Greetings,
I have been playing since release with 2 major breaks due to lack of content (life skill gear, caphras) at the time. My whole agenda was to push mastery up (stopped at master 28 gathering currently) and get ready to dive into life skill gear. Then to use life skills as main income method to jump into a possible end game grind or - wishful thinking- a new pve endgame that may (never) be realized in the end.

It took 1 change to completely drive me away; the 70% chance to use energy on gathering and the removal of a way to buy back energy with silver (pc had this as wine they could purchase to pump up energy in exchange for silver).

I used to gather around 2h a day or for a given play time and then switch to afk. With the energy consumption change, these 2h can't even be done daily without a new set up. My current self made go to statistic is: 600 meat gathered in 10 minutes (before loggia but with hedgehog), this will consume roughly "160 gathering actions" (i calculated 2.5 meat per action + 1.25 via hedgehog to 3.75 per action, arriving at 160 total in 10 min.) which translate into 112 energy lost (without regeneration). At 480ish energy, it would take around 43 minutes (without energy reg) before running out of energy. Any added energy due to recovery can never fill the consumption, even with a large energy pot every 10 minutes, this rate CANNOT be recovered.

The only working set up would be
1) buy energy potions and have breaks
--> not possible due to empty market, not possible with all alt characters using energy conversion
2) buy cash shop energy potions
--> a slap in the face and middle finger for anyone who thinks this is ok
3) sleep afk in bed with all buffs and wait half a day to recover the energy to then drain it in the evening
--> this is a hefty game play barrier and it ultimately drives me away

As a comparison: imagine you could only fight in pve using agris fever points. When you run out of points, all your skills are being blocked and you cannot do combat. That would make you quit, right? It is the same thing for a life skill player when it comes to energy.

A final remark on the decision: "Gathering was too powerful income wise, so we did the change"
I'd rather pay millions to refresh my energy in game and have a balanced income that is lower compared to pve, than being barred from gathering and forced to sleep or buy energy pots for real cash.

Conclusion:
BDO has always been a p2progress game and it barely managed to keep my interest due to such consumer unfriendly set ups. But with this change, you blew me out for good. This feedback is not a rant. I regret the change and i made my decision based on practicality. Your game drives me away.

Fix:
+ Put back in a method to exchange silver for energy

With the simple change to allow energy users an equally fair play time, BDO would keep a core pillar of game play playable. I highly urge any dev who reads this to relay this feedback. Due to the mass event posts, i am placing this last part of the post here to make it visible again.

Yo on then not silly comment bout Agris fever depending on character slots u can have multiple chars with sure gota get life skill up but after master 1 ur good it'll lvl up after time or farm Behr till ther guru 1 ur on locking urself out not using alts

Disagree completely. The market is now screwed with an abundance of materials, particularly meats/bloods etc and stupid lifeskillers selling everything at minimum. Don't want any more mats to enter cm. Even with the imperial box turn ins getting an added boost to price, it still isn't worth it to cook all your mats and do them, you make more selling the raw ingredients or even the meal.

I’m a little confused, do you only life on one character and I f so, there is no reason to only life on one, especially when you have a choice to set up several with the free slots available.

Shai comes with Professional gathering and alchemy, also has a good LT for afk processing/fishing to regen energy and to make silver, having more than one Shai for life goes without saying...

Energy pots can be purchased with loyalty points, food available to increase energy pool so we have a larger pool to start with and pre ordering pots in advance is a viable option just like waiting for food, elixir and droughts as these equate to your Agris analogy because proficient comes from utilising foods, elixirs and droughts and the best gear to maximise gains, not the grind itself, so in essence I can see the point your making in regards to Agris fever and the energy pool but Agris fever does have limits and there is more than one lifeskill to make silver, in saying that you could also PvE to utilise the extra silver per day to support energy purchase from CM and either fish/sailing or trade to regen energy at the same time, but again, that’s a choice.

However:

Removing and not adjusting is a kick in the balls to any life player and I do agree and see your point in an outright removal is wrong, PA announced at the Heidel ball that they wanted monster hunting to be the best source of income and changes to be made to monster hunting is fine to increase that income, but, nerfing energy so that life is less viable is a poor move as it directly effects the manual professions and not the afk professions which if any should have seen the nerf instead!

I would suggest putting a feedback in regards to that effect to see if it can sway their thinking, whereby you can make millions afk but PA have restricted the manual lifeskill instead of the passive income which makes more sense!

I do not wish to get into an argument over facts.

- It doesn't matter how many characters you play with (i have 20 slots used), as you can only have 1 active and the rest gets offline energy regen. The amount of energy swtiched over to 1 main however, is less due to the conversion fee. It should also be noted, that mastery levels exist for a reason and thus higher % chance of loot. The notion of gathering on many characters is a secondary band aid and not a solid solution.

Again, it's like having the agris fever example, but now you switch to an alt to keep playing.

If BDO had a family based mastery system for life skills and a family based character level, i would agree. It doesn't.

And lastly, like i said in the first post, you CANNOT regen more energy than you use. It makes no sense to have this play style cut off from being actively played, after it's income has been reduced to a set lower level. I do not have a problem concerning the price of energy; If 50 energy would cost 10x the amount, i can still live with that.

The devs probably never intended to have life skills being played equally or more than doing combat. All their choices to push or curb life skills via new gear or higher energy loss is a red flag. And the CalpheON ball showed there was/is a clear discrepancy when it comes to what life skill players hoped for and what the game devs see in BDO, imo.

Agris fever has a cap and accumulate daily, once used it’s done!

AFK sleep when sleeping and also regen an alt back to full during the day and with twenty slots, energy shouldn’t be a problem for two hours a day, the fact is, I know with having twenty two slots!

Your calculation in regards to meat per ten minutes consuming one hundred and twelve energy is skewed given the variables and only obtaining 3.75 per gather with a hedgehog is way off mark!!

Facts:

600 meat; 160 gathering actions in available seconds; 10 minutes equates to 600 seconds and 160 gathering actions equates to 3.75 seconds per action, wrong, if you life your gathering action for butchering should be two seconds!!!

Which means your energy consumption is miss calculated and your gathering more with your hedgehog and the extra accumulated time is down to moving between packs, using skills to kill said monsters! which also means your time gathering for the energy available is extended, thus your rant is just a rant and holds no weight, Or! your set up isn’t  at max proficiency, but, I’m guessing it is with 28 Mastery..... or is it and if not, your energy consumption calculation is even further off the mark!

What I will do today though with my Mastery seven gatherer, is Farm some meat, with a hedgehog and two second gather time and see what the results are in both energy consumption and meat gathered!

"Agris fever has a cap and accumulate daily, once used it’s done!"
It was an example to shift the mind. There is no 100% mirror effect here, but the principle shows a potential and thus induces being more open minded. Don't hang yourself up on that.

"AFK sleep ..." Is a game play barrier for an active play style. One can utilize the sleep mechanic with buffs to get another go at gathering in the evening, but the pure fact that you have to put a break on gathering was being in the centre of critique.

"Your calculation ..." is spot on. Here is why:

1) start an alc stone buff and deactivate auto. You now have 10 minutes of buff time up and counting.
2) the average meat proc is set in the middle at 2.5 (pre mastery effect). If there is something off here, let me know.
3) the average hedgehog proc at 50% chance was for the same amount = half the 2.5 = 1.25.
4) 3.75 meat total average gathered per action. Now divide 600 meat with 3.75 = 160 actions done (average)
5) at a 70% chance to consume energy (attention! this is the NEW rate i put here), this translates into 112 times energy is consumed and 48 times not (average)
6) now add any energy regen you get in 10 minutes, including a large pot. The total consumption is higher than the regeneration.

That was my point. I tested this for months at the deer spot and managed to get a perfect rotation that resulted in 600 meat gathered during the 10 minute buff duration. Your counter argument is wrong, as my starting point for the calculation is still 600 meat in 10 minutes - which is the fastest rate with close to no downtime -, including the 2 seconds gathering time and around 1 sec to move and kill the next deer. I did this with a ranger; you can move and 1 shot(slide) into the dead deer and start gathering. Packs can be aoe shot and then quickly butchered. The respawn rate is high enough to allow a seamless gathering if you don't get the attention of the bats sitting close to the spot and at times attack you (so you have to clear those out, too while moving to the next deer).

If you still have a problem with the math, i am sorry. But the numbers are spot on, otherwise i would not have written the feedback. There are certainly better ways to lead the argument, but the fact remains that whatever we do, we drain more energy than we can regenerate with pots included and we are forced to afk break or band aid alt switch to keep playing the gatherer style.

One thing for sure is starting a post with,  “I do not want to get into an argument” is a sure way of saying your looking for one 😁 and that’s from life skills!

If your initial post had the relevant information regarding class used, monster gathered, rotation and time spent then we wouldn’t have gone this far!

Analogy whether mirrored or not and having alts were still promoted, thus used in reference within the reply, I’m not hung up, just merely stating the obvious!

Which brings me right back to my original suggestion when actually agreeing with yourself and promoting a way of thinking for a reasonable arguement in regards to the problem with energy!

AFK processing, cooking, Alchemy etc is passively produced and in turn converts to a higher profit from gathering and any player that’s able to do so benefits from said actions and only the active gatherer loses out and especially if the gatherer sells, rather than converts! which means those with passive empires still make big!

So, send feedback with your findings and make reasonable arguement into what actually makes the profit, rather than get caught up with what doesn’t need to be said!

I agree, an energy nerf to the sole gatherer sucks and from my experience over the years, it’s the conversion of the materials that make the highest return!

This will be my last answer to you specifically, as everything else has been said and you still do not get all the points being made.

- it is NOT about income or return rate or silver in general
- It IS about active gathering being reduced comapred to grinding, to show that it is unreasonable to the point of a player leaving
- a personal statistic has been used to show numbers which you did not agree to

I do not recognize your authority on the matter of what i see as feedback/usable data and points of argument. Where you tried to intervene in feedback and discredit my data, i tried to reason only to see your last post drfiting again.

Here is a pic of my ranks, and there are 17b silver sitting in my mp, to show you that silver is not an issue at all. Again, for the last time, it is about actively playing the game in a way that was once in game and then got removed to lower the silver income. It drives me away.

It’s a shame you missed the point on PA not wanting life skill to out perform making silver over grinding, but then again, you know what I’m talking about and what PA is doing and why, thanks for the screen shot, it all makes sense now!

Like you state, reasoning has an open mind and it’s yourself that has shown failure to reason; as I have understood what you have been saying and made suggestions, others have made suggestions that are viable but all you have shown is rejection for your own reason and wanting to use just one class to do everything!

Monster hunting and PvP is the core aspect of the game and lifeskill being like all other MMO is a side dish to enjoy, if PA wants to nerf lifeskilling to balance the game it’s then up to the player to see reasoning and to offer a reasonable counter suggestion!

Thats my point!

Bye, you won’t be missed!