Lost Ark is POE Killer

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RandallPOE wrote:

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Demonoz wrote:

Have fun having your Wallet molested and raped just to progress your builds and characters in the endgame... Ill stick to no P2W bullshit.

To be 100% fair and honest I was super hyped and really looking forward to Lost Ark for many years now but, to see it come loaded with P2W shit and the ability to just buy your way into power I have to take a hard pass on that one. Pity because the game does look incredibly good and fun too.. But, games like that were you can just throw your wallet at the game and progress ALWAYS turn around make it almost forced to do so outside of no lifeing the game and even then you still can never compete with wales who have the ability to toss thousands of dollars at the game regardless of how much time you invest.

Eventually just like in all games of that caliber you wont even be able to group with people unless you toss a certain amount of money at the game to progress your characters to a certain threshold just to be able to pull your weight.

It's not P2W though because you can just log in and do tedious dailies every day for a couple of years to get to the same place.

Yeah... OR you can break out the ol wallet and toss your debit card at the game and skip all that nonsense which is exactly what most people end up doing in the end. Especially when they will inevitably start moving the goalposts of those tedious daily quests to further entice people to break out their wallets.

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MECHanokl wrote:

All fair points, however I do wonder how you stomach PoE leveling every single league. Unless you pay for MTX you wear practically the same armor, sometimes you are not even playing your main build untill maps. Your main skill barely changes throughout leveling, and all combat consists of holding one button while pressing flasks and dodging ocasionally, if you even need to (to be fair it's the same in endgame). Acts are EXTREMELY linear, with no exploration or collectible content, and you have to repeat it over, and over, and over again for every single character and every single new league (and in quite a few leagues, new mechanics barely appear in acts) with no option to skip or fast track it. Obviously, no cinematics or some kind of set piece moments, just talk to exclamation point dude and kill some guys in a new zone, rince and repeat for all acts.

So yeah, I can see why LA leveling can be annoying, but after PoE leveling?

You can always say "but PoE leveling is super fast!". Well if you are experienced it is. For a new player, like you were in LA, acts leveling can be very slow, in fact many people can hit a brick wall there due to picking a poor build or leveling skill, forcing them to start over. You mentioned hitting Ardentane in 40 hours, I can bring a character to 50 in about 12-14, so again, here an experienced player will also level faster (but not as fast, that is true).

I see the problem. You're comparing Lost Ark and PoE. Which, reasonabile, given the forum. But when I was playing I couldn't help compare it with PoE..., and FF14. And Guild Wars. And DFO. Because it's not an ARPG, it's an MMO with ARPG controls, not gameplay. To the point that over on the steam forms, trying to judge or compare it with ARPG often saw replies of "Nooooo, it's an MMORPG not an ARG, it's Action RPG you can't compare the two..."

Which is the problem. Lost Ark is such a weird mix of ideas, how DO I judge it? What game do I compare it to? Because the reasons I play FF14, PoE, and DFO; Lost Ark comes up short in those areas but stronger in others.

But fair enough, let's stay in the realm of PoE vs Lost Ark. ARPG to "ARPG" in the vein of progression.

"Your main skill doesn't change" vs And your combo routine does?

"Combat is just 1 button" vs again, just doing the same combo or waiting till elite has it's 'please hit me' sign up?

"Acts are Linear with no side content" vs a world that feels dead with it's side content and doesn't want you really doing them because you're supposed to get to end game fast.

"Just talk to dude and move on" vs having to faff about almost every other quest and at times right next to the guy?

Also not mentioned, Hordes of goons to plow through vs...., very widely spaced out mobs that give very little reward and aren't very stratifying to fight?

And you forgot how PoE does actually change where as Lost Ark doesn't'. I'm playing Ground Slam and it's been fun to slot in different support gems to see what they do. OR early on I had a very nice lightning weapon that did huge(If varying) Lightning damage that got me through some areas, but replaced with a physical scaling weapon saw my damage jump. PoE might have the same issue of 'limited graphics pool' as Lost Ark, but PoE makes up for it by having gear be an actual upgrade. I failed to feel the difference between a weapon that gave me 110 Dex, and a weapon that gave me 150 Dex because the enemies of that area scaled HP wise to not matter. The Imbued, Card, and Skill upgrade systems seem to be the answer to gear but they don't have the numbers behind them to back it.

And that's what PoE is about, building your character from it's attacks, to skill points, to gear to push those numbers to ridiculous levels. You can rapidly see if you're build is working or not, for better or for worse. By act 4, even late game builds should probably realize if what they're doing is working or not, or Fun or not. I felt stronger each time I got a notable node or a new weapon that synergized with my set up, or finding out that this skill gem makes it flow better.

I didn't get that feeling in Lost Ark. My attacks don't feel stronger, my combo string has changed barely, and I don't have any funny ha ha effects going either. And with how long it takes to win fights compared to PoE, those feelings of 'Am I getting stronger?' persist. It's a reason why I stopped in the 40s, I didn't feel any real tangible difference from level 40 to level 10. Other than "Do a little dash when using skill" or making something cast a little faster.

And again, it's hard to judge Lost Ark by what I look for in an ARPG because..., it's not?

I play PoE and Grim Dawn because I want to overcome the odds, beat down hordes of enemies as fast as possible, just push those numbers with weird builds and crazy item choices, and just be semi Dynasty Warriors of 1 person vs Armies. Smash, blitz, get the loot, laugh as my build wrecks things or back to the drawing board in shame.

Lost ark however doesn't give me any of that. It gives me an ARPG put through the MMO wringer. Very safe, very slow, that tries to get me to care about the world but has little in the way of interesting choices or upgrades. It has better combat but against sandbag enemies that usually act the same with only a few elites getting an effect and maybe One boss that was interesting(I liked the Yin Yang demon fight).

TLDR - PoE gives me what I want in this type of game, Big Wins, big Numbers, and the possibly of messing up. Lost Ark is a very bland rush to top for grind, with very little influance on your numbers and very samey fights for as active as it's combat feels.

I think I would like Lost Ark more than I do if they leaned more into the combat/character brawler type of game style like DFO, Vindictus or Elsword. But they're stuck trying to make an ARPG work inside an MMO space, with brawler feeling combat. This was long but I hope it kinda makes sense?

One final bit, I play PoE somewhat irregually. Swing by every so often to see new stuff, skills, mechanics are around. Usually when I drop in 3 leagues have gone by so there's probably a lot of new stuff for me to see on the way to act 10. So it's fun to see what's changed, mess around with a couple new things, try that one build I put off doing maybe.

Lost Arc most definitely isn't an ARPG, it's a full fledged Isometric MMORPG. It's fun and the I have enjoyed the 10 hours, or so, I've played it so far, but it's not an ARPG in the literal sense of what the ARPG gameplay is, and by a long shot.

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I think I would like Lost Ark more than I do if they leaned more into the combat/character brawler type of game style like DFO, Vindictus or Elsword. But they're stuck trying to make an ARPG work inside an MMO space, with brawler feeling combat. This was long but I hope it kinda makes sense?

I'm not sure what you meant by combat brawler followed by stuck trying to make an arpg work, but the combat system isn't ARPG. When I play my Wardancer, I play it like I would play my Monk in FFXIV. I'm pretty sure I'll feel the same if I make a Bard or Warrior type character. The only similarity with the arpg type in combat is that is you heal yourself with potions and there's no dedicated healing classes.


It's an MMO balanced around being able to kill/do stuff solo rather than having to/being forced to party to run instances/dungons/ect.

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Silverpelt wrote:

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I think I would like Lost Ark more than I do if they leaned more into the combat/character brawler type of game style like DFO, Vindictus or Elsword. But they're stuck trying to make an ARPG work inside an MMO space, with brawler feeling combat. This was long but I hope it kinda makes sense?

I'm not sure what you meant by combat brawler followed by stuck trying to make an arpg work, but the combat system isn't ARPG. When I play my Wardancer, I play it like I would play my Monk in FFXIV. I'm pretty sure I'll feel the same if I make a Bard or Warrior type character. The only similarity with the arpg type in combat is that is you heal yourself with potions and there's no dedicated healing classes.

It's an MMO balanced around being able to kill/do stuff solo rather than having to/being forced to party to run instances/dungons/ect.

What I mean by Brawler is that, unlike playing my Dragoon in FF14, the combat feels more free form and active to the point that I can at times force knock down, force a "Time to dump everything into it" stage where as FF14 has a very clear script to have to play around for both enemies and players.

FF14 I like but the fights play like DDR after awhile and the challenge is keeping your rotation above a certain threshold to clear while dodging. Lost Ark felt more reactive and in the hands of players if that makes sense. At least to me.

And that's the thing, when I play an MMO, I want to surprisingly play with Other people most the time. Lost Ark thus far doesn't really support that. Team Dungeons yes, but not much of a difference other than maybe clear speed.

Again it's why I think it's just a weird mash up of ideas that works and doesn't work when compared to other games. It's a hotpot mix and that's not going to appeal to everyone. Or at least it didn't appeal to me.

And for people that like PoE, or the systems/feeling the game gives out, I really don't see Lost Ark offering much to pull them away from it.

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MECHanokl wrote:

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KalHirol wrote:

The game is at 69% rating on steam with more than 10.000 votes

Game got review bombed by europeans who have been suffering from server issues due to the game being too popular and servers being overcrowded (it keeps maintaining over 1 mil concurrent players on steam at peak hours). It is a shitty situation to be in, but has nothing to do with the game's qualities as a game. And yet, despite insane queues and matchmaking issues, people in europe still try to play, open their games remotely from work to get through queues faster, etc. Wonder why they do that for such an awful game for 12 year olds.

The full story is even better - in the pre-order period, the largest EU servers already had long (2+ hours) queues.

Amazon, in order to stop absurdly long queues from forming, decided to stop character creation on those servers.

In response, LA got review-bombed on steam because "They stop us from playing with our friends."

Amazon reversed the policy and allowed the character creation.

The next day, the servers had 7+ hours queues, and LA got review-bombed for the second time, this time for "there're too long queues."

If I wrote that as a story of fiction, no one would believe it :D

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Silverpelt wrote:

It's an MMO balanced around being able to kill/do stuff solo rather than having to/being forced to party to run instances/dungons/ect.

There is some content that can be soloed, however the main meat of the top endgame (raids and abyss dungeouns) are group-only content, and later raids become VERY demanding. I had a blast doing some of them in RU (they are not released yet in EU/NA), but boy do they make you work for it, you really are on edge the whole time.

So saying that LA is balanced around solo play would be incorrect. It has both, with heavier lean on group play at top endgame.

I've only played the main quest, and still doing it, and so far I wasn't forced to party to run dungeons and stuff unlike with FFXIV or FFXI where you're required to pt early on. That's what I meant by balanced around killing stuff solo.

I watched some of the streams and the late raids seems fun, but I just go play LA when I get pissed/frustrated at PoE and I don't have anything else to do rl. So not going to do any before quite some time.

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Demonoz wrote:

Especially when they will inevitably start moving the goalposts of those tedious daily quests to further entice people to break out their wallets.

The daily quests tied to progression are not what I would call tedious, I'm finding them to be the best content in the game.

The issue is that you burn through your dailies in no time and then there's nothing left to do for the day and no more materials to earn. People are making multiples of their main to run the quests multiple times.

It's not that they are tedious, it's that they are gated.

I have no opinion on monetization yet, I haven't really looked at what you can buy with cash yet.

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teknik1200 wrote:

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Demonoz wrote:

Especially when they will inevitably start moving the goalposts of those tedious daily quests to further entice people to break out their wallets.

The daily quests tied to progression are not what I would call tedious, I'm finding them to be the best content in the game.

The issue is that you burn through your dailies in no time and then there's nothing left to do for the day and no more materials to earn. People are making multiples of their main to run the quests multiple times.

It's not that they are tedious, it's that they are gated.

I have no opinion on monetization yet, I haven't really looked at what you can buy with cash yet.

I think it's both, if only because of experience with another game and hearing this rather than any hands on end game in LA.

It's a tad tedious and cumbersome to had to do the same content across multiple characters..., back to back to back. Let me just grind it out and get some practice in with the class/character I want to improve rather than having to do it across 5 characters to get anywhere.

DFO had a similar system of "Here's your daily runs do it 10 times across one character...., okay you're done. Switch character". And I wasn't a fan of it. It's only like in the last few months they've included ways of funneling resources into other characters but it's still kinda tedious to make sure all your alts are capable of running each level of content you're gonna be grinding.

Maybe LA is better but my history with the practice leaves me going "Yeah.... not really looking forward to doing THAT again"

Poe is self-killer. Many players cant play from patch to patch coz of engine. And they dont even try to reply, not worth mentioning they dont want to help... It's way way better to implement battlepass. But players will make PoePassedOut.