With the weekly update on January 4, 2023, Lost Ark unexpectedly rolled out a new measure against bots. MeinMMO author Mark Sellner believes it goes too far and mainly affects the wrong people.
What has changed? On the morning of January 4, Lost Ark, as every week, had its weekly update. In the patch notes the evening before, the developers did not announce any changes for the patch.
When the servers went live again, a change was mentioned in the forum that seems small but has significant effects. The rewards for the boss rush in tier 3, i.e., from gear score 1,302, can now only be opened if you have reached an item level of 1,375.
According to the publisher, this is supposed to be a strike against bots that often farm these boss rushes to sell the valuable skill gems you get from them. Moreover, the change seems to be only temporary, although Amazon has not yet revealed how long it will last.
However, I am convinced that with this measure, Amazon is not only annoying the players but also targeting exactly the audience they want to bring back. I will explain why below.
Restrictions where they are not needed
What is the boss rush? To understand why I find this measure excessive, we first need to clarify how a boss rush works. In some in-game activities, such as the daily chaos dungeons, you can get tickets for this game mode, with a little luck.
The tickets are more rare than common, which is why the boss rush already has a higher entry hurdle than many other farming modes in Lost Ark. The rewards from the boss rush are skill jewels.
These can be equipped to improve your own abilities. For a level 10 jewel, up to 40% more damage per skill is possible. The jewels from the boss rush significantly contribute to getting a better character.
Restrictions for bots make little sense: Since you can only obtain the tickets for the boss rush from limited sources, such as the chaos dungeons, it is also impossible for bots to acquire more or faster tickets than normal players.
Of course, bots earn good gold from selling the jewels. But not more than a normal player who completes their daily and weekly tasks and sells boss rush rewards.
Therefore, I consider the additional restriction of distributing rewards only starting from item level 1,375 as pointless. Even worse, it affects new players who are desperately needed in Lost Ark right now.
In January, Lost Ark will also feature a collaboration with The Witcher:
New players must face challenges without jewels
In what ways are players restricted? For players like me, who already have many characters above gear score 1,375, this is at most mildly annoying. But especially new players, who they desperately want to attract, are hit hard by this change.
In recent months, Lost Ark has tried to attract returnees and new players to the MMORPG through numerous events, rewards, and bonuses. These are now being punished. Because when they enter a boss rush, they are not informed that they are essentially wasting the ticket.
A particular sticking point is the 5 gear score at the end of the number. Because while you can reach gear score 1,370 relatively easily, you need legendary equipment for 1,375.
This can only be obtained from the challenging abyssal dungeons and abyss raids. This leads me directly to the next problem that the change brings.
Why do new players have it harder now? Since new players can now hardly obtain any jewels until they reach item level 1,375, they must play the difficult content without jewels.
Therefore, they have an even harder time than people who started the game before and played the respective content. Only when they have looted a legendary set can they even start developing their jewels.
While the update already seems annoying and little meaningful for existing players, it is a massive blow for new fans of Lost Ark, making their lives unnecessarily difficult.
When the measures will be canceled and whether Amazon might make a timely retreat remains to be seen.
What do you think of the update? Do you think the cut that bots experience here is worth scaring away new players so much? Or do you see it completely differently than I do? Feel free to write it in the comments here on MeinMMO.
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