One thing that I think you're missing in this video is that SG can change the pressure of logging on/speed of progression while not extending the length between content simply by updating materials given or lowering honing reqs etc (you do mention mats but it seems kind of dismissed when it's kind of the main issue lol). Keeping that in mind, it seems weird being glad content is being released slower as if the speed of progression isn't 100% in Smilegate's control and separate from the content release cadence. The speed of developing content is really the only thing that's not easily controllable by SG but they seem to have a plan of releasing raids more quickly but with less gates per raid starting with Echidna.
The thing about that is that Smilegate's main concern is the KR region, and they do not have those problems at least not to the same degree that we do. Our economy hasn't had the time to calm down like KR has, which makes hitting new content at our current pace inherently more expensive. No matter how many mats you flood us with, keeping up a breakneck release cadence will still put the pressure on people to keep up. Down time is really the only way to give people a real break, whether it is forced through a drought or manufactured as with Echidna's ilvl not being different from Thaemine's.
@@RunRunRun1901 im more about having less time on hw, 3 newer raids that are 2 gates each(6 gates total hw) sounds way better than 1 new raid + 2 old raids that are 3-4 gates each(10-12 gates hw)
@@ndmazin, I play at my own pace and don’t grind 6 characters, so the number of gates on a raid isn’t that important to me, especially when you don’t need to run all of them.
Yooo... "it's not up for Lost Ark to respect your time, it's up to YOU to respect your time." HOOOOOOLY.. You're saying people need to take responsibility for themselves? How troll of you xD Also, I would love a bit more time in between as well, the biggest reason being that I'm not in love with the daily system, and I do unrested dailies on my 1580+ alts because I feel the NEED in order to reach my goals for my glaivier and hard Thaemine. But if I felt slightly less urgency due to the release cadence of content, I'd definitely be doing my alts rested which would bring back some more enjoyment into that realm of the game. This is a great video, dude. I appreciate you bringing the topics up, without necessarily demonizing one side or the other.
I must admit I'm kinda hardcore about this game and I cannot wait for some downtime, Ivé been grinding my ass off to keep up with the latest content (and I have been able to do it) but I am EXAUSTED, I seriously need a break, so downtime is definitely something I'm excited about. Now, one thing I would love to know is if there is any chance that amazon or SG, or whoever is in charge of these things, is looking into the possibility of merging South and North American markets (I kinda understand why the wouldn't be able to do a full merge, even tho there are other PvE focused games that already did this) because here in SA we're drowning with inflation. The other day I got so frustrated with a NA youtuber that was complaining about "InFlAtIoN" because 1 pack of 100x fish was about 70 gold, and I was like "DUUUUUDE in SA that same pack costs over 800 gold!!! like WTF" I really hope they do something about this because it has made it IMPOSIBLE for casual players to keep up and the servers are dying quite rapidly because of that... Anyways great vid buddy, and sorry for the rant lol
I haven't watched all of this just yet ... but immediately. I can say, successful MMO's that stand the test of time focus on new player retention and new player experiences as well as casual gameplay. They still focus on giving Hardcore players things to do but the majority of their focus is the latter. Games that don't follow this formula usually die pretty quickly, there are outliers but it's inevitable.
Started with JS, I have one 1550 character(technically I have another one at 1415 because it was free), no way I'm gonna make multiple characters. 1 character is perfect. My dailies take 15min and I can go play something else. Sometimes I do some horizontal or procyon if I feel like it. I do my raids on weekends and that takes what maybe 3 more hours(depends on gatekeeping)? The trick is as soon as you feel FOMO, just close the game and go do something else. You don't need to rush content as long as you're wiling to wait a bit longer for learning parties when you reach milestones
Yeah, if you enjoy less than 6 that's good. I've been thinking about talking about that and alts, but i also need to take a good look at Dubla's cost for pushing and breaking even. I know there are a lot of people who don't enjoy that many characters and we've been just influenced hard to have the entire roster angle. For me personally, I enjoy too many classes so I have problems narrowing down. But I wouldn't be upset if they did lower the roster number tbh. I think it's really good and healthy to take the route you are and not give into just trying to get to the very end ASAP. Which is why I think Revyll is one of the most fun stories of LOA to watch, as he shows that same concept of enjoying the game wherever you are at progression wise and it's just something that has become lost in mmo gaming in general I feel.
There reason for rushing is to keep people interested. If they calm down on everything people will stop playing. There are alot of good games out there. And a 1 week break easy can turn into 6months they can't afford to have people playing other games so they trap you in and endless daily and weekly task grind.
I work in Japan from 12 PM to 9PM and when I come home I do my raids and dailies. I barely have the time to do horizontal content like I could do when the game first released in NA. With downtime not only could I do horizontal content mainly such as grinding card exp, leveling up my roster, life skills and collectibles but I actually have time to relax and play other games. This also benefits newer players as more experienced players will be less pressured to pump out raids as quick as possible and will be willing to help newer players as players like me won’t feel like we are on a race against the clock like we are with thaemine currently.
Downtime is great, but do you know what would be even better? Downtime without significantly falling behind. The game is literally designed around playing every week.. forever. Just look at how long the grind for Kayangel and Akkan mats was: Literally almost the full duration until the next content release. And this was by design; SG want it this way. I've been playing non-stop since release and I'm still only slightly ahead of the curve(longest pause being a week). I can at most take a few months break before I'm falling behind current content. These kinds of playtime demands are just unsustainable, and likely a big contributor to the game hemorrhaging players.
I also agree that downtime would be good. I think a lot of people are exhausted of this breakneck pace that we've getting new content at and could use a break that doesn't make them feel like they're missing out massively.
We are basically 6-7 months behind Korea and Theomine to the new raid will be shorter for NA/EU, but that might be the last catch up for us until we hit our 3-4 months behind and have content droughts.
Something I think is good to add onto this topic that isn't really as talked about much from what I've seen is the impact that Echidna will have on this. Since Echidna's ilvl is the same as Thaemine's it means that the months between their release can be spent catching up or building out your roster more. Also since Echidna gives an ilvl bump with her new system that, by my understanding, is much cheaper than honing our current gear higher it makes waiting for her even more efficient. Personally, since I don't think most of my friends will be pushing to prog Thaemine hard on original difficulty I'm just going to hone my main and park it at 1620 until Echidna then use her to boost up to both hard Thaemine and Echidna. In the meantime I can farm myself mats for the new system, get my elixir set and transcendence from normal Thaemine going, and raise my alts up more as well possibly even having more than 1 echidna ready character day 1. Idk how common that strategy will be, but having the option to take my foot off the gas pedal is really nice.
I know I haven't finished the vid just yet, being that I'm on the part about people against extended time between content. However, I think that those who complain there's too much time between content (because they've overgeared the current content) are the people who SHOULD take a break. I mean frankly, they've afforded it be it with in-game time or wallet-earned time. And if they choose not to take a break, then they must be enjoying what they're doing, right? They can come back for when the new content drops and not be behind either. So it's really on them.
I think the complaints about lack of content from the KR side shouldn't be taken for face value. Rather than there being a lack of content, I think it's better to reason it as lack of variety. With the current design direction, there are only 2 main forms of content: new raids and new characters. Both of these expose a different part of why the game's design is unsustainable. Looking at new raids, we expect a minimum of 2-3 new raids a year. Historically, these always have increasing ilvl requirements. The ilvl requirement must increase in order to control inflation as honing is the main gold sink. The longer the gap between new raids, the worse the inflation will be. Harder raids print more gold, either to sustain honing for your main or for pushing your alts up. However, most people will stop honing at some point after finishing the hardest current content simply because the cost/performance is terrible (which is intentional because they want the gold sink to still affect people who can swipe). Therefore, raids have to release often enough to prevent the economy from spiraling out of control, often with new vertical progression systems to add additional gold sinks (ie. elixir/transcendence). If you have excess gold and are looking for more content at this point, you would make another character (even if you already have 6 gold earners). This leads into new characters being the other main form of content. This is completely fine for players without 6 gold earners as they would be able to increase their weekly income and have more to do in the game. However, assuming a player has enough interest in the game and SG continues to release new characters, they will eventually cap out at 6 gold earners with all the express events. Making new characters is still fresh content at this point but it needs to be brought up to a certain ilvl to access relevant content with enough people in party finder. The question becomes whether or not this investment is worth it and if the character will replace one of your existing 6 gold earners. If it's replacing a gold earner, then you have to justify the sunk cost of whatever character you've replaced. If it's not replacing a gold earner, you have to justify the time/gold spent gathering honing materials on top of having to run your 6 gold earners through their raids. While this is easier to justify in KR's economy, it's 5x more expensive in NAE. Consider that KR has all their players on one market while we do not. I think if SG wants the economy to be more stable, they should keep gold income more balanced between older and newer content instead of having such large increases in gold rewards. The main chokepoint of honing is from honing materials and not gold. Having to interact with the market to make up on honing materials only moves money between players since the 5% fixed tax rate isn't enough to handle inflation. If you're a player who is actively selling honing materials, you're likely just hording gold to buy back the materials for cheap later. Trading gold payout from raids for more honing materials already exists in the form of the end of raid boxes but the value never matches the market (gets better or worse over time).
"it's not up to the game to respect your time, it's up to you to respect your own time", wiser words have never been said. Accelerated content should be a good thing if people stop putting pressure on themselves to hit Hard Mode on every release week one and being paranoid about getting gatekept to oblivion if they don't.
3 months isn't anything, it's been 6 months of me at 1580 and i'm only 1590 now. on top of having 4 characters who havn't been able to do a valtan and vykas cause the one time i did i ended up mvp on my 1490 with everyone else dead and the rest were 1520+. it was miserable. raids are miserable. swiping was worthless and got me nowhere. time gating is miserable. Being solo isn't fun in this game and almost impossible to progress unless u wanna give up a part of your soul. And if you're already behind in content without a group of friends, you'll never catch up no matter how much time u have cause if u can't get the raids done for new gear. then it's impossible to progress You talk about time being your own problem. but it's not about that. If u don't keep up, u end up spending more time cause raids take longer with people causing wipes since the better players are only doing new content with no time to help others. No amount of time will help many players. only the people who havn't quit who kept up can continue to be selective with their time and not fall behind.
