One of the neat features that I enjoy in Black Desert Online comes in the form of pets – not just pets, but collectable pets that offer buffs to players. You can have 5 out at once, and they also wander around your house if you happen to have one of those. I’ve gotten a few from quests and claims and a few from events. They level up as you have them out and about with you, and they have a hunger bar that requires you to feed them snacks.
Some of the best pets of course come from the pearl shop but I haven’t felt like I NEEDED to buy any from there. If you absolutely want to be the best there is, sure, you might want to purchase it. I feel like I’ve gotten quite a few pets by doing very little. Tier 4 is the highest they can go, and level 10 within that tier. The ‘better’ they are, the more they eat. You can put them in groups and use them in those groups so it makes sense to have different pets for different things, like adventuring vs. life skilling. You give them a name and then access them through the pet window on your UI.
One thing I really like about black desert online is that the game tries its best to cater to ALL gamers. If you enjoy grinding, you can grind, if you don’t enjoy grinding – then don’t. Have lots of time to play? Perfect – and now what about if you don’t have much time to play? You can do that too.
I’ve already touched on AFK fishing and AFK horse training (both let you earn passive income and are good ways of working a skill while not actively playing) but there are also some training books you can obtain that let you earn experience (both combat and skill point) while AFK. I’m pretty sure you can purchase these training books in the pearl shop but so far I’ve managed to get 3 of the 24 hour ones, 20 of the one hour ones, and a handful of the 3 hour ones. They work very easily, you use them as you would any other scroll / potion and then you head to a town that has scarecrow training dummies. There are some in Velia, the starter town. You can then interact with the scarecrow, and passively gain experience for so long as the scroll lasts. Your character stands there fighting the scarecrow automatically.
Now, actually playing your character would be MUCH faster, but if you’re strapped for game time and still want to feel like you’re making some sort of progress this is perfect. I’ve been having issues with my hands lately but I still wanted to feel like I was doing something progression wise in game, so I’ve been using the scrolls on my Shai. She started at level 56, and is now almost at level 59. Of course due to the nature of BDO you’re going to see almost invisible gains before too long (I think right now it takes me 30 minutes to earn 5% experience) but it’s still something, for nothing but AFK time.
These features mean a lot to me. Gaming is how I feel ‘normal’ and connected to the world. When I can’t play I feel sad, and when I can’t play because of a physical limitation it’s even worse. Very few games allow these types of features and I completely understand why (it only takes one person to ruin it all) but for a person like me, it’s almost priceless.
These scrolls also cap at 99% into your level, so you do have to pay some attention and go out and manually level that last 1% but it’s still a really nifty feature that I am sure I’ll be taking advantage of over time.
Through a series of very simple quests (I’ve just been working the main story quest, it’s much the same as FFXIV) I found my Shai at level 54 without any sort of effort at all. I know that levels start to get more difficult from here on out, but Pearl Abyss does their best to make it enjoyable – and addictive.
Speaking of addictive, one thing they also have is numerous coupon codes that you can use in game. In fact there’s an entire website dedicated to posting these online so others can find them. I must have entered at least 10 codes in the past two days, and they give potions, scrolls, and various other simple items that you would normally have to purchase from the pearl shop. Whether it’s brilliant marketing to get you to spend once you run out I’m not sure, but I certainly enjoy having a lot of extra goods kicking about.
Last night I was dealing with the side effects of my 2nd Moderna covid vaccination shot, so I didn’t get much gaming in. I did some fishing and picked up my daily Oasis treasure chests, but that was about it. Tonight I’m hoping to inch my way towards 58 – ideally I’ll be 60-61 before graduating the seasons server. Which brings me to my next subject – life skills. This is crafting, and something I am REALLY interested in, the main reason I’m playing, actually. You’d never know it because I’m having so much fun leveling up and exploring the world I have had zero time to work on those skills aside from horse training and fishing. I still need to watch videos on how everything works, and see how to make myself a life skiller. I’m also wondering if I need to do life skills on various characters, or can one character do it all. I was watching a stream last night where the player was using different characters for different things, and I’m curious as to what the benefit is.
As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!
September 15th started the new season (fall) for Black Desert Online, and of course I wasted no time making a new season character! This round I decided to go with a Shai class, the only support class in game. This character has a penalty to PvP, not many skills, and no big AoE attacks – but they get a bonus to life skills (crafting) and are SUPER CUTE and fun to play (IMO). Their attacks include hops, skips, and jumps, plus swinging a GIANT boomerang. It’s adorable.
This time around I have a lot more time (I came into the last season with only two weeks left to it) to level my character, and I know a lot more about the game. The season rewards have changed some, and there’s a ton of events going on at the same time (8?!) in what I can only assume is an attempt to get people to stay focused on BDO while Lost Ark and New World go through release. You can even get yourself a free copy of the game, if you sign up to play for free for 14 days and then reach level 50. Next time there’s maintenance, you’ll be given a copy. Speaking of, if you get three pieces of gear to Pen quality while playing in seasons, you can earn yourself the $90 upgrade to the game too (only 100 people from NA and 100 people from EU will be chosen for this). I think that would be awesome.
Another QoL change was a quest for a T5 mount. You used to have to progress to a certain point that was quite far in (my last character never made it there) before you could get it, but now you reach that point much easier. So I have a T8 female and T5 male horse – once I get those leveled up, I’m going to attempt to breed them and see what I end up with. I’m excited!
My Shai is nearly to the point that my Guardian was at quest-wise, so even though I’m technically re-doing content I just did, it doesn’t feel too bad. I’m also taking some time to work a bit of life skills along the way (AFK fishing while I write this post) and Shai start with gathering and alchemy at professional 1. I still know pretty much zilch about life skills, but I’ve been making my way through videos (slowly) in preparation for when I do get started in honest. I’ll probably continue to work the main quest on my Shai and try to reach 60-61 and then we’ll see where I’m at.
Honestly, BDO is not the game I thought I’d be playing right now, but I’m very glad that I am. It’s fun, there are tons of people around, and I haven’t had a day where I’ve been bored (yet). I know there are complaints about it being a Pay2Win game, but honestly I have not personally experienced any of that. I also haven’t spent any money on the game aside from my original purchase of it. Yes, you CAN purchase items from the shops, but all of the free things you’re given, alongside the event things, means I just haven’t found a need for anything extra. While that might change, I’m not really expecting it to.
I turned on the remastered graphics for a bit, and just wow. This game is beautiful! Of course my computer starts to scream and complain after some time with it on (especially in the cities) but it’s still just lovely.
A Pixel Nomad 