Mechanics: BDO is an open-world pvp game. You are 'attackable' after level 49. When you hit 49 you have a permanent optional quest available that explains how pvp works and you must consent in order to reach level 50. If you don't consent you can happily stay level 49 forever

Can you do content at level 49? Yes. Life skilling, for the most part, isn't level or gear checked. You can wear op gear at level 1. There's no gear that's level locked or anything like that

There's only one way to lock yourself out of gear

Karma.

So with pvp there's a Karma system. You gain karma by killing mobs, doing quests and not initiating pvp

If you "flag up" or initiate pvp, hitting someone causes you to lose karma, killing someone causes you to lose a LOT of karma. Two kills and you become "red" with negative levels of karma

While you are red, you are basically a mob. Anyone can attack you, even by accident

If they kill you, there is a chance your gear will downgrade, your crystals can break (BILLIONS lost) and being red naturally locks you out of some types of gear and buffs meant for "good karma" players

Previously, karma was character specific. So you'd have someone with a "red character" that they'd hop on to do some shitty backstabbing pvp and then log into the "good karma" character and avoid repercussions

OBVIOUSLY this got abused, and people bully with these mechanics

So now they have FINALLY CHANGED IT

Karma is now Family-Wide. So when you dick around stabbing people on one character, your whole account is now red

THANK FUCK. Honestly. As a guild leader I am just

Don't touch my babies dumbass. We will find you.

SO ALONGSIDE this change came another

Previously, guilds could declare war and attack you freely without this karma decrease

Which essentially meant free for all, no repercussions, duke it out and solve your problems with VIOLENCE

Of course, if someone wants to be an ass

They will dec. Forever.

Maybe they have some beef with one member

Maybe they are bored

Maybe they are just an ass

But this led to a lot of abuse, a lot of new players having trouble with bullies and harrassment

The issue was. A guild would dec and someone uninvolved with the initial conflict might kill another member uninvolved just by association

So instead of it being 1 person vs. 1 person solving their issues with violence, you run the risk of the entire guild getting dragged into 1 person's tiny dick syndrome fight. Even if they had no involvement, no interest, and were minding their own business

SO THIS HAS BEEN PROBLEMATIC. We have consistently stayed out of these conflicts. Tried to de-escalate by contacting the guild involved before it becomes a larger issue

Talking it out. Getting it resolved with words

CALL ME A PACIFIST (which btw is like a slur in BDO lmao) but it works

It's like a parents meeting when you talk to the guild officers like "ur kid is throwing sand, fix it"

Anyway. THEY CHANGED THIS SYSTEM TOO

thank goooooooooodness

NOW.

IF you dec, the other guild has to CONSENT and AGREE to dec back

IMAGINE having to consent to violence

Good grief was this so hard, bdo

And I'm just fucking stoked because the way it works is that the top of the chain gets the notif "X wants to dec you" and you can accept/decline or ignore it

So if I'm online, I get the pop up. If I'm not, only second in command gets the pop up, then third if neither of us are online, etc.

If the conflict ends and you wanna be done with the dec, you can just exit the dec. Nbd. When you undeclare, then both are undeclaring. You can't have one-sided decs anymore

I can't stress enough how delighted I am by this

So this dec change and the karma change have led me to need to have a long chatter. We like. Called a Meeting. It was that much

So the officers we have are purposefully split 50/50 between the pacifist types and the pvp types.

It works for us because if pacifists can't resolve an issue, we send in the muscle

Who have equal say in a conflict thanks to their rank. They are all lovely people and super helpful. So I don't want to give the impression pvp bad

So with the karma being family-wide. Well, we previously said 'keep the group out of your 1v1 conflicts.' because we didn't want to run the risk of it blowing out of proportion

But since everything is now family wide, I'm trying to convey to the officers "we need to protect our own, including protecting them from harassing others." and idk but that is so difficult to convey when we've previously had 50% saying "fuck em up" and 50% going uwu fwends??

AN EXAMPLE of something that happened today lol

omg and it was with (for full context) a guild we were previously ALLIES with. FRIENDS. WE WERE FRIENDS lmao

Okay so our member, we call them Shiny

Shiny went to a grind spot. Saw a player of the guild Ges by their horse, clearly afk. Shiny waits 10 min.

Ges member still afk after 10 min, Shiny starts grinding and takes the spot. THIS IS fair.

Ges member returns, flags up, attacks Shiny

Now, this tactic is typical from experienced players. I want to emphasize on Shiny's behalf. He knows what he's doing.

Shiny dies twice and continues to return to the spot. By dying twice, Ges member is now Red.

Shiny comes back in for a kill, Ges member falls down, loses a crystal because HE'S RED and DEAD. lmao

Shiny calls for back-up. One of our big muscle officers is online, eagerly steps in to guard dog just in case more Ges members appear. These are normal tactics jsyk

When I say steps in, that sounds fast. Muscle officer had to travel by horse for 10 min to get to the spot lol

COMMITMENT

By the time muscle arrives, Ges member has died two more times and left the spot.

He didn't know karma had changed to family-wide

Oh the poor bastard

AFTER THIS I get the pop-up "Dec request from Ges guild"

We were friendly with them, I know their officers. I message them directly, "Eyy what's up"

"Ask your member Shiny"

I did. They said they were attacked by a red player. Can you tell me your side of the conflict?

~Radio Silence~

I double check with Shiny I have my facts right. Shiny is good, I am certain their side is correct, even if the other perspective might view the afk time differently

With the conflict SEEMINGLY resolved, the player left, I have two people in the spot for support. I decline the dec

They send another dec request, I message again, no reply. So I might be blocked lol

But I declined with no response given

I offered to help the now red player with some form of "we'll help him get to the desert in one piece" but still no response

OH. Desert mobs give back a LOT more karma than average mobs

On the flip side, if you are in the desert as a red player and you are killed, you are sent to "jail" which is basically "red player time out"

It goes by real time minutes and you can either Sit it out with login time, mine sulfur like you're supposed to and slightly decrease the time, or try to sneak out (it's like a mini game of some kind and supposedly really tough lol)

So when I say "escort to desert" I mean. We can flag to protect them from getting killed more if you'd like us to assist as an apology to the misunderstanding

It's hard to explain if you aren't into BDO but this is kinda like common courtesy-ish around these parts lol

That kind of escort is a bit risky so it's a good handshake and these guys were our allies so idk. Anyways, no response

So trying to talk this through and the logic. Initially my officers were like "But you were gonna decline no matter what" and trying to explain, No, we could have but he ran away before it was actually necessary

It's hard to re-establish where we all need to draw the line and be on the same page

Like on the one hand, If our member is the one flagging because another guild has wronged them, we don't want them to lose karma but if they are flagging to mess with someone then ya, we shouldn't approve of that.

But in the moment, those things are harder to understand when everyone is just running off of adrenaline and anger so the added nuance might be tough for some of the officers

Any time you label something as "situational" you're gonna get mixed results lol but I think with the mechanics as they stand, it should be fine in the longer term even if some situations end up being our bad

I might be overexplaining but POINT IS

They made decs consensual. I'm happy. Might even agree to a dec if the situation warrants it. The officers are confused because Never dec was easier to understand than "Depends" lol