Lost Ark is actually not an Action-MMO-RPG...

[Dr.Acula]

This game starts as an ARPG like game with MMO aspects but once you reach level 50 and you start to progress through the "endgame" the focus shifts away more and more towards a completely different and VERY frustrating aspect.

To provide you with a comparison:
Imagine if you want to buy your groceries from the supermarket. You go into the super market and you want some milk, bread and vegetables. You also have the local currency in your wallet ($, €, pound or whatever else you use).

However in the super market if you want to buy the milk you actually have to pay for it with milk token which you have to get from a local farm. That local farm doesn't exactly sell it to you for money but you can only get it by providing specific tasks. In addition with that task it's really clear if you will get the token and how many it will be. Therefore you may end up without milk for several days even though you have enough money in your bank account.

Now imagine that you have a similar procedure for bread, vegetables, fruits and anything else you can get in a super market. That would be a bit of a mess, wouldn't it?

Lost Ark (and yes I know other modern - especially mobile - games are similar) is doing exactly this kind of stuff. You have dozens of different currencies which you have to handle and exchange against each other to progress through the game.

As mentioned at the top the game starts simple and straight forward. You have a quest and a weapon => go finish the quest. This part of Lost Ark is pretty solid and gets you hooked on the game. What is literally getting people of the hook is this excessive currency management in the later parts of the game which btw. also utilizes A LOT of casino like elements (*cough*honing). So many things a randomized that I'm constantly feeling like I'm pulling slot machine:

- Will an island token drop? most likely not - try again later
- Is the honing going to work? maybe or maybe not and if not I need to find more material
- What items are dropping in the dungeons? Do they have the right quality? Do they also have the right engravings? If not then better luck next time. Oh but you btw. you only will get a limited number of them each day. So get back tomorrow
- Ability stone handling - do they have what I want and if so can I actually get a high quality out of them or am I going to fail 5 times in a row at 75%?

Oh and it's not just that you have all of these slot machines and different currencies, they also all have a lot of limitations in place how much you can get and spend. You want honing material? Better find the 4-5 different vendors where you can buy it for different currencies and then buy your X amount per week to then come back next week and do the same thing again.

Lost Ark in the end is turning from an ARPG style game to a currency management game with some ARPG elements and I think this is something that is killing the enjoyment of a lot of players. Making things more complicated often doesn't make it better.

And btw. based on my own experience it looks to my like the systems in Lost Ark have been designed that way to push people to utilize the "easier" to handle premium currencies...

Personally I've gotten about 250 hours of playtime out of Lost Ark and I haven't touched Punika yet (I'm close to cracking T3). However I might actually quit before the current "final" endgame.

Oh and I haven't even talked on the whole castle and professions aspect ("you do not have enough energy"). It basically is the same "currency problem" though. Just a few more currencies to manage...

[thommix777]

It is called: Learning to play the game :) Try it sometime.

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by thommix777:

It is called: Learning to play the game :) Try it sometime.

Originally posted by Project Danny:

To long didn't read

Git gud.

How does this have anything to do with what I wrote? How about you actually learn to read before you respond to posts?

[Chronz]

Originally posted by Project Danny:

To long didn't read

Git gud.

Git gud is not a thing for KMMO grindfest mobile games.

[AK-47 BORAT U.S AND A]

only 250 to get to tier 3? youre a lucky guy. it took me 340h+ to get it after all the failhoning. only getting the tier 3 gear from the chaosdungeon took me 5 days

[legojoe]

The core gameplay is still you pressing buttons to move a character and fight things with said character. You play this character in a world with lore and have to navigate through the story as a character in the story; role-play. Even if there's resource management involved, the majority of your time, aside from sailing from place to place, is doing the thing mentioned earlier. So in conclusion, it's a ARPG.

Sure this game has a bunch of ridiculous systems that it was quite daunting but you can easily ignore the majority of them until you actually need to act upon them.

[DeiGratia]

Feel free to leave. 1 less duplicate cry post from a baddie

[G4M5T3R]

Sounds like you expected a traditional ARPG (aka Diablo) and got a MMO. There's plenty of material online to see what you're getting into beforehand and if that's not your thing the cost to find out is $0 so...

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by DeiGratia:

Feel free to leave. 1 less duplicate cry post from a baddie

What gives you the idea that I'm a "baddie"? Also where exactly do you have to be "good" in this game? Chaos dungeons are easy. The guardian raids can be annoying but they aren't really difficult (their difficulty mostly comes from one shot mechanics and a lack of visual indicators for abilities). Abyss dungeons are doable as well. In terms of the group content I've cleared everything up to itemlevel 1080. I've completed the cube as well as a boss rush. And I did all of that with match making - therefore pick up groups.

Am I missing something here in terms of "difficult" content where I need to get better?

[Rudey]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

This game starts as an ARPG like game with MMO aspects but once you reach level 50 and you start to progress through the "endgame" the focus shifts away more and more towards a completely different and VERY frustrating aspect.

To provide you with a comparison:
Imagine if you want to buy your groceries from the supermarket. You go into the super market and you want some milk, bread and vegetables. You also have the local currency in your wallet ($, €, pound or whatever else you use).

However in the super market if you want to buy the milk you actually have to pay for it with milk token which you have to get from a local farm. That local farm doesn't exactly sell it to you for money but you can only get it by providing specific tasks. In addition with that task it's really clear if you will get the token and how many it will be. Therefore you may end up without milk for several days even though you have enough money in your bank account.

Now imagine that you have a similar procedure for bread, vegetables, fruits and anything else you can get in a super market. That would be a bit of a mess, wouldn't it?

Lost Ark (and yes I know other modern - especially mobile - games are similar) is doing exactly this kind of stuff. You have dozens of different currencies which you have to handle and exchange against each other to progress through the game.

As mentioned at the top the game starts simple and straight forward. You have a quest and a weapon => go finish the quest. This part of Lost Ark is pretty solid and gets you hooked on the game. What is literally getting people of the hook is this excessive currency management in the later parts of the game which btw. also utilizes A LOT of casino like elements (*cough*honing). So many things a randomized that I'm constantly feeling like I'm pulling slot machine:

- Will an island token drop? most likely not - try again later
- Is the honing going to work? maybe or maybe not and if not I need to find more material
- What items are dropping in the dungeons? Do they have the right quality? Do they also have the right engravings? If not then better luck next time. Oh but you btw. you only will get a limited number of them each day. So get back tomorrow
- Ability stone handling - do they have what I want and if so can I actually get a high quality out of them or am I going to fail 5 times in a row at 75%?

Oh and it's not just that you have all of these slot machines and different currencies, they also all have a lot of limitations in place how much you can get and spend. You want honing material? Better find the 4-5 different vendors where you can buy it for different currencies and then buy your X amount per week to then come back next week and do the same thing again.

Lost Ark in the end is turning from an ARPG style game to a currency management game with some ARPG elements and I think this is something that is killing the enjoyment of a lot of players. Making things more complicated often doesn't make it better.

And btw. based on my own experience it looks to my like the systems in Lost Ark have been designed that way to push people to utilize the "easier" to handle premium currencies...

Personally I've gotten about 250 hours of playtime out of Lost Ark and I haven't touched Punika yet (I'm close to cracking T3). However I might actually quit before the current "final" endgame.

Oh and I haven't even talked on the whole castle and professions aspect ("you do not have enough energy"). It basically is the same "currency problem" though. Just a few more currencies to manage...

Yes, welcome to the mmo where you have a lot of currencies for all the different things that you can earn by all different methods so you can have more stuff to do and buy. But i guess the mmo is bad because it is too hard to be utilized by a literall monkey that struggles to handle more than one currency. Let me tell you sum buddy, when i reached tier 3, I knew what each currency does and where you can spend it / earn it. It's not hard, it comes to you naturally when you play the game, which you haven't done a whole lot considering that you're not even tier 3 after 250hours of playtime.

[omgitsbees]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

This game starts as an ARPG like game with MMO aspects but once you reach level 50 and you start to progress through the "endgame" the focus shifts away more and more towards a completely different and VERY frustrating aspect.

To provide you with a comparison:
Imagine if you want to buy your groceries from the supermarket. You go into the super market and you want some milk, bread and vegetables. You also have the local currency in your wallet ($, €, pound or whatever else you use).

However in the super market if you want to buy the milk you actually have to pay for it with milk token which you have to get from a local farm. That local farm doesn't exactly sell it to you for money but you can only get it by providing specific tasks. In addition with that task it's really clear if you will get the token and how many it will be. Therefore you may end up without milk for several days even though you have enough money in your bank account.

Now imagine that you have a similar procedure for bread, vegetables, fruits and anything else you can get in a super market. That would be a bit of a mess, wouldn't it?

Lost Ark (and yes I know other modern - especially mobile - games are similar) is doing exactly this kind of stuff. You have dozens of different currencies which you have to handle and exchange against each other to progress through the game.

As mentioned at the top the game starts simple and straight forward. You have a quest and a weapon => go finish the quest. This part of Lost Ark is pretty solid and gets you hooked on the game. What is literally getting people of the hook is this excessive currency management in the later parts of the game which btw. also utilizes A LOT of casino like elements (*cough*honing). So many things a randomized that I'm constantly feeling like I'm pulling slot machine:

- Will an island token drop? most likely not - try again later
- Is the honing going to work? maybe or maybe not and if not I need to find more material
- What items are dropping in the dungeons? Do they have the right quality? Do they also have the right engravings? If not then better luck next time. Oh but you btw. you only will get a limited number of them each day. So get back tomorrow
- Ability stone handling - do they have what I want and if so can I actually get a high quality out of them or am I going to fail 5 times in a row at 75%?

Oh and it's not just that you have all of these slot machines and different currencies, they also all have a lot of limitations in place how much you can get and spend. You want honing material? Better find the 4-5 different vendors where you can buy it for different currencies and then buy your X amount per week to then come back next week and do the same thing again.

Lost Ark in the end is turning from an ARPG style game to a currency management game with some ARPG elements and I think this is something that is killing the enjoyment of a lot of players. Making things more complicated often doesn't make it better.

And btw. based on my own experience it looks to my like the systems in Lost Ark have been designed that way to push people to utilize the "easier" to handle premium currencies...

Personally I've gotten about 250 hours of playtime out of Lost Ark and I haven't touched Punika yet (I'm close to cracking T3). However I might actually quit before the current "final" endgame.

Oh and I haven't even talked on the whole castle and professions aspect ("you do not have enough energy"). It basically is the same "currency problem" though. Just a few more currencies to manage...

not reading this

[Dr.Acula]

Originally posted by Rudey:

Yes, welcome to the mmo where you have a lot of currencies for all the different things that you can earn by all different methods so you can have more stuff to do and buy. But i guess the mmo is bad because it is too hard to be utilized by a literall monkey that struggles to handle more than one currency. Let me tell you sum buddy, when i reached tier 3, I knew what each currency does and where you can spend it / earn it. It's not hard, it comes to you naturally when you play the game, which you haven't done a whole lot considering that you're not even tier 3 after 250hours of playtime.

Okay, your comment is possibly one of the worst I've seen and is just oozing ignorance and worse...

And let me tell YOU "sum buddy" (btw. that way of talking says a lot about your level of education).

1. You have no idea how someone spends 250 hours in a game. Maybe I haven't skipped every cut scene and rushed through the quest content like it doesn't exist. Btw. I have seen people in the game complaining every time someone doesn't skip a video sequence. Gotta rush rush rush....

2. Can you learn how to handle endless amounts of different currencies? Sure it's possible and by now I know where to find certain currencies (also the internet helps when I'm stuck with something). That doesn't mean that the system with all these different currencies is a good thing.

I could also intentionally break my own leg and then learn how to walk with that. That doesn't mean it will be a good experience...

Originally posted by omgitsbees:

not reading this

Then why are you posting here?

[Rudey]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

Originally posted by Rudey:

Yes, welcome to the mmo where you have a lot of currencies for all the different things that you can earn by all different methods so you can have more stuff to do and buy. But i guess the mmo is bad because it is too hard to be utilized by a literall monkey that struggles to handle more than one currency. Let me tell you sum buddy, when i reached tier 3, I knew what each currency does and where you can spend it / earn it. It's not hard, it comes to you naturally when you play the game, which you haven't done a whole lot considering that you're not even tier 3 after 250hours of playtime.

Okay, your comment is possibly one of the worst I've seen and is just oozing ignorance and worse...

And let me tell YOU "sum buddy" (btw. that way of talking says a lot about your level of education).

1. You have no idea how someone spends 250 hours in a game. Maybe I haven't skipped every cut scene and rushed through the quest content like it doesn't exist. Btw. I have seen people in the game complaining every time someone doesn't skip a video sequence. Gotta rush rush rush....

2. Can you learn how to handle endless amounts of different currencies? Sure it's possible and by now I know where to find certain currencies (also the internet helps when I'm stuck with something). That doesn't mean that the system with all these different currencies is a good thing.

I could also intentionally break my own leg and then learn how to walk with that. That doesn't mean it will be a good experience...

Originally posted by omgitsbees:

not reading this

Then why are you posting here?

So my manner of wording tells you about my education? Ok buddy I see where you stand. As for time in game, I didn't skip cutscenes as well and I reached tier 3 before 250h mark, I was also collecting and doing islands. Also I'd be the best if you stopped giving metaphorse that don't make sense.. maybe that way people would actually try and read what you wrote at the beginning. Best of luck to you buddy. Oh yeah, I'm sorry.. I meant a very distinguished gentelman.

[nanners]

Its a game where you travel across several continents. Even in real life you would have to use different currencies. Role play

[tankanidis]

OP i think you lost them with your supermarket analogy

Some of these angry posters havn't stepped outside in years to see the sky, let alone a supermarket

[G4M5T3R]

Originally posted by Dr.Acula:

2. Can you learn how to handle endless amounts of different currencies? Sure it's possible and by now I know where to find certain currencies (also the internet helps when I'm stuck with something). That doesn't mean that the system with all these different currencies is a good thing.

A single currency is just as bad as, if not worse than, too many. Players generate currency simply by playing hence the term Gold Sink. The devs get a lot more control by implementing more than one.