September 2021

A Bit about Pets

stargrace September 20, 2021 0Comment

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.

Plus they’re just dang cute.

No Time to Game? No Problem!

stargrace September 19, 2021 0Comment

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.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Leveling A Shai

stargrace September 18, 2021 0Comment

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!