Lost Ark is POE Killer

I seriously wanted to try Lost Ark. Then I saw that they've implemented "gear score" into their itemization, and I lost all interest. Is there ONE thing that directly fucks up any form of itemization, it's adding this ONE number you have to chase.

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Phrazz wrote:

I seriously wanted to try Lost Ark. Then I saw that they've implemented "gear score" into their itemization, and I lost all interest. Is there ONE thing that directly fucks up any form of itemization, it's adding this ONE number you have to chase.

Explain. I think we’re on the same page but maybe not. You start out with level 65 items at level 10. There are like 3 different character pages for stats as well. Your level requirement to enter dungeons is your level + your item level.

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MECHanokl wrote:

a lot

I just don’t get the same feel. Skills feel extremely clunky in LA, and often don’t require much combo or skill to use. Dodging boss content that’s dangerous is as simple as pushing a space bar and aiming. You get warnings.
You can theoretically improve stats forever by consuming stat elixirs.

I can definitely empathize with your Poe sentiment because when set up on finished builds, it does feel like pushing 1-2 buttons. The best builds push more, but okay builds don’t.

But… the resets are part of why I keep coming back to Poe. Imagine how newcomers to LA will feel when the game is 3 years old, and older players have consumed over500 stat elixirs and gear is maxed to the hilt. Resets are good for new players. They’re good for old players too. The reason most games fail is game maturity.

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rekikyo wrote:

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MECHanokl wrote:

a lot

I just don’t get the same feel. Skills feel extremely clunky in LA, and often don’t require much combo or skill to use. Dodging boss content that’s dangerous is as simple as pushing a space bar and aiming. You get warnings.
You can theoretically improve stats forever by consuming stat elixirs.

I can definitely empathize with your Poe sentiment because when set up on finished builds, it does feel like pushing 1-2 buttons. The best builds push more, but okay builds don’t.

But… the resets are part of why I keep coming back to Poe. Imagine how newcomers to LA will feel when the game is 3 years old, and older players have consumed over500 stat elixirs and gear is maxed to the hilt. Resets are good for new players. They’re good for old players too. The reason most games fail is game maturity.

There are combos and rotations in the game that you use, there are counter skills than you need to learn how to land, stagger checks, however, main skill comes from positioning in fights depending on your class and build, and being able to do optimal damage while not getting hit and doing mechanics. "Pressing space bar out of red zones" is something that works in story and earlier T1 content, because the game ramps up it's difficulty slowly.

You can't consume stat elixirs forever, they are finite. Moreover, the stat boosts you get from them are negligible, they are a nice small bonus, nothing else, make it a bit faster to level alt characters (completely fresh players in RU have a special aura to compensate for it). Not like easier leveling means much, since story content is easy, and doesnt require any stat boosts whatsoever.

You knowledge about LA seems to be lacking, it feels like you havent progressed nearly far enough. Which is fine, just dont judge the whole game based on limited knowledge, judge only the parts you are sure about or have experienced.

"The best builds push more, but okay builds don’t." - no, it's the reverse, best builds push less buttons, and okay builds have to push more. "Best builds" in PoE are the ones that trivialize the game at minimum effort possible.

And regarding how "resets are good"... Here is my honest opinion - progression resets in RPG games are complete, utter garbage that pushes a ton of people away from them, and almost everyone I know universally hate them with passion. A lot of people dont want to invest in a cool build to find it in the gutter (not even replicable anymore) 2 month later on next "reset" cycle. A lot of people dont want to come back to the game to chill a bit, only to find a reset skill-tree, reset atlas, broken gear, and having to go through guides, videos to figure out how to re-make their build and what the hell happened, before they even can play the game properly. A lot of people dont want to re-grind boring acts, trials, map completion and other progression systems just to get where they were before.

I was a fresh player in LA. I couldnt care less about there being people with good gear. It's an MMO, these people are more of a goalpost, a demonstration of what is possible. Them being high level affects me in exactly zero ways, because when I reach content where it's relevant, I will be close or on the same level. Yes, there are a lot of systems, a lot of contet to do. This is a good thing, means I will get a lot out of a game before running out of things to do. And once I achieve something, it stays with me. The game isn't so little that it needs to invalidate my time and progression every 3 month to try to force to keep me playing. This is why it respects my time. Once I get something, it stays. A long time ago standard was suppoused to represent this idea in PoE, but we have moved past that. Now standard gets sh1t on almost every league, because a new hamster race is beginning, better go and redo stuff you already did many times before again but with a new forced meta and few new gimmicks. Yay. I got tired of this crap. My friends got tired of this crap, and even if they like some of the new additions to PoE, there is no way I would convince them to come back, figure out a new build, regrind almost everything again just to kill a new boss or experience couple new gimmicks.

So I don't know who resets are "good for", but almost everyone I know universally hate them, and prefer games or MMOs which don't invalidate your progress at all or at least as much. I can boot up D2 (the so called "inspiration" for PoE) right now and play any of my characters I made more than a decade ago, no friction, no time waste, just load and go.

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rekikyo wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

I seriously wanted to try Lost Ark. Then I saw that they've implemented "gear score" into their itemization, and I lost all interest. Is there ONE thing that directly fucks up any form of itemization, it's adding this ONE number you have to chase.

Explain. I think we’re on the same page but maybe not. You start out with level 65 items at level 10. There are like 3 different character pages for stats as well. Your level requirement to enter dungeons is your level + your item level.

Games that implement a "gear score" system, often have drop rates/tables based on your gear score. Your "gear score", ergo a number on your gear, is so central that you have quests built around increasing it, you have crafting build around increasing it and the overall result? Well, the "gear score" number becomes more important than the actual stats of an item affecting your character.

I'm talking generally here, as I don't know how it's implemented in Lost Ark. But I HATE when what you're wearing affects what drops. I HATE when you more or less feel forced to equip a worse item than what you're wearing (when it comes to stats) just because it has higher gear score, and therefore increases your potential drops.

So if people can tell me that this "gear score" number doesn't affect drops, and isn't just this stupid "chase number" you have to chase all throughout endgame, than I might try Lost Ark.

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Phrazz wrote:

So if people can tell me that this "gear score" number doesn't affect drops, and isn't just this stupid "chase number" you have to chase all throughout endgame, than I might try Lost Ark.

The way gear score works in Lost Ark, is that it applies to armor pieces and weapons, which have uniform stats, that scale almost purely with the gear score. That way, it purely tracks progression, and it doesn't affect drops, but it determines what content you can run - as you progress vertically through the game, you unlock new bosses, dungeons, and raids.

Where you customize your character, via jewelry, engravings, gems, card sets, and others, those have no effect on item level, so the character-optimization aspect of the game and gear score are unrelated.

Therefore, the situation where you would pick a worse item due to it having higher gear score never happens.

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MECHanokl wrote:

This is why it respects my time

Yeh, you didn't get it. You single handily dismissed certain types of players who complain on the POE forums while promoting LA as friendly towards them. Despite your reasoning none of it matters as these types of players might as well be told do the story IF you can and dont expect to ever reach end game without catch up mechanics, even then expect to be left in the dust.

LA is an MMO and should be approached as such, however if these forums are to be believed then they would not accept what you wrote as respecting their time which is something they throw out to justify things despite likely all of them accepting the same or worse in other games. LA is no different. It wasn't that YOU thought it respected your time that was amusing.

In LA crafting is trash, the gear/loot hamster wheel is trash and very present even with transfer options which DELETES the obsolete gear, build diversity/skill options are forced/limited with sets and some must have skills on bar. RNG is massively present and content is time gated everywhere you look. All this intentionally designed simply to make/keep players tapping away. Pinnacle endgame only the 1% can do? Difficulty too hard? Live service balancing? All sounds eerily familiar right? Right! There is more but it really doesn't matter lol.

None of what I said makes ME dislike LA. I accept it for what it is, don't need to sugar coat it for myself or others. Its pretty tame in most parts for what's out there.

I played Lost Ark a lot when it released. Also played to lvl 50 and startet doing chaos dungeons and such. Sorry, i got bored as hell. But it's a different kind of game. I am playing PoE now again which is a much better game.

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Xyel wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

So if people can tell me that this "gear score" number doesn't affect drops, and isn't just this stupid "chase number" you have to chase all throughout endgame, than I might try Lost Ark.

The way gear score works in Lost Ark, is that it applies to armor pieces and weapons, which have uniform stats, that scale almost purely with the gear score. That way, it purely tracks progression, and it doesn't affect drops, but it determines what content you can run - as you progress vertically through the game, you unlock new bosses, dungeons, and raids.

Where you customize your character, via jewelry, engravings, gems, card sets, and others, those have no effect on item level, so the character-optimization aspect of the game and gear score are unrelated.

Therefore, the situation where you would pick a worse item due to it having higher gear score never happens.

It is worth mentioning that different gear with the same level can have different core stats attached to it(like one wep might have Crit and Domination while another may have Endurance and Wisdom. That can make for some sad sacrifices.

But yeah. Drops in Lost Ark are almost guaranteed and in large supply, so acquiring stuff isn’t hard. It’s kind of like Perfect World’s common drops mixed with Archage’s quality system from common to rare to epic etc to mythic. They have a durability system to where once low durability they don’t enhance your damage, but they bind, have no value, and are common.

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rekikyo wrote:

It is worth mentioning that different gear with the same level can have different core stats attached to it(like one wep might have Crit and Domination while another may have Endurance and Wisdom. That can make for some sad sacrifices.

What you mentioned applies ONLY to accessories (like rings, earrings, amulet). They have these different extra stats like crit, but they also dont contribute to your ilvl. Basic gear like weapons and chestplates DONT have random extra stats. However, there are set bonuses for most endgame gear, but you have a choice of what gear set to craft, it's not random.