Hey it’s Valentine’s Day! What better way to spend it than to be shut indoors playing a beta for an MMORPG? The final open beta of Black Desert launched on Xbox One today, so I gave it a download to see what’s changed since the private beta back in November (or was it December?) Anyhoo, it was a complete wipe of my old saves, as betas are usually keen to do, so I had the pleasure of creating my character again. I did notice that either the character creation menu got a bit more user-friendly, or maybe I just paid more attention this time around. I didn’t spend a large amount of time customizing my Ranger, but I did dig through each of the menus to see what it had to offer. It largely looked the same as the previous beta, which was fine, that wasn’t part of my main gripes with the game. It will be interesting to see what they’ve addressed and what they haven’t (so far). So let’s see what I said the first time around.
<digs back through blog entries to find original beta post>
Ah, here we go. Some of my original observations were:
“I have to give the game credit for probably having the best in-game cleavage I’ve seen to date.”
Yep, that still checks out!
“The camera needs improvement, and seems glued to the back of the character while running, something that personally annoys the hell out of me. I’m not one of those people that is talented enough to run in a straight line, so I was constantly watching my viewpoint sway back and forth as my character meandered around bushes and rocks…
…Being able to unlock the camera from the character and allow him/her to zig-zag back and forth while keeping the aiming reticle in place will get rid of that problem easily.
…On top of this, I do want to be able to zoom the camera in and out. I’m pretty sure this is something that will be in the final build.”
I can’t say for certain if it was an oversight on my part, but for this release these two things have been rectified, to an extent. There is now a setting (that I’ve noticed) that allows the “follow” action for the camera to be disabled, so that it is always looking forward, even if your character strafes or runs diagonally. This is a small, yet huge improvement for me. It also makes aiming for ranged combat much easier.
The camera can also be zoomed out by holding the RS down for a few seconds then pulling it back or pushing it forward to zoom in and out. This isn’t documented anywhere in the game, and I only found this information by visiting the forums and finding others asking the same question. This is also makes a huge difference for me, as the camera was just a bit too close for my liking. The closer in the zoom, the more erratic even the tiniest of movements are. If the frame rate was a silky smooth 60 frames per second, it wouldn’t be that big a deal, but the screen tearing at the moment is pretty bad. Zooming out keeps the camera movement a bit smoother (plus I also turned down the horizontal sensitivity) and that helps to minimize the v-sync issues. I’ve read that the final build will utilize a 1080/60 mode option for the Xbox One X, which honestly will be the way to go. The difference between 1080p and 4k as far as this game is concerned doesn’t seem to be drastic enough to sacrifice the smoother fps. Let’s hope this is true.
“Another thing I noticed right off the bat was that the game is bright. Even with the HDR settings adjusted and turned all the way down, the overall gamma is through the roof. From what I could tell, there was no way to adjust that. This needs to be addressed, as HDR is kinda useless if half the image is blown out already.”
This is still kind of an issue. The game does include brightness sliders for HDR this time around, but the bright spots are still ridiculously bright. Paths and beaches are blinding. I have yet to disable the XBX’s HDR support to see what the difference is like, but as it stands, whatever bloom lighting or post-processing is going on needs to be scaled down quite a bit.
The other issues I had previously were in regards to the class offerings and gameplay, which haven’t changed at all. The game has been out for several years on PC, so it brings with it an overwhelming number of menus and options. Since this is a beta and ultimately a throw-away experience, I didn’t bother getting very intimate with the story or any of the quests, I mainly just made a bee-line to the nearest objective and hacked away. It all seems pretty shallow on the surface though. I hope there’s enough engaging content to justify the grind.
I do have one final gripe with this new build, and it’s a big one. Admittedly it was an issue in the original beta build as well, but I didn’t spend enough time on it to really appreciate what a nuisance it was going to be. As it stands, the HUD is unchangeable. What is on the HUD, and how big/intrusive it is, is what we’re stuck with. For a Ranger, this is a big problem, and here’s why; the character name, family name, health, and magic bars are permanently displayed over the character’s head. When zoomed out, this information is placed directly over the player’s aiming reticle. This obscures not only your aiming crosshairs, but also whatever it is you are aiming at. I don’t like not being able to see what I’m fighting, and I doubt anyone else does either. While I’m certain the HUD will be customizeable once the game releases, it’s an odd choice not to include that option in the beta, since it’s a quality of life improvement that will greatly increase a player’s enjoyment of the game (and theoretically lead to more sales).
If they can clean this up, let me remove my own character information as well as that of any other player that’s not in my party, remove the quick button menu at the bottom, and completely get rid of the chat window, this game is something I can see myself getting into. But it’s hard getting immersed in a world when you’re being barraged with text everywhere you look.
A lot of requests I saw on their forums was also for a “photo mode” or at least a way to hide the HUD for taking screenshots. I can see why. For some reason this shot just doesn’t scream “set as wallpaper” to me.
I’ve only put about two hours into it, and a lot of that time was running straight from objective to objective, but overall I am liking it so far. The unfortunate thing is that now I’m left with the decision to buy Black Desert based on the promise of these fixes, or if I’m going to resign myself to the possibility that I, and many others, will be just kinda dealing with the wonky HUD indefinitely.
