Start here: your first season in Black Desert Online
Eighteen steps for your first Black Desert season, each with the reasoning. Shares saved progress with the full progression tracker.
Start here: your first season
25 things, in order, with the reason for each one. Everything you tick here is saved in the same place as the full progression tracker — do it on either page and it shows up on the other.
Open the full progression tracker ›
Every character, every life skill, gear paths per slot, grind spots by region and which stone goes on which gear — 163 + 56 steps. Same saved progress as this page.
Before you worry about gear, levels or class. All of it is free and none of it takes more than a few minutes.
One tick box at creation decides the whole run. Everything from here down is stored against this character.
Fifty-six is the milestone that matters, not sixty — it is where Succession and Awakening unlock, and they change how fast you kill more than any gear step in the whole season. Pick your questline and the plan appears right here.
Do this the moment you hit 56, before you grind another mob.
This is the cut. Up to 58 you grind — from here you choose, and everything below changes with it.
Only once you are done levelling. Three of these six are irreversible if you get them wrong, and they are marked.
HYPERBOOST hands a new account gear worth hundreds of billions of silver. Claim all of it before you spend a single Cron Stone of your own.
Short version: in your browser, nowhere else. What that means day to day is below.
cp_bdo_tracker_v2. Cookies get sent to a server with every request — localStorage never leaves your machine. Progress survives closing the tab, restarting the browser and rebooting.This page and the full tracker share the same store. A tick here is already ticked there, and the other way round. Keep both pages open and they update each other as you click.
When it disappears: if you clear site data for this page, work in a private window, or switch device. It does not follow your account, because there is no account. That is what the export is for.
bdo-progress-YYYY-MM-DD.json — the entire shared store, not just the steps on this page: every family tick, every character with their tasks, life skill ranks, gear rows, custom entries and pins. The same file the full tracker writes under Save / CSV, so you can export here and restore there, or the other way round.Restoring replaces, it does not merge. Your current state is overwritten by the file — so export first if you are unsure. You are asked before anything happens.
You do not need to do this every session. Once after setting up and once before you graduate is enough. The export is a safety net, not a routine.
Every character, every life skill, gear paths per slot, the deadline board, grind spots by region, and which stone goes on which gear. Your progress from this page is already in it.
Season questions, answered
Should I take the simplified questline?
It depends on your Family, not your character. On a fresh account, no — it skips the story up to Mediah and with it four of the five free pets, which unlock one per region, plus camping on that character. If your Family has already finished Mediah, yes: pets are once per Family and you already own them, the camping quest is Family-wide and already done, and the Season Pass is purely level-gated now, so simplified turns the season into pure levelling. Pearl Abyss is moving the same way — on the test server it is being re-gated behind Mediah progress, which restricts it to returning players rather than removing it.
Where is my progress saved, and can I move it to another device?
In your browser’s localStorage, under the key cp_bdo_tracker_v2 — no cookies, no account, nothing sent to a server. It survives closing the tab and rebooting, but it does not follow you to another device, and clearing site data removes it. Use Download backup to get a JSON file and Restore backup on the other machine. That file holds the whole shared store, so it also carries your progress in the full tracker.
Do this page and the full progression tracker share progress?
Yes, both read and write the same store. A step ticked here is already ticked there, and the same the other way round. If you have both pages open at once they update each other as you click.
How far should I enhance Tuvala gear?
To +15, then stop. The Season Pass hands you PEN in every slot as you level, so anything spent past +15 is wasted material. Tuvala uses ordinary Black Stone up to +15 and Concentrated Magical Black Stone beyond it — Naru gear no longer exists, it was replaced outright by Tuvala on 18 December 2025.
Can I still exchange Tuvala for boss gear when I graduate?
No. On 6 August 2026 the [Season] Boss Gear Exchange Coupon was removed, every Tuvala-to-boss-gear exchange quest went with it, coupons already held were deleted, and Gold Bar 1,000G was paid out for each. Any guide still describing that trade is out of date.
What changes on 8 October 2026?
The level cap goes to 75 and the EXP structure is revamped, with hunting-ground EXP adjusted. The 13 August patch only raised the cap to 70 — it left the curve untouched, which is why levelling advice written now still holds. On 8 October it stops holding, and anything about where to grind needs re-checking from scratch.
