Market Bonus vs Valk’s Cry

If there is one thing we are absolutely sure about in the current Value Pack mayhem is that PM_Jouska directly stated that Valk’s Cry would not be added to our version due to the advantage it gives players.

For those who are confused, Valk’s Cry is a cash shop item that can be used up to 10 times to grant 10 bonus failstacks. It is a P2W mechanic that is not currently available in NA/EU.

Here is a link to the thread: http://forum.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?/topic/100020-clarification-valks-cry/

Because this is an official stance by Daum, we can safely conclude that it is objective in the context of BDO and without a doubt that anything providing more advantage than Valk’s Cry would also have no place in our build.

Valk’s Cry does not allow you to buy cash shop exclusive BiS gear. Valk’s Cry does not allow you to bypass RNG. Valk’s Cry does not allow you to catch up to a no-life player if you hardly play the game. What am I getting at? The simple fact that none of those are prerequisites to being P2W despite what some people might think. Daum themselves confirmed this.

In more simple terms if you still have trouble understanding, anything equal to or granting more enhancement advantage than Valk’s Cry is automatically classified as Pay To Win. It doesn’t matter what you think is P2W and what you think is not. Daum makes the calls on what’s P2W, not you. Simple logic dictates that the underlined statement is objectively true in context of BDO as it follows from a Daum official statement.

Now that we have an objective and irrefutable definition of P2W, we can proceed to doing the maths and determining how P2W 30% market bonus really is.

Here are the expected tries for +16->+20 gear and TRI->PEN jewelry using the methodology outlined in this post.

Some basic inferences about how Valk’s Cry would be used:

1. You would not use Valk’s Cry at say 0 stacks, because that’s a waste of money. You would probably not want to upgrade anything expensive with less than 25 stacks anyway. Valk’s Cry is reserved for at the bare minimum 25 stacks even if you’re very credit card happy.
2. You are of course free to use Valk’s Cry for items you would enhance with less than 25 stacks, but that would give you negligible benefit. Go ahead and waste Valk’s Cry to enhance base Bares necklace if that’s your cup of tea.
3. The effect of Valk’s Cry proportionally is highest at lower stacks. This is because of the diminishing returns on failstacks.

Below is a graph taking the expected tries at each failstack value and dividing by the expected tries with 10 bonus stack. Using that we can measure the proportional increase of Valk’s Cry. We will start the graph at 25 stacks because any equipment you should be enhancing at under 25 stacks cost too little to truly matter; you will not save much money wasting Valk’s Cry on them.

As you can see, the effect of Valk’s Cry is less than 10% for realistic upgrades. This means Valk’s Cry will save you up to 10% of your resources if you P2W every single gear enhancement.

We will now examine market bonus. Value pack as of right now gives 30% bonus to market income, which means you will make 30% more profit from selling items in the market.

1. We know that the silver you spend on gear is directly proportional to how good your gear is, with some fluctuation due to RNG.
2. RNG does not change the fact that more silver means better gear, because having double the silver means you get double the tries on enhancement. This will improve your overall RNG and give you a higher likelihood of successful enhancements.
3. There is no longer an excuse to claim silver is useless now that secret shop is in the game. The existence of secret shop directly means that you can progress to max gear with just pure silver and nothing else by sitting there rolling all day long.
4. The “it’s all RNG” argument is irrational, because Valk’s Cry is also RNG yet it is objectively considered P2W. Therefore RNG does not exclude bonuses from being considered P2W.

Therefore we can use silver income as a model for gear enhancement. If the value pack 30% market bonus proves to be more than 10% total silver income then value packs are objectively more P2W than Valk’s Cry.

There are two main ways to make silver in BDO:

1. Grinding.
2. Crafting.

For a grinder, approximately 40% of your income is in sellable items, the other 60% is in junk items;the latter is unaffected by market tax. This means 30% market bonus is worth 12% increase in total income if you only grind.

[Edit] Reddit user BadsLiteYear brought up the fact that group grinding will bypass market, which is true. However it is also true that group grinding is very inefficient for money because loot is split 5 ways without increasing killing speed by 5 times. For reasonably geared players, you will make more money solo than group even accounting for the tax. How you choose to interpret this fact is up to you.

For a crafter, approximately 100% of your income is in sellable items. This means 30% market bonus is worth AT LEAST 30% increase in total income if you only craft.

To elaborate on crafting, your income is calculated by the equation:

NetIncome = MarketSale – MaterialCost

With value pack, your income is calculated by the equation:

NetIncome = MarketSale * 1.3 – MaterialCost

Crafting is not worth it unless your material cost is lower than the market sale. When material cost is zero, you will make 30% extra profit with value pack. When material cost is equal to market sale price after tax, you will make infinite % extra profit with value pack.

Most players are a combination of both, hence the value of 30% market bonus fluctuates between 12% to infinite % depending on your activity distribution. Even quoting the lowest number in that range, value packs surpass Valk’s Cry in giving an advantage.

 

We can now seal this debate with a single logical syllogism.

Premise 1: Valk’s Cry is considered objectively P2W by Daum because of the advantage to enhancement. Anything with higher advantage to enhancement must also be P2W.

Premise 2: Value pack 30% market bonus has a higher advantage to enhancement than Valk’s Cry due to disproportionately high increase in silver acquisition.

Conclusion: Value packs are objectively P2W and allowing its existence contradicts Daum’s own philosophy on the subject.

There are no valid objections to this reasoning because both premises are objective, and the conclusion logically follows from the two. Premise 1 is directly taken from Daum’s official stance, and Premise 2 is a mathematical truth.

You may now hold one of three viable opinions:

1. P2W is not OK, so value packs are not OK.
2. I want to P2W, so value packs are good.
3. I don’t care about P2W, so I don’t care about value packs.

 

Even the official promotion artist subconsciously knew this.

Invest what? Hmm…

Success… you mean winning?

What a Freudian slip.

:^)