If you are reading this, you are probably overwhelmed with your inventory in Black Desert.
It sucks.
It’s one of the biggest pain points for new and experienced players. It’s not the only pain point, but it’s certainly the most apparent. They’ve made a ton of strides in improving things, like adding much-needed descriptions on item usage and places to go with them, but it’s still a lot. It doesn’t help when you log in for the first time ever, or in a long time, and you’re immediately showered with things like login rewards and dice rolls and challenges, as appreciated and well-loved as they are.
Well, I’m going to at least attempt to help with this. I can’t promise that I’ll get everything, but I will certainly try. The goal isn’t to solve your being overwhelmed, it is to help you understand how inventory works, to put you on the road to alleviating that overwhelming feeling.
Where to even begin?
The first thing I tell any player starting, whether it’s logging in for the first time, or just coming out of season, is to put anything that you’re uncertain of aside. As of this writing, they recently put in a newbie inventory, allowing you to do exactly that. Bank space is crucial, and when you get around to finishing your Magnus questline, you’ll have access to every single bank in each region, all in one bank access. It’s by far the best thing you can do to manage all the crap you have to go through, and you get a nice PEN boss armor and fast travel to boot. Even if it’s sorted haphazardly, something like “Black Stones of any kind go in this storage”, or “Scrolls go here”, will be a massive burden lifted off of you. If you have to get to it later while you decipher things, that’s okay too.
What to leave alone:
So, it might be a bit easier to figure out what all we should be using, but what about the things we shouldn’t? After all, a lot of items are committal, many of them without you knowing it.
So, one of the first things I’d like you to do, is to take a look at the “challenge” tab in your menu (Esc on PC), take a look at all of the things you have under your reward tab…
…And leave most of it alone.
Here lies your daily challenge rewards, and they can range from a ton of things, from reaching leveling or season milestones, to simply logging in. Do not worry about most of this right away The only things I would take out of this are the season rewards (it’ll say something like, “reached x and y on season!”), as they will give you season-specific materials. TRI Capotia gear is also fine to take out if you’re new as well, as those will very likely be upgrades for you.
You will see things like Item collection scrolls, which increase your drop rate and drop amount, a choice between a Mercenary combat exp scroll and a Life exp scroll, which is your choice depending on what you want to focus on, and sometimes gold bars, which is pure silver. You can turn in gold bars at any storage NPC, for the amount described on the item. From there, you’ll see things like Black Stones, Crystal Shards, and the like. You don’t have to worry about any of that right now.
Next, let’s look at your Black Spirit’s Safe. Things like Login Rewards and Black Spirit Adventure rewards go here. You can treat this similarly to the challenge tab and, likewise, can leave things there for as long as you need. I actually use the Black Spirit’s Safe as extra storage and pull whatever I may need at the time from there if necessary. Treat this exactly the same as your Challenge tab.
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What exactly does what?
Now, you’re probably still confused. That’s totally okay. We’ll work through it. This part will cover some important items by the category. I know it sounds mundane, trivial, and maybe even condescending, but make sure you take the time to read the description of each item you’re querying. It may not always give you the exact answer you need right now (though it very often will), but it will provide context and help you understand how items of similar types work.
Enhancement materials: Black Stones (Armor, Weapon, Time Filled, etcetc.), Sharp/Hard Black Crystal Shards, Advice of Valks, Valk’s Cry, Cron Stones
Enhancement materials are focused around exactly that, enhancement. There are certainly more uses for them outside of enhancement, but their primary use will be for the stated. If you are a season character, then Time Filled Black Stones will be your primary way of upgrading your Tuvala gear. Cron Stones are few and far between, even if you may have thousands now. Your Cron Stones are by far the most valuable thing you have in this section. Do save these for later. Much later. Until you know exactly what you’re doing with them and how to do it.
Advice of Valks and Valks’ Cry are essentially free failstacks, which give you an increased chance of success on your next enhancement attempt. You get a lot of these as you go for free, and in the enhancement menu, you can see what the most popular failstacks are for whatever you may be enhancing.
For more help on enhancing, refer to this guide! It covers a lot more than I could here and will come in handy should you choose to go deeper with enhancing. Note that this mechanic, aside from season gear and extreme end game gear, is optional. You can buy, or at the bare minimum, pre-order, 95% of the gear that is relevant in pve and pvp on the central market, guaranteed, no questions asked. This is how I’ve done it (and have continued to), all the way up to a 700 gearscore, and it’s easily the most reliable way of progressing.
Combat items and buffs: Food and meals, draughts, elixirs, potions
These are the items you’ll use to improve your combat prowess. These all cover varying buffs, and each different item type stacks with another. It can get quite a bit more complicated with elixirs, but that’s a very advanced thing that most common players don’t even worry about, nor is it critical to learn at this point in learning. I do plan on covering this part more specifically in another, more comprehensive piece focused on grinding specifically, but you can get an incredibly cheap power boost with Simple Cron Meals, and lean on those for the entirety of your PvE if you want. Draughts and Elixirs can be more expensive, and you don’t necessarily need them when you’re in season, and even when you’re just coming out of it. I’m very much an advocate of saving these for when you do need them, as they do make quite a bit of a difference, and the ramp up in grind spot difficulty will certainly be apparent. It is always worth the money you spend (or not make by not selling), by using these to make fighting that much faster.
Scrolls: Item Collection, Combat/Life EXP, NOT boss summon scrolls
Scrolls are relatively simple comparatively, Item Collection scrolls increase your drop rate and trash drop amount, and exp scrolls increase your exp. Item collection scrolls go into a “gauge”, which is a timer that steadily goes down at selectable rates. Level 1 for normal time and normal drop rates and trash amount, and level 2 for double time elapsing and double the drop rate and trash amount.
Item collection gauge
Some combat exp scrolls can stack with others, and each scroll will tell you what stacks with what.
Event Items: ???
Event Items can vary wildly, and this is a huge pain point. The big thing to remember is that some event items can also be in the same category as the aforementioned, while others may be totally unique to the event or the time. I highly suggest referring to the main Black Desert website, Garmoth.com, or simply reading the item to know where and what event items do.
I’m still lost. This game sucks. I can’t find anything!
The “Find my Item” tab is a godsend (and you’ll soon be able to pull directly from the said tab with a maid!)
I don’t think I’ve gone a day without using this, even if I spend time organizing things. Its functionality is exactly as you expect, and there isn’t much more to it. It’s the best tool for finding items. Use it!
Take your time!
It is okay to take your time and not rush through things. I know you’ve probably heard the mantra, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” Well, it’s certainly true in Black Desert, but it applies to every aspect of it, not just the part of the game that players only interested in grinding try to sell you on. Genuinely take the time to take everything in and only worry about the things you want to worry about. Ask questions (you can even whisper me in game!), join a guild, and use your resources! They’re plentiful!
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