YMMV / Black Desert Online

• Broken Base: The abscence of direct player trading. The topic has been discussed within the community from every possible and imaginable angle into the fifth dimension, with one side claiming that the no trading policy deters the activity of gold sellers (players who sell in-game currency for real world money), and the other claiming that it limits player interaction too much, and that there are better ways to avoid RMT (Real Money Transaction between players).
• Ham and Cheese: The game has a "Blind Idiot" Translation and zero voice direction, and several of its voice actors attempt to compensate for their complete lack of material through sheer demented enthusiasm.
  Red. Orc. Sworn enemy of me. MY FOE!
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: It would be cruel to say that BDO's story is incompetent in everything from its writing and presentation to its translation. It would also, unfortunately, be accurate. It's a disjointed Cliché Storm filled with paper-thin characters where the "Blind Idiot" Translation and inept cutscene direction make it difficult to follow or grasp the importance of basic plot points, and the voice-actors audibly struggle with the messy script and lack of direction. The good news, though, is that the game itself is a satisfyingly busy Wide-Open Sandbox with an appealingly flashy Hack and Slash combat system with just enough depth to be interesting, so you'll be spending most of your time building your own trade empire, exploring a huge and gorgeous world, or juggling orcs with magical kung fu and murderous Chinese ribbon dancing rather than pretending to care about the main plot.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Nobody likes the conversation minigame. You have to talk with NPCs about whatever topic they're interested in, which requires you to have knowledge on those things. This wouldn't be so bad, except that sometimes the minigame has limitations that are literally impossible to meet, forcing you to waste your time and your character's energy trying again. Not only that, but the resources you gain are spendable, meaning you have to spend an annoying amount of time and energy to chat an NPC up whenever you want, say, a full set of a saddle, stirrups, and horseshoes for your horse.
  • As mentioned in the 20 Bear Asses entry on the main page, the RNG properties of the "gather items from enemies" quests gets old very quickly, especially in higher levels where it can take hours just to gather one of the multiple items needed.
  • The fact that the majority of classes in the game are gender-locked grates on a lot of players, and also serves as something that turns off prospective players when they learn that the class they want to play may require them to make a character of the opposite gender they'd wish to play as.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The game is absolutely gorgeous, especially on higher graphics.

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