Everyday Ray

After playing Blade & Soul (see my tips for BnS) for a few weeks, I switched to playing Black Desert Online, a different Korean MMO.  BDO launched Thursday, March 3, 2016 in North America, and at first glance, it seemed similar to Tera and Blade & Soul.  However, they’re not the same, at least as far as game content goes.  Interesting to note that the number of BnS viewers surged on Twitch during the first few weeks after launch, but that number has been dwindling over time.  I wonder how BDO will do, what do you think?

I had the chance to play the 2nd Closed Beta Test for BDO and gathered some tips for noobs like me who are familiar with MMOs but are playing Black Desert Online for the first time. There are lots of new guides in English for this game, but I had trouble finding the answers to these questions so here are the things I wish I knew when I first started playing the game.  Hopefully, they will help you during your first 24 hours of gameplay.

Question: My new spells aren’t automatically appearing in my action bar!  There’s not enough room in the action bar to have all my skills and spells in it — how can I display more of my skills on the screen?

Answer: This is on purpose, and you can’t display more keys on the action bars.  In fact, if you do use your skills via the hotbar, you’ll do less damage and ultimately consume more resources than if you just memorize the key combos and execute them as such.  It requires you to think about what skills you really want to put in the action bar.  This is not a “tab target, hit 1-2-3 1-2-3” kind of game so you’ll have to get used to this playstyle.  Think of it like a challenge!

Question: I read that I should speak with every NPC in the game.  Is there an easy way to search for the undiscovered NPCs?

Answer: You don’t literally have to speak with every NPC in the game — but you should talk to the ones with the exclamation point above their heads or are a question mark on the minimap.

There’s no way to easily find each of them in your minimap, however, you’ll be able to see how many undiscovered NPCs there are in your area with the Search function, but you won’t be able to auto-navigate to them by name (like with the NPCs you’ve already met). You are able to auto-navigate to NPCs by function. For example, you can choose Nearby NPC: Cooking, and you’ll see where the nearest Cook is, even if you haven’t discovered them yet.

So no, you can’t automatically discover knowledge NPCs.  You also can’t make your field of view darker in the minimap, but you can adjust the whole screen.

Question: I’m wearing a helmet/hat but I can’t get it to display on my character.  How do I show the head piece that I’m wearing?

Answer: Make sure you’re wearing a helmet. Then click the Hide/Show Helmet button.

Edit: Only works for witches/wizards unless you have an “Outfit” skin that came with a visible hat.

Question: There are way too many white dots on my minimap — how do I hide players from my minimap so I can get rid of them?

Answer: You can’t.

Question: How do I split stacks in my bag? I tried Control/Alt/Shift + Left Click/Right Click. I need to separate the stacks so I can complete this cooking quest without wasting the other ingredients.

Answer: You’re able to do simple cooking + crafting without the need for a House and Cooking Utensil. With that being said, any “simple” crafting you do will not waste any stacks so you don’t need to split the amount before you place it in the UI.  However, when you do use the cooking utensil (aka kitchen aka stovetop aka hob) you do need exact number of ingredients so you’re prompted to split stacks before you place it in your cauldron.

Question: How do I make fish stack? Why do the fish not stack?

Answer: You can’t make fish stack. Fish don’t stack because everytime you catch a fish, it triggers a timer to go off on the fish — when the countdown is complete, the fish will lose value so sell it within 24 hours!

Question: I tried catching mackerel forever but it just won’t bite.  How do I catch mackerel for this quest?

Answer: Pray to RNGesus.  For me, I had to use one of my Luck+ scrolls on top of the bait in order to boost my fishing and give me a better chance at fishing up a mackerel.  You may also need to just level up your fishing so you can catch something other than seaweed.  Tip: save fishing quests for when you go AFK — make sure you have plenty of room in your bag, equip fishing rod, go near a body of water, and hit the spacebar to initiate fishing.  After you get a bite, after 3 minutes, you’ll auto-reel and auto-recast your fishing line.  To save CPU, Disconnect the game and when it prompts you to Send to Tray, check the box so the game will minimize to your system tray while you go eat more hot pockets.

Question: I’ve escorted the Loggia guy to person X in Velia but I can’t complete the quest! How do I drop off the Loggia guy?

Answer: Make sure you’re at the right person you’re supposed to drop him off to.  I picked up 2 quests to drop off 2 different guys riding donkeys to 2 different people and kept trying to drop off the Loggia guy/Porter guy to the wrong quest giver.

Question: There’s a slight delay between when I let go of the key for walking and when my character actually stops walking. Is that lag? Why does my character not stop walking immediately as soon as I let go of the “W” key?

Answer: If you’re not in combat, your toon will trot to a soft stop. If you’re in combat, you’ll have more accuracy in your stops.  You’re automatically put into non-combat mode after a certain period of time.

Question: I’m trying to sell something to the Trade Manager and I keep getting a note saying my stuff will sell at 30% less than the best value but the town I’m in is connected to everything around me. How do I get full profit for what I’m about to sell?

Answer: Make sure the nodes are connected with a yellow (not just white) line.  To do that, see this helpful video:

Basically, you have to connect the node you’re trying to sell at with the node you gathered the material from.  To connect nodes, you have to go to the Node Manager of each node (which may not be an NPC) and invest Contribution Points into it.  If it says “The preceding Node needs to be connected before you can invest” that means you need to find a connecting node that’s the missing link in the chain of nodes you want to connect.

If there’s any other “noob” questions I missed, let me know and I’ll add them to this list!

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Stay tuned for my 20 Best Tips Before Level 20, where I post about nodes, workers, and how to make beer and why it’s important!

 

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