Hey after playing the game for a decent amount I’d like to give a bit of feedback in the hopes the game will improve in some ways going forward.
I have started the game ~ 10 days after the official launch (no founders entry no early headstart)
I first heard of the game on a twitchstream by Quin69 like 3 or 4 years back can’t remember and instantly liked it since it was similar to Diablo but different. Since us westerners can’t play in korea unless we buy / get a Korean social security number I, like many others had to wait on the western release for a while (also ping 200ms+).
Positive:
I like the game in every way so far in its basic form. The p2w mechanic is light (I used to play a korean mmo (Silkroad Online) for most of my youth so it was never a bother and never spent a single cent while still beeing top ranked on the servers I played on) especially since a good p2w game allows non paying players to also meaningfully participate by beeing able to sell / trade with p2w players for the “boost mechanics” I never had a day without crystaline aura / shipskin / stuff in the crystal shop I like (except for the characterskins which dont mean much to me anyway) played league of legends for 10 years never bought a single skin got some from the game that was fine aswell.
Sure for ppl who play the game at most 2hrs a day (which are the majority of players) lost ark feels shit since u are not able to grind good gear for whales to trade and are progressing slower then every1 around you. But so is everything in life, if u want to be a good or successfull at something u have to dedicate time and or money to it and u still might fail same is and always will be true in games. If you only play 2hrs a day MMO RPGs aren’t for you anyway, unless you speed progression via payment. Otherwise why would another player invest 6-10 hrs if you get the same rewards in 2hrs / day.
My biggest complaints about lost ark:
There is a better version of the game out there and more or less available - the korean version.
Every player who is mildly interested in Lost Ark knows this and sees it on every social media platform all day which makes it excdeedingly frustrating. This Problem should be aleviated first and foremost by hiring / getting development to catch us up not with the progression of the game in korea but the Qol improvements. Every day this isnt implemented Lost Ark loses players and there is no reason other then lack of interest by either amazon / smilegate (I fault smilegate here since they have it all ready in korea and “just” need to port it, which shouldn’t be a problem considering the financial success of the game already in the west).
The Ilvl requierement design is to stringend.
I am usually considered fairly hardcore by my peers and friends in the game since I read most every guide / watch most every social media content / and aim to play the game most optimally all the time. So I was usually considered the “carry” in my group. In Lost Ark this is not only not possible its actively discouraged. I cant help my friends who are only able to play maybe 2-4hrs a day at all in T3.
Example Argos and the Oreha abyss dungeons. Last week I hit 1370 and had to refuse my friends (Ilvl 1360-1365) abyssal run for 1325 and had to then pug my first run alone (or miss out on huge rewards) and did my first Argos 1370 alone. This Week I still have to halt my own progression (which gave me time to write this article btw) to have them catch up to 1370 for abyss dungeons. AND I still cant play Argos with them even if they reach 1370 because I have to oneshot the guardian attempt to clear him at 1370 and 1385 (which I will reach this week) and they can only enter him once at 1370. So we are actively discouraged from playing together in an MMO despite just beeing apart by like 10-15 Ilvl. This is what causes the entire p2w debate and is the only thing that needs fixing (same will go for future content). This is again something only smilegate can fix and I can not figure out why it is this way other then a blatant attempt to generate money from ppl out of frustration over it. THis wont be fixed by a roadmap either.
The Events they introduced are fun (Naruni and equalized guardian raid)
but those are gimmicks, I progress through those harder then any challenging content which is also frustrating for ppl who look for challenging content. There are just to few ways to earn progression through the game in the game at the moment. Sure in Korea ppl have like 3-5 raids every week to do and cant keep up but we got 2 Abyss dungeons at 1370 (which are just a copy of the 2 prior 1325) and Argos P1 maybe P2 maybe P3 to do untill Valtan comes out which got delayed for no reason. No MMO should purposly delay content instead they increase the ways people can take to get to that content (which they just did a bit of via the Naruni event) but just letting us enter Chaos Dungeons for full reward for 4-6 Times a day and give every1 a bosh rush ticket every day and allow us to enter Abyss Dungeons 2-3 times a week would be a way better fix then just “giving” us 2-4 more weeks to catch up. I mean they were dead on seeing the problem that early Argos created (and still does with the iterated 1 time entry per week) and didnt fix it at all (the message they sent out was “yep we see the problem but we are not gonna do anything about it, other then delay content” !?like what…
I got plenty more to say but I leave it at that for now.
A bit of a short sheet to my progression so far:
Cleared every raid up to Argos P1
currentl ilvl main 1380 Lvl 54 Roster lvl 84 Skillpoints 340 and 1 alt in T3 and 3 in T2
Pvp Tier 7
Class played: Berserker (wanted to play paladin but my friend plays bard so I had to go dps)
I am not unemployed or life with my parents I am member of society to preempt some weird hateprojection on a player that is passionate in a videogame.