RNG in Black Desert Online
RNG is the game in Black Desert Online, so sit back, roll the dice and take your chances on success or failure. Having a variety of chance in a game that’s main driven goal is to progress is a pinnacle point of choice in any part of game design and in BDO this literally determines if you are one of the most geared or least geared players in the game. Of course, enough time invested, and you will get where you want to be but RNG plays such a large role in this game it is surprising when you break it down. Whether that be an enhancement chance on your gear that you spent weeks getting, fishing at a towns creek or just basic resource/loot gathering.
Although many people are conflicted with the amount of RNG present in the game, which directly effects the economy, I think at the end of the day it is the main mechanic that keeps players playing. When that TRI ring of the Crescent Guardian fails to succeed on a 40% chance for the past 2 weeks, well then, that PEN ring of the Crescent Guardian worth billions is going to feel even more rewarding months later. As a reference, BDO`s enhancement system in a nutshell is as follows, 0, +1, +2, +3…etc to +15 and then PRI,DUO,TRI,TET,PEN.
Up until Summer of 2019, enhancement percentages were not even present in the game and BDO released in December of 2014. The enhancement UI use to look like the one above where you would just get a number so you really did not know what your odds were of success vs failure, but with tons of research and tests done by the community, people developed charts in order to figure out what enhancement chances to use on what enhancement levels and types of gear so you at least were not totally shooting in the dark anymore.
Below is the representation of the enhancement system we have currently which looks way cleaner and most importantly provides you with an enhancement chance percentage. This was probably one the best additions to the game to date as upgrading gear is probably most players number one goal in the game.
As of late things have been getting even more dicey with people complaining about RNG in the game of BDO. Pearl Abyss, the developers of the game, have recently introduced RNG boxes into the Pearl Shop which is where you can purchase items with real money. When I was reading the patch notes I was actually surprised they included the percentages on all the items that you could possibly get but as I dug deeper and talked to some people in the community, it is required in certain countries to provide percentile data for such digital items that you obtain at a random chance that you paid for with real money.
To conclude, BDO wouldn’t be the same game without the amount of RNG that is incorporated into it. It makes it a unique, competitive style of game and in which increases that extra want to play each and every time you both succeed or fail. Overall the success of the game is heavily related to the design choice when it comes to RNG in the game of BDO and anyone that gets hooked into the game would most likely have a consensus of RNG surrounding their reason to play.
