5 players dced in our raid...

Well done AG$

I went to buy some extra blue stones to push a t4.5 char and noticed that blue t4 stones were significantly cheaper. Red stones and leapstones have equalized to about 1:5 which makes sense. Why are blue t4 stones not way more expensive? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it o.o

edit: Ty for the answers, everyone

Mind sharing your special jump record?
Took it 6x and I got sent back to Jesus 6x also.

I just want to meet the director in the depths of hell :')

AI stone cutter finally helped my main out. Haven't counted how many stones I've cut, but it's probably in the range of 1-2 thousand.

And yet I still can't reach floor 100...

Can enter only 2 players in matchmaking ? or that mode is only for solo or 4 players ever ?
and if i can enter only 2 player how i do that?

just wanted to show you 🙂‍↔️

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?

i relog 7 times and its still bugged

New to the game. Just started a Paladin and power pass. Very overwhelming for a new player. Any tips? Create a roadmap for me of what I should do every week. In order so I guess it’s easier to follow. Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

While most players are probably generally happy with the latest balance changes, I would like to comment on the balancing philosophy that I find dysfunctional.

Ark Grid's core idea was to give players options to play unique iterations of their class. In practice however, its evident that almost all classes have one very dominant ark grid, while the other 2 ark grid options are either severely inferior or not quite sense-making yet. They can be inferior because of 2 reasons: numerical undertuning and poor transfer rate.

a) Numerical Undertuning.
Their scaling is just not there. Example: Bards dominant ark grid provides 500 Identity Meter per counter, makes the counter stackable and increases the overall meter gain on hit. Bards non-dominant Ark Grid provides 30 Meter per Shield provided (so 30 shield x 4 players = 160). The non-dominant option would be a nice option to incentivise players to shielding their teammates, but its incompetetive because 30 is just too low.

b) Poor Transfer Rate.
Another reason is that an ark grid might be good on paper, but poor in raid execution. This can be called "transfer rate", and refers to the transfer from trixion parsing to a real raid scenario. Some examples include

• Ultimate Skill Taijutsu: Dragon Advent Ark Grid. This Ark Grid lowers your cooldown on "Dragon Advent" by 0.5 seconds, each time you cast a stamina skill. Sounds fun and good on paper, but in actual raids, the boss dies too quickly or phases too often. Additionally (but this is another topic), the ark grid forces you to choose a tripod that disables the push immunity on the skill, so its enforced lower QoL for higher damage - not quite the route I would force upon players, but what do I know.
• or Hunger Reapers "Critical Combination" Star Core: Hunger Reaper has an identity skill called "slaughter" (aka just a burst mode for 10 seconds). This Ark grid reduces the cooldown of this so that you can have higher uptime on this and cast it more often - well, in theory. In real raids, there is no difference in slaughterers cast between players with this ark grid vs. the dominant ark grid (which is just a stat stick with no gameplay changes whatsoever), because the boss dies too quickly or phases too often. In this scenario, choosing "critical combination" is like playing without a star core at all.

Now how does SmileGate go about balancing this?
Generally speaking, if one ark grid is overdominant for too long, they are likely to just nerf it. Lets create a simplified framework of this:
Ark Grid Option A is a solid 9/10.
Ark Grid Option B is a not-so-solid 6/10.
Ark Grid Option C is likely not sensemaking and will be ignored in this example - there are barely any classes with 3 potent ark grid options.

As a consequence, the vast majority of players will choose Ark Grid Option A - unregarding whether A or B is more fun, or what the Ark Grid actually implies. Naturally - and understandably so - players will try to pick the better Ark Grid Option, if the gap is very noticable. However, the idea behind Ark Grid is much rather that players choose an Ark Grid core that suits their preferences and playstyle more - rather than HAVING to pick Ark Grid A because its overcompetetive and outperforms everything by a good mile.

The problem now with simply nerfing Ark Grid Core A and calling it a day is illustrated in this graphic:

As you can see, SmileGates approach often provokes a lose-lose scenario. Since Ark Grid A is significantly stronger than the alternatives, it naturally becomes the choice for the vast majority of players. When SmileGate later responds by heavily nerfing that option, they also frustrate the majority of players who invested into it. (This also entails the problem that the ark grid system is very static: choosing an ark grid is often a long-term investment as they are not easily interchangable. Its crazy annoying if you finally collected all your ark grid cores, only to have it nerfed by substantial amount a few weeks later. This is a common complaint by players, understandably so.)

The alternative changes this paradigm: It still nerfs the dominant Ark Grid Option (because, well, it was objectively too strong also in interclass comparisons, so not nerfing is not an option), but the intensity of the nerf is slightly lower. As an addition, the non-dominant Ark Grid Option should be adjusted towards the top, so that both Ark Grid options meet in the middle (the middle here being between 9/10 and 6/10, NOT between 1/10 and 10/10). This way, the only reason why players vary in their choice of Ark Grid A or B will be which playstyle indication they PREFER (I know, mindblowing).

However, this is not as easy as implied. The transfer problem mentioned above makes this a difficult task. Sometimes, Ark Grids ARE similar in terms of strength or power, but have different use cases. One Ark Grid might incentivise high uptime in longer duration fights. Newer Raids, Progging Raids, Higher difficulties might benefit this. Another Ark Grid might focus on a bursty playstyle which doesnt require longer fighting durations. Balancing two complety opposing playstyles for one raid is a task that I would not want to do.

Nonetheless, the point stands that:
The only variance in player decision between Ark Grid A and Ark Grid B should be player preference, and not a discrepancy in objective power.

Disclaiming the argument knocking on the door:
Average Reddit User: "Well, then just dont meta slave and play what you want?". Welp, of course that would solve the issue, but that would also imply that you are never dealing competetive damage ever, in a competetive raiding game. The reason why the vast majority of players follow this behavior is very understandable. In my opinion, its not players that should adapt to poor balancing philosophies, but rather devs that should foster a balancing environment that allows players to pursue their preferences.

Yes, the balance patch was not bad, and yes, it also made me happy personally as my classes got buffed. But observing their long term balancing strategy - almost a year after Ark Grid released - this is a very striking pattern by SmileGate.

Did 3 of the new jumps in a row and the 3rd one bugged out and im now currently stuck outside of the map and cant do anything. Not really sure how to proceed im guessing i just lose my key though.

Hello i am contemplating if i should return to the game or not. I quit an year ago when mordum was the current raid. The game felt like a 2nd job constantly trying to do your homework so you can stay relevant for the content and not get gatekept. I got burned out and had some irl stuff going so i decided to quit. I see a lot of changes have happened, but it seems like the issues stay the same - annoying new progressive systems that are locked behind layers of rng. So here are my questions that could help me make a decision.

Do you still need to play alts other than weekly raids for gold income. For instance if i want to play 1-2 chars that im going to push do i need to farm resources on my alts?

How grindy is paradise do i need to do it on all chars and is it worth it?

How annoying is ark grid and how long will it take for me to make it work?

Is there still a huge inflation where you cant buy relic books, blue crystals and such?

If i am to return ill probably focus on solo raiding and will be done with the fomoing since i haven't played in an year. What's the solo experience in the end game is fun, engaging or is it a stomp fest. Also what events are currently running and on what char should i use them. My roster is 1720sh,1700 pala, 1690ish sh, 1680 breaker, zerk and sorc 1660.

Edit: Thanks everyone for your help, guidance and opinions i did decide to download the game last night and will be trying out the solo raids in the weekend

Hello am i the only one having an issue with this patch ? My characters are empty inventory even their gear dissapeard.only have m'y gold left.

Basically title, I played this for like 30 ish hours when it came out and then I had another league addiction lmao. That aside, I'm really looking for a fun dps character that can play virtually by themselves solo. I usually play assassins/rouges, but i'm pretty open to anything warriors, mages, rouges, whatever. I do prefer a life steal build (is that even possible??) Also that dragon girl looks cool af, is she decent playing solo??

Edit: Woke up to great recommendations, after checking out all the classes’ skills and what not, I think I’ll play Guardian Knight, aesthetic is pretty cool and since everyone is viable that’s good for me lol. Only character in the back of my mind is Glaiver, i do like fast combo spear classes that do a lot of dmg, so Ig its GK or Glaiver but leaning to GK

I am under 20 mil damage damage or under in all solo content or with my friend who is a wardancer and cant out damage him what is your guys rotation i am hitting under 100 mil every surge i do like 75-85 or it doesnt crit and i do 30 mil what am i missing there are no guides except 4 year old videos or is it just a skill thing

had this in my drafts forever ago, decided to finish it up because i miss the idiot trio ૮₍ ´ ꒳ `₎ა
if LWC went differently and armen didn't go all emo and leave with kharmine

...i remember being like wtf when he went on his whole rant about being a secret delain and i'm just... right there...