In Lost Ark on March 10th, the first major content update was released with a new raid in it. However, players are not happy about it and feel the release is much too early. The team from Amazon has now commented on the criticism in the forum and seems surprised by the many discussions.
What is the problem? On March 10th, just about 4 weeks after the official release, the first content update was released in the West. This brought a new event, new story content, and the first Abyss Raid, Argos. In it, 8 players fight against a particularly strong boss.
However, the update receives a lot of criticism from players. Those who want to play the Argos raid need a gear score of at least 1,370 and even 1,400 for the final phase. However, most players have not yet reached that.
They criticize that the update is only intended for “whales,” meaning players who invest a lot of real money. Because with real money, the required gear score can already be reached.
However, Amazon staff appear surprised by the criticism. Clearly, no one expected that this update would receive backlash.
“We thought it would be a goal for players to work towards”
What are the players saying? Currently, there are numerous threads and discussions about the new update. Many of them criticize the new raid. The user ghill6486 writes, for example, on reddit:
For anyone looking for an answer to the question of why people are so upset: Because players like me, who have invested 200 hours in the game, cannot do the raid because they do not have the required gear. We do not have the gear points because we do not pay.
In the other version of the game (KR/RU), there are more ways to obtain materials, which makes it easier to gear up. We have no compensation for that, so the only people with access to the new content (literally less than 1% of the player population) are whales.
Other players with 300 hours of gameplay or more agree with him. Anyone who wants to play at the top now has to convert real money into gold and buy materials to upgrade their equipment.
What does Amazon say? In a forum post, community manager Shadow_Fox explained:
We actually did not think that people would be angry.
We knew it was something new that not everyone could use immediately. That’s why the roadmap is being adjusted. But we thought it would be a fun goal for players to work towards.
The team is collecting feedback and re-evaluating the planning of future events.
This re-evaluation of the release plans has already begun, as we learned from MeinMMO last week. The release of a roadmap was actually planned, but was taken offline at the last minute.
The information from the old roadmap was published online in fragments, but the developers made it clear that it is outdated. When exactly the new roadmap will be released is still unknown.
Not all players understand the criticism
Can all players understand the criticism? No. In the forum, there was even a discussion with community manager Seawolf, in which the user Kenna asked why the roadmap and future updates depend on the players’ progress.
Seawolf explains (via Lost Ark Forum):
That’s a good question. As far as I understand, players feel forced to grind hard or spend money when new content is released that is far ahead of their own progress, for example, in gear score. They do not want to feel left behind.
On reddit, some users also point out that with a lot of grinding from the start, one could already reach the gear score by next week or the week after that. However, it already requires more than 400 hours of gameplay, which corresponds to about 12 hours a day since the release.
How do you see the criticism? Can you understand that many players are angry or do you think the discussion is exaggerated because players will reach the required gear score sooner or later? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.
For the future, the developers have already announced that they would like to address some Western criticisms, including the gender lock:
Lost Ark is addressing a major criticism – wants to offer more variety in classes
