Lost Ark Online

BoozeCube said:

I am all rolled up on Regulus since last night played a little this morning up through the first dungeon quest thing.

Killing shit is fun in this but the story and voice acting is painfully bad to the point I tune out what I can. There is an overwhelming amount of currency and side bullshit. I wish games these days could tone that shit down a tad but whatever like I said visually and fighting side of it feels good. It's plays more like and ARPG reminds me a lot of D3 just with way way more shit I will never care about attached to it.

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Welcome aboard. What name are you playing under? We need donations!

Gravel said:

I'm pretty pumped to get back into the grind today. Think we left Thursday. I should have a full 5 days of shit to run. Since I'm at 330 ilvl, I'm thinking of doing guardians to get to 340, then abyss for the set, and then grind out a ton of chaos dungeons and whatever is left of guardians.

And then I can finally get into some of the side stuff I haven't gotten to play with like islands, boats, and collectibles.

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Feels good having things to do in an MMO to progress your character as well as just shit to do for fun.

Tearofsoul said:

Playing this casually. The amount of "pay2progressfaster" shit in the cash shop turns me off big time.

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I'll bite. What pay2progressfaster elements are present in the cash shop?

Note: I fully consider Lost Ark to be a pay to progress faster (or P2W, if we define 'winning' based on open world / GVG content that no one gives a shit about as opposed to the equalized content which is the actual good stuff) game. With that being said, this is not based on the cash shop at all so I'd be curious to know what you're looking at in the casual amount of time you're spending that is making you see that you would progress faster if you bought from it.

Voldeth said:

I'll bite. What pay2progressfaster elements are present in the cash shop?

Note: I fully consider Lost Ark to be a pay to progress faster (or P2W, if we define 'winning' based on open world / GVG content that no one gives a shit about as opposed to the equalized content which is the actual good stuff) game. With that being said, this is not based on the cash shop at all so I'd be curious to know what you're looking at in the casual amount of time you're spending that is making you see that you would progress faster if you bought from it.

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There is a rotating shop where you can pay real money to buy stats to enhance your gear. Also blue crystal. There are plenty.

Tearofsoul said:

There is a rotating shop where you can pay real money to buy stats to enhance your gear. Also blue crystal. There are plenty.

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That's great - I just did the math on the 'rotating' shop (it's called Mari's Secret Shop): I can buy every single upgrade material for the price of gold I earn from doing the current abyss dungeons and trading them in with left overs. Not a single dime was spent of cash (you said cash shop, right? Yup. Just looked up your post. Cash shop).

Define what 'also blue crystals' means. I'd love to know these methods of increasing my ilvl through the shop, I'm a lowly 1050 right now and would love to progress faster through your wisdom.

Tearofsoul said:

There is a rotating shop where you can pay real money to buy stats to enhance your gear. Also blue crystal. There are plenty.

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You cannot buy stats and you earn the currency for this shop in the game which means everyone can buy with crystals. Also you get less in the shop than you would for spending 30 minutes in the seas doing island shit. This is just a good use of the crystals you gain in game to assist in getting upgrades. Furthermore once you're around 460 this becomes a drop in the bucket and not enough to upgrade a piece of gear fully. Your complaints are noted but off base since the shop only rotates and you cant buy the materials at any given time you want.

Stats are quest rewards only.

Also they have a currency trader in game who will sell you crystals for gold

swayze22 said:

time to delete the board? LLR? what would everyone do?

i mean isn't that the whole p2w argument though? people gaining faster to be able to acquire gear sooner and/or people being able to progress to higher gear quicker than others by buying stuff that enables that? therefore they are a "stronger" character and would have a higher item level and therefore be more attractive in raids/whatever relative to those that didn't? time is really the only pre-requisite to "be the best" in basically every MMO.

I think with LA they just throw a lot at you initially so it's overwhelming with the multiple "currencies" and progression avenues. and since there are 25 different packages/bundles for sale that include in game shit that probably leads people down the path of "it's p2w". I think only royal crystals are purchasable with real cash and they don't really affect power (i think)

but since the 1-50 game is trash seems like most of that doesn't matter.

people seem to be talking about slightly different verbiage here and then everyone devolves into a sourpuss fuck because they feel the need to defend or attack because they either play the game or play a different game.

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P2W implies something to win. PVP here is homogenized and there is no silly world first race for raids or whatever, so litterally no one gives a fuck if some dude over there swiped his credit card to save one week of grinding.

Malkav said:

P2W implies something to win. PVP here is homogenized and there is no silly world first race for raids or whatever, so litterally no one gives a fuck if some dude over there swiped his credit card to save one week of grinding.

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This - there is no impact to other players at all - if anything it adds stuff to market place for you to buy as you level yourself. You gain nothing in PVP over the next player - PVE the gains from swiping are almost null for the actual cost and no matter how fast you swipe you cant refresh the shop any faster than a player who is not swiping his cards. Shop has 6 items that refresh every 6 hours.

Also as mentioned you gain crystals slowly on your own and you can use the gold you earn in game to buy crystals from a in game NPC - this argument is wrong on so many levels.

Sure sure you can spend X amount of time to doing ABCD to keep the pace, but whale Andy on the other hand could use the same X amount of time ball deep in his girls. Look, I am not trashing your beloved baby MMO here, I am simply pointing out the fact that you can spend real money directly or indirectly enhance your character in this game, whether you accept that fact or not is none of my concern. Now if this is a purely cosmetic cash shop then I'll shut up.

swayze22 said:

therefore they are a "stronger" character and would have a higher item level and therefore be more attractive in raids/whatever relative to those that didn't?

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ROFL see, this is what I mean about people dropping in anecdotes they read on Reddit, or some retarded streamer on Twitch/YouTube, or "heard from a friend's, neighbor's, cat". Thinking that "item level" means fuckall and is a "defining" characteristic of the highest "end-game" content is a complete, fundamental misunderstanding about Lost Ark. It's all just a bunch of WoWtards who think ILVL = POWERRRRRRR!!!

there's a few pay to X's everyone is talking about and they just kind of talk at each other while using the same word for various things:

1. Pay to Advance Faster (warframe, ark so far it seems)
2. Pay to look cute uwu (final fantasy. eve online when they added those stupid monicles)
3. Pay to reach a tier of power you cannot reach without paying (mobile games. i'm sure other mmos)
4. Pay for outlandishly more convenient gameplay. (i haven't judged ark for this yet. i want to say rift gave you like half bag space if you didn't subscribe. basically all """""free"""" games will have this going on).
5. Finally..pay for nothing but the box and fuck you company for wanting to be profitable in the modern day.

i think most folks are okay with 2, many are okay with 1. few are happy about 3. most would take 4. 5 is kind of unreasonable these days if you want an updating game. 5 would work maybe if they didn't do fucking game development in one of the most expensive place to live in america.

swayze22 said:

time to delete the board? LLR? what would everyone do?

i mean isn't that the whole p2w argument though? people gaining faster to be able to acquire gear sooner and/or people being able to progress to higher gear quicker than others by buying stuff that enables that? therefore they are a "stronger" character and would have a higher item level and therefore be more attractive in raids/whatever relative to those that didn't? time is really the only pre-requisite to "be the best" in basically every MMO.

I think with LA they just throw a lot at you initially so it's overwhelming with the multiple "currencies" and progression avenues. and since there are 25 different packages/bundles for sale that include in game shit that probably leads people down the path of "it's p2w". I think only royal crystals are purchasable with real cash and they don't really affect power (i think)

but since the 1-50 game is trash seems like most of that doesn't matter.

people seem to be talking about slightly different verbiage here and then everyone devolves into a sourpuss fuck because they feel the need to defend or attack because they either play the game or play a different game.

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Sort of agree with your post but, part of my issue with a lot of the comments here is that they're just flat out wrong and show a complete lack of understanding.

Is Lost Ark P2W (or P2Progress faster)? Yes.
Can you purchase the progression through the cash shop in the way that people here are posting (e.g., buying a boost or gear directly)? No. The cash shop is purely cosmetics and quality of life shit with zero elements of P2W.

If you're viewing LA in the same fashion as you do other Asian MMOs (in that you can just buy gear from the shop, or stones to progress faster) you're showing that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and as a result, you're not able to actually define your position as your regurgitating information that is false.

I'll provide a hint to the good folks who believe that this is possible: go look at any stream. Find the highest ilvl individual. You won't find one that has 100 ilvl on me. I have not spent a penny in the shop. Do you really think if it were possible to swipe ahead and progress that this would be possible?

I could explain how the shop can be used to progress faster (which hasn't been touched on) but it would be an essay. It also wouldn't be relevant as, due to the gold cost of upgrading gear being next to nil in our version until T3, it isn't a factor.

Tearofsoul said:

Sure sure you can spend X amount of time to doing ABCD to keep the pace, but whale Andy on the other hand could use the same X amount of time ball deep in his girls. Look, I am not trashing your beloved baby MMO here, I am simply pointing out the fact that you can spend real money directly or indirectly enhance your character in this game, whether you accept that fact or not is none of my concern. Now if this is a purely cosmetic cash shop then I'll shut up.

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The Abyss Dungeon example I used to calculate the currency is a required part to advance your character and obtain materials (you would do it regardless). Ergo, I have wasted no additional time and your understanding continues to be incorrect. I am still waiting for you to teach me how to progress faster however as your wisdom on this subject matter remains vague, my credit card is awaiting your instructions.

Tearofsoul said:

Sure sure you can spend X amount of time to doing ABCD to keep the pace, but whale Andy on the other hand could use the same X amount of time ball deep in his girls. Look, I am not trashing your beloved baby MMO here, I am simply pointing out the fact that you can spend real money directly or indirectly enhance your character in this game, whether you accept that fact or not is none of my concern. Now if this is a purely cosmetic cash shop then I'll shut up.

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Anyone who bought a headstart got enough crystals to buy everything on Mari Shop for months since it cost like 10-40 crystals an item. So everyone on this forums who did gold or plat headstart must be considered a whale for being able to spend $50 bucks or more.

xmod2 said:

Is Lost Ark P2W? Yes
Is Lost Ark just a fotm game that board members will latch onto for a month, desperately trying to fill the void until they inevitably end up back on another EQ TLP after they promised that they were done? Also yes.

Nobody gives a shit if it is or isn't P2W because it's a temporary amusement until something better comes along. It's an ARPG with multiplayer elements in the end game, it has nothing that is special about a traditional MMO.

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Also true, im not sure why tearsofpainfulanal is so upset that it may or may not have elements closely related since this isnt the type of "mmo" where getting to the end first has any merit. Unlike wow where you have world first chase, this has none of that at all - just a temporary ending and nothing to do.