Brahma
Obi-Bro Kenobi-X
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Lost Ark Online
- Thread starter Valderen
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Zindan
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Nola
Trakanon Raider
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So I took the advice of only doing the main quest and avoid the side quests for now. Hit level 48 on my paladin today and will finish the leveling tomorrow. I will go back and complete the side quests I skipped. The leveling process has been going easy and fairly quick. I been solo queuing the dungeons on hard mode. I see no real reason to do it as a group other than clearing it faster. They just seem really easy even on hard mode. I only died twice and that was pulling too much trash mobs at one time. The only dungeon boss that gave me any trouble was the one that drops the ying Yang symbols on the ground. Forgot which dungeon it was. I probably level a gun lancer or artillery as my next character.
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Sidequests are basically only worth doing once for account unlocks, and you should really do them as you do the main quests. Other than the chain quests(have a special chain icon which means there's several in a row) that give skill points and stuff, they're mostly worthless and only good for the adventure book completion but they're pretty much all "kill 10things or pick up 2-3 things" on the way to the MSQ anyway, so if you do them as you do the MSQ they're actually really fast. So it's worth doing on say, the 2nd char you level through the game. First char, at least for release, you want to rush through so you can use up your first day of daily shit asap, although the loss isn't really that big anyway. I wouldn't go back on a char that's done with MSQ though, cause you're basically going to retrace the full path of leveling to get them all, and you might as well do that shit on a brand new char to level that "for free".
And yeah everything's pretty easy while lvling so while I did hard mode on my closed beta char, on release I'll just do normal modes since there's no point to hard. I died twice I think, once to the water temple shit mini boss, I aggroed all the adds then derped and they killed me before I finished casting my long spell, and against the water elem boss in the giant, she used a wave attack that pushes you and pushed me against a wall which just killed me from full to 0 basically.
I do hope they have plans for fast updates though, seeing as how apparently we're getting endgame with less content since we're on an advanced version that removed old endgame to put it into higher tiers, but we don't have these tiers. There won't be too much to do in our version it seems like so I hope they're going for like T2 patch 1month later and T3 patch 1.5months after or something like that.
And yeah everything's pretty easy while lvling so while I did hard mode on my closed beta char, on release I'll just do normal modes since there's no point to hard. I died twice I think, once to the water temple shit mini boss, I aggroed all the adds then derped and they killed me before I finished casting my long spell, and against the water elem boss in the giant, she used a wave attack that pushes you and pushed me against a wall which just killed me from full to 0 basically.
I do hope they have plans for fast updates though, seeing as how apparently we're getting endgame with less content since we're on an advanced version that removed old endgame to put it into higher tiers, but we don't have these tiers. There won't be too much to do in our version it seems like so I hope they're going for like T2 patch 1month later and T3 patch 1.5months after or something like that.
Raes
Vyemm Raider
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We're getting Yorn at launch, which is the start of T2.
T1 - North Bern/Rohendel
T2 - Yorn/Payton
T3 - Papunika/South Bern
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Do they indicate if they're used in an account unlock? BDO had indicators for "one-time" style sidequests, so I'm curious if Lost Ark has the same.
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The sidequests can be done on any char, the rewards are just one time only. You can't track them. Some of them are required for the Another Story parts of the Adventure tome(red ! quests), from what I understood. That's the only thing they matter for. There is also some chain quests that reward skill points and shit and those have a special icon(that looks like a chain, some are yellow, some are purple). These have several quests in a row, which do require backtracking/going in other places than the MSQ, but there's only a few of them and they reward skill points directly.
I guess there's also some 1 time per account quests, the "guide quests", which unlock/show you features. One of the early ones is the White Rabbit first pet quest you get after the first area is done at like lvl 14 or whatever. These have popups and appear in your questlog forever so can't really miss them.
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Oh right I forgot about that.
But yeah it's a thing you do once and you're done, just pick a char to run through all sidequests as you level, honestly I'd say it only adds like 1h30-2h total to the leveling process, they're really not shittily designed and most of the time you only have 1 sidequest along the mainquest, rarely 2, so it's not much of a hassle at all to clear them all. If you care about max efficiency it wouldn't be the first char you level through so you get to 50 before the first daily reset, but if you don't think you'll make that you can just do it on the first char without any downside. The slowest part about leveling is reading the text/watching cutscenes, if you don't care/already did them, you can fly through the levels regardless of sidequests or not, just it's a bit faster without.
But yeah it's a thing you do once and you're done, just pick a char to run through all sidequests as you level, honestly I'd say it only adds like 1h30-2h total to the leveling process, they're really not shittily designed and most of the time you only have 1 sidequest along the mainquest, rarely 2, so it's not much of a hassle at all to clear them all. If you care about max efficiency it wouldn't be the first char you level through so you get to 50 before the first daily reset, but if you don't think you'll make that you can just do it on the first char without any downside. The slowest part about leveling is reading the text/watching cutscenes, if you don't care/already did them, you can fly through the levels regardless of sidequests or not, just it's a bit faster without.
Raes
Vyemm Raider
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Yes, it's not really something to worry too much about. In a week long beta, sure. But your first character at launch? It's not really saving you much time at all, it just feels like it does because the quests are so fucking dull. Being efficient is more about when you're running up alts, because your 3rd, 4th, 5th (I'm at like 17 I think /wrist) time through it feels like they should be paying you. And the current version recently had at least a third of the side quests removed. Not sure if that's the version we have since I didn't level in beta.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Ugh, the more you guys describe these questing systems the less I want to play this. I quit PoE precisely because I want to fuckin' kill shit, not run a boring ass quest for the 500th time on repeat.
BDO had "quests", but the nice thing is that you essentially only had to do them once for the account unlocks. After that, you were free to just grind away. And ultimately, ARPGs are about blowing up massive numbers of mobs. I think I'm just over the whole "themepark" experience and prefer games that allow me to make my own fun.
BDO had "quests", but the nice thing is that you essentially only had to do them once for the account unlocks. After that, you were free to just grind away. And ultimately, ARPGs are about blowing up massive numbers of mobs. I think I'm just over the whole "themepark" experience and prefer games that allow me to make my own fun.
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Well the leveling isn't super slow, but yeah it's boring as shit getting up there, there's 0 challenge and most of it is running from quest to quest, sometimes blowing up one pack of mobs, sometimes picking up some shit, and dungeons while having more combat are also pretty straight forward, with just large packs of mobs with doors in various places so you have to stop and one shot aoe everything, then bosses that die in one round of stuff if you're on easy. The endgame is somewhat fun although it's definitely not ARPG-like besides Chaos Dungeons(which are brain dead easy, although it's fun to blow up the big packs), the rest is basically standard mmo fare, a lot of single boss encounters and lots of telegraphs and dance memorization for mechanics.
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Raes
Vyemm Raider
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Well, yeah, the experience of leveling to 50 is just a chore. But, it's not so bad the first time, while the game/combat is still shiny. The "real" game doesn't start til 50, but "endgame" while being better than the questing, is just doing the same shit every day/week. Some people like to talk up all the "content" but eh, running your slow ass boat to an island to do more boring quests of the same type you hated while leveling, or worse getting a quest chain that then requires you to travel to 5 different continents...ugh.
Lost Ark is all about the combat, either you love it, or you play something else. That's also what sucks about leveling, unless you're in a dungeon, you're rarely engaged in combat. They do love to give you quests that require you to click on shit and watch an (arbitrary length) progress bar. Yeah, it's only like somewhere between 1-4 seconds, but it's just...you....waiting....to...keep....playing.
Oh, and those boring side quests you hated to do while leveling? You're going to be doing (various) 3 of them a day, every day, per character. Yes, the same quests, that's what your dailies are, you unlock them while leveling.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Yeah, initially it was sounding like this was an ARPG with MMO-like systems. Sadly, it seems to be the other way around. An MMO with ARPG-like combat, but not much else.
I fucking LOATHE what WoW did to this industry with dailies, weeklies, etc. That's why BDO was one of the most refreshing "new" MMOs, because they bucked a lot of that bullshit and allowed you to just grind away. It says a lot that I still find myself playing so much EQ. There's a reason why Valheim and "survival" style games took off so well - people like being able to "do whatever" and not be forced down a mining shaft on rails.
Sounds like this is probably a "pass" for me, especially since AGS got their hands on this shit.
Cinge
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Just find a ARPG and play it. Not much else you can do. This is basically a theme-park MMO. Technically if you enjoyed the pvp/combat enough, you could just do that maybe, as its all normalized. Otherwise if you want to progress, you are going to have dailies, weeklies, raids, dungeons etc.
This games main comeptition will probably be Endwalker. Just depends how long after that comes out does this release. Since FFXIV basically turns into a "do your daily/weekly" and done type game also, after the initial rush.
Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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No, I agree. Problem is, they all suck. Last Epoch looks interesting, but I'm not a fan of EA stuff.
I was hoping Lost Ark could scratch the ARPG itch while having a bit of that "MMO grind" to it, but just another run of the mill quest/daily fest doesn't really interest me at all.
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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D3 is good for what it is, fun to play with a buddy or two from a recliner. Grim Dawn is great, nice grinding and self found builds are actually possible, unlike POE. Last Epoch is good and will most likely be great, each big patch improves it quite a bit. That will probably be the one to most likely scratch that itch for you, not Lost Ark.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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Grim Dawn seems fun, but I actually prefer some element of "online", if that makes sense? Even though D3 doesn't really involve any real player interaction per se, just the "leaderboards" and such is enough to give a sense of community. I feel like that's missing with Grim Dawn, but maybe I'm wrong?
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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No you're right. That is Grim Dawn's only real shortcoming, but the game is really, really good
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