One of the key reasons why newer players leave BDO is griefing. I constantly see my new player guildmates frustrated that they get killed back to back by the same person because there are almost no consequences to going negative in Karma. For long term success of this game, we must keep players in the game as long as possible, and in order to do that we must slow down griefing a little. Not all negative karma players are griefers, some just are defending grinding territory’s but at the same time, other players need a chance to grind too. Generally, if a person has negative karma, it means he has killed multiple players or a single player who wasn’t flagged at least a few time. It’s too easy to go red and karma doesn’t really even matter in the game if we consider what the consequences are.

Now, I’m not suggesting a huge hurdle to negative karma players; I was one at some point and I still kill people attempting to take my grinding spot, but I am suggesting we throw a little risk into the pot for those negative karma players. Introducing a respawn time for negative karma players is one way to slow down the ability of these players to grief, while not making it overwhelmingly difficult and risky to function as a negative karma player. By putting on a 1 minute to 5 minute respawn timer based on the amount of negative karma a person has, we can throw a little reasonable punishment at those players and make them think a few seconds before killing somebody.

Basically a rough draft of what can be done is this:

200001 to 300000Karma - 3% increase to drop rate

100001 to 200000 Karma - 2% increase to drop rate

0 to 100000 Karma - 1% increase to drop rate

-1 to -100000 Karma - 30 second revive delay

-100001 to -200000 Karma - 60 second revive delay

-200001 to -300000 karma - 90 second delay

And so on down to -1mil Karma.

We can incentivize positive karma and lightly punish negative Karma to balance the game. We can even create Karma “tiers” with fancy titles to make people feel like it means more.

As things stand, we will drop in player count due to the harshness of open world pvp, and without a counterbalance we will lose the casual players who just wanna play the game. If we don’t balance this Karma system then we should remove it completely as right now it holds no real weight.

What do you all think? Constructive criticism please. 

Let me tell u a little story that may or may not be useful to some of your guild mates with issues. Ill start off by saying outside of 1 hour trying BDO on pc to see if i wanted to play it on console that i have no prior experience playing BDO. I did however look stuff up prior and asked alot of questions and had a good teacher(shout out to )

my black desert experience began as such.

Ultimate edition head start.

Day 1. Grinded my butt off to get to 50.

Day 2. Hit 50 and was introduced to open pvp. Didnt really get killed or griefed but people tried. I made a second character(same class) and transferred my gear. Leveled her to 49(to avoid pvp until i was ready.

Day 3-10. Focused on worker nodes, worker empire, contribution and knowledge gain for energy and passive income. 

Day 11-17(being when mediah dropped) farmed areas for money and accessories and finished building a full set of +15 armor and weapons.(still under 50 and didnt have to deal with pvp).

By the time mediah launched i was prepared and geared enough to clear all the content and deal with any possible pvpers because i did enough proper planning. Now less then a month into the game i am lvl 56 and pretty good gear score(as compared to some pc vets.) Im not top tier by any stretch, but taking my time before i passed the lvl 50(pvp) barrier i allowed myself a foundation to grow on. 

I know this isnt an exact answer to the direct issue u have, but hopefully some insight to help your guild members having these issues until they do something about the system

Thanks for the insight Hieraphant, it’s good to see that you weren’t griefed much, you enjoy the game and found a method that works for you.

I would like to counter argue a few points however;

You had the ultimate edition which put you in a position where griefers weren’t too far ahead of you as they were just starting out as well. The amount of pkers in game were miniscule at the time. But for players without that head start they suffer from constant pking and even when I come and kill the pker and save somebody it doesn’t do anything. He can keep coming non stop without consequences. 

For a player just starting right now, unless he finds a strong guild to take him in, he will be griefed at many points during the quest line. Just yesterday I killed 4 players who camped outside heidel by the kamasylva temple and killed anybody afk running by. They just respawned and kept doing it to passerby. Imagine not having a guild or mentor and just running into instances like that back to back. As the game goes on, more people will get geared and it becomes harder for new players to insert themselves into this world. Guilds like Apex, Havok, Panic, and Blood are already running wild.

My problem isn’t just my guild mates getting griefed and me having to run over and kill a pker or two, it’s that I want this game to have as many players as possible and I hate to lose those new players (regardless of if they’re in my guild or not, on my server, or anything) to griefers. 

While I say this, I’m also not trying to stop pking or make it too risky to perform. I just want to balance the karma system to allow newer players to enjoy the game and make this game last longer. One of the reasons I left BDO on pc was because I came in so late that despite having a 450gs I would get grieved. I eventually quit and I’m a very competitive gamer. There’s no risk to karma in the pc version and we have a chance to do it well on Xbox with a new world.

I understand, but even though i had a 3 day head start i made a second character and decided not to go to level 50 until i felt comfortable and ready. With the gear i have obtained i could put it on a lvl 49 and safely explore and grind most areas in mediah. The game is not quite at a point where someone would be forced to progress past 50 if they were not ready. Rushing to a high level is 1 aspect of the game, but u can take it slower and prepare yourself for the pvp scene. Building a foundation of income helps while your out exploring and farming for gear. The only reason i passed to 50 and beyond was lvl 51 was required for mediah. I swapped all my gear from my 49 to my 50, went and hit 51 and played mediah and was ok. I have since leveled 4 characters and run them through the story down different paths for knowledge and energy and run into little issues.

Again. People feel the need to level when u could stay at 49 and experience most of the game without grief until your ready.