I’m trying to keep my calm and give this feedback as nicely as possible but tbh… I absolutely hate the ability stone design. It takes me an absurd amount of time and effort to just get a decent one to drop even playing multiple alts. Getting a single desired engraving is already a pain let alone 2. Stones are designed with too many rng factors. Rng to get one to drop, rng on the engravings, and even more rng on the faceting.
Today i finally get a decent one for my zerker with cursed doll + masters tenacity. On a 75% chance of success roll i lose 4 in a row on BOTH desired engravings. Not just one of them. BOTH! The odds on this have to be astronomical… I immediately logged off and have no desire to play. I have NEVER seen such a worthless system in my life. I know some will defend it with probability or working as intended blah, blah, blah. That does not deter from the fact that it is a badly designed system.
Rng on top of rng on top of rng is a good way to extend the life of the game with massive variations in gameplay, but when it comes to multiple layers of rng blocking progression… it is also the easiest way to lose players. Why the hell would anyone want to keep playing a game that is designed to make you lose? At least with honing there is a pity system(And FYI if you have to add in any kind of pity mechanics that should be a sign the system is fundamentally flawed). For stones though there is no pity… you just get screwed over and over.
First off this system needs to be weighted for class engravings on the class you are playing. And secondly the faceting should have a currency system similar to honing to increase odds of success to offset the poorly designed casino odds. I’d rather put in more work to keep from letting rng screw me over yet again.
Sorry for ranting it’s just… I just feel less and less desire to even put forth any effort into this game. It’s supposed to be fun, a break from reality and the problems we face daily. Instead all it’s doing is adding more stress and frustration. I don’t mind working for the things i get but at the same time i don’t want to feel flat out disrespected due to flawed rng design.
Sounds like you need more Mario Kart in your life and less MMORPGs.
As much as I would love to get all my accessories and ability stones from my own drops that’s just not how this game works. You need to be knowledgeable of what engravings other classes want so you can sell items on the market. You are setting yourself up for disappointment if you expect to 1) get a perfect stone drop AND 2) facet it perfectly first try.
When you do facet a stone I recommend the online ability stone calculator it has been helpful for me.
100% That pretty much sums it up. Thanks for this. I needed a good laugh.
Been playing MMO’s since FFXI and never been as frustrated as i have playing Lost Ark. It’s not the genre it’s the flawed design of the game…
I’ll give the stone calculator a try but my luck is horrible no matter how much i try to get around it. Also… Your assuming i even get good drops on accessories lol. No drops worth more than 400g in the last month and that was just a few shard pouches i sold even though i needed them. Mostly they are 10-20g max if i can get them to sell. Hell I still have yet to get a single legendary engraving book to drop and the epic ones i get are all junk 1-3g sales that no one wants. I had to bite the bullet and buy all my accessories and engravings. Now i’m below 1k gold. It didn’t help that they nerfed gold sources to combat botters without a plan to recompense it elsewhere and it screwed over the normal players who don’t get good rng. As much as i love some part of this game the rest is a dumpster fire.
Rng on this game:
- Cards
- Stones (drop)
- Stones (pulish)
- Tripods (drop)
- Tripods (transfer)
- Gear upgrade
- Jewelry (stats)
- Jewelry (engravings)
- Gems
If i do not forget nothing, this is only direct RNG aspects that affect your character, not talking about islands, giants hearts or other reputations doing una’s etc for more roster stats. This game is a gambing machine in it’s whole.
Some rng it’s just fine for keep the grind/min max but this is terrible imo, not even talking about how you are limited in content if the rng doesn’t want to help you.
Most of it is negated by opening the auction house.
Yeah, I love how all the content you want to do in a mmo for your gear is just eclipsed by: just buy it. I want to play the game and actually get almost the things there, if I need to go every time to the market is me just playing to buy things, so fun getting all my needs there and ffs do not tell me now to grind more because I’m limited by the game itself 
Nothing stopping you from just playing for that stuff. Gear is RNG in 99% of MMOs. 
I think what you want is a single-player RPG, not an MMO.
I guess you can’t take the point here. L-I-M-I-T-E-D C-O-N-T-E-N-T
The market is always a support on mmos but here the rng is that much that you are market-dependent, that’s my whole point here. I want to get the things by playing and with the gold we earn now if you are not that lucky you will not have that much for selling your things and buy the needs you one, so the system is great right? Have fun with it!