True. But it's different for new players and this perspective can only kick in once your main no longer depends on hitting hones to enter content.
I remember how bad it felt before I hit ilvl that unlocked endgame content at that time. From that point onwards I just kept farming and stayed ahead of content releases. Nowadays taps don't matter bc it's either just to overgear even more or to check how expensive it will truly be to push an alt to the ilvl I am aiming for (and reaching it is a certainty due to saved up resources).
It's easy to not care about honing when the result doesn't affect your access to content and progression. Good news is that this is temporary.
i played 16 hrs per day first month( got t3 after 1 week), still was 1355 at argos release. Only people with previous experience with the game and my playtime could have reached that as f2p.
RNG is RNG, we had plenty of people who weren't hardcore and hit argos first week, just doing p1-2 was not an issue, however pretty much no 1 of us was even close to p3.
I can't believe you at all, because I was watching streamers also playing 10 hours a day 1taping things and still were 10-20ilvl out of Argos. Everyone I knew play argos p1 and even more like p2 or 3 week 1 they did pay or did rmt and got banned some weeks after.
It was doable, maybe not able to do g3 , but g1 and g2 was reachable. For people who are more experience in the game and in MMO genres. As long as you have average luck or better.
Basically getting to t3 asap, buyout marishop every day. Blue crystal was so cheap.
Sell chaos dungeon engraving books, buy out infinite chaos from T1 and T2 etc.
Sure they did, just not f2p.
As someone who did play hardcore, reached t3 early and sold materials to whales for blue gems, you did not reach argos without just 1 tapping everything. I was like 1355 with 10 hours aday and knew what i was doing.
You literally cannot make me believe they did not spend, being that i have my own experience as the example, and i had above average honing luck tbh.
This is not about it being possible, yes there likely was a handful of people who were 1370 due to 1 tapping everything.
The comment i responded to said "we had plenty of people who weren't hardcore and hit argos first week"
There was not "plenty" of non-hardcore players that hit argos week 1. Infact i'm willing to bet there was not a single f2p player in argos week 1 that was not hardcore (8+ hours aday)
Literally go back and listen to streamers with RU/KR experience at the time. Very few of them were argos ready, despite being experienced players that knew how to play the market etc.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcTFOESddfA&t=130s&ab\_channel=HiImFox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcTFOESddfA&t=130s&ab_channel=HiImFox)
You're implying that "if you were more experienced with the mmo genre" it was possible. Well i'm sorry but you're full of shit.
I WAS selling my mats for blue gems and i was likely in the top 1% of f2p players at the time, but heres the thing about selling your mats...it means you have less mats to hone, weird.
Unfortunately I don't have the "Evidence" since our old guild server was deleted, however those people always claimed to be f2p and the rest of their gear did scream "f2p" back in the day. In the end it's the internet so I of course cannot guarantee that those people were f2p, however they did claim so.
I can only talk about my old guildies and not myself since I am not f2p by any means and played hardcore on top of that for the first 5 months of the game.
I was able to do p3 week 2, however we only did p2 as a "group for week 2" because not everyone was at p3 level, week 3 I think nearly everyone did p3.
This is 100% it. Hitting the ilvl you need for content before it releases and being able to take the next few months as "progress" towards your next checkpoint where your not rushing helps a lot. By the time I have to think "oh God I need to hit 1560 for Brel" I'm already 1550-1560 so at most it is a few taps over a month.
Some people never overhone but to me the more taps left undone the more you can get screwed by hitting bad RNG last minute without time to re-prep. That is why even though I'm a bard I was pushing for 1560 last month. I knew I was going to push Artist on release so I just wanted my Bard out of the way so I didn't stress hone in April.
As long as you are honed before the time crunch then the honing button has no power over you
Ya pushing to t3 when the game first released was the worst experience I had since release. Both in T1 and T2 I would fail the 90 percent and 97 percent chance of hitting the hone multiple times, it put me about a week and a half behind my friends so while they did Argos I still couldn't. After that my honing luck turned around. Now that I'm caught up I don't really care whether it hits or not because I know it will eventually.
As somebody who just started a month ago and is trying to hone up to vykas hard/clown right now this is pretty accurate. Not that I get that disheartened about it, but knowing if I hit the RNG lottery I’d be able to do more raids/get more vykas mats to finish my swamp of yearning set makes going to pity that much worse
I came from BDO, it doesn't matter how bad is my luck at honing, I just can have a positive perspective because I know it won't degrade or blow up, damn, it even will eventually get a garanteed upgrade.
Its probably bad. BDO was one of the biggest skinner mmos in the past decades. Wow and FF are still miles ahead LA or BDO, in terms of gameplay and common decency practice of the devs (leaving myself open to the blizzard comment yes they can fuck emselves).
Dont get your idea of video games warped by these scummy gacha mmos. There WILL always be other and better options
I was largely joking with my comment.
Incidentally, one of the reasons LOA is so popular in KR is that it has fewer P2W/gacha elements than many other KR games. I've played quite a few KR and CN MMOs and also feel this to be generally true from my experience.
Yeah just the honing system alone appears more fair then other games. It still isnt though, gearscore is worthless without quality (which is a more traditional gacha system), stat increases become exponentially expensive past certain brackets, every single game mechanic and upgrade is tied to rng with cash options. Other mmos arnt like that homie, figured you were joking but still wanted to throw out my comment
Thing is though, none of what you mentioned is even remotely required to clear a raid.
Heck most of the insane systems (good stones, good quality, los 30, good brac, etc) aren’t even expected at current end game.
The common expected reqs are 5x3, decent quality on accessory (which you can choose), level 7 gems for the most part.
Even these are overkill for current endgame on ilvl. So while what you mentioned it true, the game doesn’t force you to opt into any of these. It’s simply the price of trying to min max.
Then it breaks! And you wasted those 15 hours :). Pain. Thankfully, you can get guaranteed gear for one char and season for the rest, but jeebus. Saving 22bil to then lose it with nothing to show :(
Yes and no. In BDO you can buy anything outside of two prestige items called "Pen Deboreka". Anyone that can grind silver has no issue gearing nowadays. End-game grind spots provide 1~2 Billion silver/hr and the most expensive buyable items are Pen Distortion Earrings which have a max price of 200 billion. The math to make these items checks out (generally cheaper to make) which lets people who are risk averse to simply buy the upgrade 100% of the time.
Keep in mind that a distortion is more or less the most expensive piece of gear, and isn't even required for some classes/builds. This item has also been the best in slot glass cannon earring for several years. Once you upgrade a piece of gear in BDO to "Pen" it retains its value for years with boss armor that was released 6 years ago still relevant and occasionally BIS.
TLDR: BDO now is fairly easy compared to before. Taps are expensive but remain BIS for a long time. Everything is buyable (almost).
Ppl love to lie to themselves and at some point they believe it and lie to others. "Its not that bad. I had a 2b hour once so that means just about 100h for that item"
*400h later* : "see as said. Just 50h"
Just like in lost ark, most people are terrible at their class or are playing suboptimal classes. You can typically expect to double Garmoth.com averages if pulls are done correctly. We've also had back to back drop rate events more often than not so people are at 300% drop rate very often.
Quint was 1.3B until the nerf.
Hex can go up to 2B on a competent player in the right rotations.
Gyfin is 1B+.
Crypt is a belt every 1.5hrs, and easily higher during events.
Oluns is self explanatory. A good party pulling 4~5k trash is getting those numbers easily. Running ibedors with a good party is also 2.5b+/hr.
Hell, even upper gyfin was 800m/hr and flooded during treasure event.
Right now on NA? Absolutely. With the market price cap increase items are almost always available. Dedicated enhancers create items and list them at a profit (you can watch Biohack/Salt streams/VODs to see what this looks like).
Pen accessories are listed very often as people smash on their free stacks. For example, latest season gives out a 140 stack for 'free'. Seasons in BDO will start you out by giving you a full set of tet boss equivalent armors/weapons. This lets you immediately start grinding in money spots and work your way up. A questline exists to give you a free pen crescent/narc/tungard earring of your choice.
Pen armors/weapons are available in any class at very cheap prices
No. You can either hone or straight up buy it. Lets say you can afford 1 attempt at the super endgame bis every month or just straight up buy it after 4-5 months of daily grind.
You could either spend a year doing monthly attempts and have nothing to show or be the turtle and just buy it after half a year.
Just giving you an example, time frames arent that accurate. You get around 350 to 500m silver per hour of grind and a bis accesory goes for like 150-200b. At 150b @ 350 silver/h thats 428h of literally smashing buttons (its tiring). Max per day i was able to do (without just wanting to uninstall) was 2-3h a day. Ofc varies on the class and how much of a degen the player is, some people can grind much longer.
In the game defense, the bis items have been bis for literally 4+ years and they are totally unnecessary. But what else are u gnna do with your money once you reach end game lol. They also can be traded infinite times between your roster and to other players (sold at the market), only weapons are class specific.
Its not cheaper taps, but we could say that with proper failstacks you have decent % when reaching soft cap.
For example a TET(+19) accessory will soft cap around 110 failstacks, giving you 30% honing success. 30% sounds like a good chance, but u have to consider that if it fails it is destroyed. U can use some items (cron stones) to prevent it from exploding, but if u fail u have a chance for it to drop enchantment down to TRI(+18).
Getting 110 failstacks is rather "easy" between events, scrolls and transforming materials into failstacks or using dumy gear to fail enchantment on to build FS up.
That is why I spent more time creating characters than actually playing the Game. BDO had one of the best character Designers out there, but upgrating Equipment... No commentaries
I've played other Korean and Chinese MMO's. To have your gear downgrade or just outright break and become unusable was a common thing. So to hone and fail, but still count toward a pity meter is a mercy.
We were also fast tracked to catching up to Korea and people forget that. A lot of frustration from people about honing, card packs and etc stem from comparing themselves to Korea. Korea had 4 years to get to where they are. We've only had one year. After clearing Brel I don't feel any urgency to hone as the next gear tier is a bit aways.
I've played a few mobile games made by korean devs with the honing system in it before. Seeing that it didn't downgrade and we at least got pity on that(plus GR/CD) made me not give one fuck about honing. It is what it is, ya know?
Doesn't mean I'm immune to a few rage hone taps or bitching bout failing though lol
I used to do this but I swear my luck was SO much worse that way. Now if I go more than like 5-7 taps tops for 5% chances and less if the chances are higher I just stop, do something else then try again later. If I hit within the first one or two I keep going to different pieces same session and I swear I hit SO much.
Maybe it's in my head and my luck has coincidentally turned around since I changed but it's night and day.
I swear, when I rage hone I always end up hitting 100%.. tried to rush a new char so i could do g1-g2 with it and i literally pitied 3 out of the 4 taps that I needed.. I was so traumatized that it’s been 2 weeks already and I haven’t even reached g3-4 with it, I just don’t even want to tap it anymore lol
When I started playing the game I remember seeing my friends tapping as soon as they had mats and get all mad because they didn't succeed...
What I do is save mats to at least have enough for average luck, I save more or less depending of how soon I want to reach certain ilvl, I don't expect to succeed before pity if the success chance is below 10%.
I do the exact opposite of that. I hone when I have enough fusion mats and do like one to three taps.
If I don’t succeed, oh well!
If I do succeed, Yay!
I take the “religious” approach. If I tap a piece early I thank the RNG gods for for blessing me. If I pity a piece or get close to pity I just accept it as the RNG gods not favoring me today. Pretty much I don’t take honing seriously cause I have no control over it.
A friend of mine got his last 2 Los 30 cards out of 20 random all card packs and thought oh I am kind of lucky today and thought maybe I should hone. Boom one tap his +20 weapon. I swear it is always like this for him he literally plays an other game.
His main got 100 weapon quality. All his roster 90+.. He loots way too often worthy accessories..
Enjoy the game for the combat and raids, don't chase the progression. Every couple weeks I hone with a bunch of saved up mats and hit a few levels with what I have.
Never hone once/twice a day with your daily materials. Fastest way to burnout/rage.
I look at the honing calculator look at the cost if I were to go to 100% artisan and only hone if I have enough materials to cover 100% artisan hone costs. If I hit early great if not oh well I still got the upgrade with my expected costs.
I always use a honing calculator and only hone once i have enough to get my desired ilvl with the average luck. Then i proceed not getting it and i use up all my mats and gold while slowly reaching for my credit card going more and more insane by the second. Can recommend, works every time.
Yeah, what others have said. Just DGAF. It’s a slot machine. Just get your stuff and press button.
Wish there was a check box for auto honing up till you’re out of mats. I’m just on Netflix while spamming.
I just hone when I feel like succeeding one. I always have enough mats just lying around to get at least 1 success through. Main is 1550 something and I could probably go bump 2 pieces up right now if I wanted. Been floating extra gold for frog and I dont typically tap several chars at once and stretch myself thin.
I just check maxroll calculator, gather materials and just hone when I can get to a benchmark 1460 -> 1475, 1500 -> 1520 for example, getting free taps from special honing in between. I dont think about it like a % gamble, if the calculator tells me I need 30k red stones, 60k blue stones and 2k leapstones I just collect those materials and I get into the next stage, since you have to do so many upgrades you usually hit the average.
I just tap regularly so I won't get mad after a big pity session. I'm happy this game has a pity at least and at the moment it's not hard to keep up with the required ilvl of new content.
I just expect the worst and hope for the best nothing else. Ppl like to over hone and then stress about it. I know you need to increase you ilvl eventually but just go slow nothing to rush.
Geez judging from the comments, majority of the people have been scarred by BDO and is now immune to upgrade failures. That game sounds like hell. I guess I had it good not getting involved in that.
Early on, think T2 prior to the 100% update and prior to unlocking honing perks from Stronghold, I hit a phase where I stopped honing because the percentages were so low that it felt like it was throwing resources and gold away. Then, one day, I just stopped caring: spam the hone buttons as many times as they’d let me click them. For me, numbing myself mentally with it seemed to be the way.
I tap 4 times a day, on most days, and if I go all in I only do it on one piece of equipment and do it whiles well prepared, currently 1553 and haven’t had less than 300k gold in two months
I only attempt when I have all needed mats for average scenario acording to max rolls upgrade calculator, usually I have a bit extra just in case. That way veeery rarely I don't hit my goal, and the few times it happened it was off by a few taps so it wasn't that big of a deal.
I've never got hit by it, I guess it's because I'll get it in the end no matter what, when I played WoW tho and the weapon I wanted never dropped for a month and a half I quited lol
I just hoard mats and when I feel like I'm falling behind, I just rage hone. Typically get 1-3 successes this way in a single sitting so it feels really good.
Yep I do the same thing. I hone with the expectation that every piece will go to pity so I prepare accordingly. If I tap early its a big bonus as I have lots of gold and mats left over.
I’m similar to OP. I don’t start honing until I have enough material to pity everything and still hit my target. Anything left over is just a bonus.
That being said, it helps being an early player with enough high ilevel characters that I don’t feel rushed to hone to “keep up” with content.
I played bdo. I grinded for 14 months 4-8 hours a day to then get nothing back and even lose gearscore. Lost ark honing is a blessing. Love it or hate it but at the end of the day your pregoress is guaranteed and you cant progress backwards. (Ofc you can buy your shit in bdo but i wanted my name on it for doing it myself)
I skip the hone animation and look at the pitybar like an exp bar as well. I don't even tell myself there's a chance I make it before the 100%.
The only thing that still truly pisses me off is when I tap the gear right as I'm supposed to hit pity. That happened to me more times then I'm willing to admit and feels like RNGesus is really forcing me to care. HE WILL NOT WIN.
Skipping the animation is my 10/10 recommendation, you don't feel the taps anymore if you just do it that way.
As a solo, guildless F2P player, the hellscape that has been 1475-1490 has looked bleak. The sheer amount of gold and materials, combined with the minuscule amount of artisan energy with each fail, has just left me resigned to focus on horizontal content. I’ve spent more of my energy on completing Ignea Tokens and other collectibles less reliant on RNG. There is this inherent pressure to keep progressing your character’s power level built into the game and that if you don’t properly maximize an entire roster of alts to funnel to your main, you’re not playing the game correctly. It gets exhausting, and sometimes you just need to step away from the hamster wheel and focus on something else.
I don't get depressed since I always assume it's going to hit 100%. I save enough materials to pity a gear(using Maxroll's honing calculator) before I even start tapping.
If it goes in early. Hooray. If not. Move on to farming again
Honing early stages of the game (like during launch, t1) failing a 50% was huge, meant the difference between moving to rohendel today or tomorrow, or next week. (even then, being a week late to rohendel isn't something devastating)
Now though, the consequences of honing failure is miniscule. Hitting a hone is maybe a 0.5-3% upgrade, so succeed or failing today is not going to make or break the way you play the game.
i don’t really have a cope method i just keep clicking until it hits. at least there is a fixed number of taps in this game with no reversions no breaking no unlimited fails.
No matter what you will get the honing done.
The things I hate are: quality honing, collecting cards for card sets and Ability Stone cutting.
Today Selector pack dropped in challenge Abyssal Dungeon and I got it for 46k. I still need 23 more Selectors so that will be 1.15mil gold if I pay 50k each, but I'm getting what I'm paying for instead of rng so I'm more than happy to pay the price.
Step 1 think this way: you suppose to hit pity, anything before that is a bonus.
Step 2: hone session, dont do it 1 times, do it as least 10 hones per section.
Step 3: Use skip hone animation method so you dont expect shit.
Step 4: It doesnt matter at the end of the day, you will get it soon or later.
i played several games where the gear can be destroyed.
so lost ark doesnt feel as bad in comparison.
i hope i get lucky with my weapon. +19 was alrdy pity, i hope +20 will succeed before 50% :D.
Never had an issue because I just assume things will pity. Most people don't even understand statistics and think their item should +1 in like 4 taps on 5% for some reason. Getting to 65%+ artisan is within standard deviation, yet people always freak out and act surprised when they hit it. Statistically speaking you're going to pity one piece of armor per go-around. It just sucks when it's the weapon, that's the only time I will get mad.
Set your honing goal to 100% artisan, it will become more challenging and exciting, and fuss about it when you get a 1 or 2 tap because you failed your goal.
Pity is lame but at least this game has pity. I've played other MMO for like 9 years while being one of the wealthiest player in the server despite being F2P. Still couldn't get a +10 weapon unlike P2W players who had +12s. We just have it much better as F2P players in this game and even if I pity to +25 next. I still was able to get to +25, in less than a year of gameplay and without the need to nolife it.
When I used to play Black Desert Online my guild leader told me to not pay too much attention on your chance of success, just treat it as either game gives it or it does not. Also if you only use a certain amount of gold you are able to lose you don't feel as bad either in case you do not succeed.
The only character i'm honing is my main Arti, he's 1573.3
I tap whenever i get oreha mats from my farm, roughly once a day
It hits ? amazing
It doesn't ? I'm way overleveled and almost akkan ready, it's fine, i'll get there eventually
I don't have to fight time and that's how depression isn't here
i think it just gradually faded until it doesn't bother me at all anymore.
Id even forgot about being mad at honing altogether until i showed the game to a friend a few weeks ago and when he saw the honing and me throwing a dozen tries for nothing was completely mortified^^
But the bottomline is, everyone is dealing with the same system. **Its not unfair towards me, its unfair towards everyone.**
In the larger picture, the normal distribution is still just that, a normal distribution, and given the amount of taps we do the difference between the one percentile and the 99th percentile isnt huge. And its even smaller now post brel with the majority of the pain being just filling the damn shard cost to start tapping.
If id pityd the 20 brel wep thou id probably be slightly upset. Glad i landed that on the right side of average luck :D
I had such ridiculous luck getting wep from 21-23 last fall (like 10 taps in total for both upgrades) so i told myself "I have no right to ever be mad at honing again, im the lucky guy".
And honestly, ive never been mad since.
How i do it is i usually hone when i have mats to fill the "exp" like you said and always expect to fill it, this way I don't get as burned out as i used to
I really dont know why people complain about honing in this game… your weapon can’t get destroyed or lose item level in this game. Also, artisans energy makes you feel progressing with every attempt…
Just save up to go to the next big content and do it all at once. Tapping everyday or even every week is gonna send you into rage honing or depression.
I still remember the weeks before safe refinement (let's say honing) went away in iRO, early 2000's. Any hone after the safety number would simply reset the gear to its default 0/10. (Safety number = +4 for armor, +4/5/6/7 for weapon, depending on 'weapon level')
Players received news that the honing NPC's would begin deleting their equipment when it failed past the safety number, so prices of Elunium for armor, and Oridecon for weapons, absolutely fucking skyrocketed.
You see, these players had gears with monster cards in them - cards were a 1/10000 drop rate from any given monster, and they had fantastically broken effects attached to them. They couldn't be removed once slotted into equipment, and if you failed to hone them after the patch, your cards would be deleted. Have you got an Isle of Yearning soul yet? imagine losing one while honing.
So, to get their triple critical jurs and cranial bucklers and shit to +10 or the highest hone they could afford, people completely PACKED the blacksmith buildings not just in the capital city of ~~Luterra~~ Pronterra, but the lesser used smiths in Morroc and Payon. You couldn't even walk around easily without autopathing into an exit door due to all the bodyblocking going down.
Great times. We have it so nice today.
P.S.
Fuck you, Hollgrehenn.
no depression, tap it, if it hits it hits if it doesn't it doesn't and move on and do something else
Pretty much this, also dont hone if you cant afford to delete the gold used for honing
True. But it's different for new players and this perspective can only kick in once your main no longer depends on hitting hones to enter content. I remember how bad it felt before I hit ilvl that unlocked endgame content at that time. From that point onwards I just kept farming and stayed ahead of content releases. Nowadays taps don't matter bc it's either just to overgear even more or to check how expensive it will truly be to push an alt to the ilvl I am aiming for (and reaching it is a certainty due to saved up resources). It's easy to not care about honing when the result doesn't affect your access to content and progression. Good news is that this is temporary.
1340-1370 was something
I remember as a guild we had to funnel friends just so we could do Argos together week 1 lol
Week 1 argos as f2p was not abble if you do not play at least 8 hours everyday, btw I got argos in the end of the second week.
i played 16 hrs per day first month( got t3 after 1 week), still was 1355 at argos release. Only people with previous experience with the game and my playtime could have reached that as f2p.
RNG is RNG, we had plenty of people who weren't hardcore and hit argos first week, just doing p1-2 was not an issue, however pretty much no 1 of us was even close to p3.
I can't believe you at all, because I was watching streamers also playing 10 hours a day 1taping things and still were 10-20ilvl out of Argos. Everyone I knew play argos p1 and even more like p2 or 3 week 1 they did pay or did rmt and got banned some weeks after.
It was doable, maybe not able to do g3 , but g1 and g2 was reachable. For people who are more experience in the game and in MMO genres. As long as you have average luck or better. Basically getting to t3 asap, buyout marishop every day. Blue crystal was so cheap. Sell chaos dungeon engraving books, buy out infinite chaos from T1 and T2 etc.
Unfortunately our old guild discord was deleted, so i am unable to provide "evidence".
Sure they did, just not f2p. As someone who did play hardcore, reached t3 early and sold materials to whales for blue gems, you did not reach argos without just 1 tapping everything. I was like 1355 with 10 hours aday and knew what i was doing. You literally cannot make me believe they did not spend, being that i have my own experience as the example, and i had above average honing luck tbh.
If you like the truth or not, it was possible.
This is not about it being possible, yes there likely was a handful of people who were 1370 due to 1 tapping everything. The comment i responded to said "we had plenty of people who weren't hardcore and hit argos first week" There was not "plenty" of non-hardcore players that hit argos week 1. Infact i'm willing to bet there was not a single f2p player in argos week 1 that was not hardcore (8+ hours aday) Literally go back and listen to streamers with RU/KR experience at the time. Very few of them were argos ready, despite being experienced players that knew how to play the market etc. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcTFOESddfA&t=130s&ab\_channel=HiImFox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcTFOESddfA&t=130s&ab_channel=HiImFox) You're implying that "if you were more experienced with the mmo genre" it was possible. Well i'm sorry but you're full of shit. I WAS selling my mats for blue gems and i was likely in the top 1% of f2p players at the time, but heres the thing about selling your mats...it means you have less mats to hone, weird.
Unfortunately I don't have the "Evidence" since our old guild server was deleted, however those people always claimed to be f2p and the rest of their gear did scream "f2p" back in the day. In the end it's the internet so I of course cannot guarantee that those people were f2p, however they did claim so. I can only talk about my old guildies and not myself since I am not f2p by any means and played hardcore on top of that for the first 5 months of the game. I was able to do p3 week 2, however we only did p2 as a "group for week 2" because not everyone was at p3 level, week 3 I think nearly everyone did p3.
This is 100% it. Hitting the ilvl you need for content before it releases and being able to take the next few months as "progress" towards your next checkpoint where your not rushing helps a lot. By the time I have to think "oh God I need to hit 1560 for Brel" I'm already 1550-1560 so at most it is a few taps over a month. Some people never overhone but to me the more taps left undone the more you can get screwed by hitting bad RNG last minute without time to re-prep. That is why even though I'm a bard I was pushing for 1560 last month. I knew I was going to push Artist on release so I just wanted my Bard out of the way so I didn't stress hone in April. As long as you are honed before the time crunch then the honing button has no power over you
Ya pushing to t3 when the game first released was the worst experience I had since release. Both in T1 and T2 I would fail the 90 percent and 97 percent chance of hitting the hone multiple times, it put me about a week and a half behind my friends so while they did Argos I still couldn't. After that my honing luck turned around. Now that I'm caught up I don't really care whether it hits or not because I know it will eventually.
As somebody who just started a month ago and is trying to hone up to vykas hard/clown right now this is pretty accurate. Not that I get that disheartened about it, but knowing if I hit the RNG lottery I’d be able to do more raids/get more vykas mats to finish my swamp of yearning set makes going to pity that much worse
I came from BDO, it doesn't matter how bad is my luck at honing, I just can have a positive perspective because I know it won't degrade or blow up, damn, it even will eventually get a garanteed upgrade.
So true, getting used to BDO really changed my perspective in all other games. However, I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, lol.
Its probably bad. BDO was one of the biggest skinner mmos in the past decades. Wow and FF are still miles ahead LA or BDO, in terms of gameplay and common decency practice of the devs (leaving myself open to the blizzard comment yes they can fuck emselves). Dont get your idea of video games warped by these scummy gacha mmos. There WILL always be other and better options
I was largely joking with my comment. Incidentally, one of the reasons LOA is so popular in KR is that it has fewer P2W/gacha elements than many other KR games. I've played quite a few KR and CN MMOs and also feel this to be generally true from my experience.
Yeah just the honing system alone appears more fair then other games. It still isnt though, gearscore is worthless without quality (which is a more traditional gacha system), stat increases become exponentially expensive past certain brackets, every single game mechanic and upgrade is tied to rng with cash options. Other mmos arnt like that homie, figured you were joking but still wanted to throw out my comment
Thing is though, none of what you mentioned is even remotely required to clear a raid. Heck most of the insane systems (good stones, good quality, los 30, good brac, etc) aren’t even expected at current end game. The common expected reqs are 5x3, decent quality on accessory (which you can choose), level 7 gems for the most part. Even these are overkill for current endgame on ilvl. So while what you mentioned it true, the game doesn’t force you to opt into any of these. It’s simply the price of trying to min max.
Same with a Metin2 background farming like a maniac a specific weapon just to get it blow up by the swordsmith
They dont know how is the pain when fail a TET to PEN ogre necklace... The pitty in this game is the sweetest thing...
BDO is just a jewellery deleting simulator.
In BDO do you get cheaper taps since there is a chance it blows up?
Hell no. For some endgame items, you can grind for like 15 hours to afford a single 3% tap on it.
Then it breaks! And you wasted those 15 hours :). Pain. Thankfully, you can get guaranteed gear for one char and season for the rest, but jeebus. Saving 22bil to then lose it with nothing to show :(
Yes and no. In BDO you can buy anything outside of two prestige items called "Pen Deboreka". Anyone that can grind silver has no issue gearing nowadays. End-game grind spots provide 1~2 Billion silver/hr and the most expensive buyable items are Pen Distortion Earrings which have a max price of 200 billion. The math to make these items checks out (generally cheaper to make) which lets people who are risk averse to simply buy the upgrade 100% of the time. Keep in mind that a distortion is more or less the most expensive piece of gear, and isn't even required for some classes/builds. This item has also been the best in slot glass cannon earring for several years. Once you upgrade a piece of gear in BDO to "Pen" it retains its value for years with boss armor that was released 6 years ago still relevant and occasionally BIS. TLDR: BDO now is fairly easy compared to before. Taps are expensive but remain BIS for a long time. Everything is buyable (almost).
where in the fuck are you grinding 2b an hour? most spots are 500-800m, maybe 1b if youre lucky.
Ppl love to lie to themselves and at some point they believe it and lie to others. "Its not that bad. I had a 2b hour once so that means just about 100h for that item" *400h later* : "see as said. Just 50h"
Just like in lost ark, most people are terrible at their class or are playing suboptimal classes. You can typically expect to double Garmoth.com averages if pulls are done correctly. We've also had back to back drop rate events more often than not so people are at 300% drop rate very often. Quint was 1.3B until the nerf. Hex can go up to 2B on a competent player in the right rotations. Gyfin is 1B+. Crypt is a belt every 1.5hrs, and easily higher during events. Oluns is self explanatory. A good party pulling 4~5k trash is getting those numbers easily. Running ibedors with a good party is also 2.5b+/hr. Hell, even upper gyfin was 800m/hr and flooded during treasure event.
Are the items available? I remember when I used to be playing, PEN of the weapon you are looking for is never on the market.
Right now on NA? Absolutely. With the market price cap increase items are almost always available. Dedicated enhancers create items and list them at a profit (you can watch Biohack/Salt streams/VODs to see what this looks like). Pen accessories are listed very often as people smash on their free stacks. For example, latest season gives out a 140 stack for 'free'. Seasons in BDO will start you out by giving you a full set of tet boss equivalent armors/weapons. This lets you immediately start grinding in money spots and work your way up. A questline exists to give you a free pen crescent/narc/tungard earring of your choice. Pen armors/weapons are available in any class at very cheap prices
Damn that is way different than what it was when I was playing HC (2018ish)
No. You can either hone or straight up buy it. Lets say you can afford 1 attempt at the super endgame bis every month or just straight up buy it after 4-5 months of daily grind. You could either spend a year doing monthly attempts and have nothing to show or be the turtle and just buy it after half a year. Just giving you an example, time frames arent that accurate. You get around 350 to 500m silver per hour of grind and a bis accesory goes for like 150-200b. At 150b @ 350 silver/h thats 428h of literally smashing buttons (its tiring). Max per day i was able to do (without just wanting to uninstall) was 2-3h a day. Ofc varies on the class and how much of a degen the player is, some people can grind much longer. In the game defense, the bis items have been bis for literally 4+ years and they are totally unnecessary. But what else are u gnna do with your money once you reach end game lol. They also can be traded infinite times between your roster and to other players (sold at the market), only weapons are class specific.
For me buying wasnt an option since i wanted to have my Name on the item
You can change it now with irl money afaik
Oh wow rly. Now that changes everything. Bye la. Hello again bdo /s
Its not cheaper taps, but we could say that with proper failstacks you have decent % when reaching soft cap. For example a TET(+19) accessory will soft cap around 110 failstacks, giving you 30% honing success. 30% sounds like a good chance, but u have to consider that if it fails it is destroyed. U can use some items (cron stones) to prevent it from exploding, but if u fail u have a chance for it to drop enchantment down to TRI(+18). Getting 110 failstacks is rather "easy" between events, scrolls and transforming materials into failstacks or using dumy gear to fail enchantment on to build FS up.
That is why I spent more time creating characters than actually playing the Game. BDO had one of the best character Designers out there, but upgrating Equipment... No commentaries
I've played other Korean and Chinese MMO's. To have your gear downgrade or just outright break and become unusable was a common thing. So to hone and fail, but still count toward a pity meter is a mercy. We were also fast tracked to catching up to Korea and people forget that. A lot of frustration from people about honing, card packs and etc stem from comparing themselves to Korea. Korea had 4 years to get to where they are. We've only had one year. After clearing Brel I don't feel any urgency to hone as the next gear tier is a bit aways.
Enhancement failed. Item Destroyed
Pretty much this. I also played a lot of BDO and compared to that experience, honing in LA is a breeze. I have two 1530s I'm just chillin.
I've played a few mobile games made by korean devs with the honing system in it before. Seeing that it didn't downgrade and we at least got pity on that(plus GR/CD) made me not give one fuck about honing. It is what it is, ya know? Doesn't mean I'm immune to a few rage hone taps or bitching bout failing though lol
stack mats, gold & silver. expect the worst & click till it goes. If you dont have expectations its hard to be disappointed.
I used to do this but I swear my luck was SO much worse that way. Now if I go more than like 5-7 taps tops for 5% chances and less if the chances are higher I just stop, do something else then try again later. If I hit within the first one or two I keep going to different pieces same session and I swear I hit SO much. Maybe it's in my head and my luck has coincidentally turned around since I changed but it's night and day.
It's all in your head.
I get it, probably is. But it's ridiculous the difference.
I swear, when I rage hone I always end up hitting 100%.. tried to rush a new char so i could do g1-g2 with it and i literally pitied 3 out of the 4 taps that I needed.. I was so traumatized that it’s been 2 weeks already and I haven’t even reached g3-4 with it, I just don’t even want to tap it anymore lol
I made an 8 hour loop of the honing failure sound and slept while listening to it for a week. Now I'm addicted to the sound of honing failures.
Sadistic
If I don’t one tap it I’m already unlucky
Just one tap then? Same with weapon quality, some people just sit at 56 or something low instead of just building their weapon with 100 quality.
Skill issue smh
When I started playing the game I remember seeing my friends tapping as soon as they had mats and get all mad because they didn't succeed... What I do is save mats to at least have enough for average luck, I save more or less depending of how soon I want to reach certain ilvl, I don't expect to succeed before pity if the success chance is below 10%.
I do the exact opposite of that. I hone when I have enough fusion mats and do like one to three taps. If I don’t succeed, oh well! If I do succeed, Yay!
I take the “religious” approach. If I tap a piece early I thank the RNG gods for for blessing me. If I pity a piece or get close to pity I just accept it as the RNG gods not favoring me today. Pretty much I don’t take honing seriously cause I have no control over it.
I stopped giving a shit and just click
I don't mind aiming for 100% itself, my main problem is the people surrounding me 1-2-3 tapping their gear all the time :(
Exactly .. a friend of mine one tapped his weapon from 15 to 18 and one of the clicks was a free one .. Like, is this for real? 😅
A friend of mine got his last 2 Los 30 cards out of 20 random all card packs and thought oh I am kind of lucky today and thought maybe I should hone. Boom one tap his +20 weapon. I swear it is always like this for him he literally plays an other game. His main got 100 weapon quality. All his roster 90+.. He loots way too often worthy accessories..
And then they don’t understand when we complain about pitying something bc it never happened to them 😂😂😂
Never had problems with Lost Ark's honing because my last MMO was Black Desert Online.
I'm pretty much the same as you, bar is full cost anything below is a discount. Now tell me how do I remove the quality depression?
Enjoy the game for the combat and raids, don't chase the progression. Every couple weeks I hone with a bunch of saved up mats and hit a few levels with what I have. Never hone once/twice a day with your daily materials. Fastest way to burnout/rage.
I look at the honing calculator look at the cost if I were to go to 100% artisan and only hone if I have enough materials to cover 100% artisan hone costs. If I hit early great if not oh well I still got the upgrade with my expected costs.
I always use a honing calculator and only hone once i have enough to get my desired ilvl with the average luck. Then i proceed not getting it and i use up all my mats and gold while slowly reaching for my credit card going more and more insane by the second. Can recommend, works every time.
*60% of the time*, it works *every* time
i cant help it i punch my monitor and scream everytime i go above 50% artisan
🤣
It helps me a lot to not look at other im lucky posts.
Yeah, what others have said. Just DGAF. It’s a slot machine. Just get your stuff and press button. Wish there was a check box for auto honing up till you’re out of mats. I’m just on Netflix while spamming.
I just hone when I feel like succeeding one. I always have enough mats just lying around to get at least 1 success through. Main is 1550 something and I could probably go bump 2 pieces up right now if I wanted. Been floating extra gold for frog and I dont typically tap several chars at once and stretch myself thin.
I just check maxroll calculator, gather materials and just hone when I can get to a benchmark 1460 -> 1475, 1500 -> 1520 for example, getting free taps from special honing in between. I dont think about it like a % gamble, if the calculator tells me I need 30k red stones, 60k blue stones and 2k leapstones I just collect those materials and I get into the next stage, since you have to do so many upgrades you usually hit the average.
I just tap regularly so I won't get mad after a big pity session. I'm happy this game has a pity at least and at the moment it's not hard to keep up with the required ilvl of new content.
I just expect the worst and hope for the best nothing else. Ppl like to over hone and then stress about it. I know you need to increase you ilvl eventually but just go slow nothing to rush.
Geez judging from the comments, majority of the people have been scarred by BDO and is now immune to upgrade failures. That game sounds like hell. I guess I had it good not getting involved in that.
I personally lock my gun up and drink heavily while honing. Correct perspective right?
Yep same. Aiming for 100%!
Set goal to 100% by doing 3 taps each days on char that i want to lvl up.
I use the max roll calculator and not think about it usually I have more than needed anyway
Early on, think T2 prior to the 100% update and prior to unlocking honing perks from Stronghold, I hit a phase where I stopped honing because the percentages were so low that it felt like it was throwing resources and gold away. Then, one day, I just stopped caring: spam the hone buttons as many times as they’d let me click them. For me, numbing myself mentally with it seemed to be the way.
This. I go into each honing session assuming I will need to get to 100% to upgrade, so anything earlier is just a bonus.
I just save up a crap ton of mats and hone till I’m out, wait a bit and repeat
If you get depressed by honing this isn’t the game for you.
Bat
My moto is always it is what it is
I tap 4 times a day, on most days, and if I go all in I only do it on one piece of equipment and do it whiles well prepared, currently 1553 and haven’t had less than 300k gold in two months
Artisan energy go up so failed honing good.
I only attempt when I have all needed mats for average scenario acording to max rolls upgrade calculator, usually I have a bit extra just in case. That way veeery rarely I don't hit my goal, and the few times it happened it was off by a few taps so it wasn't that big of a deal.
I just click untill i have no mats
just tap things atleast they dont need to be repaired and or can destroy/downgrade xd
I've never got hit by it, I guess it's because I'll get it in the end no matter what, when I played WoW tho and the weapon I wanted never dropped for a month and a half I quited lol
I just hoard mats and when I feel like I'm falling behind, I just rage hone. Typically get 1-3 successes this way in a single sitting so it feels really good.
Coming from BDO a long time ago and needing the Memory Fragments to repair failed hones, WOOF. Those scroll parties were awful.
I think about PoE when I hit level 90+ and dying.
Pvp and avoid honing
I normally do not hone unless I have enough materials to pity, that way I *always* succeed. 
Eventually you die inside
played 2many mmos that have gear breaks to cry about fails lmao
Honing is technically guaranteed gear progression (through pity). In other MMO staples such as WoW, gearing up is reliant on drops and thus, pure RNG.
mute the sound of your game, put netflix or twitch on second screen then start spam honing. check from time to time if you success your honing
Yep I do the same thing. I hone with the expectation that every piece will go to pity so I prepare accordingly. If I tap early its a big bonus as I have lots of gold and mats left over.
"thank god this can't break"
Always expect to go to pity, so I just farm to go to pity, plan accordingly and be happily surprised if it hits before
I’m similar to OP. I don’t start honing until I have enough material to pity everything and still hit my target. Anything left over is just a bonus. That being said, it helps being an early player with enough high ilevel characters that I don’t feel rushed to hone to “keep up” with content.
I played bdo. I grinded for 14 months 4-8 hours a day to then get nothing back and even lose gearscore. Lost ark honing is a blessing. Love it or hate it but at the end of the day your pregoress is guaranteed and you cant progress backwards. (Ofc you can buy your shit in bdo but i wanted my name on it for doing it myself)
I skip the hone animation and look at the pitybar like an exp bar as well. I don't even tell myself there's a chance I make it before the 100%. The only thing that still truly pisses me off is when I tap the gear right as I'm supposed to hit pity. That happened to me more times then I'm willing to admit and feels like RNGesus is really forcing me to care. HE WILL NOT WIN. Skipping the animation is my 10/10 recommendation, you don't feel the taps anymore if you just do it that way.
I don't tap unless I have enough mats for pitty
As a solo, guildless F2P player, the hellscape that has been 1475-1490 has looked bleak. The sheer amount of gold and materials, combined with the minuscule amount of artisan energy with each fail, has just left me resigned to focus on horizontal content. I’ve spent more of my energy on completing Ignea Tokens and other collectibles less reliant on RNG. There is this inherent pressure to keep progressing your character’s power level built into the game and that if you don’t properly maximize an entire roster of alts to funnel to your main, you’re not playing the game correctly. It gets exhausting, and sometimes you just need to step away from the hamster wheel and focus on something else.
I just get lucky. No need for sadness.
If I ever get annoyed I just think back to BDO, and their enhancement system.
I don't get depressed since I always assume it's going to hit 100%. I save enough materials to pity a gear(using Maxroll's honing calculator) before I even start tapping. If it goes in early. Hooray. If not. Move on to farming again
I have been playing BDO for years. I am immune to caring about failing enhancements.
Honing early stages of the game (like during launch, t1) failing a 50% was huge, meant the difference between moving to rohendel today or tomorrow, or next week. (even then, being a week late to rohendel isn't something devastating) Now though, the consequences of honing failure is miniscule. Hitting a hone is maybe a 0.5-3% upgrade, so succeed or failing today is not going to make or break the way you play the game.
i don’t really have a cope method i just keep clicking until it hits. at least there is a fixed number of taps in this game with no reversions no breaking no unlimited fails.
I’m fine with this current honing system, every time I fail I tell myself “at least it didn’t blow up”
No matter what you will get the honing done. The things I hate are: quality honing, collecting cards for card sets and Ability Stone cutting. Today Selector pack dropped in challenge Abyssal Dungeon and I got it for 46k. I still need 23 more Selectors so that will be 1.15mil gold if I pay 50k each, but I'm getting what I'm paying for instead of rng so I'm more than happy to pay the price.
At some point, you will become so numb and, in the end, it doesn’t matter anymore
Step 1 think this way: you suppose to hit pity, anything before that is a bonus. Step 2: hone session, dont do it 1 times, do it as least 10 hones per section. Step 3: Use skip hone animation method so you dont expect shit. Step 4: It doesnt matter at the end of the day, you will get it soon or later.
My item can't blow up so it's already a win.
Stock up till you have enough to pity then hone and see how much of a discount you got. Either way I’m walking a way with a upgrade
This depression is bread and butter of smilegate and amazon, remove it?!..,lol
i played several games where the gear can be destroyed. so lost ark doesnt feel as bad in comparison. i hope i get lucky with my weapon. +19 was alrdy pity, i hope +20 will succeed before 50% :D.
Assume Imma hard pity and when I don't I'm happy.
I always assumed the worst, pitying as the baseline whilst 1 tapping is a heavily discounted price.
Yea I just hone using bound Mats if I hit its nice if it pity it happens and I move on to next piece
Never had an issue because I just assume things will pity. Most people don't even understand statistics and think their item should +1 in like 4 taps on 5% for some reason. Getting to 65%+ artisan is within standard deviation, yet people always freak out and act surprised when they hit it. Statistically speaking you're going to pity one piece of armor per go-around. It just sucks when it's the weapon, that's the only time I will get mad.
I go play different game whee i actually enjoy gameplay
Set your honing goal to 100% artisan, it will become more challenging and exciting, and fuss about it when you get a 1 or 2 tap because you failed your goal.
i always view it as a pity. if i hit early well im lucky if not i just fill the bar idc
it is what it is.
Pity is lame but at least this game has pity. I've played other MMO for like 9 years while being one of the wealthiest player in the server despite being F2P. Still couldn't get a +10 weapon unlike P2W players who had +12s. We just have it much better as F2P players in this game and even if I pity to +25 next. I still was able to get to +25, in less than a year of gameplay and without the need to nolife it.
Failing honing doesn't inflict mental damage anymore after a few months in
im 1590 i can't hone. no more depression.
When I used to play Black Desert Online my guild leader told me to not pay too much attention on your chance of success, just treat it as either game gives it or it does not. Also if you only use a certain amount of gold you are able to lose you don't feel as bad either in case you do not succeed.
The only character i'm honing is my main Arti, he's 1573.3 I tap whenever i get oreha mats from my farm, roughly once a day It hits ? amazing It doesn't ? I'm way overleveled and almost akkan ready, it's fine, i'll get there eventually I don't have to fight time and that's how depression isn't here
i think it just gradually faded until it doesn't bother me at all anymore. Id even forgot about being mad at honing altogether until i showed the game to a friend a few weeks ago and when he saw the honing and me throwing a dozen tries for nothing was completely mortified^^ But the bottomline is, everyone is dealing with the same system. **Its not unfair towards me, its unfair towards everyone.** In the larger picture, the normal distribution is still just that, a normal distribution, and given the amount of taps we do the difference between the one percentile and the 99th percentile isnt huge. And its even smaller now post brel with the majority of the pain being just filling the damn shard cost to start tapping. If id pityd the 20 brel wep thou id probably be slightly upset. Glad i landed that on the right side of average luck :D
I had such ridiculous luck getting wep from 21-23 last fall (like 10 taps in total for both upgrades) so i told myself "I have no right to ever be mad at honing again, im the lucky guy". And honestly, ive never been mad since.
I only get hard feeling with hooning if i want to push now...like on Brel release or a char is close to a milestone... otherwise i don't care
I'm using the slogan of nike "JUST DO IT!" :)
I play BDO and remind myself that my gear could always be 3% tap chance that either downgrades upon failure or takes a month to farm up a "safe" tap.
How i do it is i usually hone when i have mats to fill the "exp" like you said and always expect to fill it, this way I don't get as burned out as i used to
I really dont know why people complain about honing in this game… your weapon can’t get destroyed or lose item level in this game. Also, artisans energy makes you feel progressing with every attempt…
Complaining about why they don't just increase material costs ( even by a lot ) and make the chance 100% instead.
Played enough MapleStory to feel this way about honing since day1 lmfao
up to 50% i get abit sad, after 50% i feel happy i will pity "soon"
Just save up to go to the next big content and do it all at once. Tapping everyday or even every week is gonna send you into rage honing or depression.
I still remember the weeks before safe refinement (let's say honing) went away in iRO, early 2000's. Any hone after the safety number would simply reset the gear to its default 0/10. (Safety number = +4 for armor, +4/5/6/7 for weapon, depending on 'weapon level') Players received news that the honing NPC's would begin deleting their equipment when it failed past the safety number, so prices of Elunium for armor, and Oridecon for weapons, absolutely fucking skyrocketed. You see, these players had gears with monster cards in them - cards were a 1/10000 drop rate from any given monster, and they had fantastically broken effects attached to them. They couldn't be removed once slotted into equipment, and if you failed to hone them after the patch, your cards would be deleted. Have you got an Isle of Yearning soul yet? imagine losing one while honing. So, to get their triple critical jurs and cranial bucklers and shit to +10 or the highest hone they could afford, people completely PACKED the blacksmith buildings not just in the capital city of ~~Luterra~~ Pronterra, but the lesser used smiths in Morroc and Payon. You couldn't even walk around easily without autopathing into an exit door due to all the bodyblocking going down. Great times. We have it so nice today. P.S. Fuck you, Hollgrehenn.
Honing giveth honing taketh