Often you hear from the community that Lost Ark is better in Korea and that Amazon is ruining the western version. A YouTuber has had enough of this and shows in a video why we have it much better in the West and don’t want to play in Korea at all.
Who is making the video? The YouTuber addressing the issue is Memorizer92. He has been playing Lost Ark in Korea for a while now and used the western release as an opportunity to share his experiences on YouTube.
He has been making videos exclusively about Lost Ark for the past year, which are mostly informative. With his 134 videos, he has managed to excite and educate 15,400 subscribers so far. His latest video revolves around Pay2Win features in Korea. He clearly points out why western players wouldn’t want to play the Korea version at all.
What does he report on? He focuses primarily on the pet system. It was already known at the release of Lost Ark that it works differently in our version than in Korea. We have therefore never seen the original system.
This is a good thing, as the Korean version heavily incorporates Pay2Win elements. The crystalline aura, the optional subscription system in our version, does not exist there, at least not to the same extent. Instead, Korea relies on two different systems.
Memorizer also talks about Yoz’s Jar and the legendary skins. While these were announced for Europe, they were removed after heavy community feedback. There, one would have to pay up to 530 € for a skin with better stats.
Pets become a gamble
How do pets work for us? In the western version of Lost Ark, we get a pet as a gift very early in the story. It inherently has two skills that you can choose and switch at will. For example, your pet can grant you 5% more HP and offer a 10% bonus to your Crit stat.
In addition, there are numerous comfort features, such as the pet inventory, mobile equipment repairs, and access to mail and bank from anywhere. However, for the latter, you need the optional paid subscription of the crystalline aura. This has been the case since release and has never been different.
How do pets work in Korea? In Korea, however, neither of the two functions is available from the start. The crystalline aura has nothing to do with the pets in Korea either. Instead, you have to unlock both the skills and the functions for real money. Separately, as both cost extra.
It is even worse with the pet skills themselves. Here, you not only have to pay to use them, but also to switch them. And even then, luck plays a significant role. Because while in our version, you always receive the 10% on the Crit stat, in Korea, you only get Crit by chance, with a random value between 3 and 10%.
Anyone who wants to have what is given for free in the West must dig deep into their pockets.
You can watch the entire video here:
“You don’t want to play here, it’s much worse”
What other differences are there? Memorizer also speaks of the crystalline aura, the optional paid subscription for Lost Ark. It costs around 9 € per month in our version and offers many advantages that help you in gameplay.
In Korea, this does not exist in this form. Instead, the benefits of the crystalline aura are split into two different subscriptions, each costing around 8 € per month. So you pay nearly double for the same benefits in Korea.
Furthermore, in the West, you can also pay for the aura with gold if you prefer farming over using a credit card. However, that is not possible in Korea; there, the subscription can only be paid for with real money.
Why is the shop worse? Even though the shop itself does not fundamentally differ, the Korean version puts you under much more pressure. The fast offers, which last only 6 hours, are genuinely only available for 6 hours in Korea.
In the West, we can go back for up to 3 days and buy old offers if we have missed the time window. This hardly gives players in Korea any peace, and to not miss anything, you simply must never be offline for more than 6 hours.
There are still some minor details that Memorizer does not go into further in the video. He concludes by saying that we should be glad not to play in Korea, as it is much worse there. Also, on reddit, the comments go in the same direction. A Korean fan writes, for example: “You simply have it better”.
Next up in the criticism are the Ether weapons. These offer an enormous Pay2Win factor, and even the Korean players are upset about them. It is yet unclear whether they will be received the same way in the West; we should find out more in April.
A shop that only lasts 6 hours? This is likely to bother MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch as well: Modern MMORPGs have a grind aspect that was much rarer in the past and is quite annoying
