Lost Ark Online

[vibehunter]

I played this for a few hours. My initial impressions:

• The chains of bots that run around and infest the low-level areas are a big eyesore.
• I joined a "guild" but no one talks.
• Story puts me to sleep, but that's not a deal-breaker for me.
• Visuals and animations are excellent. Combat "feels" good.

Overall, I feel like I'm playing a singleplayer ARPG. I don't have a huge problem with this, as it's a good game to zone out to. But I have read about the honing system and its RNG. Is the endgame content worth it?

 

[Saark]

Overall, I feel like I'm playing a singleplayer ARPG. I don't have a huge problem with this, as it's a good game to zone out to. But I have read about the honing system and its RNG. Is the endgame content worth it?

Yes it is. All your points are pretty valid, and it took me a while to find a social guild as well, but now that I finally do, it's a lot more enjoyable. Not relying on matchmaking all that much to do Guardians or other group content helps a lot
Legion raid bosses are the real endgame, and we only have 1 in the western release so far, Valtan.

These bosses are pretty fun to play and much more demanding mechanically (and more punishing as well), so that failing the "key" mechanics to the fight will typically lead to you dying. For Valtan that meant getting knocked off the platform you were fighting him on. We will be getting a second one very soon, Vykas. Hopefully she won't fall prey to the western censorship, but I reckon she might.



It's certainly a game that expects you or strongly encourages you to play more than one character, as having multiple characters with one "main" will help a lot as these alt-characters will help you build up more materials and resources to upgrade your gear. If you prefer just playing one class and don't want to explore the others, then it might not be the right game for you.

 

[vibehunter]

Overall, I feel like I'm playing a singleplayer ARPG. I don't have a huge problem with this, as it's a good game to zone out to. But I have read about the honing system and its RNG. Is the endgame content worth it?

Yes it is. All your points are pretty valid, and it took me a while to find a social guild as well, but now that I finally do, it's a lot more enjoyable. Not relying on matchmaking all that much to do Guardians or other group content helps a lot
Legion raid bosses are the real endgame, and we only have 1 in the western release so far, Valtan.

These bosses are pretty fun to play and much more demanding mechanically (and more punishing as well), so that failing the "key" mechanics to the fight will typically lead to you dying. For Valtan that meant getting knocked off the platform you were fighting him on. We will be getting a second one very soon, Vykas. Hopefully she won't fall prey to the western censorship, but I reckon she might.



It's certainly a game that expects you or strongly encourages you to play more than one character, as having multiple characters with one "main" will help a lot as these alt-characters will help you build up more materials and resources to upgrade your gear. If you prefer just playing one class and don't want to explore the others, then it might not be the right game for you.

Okay, I'm glad to hear that there's some mechanically complex stuff at the end of it.

It's hard for me to say whether I want to make my current character my main, since many of the other classes interest me. Are mains set in stone? Can I swap my main to another character, and turn my old main into an alt?

 

[Saark]

Well, you're free to change alts whenever you feel like it, nothing is stopping you from stopping upgrading gear for one character and doing it for another instead. All it means is that you will catch up to what your currently highest itemlevel character is before you can make any further progression. You will be running 4man and 8man dungeons that have a daily or weekly lockout on all your characters, as they do not share it. So your main might not be doing a 1340 ilvl dungeon anymore, but can do a 1415 one, while your alts are slowly working towards getting there. Or you can keep your alts where they are, keep pushing your main, and explore new content at higher itemlevels. It's really your choice if you want multiple characters at roughly the same ilvl to do the highest content you can do, or if you prefer pushing one character very high to enjoy some of the most challenging content asap.

The way alts usually work in this game is that you will have a main and maybe one "main alt" and a bunch of other alts. The main will be your highest ilvl, with the alts being 30-50 ilvl behind it. That way they can generate more resources that you can use to try to upgrade your gear on your main faster/more often. You'll constantly be making the decision between upgrading your alts more (or making one of them your main) or upgrading your main instead - there's no right or wrong choice here. The game lets you play at your own pace (although it is likely that most of the initial dungeons after level 50 will not be very satisfying as you might encounter high itemlevel players doing them for certain rewards, essentially removing all difficulty from the dungeons) and unless you fall prey to mass hysteria and FOMO (fear of missing out) you'll be enjoying your time. The easiest way to become unhappy with this game is by looking at other people that spent a lot of money to boost their characters higher, or that have been playing a long time/play more than you and thus can afford to progress faster.

But if you stop measuring your own success and enjoyment of the game by the one that others are having, it's probably one of the better MMO/aRPG hybrids out there. Try to find like-minded people, i.e. ones that aren't too fuzzed about you just starting now, or that are in a similar position, and explore what the game has to offer at your own pace, not the one that content creators or streamers or 24/7 nolifers are doing.

As for the endgame, so you might get a basic idea of the complexity and levels of coordination and communication that are required, this is a guide for the first of three phases of the upcoming Vykas encounter.

 

[Gerrard]

• I joined a "guild" but no one talks.

You can thank Discord for that.

 

[Saark]

You can thank Discord for that.

Yes and no. Frankly, the chat and social systems in LA are fucking trash, the only game with a worse chat system that I've played is Path of Exile. Sentences constantly get filtered, even individual words are, and retyping the exact same phrase will work the second, third or fourth time. There's no history in the guild-chat either. As a game that heavily encourages to use alts and alt-guilds, there is no shared chat beyond the instant-messager one, which is limited to 50 people while most major guilds have more players than that.

Discord is just a better way to discuss and organize things, as the game has a bad chat system and no way to properly plan and schedule static groups for raids or events.

 

[deama]

I've been playing it on a single character mostly, it's not too bad, I think. Right now I'm item level 1356. I think I'll be 1370 in a week or two, which is where endgame begins with the legion raids.
I've been playing for about a month, though I played for a week back during release time. Since logging in, they gave me some sort of ark pass scheme thing, which helped me with progression.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The chains of bots that run around and infest the low-level areas are a big eyesore.

reminder that this game makes you install a rootkit to play and it can't even prevent bots

 

[Morenatsu.]

I literally don't give a shit that games make me install malware. like who gives a single fuck it doesnt even matter

 

[Turbo normie]

I'm still playing Lost Ark.

 

[Sykar]

I have slowed down but log in saturdays or sundays for some casual fun or getting a few levels on an alt.

 

[Lim-Dûl]

This game combines League of Legends visuals with the streamlined gameplay of D2 clones. Amazing!

 

[Late Bloomer]

Logged in recently after having gave the game a go for a few weeks at western release. Was greeted to like 3 or 4 popup windows with a bunch of gibberish. Hope I don't need to know what any of that stuff meant. Maybe I'll roll up a Destroyer. They look kind of fun.

 

[Sykar]

Finally, the EU Central servers are up, and I can try out Machinist.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Finally, the EU Central servers are up, and I can try out Machinist.

Would like to hear your initial impressions when you are able.

 

[Sykar]

So far it is pretty nice. It is an actual pet class with shift key ordering the drone to move to a location and pressing x relocates it instantly to yourself. This is important because certain skills are not point and click but happen directly at the location of the drone. Active Pulse is a skill that does an AoE attack directly under it. If the drone is hovering above you but you are trying to attack enemies standing further away the skill will whiff. M143 Machine Gun is a line attack that starts at the drone's location and moves toward the cursors position at the time of activation and moves a fixed distance. If you are not mindful where the enemies are or move to this skill can easily whiff as well. The drone will automatically return to you if you move far enough away but that is basically an entire screen.
The Machinist as 3 different skill types, yellow which are skills you use yourself, which is pretty standard, drone skills which are coloured blue which makes the drone do something, and violet skills are a combo attack where you and your drone are doing something together.
Yellow attacks are also often restoring your battery, essentially your mana, while drone skills fill up your identity gauge. Like many other classes, you get two class engravings, one which enhances your identity and one which disables it but give you a permanent bonus.
One bugbear so far for me is that you cannot use personal skills and drone skills at the same time. Wish that was possible. You can at least move the drone independently while running. This is nice to kill enemies pursuing you while you move to the next location for example.

 

[Late Bloomer]

So far it is pretty nice. It is an actual pet class with shift key ordering the drone to move to a location and pressing x relocates it instantly to yourself. This is important because certain skills are not point and click but happen directly at the location of the drone. Active Pulse is a skill that does an AoE attack directly under it. If the drone is hovering above you but you are trying to attack enemies standing further away the skill will whiff. M143 Machine Gun is a line attack that starts at the drone's location and moves toward the cursors position at the time of activation and moves a fixed distance. If you are not mindful where the enemies are or move to this skill can easily whiff as well. The drone will automatically return to you if you move far enough away but that is basically an entire screen.
The Machinist as 3 different skill types, yellow which are skills you use yourself, which is pretty standard, drone skills which are coloured blue which makes the drone do something, and violet skills are a combo attack where you and your drone are doing something together.
Yellow attacks are also often restoring your battery, essentially your mana, while drone skills fill up your identity gauge. Like many other classes, you get two class engravings, one which enhances your identity and one which disables it but give you a permanent bonus.
One bugbear so far for me is that you cannot use personal skills and drone skills at the same time. Wish that was possible. You can at least move the drone independently while running. This is nice to kill enemies pursuing you while you move to the next location for example.

That actually sounds pretty darn cool.

 

[Sykar]

The drone skill "Active Pulse" has a tripod which gives a shield to you and your party. The AoE is rather small and you actually have to hit yourself and/or your teammates instead of the enemy. Interesting mechanic and makes it so that you at times have to make a choice between 20% damage shield or damage, though it is possible of course to hit enemy and friend at the same time.

 

[Allwynd]

I did not like it for the following reasons:

- bad controls
- bad combat
- zones aren't very open, feel like a series of pipes
- art style looks so cliche, like every Asian's interpretation of what European Fantasy would look like - snazzy architecture and clothes, pretty much all the jazz that was in Vampire anime in the early 2000s, every Asian Fantasy MMORPG copied that style and it's just painful to look at nowadays
- boring classes


I still don't understand the hype behind this game, it feels to generic and contrived.

 

[Ba'al]

- bad controls
- bad combat

Compared to what?

 

[Gerrard]

- bad controls
- bad combat

Compared to what?

WoW most likely.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I still don't understand the hype behind this game

weebs

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

This game had me confused as hell wayching a few vids on page 1. Is the game a resource and internet speed hog? Lotta lag? Obviously a hotspot ain't gonna work. Would this have been an interesting offline game?

 

[Allwynd]

- bad controls
- bad combat

Compared to what?

Compared to Diablo 2, Path of Exile.

 

[Ba'al]

- bad controls
- bad combat

Compared to what?

Compared to Diablo 2, Path of Exile.

D2 and PoE are better games than Lost Ark and while their combat is satisfying, it's mostly spamming one skill that you heavily invested into. I'm not gonna say that Lost Ark's MMO cooldown rotation trash is much better, but at least it's more varied. Lost Ark is also a generation ahead in terms of animations, effects and sound. I wish there was a better game built around its combat system as the current game feels more like a chore completion simulator.