Tips for new players in BDO

There is a lot to learn in BDO so please take these tips and notes as a way to help you find less frustration in the game. I'll update this from time to time.

1. Talk to every NPC that has a icon on their head
   1. some NPC's don't allow you to get a quest until you talk to everyone so talk to everyone in each town to gain knowledge about them. This is a story and this mmo really required you to maintain relationships with certain NPC's.
   2. In game hit 'o' and then click the "all" check box to allow you to see all quests.
2. Don't use a horse to early.
   1. You level up a stat called "breathe" the more you run so that increases your stamina. Riding a horse increases your training stat and doesn't help your stamina.
3. Open world PVP opens up at lvl 45 - so breathe easy and enjoy the game at your pace until that level
4. Energy is a renewable stat that recharges 1 every 3 minutes and can be recharged faster while sleeping or relaxing on furniture.
   1. Energy is used for:

      1. Contracting Workers

      2. Gathering

      3. Greetings

      4. Learning from an NPC

      5. Story Exchange

      6. Stealing

      7. Proof of Defense

      8. Node Management

      9. World Chat

5. What is the fastest way to level
   1. Killing mobs is the fastest way to level, player level
   2. Questing is the fastest way to level, everything else
6. What is this AFK I keep hearing about
   1. The game allows you to AFK fish and to travel without being present at the computer.
   2. AFK fishing is a completely hands off experience and is great to do when going to work or needing to go to the store for a few hours and you still want to level something.
   3. Auto pathing is mostly hands off until one of two things happen.
      1. You run into bandits, only if you have trade goods on.
      2. You reach your destination.
         1. One trick I like to do with this is set my auto run from Calpheon to Velia and level my horse riding skill. It takes about 30 minutes to run with a tier 1 level 1 horse.
7. How do I work the node\crafting system.
   1. This needs a separate guide and I'll work one up or bri can work one up later.
   2. Crafting is amazingly complex and is a nice refreshing system but to much for this list.
8. How do I get invited to the guild
   1. Message any of the officers that are listed here: http://www.gaiscioch.com/tavern/blackdesert_discussion/post_181002.html
9. What do I do with skill points?
   1. You need to save up skill points until you talk to a guildie or read a guide. I'm serious about this skill points are hard to reset and sometimes you will place them in a spot that is not the best and it will require you to change it later.
   2. Eventually you will learn all skills in the class but it will take a long time and you don't want to cripple yourself early on.
10. What class should I play
    1. They are all amazingly fun. Each class has a specific role they play in pvp and in pve. You can't go wrong here and don't listen to anyone that tells you one is better than the other.
11. When do I get my first mount?
    1. I heard this alot in beta. You get your first mount from either the black spirit quests or the quests in the "western guard camp". So do those quests if you want one for free.
12. Do I need costumes?
    1. No, you don't they grant very small bonus stats and most of them are kind of helpful but not make it or break it.
       1. Example, warrior costume is a 10% xp boost when killing monsters and you can jump .5 feet higher ...
13. When do I get to play?
    1. $100 pre-order gets to play Feb 28th
    2. $50 pre-order is March 1st
    3. $30 pre-order is March 3rd
14. Dye system
    1. Personally I'd hold off on buying dyes as this system might get reworked.
15. Skill respect
    1. The only way to respect your skills currently is to purchase a skill reset with Pearls from the market. They are wanting to add in another system but it's probably not going to be in at launch.
16. Ranking system
    1. Players get ranked based on their abilities to be the top experience in several fields. If you are the top fisherman that is currently online than you will see an icon above your head.
17. Knowledge system
    1. Knowledge is based around performing actions, reading books, and killing mobs.
       1. When attacking a mob you will not see it's health decrease until you gain "knowledge" about that beast. So just keep killing them until you see it notify you of your knowledge rank.
       2. The higher the rank of knowledge for an action A,B,C,D,E,F and + or - will determine how well you can kill or interact with that resource.
          1. I.E a A+ rank with killing goblins will mean I do more damage to that mob.
          2. I.E a F- rank with gathering maple trees will mean I get more "logs" and not more "maple logs"
       3. This can be reset at several locations
18. Trading
    1. Player to player trading is highly restricted to reduce possible gold farmers. You can generally trade anything a "general goods" trade sells to another player.
       1. I know this sounds like it sucks... but it really doesn't, just trust me here.
    2. Anything that is not a general good can be sold to a marketplace or a trader. The item will tell you what is the min and max it can be sold for. This is related to the supply and demand by players.
       1. Items must be sold to marketplace merchants and you must go back to those merchants in order to collect your monies.
       2. You can't not collect money from a marketplace merchant in Calpheon, when you placed the item up for sale in Velia.
    3. Items that are marked for "traders" must be traded to another trader on a linked node or you will only be able to sell for 30% of true value.
       1. Node needs to be linked in order for some traders to allow you to even talk to them. This is not hard and require some planning if you want to make alot of money. Some fish are trader only and can be sold for 150-350k each.
19. Contribution 
    1. You gain contribution points by completing quests. These quests are rampant through the world and you can get a decent amount of them before you leave the Olivia. 
    2. Contribution points are account bound.
       1. Meaning that you can do the same quest on 3 characters and get 3 contribution points for doing them.
    3. Contribution points are needed for the node gathering and crafting system, both are account bound so no need to do it on a separate character as well.
20. Guild system
    1. Only thing most of you need to know here is that this is a legitimate contract between you and the guild. All of this below are game features not GSCH related.
    2. The guild owes you 30k a day for being apart of it for the duration of your contract. 
       1. In order to collect this hit 'g' and then hit the 'collect money' button at the bottom right of the window every day at 12:00pm
    3. If you do not play the game the contract can be voided.
    4. If you do not participate in the guild events the contract can be revoked or not renewed. This is at the discretion of the GM.
    5. You must have an active contract from the guild in order to collect money, use guild features, or to contribute to the guild in anyway.
       1. You can be in the guild with an inactive contract but you want this to be active for the perks.
    6. The more you contribute to the guild the higher your base salary can be raised.
    7. If the guild declares war on another guild or via versa all guild members even below level 45 are game for PVP if encountered.
    8. When participating in guild gathering missions or trading missions you keep what you kill and what you gather. The guild just gets credit and then xp and monies.
21. Death in BDO
    1. Nothing much happens to you other than a few learning moments
    2. You might loose any gems you put into your gear
    3. No one can steal your items
    4. You can loose a little xp but only if your killed in pve and at a negative Karma* aka you've been killing people* - system is being reviewed so might be removed I don't know.

A couple quick edits:

Traders - If you don't have the right node linked from they will only pay you 30% of the true value, not 30% less of the true value. There is a note of where the trader wants to be linked to when he is at the 30% mark with you. 

And yes, I'll do a write up on Node Management. I did not figure out crafting enough to write about it, but nodes and NPC relations yes. 

Just a note about death penalty - I did die in the beta by wandering into I think it was Cron's castle? high level mobs close to others I was farming for a quest - I did loose EXP and I did not have negative karma (only like level 14 I think?) AFAIK you lose EXP whenever you die in PVE regardless of karma and its always a flat percentage of your level.  I didn't level high enough for PVP so can't speak to any EXP loss there.

Under 10 doesn't lose XP, seems like I recall seeing a message to that effect, when that stupid troll boss stomped my butt.

Interesting.. thanks Bri for the correction. I'm going to leave the death penalty as it is because thats what the patch notes say so maybe this was a bug from something. I'll check about when go live notes are announced and then I'll change accordingly. I died several times to a volatile bear around velia >.< and I only lost like 4% (may be more) nothing even really noticeable to be honest.

You also have the option to resurrect on the spot instead of doing a corpse run by using an item from the cash shop. I believe it was 50 pearls or about 50 cents.

I didn't have to do a corpse run - was rezzed in town, but my feeling was the death penalty xp loss wasn't really bad at low levels.  I'm a little more concerned about it at max levels though since I have no idea how long it takes to grind 2% of your level or however much it was if it de-levels you.  Either way it reminds me of EQ & am not upset with it but its something to be aware of.  However the patch notes did clearly state that you will have experience loss for both PVE and PVP deaths - its the PVP death XP loss that worries me more.

CBT 2 Patch Notes

• Penalties for PvE deaths.

  • Crystal Breaking

  • Losing Enchant levels of equipped items when you have negative karma.

  • Experience Loss

• Penalties for PvP deaths.

  • Increased risk of crystals breaking.

  • Experience Loss.

• Penalties for death in general.

  • Guards may attack you in towns when you have negative karma.

  • Random respawn locations when you have negative karma to prevent low karma players from being repetitively killed/camped.

  • Durability Loss

AFAIK patch notes haven't been released for release yet.

That is about right. I'm thinking these patch notes will change a few items and maybe make some people on the edge scream in the forums but I don't think it will be all that bad.