Black DesertClass Guides

BDO Money Making Guide

Posted alext96

INTRO

I have not yet tried all of these methods to their fullest extent (i.e. enough hours to produce hard data), and I have linked many of the guides from which I drew information. As such, I will try to make as few superlatives and judgment calls as possible. Furthermore, please let me know if I have the wrong numbers or if I am missing any methods. Remember that this guide is purely focused on making money and as such, does not consider personal tastes (e.g. some would prefer 4 hours of active hotspot fishing than 10 minutes of grinding).

As a short overview, I have divided this guide into two sections—overall pointers, active and passive money-making methods (AM, PM respectively). AM cycles require full participation, disallowing any other activity. PM cycles require only minor participation, typically at the end in which goods are sold to either the marketplace (MP) or an NPC trader. 

  1. POINTERS

Some pointers that everyone, regardless of which AM or PM used, should follow are:

  • Money in the bank is wasted. While you should always have enough in your bank saved for your next big purchase, all extra cash is sitting around, decreasing in value due to inflation (like it or not, the population is getting bigger, with each additional character generating more silver).
    • Predict trends and Invest your silver into items that you expect to appreciate. For example, everyone gets a free pet thanks to the Maehwa Seals event; I would bet that Good Feed will come in high demand. 
  • Energy is core to all AM and PM. On the character you are currently logged, energy regenerates passively every 3 minutes. The amount of regeneration depends on where your character is located every 3 minute mark; if you are sleeping in a cash shop bed, 3 regen; if you are in a non-cash-shop bed, 2 regen; if you are anywhere else, 1 regen.
    • Make alternate characters ASAP. On the characters you are not logged, energy regenerates at a static rate of 1 energy every 30 minutes.
    • Make sure to do the Red Battlefield Daily (level 50 required) for a cool 200 energy 1-time regeneration.
  • Blessing of Kamasilve from the Loyalty shop for 1,000 loyalty should be prioritized. For a whole 24 hours (offline and online), you gain 2 more energy every 3 minutes and increases your grinding drop rate by 20%. The benefit is clear for people who grind and people who do life skills.
    • Spend your loyalty on Blessing of Kamasilve.
  • Do not forget opportunity cost. For every minute, contribution point (CP), or energy you spend, you could have spent it on something else. Therefore, to maximize profit, everyone must attach a monetary value to every minute, CP, and energy (i.e. silver/hour, silver/CP/hour, and silver/energy). No one person has the same three rates, as they are heavily reliant on your gear, knowledge of the game, and progression in the game.
    • Determine roughly the best silver/hour you can make while grinding. This serves as a good anchor point at which to gauge the effectiveness of your other money-making methods. For example, if you make 1M/hour grinding but only 800K/hour hotspot fishing, then you should be grinding. 
    • Invest in nodes, prioritizing those that produce the most silver per hour—for the sake of simplicity, I will not factor in the amount of CP). For example, if you only have one available worker and you average 1 Trace of Savagery (13K per trace – 1K beer to replenish worker = 12K total gain per hour) per hour-long Lynch Farm Ruins cycle and 10 wheat (2K-8K worth of beer depending on your Cooking rank – 1K beer = 1K-7K net gain) per 30-minute-long Costa Farms cycle (2K-14K total gain per hour), then you are better off investing in the Lynch node. Given that a Wheat node only produces a maximum of 14K per hour and most nodes produce greater than that, do not invest in wheat.
    • Minimize “non-productive” time. Non-productive time is time you actively spend that does not produce money in and of itself (even if it is an essential part of the related activity). Examples include running from grind spot to the General Goods store and even sleeping in bed. This non-productive time can and should be spent elsewhere (e.g. grinding, fishing on an alt).
      • Transporting trade goods via wagon can be productive time. To determine the value of this, figure out how much additional profit (in silver) you would obtain by going to a farther node and divide that by the time it takes to get to that node (silver/minute, converted into silver/hour). If that rate is better than 1M/hour, then you should got he extra mile.
  1. ACTIVE MONEY-MAKING (AM)
  2. Grinding

Without a doubt, (most) people agree that grinding is the most reliable and effective means of making money, netting anywhere between 1M to 3M per hour. Advice:

  1. Get a pet (or three)—faster drop collection allows for faster grinding.
  2. Develop a closed-loop route—predictable monster spawns allow for mindless spamming and more efficient pot usage. If you find yourself waiting for a spawn, then expand your loop.
  3. Join a party—if monsters are respawning much faster than you can keep up, then join a party to match clear speed with respawn rate.
  4. Set party loot rules to “free looting”–this sends all green-level items to the marketplace, free of tax, and splits/sends the proceeds to everyone’s inboxes.
  5. Bring a wagon—greater weight limit allows for fewer trips to town (non-productive time).
  6. Use crystals—buffs to AP, attack speed, critical allow faster grinding.
  7. Eat food—buffs to AP, attack speed, critical allow faster grinding.
  8. Drink milk tea—greater EXP gain allows for faster leveling which allows for faster grinding. Note that milk tea and food are affected by the same cooldown. 
  9. Invest energy from your main and your alts into the nodes in which you grind—this increases drop rates.
  10. Spend energy on resetting mob knowledge—S and S+ knowledge on a given mob increases the probability of a rare item drop.
  1. Hotspot Fishing (active)

Most people who fish at hotspots report earning between 600K to 1.2M per hour, most likely depending on the quantity of fish in the hotspot (e.g. Exhausted, Abundant). Advice:

  1. Obtain all 5 fishing (speed) levels—faster speed results in faster money.
  2. Obtain a fishing boat and its accessories—faster ship speed, more inventory slots, and higher chance of catching rare fish all raise profitability and efficiency. 
  3. Always try for perfect catches—perfect catches cut down the time per cast and prevents durability loss.
  4. Do not fill your inventory to the maximum—at least one inventory slot must be empty to trade your fish.
  5. Sell fish to the closest trader—the less time spent finding a trader, the greater time left for fishing. With that being said, check the sale prices for your fish at nearby nodes (open map, click on the small wheel next to any trade node) to ensure you are getting the best price. 
  6. Bring a wagon—if you are fishing on/close to the mainland, deposit your fish in your wagon inventory to minimize trips to the trader.
  7. Bargain with the trader—this increases the sale price of each fish in your inventory. 
  1. Gathering Raw Materials

This one is pretty self-explanatory. I will get a ton of flak for this, but here is some advice:

  1. Obtain all 5 gathering (speed) levels—faster speed results in faster money.
  2. Buy and use Steel tools as soon as you have access to them—faster speed results in faster money.
  3. Use Black Desert Database’s website to find EVERY gatherable location of EVERY raw material.
  4. Map out a route and change channels—you can switch channels every 15 minutes or you can change channels after every cycle through your route. 
  1. Timber Crate Production

I have not tried this A and I would greatly appreciate any data (i.e. silver per hour) on this. The basic premise is this: connect Birch, Cedar, and Fir timber nodes to Calpheon, send workers there to gather timber, process the timber into plywood on your main and alts, and then finally send workers to produce “Calpheon Timber Crate” at as many “Wood Workbench” as you can find in Calpheon. Once the crates are produced and sent to your bank storage, you either use the “Transport” function at your bank or manually use a wagon to move your goods to your destination. Advice:

  1. Calculate how much silver/hour you would accumulate by spending X amount of time to reach Y node–further explanation is in the introduction.
  2. Use your alts to process timber into planks and your main to process planks into plywood (or vice-versa)–A lot debate on which way is more efficient and some argue that bottling alts’ energies at a 5:1 ratio is the best, but unless you can produce 5+ plywood per plank or 5+ planks per plywood (which I don’t think is possible, at least not at Professional 9), then bottling energy is inefficient. Again, note that this is from a pure-profit perspective.
  3. Make sure to check plywood prices on your server–if you can sell plywood on the marketplace (after 35% taxes of course) than you can by trading the crates (don’t forget that it takes black stone powder too!), then don’t make crates. I know you’re thinking, “what if I get the max distance bonus for trading?” Again, the time taken to travel the max distance would be better spent grinding.
  1. Crystal Grinding

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Depending on your processing rank, you can average X amount of black stone powder per crystal. Almost always, you will produce more black stone powder than the crystal is worth. Advice:

  1. Divide the cost of the crystal by the the average number of black stone powders you can obtain from grinding to calculate how much you are spending to obtain each black stone powder.
  2. Grind the cheapest blue crystal you can find on the market, as it costs 3-5 more energy to obtain the equivalent number of black stone powders from green crystals.
  1. Cooking

More to come!

  1. PASSIVE MONEY-MAKING (PM)
    1. Hotspot Fishing (AFK)

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Advice:

  1. Obtain more inventory slots—the biggest constraint to AFK fishing is the quantity of available inventory slots. 
  2. Rank up fishing—fishing rods with more durability have rank requirements. More durability allows for more time spent fishing. 
  1. Sunflower Farming

This method is, by far, my favorite. I will not take the time to explain this method, as Dulfy and Meme have created extensive guides for this already (links to come).

  1. Production Empire

This is definitely the most contested and controversial money-making method. As time passes and more people jump on this bandwagon, this method will produce weaker returns, as profit is dependent on supply and demand. Refer to my pointers at the beginning of the guide for more information (e.g. send workers to the most profitable nodes in terms of silver/hour). Advice:

  1. Promote workers as often as possible, prioritizing those at higher levels or those about to break the next possible promotion level (level 20 and level 30).
  2. Maximize your energy while processing using this method by Blade Boques.