Lets Talk: B&S vs BDO

Welcome to another edition of Let's Talk. A post where Riot will talk about two upcoming Korean games, and how to pick the right one for you.

Many of you have started/or have been following the Korean scene know that two games are currently upcoming for launch in NA in the nearish future (2016). Close enough, that most people aren't likely to be able to commit to both games for an extended period of time (enough to keep a division healthy). So a vast majority of people playing these games are going to have one of these games as a primary focus. The question is; Which game should I focus on? And that answer depends on the types of games you enjoy. So lets break down each of these games into its core components.

Blade and Soul

• Blade and Soul aesthetic are based on Wuxia. It has a focus on the martial arts, magic, chi, and the ability to glide through the air. Think of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
  
• The game can be labelled as a Themepark. It presents a decent questing system and a linear storyline to progress through to level your character. It has a number of activities which are separated from each other such as arena pvp, faction pvp, dungeons, raid-like content and battlegrounds.
• The combat system is a hybrid between MMOs and fighting games. It features blocking, grabs, stuns, stun breaks, air dodging, pulls, and combos. Ping is extremely important in PvP as there is no GCD (global cooldown), skills are animation based.
• The primary end-game of the game is Arena-based PvP (leaderboards, ELO, ranking) and dungeon running until we receive the raid patches.
• There is no healing in Blade and Soul other than slight personal regeneration skills. It is about avoiding and mitigating damage while dealing it.
• The gear is normalized within PvP which removes any 'gear advantage' possible. It comes down to class matchups, skill builds, and skills.
• It is heavily balanced for PvE dungeons and 1vs1 arena play.
• The game with be free to play, with optional cash shop and subscription for bonuses.

Black Desert Online
(Please not that this information is subject to change because BDO is still within closed beta)

• BDL aesthetics are based on western fantasy. It has a focus on knights, sprawling countrysides, witches/wizards, and typical medieval periods. Think Conan or King Arthur.
• The game can be labelled as a pseudo-sandbox. It has a number of different activities such as fishing, crafting, trading, and open world PvP (based on guild warfare). It also features a housing system and the game isn't primarily instanced.
• The combat system is very similar to Vindictus (heavy hitting, limited action set). Mob AI is fairly simply, and they are usually rounded up to defeat in a pack using AoE skills. The purpose of PvE is primarily for gathering gear.
• The primary end-game of the game is guild vs guild sieges and open world PvP.
• No healer as far as I know.
• Gear is important for PvP. It will be important to grind/farm/craft gear in order to stay competitive.
• The game is buy to play with an optional cash shop. (Not 100% sure)

In summary,

Blade and Soul is a game that is great for people who enjoyed highly competitive PvP within small groups/solo and dungeon content. It presents a great story while leveling but it is a linear progression through the zones. The combat system has an extremely high skill cap. Blade Desert Online is a great game for people who are interested in a large open world with a number of activities that tie into each other. The primary end-game is open world PvP and guild warfare while it relies on farming/grinding mobs to gather gear/resources to do so.

tl:dr;

Dungeons/ELO Arena PVP = Blade and Soul
Guild Warfare/Open World = Black Desert Online

 

I was too busy trying to catch up to yalls lvl so I can PerVerPer I got jelly of yall in TS "is he flag? yeah! KILL HIM!"

 

@Ironjaw ROFL
After playing a little of both B&S and BDO, I have found that I will most likely focus more on BDO. I personally just enjoyed the looks and combat style of BDO more.

 

no doubt ill be playing that too =), gonna wait till its more polished though

 

It is still going to be like a year before they have any real game done or even close to launch. : / CU and Crowfall are in the same boat in terms that they are still very far off.

 

So is this like Guild Wars 2? Also guild sieges with no healers would be very interesting to see how this works.

Edit: I see it's a potion spamming kind of game.

 

Black Desert is far more like ArcheAge than Guild Wars2. Combat system looks a bit more fluid than AA from what I have seen, but otherwise looks like a very similar game that will take big numbers with a strictly regimented plan of attack is Xen wants to be successful in it.

After deliberating and looking into B&S and BDO a bit more, I think I will be skipping both. Neither is releasing with what I consider legitimate balanced PvP. They each have their own pitfalls, so pick your poison. If wild gear imbalance and gear-grindy progression don't bother you, then BDO. If you are willing to bet on NC Soft promising things will be released later to fix balance and give legitimacy to a title, then go with B&S.

 

The class wizard/witch can be built up to be a support class as they don't need to get the heal skill if they don't want to, from what i saw the heal is AOE but you have to be next to caster to receive the heal/buff during combat as the AOE pulses outward from caster. While @Rakion and I were killing mobs I saw that the heal was more of an offhand heal while pots are on CD. but don't quote me on that as we were still pretty low levels and the heal he had was only rank 1.

 

There is so much going in game that its hard to explain it all and its best to be experienced. I too had my doubts about the game due to what ive read online. But I said fuck it and ended up preordering since I didn't end up playing Albion. After playing it myself I enjoyed it a lot. But i know some are interested and are still holding back from preorder that's ok. but if have questions that you want answered to help you decide on playing this or not please let me know today what your main concerns/questions are and I will try my best to answer/record vids before cbt1 ends as some i may not have to answer and need to look for it in-game. a few key points i found out.

-The guilds success literally depends on the members and their participation in guild missions. From what I can see initially max members is 15 you must then do guild missions (has time limit) to level up your guild to increase capacity/guild funds. Guild money rewards goes straight to guild bank which leader or officers cannot touch they can only control how its used pay for new missions/upgrades/contract pay to members.

-Player to Player item trade is limited to certain items (cant even transfer money to each other from what we saw) so in other words you will need to use auction house.

-If you want to craft gear/boats/wagons the only way to get required materials is either buy them from AH, make it yourself or have your workers make it for you. (you cannot have a guildmate make it and trade) you will need to earn your belongings. so when you see someone with a fancy-smancy mount/boat they built that themselves with limited help from their guild.

-You will need in-game money for everything since the game has huge in-game money sinks, ways to make money:
Trading - based on your profession, the items made/caught from those profession can be sold on AH or made into a pack to sell to an NPC in different location from where it was made. The farther the more bonus.
Guild contracts - your guild can offer you a contract for a number of days ranging from 1 day - 30 days which will include a set daily pay from guild bank

-you have to physically run/ride anywhere you want to go, there is no teleport (running vs riding has their pro/cons) if you run you end up raising your stamina/hp/carry limit if you ride your horse is the one that gets benefits.

and so much more....

tldr - we named our donkeys Kyoji rode it off a cliff and let it drown =P

 

I havnt felt that bdo has been grindy yet. Havnt gotten to the late game but leveling has been fast and the questline has been diverse. Theres a ton to do and its got some longevity. Combat is really fun

 

I am curious on how a game with normalized gear in Arena and includes a majority of its character classes in Master ELO is unbalanced(1 vs 1, which the game is designed for).

 

This is a flavor thing, which is why I stated it as "what I consider legitimate, balanced PvP". My opinion is that 1v1 is not balanceable. No matter what, 1v1 is paper, rock, scissors. This is a mathematical certainty. That said it can be entertaining anyway and some people are fine with that, I just prefer a strict, perhaps unrealistic definition of balance that this game does not live up to in its current incarnation. The lack of team oriented multiple win condition structured PvP is what makes me say it is not legit PvP. It looks more like Tekken than anything. Not a knock on it as a source of entertainment, but 1v1 fighters are doomed to imbalance, though many have made immense efforts to eliminate the imbalance 1v1 always boils down to death match and is inevitably reduced to paper, rock, scissors. The only time there can be pure balance is when opponents are playing the same class.

In addition, the reading that I did indicated that the devs themselves stated the lvl 50 patch is the PvP balance patch and that it is not going to be in on release.


I know you are hyped for this one, and I am not trying to convince others to not play it, it just isn't for me.

 

No worries, I was just curious on what your breakdown was. Every game isn't for everyone. I was super excited for Archeage but opted out after how Trion handled the founders packs and beta. Sometimes the company is make or break for some people.