This game is something that is very fun until you hit the gates. Honing equipment becomes a block to being able to get into the dungeons and raids that help you progress to what can be considered end game content. This means that if you are behind your friends, you are about to commit to another job to catch up, and possibly (likely) spend a fair bit of money on the store to get caught up.
It is because of this gating that this game for me has been left to collect some dust. I am not ready, nor do I really have the time, to commit to making sure I log in every day for 3 hours to complete dailies, run dungeons that aren’t locked out, and collect materials to be able to fail at honing my gear every time that I try for that day.
Now there are some other games that have this much worse, but I also don’t and didn’t play those until that point for just that reason. I don’t play games to become frustrated by the mechanics of leveling. I play for social aspects and entertainment. Failing to reach a level in a game so that I can play with my friends doesn’t promote the social aspect of the game, only adds to the frustration of losing.
Don’t get me wrong here, I love the concepts behind the game, and completely understand that you need to challenge your player base to make them better at playing their characters to get to the really hard content. However, there are some who aren’t that competitive and don’t want to struggle quite so much when they have limited time and just want to relax playing a cool game.
The story behind Lost Ark is engaging and you want to get to the end stories, but can’t because you get locked behind honing or other aspects of the game that are a bit challenging to accomplish without having the top tier gear, etc.
I am aware that this games has been out for a long time in other areas (Russia & Korea) and that there are some things that aren’t in our version of the game compared with the other versions, and that there are people who have been playing on the other servers and have perfected certain aspects of the game for when they came over to the new version.
I also understand the need to continue to push content to catch up to the other two server zones, but when you lose players because they can’t play together it’s no longer fun. While you could play with higher gear scored players often this didn’t happen as they were/are too busy managing their dailies and other things that they need to reach the next tier in their own gear. It changed the play style from helping each other to a very individualistic play style.
In this I am not a fan. I play MMOs for the group aspect, not the individual only style. If I wanted that I would go play single player games, which I don’t do because they are lonely. Yes there is a community in Lost Ark, but I really don’t feel that it is very supportive or that there is a desire to help others get to a place where you can run higher end content with people you know and have played with for a long time. Catching up is just not possible, unless you pay or have lots of time on your hands, and even then.
I love the concept of this game, the visuals and graphics, the different type of view and play, but have a really hard time with some of the other pieces of the game mechanics. Having to pug a dungeon because of lockouts is not my idea of fun, but then maybe that is because I am not the strongest of players.
I will come back to this game at some point as I really do love how different it is in play style, view and the story. But for now it’s collecting dust while I pursue something old, that is new again.
The Adams-Schlag Family 