Now that I’ve finally had to seek support for this game, the issues are glaring. Nobody is on the same page and the way they are handling certain issues is to just push it back and forth between the forum, forum support, email support, and even live chat (defunct, details below).
Take this example, someone is asking why they did not receive their free powerpass after just becoming eligible today. A forum mod response:
The forum mod here quotes the latest message on paid powerpasses being re-enabled on August 24. The problem with this response is that it ignores the previous message about free powerpasses supposedly being re-enabled on August 15.
This kind of misinformed messaging is something I’ve now personally experienced while dealing with support. I’ve yet to re-receive my free Punika Powerpass. There are people posting about this in the forum. General mods are moving these posts to the support forum, and the support forum mods are telling people to contact email support and closing the threads.
Now specifically to my scenario, which shows how disorganized support is and the difference in their official public communications versus what they are telling players.
SInce official forum messaging said the passes were re-enabled on August 15th, I contacted support on August 18th as I still had not received my powerpass. The initial response was okay, I was told that I should receive the powerpass within a fixed time.
(This shows how internal messages are different from public announcements, even though these public announcements are used as support reference for forum mods.)
I waited until August 20th to reply to this message and let the rep know I still had not received my powerpass. This was ignored.
I contacted support with a new message again on August 22. I was given a cookie cutter response about checking my character’s inventories and if the issue persists to contact support via live chat, with instructions on how to do so.
Following these instructions, I contacted support via live chat. The live chat agent notified me that Lost Ark support via live chat is no longer provided. (Oops?)
I was told to notify the rep via the previous message that I needed to open a ticket and escalate my issue. I did so and quickly received a new response that my issue was escalated to the technical team.
A while later I received another message that the technical team confirmed that I SHOULD have my free power pass in my account, and because of that I received the compensation of a punika growth pack. However, they are unable to give an ETA on when my powerpass will actually become available again.
Here lies the crux of the overall issue. The messaging is disconnected. Players are being told that we should have all been re-issued the free powerpasses by August 15. There is no publicly available information that addresses the issue of some players still having not received their re-issued powerpass. Contacting support throws you for a loop where forum mods are just referencing the public announcements on the powerpasses or shoving people to contact support via email. Email support is basically saying we’re SOL without any ETA on when that will be fixed. The only available information on the powerpass issue is not addressing this continued unavailability of the free powerpasses by some players.
Additionally, the compensation was supposed to be provided for a relatively fixed amount of downtime until the free powerpasses were re-enabled. Now there is a group of players such as myself, who are experiencing continued downtime, but no additional compensation is being considered at this time.
Regardless, of the additional compensation, we can see how even email support is completing the loop. The forum is supposed to be where players seek official information. My dealing with support has highlighted even how forum mods and email support consider these public announcements as official information. However, it also shows how this official information differs from internal information. It also highlights the disconnect between the different support avenues and the poor user experience in dealing with it.
