Every game out there has RMT. Wow with token , ff14 with retainers , gw2 with currency exchange
But what they don’t have it is the gambling with your real money to upgrade your character. This reminds me those loot boxes
It’s one thing to gambling to get a skin
Such a bummer. The game quality itself is better than those zoomer mmo but I don’t wish to see more game going into these gambling businesses
Its hardly unique. Black desert has a similar system that is FAR more punishing than this games(Risk losing your items some of which are extremely expensive). This is becoming the norm for alot of live service IPs now. Basically maximize player engagement with extremely grindy mechanics designed to keep the player in the game for as long as possible. Dangle the carrot in front of their face long enough and they’ll eventually go for it(Spend money in the store).
Its kind of shady but at the same time the game at its core is very well done. Obviously done well enough to keep me around anyways 
While I agree with you, I must specify that you are not gambling with real money. You are buying a currency with real money which can be used for many things and then trading that in for another currency, which you then use to gamble. You also do not need to spend real money to obtain the currency you’re gambling with.
This is apparently an important distinction as gambling is illegal in South Korea.
I know. Its bullshit isn’t it.
You dont really need to use real money to spend on honing. It’s for people that wishes to whale hard to get to late game. The time spent ingame, you can catch up to those whalers. Spending real currency on honing is just an option not a necessity.
But why are you using real money to gamble?
Does anyone have a knife on your throat and insisting you to gamble with real money?
Why are you complaining about the choice you made?
Are you dumb?
This game has no gambling when it comes to upgrading your gear. Your guaranteed to upgrade the gear after a certain amount of failures and anything before that is just luck. When you gamble in a casino there is 0 guarantee you win back money no matter how much you fail. The only real gamble in this game is cardpacks.
Not even going lie, Welcome to KR MMO’s. The shet we been dealing with since 1990s
I see why this game is sometimes referred to as a mobile game, everything time gated behind a paywall, nearly every aspect of the game is monetised.
Gambling is a serious addiction and should not be exploited, especially the young.
You are the one sounding dumb here, how tf do people defend this shit?
anyone defending this type of exploitation should look up a video on lootboxes and what they do to people’s minds.
Honing has a ceiling so you can honestly think of it as putting it mats to get Artisan’s Energy to 100%, but you have a chance of upgrading on the way.
There’s stll an element of RNG, yes, but at least there’s a ceiling.
This is pretty accurate actually. I have spent money on this game but that was mostly for cosmetic stuff. Im currently sitting at 1350 without spending any money on honing mats or gold. No one is being forced to pay for anything all of the stuff ingame can be achieved without money. The option is there to progress faster. It is still a bit shady but its not as bad as alot of games out there.
Gambling with real money in MMOs have been around longer than WoW.
Entropia Universe is proof that everything you can do in an MMO can be converted to a slot machine of some sort.
Finally someone with some common sense.
To me its worst to gamble for skins than it is to gamble for character upgrades not the other way around but i was playing lineage 2 a lot so yeah.
FF14 extra retainers are not needed at all in my experience, the two you get for free are more than enough but if you are the guy who is lazy and needs more they are dirty cheap to buy, Wow is trash and pay to win since MoP, gw2 is pay to win and pay to look good since it turned free to play and that didnt end well, good game though, tons of fun content and not dead as many think.
Anyway the point is that honing is the core of the game, it will never change and while Lost ark is pay to win and you can gamble money to upgrade your character its in your hand if you ll do it, i for instance will never pay lost ark for upgrades, i may pay for a skin or two if the management of the game gets better in the future but never for upgrades.
this is probably the least egregious korean mmorpg ever released around this issue xD comparatively speaking this game is not even close to p2w. idk i dont care. if you are spending money on honing im selling my mats to you to take advantage of your stupidity 
the game is fine. idk where our audience has gotten all of their opinions from but seeing like 10 threads a day complaining about systems that are already improved over the p2w elements of other regions specifically to make us feel better is so annoying and frustrating.
the game is good, the devs are great, ags is doing a great job publishing
all mmorpgs have rng and a lot of games have way worse lootbox gambling systems compared to LA, especially in NA. its not even close.
there is literally a % chance posted in huge numbers every time you hone and its very transparent with what its asking from you and where you can get the materials in game for free. it almost encourages you to not buy and just relax and wait for your dailies more than encouraging you to pay
This is just my opinion but real money gambling in games should be made illegal where minors have access. This is a serious addiction like some have said, and targeting underage kids is despicable
More like parents should be responsible on what the kids should be doing and teaching them no to waste money. Guess where these underage kids get their money from? From stealing their parent’s credit card, because parent didnt teach kids to be responsible and why money is more important than digital items.
It surprises me truly, how many people have seemingly never experienced anything similar or worse than this in other games thus far.
Protest it all you want, it will never go away as long as people keep spending. And people will always keep spending.
its actually the exact same if someone spends money to “gamble” on a skin.
the difference is you dont spend money too gamble in lost ark, you spend money too beat the casino by bruteforcing upgrades.