Lost Ark Online

Drajakur

Drajakur

Molten Core Raider
562
452
Here's my newcomers perspective on this game after a day of playing and no previous exposure. Basically, a lot less like Diablo than I was expecting and some initial grind worries but feels like a fun way to spend time until Elden Ring is released.

  1. COMBAT. 10/10. I really like pretty much everything about the combat. It works seamlessly, the animations are great, the effects are great, movement is great, combat feels weighty, and different characters and abilities intuitively play differently even at early stages (I played 3 chars to 17 to get a feel for the one I like - I'm going with Sorceress).
  2. GRAPHICS. 9/10. Basically, the game looks gorgeous but is a bit clinical. Cool background details and interesting flora. Water looks cool. Basically, a top-tier graphical game that runs absolutely like butter for me (3090) as I'd expect.
  3. NARRATIVE. -0. I'm giving the story a minus-zero because there actually isn't any story, only the appearance of a story. I can confirm that people and places are named things, and that there are things that I am meant to do with other things that are named after other things. But none of it matters whatsoever and is complete gobbledygook. A machine could do a better job of creating an interesting narrative using 50 or so key phrases such as "destiny", "fate", "chosen one", and modifiers such as "daunting" and "grizzled". Garbage. I started skipping every cut scene almost immediately. I can confirm that there is a bad guy. He looks bad and has a bad-guy laugh.
  4. CONNECTIVITY. 10/10. Zero pre-launch issues for me. Never had to wait. Never had a DC. No lag. Seamlessly switched between characters. Will re-evaluate after full launch.
  5. WIFU POTENTIAL. 7/10. I made a few hot characters. Would like more options.
  6. GRIND. 6/10. There are like 40 different currencies. The stuff in the store looks average at best. I can imagine the grind is going to be intense at the end-game but it doesn't feel too intrusive at the early game. The promise of the grind is hovering. If it is connected to interesting activities I've yet to experience (the Island / Building stuff) then that's probably okay. I'm not a broke bitch so I don't care about shelling out some cash if the cosmetics or upgrades are worth it. TBD.
  7. ALTITIVENESS. 10/10. Many different characters to play. Many different ways to play too.
  8. EXPLORATION. 3/10. This is the thing that is bothering me most at the moment. The game is EXTREMELY on rails. There's no meaningful exploration yet. Only walking through corridors either outside or in official dungeony-type corridors. They don't do a very good job of concealing the lack of exploration. Maybe it opens up a bit later, but maybe not. You can find Koroks.
Basically, pretty enjoyable so far.
 
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Kirun

Kirun

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Drajakur said:
  1. EXPLORATION. 3/10. This is the thing that is bothering me most at the moment. The game is EXTREMELY on rails. There's no meaningful exploration yet. Only walking through corridors either outside or in official dungeony-type corridors. They don't do a very good job of concealing the lack of exploration. Maybe it opens up a bit later, but maybe not. You can find Koroks.
Basically, pretty enjoyable so far.
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I don't really get this one. They literally have an entire "system" that is built around exploration.

Do you mean because there isn't any "expansiveness" to it? That's going to happen in an isometic game, it's all going to feel very "corridory" with that perspective. Would you say a game like Fallout 1+2, BG1+2, etc. didn't have good "exploration"?
 
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Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
12,114
11,647
Biggest problem with the key remapping is you still get occasional errors for the default keybinds even though they have changed. For instance if you use "[" for an ability and have cleared it everywhere else it will throw an on screen error when it's used for something else. The ability still works but it can get annoying.
 
Grabbit Allworth

Grabbit Allworth

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
1,430
6,037
xmod2 said:
Yes, it's nice in the same way that your husband COULD have hit you 3 times but only hit you once.

There is literally a quest where you're tasked to have some guy with a horn play music. You walk across the camp to find out he won't play because he has a sore throat, so you need to go get him some herbs. He can't get them himself because he is too lazy. You walk 5m to the right and loot some herbs, then hand them to him and he plays his horn.

I have to question why this is something MMOs want to torture you with? Why do they want you to do 50 levels of something that is completely unrelated to the end gameplay loop that isn't even good? It's 50 levels of clicking exclamation points so you can unlock the real game. The point of the game is that grinding mobs and the combat is good, then the game should just be 50 levels of grinding mobs and fighting. As it stands, those epic dungeons are best done by sprinting to the jump points and ignoring as much of the trash as possible.
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I'd argue that the leveling process of LA is simply a very convincing and pretty illusion of its gameplay, but it's really just a long tutorial designed to slowly introduce players to the wide berth of systems and mechanics of the game. We all know that games today are designed for the slackjaws that need to have step by step instructions written in crayon.

However, I don't dislike the approach myself. Every few levels some new information gets layered on the old and it's easily digestible for people with zero experience with the game.
 
Hatorade

Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,244
6,747
Utnayan said:
Ok I am in on that regulalala server everyone is on - already bugged Hatorade Hatorade and Janx Janx - who else is on this thing?
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everyone GIF
 
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Xexx

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,499
1,680
Not sure how some guys finished in 8 hours. I was 40 when i left Luterra or w/e and this fairy island is sooo slow.
 
Daidraco

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,428
9,540
Ya, I didnt think I was that slow until I started crawling through the 40's and recalling that Voldeth was done like early yesterday evening. >.>
 
Xexx

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,499
1,680
I must be doing something wrong because its been like 3 lvls in 5 hours :D
 
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Drajakur

Drajakur

Molten Core Raider
562
452
Kirun said:
I don't really get this one. They literally have an entire "system" that is built around exploration.

Do you mean because there isn't any "expansiveness" to it? That's going to happen in an isometic game, it's all going to feel very "corridory" with that perspective. Would you say a game like Fallout 1+2, BG1+2, etc. didn't have good "exploration"?
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I get what you are saying. I don't think it has to do with the perspective though. I'd say that the original fallout games and BG partly solved for this by using fog of war, and partly solved for this by having the "corridors" a lot wider and narrower depending, for example, on whether you were in a "forest" zone or a "dungeon" zone or a "castle" zone. Here it all feels very samey so far. Again, this might change as the game opens up later but one of the YouTubers I listened to yesterday said map content generally is the same at the end as at the beginning. For example, this is a "mountain" but it doesn't look much different to me than an early dungeon I went through.

Lost-ARK-Zagoras-Mountain-collectible.jpg
 
Voldeth

Voldeth

Trakanon Raider
1,075
547
Xexx said:
I must be doing something wrong because its been like 3 lvls in 5 hours :D
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I don't think anyone is doing something wrong. Some of us have level'd to max a dozen or so times before. There are so many little things that you can do which speeds things up. For instance, I spend <12 minutes in Morai or so because I skip every trash pack, kill the NPCs that unlock the path as they pop up on the screen, etc. Most people will take 30+ minutes when they get there but the experience/fun is worth. I'm well into T2 now and I still don't have a 'big' lead on anyone in the guild, in spite of the fact that it looks that way. Once you hit 50 and go through the shit there, you catch up extremely fast and my 'advantage' becomes limited to little things. The guild is a marathon, not a sprint and so not hating your life while you get there isn't a bad thing.

I am looking forward to some of you hitting 50 soon though as there's where the game actually gets good. :)
 
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jsquirrel

jsquirrel

Molten Core Raider
74
44
For some reason I didn't claim my Founder's Pack stuff the first day I played, so I didn't have my Crystalline Aura effect on. I noticed it's pretty pricey to teleport back to Prideholm from, say, West Luterra. Will I be struggling to have enough silver to visit all the Rapport NPCs daily if I don't keep that Crystalline Aura subscription up?

In other words, is this game going to be "uncomfortable" to play without a sub, like ESO?
 
Gravel

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
36,988
118,564
Grabbit Allworth said:
I'd argue that the leveling process of LA is simply a very convincing and pretty illusion of its gameplay, but it's really just a long tutorial designed to slowly introduce players to the wide berth of systems and mechanics of the game. We all know that games today are designed for the slackjaws that need to have step by step instructions written in crayon.

However, I don't dislike the approach myself. Every few levels some new information gets layered on the old and it's easily digestible for people with zero experience with the game.
Click to expand...
I said this earlier today. Was getting tutorial type quests into the 30's. It's like Luterra is a 2nd tutorial city.
 
Kirun

Kirun

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Drajakur said:
I get what you are saying. I don't think it has to do with the perspective though. I'd say that the original fallout games and BG partly solved for this by using fog of war, and partly solved for this by having the "corridors" a lot wider and narrower depending, for example, on whether you were in a "forest" zone or a "dungeon" zone or a "castle" zone. Here it all feels very samey so far. Again, this might change as the game opens up later but one of the YouTubers I listened to yesterday said map content generally is the same at the end as at the beginning. For example, this is a "mountain" but it doesn't look much different to me than an early dungeon I went through.

View attachment 397546
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That's only because of the way the map-view is presented. If you could be given a top-down view of a typical WoW zone, Fallout 1+2, etc. with all the "blocked off" areas you can't go drawn as lines, it'd look very similar.

I mean, I don't disagree with you that the "presentation" of it might be off-putting and "corridor" feeling, but I really just think it's a product of the ARPG/Isometric viewpoint that throws it all off. You can't ever really see the "sky", so that lack of "3D" really throws off the spatial perspective, hurting the sense of "expansiveness". I feel like the only truly, "open world" style games out there are single-player(Breath of the Wild, for instance)or survival style games like Valheim, Conan Exiles, ARK, etc.

The dungeons feel VERY corridor heavy, but I think that's just a product of modern MMO dungeon making, sadly. I haven't really felt that as much in the "open world".
 
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