to increase your chance of succeeding just to get your gear another level. You don't feel you even progressed even after months of grinding and repetitive questing. The whole game is based RNG, nothing in this game is guaranteed of gaining even if you're a veteran or not.

    A lot of important stats are hidden such as accuracy and dmg, you won't know if you're doing enough damage neither if you are doing so much. It's all a guessing game of agony when you are doing PvP, and PvE. There is an attendance system where it gives rewards that are not useful as a lot of the ones that they give either need you to play forever to gain, or you already can get them easily. The game doesn't explain to you if you are using the correct tools to mine, or use any gathering due to lazy devs.

    (Balance and Content)
    PvE is basically just kill trash mobs all game, there are world bosses and guild bosses you can do with people and that is just it. There is only 1 dungeon in the game that needs you to be completely high end gear and high level that takes forever to get. Plus you need 5 other people with the same type of requirements. There is a new PvE content in the game that you can just teleport to and it is very dull content. The mechanics are shoot birds with guns, slice and dice ground mobs, it is basically a horde mode.

    PvP is a mess of unbalancing and lag, nobody will get a fair fight as gear and level will always determine which person will win. There will sometimes be an rare occasion where your opponent will be in an equal level as you are, the classes almost never gotten any nerfs as dark knights can 1 shot you with or without gear, warriors will pummel you without any skill involved, etc. Desync will happen a lot, as if you used a warrior grab on someone they might be just behind you instead of your animation happening, or on their screen their behind you but you just grabbed them and knocked them down.

    Node wars and big PvP battles are such a cluster fk, you don't know what is happening and there is only 1 thing you can only do. Go from point A to point B and destroy their tower and nobody even knows if anyone will win by sheer numbers or outgearing. There is PvP protection such as Karma when if you kill a player the pker will get deducted for it, once it reaches negative their name will go red and they can get attacked from anyone even if they have pk off.

    (Mechanics)
    By the time you start in the game your whole screen will be filled with so much crap, you won't even know what is on your screen. You won't even know how to turn some of them off and some cannot be turned off. You have to look it up online. Horse mechanics are good, as horses can be bred and they all have skills that boosts your horse speed. But the bad thing is that you have to level them up to get them and it is RNG if you can get a useless or good skill, or no skill at all.

    Pets only loot 1 mob just for a cooldown of 10 seconds, the cooldown lowers as they level up. Pets provide bonus stats that increases exp gain, life skill gain, mob tracking, etc. Breeding any of pets will make you lose 1 in return of a chance of getting a higher tier pet. Horses need to be bred at the horse breeding market, the many deaths affects the chance on getting a higher tier horse.

    (P2W)
    Yes this game is p2w, you have to either buy pets to rid of the problem of spamming R to loot is either by spending months of trying to snipe pets from the market. You can pay $40 just to get 4 of the maximum pets you can get. Artisan Memories are another way to save silver on enhancing weapons, armor, accessories. They can only be bought at the pearl shot for 50 Pearls, this can be a ton of money if you only plan on enhancing and saving silver for your next upgrades. Complete now buttons have been added to worker builds to speed up on getting millions of silver by selling crates. The amount of time remaining will determine how much Pearls will be deducted.

    (Community)
    The community is really awful as players don't even care if they kill your horse, and they will cry about it if you kill theirs. A lot of the chat is based on flaming and trolling, everyone you encounter in a popular grind spot will attempt to kill you if they see you. People use karma bombing as letting them pk you so you can harass them for being dumb to do it.

    (Conclusion)
    There is so much more I can say but I am already limited. Do not buy this game if you do not want to waste time.    … Expand
  28. RobertDirk
    Mar 5, 2019
    3
    Worst MMO I have played. No explanation of any systems other than basic movement, camera and starting skill set. Combat is some strange system I have never come across. Kill things until your "knowledge" increases so that you do more damage. This is done AD NAUSEUM for every creature you come across. I only paid for the $10 version - and I wish I could get my money back. Stay far away.
  29. Fredcrit
    Mar 18, 2019
    3
    I can write a long list of positives. But I stay by the main reason I am interested in this game. Its the unique constellation of a good Fight system with a interesting Life-skill system for one goal, Top Gear.
    Unfortunately this game moves more to P2W. But you can work around.
    The Negatives overshadow the positives with time. Technical issues, like Server lags and crashes are not    I can write a long list of positives. But I stay by the main reason I am interested in this game. Its the unique constellation of a good Fight system with a interesting Life-skill system for one goal, Top Gear.
    Unfortunately this game moves more to P2W. But you can work around.
    The Negatives overshadow the positives with time.
    Technical issues, like Server lags and crashes are not getting fixed. Now people with older Windows versions cant access to the new Market. Trade items in the trade window are not loading. NPCs are not accessable. Quest Rewards cant be accepted afer finishing a Quest.
    Event Quests cant be finished for unknown reason and many more!
    But the most frustrating issues are by design. To make money you need to do a lot of AFK. People keep they computer on for days to process close to the town storage. if you somebody with connection issues, you cant open your storage because of lags and crashes.
    You die because of this and lose xp, you earned grinding for a hurtful amount of time.

    After 1,5 years of playing this game more or less active, I found out that without an extreme specialisation supported by micro-transactions, its pretty hard to reach the top. Nothing new for MMOs. But I start playing BDO, because of its unique mechanics.
    Its fun to do what your mood suggest you or follow a plan. But after time you realise its pointless and exhausting. The many silly unnecessary design flaws in the Quests and game mechanics are frustrating. Sometimes they seem to be installed to force us to take the shortcut buying stuff in the Shop.    … Expand
  30. BayEzio
    Apr 1, 2021
    3
    Complete trash. P2W af. Buying this game will just waste your money. —————-
Page:

Awards & Rankings

12
#12 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2016

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 20 out of 35
  3. Negative: 0 out of 35
  1. Merlin'in Kazanı (Turkey)
    Jan 1, 2018
    80
    With it's massive and unique open world, Black Desert Online is inviting you to a great adventure.
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  2. Digital Chumps
    Jul 27, 2017
    50
    Overall, Black Desert Online is a typical MMO in every single way. While I disagree with their claim that it’s the “next generation” of MMOs, I did find the character creation to be the most robust of any MMO out there. Unfortunately, the character customization is the game’s biggest highlight, and many of the other elements of Black Desert Online can be found in many other MMOs.
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  3. The Overpowered Noobs
    Jun 11, 2017
    70
    Black Desert Online comes to the table with an intricate character sculpting tool, gorgeous graphical presentation, and a nuanced, exciting combat system overlying a less immediately apparent, but very unique, sandbox-style resource management simulation. Those looking for a rich narrative, complex or groundbreaking PvE questing, or highly unique monster design may be disappointed, but those seeking a mechanically rich, visually striking MMO will find themselves at home.
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