Black Desert Launch Review

Community
Black Desert has a mixed bag when it comes to community. Due to its large popularity, it’s managed to attract just about every type of player there is. If you’re the type that doesn’t like trolls, politics, racism, etc… you’re probably better off switching off ‘Channel’ chat and sticking to guild chat. If you’re a role player, head to Orwen on the Calpheon 02 channel and you’ll (hopefully) find a home. Both PVPers and PVE’rs will find their niche in this game, though the PVPers get the better end of the stick.
Zerg guilds are not uncommon. On Orwen alone, there are several guilds that are so large that they have to have two or more guilds to be able to keep all their members together. This is because there is currently a hard cap on how many players can be in one guild and it’s not particularly large. In general, the community as a whole is pretty nice and helpful. I’ve had some great (And not so great) discussions on the forums and sub-reddit. In the end, the Black Desert Online community is average for an MMO.
Gameplay
Black Desert is the latest in a newer breed of games known as ‘sandparks.’ These are titles that have elements from both Themeparks and Sandbox MMOs. Black Desert Online has both the linear level progression of most Themepark MMOs, but at the same time it has the freedom and options often offered by sandbox games. While you may spend an hour or two leveling up at a level-appropriate grinding location or completing a line of story-rich quests, you may end up managing your merchant empire for several more hours. And while it’s not nearly on the level of EVE Online, Black Desert can certainly be deserving of the title, “Spreadsheet Simulator” at times. I’ve personally spent hours researching and developing plans for my own little empire, trying to figure out the best ways to make money and maximizing the use of my energy.
When you play Black Desert Online, you’ll certainly know it was developed by Koreans. Just like a vast majority of Korean MMOs, it relies heavily on grinding. That’s not a bad thing, really. Thinking back, a lot of my favorite games required an (un)healthy dose of hardcore grinding to be ‘on the top.’ But it’s not all grinding. There’s tons of activities to partake in, such as crafting, gathering, developing a merchant empire via the node system and clever use of the Marketplace, NPC Trading (which isn’t what you think), Open World PVP, Guild Wars (with Territory Control and Sieges becoming available in the near future), fishing… There’s too many things to list, honestly. And even if I do list something, chances are that it’s so complex that I could easily write a stand-alone featured article just focusing on that one element. I won’t do that, however, as most features have had a ton written on them and it’ll still leave you scratching your head trying to figure out all its complexities. Really, just check out the Black Desert Online Bible.
There’s a ton of little things that make the game feel absolutely unique. For example, in most games the jumping you can do looks dumb and doesn’t serve much of a purpose. In Black Desert, the ‘parkour’ system allows you to vault over low stone walls or climb up onto a roof. The system feels closer to Assassin’s Creed (though not nearly as impressive) than anything else. In fact, it’s not uncommon for players to joke about “playing Assassin’s Creed” when they’re doing some vertical exploring by climbing.
Then there’s some of the least impressive features. For an MMO, it often feels like Black Desert Online is trying to restrict any type of player-to-player interaction as much as possible except when it comes to combat. For example, there’s basically no direct player-to-player trading. All trading is done through the Marketplace, which is heavily regulated by the game. And all transactions on the marketplace have a massive 35% tax, making it almost not worth the effort to try and sell things. The only other game that is near Black Desert’s level of hating player-to-player interaction is Elite: Dangerous.
But then there’s incredible things like conversing with NPCs. Some NPCs will only give you knowledge if you gain a certain amount of Amity with them. This can be done by having conversations with them, or if you want to go the slow route maybe you’ll just greet the NPC (which costs energy) a few times a day over the period of a month or so. Conversing with an NPC will require that you hold knowledge they’re interested in. If you don’t, maybe they’ll refuse to talk to you. If your knowledge on a topic isn’t complete, you probably won’t be able to please them and won’t get far if you try talking to them. Other things such as ‘Amity Shops,’ quests, item rentals, and even impressive buffs can be unlocked through the Amity system as well. I have a list of a few NPCs that I’m really buddy-buddy with due to their Amity shops or buffs they offer me. I also have another (much longer list) of NPCs I want to befriend so that I can gain access to the knowledge they have. I’ve been trying to get onto Alchem from Calpheon’s good side for quite some time now so that I can gain his knowledge on Trolls.
Combat
Combat in Black Desert Online is action-based. The pace is fast, to the point that you almost feel like a majority of combat takes place OUTSIDE of the fight in terms of your preparation. In PVP, an encounter can be over in seconds, or it can last several minutes. It all depends on a mixture of how prepared you were for the encounter, your gear, and your ability as a player. It’s very possible for the same encounter to end in two completely different ways if you change just a few things. If you have a full set of high-enchant gear and get ganked by someone, chances are you’ll have a bit of time to figure out what’s going on and hopefully respond. However, if you’re wearing trash gear and are grinding mobs, forgetting to re-apply your buffs or allowing your mana to run out, chances are you’ll die in just a few seconds.
Each class plays completely different from the others. Playing as a Valkyrie is completely different than playing as a Witch, and playing as a Berserker is much different than playing as a Warrior. Sure, both Berserker and Warrior are melee classes, but you’re going to have a bad time if you try to play the Warrior as you did with your Berserker. In the Russian beta, I played the Berserker class and reveled in the nearly constant movement and fun combos. It was great to be able to pick up an enemy, slam them down, and then punt-kick them.
You can almost feel the two giant axes in your own hands.
In the North American release, however, I decided to play a Witch as I’m normally the type that enjoys casters. The differences are jarring, to say the least. While mobility is even more important for a Witch than a Berserker, it seems like everything in the Witch class is trying to keep you rooted in one place with all of the cast-timers. There are ways to reduce the cast timers through gear and buffs, however, and there’s even a temporary buff that removes all cast timers. It really does make the Witch class feel like a glass cannon, but with the mobility abilities you are given (such as teleport) and CC spells, you feel like a very fluid glass cannon. So I guess you could say I have a glass half full appreciation for the Witch.
Speaking of CC… In most games, there is a ‘universal rule’ of, “CC is King!” That’s true even in Black Desert Online, for the most part. Getting stuck in a Crown Control(CC) loop can be completely devastating, and I would go so far as to say that 90% of combat is just those that are participating trying to avoid CCs or recover from the times that they let themselves get caught in CC’s. As a Witch, you rely on spell effects such as Freeze or the Knockdown from Fireball quite a lot. You’re going to spend a lot of time Evading and Teleporting in order to get behind your enemy and hit them with a CC or two so that you can get off a few of your burst-damage spells.
This is also one of those games where you will end up having max alts, but will easily fall into playing just a single class most of the time. Mastering multiple classes is something difficult that you’ll have to work towards. Hell, mastering one class requires tens of hours of study, hundreds of hours of practice, and potentially thousands of hours of preparation in terms of getting Best in Slot gear for a specific class with maximum enchantments and optimal socketing. And that is to say, combat in Black Desert Online is VERY gear dependent. It’s not impossible to get the gear you need, but you’ll certainly have to work for it. If you’re the type that can’t stand games with an over-dependence of gear quality and stats, you may want to avoid this title.
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