izigame.me

BDO has great graphics, and smooth combat animations, the appearance of multifaceted sandbox mmo, but at its core its very hollow. So if you are looking for a very pretty game with little substance inside then BDO is for you, if you looking for something with something deeper then look else where.
This game has a very badly written main story, ofc people would say no one plays a mmo for its story, but fundamentally mmo is still a form of RPG, and as such cannot escape the need of a story. Not only is the plot poorly written and cheesy, sometime even the dialogues are poorly written and hold little logical sense.
The combat initially is exciting, feels great with smooth and flashy animations, but it get repetitive fast, once you pass the initial excitement period, all that's left is endless grinds over the same areas on the same mobs for the same loots. While other games might at least cover it up with some sugar coating, this game leaves its grind out in the open with no sugar coating, even many of the story quests are as simple as kill X monsters, then the next quest is kill X more of the same monsters, instead of trying to do something interesting with each mission.
Not only do you have to deal with boredom while grinding, you also have to deal with other players trying to take your grind spot, which is perhaps the best part of BDO, its PVP. If you into pvp then maybe this game is for you, but do keep in mind its not without issues, for example if someone out gear you, instead of pvp becoming competitive, it just becomes a bullying fest. If you internet connection is slow, you might get lags and die before you get to see whats going on. Lastly, the system isn't balanced in the sense that whoever get CCed first will die, so a fight seldom last more than a few seconds, and if both side are similarly geared, the fight is largely luck determined by who landed a CC first.
Then comes its world famous life skill, again at a glance it looks great, a lot of different life skills you can specialise in and make silver, but at its core its still hollow and grindy. at least half of its life skills are AFK based, meaning you set up whatever your character want to do and you can go do something else, the few that isn't AFK, you basically repeat the same grindy nature like combat, for example with gathering, you just keep killing a bunch of animals and gather meat from their carcass.
So all in all I would say BDO is not really a fun game to play unless you like mindless grinding, at this point you might wonder then why have I clocked so many hours on it? The answer is simple, I like to run a semi AFK game on the background while I read, listen to audiobooks or watch tutorial videos on whatever I'm learning, that is the sole reason I've been playing this game for over 2 years, well the pandemic helped too.
Oh and I almost forgot to talk about its P2W nature, so in a nutshell, while the game is F2P, you cant really enjoy the game without buying a whole bunch of stuff, from inventory space to character carrying weight, to various life skill specific outfits, to pets which is needed to collect loots while grinding, the initial cost is pretty hefty, and lets not forget the monthly sub which is pretty much essential if you want a smooth playing experience. With that said, considering the amount of times I've been playing this game, the amount of money I spent in it is still kinda worth it, as it costed less than buying a new game very month, but whether its better to keep buying new games or spend similar amount of money into one P2W game is entirely up to you.
Hope the above information has helped, I've tried to be as unbias as possible, and feel free to ask me any further questions if you still unsure about BDO,

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ok lets do some replying on comments
"-If bdo combat gets boring,tell me one game that doesnt then?"
hmm Monster Hunter World, which I have clocked over 1500 hours, I've solo hunted Fatalis at least over 100 times, and it hasn't got old.
Elden Ring, Sekiro, Dark Souls, the list goes on, and if you were referring to MMO only, well I've had over 5000 hours in GW2 and I enjoyed its combat. Ultimately I'm looking for technical PvE combat, anything that you can get through by just bashing buttons mindlessly is boring for me
"Pardon me.Are you suggesting that gear should lose its importance?I mean thats what mmos are about right?Grind-get geared-kick ass."
To you maybe, but certainly not for everyone, GW2 for example while hav some minor gear progress, does not allow gears to interfere with PVP, which makes it much more fair and sporty. And there's a difference between only having gear progression, and having a game where you could get pked at anywhere outside a city by a griefing player who severely out gear you, if that is what you enjoy by all means, I'm just here to state the facts.
" -Oh our sincere apologies that your internet speed sucks and you play bdo on a potato.Totally PA fault here and not yours.How dare they not meet your standarts.Sue them lol."
Well again I'm merely stating the facts, no idea why you would get your undie all worked up, I hope PA is paying you for your somewhat valiant defense in their honor. However, as reality goes, there are always people who don't live close enough to the server, and those people will get lags even with a non potato PC, (a quick fyi latency has nothing to do with PC, its internet related, google it if you don't believe me) and they have to right to know how that could impact their gaming experience, which last I checked is what a review suppose to do.
"All and all im not saying bdo doesnt have issues etc. but if you want to give a thumbs down like that,at least make some sense or explain better just in case i missed your points.From what i read you are giving them a negative review just because it doesnt meet your needs."
hmm I fail to see any logic in your statement here, ofc I'm going to give it a thumb down because it didn't meet my needs or expectations, isn't that the whole point of writing a review?am I suppose to give it a thumb ups because it didn't meet my needs but met your needs instead?
Its pefectly fine if you don't agree with my issues, no one is forcing you to, but the above are my issues and I listed them out pretty clearly, which is what a review suppose to do, need I to remind you that “a review” is one person's perspective on a topic, it is not the universal truth or the holy gosple of God, in which case I did exactly as a review suppose to do.
"6000+ hours and leaves a negative review. Gamer logic."
Actually you have no logic, else you would've seen the reason I listed as to why I played this much, and furthermore, just because someone spend a lot of time doing something, does not mean they have to give it a positive review, go ask any husband or wife about their relationship and they will tell you this.
Now jokes aside, yes I spent alot of hours in BDO, but this game encourages AFK, I leave the game running 24/7, so those hours are not my actual playing hour, and thus does not indicate how fun this game actually is. And as I already mentioned in my original text, I leave the game running while I do other things, during my 2 years of playing BDO, I did a whole course on Special Relativity, I studied Astrophysics, I listened through 3000 years of Chinese history, I listend through Wheel of Time twice, A song of ice and fire once, Dune, Witcher saga and more, I'm also on my way to another degree, so yeah I would thank BDO for keeping my fingers busy while my mind was elsewhere, the pinnicle example of a failed relationship.