YMMV / Blade & Soul

The video game:

• Annoying Video Game Helper: Hajoon and Old Man Cho are the quest giver for the famous wind walk skill training. If you hit a certain level, they'll send you a letter that you'll need to click in order to access the quest. It's not too bad, but the sound clips always play whenever you load into the game or move into another zone, making it annoying if you decide to focus on leveling up first.
  Hajoon/Old Man Cho:: Read the letter, Cricket.
• Anticlimax Boss: Lusung is a pretty big offender of this. After spending half of the game being annoying and generally preventing you from touching him, the moment you get to legitimately fight him, he is no better than an Elite NPC unit and has no immunities whatsoever. Dealing with him is as easy as dealing with the game's standard encounters.
• Award-Bait Song: Where the wind sleeps or Dochun's Memory Song in Chapter 23 of the Silverfrost Expansion. Too bad the music was only used in one scene.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: Like Dragon's Crown, the MMO is mostly known for having extremely pretty characters (both male and female), but the females' physiques and clothing styles tend to be one of the more memorable aspects of the game's design according to some gamers. The fact that Hyung Tae Kim, who also designed the characters for the Magna Carta series, was the lead designer here also adds to this.
• Broken Base:
  • A few of the costumes that female Lyn can wear happen to share the Rule of Sexy design features that the females of other races get, some of which are stripperific to the point that the female characters' chests would be completely exposed if not for the fact that all of these Navel-Deep Neckline and Cleavage Window type of costumes also come with bikini tops. Adding to the fact that the Lyn resemble stylized, Little Bit Beastly human children, this means that some people are particularly Squicked out by these designs and wish that the Lyn was covered a little more. However, other players don't really care about it since the number of these outfits are rare enough for the Lyn (the majority of their costumes aim at being cute more often than not), and/or are just glad that, after some other MMOs went out of their way to Bowdlerise their child-like races outfits, the Blade & Soul NA localization didn't try to alter the outfits much at all.
  • Certain classes being race-locked is still a hot-button topic among Western MMO gamers, who either hate it because it prevents them from making the characters they want, or like it because it allows for more diversity, and/or because it helps identify classes more quickly for PVP purposes.
  • The censorship of Zulia (a very busty character even by the game's standards) caused a bit of a stir (it consisted of covering her cleavage, though some have also said that her bust size was reduced as well), to the point where the people who were most upset about it have developed mods that returns her original appearance. Others didn't think it was too big of a deal since the censored outfit resembles one she later wears, while still others, including some who hated how she looked or didn't care in the slightest, still feel that censorship of any kind is worse on principle.
  • Ever since the patches where nearly all old dungeons have their mechanics nerfed to the point where all of them can be killed just by doing DPS. Half of the player base is upset with the change as this kills any challenge the game offers, while the other half is happy as they can finally do dungeons that were inaccessible to them before thanks to the high gear requirements. A small section is somewhere between the two, as this streamlines dungeon runs and gives them time to do other dungeons.
• Common Knowledge: It's commonly believed by players that Zulia's costume change is another case of Bowdlerization by NCWest, but it's actually enforced by the Chinese committee who deemed her outfit to be oversexualized and threatened to stop supporting the game if they didn't do so^note and they released their own knock-off game anyways. Many revealing costumes are also altered to be more modest, so she's not the only one censored in the Chinese version.
• Demonic Spiders: Terrors and their dungeon reskin versions. If you get caught in their force pull, hope that there are no other enemies since you'll be a sitting duck while they're free to wail on you. And if there are two or more terrors, enjoy getting ping-ponged around.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Poharan for her cutesy pirate princess appearance and for being a Little Miss Badass. And this started when she had her Early-Bird Cameo in the Blackram Supply Chain. Once her pet skin came out, it's usually one of the highest demanded pets for many years
  • The Talus Trio Yunma Fei, Junghado, and Yu Chun thanks to their fleshed-out story arc, being badasses in their own right, and are good-looking to boot.
  • The Foul-Mouthed Granny became one of the most loved characters in the game for the sheer hilarity of her censored cursing.
  • Babbletron, real name Jonathan Lien, is one of the most beloved Community Managers of the NA/EU game, thanks to his friendliness, dedication, and actually listening to player concerns and does his best to explain all the changes made in the game professionally. Fans are really supportive of him and sad to see him depart from the company.
• Fandom Rivalry: Has one with Black Desert Online thanks to both games released in the same year have a similar dynamic of unique gameplay. It doesn't help that Black Desert has been hyped by western gamers for ages while Blade and Soul were falling off the hype train that year.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Jinsoyun's younger form is affectionately nicknamed "Jinsoybean" by fans.
  • "Cricket" is often affectionately used by fans to refer to the player character, whereas in the story, it is rarely used as other characters refer to them as "Jyan" or "Jyansei".
  • Destroyers and Blade Masters gained the nickname "Beyblades" thanks to their Spin Attack.
  • Warlocks are sometimes referred to as "SB Slaves" by players as they are often recruited to parties just for their buffs.
  • In the Black Tower/Khanda Vihar raid, the final boss's AOE attack is often called "Pizza" or "Pizza phase".
• Fetish Retardant: The game is highly sexualized, with female characters showing off their assets in their costumes and movement. So sexualized that it passes past the point of sexy into Rule of Funny with how exaggerated they are. The Gon and Yun races are most guilty of this, with them doing spine-breaking positions in their idle animations for starters
• Fountain of Memes:
  • The Blackram Supply Chain. Thanks to bad dubbing, hilarious translations, and the fact that this is a good place to farm materials which means that people will hear the same lines all over again and get stuck in their heads. It's so hilarious that people actually don't mind the bad dub.
  • Another offender is Awakened Necropolis, for the same reasons as above.
• Game-Breaker: When the gunslinger class came out, one elemental spec ^note The Fire build has a skill that allows them to deal massive damage in a couple of seconds, allowing low-geared gunners to overpower the higher geared ones in PvE. And it's quite broken in PvP as the skill has Pierce stats which allows them to destroy even the longest I-frame bubble in seconds. Couple that with reset cooldown potions, they are so devastating both in PvP and PvE that a patch was let out to nerf their damage after a month.
• Game-Breaking Bug: It won't break your game, but there is a glitch that doesn't let the enemy AI break aggro causing players to be stuck in battle mode. Not that bad by itself but it prevents usage of Dragon Pulses and high jump so players can get stuck for a long time in a dungeon.^note  One fix is to use your escape to return to the entrance, but if the player is hit or damaged again while others are still glitched, you'll have to wait 10 minutes for the escape timer to reset. Another fix is letting the affected player/s die for the enemies to reset. Classes with pets usually trigger the glitch, but sometimes it will hit any class randomly.
• Goddamned Bats: Every non-boss or mini-boss in a dungeon, but there are some types that are the bane of players: mobs that stun, pull, and poison.
  • Vipercaps. Once you cross their range, they will pull you close to its range and pull you over if you try to escape without using an I-frame, forcing you to kill it. You're lucky if it doesn't spit poison that slows down movement and give you poison damage over time.
  • Snipers or anything that throws rocks. They're able to stun you far away, allowing mobs to get close and gank you from all sides. Woe if you'll trigger the Glitch that doesn't break aggro so you're forced to walk all the way to the boss.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • If the Soulburn buff expires while the player is viewing a cutscene or using the dragon pulse, the outfit won't vanish until the player moves out of the area. And if the player changes their outfit, the wings will stay afloat even if the player moves out of the way. It's been patched a few years later.
  • In Black Tower/Khanda Vihar, there is a bug in the third boss that removes the instant death zones around the boss if done properly, making the boss easier to kill.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Most of the ranged classes are hit by this, not for how hard they are played, but for how easy a class can be controlled:
  • Summoners are the bane for players as they are regarded to be the easiest class to play in a game where skill and timing are the game's main draw. The website even says that the class is the easiest, ensuring that noobs will pick them. Their cats have the tendency to pull the taunt away from tank classes, either messing the rotation up or making the boss hit other players instead. While they are at least as challenging to play well in group content as any other class, it's possible to get a lot further in the game without learning to play properly as a Summoner. They also tend to cause rage in other players in PVP, because their cat's crowd control skills are much harder to counter or escape than they should be on paper.
  • Force Masters. Their ability to do high consistent damage puts them on top of PvE charts, but it's regarded as one of the worst classes by players as they are the go-to class of newbies aside from summoners and mocked for only using three skills for their rotation.^note Not actually true, FM's have other damage skills that can be specced but it's a meme within the player base.
  • Soul Fighters is a hybrid class that combines melee and ranged attacks, dominating PvP leaderboards for a few seasons. Not too bad, but the unintentional Nerf when the skill system is overhauled into elements crippled their playstyle and fell from high-tier to low-tier as the only thing that they offer is a heal buff that summoners already have.
  • The Gunslinger class is considered high-tier when first released, but players loathed the class thanks to the game-breaker tab skill that made the class deal millions of damage in seconds. Its nerfs somewhat made the class more balanced, but its reputation is still tainted as an easy class that deals high damage and doesn't need skill to pilot like summoners.
  • Warlocks was high-tier in PvP scene when first released, having devastating aerials and combos that made them dominate the PvP scene, necessitating for their skills to be nerfed so many times. This in turn sets them into low-tier scrappy status as they became the weakest class in both PvP and PvE and only relevant for the Soulburn buff. The Warden class, which was a tank-like class, later acquired the buff and Warlocks lost their advantage in parties, making them in line with Soul Fighters in party relevance.
• Hype Backlash: Not in the usual sense, but the game took so long in coming to western shores that many of the gamers who were originally waiting for it to be localized either moved on to other games or just played one of the overseas versions, if not becoming disillusioned because other games that were aping Blade & Soul's style had been coming over first.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • After the patch that adjusted dungeon difficulty, players are unhappy that all mechanics are nerfed to the point that a high geared party can kill any boss in seconds.
  • Some ranged classes^note Gunslinger, Force Master, Summoners are defined like this by the player base, as they can deal damage without worrying about getting hit by attacks since most boss patterns focus on melee attacks and have an 8-meter range.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Read the letter Cricket!^explanation Hajoon and Old Man Cho says these after certain levels to attract the player into taking their respective quests. Now players use this in a mocking matter if they want to advertise or point out something in-game.
  • kerp yor promse/cabt kep eyes opn muh longr/hosptal oly 4 mls away^explanation A Youtuber was caught trying to get girls to send nudes to him by threatening to kill himself. Needless to say, the girls didn't have any of that and posted the story to Reddit, where he became a meme overnight.
  • No Trust NCSoft^explanation NCWest stated before a big patch that a certain item can be exchanged to gem powders, which can be transmuted to gems that will boost a player's AP stat, causing players to stock up that item and doubling its price. Then, a few days later, they corrected that is supposed to be for 10 gold, which is 2/3 of its selling price. The player backlash was so intense that all players got free premium and got additional gold for every exchange, leading to this meme.
  • Gas The Rats!^explanation The Lyn class is one of the most hated classes on Reddit due to 1.)having 2 classes locked behind them, both annoying on PvP 2.)having the most classes available to them 3.)Summoner is one of the highest played class and generally has been played by "noobs". It didn't help matters when gunslinger Lyns were added in a patch when players wanted the class to be exclusively human.
  • Tab Tab Alt Tab ^explanation  The Warlock class has an offensive buff that boosts the stats of all party members for 15 seconds. As they were the only ones having this buff before the coming of Wardens, many parties and raids take any warlock, no matter the gear, just for this buff and joke that they only need to do Soulburn to be useful.
  • Blade and Fashion/Fashion souls^explanation True to being an MMO, players always joke that in-game costumes are the true endgame, with tons of outfits available for purchase. It's not uncommon for players to spend more on outfits than upgrading items.
  • "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"^explanation  After a moderator's response to a complaint of a buggy cosmetic item, players use this as a sarcastic response to all the unfixed bugs within the game.
  • No Sin, No BM ^explanation  During the early days of the game, certain classes are valued by their utility or ability to do high DPS. Assassins and Blade Masters had the least utility available back then, which put them in the Low-Tier status before the class buffs arrived. It was common to see this posted in the party finder and it's a usual sight for the aforementioned classes to be kicked out in search of more useful classes.
  • hm11 come on baby!^explanation  NCwest once released an update where character pages can't be checked by other players to see if they have the required gear for a dungeon. So players began checking Hongmoon Levels as a compromise and began spamming the chat with these messages. Unfortunately, this locked out lower Hongmoon level players from party runs even if they had the required gear.
  • Soha can shoot me anytime^explanation  Said by a Blackram soldier in a few early dungeon maps, and players also agree for obvious reasons.
• Moe:
  • Zulia as a kid. She's a bratty kid for sure, but she only wants to cheer up her new friend Jinsoyun.
  • Bunyang and Bunah for being Badass Adorable little kids that teach Cricket how to wind walk.
  • Jinsoyun when she turned back to a child that Cricket has to raise and train.
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: On top of being an MMO, a genre where players are more likely to ignore the story anyway, the combination of the story veering too far towards "dark" and the questionable localization of the NA release of the game have led some players to ignore the plot in favor of other things such as PVP and character progression.
• The Scrappy: Ryu is instantly hated after it's revealed he's a double agent, betraying Cricket and the Hongmoon Students and killing off Bunyang. He's also given flak for not being as charismatic as the other antagonists before him, having to contend with Mushin, Jinsoyun, and Zulia.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Knockback, a CC skill that only 2 classes have and it can't be chained unless players playing these 2 classes coordinate. It's a scrappy skill for players since they have a tendency to go off before an important mechanic, and since CC skills can't be overwritten, it's been the cause of many failures in parties.
  • Aerials for melee characters. It's a good technique for PvP that can almost guarantee a one-hit combo when pulled off well. But in PVE, melee characters cannot hit a target once it's up in the air while range characters still can. It causes a big loss in damage and sometimes messes up a boss's rotation.
  • The inclusion of Trove, which is comparable to a Gacha with real money involved. It was received with a lukewarm response the first time it was introduced when it was clear that high-end materials are being added in future patches turned it into a hot button topic for players.
  • The gradual Pay-To-Win mechanics added in the game soured player opinion as materials that can only be farmed became available in the marketplace for real money. Even more so when it's apparent the company started dumbing down monthly events that used to give upgrade items and rare clothing to just focus on putting everything into expensive bundles for real money.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: A track called "The Black Rose Witch" sounds similar to a track in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance such as Rules of Nature or I'm My Own Master Now. The Blade and Soul Silver Frost Mountain soundtrack is generally compared to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance's own likely due to sharing the same composer, Jamie Christopherson. Tracks such as Flash Of Steel for example, wouldn't be out of place in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.
• That One Achievement:
  • Achievements that require killing a certain amount of enemies is this since it usually goes up to a thousand kills. Good luck if you're required to kill player factions since it's hard to find active players participating in older dungeons.
  • Achievements that require a certain number of runs in a dungeon, especially the ones that require multiple dungeons to complete. If you don't have the gear for it, it will take months just to finish it.
• That One Boss:
  • Before the dungeon nerfs, it's a running gag in the player fanbase that a miniboss is usually harder to deal with than the final boss of the dungeon. It not unheard of that parties are stuck trying to kill one miniboss for hours:
    • Naryu Sanctum's first boss has a mechanic that needs someone, usually the tank, to line up a series of mooks so the shield can be broken. It's quite hard to do if one party member messes up as players will be forced to deal with a damage reduction on their skills.
    • Naryu Foundry's first miniboss has mooks that need to be killed or cc'ed when spawning or else they will explode and deal massive damage to all party members with fire stacks. Players who are unaware of this tend to ignore them which causes massive Rage Quit if someone messes up.
    • The Harpy before Hive Queen in Vortex Temple is considered to be the hardest boss in the raid, as she has a mechanic that pulls all players within 16 meters to her and forces them to dance. Range players need to kill the mooks that spawn, which becomes harder as she can throw a projectile that forces anyone to dance. Also, she needs to be stunned in one second or else the whole party will fail.
  • Master Hong from the Circle of Sundering Quest is this as he has quick and unblockable attacks that need to be dodged quickly, else the player will be subjected to a one-hit kill attack, not to mention his phases where he creates 3 insta-kill areas that you need to position correctly or there will be no safe area left. Since he has a chance to drop one item for an endgame gear, players who cannot beat him are just advised to farm the first three bosses for tokens instead.
  • Yunsang from Mushin's Tower is a hard hitter when he was released, as he has quick and powerful attacks, not to mention that straying too far from him will make him jump to you and deal massive unblockable damage.
  • Yeoharan from Outlaw Island will throw grenades that send an AOE ring before spawning three turrets, then her phase when she sends out three cats while sniping from above. You need to burst the cats down while constantly moving to avoid the tracers and rockets that target you.
  • The third boss of Nightfall Sanctuary (Twilight Temple) before the dungeon nerfs that guilds have disbanded or kicked out players making mistakes. Even Korean players took weeks just to clear the level when it's normal for a newly released dungeon to be cleared in a day to two.
• That One Level: Any open-world PVP farming zone is pretty loathed by almost every player thanks to it being a mixture of PVP and PVE mechanics. The problem starts with how the players are not scaled equally, which means a high geared player can solo control the field. The game is not optimized and can't handle a large group of players, and you lose points when dying. Adding that it's usually a good source of materials and gold, new and low geared players don't even bother playing on these fields as they usually fodder for the geared ones.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: NcSoft is facing backlash when they had nerfed the dungeon gold rewards by half. This made players complain that there is no more easy way to make gold for their alts as in-game prices stay the same or even goes higher as new gear is introduced.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The game is a legitimate Crapsack World where the good is completely under the thumb of the bad and nothing you do really changes that. Combined with the fact you end up working for characters like Yonkai, the villagers you help are almost always ungrateful, and the story ending with your corruption without a choice (the option to stick to the Hongmoon was removed in all versions because it created a second warring faction). In short, a lot of people find the world, beautiful as it is, is a bit grimdark without enough glimmers of hope to really be worth investing in, creating a very strong Play the Game, Skip the Story mindset. Not helping matters was the fact that for a while after release, the NA version lacked the story updates set after the spoiler-tagged ending, which reveals that your character doesn't stay on the evil path and is eventually purified of their Dark Chi corruption.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Characters aside, the game is very beautiful, which isn't too surprising, considering the art designer. Even the monsters are intricately detailed. The dev team has said that they tried their best to translate Hyung Tae Kim's artwork into 3D as best as they could, and it really shows.

The anime:

• Cliché Storm: Just like its game counterpart, with the Last of His Kind plot and Cycle of Revenge story arcs.
• Broken Base: Some people were hyped that Blade & Soul got an anime adaption. Others would bash on the animation, characters, and especially the storyline.
• So Okay, It's Average: Mostly because the anime doesn't really capture the art direction of the game much at all, appearing generic, which doesn't help since the plot is considered typical of the genre.