Lost Ark first impressions (12 hours): a great game haunted with aggressive Microtransactions

General Discussion General Discussion
1

Gorgeous and fluid battlefields. The combat is wonderfully fluid. This is going to be my jam if they tame the store a bit. “OK” plot I press “G” constantly so I wouldn’t really know (thank you devs for skips).

The animations are amazing, the controls take some time to get used to. The UX/UI is super bloated like most kmmos.

Questing is simple, and I like that. It offers a linear way to level which means I can turn my brain off and do my cc/combo. Great before bed stress relief.

End game I have concerns about power creep where whale guilds have the most resources to kill bosses first.

I will probably put 100 hours into beta and at least 500 into launch. Whether or not it becomes one of my core games depends on if they [quote=“citixen17, post:1, topic:20332, full:true”]
Jesus Christ this is gorgeous, I kept saying during the fight scenes. The combat is wonderfully fluid. This is going to be my jam if they tame the store a bit. “OK” plot I press “G” constantly so I wouldn’t really know (thank you devs for skips).

The animations are amazing, the controls take some time to get used to. The UX/UI is super bloated like most kmmos.

Questing is simple, and I like that. It offers a linear way to level which means I can turn my brain off and do my cc/combo. Great before bed stress relief.

End game I have concerns about power creep where whale guilds have the most resources to kill bosses first.

I will probably put 100 hours into beta and at least 500 into launch. Whether or not it becomes one of my core games depends on if they — please, for the love of good, before launch:

chill a little bit on the RMTs and make them aesthetic only

8.5/10 Experience so far. It’s definitely more interesting than I thought it would be. There’s a lot of punch to combat. It’ll be hard to put this one down, and when I do–I hope it isn’t because RNG and Whales.

2

The current store really doesn’t give you anything OP, so I don’t really see what you mean by “taming the store”.

The store is actually very good considering it’s a Korean MMO and I doubt it will get much better than this. There might come some more things, but unless you’re a “pro gamer” who wants to clear stuff first, the store and what you can buy for real money won’t bother you at all.

This is a grind game, so get use to the fact that you will have to put in more hours in grinding stuff than what RMT will give anyone.

1 Like
3

I honestly think the store is fine right now. It’s leaning more towards the pay for convenience side of things instead of the pay to win side of things. From what I have seen so far is that you cannot buy your way into the best endgame gear or high level content by shelling out money. So as long as Amazon continues that trend and keeps the more predatory pay to win elements out of the version of the cash shop they have made then I have no problem with it.

2 Likes
4

image

Do you even played a gacha or BDO?

1 Like
5

I also don’t understand your title “aggressive microtransactions” there a games way more furious then Lost Ark

4 Likes
6

Just because there are games which are worse, does not excuse having a shop that gives whale guilds world firsts. The PVE game provides consumables and more or less requires the subscription buff because of how alt heavy Lost Ark is.

The North American market is nothing like those in KR/RU. They have to tone it down a bit more for us, and they are, but I’m hoping it’s enough.

7

“Aggressive micro transactions”? Doesn’t seem anywhere close to it.

“Whale guilds world firsts” so glad people can skip instant wipe mechanics with a credit card!

The only ‘world firsts’ that matter for raids are the equalized ones.

9

End game I have concerns about power creep where whale guilds have the most resources to kill bosses first. its very wrong, endgame dont care so much about gear from whales. if you are a whale and dont know mechanics you sucks and 100% will quit
and endgame its not about 1 person dungeon mechanic. Kaishur its 16 ppl, Mystic 8 etc

https://youtu.be/YKm6XnULaHU take a look on endgame content

2 Likes
10

Ain’t the game’s fault when you do wiener comparisons because you felt entitled to be a “hard working non-paying player” just to brag about it with some friends of yours. It’s not a competition. Don’t created your own imaginable competition to justify your argument. It’s stupid.

1 Like
11

The cash shop is there way of keeping the game running and making money off a game that can cost normal people 0 dollars to play. Not to seem disrespectful, but why would a game that needs to rely on the “whales” and such to keep it running, ever care about a f2p players opinion on what’s in the store, or what the subscription buff does, that they also aren’t buying. These P2W and cash shop arguments have become so dumb that people don’t even remember what true P2W was like.

3 Likes
12

Yeah, my friends playing the game didn’t even realise there was a cash shop and didn’t know they got 40K Royal Crystals to test. Very unobstrusive.

Agreed. Just playing this game, you can see how much work was made to develop it into the rich game it is now. This is not even considering the on-going costs to keep a team of developers, server admins (and servers) + marketing to keep this game top notch.

None of this is free and the microtransaction system the way it is now is decidedly not aggressive.

1 Like
13

World first raid clears been done in Korea so no worries there

1 Like