The Honing Paradox And Legion Raids

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The truly fun endgame in Lost Ark are the Legion Raids, but to get there without a honing buff feels like a mobile game simulator that is a mind numbing experience.

With my time on other regions and the honing buff there, I could find myself very fast at T3 or even buy the 1302 powerpass (yes, for money → something that should interest a reasonable company) and skip most of the menial gated content.

So at 1340 the first non 100% hone was introduced, and it felt like honing was gatekeeping the endgame, instead of creating a fake barriers even before that. I do not feel motivated to grind to these extends just so I could do the goat raid once on a character a week, and I am still sane enough to not even consider this on the alts as that would again require me to invest another minimum of hundred of hours to get Argos ready (compared to other regions, which takes around a week at most 2 of really casual play after the 1302 powerpass)

So the Roadmap revealed Valtan is due in May or even later, according to playerbase’s ilevel statistics, but as a player I don’t want to log in to grind mind-numbing content, so I could do a cross between a guardian and an abyss raid that is really not that challanging, and other than what is the content that is available to us that is exciting? some few guardian raids and the oreya’s heart dungeon is a clownfest (literally).

Untill the honing buff is released, together with the additional material influx, I am reluctant to level alts, I am even reluctant to log in daily to my main to do the 2x chaos dungeon and 2x guardian raid, knowing that I’m just about to hit the T2 barrier again and then run out of content after an excruciating T3 deadzone. (I went from EU Central to West when AGS spectacularly miscalculated the interest and EU Central was unplayable - got to T3 on west and went back to central to play with friends).

Maybe it wouldn’t feel as bad if Oreya was a bit more challanging and or fun at least, but at the current time, and having gone through all of this once, I will be waiting for the honing buff or 1302 powerpass before actually returning to play this game for real.

Most of the posts that point to the positives of the game on the forums are currently sending the following message: “Guys, please be patient, the good content is coming soon”. And I agree, it is coming, but not nearly fast enough. Saying you’ll release Valtan when the ilevel of the majority is appropriate is like saying you’ll turn the traffic light to green only after at least 2 or 3 intersections are completely filled out by the traffic lane waiting for the light. Maybe avoid this alltogether and catch us up with what we like of the game?

Best Regards

3 Likes
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You do know… the other regions didn’t have honing buff at our current stage of the game right? They added honing buff further on to help players get to content we don’t even yet have… I mean we don’t even have the first Legion raid, and whether it comes out mid May or not is still tentative.

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keep up the negative bro, you got this

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Today was the first day when I quit the game 15 minutes after starting it. I’ve been playing religiously every day, levelling my 4 alts, trying to get my main to 1370 and in a split second I realized I can’t do it anymore.

I’ve been playing at least 8 hours per day, completing all daily content there is (chaos dungeons, guardians, Una’s tasks, abyssal dungeons, etc.) and not wanting to miss out on anything. I logged in today, bought literally everything from both event merchants and after spending around 3.5k gold went from 1355 to 1361. Used all books, all stones from merchants as well as those that I saved up over the last week and I was still a mile away from Argos.

After closing the game I felt like that would be the end of my time with Lost Ark so decided to just spend all my remaining gold (around 9k at that point) on materials and see how close I could get to 1370. After endless honing failed, failed, failed, failed, after being left with 500 gold and spending close to 2 million silver I got to 1366.66…

When I remembered that you literally can’t do anything in this game without gold I thought I’d do abyssal dungeons to earn at least that measly 1500 gold and yet again realized how sick I am of the same stupid content. Same chaos dungeons, same guardians, same absyssal dungeons :face_vomiting:

It’s a weird feeling when you finally sober up. I’ve been looking at what other games I could play and there’s nothing that interests me yet I can’t force myself to play Lost Ark either. There’s only so much abuse I can take and I think today was the breaking point for me.

3 Likes
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Seems like a solid honing session for me tho. I spent 11k guardian stones 4k weapon stones over 10k gold and idk 150 leapstones today to go from 1390 to 1392,5 xD

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I wouldn’t mind only going up 11GS but what I mind is that I literally spent all the gold I managed to accumulate over the two months (obviously with some spending here and there) with no viable ways to recover it. I can run abyssals and get 1500-1800, I can do Una’s and get another 1100-1200. That’s it. 3000 gold is nothing if you need to hone, craft those stupid oreha materials or buy some gear from the marketplace to kit out your char and/or alt. It’s a constant gold sink, just pay, pay, pay.

I logged in, saw my balance of 410 gold and just closed the game. I’m mentally exhausted from having to work every day to earn some money so that I can pay taxes all throughout the game. That’s not why I play games, they’re supposed to be fun. I work all day and I don’t need another 40 hours per week job just so that I can increase my gear score.

That’s insane by the way. I personally don’t see it as a rewarding progression. I don’t think I’d enjoy that one bit.

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Its supposed to be a grind, to ask them to baby you so you could reach engame would be a disservice to those who went through the grind. Also theyre adding south vern and continue pumping mats before the raids are even launched idk what more you want besides more free stuff.

Thats because that content is no longer endgame imagine the distaste if someone could buy a $30 pass to get to 1800 that would piss alot of people off. Usually those kind of passes dont exist till the content that it bypasses is irrelevant. Judging by how many people dont know how to hit a weak point or not step in fire content t2 content is still relevent lmao.

Thats because you hit the endgame wall. But i feel you that process felt really bad for me aswell. Just gotta grind my guy, trying to make relevent content irrlevent makes the game worse for everyone. Look at wow, every raid makes the past raid irrlevent and makes the game as a whole feel pointless…

Game isnt for you then sad to say. You think once you get to 1370 there aint gonna be a grind?

Then youll complain you cant get to kakul saden because of the grind. Idk what you want besides an easy mode where its cheep to be a whale.

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It wouldn’t feel as bad if you had 22 classes available with a cheap 1302 powerpass that enables you to get endgame ready in a fraction of the time. And a lot of interesting legion boss mechanics just in front of you.

We released with the gold fixes that tackled 1470+ ilvl doing oreya boosting for gold, even though this oreya is our endgame, which is a bit weird but not devastating.

Since lost ark strives to cater to a semi-casual audience, we are getting boring content that is heavily gated behind tedious bad rng and a lack of mats, it just doesn’t feel nowhere near as rewarding as on other regions.

SG had player data from previous releases, I don’t understand why would they intentionally bleed the playerbase this way, I bet if we released with the exact same full version as KR has right now, retention would be much higher, maybe around 600k active daily…

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Doubtful, i play 3-4 hours a day. Got to 1370 like 3 or 4 days ago now. Got 1 t3 alt, if you play 8 hours a day then idk what your doing but youre not doing it right or fail every attempt lmao. Even still 8 hours a day im suprised you have yet to get one char to 1370

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Genuine question - is Russian version the same as Korean or is it neutered too? If not then how can I install it? Is there a client I can download? I’d like to have a go on a “real” version, see how good or bad it is in comparison.

LMAO indeed… I must have been doing something wrong then. I guess I shouldn’t have failed all those honing attempts at 10-20% or done the horizontal content everyone instantly recommends when people say they’re sick of the same content.

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People are starting to realize what is actually killing us is we didn’t have 2 years to build up gold, silver, and alt farmers.

So now we have nerfed gold income, bad honing rates, and start from scratch.

The economy is in shambles and it is only going to get worse without some kind of change.

2 Likes
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Considering they give you the enhance books and enhance mats that are even refreshed every week idk how your only getting 10-20%

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I think its currently at the same content as KR, back when I was playing I was too new to understand powerpasses so I don’t know if you can buy your 1302 without leveling a character once first, but you’re gonna meet another problem there, most of the playerbase won’t speak english and they’re strict on engraving/gems before inviting for content, and engravings costed like 150-250 for blue ones in dec 2021, so more expensive than here, I really don’t know how the economy is doing there right now.

But you’ll be exchanging one grind for another.

In the end there always will be grind, it just felt nice skipping through most of this… ?Subpar? content on a highway to endgame that felt impactful. I imagine valtan/biakis or kakul satan could be frustrating when you’re team is pinging you and writing in cyrilic :slight_smile: and I imagine those activities are better enjoyed in guilds/friendly circles/regular groups

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You get 2 or 3 weapon books and maybe 10 armor books. Today I failed 34 honing attempts out of 42. Do these events give you enough books, solar stones and what not to boost 42 attempts?

You’re talking as if these events give you an insane amount of materials and books and solar stones and gold to make you go from 1340 to 1370 in one go. Maybe you could if the base chance wasn’t 10% but seeing how you’re surprised about 10% chances just means that you’re either not at the end game yet or just playing dumb.

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The value of gold really changes at 1370. in abyss you usually get 1 or more good accessories and those can sell for 40k in some cases and it’s making it alot easier

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I’ve run 3 T3 abyssals and I’m yet to see anything that would sell for more than 500G. You must be on NA servers because there are no such prices in EUC.

Edit:
Sorry, you’re talking about 1370. Well, I can’t get there anymore, I got no gold…

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Im on euc asta. You are not there yet but pretty damn close. If you give up now all ur sacrifices were a waste but if you can’t find any joy in this game anymore it’s time to search for it again somewhere else

Edit: in a friedly meaning*

1 Like
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Maybe I just need some days off. I feel so down and depressed at the moment that I can’t imagine playing anymore. Funny how 3 more honing attempts more and I would’ve probably felt elated that I’m finally 1370 but the game and its 10% chance decided that I don’t deserve that.

I’ll just go get drunk and buy some bot gold :joy:

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I don’t think the game itself cares. Sometimes ur lucky and sometimes not what really matters is if you have fun on the way not only if you succeed

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?? If your running the event every day you could buy out the store whoch is 10 armor books, 5 or 10 wep books, 15 5 stack solar grace, 10-5 10 stack blue solar thingys i think and 3 cant remember if it was stacked star things. The books alone got me from +13-+15 2 books per armor raises the energy by 8-10% per failed hone maybe even more tbf. If you got alts feeding your main thats even more resources, i didnt even have a t3 alt. My alt didnt get to t3 till after i was 1370.

Masterpieces give out 13k gold if you blew it well your problem. But thats really the only horizontal progress ive done. Tbh i had bad rng, played since it released 3-4 hours a day some days maybe 30-40 mins. Idk what your doing tbh.