Black Desert/Quests
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Quests
the Black Spirit's errands, and everyone else's
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A quest route traced across the world map From the Adventurer's Guide, Pearl Abyss
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| Main line given by | The Black Spirit |
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| Categories | Main, suggested, recurring, ongoing and new |
| Marked by | Colored icons above an NPC's head |
| Filterable | From level 20, by life or combat |
| Chief reward | Contribution and skill points |
Quests in Black Desert are unusual in what they are for. Experience from them is minor next to what fighting provides, so quests are how a character acquires contribution, skill points and knowledge rather than levels.
That changes how they are used. A player does not work through quests to progress in the ordinary sense; they work through quests to unlock the ability to progress, and then go and fight.
The main story is the exception. It is handed out by the Black Spirit rather than by anyone in the world, arriving as the character reaches new places and new levels, and it carries the plot of the whole setting.
1 Categories✎
The quest window sorts everything into five groups. Main quests advance the story, while suggested quests exist to open features and teach them, which makes them the closest thing the game has to a tutorial after the opening hour.
Recurring quests repeat daily or weekly, and many of them hand out scrolls that summon bosses. Ongoing and new collect what is already accepted and what has just arrived, the latter usually tied to an event.
Underneath that sits a finer classification by type, separating the main story from Black Spirit progression, general NPC errands, exploration, life skills, content such as dungeons and player combat, and events.
2 Finding them✎
Quest-givers announce themselves. An icon above an NPC's head shows whether a quest is available, already accepted or ready to hand in. Life-skill quests are marked in their own color so they can be told apart at a glance.
The volume becomes a problem quickly, which is why filtering exists. From level 20 a character can restrict what is shown to life quests, combat quests or the daily and weekly ones, rather than every marker in the region at once.
3 Crossroads✎
Some quests fork: a crossroads offers two or more routes with different objectives and different rewards, and taking one closes the others for that character.
The main story does this too, which has a consequence worth knowing before choosing. Seeing every branch of it means running more than one character through, since a single adventurer cannot take both paths.