Lost Ark Online

Kazeros Advanced Honing 21-40

In today's letter, we will introduce the third act of the Cazeros Raid, which will be held on Wednesday, January 22nd.

Cazeros Raid 'Act 3: Dark, Stormy Night' Normal difficulty requires item level 1680 or higher .
Hard difficulty can be challenged when you reach 1700 or higher.

Click to expand...

With the update of Act 3 of the Cazeros Raid, the advanced refining stages will be expanded.
In Act 3, materials used for the new, higher level of pickling of Advanced Refining are provided.

In normal difficulty, the material for the third stage of pickling is 'Lightning Horn' .
And on Hard difficulty, you can obtain the 'Thunder Jade', a material for pickling stages 3 and 4 .

Click to expand...

BoozeCube said:

They really hate people playing this game. There are easier ways to get everyone to quit.

Click to expand...

This is a bad take. It's stupid in the context of the NA version of the game as honing 1-20 via advanced honing is stupid expensive however;

1) With material prices being what they are in KR, it's actually advantageous to adv hone (if buying all mats) as of 1660.
2) This is the final raid before Kazeros, so there was going to be an ilvl increase in order to get to Kazeros. This is actually much, much cheaper for a KR player to reach with adv honing as it's not RNG dependent (pending confirmation of costs for this obviously).

BoozeCube said:

. The only reason these systems exist is to gatekeep and for the top to pull up the ladder behind them.

Click to expand...

The only reason they exist is because players tolerate it. They apparently get just enough to keep it going.

Mahes said:

The only reason they exist is because players tolerate it. They apparently get just enough to keep it going.

Click to expand...

Lost Ark is one of the most popular games in KR and has been for years. The founder of Smilegate's net worth crossed the billion mark as a result of Lost Ark. It's also presently doing exceptionally well in China, to the point where they just hosted a live event (Google pictures of it to give a scope of the budget). The least money making region is NA/EU (well apart from RU) which is Steam supported and thus the data for how much money its making is public, specifically;

1) Platinum in 2022 - Best of Steam - 2022
2) Platinum in 2023 - Best of Steam - 2023
3) Silver in 2024 - Best of Steam - 2024

They aren't hurting for players anywhere and aren't getting 'just enough' to keep it going. They're making truck loads of cash and the business model works provided your goal as a company is to make money.

Edit: this one was just posted on Reddit for NA:



A few things to note relating to the gold cost for an Esther 9 weapon;

1) They are all reviewed for RMT. Only legit through the store gold buyers can get that far. Anyone else gets the item removed and replaced with negative gold within a few days.
2) The gold cost for the required components is several hundred million gold. The actual cost through the shop is a few hundred K USD.

Based on the above, this one player bought enough gold from the shop to keep the lights open on in NA by himself. This is without counting the fact that he undoubtably has full relic books, etc which would bring the cost up even more.

...There are about half a dozen players similar to this in the game. Think about that for a moment: 6 people have spent about 500k USD on this game in the region that has generated the lowest amount of revenue. The game is an actual wealth status check in KR - they have a term for people who don't spend (rice farmers). I will never argue against someone who says that the business model is predatory (it is) or that it's detrimental to the gaming market (there's a debate to be had here) but to think that, from a pricing standpoint, that they aren't doing precisely what is generating the most amount of money is wrong.

1600-1620 costs along with Advanced Honing 1-20 should have been addressed before this was even announced. Hell, solo Thaemine should have been in with the Ignite server and Ark Passive usable at 1640. Weekly fusion mats on the blue vendor should have been available along with each silver honing nerf going back to 1490.

While it's nice that the whales can keep the lights on the decision-making for the above and similar steps in between are why they aren't getting new players or new whales. They aren't calling many previous players back either.

New Thaemine trailer for KR:



Speculation is there is getting to be a special sidereal (Kharmine) to finish him off. Good guy's will obviously need something in order to stand a chance against Kazeros, albeit I would imagine Luterra & Zinnervale make some type of appearance to assist as well.

Malakriss said:

1600-1620 costs along with Advanced Honing 1-20 should have been addressed before this was even announced. Hell, solo Thaemine should have been in with the Ignite server and Ark Passive usable at 1640. Weekly fusion mats on the blue vendor should have been available along with each silver honing nerf going back to 1490.

While it's nice that the whales can keep the lights on the decision-making for the above and similar steps in between are why they aren't getting new players or new whales. They aren't calling many previous players back either.

Click to expand...

None of this is incorrect and I was front and center in saying that Advanced Honing needs to be fixed. They have relatively fixed Elixirs & Trans (well, mostly Trans) but AH is still a huge problem. Solo Thaemine not being in for Ignite server is a KR issue -- solo modes are incredibly unpopular there and AGS has already said they didn't even get the information that we were getting a solo Thaemine until a few weeks before we actually got it. Ark Passive at 1640 will start in February for NA is already live in KR.

In terms of new players, Lost Ark is a terribly unfriendly new player experience game that needs a complete overhaul on this front. Ignite servers saw quite a few new / returning players however for every new player, we got 50 people starting a new second account. The game remains healthy, provided you're playing within + / - 4 raids from the current one. They also make sure to provide a new pass every few months to make sure that this is where most people are at all times but there is a lot of dead content and making a new character is, again, a terrible experience.

Voldeth said:

New Thaemine trailer for KR:



Speculation is there is getting to be a special sidereal (Kharmine) to finish him off. Good guy's will obviously need something in order to stand a chance against Kazeros, albeit I would imagine Luterra & Zinnervale make some type of appearance to assist as well.

Click to expand...

Man do I wish this game was just a sub. A real one.

Same. Each time I login to make sure someone doesn't steal my guild and think about replaying I'm just like nope.

If I could just pick a class and do the raids/content without any of the honing and cell phone gaming shit I'd happily pay my $15 or whatever, but whales gonna whale and that's all that matters to the bottom line.

Chimney said:

Same. Each time I login to make sure someone doesn't steal my guild and think about replaying I'm just like nope.

If I could just pick a class and do the raids/content without any of the honing and cell phone gaming shit I'd happily pay my $15 or whatever, but whales gonna whale and that's all that matters to the bottom line.

Click to expand...

Thought about you when the Thaemine race was occurring, I think you would have loved that.

Voldeth said:

Thought about you when the Thaemine race was occurring, I think you would have loved that.

Click to expand...

I still watch them when I hear new stuff is coming out. I'm just going to keep holding out until they make the changes that are closer to what I'm willing to deal with =D

Gold changes from RU reported on reddit, most notably all versions of Thaemine are getting some % of gold as bound while newer raids are getting buffed.

ThaeSL : 8800 bound gold (nerf)
ThaeNM : 10k gold + 1k bound gold (nerf)
ThaeHM(1-3) : 15.5k gold + 3.3k bound (nerf)
ThaeHM(G4) : 8k gold + 1.8k bound (nerf)

EchidSL : 12.8k bound gold (unchanged)
EchidNM : 14.5k gold (nerf)
EchidHM : 18.5k gold (nerf)

Click to expand...

Behe : 18k gold (unchanged)

AegirNM : 24k gold (buff)
AegirHM : 30k gold (buff)

Brel2NM : 27.5k gold (buff)
Brel2HM : 34k gold (buff)

Click to expand...

Malakriss said:

Gold changes from RU reported on reddit, most notably all versions of Thaemine are getting some % of gold as bound while newer raids are getting buffed.

Click to expand...

Thae gold nerf was expected but having them buff Aegir / Brel is a surprise. My gold generation has already been quite good during this period, I approve.

Standard expected notes, anniversary stuff only mentioned in video for "Early February"

Patch notes with Henry also mentions that we'll see some anniversary updates prior to Feb.

로스트아크 카제로스 3막 스트리머 공격대 살펴보기 | 덥덥미 - Thaemine race started in KR. Been fun so far.