Lost Ark (isometric ARPG/MMO) general discussion

I finally put it down myself. The slog between 1340 and 1370 was too much. I had pretty good engravings and accessories, so the only loot I cared about was the honing materials, and so it just felt like I was grinding for plays on a slot machine. And none of the ways to circumvent the grind sounded very appealing. I did put 200 hours into it, which comes out to about ten cents per hour, so I certainly got my money’s worth!

I hit that right at the same time they had the events which gave out extra mats and stuff that boosted the chance for successful honing so I got through that relatively painlessly. But now, I am at 1355 and come to a slow crawl.

Well, the bard is 1385 and the raid leader would like us at 1445 in three weeks. At least I have some time.

If it makes a difference, select the Express Pass for your character. It will shower you with mats to get you up to T3 (1300ish) in no time. I enabled it on an alt and I think I went from 560 to 1300 in 2-3 days of just running my daily chaos dungeons and guardian raids. I think I had a few T2 materials in the bank but still, it gives a ton of mats, double levels on honing, increased honing chances, etc.

My problem with the game is less the grind part and more that all content other than the grind stages is either easy to the point of being autopilot or is just running around pressing G on various gimmicks without fighting at all.

You can always do guardians solo. I don’t know what stage you are at., but if you want to see what current end game content looks like, check out a video for Valtan Gate 2. It’s pretty wild.

Having a schedule like that sounds like a recipe for pain (or an incentive for ‘swiping’ as we call pulling out the credit card). Absent of an event or a ton of alts, that seems very optimistic.

Seriously. Even with three alts in T3, I maybe get 1-2 successful hones a week? And said honing raises my gear score by 0.83 or 2.5 depending on if that item has gone past +15. Despite playing every day and tapping out every available source of honing materials, I think I’ve made it from around 1400 to 1422 in a month.

I just blew through another week stockpile yesterday and made it from 1420 to 1422 and have already run all my challenge guardians, event shop, ship merchants, etc. 1445 seems like a looong ways away for me. Of course I already maxed out the Strategic Failure achievement (500 failed hones) and I don’t know if that’s normal or worse than average, so that may be affecting my perception.

Well, there IS an event going (wild wings) with plenty of materials. I also haven’t cleared out the chaos line shops yet. As for alts, I have the bard at 1385 and two at 1340. I prefer having a goal to shoot for and I think this one is quite doable.

Are you buying out the event shop each week? Buying mats with pirate coins? Doing unas for leapstones? Una weekly boss rush 2x? Have you done hard mode for chaos line? You can also get tradable leapstones from anguished isle on every character. Guild shop also helps. Sounds like you might be leaving some things on the table, so to speak.

Yeah I’ve been doing all that.

It took 20,000 guardian stones and 450 greater leapstones to get my shoulders upgraded this past week. The pirate ships gives… 900 guardian stones a week per T3 character, I think? It all adds up and helps for sure, but it’s a lot of resources.

You’ve had a rough go. There’s a guy in my guild who is at 1467 I think. He still doesn’t have that achievement.

Oof, really?! Yikes. Well, unfortunately luck is one thing I don’t have any control over. :) I did one-tap my weapon from +12 to +13 after my shoulders pitied twice so I guess it’s not all bad, hah!

Nice. Yeah, it evens out eventually.

Yeah, the RNG gods can sometimes smile upon you. On my second T3 8-facet stone, I wound up with a +6,+6,+3. I guess that makes up for the entire quarry of stones I went through at T2.

Ok, I found this in my Steam library for some reason. I installed it, created a Gunslinger, and…whoa. It’s like Guild Wars II and Final Fantasy had a love child or something. I mean, I’m wandering around with long purple hair, hot pants, and a bandeau top, sporting steampunk-style boomsticks and a title of Inherited Turtle!

I have no idea what is going on. There are about a billion interconnected little achievement, journal, collectible, currency, customization, skill, pet, mount, etc. systems that all sort of run together. It does play pretty fluidly, at least. The voice acting…oh my. It’s giving me old Speed Racer flashbacks, it’s that terrible. But sort of in a good, cheesy way? Maybe?

Clearly there is a ton of game here though, that much is clear.

There are a whole lot more systems you won’t see for a while. It’s ridiculously complex. Feel free to ask questions.

I don’t even know enough to know what to ask. They dump a ton of bizarre currency on you in welcome gifts, and I have no idea what any of it is. A lot of it requires me to make choices so I’m just holding on to it until I figure out what each time is for.

The UI is a mix of pretty good and weird, with lots of windows, tabs, and some odd placement of things. I also cannot figure out some of the apparently extra-cost (in-game or real money?) stuff, like some sort of aura or whatnot. I also cannot figure out how to get my character looking like she’s actually a gunslinger, and not a pole dancer.

Yep, just stuff them in your storage and don’t even worry about them until you finish the main quest and unlock the endgame content, which would be even you wrap up Vern. The currencies, battle items, and potions won’t matter until then anyway.

Your appearance will keep changing depending on the armor you’re wearing which will be all the time while leveling up. Once you’re done with the main quest you’ll get your Tier 1 gear which looks gunslingery and there are skin options as well. Wouldn’t worry about it right now unless that’s really your bag, then check out the shop for skins (F4). There’s some you can get for in-game currencies as well but you won’t have enough for those for a little while.

The aura is super handy to have if you end up playing past level 50, but no need to worry yet.

Thanks for all the info! I kind of suspected this was the case–basic questline just do whatever, real grind starts after–but it is good to know for sure. The game seems pretty fun to mess around with, even if it makes Path of Exile look simple (albeit its complexity is very different in nature).