Exactly one whole year to the day, the MMORPG Lost Ark has now been launched in the West. MeinMMO author Mark Sellner calls it his favorite representative of the genre at every opportunity, but it wasn’t always like that.
About 8 years ago, in November 2014, I saw the very first trailer for Lost Ark and I actually fell in love right away. Even though I struggled to warm up to the isometric perspective, the world, the art style, and the first gameplay looked grand to me.
For years, I hoped to be able to play this game myself someday, and thanks to Amazon, it finally happened on February 8, 2022, exactly one year ago, when the MMORPG was released in the West.
Of course, I dove into it like no other game in a long time. I even held a small LAN party with my friends for the release and celebrated the countdown to the last minute on a big screen in the room almost as much as other people celebrate New Year’s Eve.
In short, the atmosphere was amazing and the anticipation for the world of Arkesia was immense. It lasted quite a while, about 4 months for me personally. During that time, however, I didn’t get very far in the game.
The big frustration meets boring tasks
I fear my biggest problem with Lost Ark was myself. Because I think I played the game completely wrong. The most problems that other players had with it didn’t bother me at all. At the beginning, I even said, my biggest problem was that I couldn’t spend even more money.
Lost Ark already offered a variety of different classes at launch, and I just couldn’t decide which one I should choose to continue. My first action in the MMORPG consisted of pulling no less than 8 characters through the story and getting them to level 50.
I made them all wait on the continent Shushire and at Gearscore 600 before I was supposed to decide who to continue with. However, that led to great frustration for me after a few weeks. Anyone who has played Lost Ark for a while knows how monotonous and boring Tier 1 can be.
Every day I logged in, I did the Tier 1 Guardian Raid of the turtle with more and more characters and two chaos dungeons. I didn’t even need the upgrade materials anymore, as I had already got all the chars to 600. To this day, I have over 2,000 unbound leap stones from Tier 1 stored, silly me.
The collaboration with The Witcher, another favorite game of mine, has recently caused a stir
The collection tasks are the most fun
But besides the annoying daily routine that I forced upon myself, there was a silver lining, namely the adventure folio. This serves as a checklist for collection tasks across the different continents.
I could spend hours finding the next hidden quest, collecting all the letters on the ground, and finding every even remotely hidden Mokoko seed. Even if I mess up and a bottle of wine calls me an “idiot”, I really love the game in those moments.
To this day, I look forward to opening my adventure folio and looking at a list full of continents that I have completed 100%. Just like I have found all Mokoko seeds and masterpieces. Collection tasks in Lost Ark are among my favorite things in this MMORPG.
And yet they were the reason I left the game after 4 months. After I chose a character and continued following the story, namely to Rohendel, Lost Ark dealt me a blow. Suddenly, collection tasks work completely differently.
I could no longer complete an area 100% before leaving it from Rohendel. Too many collection tasks were linked to other things, to daily tasks that one must complete over the course of a month. Or certain character stats that I simply hadn’t reached yet.
Battered by the monotony of the 16 same Guardian Raids that I did daily and then disappointed that I could no longer pursue my favorite task in the game as I wanted, I left the MMORPG. I actually had a lot of fun, and many of my friends felt the same.
The comeback and the race to catch up
After about 3.5 months of absence in Lost Ark, a buddy of mine managed to convince me to take another look at the MMORPG in September. He promised that if I made it to the endgame, he would have a group for me with which I could raid. Well then, challenge accepted!
And indeed, this time the spark ignited. Instead of being bothered by the new requirements of the collection tasks, I tried to build sensible routines to work through them piece by piece. I also stopped running unnecessary Tier 1 Guardians anyway and focused only on one character.
Within a few weeks, I managed to catch up to Gearscore 1,415, and with Valtan, the first Legion Raid was already around the corner. They really got me hooked: While Valtan was still pretty easy to do, I had bigger problems with the subsequent Legion Raids, Vykas and Kakul-Saydon.
But I loved this challenge. The fact that you have to coordinate with your group, learn mechanics, and noticeably improve is just fun. This culminated in the release of the latest Legion Raid, Brelshaza. Currently, we are out and about with a full 8-man group and have so far fought our way through the first 4 of 6 gates. I have not had this much fun raiding in any other MMORPG.
The optimization possibilities captivate me
By now, I have invested over 1,500 hours into Lost Ark, more than half of which have been since I started again in September. And I have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Because I have fully arrived and there is still so much to do. That should be enough for another 1,500 hours and beyond.
My active roster currently consists of 6 characters over Gearscore 1,460, but I am of course not satisfied with that. I want to not only increase my Gearscore but also try out more builds, maybe still increase the quality of my equipment and also equip the last character with 5 engravings of level 3.
But it won’t stop at 6 characters. I currently have 18 different characters on my account, and I want each of them to be at least in Tier 3 so that I can flexibly adjust my gold roster. I deliberately avoid power pass and knowledge transfer, as I enjoy leveling up.
Routine becomes fun, something to always look forward to
The weekly and daily tasks are fun because I now have a group for them, and they are more demanding than before. I feel genuinely sad when I usually finish all the weekly tasks and raids, usually on weekends.
A year after release, I love Lost Ark even more than at any other time. Even despite its problems and quirks. It is not a perfect game and not for everyone, but it is the perfect MMORPG for me, and I am already looking forward to the next 1,500 hours.
With the last lines in this article, I officially announce the end of my workday and head towards the brand new continent Rowen, where hopefully numerous collection tasks await me again. I am excited and maybe I will run into a few of you who give Lost Ark a second chance now, it is worth it.
Then you would be one of many, as even in January 2023, Lost Ark still ranks among the 10 MMORPGs with the most players on Steam.
