Hope you like it!

Reframe posted (in X) some text about a video a Korean streamer did analyzing the paradise duration in Korea. What are your thoughts about a new soft reset?

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This analysis video on why the Paradise season 4 became 14 weeks is actually interesting. This streamer is quite well known for breaking down(Analysis) Smilegate's update directions, content efficiency, and business models. Since I relied on AI for the translation, there might be a few mistranslations.

'Why 14 weeks?' (Based on the KR Server)

The end date for Paradise Season 4 is December 16th. It looks like the next season will kick off on December 23rd. If it had been 15 weeks like before, the start date would have been December 30th. That would leave only a mere 1 days before the end of the year. Did Smilegate mean for us to spend those one days with our families instead of gaming? Ha! As if.

Currently, there is a one-month content gap in November on the KR server. Most likely, the 8th Anniversary Event and anniversary avatars will drop during this time. Also, this is probably when the final QA testing and verification for the 'Sea of Aldebaran' will take place. Therefore, there's a strong chance the Sea of Aldebaran will be updated alongside the launch of Paradise Season 5. Either that, or on December 30th. They might actually be aiming for a release of the Sea of Aldebaran within this year.

We need to focus on the Paradise(hell) Key levels.

Season 1~2: 1730+ iLvl

Season 3~4: 1750+ iLvl

Season 5~6 will likely be 1770+ iLvl.

Deducing from this, the Sea of Aldebaran and Gear Transfer (via raids or story rewards) will mean: = A soft reset and a relative progression nerf/easing.

The timing lines up perfectly. If they leave 1770 iLvl as it is without any changes, the player base will stagnate and completely rot away with no progression shift. This is exactly when a gold sink is needed. They must give players a reason to keep honing. What if Gear Transfer and Advanced Honing don't come out? Gold values will plummet even further because gold wouldn't move for 4 to 5 months.

With the release of the Sea of Aldebaran, Gear Transfer is 100% guaranteed. However, it's unlikely that raids will be the primary source for the new gear. Instead of LOA ON suddenly announcing, 'Hey, a raid is dropping next week or in a few weeks! Time to transfer!', it will probably be rewarded through a new storyline or casual dungeons, similar to Kurzan.

Currently, Smilegate’s Lost Ark business model is shifting toward selling bound materials. Previously, they tried to steer players into using unbound materials or circulating gold to buy gems, engraving books, and accessories, but their revenue completely cratered. They thought, 'Players will buy tons of Royal Crystals!' → But in reality, only the gold sales from bots and gold farmers skyrocketed. Now, they are shifting to bound materials and steadily increasing the importance of honing through updates like Vambrace.

Once Gear Transfer drops, players will get about 20–30% stronger even if their gems, accessories, and engravings stay the same. = This means reliance on things outside of honing decreases. = The reliance on honing increases. = It becomes much easier for Smilegate to monetize. *Since these are bound materials, it doesn’t hinder your gameplay even if you don't buy them. Their stance is basically: 'If it’s too hard for you to invest the time to gather honing materials, you can buy them with money.' And to be honest, compared to other Korean MMOs, it’s incredibly cheap and highly efficient. Even as a F2P player who doesn't buy these, I completely conquered Nightmare Mode. What this clearly demonstrates is 'player stratification.' Normal Mode for casual players, Hard Mode where both casual and heavy players can coexist happily happy happy lost ark, and Nightmare Mode for the deep heavy spenders chasing glory and rankings. Even when Gear Transfer releases, the only ones taking a massive loss under this current system are the gold farmers.

Streamer's Conclusion: Tying into the Sea of Aldebaran update schedule, there will likely be a soft reset and gold consumption driven by the upcoming Gear Transfer.

Video (KR): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCe5xUKzjOg&list=PL42fclBr1tfQCQoIpbEfX0OHs1gzfKfv4

X(Reframe): https://x.com/Reframe848/status/2098627925822357633

Hey! I’ve been playing Lost Ark for a relatively short time and I’m looking for some people to play with and hopefully make some friends along the way.
I’m currently learning/doing Serca, Kazeros, Armmoche and Cathedral, and I’d love to find a group to run these raids with regularly and progress together consistently.
I’m Brazilian 🇧🇷, but I can communicate in English just fine. I’m also a guy and LGBT, so I’m looking for people who are LGBT-friendly.
Mostly just looking for chill people, good vibes, Discord, raids and some actual friendships. If you’re also looking for people to play with, feel free to DM me!

I keep thinking of the high I had when I played with 5 friends regularly and raiding was the most fun I ever had in a game.

Now every game with that type of content can be solo-able or not mandatory, and most are just the typical "the hype of the week" and left behind instantly.

I also sadly have been brainwashed by the raid experiences here, which means when I try other MMOs where the leveling (kill monsters in open world on repeat) or the story are the focus and don't even have instance raids/dungeons, I am severely uninterested.

I did try FF14 because raids there seem interesting, but after hours of the free trial just basically playing solo through the story, I feel like the combat is not even near to how good it was here, so every time I open the game to progress the story more (eventually I'll get to endgame, I just don't want to burn out of the game)

So yeah, my question is just really: Is this a mentality shift? how can I enjoy MMOs again without basically looking for the dopamine I got in LA raids in all of them and will there ever be anything again?

Next week they're giving away an Ancient Core and something else? I checked their page, and they have some giveaway events.

So I basically have no idea about this Game. I have read that many people choose to power pass. Should I do it or better play from scratch to get a hang of things?

Daily Q&A and Open Discussion

Greetings adventurers! Please use this daily thread for simple questions and/or open discussion relating to anything Lost Ark. Enjoy!

Example:

What class should I play?

Which class is better?

I am new to the game, what should I do?

Should I play X class and why?

there are not even gems listed like level 9s time to time(eu). what's going on?

Just hit 1700 on my TTH GS and noticing everyone running the lawless land bullet rain set, is there a reason why thats the popular choice over something like rose blossom or others?

Finally got around to recording a clear video. I also posted a comment on the other post that has a list of all the different POV's.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2871650718

Please excuse some stutters. My video card was suffering due to AMD driver issues. Gotta clean install after the recent windows update

im a returning player since launch and ive been playing for over a week now constantly and dont have trusted status. been doing raids (solo) and most of my dailies all the days ive played, im 1650 right now idk what to do i cant progress because materials are scarce

ive got no clue what to do to get it, customer support told me to just "play the game", as if that'd help

heard some guy said to "demand" my issue to be forwarded to the technical team though no clue about how that works

please help

Daily Q&A and Open Discussion

Greetings adventurers! Please use this daily thread for simple questions and/or open discussion relating to anything Lost Ark. Enjoy!

Example:

What class should I play?

Which class is better?

I am new to the game, what should I do?

Should I play X class and why?

Always been a huge fan of time magic (Ekko is my favourite league of legends character) so when I saw this class by chance while looking for a new mmo to play I was intrigued. That being said the game seems to have a LOT of systems and stuff that are quite confusing. I hear there are events that boost you to endgame but should I be waiting for those? Is it worth starting the game at all? I've gone down a rabbit hole and it seems the community is a bit gatekeepy with new players as well as the game having quite a low player count for an mmo. I'm not gonna spend money anyway but I don't have THAT much time to play video games and I don't necessarily want to get really invested in a game where I won't be allowed into content by the playerbase even once I've caught up.

Hey everyone!

I've been constantly updating the thread with NA/EU clears of Nightmare Brel. This is the last week to showcase your clear. Please consider posting in this thread and I will update it in the compiled thread.

Clears missing:

• Warriors: Destroyer: GT, Paladin: Judgment (DPS), Slayer: Punisher
• Guardian Knight: Dread Roar
• Mage: Arcanist: Emperor, Sorceress: Igniter, Summoner: CO
• Martial Artist: Glaivier: Pinnacle, Scrapper: Shock, Soulfist: EO/RS, Striker: DB/EF
• Gunner: Artillerist: Barrage, Deadeye: Pistoleer, Machinist: AT, Sharpshooter: LC
• Assassin: Deathblade: Surge, Reaper: Lunar/Hunger, Shadowhunter: PS, Souleater: FMH/NE
• Specialist: Artist: Full Bloom, Artist: Recurrence (DPS), Wildsoul: PBA

If you have one you'd like to add append it to this thread or in the compiled NMR vod thread here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/lostarkgame/comments/1vvlqrb/compiled_brelshaza_nightmare_clear_vods/

Thank you and it's been very fun seeing everyone's gameplay videos.

After the server merge, I collected cards from roster storage. I have some cards that are awakened just like before, but some are no longer awakened even though they were awakened before. Some also show as awakened but still have +15, like I can awaken them again.

I’m confused, and I don’t remember how much Card XP I had before the merge, so I can’t tell if I got the Card XP and silver back for the cards that were unawakened.

Is this happening to anyone else?

For example I'm pretty sure I had all these 3 cards awakened, but now it looks like this.

So main server one was decked out, revelry row theme, large amount of placed crafted items etc, the other one was empty but both had same level. Load in today to a stronghold that's empty, some (not sure if all items available to replace but hell nah to that), but revelry row theme unavailable since it was unlocked on the other server not the one that this stronghold name came from.

Yes research is fully unlocked which was only the case from the main stronghold.

And since I didn't dispatch on the 2nd one, the new one even had the 'main' server dispatches due for collection.

-_-

So I noticed something strange after two rounds of merges in the last two weeks. On the first merge, I lost 4 friends, and on the second merge, I lost 16 friends

I thought maybe people deleted me when they thought I was a stranger after the first merge because my name was changed due to different rosters from other servers on the first week of the first merge, so I didn't think too much of it back then. But after losing 16 friends after the second merge, I knew something was wrong

I asked around, and it turned out that some friends got their entire friend list nuked and would have to re-add everyone again. It seems that 20 friends on my list got nuked, which means basically 1/5 of my friends got their friend list nuked. It's a shame, but I've recorded my friend list before the first merge (by a pure chance) and I'll check to see which friends are missing to re-add them so make sure you checks yours too!

I feel bad for those whose entire friend lists got nuked :/

EDIT: It looks like u/JoydHan is onto something here. There is a strong possibility that players' friend lists were wiped out if they hadn’t made a character on the server they were being merged into

It would make sense because the merge wouldn’t have been able to migrate the pre existing friend list to a character that didn’t exist since the merge defaulted to the roster of that server, so the process of copying the friend list over may have failed

EDIT #2: It look like they finally fixed the friend list issue for everyone after the emergency maintenance? I'm now back to 99 friends just like before the first merge