As a guy who only got 20 pheons (30 now, thank you) and who does not have a negative pheon balance, seeing other players post screenshots of their negative pheon balances (I’ve seen some over 100, yikes) makes me feel quite a bit of dread for them.
This was clearly a mistake on your end, and whether or not there is an economic impact, you should not value that over the well-being of the minority of the player base, even if it’s only 5.8%. Those 5.8% are still people playing your game that are probably going to have a very bad time. These people probably got excited to get the pheons they either could not afford, or had to put off for a while to equip their characters and took the opportunity to cut some stones or buy some jewelry. While I disagree with 99% of complaints in this forum (so much so that I’ve been banned for sarcastic/snarky remarks and posts), this one is legitimate and I’d like to you consider something on a personal level.
I’d like to keep this thread amicable. Please do not post in here roasting AGS, the CMs, acting foolish or like a crybaby, because it will undermine the intention of this post. I’m requesting that if you have a negative pheon balance, please post a screenshot along with the following:
– Tell us a bit about yourself
– Why you started playing Lost Ark
– Why you’re still playing
– Your favorite class, skin, or anything else you enjoy about the game.
Then, I challenge AGS as a company to read these posts and stand by the decision that these people deserve to be punished.
Will play devil advocate here and just throw a possible broader alternate perspective here, but technically all of these Pheons are free. Nobody would have any of “exploit” Pheons or “compensation” Pheons if this scandal never occurred in the first place.
Nobody actually lost anything, but everybody actually had something to gain from this incident.
If a player managed to get x amount of pheons and spent it on stones, tripods, etc, then they actually benefited from this incident and being negative pheons now balances it in a way so to speak that where player possibly doesn’t need to spend extra resources/time/gold for tripods post update or maybe even getting a good stone RNG on that particular character. Now, they just have to wait for more free Pheons to come out to restore their Pheon balance to 0 or just pay the gold for BC for Pheonx100 package.
TLDR: I think of this as like a forced expenditure of gold that encouraged players to finish off their tripods/attempt RNG stones in hindsight forced onto that 5-6% minority whereas everybody including them gets +30 Pheons to close this case. It’s unfortunate that this scandal snowballed into this situation where there will always be a party that is affect and angry, but I am leaning more to doing things that make the majority happy.
A good number of players didn’t see/knew this was an “exploit.”
We saw it as AGS being generous. And now, we get negative pheons LOL
Atrocious management and how they handled this.
Huh, I just noticed they deducted Crystal from me as well, yikes. only about 20, but… still.
My name is kyleberry_sr, I senior The Messenger. I am a past world record holder in that game’s 8-bit speedrun, previously an avid MMO player (Ragnarok Online first love for decades, WoW for 15 years as Forsaken Mage, Kyosai) who quit playing MMO’s due to the scandalous nature of AAA development. I also tested Wildstar for a few years. RIP.
I started playing Lost Ark because my familiar of 19 years passed away in January and left me shattered and confused enough to break my rule and try an MMO again, because I needed the all-consuming gravity of an MMO’s busy schedule to take the grief more slowly. I tried it out on EU with a couple of dear friends, then transferred to NAE - Una two weeks in after they quit. I caught up to some more Messenger speedrunning pals of mine in Vykas, when they quit. I joined Roadshow to find the chill PvX social gaming hub I was looking for here and have been enjoying my time with them ever since.
I am still playing because despite the frustrations with our release, I truly love and appreciate Lost Ark as my favorite modern MMO. It’s definitely no RO and I mourn that it didn’t go for a more War of Emperium style of GvG experience, but I believe Arkesia has a lot of heart and that’s worth something. I enjoy a 13 character roster and every activity available to me, with Stronghold as my personal endgame. I’ve loved player housing since FFXI and this is just one of many homages to shared gaming favorites that this MMO contains.
I love Igniter Sorceress as my main, she was blessed with the legendary 100 quality weapon a few months ago and having finally gotten her to 5x3, the Kakul raid has been thoroughly enjoyable and redeems all the hard work and 2500+ hours I’ve put into this bad boy. I also really love Specialization Bard playstyle and am really interested in running Necrobard with Necromancy and Horn of Luterra to buff my minion army after seeing an amazing bard in PF do the same.
Thanks for reading about my story, I went to bed very satisfied with my tripods so I personally feel that -107 pheon is only a minor setback. I humbly apologize for my selfish and toxic behavior and pray that enough compassion is found between the playerbase and the pub/dev that as few people as possible get churned from this emotional rollercoaster. The ride is most enjoyable with many players.
I started playing LA because a friend wanted me to play with them at launch so I bought a founders pack with them. I still play because I’ve enjoyed it. I’m a SH main and love it.
I’ve defended the game and its decisions a lot, but this recent debacle with pheons of giving them, then taking them back, then announcing the claimed ones wouldn’t be removed, then removing them (after specifically saying they wouldn’t be) is infuriating to say the least.
They told us they would NOT be removing pheons, and then they went ahead and literally did the thing they said they wouldn’t do.
I spent the pheons because they said they wouldn’t be removing it. If I’d known they were taking it back, I wouldn’t have spent them. How is it fair that we are being punished for the game’s mistake? I love this game but it’s hard to trust them after they flip-flopped on this so much and then went back on what they said.
I was actually down -26 but reduced to -16 after I claimed the event pheons.
I am Valky, I played BDO before this and even though a friend had to convince me to play Lost Ark on release I didn’t regret it at all. I have two bards one spec one swift and really enjoy playing support, can’t wait for artist. I have 12 chars I play daily and 2 waiting room chars (artist and summoner).
So as you guessed I got 120 pheons, which I spent after they said we could keep the pheons since most people already spent them in ‘good faith’. So I spent mine on a soec bard build so i could make my spec bard 5x3. Something i would have waited with if not for the pheons… i would have waited till ancient.
This was my balance after the patch not including the 30 regifted or the 10 free ones from the event.
People were given free (seems unintended) pheons. A little percentage of this people (not talking about exploiters) got to reclaim like a hundred+ pheons which they used to get skill tree, gems etc. etc.
Now they took them back leaving the same people with negative balance while they keep the items purchased using the same pheons.
So they basically gave you like what, 4/5 skill tree or some accessory, or whatever with only the gold cost, which you probably are now using. They r fixing the AH to let people with negative balance buy from the market (which it seems was unintended). And you are still whining about negative balance when you probably bought skill tree or accessories which u would have bought like in 2 months of reclaiming free intended pheons or buying them from the store spending money?
I know it may sound like some white knighting but people should really balance the things off. You don’t necessarely got more than people who dind’t reclaim those, but for sure you got things faster than the same people.
Edit: i find the real issues on this game purely on the unreliabily of connection. The constant disconnection caused by EAC or whatever the cause is, it’s causing more trouble than other things. Like people can’t play the game.
How accepting mail that was sent by the game is exploitation? Especially when they wanted to make players develop a massive roster of alts. What’s the reasoning for punishing those people who actively play the game the way it was intended to played?
i created 11 char and I have now -86 pheons as i used it to updated my second main Tripods before the patch, maybe some of you said that’s not intended, exploiters or something but i would say “if i don’t get those pheons, i won’t update my second main”, that’s the problem. so i need to pay which is not my fault?
