One of the biggest MMORPGs of the last couple of years has fallen significantly in the west due to its restrictive design choices. Gatekeeping has been at the forefront of it, but there’s the fact that Amazon has been pushing Lost Ark to catch up faster than ever before, and burnout is a real issue. It’s not about doing the same raids over and over again, but about players not being able to keep up with the flow of content.
For the most part, Amazon has done surprisingly well compensating the player base for the time differences, and even included various adjustments to raids to better suit the wester audience, but the underlying issue of player retention rears its head.
LOA ON Announcements
Smilegate has made some major changes to the formula of Lost Ark starting next month in Korea, but while everything that was announced looks good for existing players, it continues to push a divide on new and returning players.
For starters, the studio, of course, announced a new raid series. The first chapter of the Kazeros raid series will feature two gates, one fighting Demon Legion Commanders like Akkan and Valtan, and the second gate fighting a new face. The second chapter will have you face off against Narok and Brelshaza, breaking back some fan favorites.
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The studio announced their plans for Solo raids that will go until Ivory Tower. This will hopefully help new and returning players progress further, so they don’t have to be gatekept. This will have a focus on dropping more materials to hone, but less gold to invest. To ensure everyone can do this, such as supports or back attackers who might have a tough time there, there will be a new system that will enhance the player’s abilities to help compensate.
And, of course, we have to talk about their announcement of Tier 4. This has been long awaited, but unfortunately, it was announced this would not be a hard reset, something we feel is desperately needed. The rooster level will be increased from 300 to 400, which will only worsen the gatekeeping, and the individual character levels will go to 70.
There will be a new chaos dungeon system starting at level 1620, something that you only need to do once a day and will give even more rewards than before. The most important aspect, though, is that Tier 4 gear will drop in here, which will push characters immediately to 1640. We haven’t seen a new gear set since Akkan, and one that was dropped from dungeons since Punika, so this will be refreshing.
You are now able to select your weapon glow up to the weapon’s level, which is something everyone has been asking for, for a long time now. Weapon quality now exceeds 100 and tacks on an additional 20 for the tier 4 gear.
Engraving Rework
Smilegate also showed off a rework for their engraving system, and thus, ability stones and accessories are being altered. But with this, players are now able to achieve 6x3 on their engravings, with their accessories having an RNG honing system not too dissimilar to bracelet rolling.
There will also be Tier 4 gems, as well, with players being able to convert their existing gems into new ones. These will essentially be two levels lower, so level 9 gems will become tier 4 level 7 gems, and the new level 9 and level 10 gems will provide much stronger damage and cooldowns. In addition, there will be added effects on the new gems, such as overall attack power increase.
Finally, tier 3 characters will have some impressive improvements. While in this tier, all characters will have free 5x3 engraving support, alongside a full suite of bound level 7 gems. So it’s essentially free, permanent mokoko expresses on all characters. There will also be nerfs for tier 3 content, such as honing up to 1580 and transcendence & elixir cutting, along with the removal of gate 3 in Ivory tower, and easing clash in Thaemine gate 3.
The Future is Looking Brighter
Smilegate also announced some smaller updates, such as a graphical update on 15 of the major characters. This includes Thirain, Balthor Nineveh and the rest of the cast of the story. They showed off ultimate awakenings. There’s a new music system where you can create your own music. Rehearsal, Chaos Line and GvG guild battles are being removed, along with the consolidation of pirate coins, stronghold seals and legion commander mats.
All of this will begin to roll out in a month’s time in Korea. As for us in the west,Amazon Game Studios has revealedthat they will address all of what was announced next month when they roll out their new roadmap. Something we expect will be sped up, especially considering the Russian roadmap has already been updated to include all of this starting in September.
All of these changes are fantastic for existing players of Lost Ark, giving them a lot more to do, and fixing outdated systems that have been with the game since its creation. And while some of these systems will help new and returning players with certain elements, we just wish the studio would have addressed the major problems hampering the game’s player growth.
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