I uh, don't want to train horses and fish endlessly in a virtual world. But I guess it's good you're having fun. I'm all about combat, so that sounds boring as shit quite frankly.
Fevir had a great video on how BDO and BnS despite both having combat that looks similar, is actually very different beneath the surface. As someone who plays both games, I agree with him;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIKIoOM5gJI
I don't believe these games exist in a vacuum. It's true that things like during trade missions where you carry a lot of heavy stuff will increase your strength. It's true that people are being told to not use their horse as they are leveling up, so they build up their stamina.
BDO has incredible combat. It feels like Dragons Dogma meets Dynasty Warrior meets Soul Calibur.
It's not a game I think will ever have a e-sport scene. BDO is wayyy too crazy to be able to do what BnS does with it's balance.
In BDO the leveling doesn't stop. There is no end. There is no cap at lvl 50. So someone who plays 8 hours a day is going to grind and wreck the shit out of everyone else. The game has a xp penalty loss when you die. And your gems (gear upgrades) might even break when you die. Add to the fact that once you hit lvl 45 you're fucked. You are free to be ganked by everyone outside of safe zones (towns).
To sum it up- BDO is incredible unfair and biased towards "No lifers". But the other side of the coin is that it is in my mind- The most immersive, exciting and and heart pumping MMO we have seen in more of a decade.
So it's a vast contrast to BnS. BnS which is just about getting through the grindy shit to end game, and then it's normalized gear in the arena for the skill > gear.
I think both games are fantastic, and they compliment each other well. People would do well to have them both to compliment each other. In BDO, it's true. There are things you can do while AFK. You can do things like taking a trade mission- carry a bunch of shit on your horse wagon to the other side of the world. You then set auto pathing, and the character does it by itself. It follows the roads and everything. So you can go afk or just chat, or eat or browse.
AFK fishing is a thing. In fact it's a big thing to use the "Minimized mode" where you just minimize the game to the trey on your desktop while your character crafts, auto fishes, or goes in a loop to build up their strength/stamina or whatever.
Weight is a big thing in BDO too, and you're constantly bogged down by not being able to just do shit in conveince.
There is no fast travel. It takes forever. You cant just leave your horse somewhere. It'll die. With your shit and items still on the horse.
So all these things, all these deliberate design choices makes BDO very immersive and exciting. I played it in the KR and RU betas and I thought the game was okay decent. But the braindead AI and easy mode really circumvented that. In the US release grinding is still a thing. Literally. There are no real breadcrumbs here to guide you. quests don't give xp, and you have other sorts of xps that is massively important. It is mandatory you use your alts. You need them as they deplete energy when trying to do various tasks. You don't have to trade in BDO to win. Farming is still one of the most effective ways to make money, and the games housing / buying workers, creating resources still encourages action players to buy houses, build trade networks and so on.
The game has clear disadvantages to BnS. BnS while offensive itself, has a much superior UI to BDO. The UI in BDO is a serious fucking problem. One that UX designers need to study closely, because it's a mess.
The translation and english voices are somehow- and I don't know how they did it, but they did, worse than Blade and Soul. Holy fuck is this garbage. It speaks to the games artistic splendor that you are able to feel so immersive in the world, when the lore, characters and narrative is a complete clusterfuck. I have no words for how atrocious it is. I press R (skip) through everything. R R R RRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRR RRRRRR.
The biggest surprise for me has been the character customization and lack of gear. Surprisingly, there are quite a few clones in BDO. You wouldn't think so with that character creator, but the gender/race look has made it so that many look similar. dyes and outfits behind a paywall with no real current looking gear in the game means that everyone looks the same.
BnS has a lot. And I do mean, a lot of variety across its races, and good lucking hairstyles, faces and so on between the races. And while BnS has a lot of cash shop outfits, you can't deny the volume and breath in which it exists in.
I love BDO and BnS. We are way above the cut of what was set out with in Lineage 2, TERA and ArcheAge.
I think both games are really solid, and I think everyone should own both. You just need to play them for their various strengths and weaknesses. BDO is more than the sum of its parts. I've never seen a eastern/western mix like that before. The ire of exploration and how the navigation feels is like a mix of harvest moon and skyrim. It gives me flashbacks to Star Wars Galaxies and Ocarina of Time.
And it ends up being so confusing- As Kintaro points out, the game does a bad job of explaining you how the systems work. The game basically says: fuck you, google this shit.
And once you get it, its logical enough, but it took me a while to understand the gearing (no gear progression at all), the node system (every town, and resource gathering place has to be connected), the knowledge system (npcs wont talk to you before you have discovered enemies, places, items, books, other npcs < aka talk to everyone, kill anything, press interacte with anything).
The community is over its heels over the awakening updates. BDO goes Guild Wars 2, and everyone gets a second weapon that circumvents the weakness and lackings of each class. Warriors get a two-handed sword (Berserk!), tamer gets a staff, sorceres gets a scytche, valkyries get a lance, and so on. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrCelDD_jE )
It further stipulates what BnS also has going: fuck the holy trinity. fuck it to the pits of hell. GW2 has done a 180 and now has healers in its game.
But it seems unlikely that BDO will go the same route. They have wowed to make more hard content, but instanced content doesn't seem to be a part of the plan. I think that is a good thing.
But I also think that locking these awakening weapons behind a lvl 56 level requirement is crazy. the grinding after lvl 50 is immense. and the potential for ganking everywhere.. you can imagine the frustration and drama that will arise over BDO. Almost to the point where you want to ask yourself if you want to indulge in the stress, chaos and unfairness that surrounds the game. Fevir made another really great commentary video on what makes BDO so special. It's very true IMO;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwyqxm_r1rE )
BDO also has awakening skills, where your character through a random RNG selection will get certain random skills boosted through a one-time thing. yes, your characters talents/specialization will be randomly selected. There is a way to reset these until you get the awakening skills you want, and it is also possible to buy a skill reset, but it's pretty clear that this game is not going to be a e-sport game. At least I don't think so.
And that itself is BnS main strength. BnS has made the impossible and taken competitive fighting games and blended it with an RPG online. It's for these reasons I feel that BDO and BnS are not competitors. They compliment each other really well.
I know who he is, but I haven't followed Asmongold- He is big in the WoW community (?). He made a BDO review recently. And I thought it was interesting as he came from WoW, and didn't engage in crafting at all. His review seemed sincerer and honest, and I got a good sense of what he fancied;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXMtDD_txnU
And I'll just say this- With Everquest Next cancelled MMORPG genre essentially is dead in the water. There is nothing big AAA on the horizon. And you see it even in Korea where the most anticipated games are now Lineage Eternal and Lost Ark- Two Isometric Diabloesque MMOs.
And in the west we are going full MMO hybrid with the likes of Division, Destiny and Star Citizen. I think that trend will continue.
There is some things like Bless Online (Korean GW2-WoW hybrid) and Moonlight Blade (Chinese WoW-BnS) but I don't think there is enough difference here. I think Civilization Online and Tree of Savior has promise, but we're in a spot now, where we have had a whole category of big budget MMOs who have performed below expectations.
And it's annoying to me personally, as someone who plays both BnS and BDO to hear people shit on both while trying to rile up some kind of "its dying. everybody leaving" atmosphere. Both games know what they are about, and are comfortable in it.
