Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lost Ark Team Explains Raid Difficulty Changes, Downtimes, and Continued Work to Improve Europe Serv
System
Member UncommonPosts: 12,599
Lost Ark Team Explains Raid Difficulty Changes, Downtimes, and Continued Work to Improve Europe Servers | MMORPG.com
The Lost Ark team updated its list of known issues and responded to player feedback on the recent decision to make some content easier.
Comments
This isn't anything new. We've seen it before, we'll continue to see it in the future. Extremely difficult content, or even just difficult content in general, will be fringe in these games. Always optional or not a core part of the experience. Very few people actually care about that sort of thing.
The thing that I am curious about though is how much of the games actual population is actually playing endgame activities though. Sure the people that rushed through as fast as they could are but those are the ones that will not be here in another month or two because they are burned out.
I'm all for challenge where it's appropriate, but inconsistent and random difficulty spikes(particularly at the beginning) are not really considered great game design by most.
The abyssal raid wipes aren't really conducive to pugs especially since the game has no built in voice chat. Nerf the normal versions and add a heroic version with better rewards or something.
Save the hardest content for 8 mans or heroic versions.
This thing creates now the problem where you are at highend content matching with players who were not able to beat lowend content.
Both Blizzard and SOE back in the day quickly found out that 40 (WoW) / 24 (EQ2) man raids were not worth the effort anymore and disappeared in future expansions.
Even LOTRO stopped making larger RAIDS.
That kind of content is time consuming (and thus expensive) to make and if only 0,5 - 1% of the entire player population tries this content. It's simply not worth it and makes no sense from business perspective, to continue making it.
It's the same here, if this content is part of general progression and it currently has only a 10% success rate among the player population. That is not good and it makes sense that they fear they will end up losing a lot of players (and thus money) over time.
So they try to adjust the difficulty to increase the success rate, to prevent players getting frustrated and quit the game.
It’s been less than a month since the hordes of heroes arrived on the western shores of Arkesia. Many players are still uncovering and learning the advanced systems during their adventures, from finding the perfect placement of their skill points in the Tripod System to customizing their playstyle with Engravings, Skill Runes, and Gems. It’s been exciting and humbling for us to see players at different stages in their journey as they quest to level 50 before encountering the diverse Tier 1 and 2 content— progressing step-by-step and exploring all that Arkesia has to offer.
In other regions, players had to stay in Tier 1 and 2 for a considerable duration, as Tier 3 had not yet been released. With the amount of time spent in these stages of the game, players had a long time to study the patterns and mechanics of the Guardians and Demons they encountered— leaving only a few monsters that ended up posing as challenging hurdles for them. As Lost Ark has progressed and added more content, the time and progression required for Tier 1 and 2 has decreased. In the western release, Lost Ark launched with Tier 1, 2, and 3 content. Tier 1 and 2 are designed as a prologue for the wealth of end-game Tier 3 content that Smilegate RPG has developed since their original launch. We hope that Tiers 1 and 2 will be used as a road for players to understand the many systems that comprise Lost Ark, encourage players to explore the vast world of Arkesia, and learn how intricate mechanics within battles play out.
With the different purpose of Tier 1 and Tier 2 in our regions, there were some overly difficult Guardians and Abyssal Dungeon encounters left behind. This balance update isn’t about simply adjusting the difficulty as whole. Rather, the focus is to improve some of the difficult patterns to better prepare players as they progress through each Tier and work their way toward Tier 3 endgame content.
We are aiming for players to ramp up into more challenging and complex content as they progress in their journey. There’s a variety of challenging future Tier 3 content that has yet to be infused into the western release - stay tuned for our roadmap article that will share what you can expect in the coming months. These upcoming encounters will serve as the hurdles for players to challenge themselves, master systems, and learn complex mechanics. Even Argos, arriving this month, will be an unforgiving opponent ready to test the mettle of the so-called heroes infesting Arkesia.
This is the quote regarding the changes straight from the developers.
For bonus challenge I watch Netflix and drink a soda while fighting, so a little less difficulty is certainly welcome, by me at least.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
My fingers feel like this guy's when trying to type sometimes.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Then you and your friends have to come up with a whole mock trial to determine who is at fault.
Dont try to sit here and tell me you are an elite player because you play 8hrs a day i gaurentee you've wiped on every abysall your first go around and then some.