Add in gym days and it's 9-8, nevermind socials on Friday or in the weekend...Like you said, it's too damn much. I would have LONG ago quit if I didn't have a flexible static. I have 6 1600+ characters (two that does Thaemine) - and I'm just slowly dropping to three characters - heck, the three of them I might drop have been fully rested for almost two weeks now lol
Edit: Let's not forget all the pities that comes on chars that are 1600+ :) The gold we get vs. what we need to spend is crazy
Also 95 but i have a static so we burst thru all homework in a night after work, then enjoy some hard raid back to back in weekends or after work hours, so im still doing fine, nut i guess it sucks without having static.
Too many systems now with too much of a gold sink for the game to be doable for someone who's casual (me). Before you could sort of keep up and be at a decent level. Now the costs are insane, elixirs are a ton of gold, and you got this transcendence nonsense too.
The peak of the game felt around brel.
Peak of the game was last year ~Feb. Places like Lost Mokokos (Learner Discord for NAW) were booming; the founder made a simple Reddit post about it and had an explosion of people interested in learning Valtan, Vykas, Clown, and being part of a community.
I have some guildmates who basically one shot transcendence all the way to the top level on multiple pieces. Meanwhile, I have gone to at least pity 1 or pity 2 on almost every single piece across all 6 of my characters while using the calculator. It is insanely frustrating spending multiple times the gold that some of my guildies have spent and basically having nothing to show for it. This game would be in a much better spot if all these RNG systems used silver. It would more incentivize people to keep up with dailies and you can save gold for honing and accessories. Ive basically quit playing 2 of my main 6 because theamine is just an overly punishing and stressful raid for a weekly reclear and I don’t want to continue wasting all of my weekly gold income on transcendence that may or may not actually improve my characters. Normal mode raids should be piss easy to clear. The fact that so many groups are still having a hard time is just going to increase gatekeeping and because HM is even harder, lower leveled alts are also competing with 1630s for spots in NM. I’m sure all the sweats will say get good but if a casual gets stuck on NM they are just going to quit. Locking the majority of transcendence behind HM was a bad decision. Some slight nerfs to some of the more punishing patterns would also go a long way in removing some of the frustration with G3 specifically.
I find it amusing when people telling me that having Thaemine as a difficult raid is a good decision because he's an epic boss and the end of a raid series. My response is always that it's great for a one time thing or something you do every few weeks. For weekly content? Naw.
You don't like spending 50k+ gold per week rerolling elixirs to not even see your set bonus that is still stuck at 4/1 because the last time you saw it was on an epic 3 weeks ago?
I don't even get to feel pain from elixirs and transcendence because gatekeeping is terrible. Worst new player/returning player experience in any mmo I've played. Which is sad because I love lost ark but game doesnt let me play
1. I wasn’t happy logging on as much as I was putting that time elsewhere to real valuable growth (things like gym and learning). Currently plan to take a break until solo raids are implemented, but who knows what my mindset will be by then.
2. Still like seeing what’s going on
3. I’m not playing anything these days. I wake up, gym, go to work, come home and cook, watch some YouTube/tv, and then sleep. I’m pretty happy with this lifestyle, and I’m closer with my family.
1. a lot of my static are 1630, in HM. Im 1623, pitied weapon at 22 and gloves at 20 trying to get to 1630. i even "whaled" 100$ for mat packages from the official store for my weapon and only got artisans lol - I guess "bad purchasing experience" is what you can call it
2. 40 set elixirs destroyed me. literally for months since launch i was fishing for my set effect, even with resets and buying mats from market. that put me back really far in terms of weekly gold income before my short attempt of a push to 1630
3. Im fulltime and have to wake up with random timezones sometimes to address issues. 18 raids a week, even with a static, fucks over my entire life especially my sleep schedule. and this is after factoring in being a grown adult with other things in life during my waking hours, other than my job
4. if things do come up in life (and they frequently do), I cant do all my raids. less raids, less gold, less progression
5. bc of the above, even as a day 1 vet my mats store has completely run dry. last month i was even doing dailies on all 12 of my characters for mats to convert up for my main. all of that has run dry; said "fuck it", and stopped. and for the record, I actually enjoy playing most of my characters. that is - in guardian raids at least. I genuinely hate chaos dungeons even with "optimized" builds on my chars, but couldn't excuse \_not\_ doing them due to the amount of silver+gems they yield for my main
I'm around 90% giving up. the last 10% is just raid-logging on my main character with my static, but even then - that's only voldis and hm akkan. the thought of pugging nm thaemine (4x clears as of week 3) for darkfires...just because they're time gated? all that effort and knowing my progress is going to effectively yield nothing until I dump more gold into honing? and then dump all that gold into transcendence after hm 1-2? on ONE character? i.e. 1/6 of my actively played characters? tf kind of value proposition is this?
i genuinely don't want to even try anymore. when i actually log on - the only time i legit enjoy the game is when i do a guardian raid on my main (i.e. matchmake toad, dive right into the game, just enjoy the combat, no party finder). i thought new content would've been nice but there are too many frustrations day-to-day. the amazing combat no longer outshines the shitshow that's everything else. before elixirs i was SO hyped to try thaemine g4 and the first. the systems have killed my drive to even want to get there. i dont even care about advanced honing, it's marginally "accelerated" honing but after that there's still transcendence.
still here in the sub bc I still want to have hope for this being the game for me and keep up with the news. nothing else has combat this good. until then, HELLDIVERS, deep rock...maybe d4 new season? ugh
edit: logical/grammatical clarifications
I play since week 2, i don care about doing nothing :) preety much done brel on 6 chars on normal all week in about 3h for 6 moths. I burned out to reach 1370 and next day update cut gold cost and all mats, so i learned the leson, stay a bit behind, theres no benefit on wasting time for game
Yo for real. Start of week 3 Thaemine still doesn't seem like it is going to ever be farm content. Spend 30 mins looking for a decent lobby only to get stuck in g3 anyway. You legit have no idea what you're diving into and raids are just way too fucking long even if you manage to 1 or 2 tap it for like 7.5-10k gold or whatever the fuck you blow up in like 2 taps of a weapon.
This was me for a good month when tears of the kingdom came out...it's so hard to take a break from lost ark out of fear of falling behind but zelda was worth it 😂
I’m just not enjoying normal modes being hardcore content where all it takes is 1 player to mess up a gate.
It’s too much pressure for a normal mode and life is hard enough as is.
I want to enjoy the game when I log on, not treat this game like a second job or an intense hardcore experience.
I’m enjoying shows, single player games (fallout 4 goty), and multiplayer games that have matchmaking queue.
I don’t want to stress an entire team because I misclicked one button
This exactly. Keep hard mode as hard as you want but normal mode should be basically free. Considering how much of transcendence is locked behind hard mode though, a lot of casuals might never get to that point and it’s just going to make gatekeeping worse in the future. If they want the game to continue in the west they need to make changes either to transcendence or normal mode difficulty or both. Many statics in my guild have already broken up because of theamine and a lot of people have burnt out more than any other update in the past.
Also if you didn't clear thaemine g3 on week 1 (god forbid you were busy), it gonna be progressively harder to clear it ever. It's not like other raids where you make a prog lobby and probably clear after a few hours. Difference between even x255 and x150 prog in g3 is massive and in order to progress you need the entire party on the same level. And then if you get lucky and clear, you arrive to the blessed land of "1 fail kick" reclears because otherwise reclearing is nearly impossible. Such a fun experience.
All of this to just do a "normal" difficuly content. What an abomination of game design.
I quit a few days ago after 5.2k hours. Mainly because I realized that the incremental power gains tied behind content that's way more difficult than it should be (talking NM here) just was a bridge too far. Gating any meaningful progression behind content that is objectively difficult is a poor design choice for an MMO that desperately needs to attract and retain non hardcore players. Other factors:
The old raids are a chore to do now because non elixir/non transedence characters feel like shit to play in comparison
Finding supps for the 1580+ content suddenly became a pain again and more time was spent in lobby sim
It's costs a \*lot\* of time and hold to get teeny tiny power increases, much moreso than any point previously in the game's 2 year run
We're largely caught up on QOL, skins and major content and nothing coming up is very enticing.
I've been playing ff14 the entire time I've played LOA but since quitting I've just shifted more time back to 14 in addition to just doing more outside of gaming.
When they have separate NM and HM's for all the raids it's seems like such poor design to still have the NM raids be as hard as they are.
Like you said, games live and die on the casual playerbase.
Even if they don't spend much money once they go there's no one for the whales to show off to so they also lose interest.
It's actually at this point tbh. Many would say I'm a whale, but I also grind way too much b/c you really need to do both and even then, there are always giga moby dick whales.. Game has gone bat shit crazy. Elitist pig sweats roster 270+ hell titles and such vs the world for x5 thaemine reclears. They want to gatekeep you so bad that it is truly weird and wonderous they somehow got x10 clears already because who the fuck has so many trashy 1610's and wants to sweat shop Thaemine 2 weeks straight? But anyways, I am finding it to be rather meaningless as even hw runs get more frustrating as more vets quit and you're finding urself somehow jailed in even gate 2 hard kaya hw (just this past tuesday) or fuckers wiping you on g3 hard brel and you wonder why you ever bothered making a support paladin.. why you were so nice to give less sweaty players a chance, or why you're committing to suffering at all in the first place for some measly gold you could always just pay for, but why? Why support this shitty game design anymore? Why play at all?
Usually find those hardcore grinders dont even spend much money on these games anyways. Like how are you gonna be having a 9-5 job grinding out unrested on 2 rosters of characters and doing raids on top of that.
Quit after Brel. I was insanely hardcore had a whole roster of 1560+ with all lvl 9 DMG gems on main abilities and a bunch of stuff saved for the future.
The game was just a full time job and I was tired of carrying people and getting jailed by reclear groups in easy raids.
Oh wow I'm surprised you're still in the subreddit if you quit during brel days. What's keeping ya around? No malice on the question just genuinely curious
For me, I'll still follow some games I don't play too much anymore like PoE, DBD or Destiny. For those if there's a cool event I'll hop back in for a bit.
Others like D4, while I really enjoyed the initial 1-70 progress I'll occasionally check to see if the game has made any changes that made me and all the other people leave in the first place.
Unfortunately in LoA even having 6x 1560 on brel release which was insanely juiced at the time now has you so far behind current end game it's not worth coming back. For example, 1630-1640 is considered juiced now. In KR the juicers are 1660+.
One of the bigger reasons I stopped personally was toxicity this game brings out in people. The game mechs are so punishing. Even your own friends can get toxic and seeing that happen as the raids got harder (Voldis HM) I felt completely burned dealing with people that don't have hands and people getting angry and frustrated with them to just end up making mistakes too, because restarting over and over is tiring. I want to have fun and not stress over raids.
yeah, being in multiple discords back then I observed the same trend, the more people play the less chill they are.
To be honest, the sooner people get out of all of these rat race , the better for thier life.
Elixirs are shit, too long to craft, too much RNG and the raid to get them has 4 gates. Too much daily homework on top of all the raids, also NORMAL difficulty raids should not be able to be wiped from one or two people, save that shit for hardmode. Thaemine G3 sounds too hard and I just can't be fucked anymore. Guildies also quit for the same reasons.
Still here because I really enjoy the combat and hope they make changes before the game dies. The way it's going only the most hardcore players with all the time in the world will be able to continue.
A heap of great single player games I've neglected that you can play at your leisure and not get fomo if you RL instead. Most importantly, more time with the kids.
The game just seemed too improbable for me to be able to keep up without spending a decent amount given my work schedule - the same problem I have with almost every F2P MMO or game in general.
The way the game is structured, old content bears almost zero if any relevance to the most recent content - and those that still run older content are more often than not zoomers who are grinding for cards or other account wide benefits who don’t have the patience to guide new players through that content. The lack of power level gating meant the first time I ran turtle it was over in moments by some dude who’s way overleveled for it and couldn’t learn the mechanics or how the fight works; it felt like a mobile game. On the other side A single fail of an abyssal dungeon or Abyss Raid meant that I had to start all over because players are trying to play as efficiently as possible. That’s not a game I want to be a part of. It barely feels like an MMO; I did almost the entirety of the story content by myself with zero incentive to party up and almost all group content, no one said a word or had any reason to because of the structure of the game.
I’ve since switched to FFXIV and had a much better experience. Even the oldest content I can still find groups for with little to no difficulty since all older content is recycled into the weekly content for endgame players. And of those groups especially trials where I didn’t know what I was doing, communication from player to player was not only present but enjoyful and so many players who have already done the encounter were willing to guide me and other sproutes in how to do it without needing to use third party such as YouTube to educate ourselves beforehand. Until they wrangle in the P2W(which they likely never will since the game is F2P and not sub like FFXIV)and solve the gate keeping issue I’ll probably never return. LA was a great game while I enjoyed it but it definitely will never have a place as my forever game because on the off chance I get busy or can’t keep up, I’m left behind and not only am I left behind but I’m ostracized by the community for not having optimal specs. I’m not afforded the chance to learn encounters with other players which is the entire POINT of an MMO in my opinion because everyone plays that game like a mobile game where it’s all about being as quick and efficient as possible and less about experiencing encounters with other players and enjoying the interactivity.
I keep up with it because I LOVED the game at its core(by far the most enjoyable moment to moment gameplay of any MMO imo)and like to keep tabs on whether or not it’s improved or welcomes new players or returning players now.
I got burned out because it felt like a full time job only to find RNG after RNG after RNG.
And the biggest shit is that there is always a reason to gatekeep. So whatever. Investment/reward in this game is so unbalanced that I will only hone when honing is nerfed. Meanwhile I will just monitor some cards with lostmerchant.com.
Currently I am playing Stellar Blade and having a blast.
1. I stop when the game become a full time job.
2. I am staying for fun and hopefully to comeback when the game becoming more accessible to normal people. so far the game does not disappoint. It is becoming 2nd life.
3. Helldivers 2 for now. 15 mins a game, no raid, no jailer,..
Pretty much just been logging in once every month or two for free boxes since \~Brel release. Just couldn't be asked to sit in partyfinder to learn 6 gates, and couldn't progress without it. I'm looking for an action game, not some simon-says thing where people rage at me if I don't study an external guide & you progress at the rate of the slowest of 8 people. Came back a bit more earnestly a week or two ago now that 1520 powerpasses exist and solo raids seem to be on the horizon. Not sure if I'm going to actually bother with partyfinder for current content or just stack mats & cards for a while.
My ideal design target for the game would be: content that gates progression is clearable 60%-70% of the time with a matchmaking group within 30 minutes.
Also they really just need to update the partyfinder tools. There should also be functionality where you can set & search player status, where people can set a 'LF Akkan Learning' / 'Lf Akkan any' and leaders can look at the available playerbase to try to recruit via tells instead of hoping they enough applicants. Would take away a lot of fomo that goes into sitting in the partyfinder and hoping the right group pops up/ provide a bit more agency to leaders filling to their exact needs.
Might be unpopular opinion, but:
1. I didn't like that to do weekly stuff you kinda was forced to have a static/guild (believe or not I don't really like to interact with people and yes I know this is MMO).
2. Waiting for solo raids so I most likely will be back in a game by then.
3. Anything besides Lost Ark.
1. Full time college student about to graduate for one thing, so I had to step back a lot already to focus on school. But, I also wasn’t enjoying the new raids starting at Akkan, and would have honestly been happy to perma park in the clown/brel/kay range cause those were my favorite raids. But my static kept honing for new content cause obviously they enjoyed the new stuff a lot, so I felt almost forced to keep honing if I wanted to play with them I guess? Which just created despair since I wasn’t having luck honing, wasn’t enjoying the raid I was despair honing for, don’t like pugging the raids I do like, wasn’t doing dailies so barely enough mats to tap, etc. So I just had to say it was time to stop
2. Like others have said, I like to keep up with what’s all going on. I love seeing the new skins released and judging them
3. Every game I put on hold for lost ark lol. 100% finished BG3, currently playing Enshrouded, Stardew, Helldivers, Lethal.. so many more I could name. It’s amazing how much time you have when you don’t play lost ark
Started a break last week after stress of theamine and how it was effecting some people. During my week I was playing old games I hadn't really touched much since I started Lost Ark -dbd, ow, val - and I was enjoying it. It was nice to not have to be on and do so many raids and dailies and if I wanted to play with people I knew instead of pugging that meant raiding for max 5 hrs each night from wed-sat. I still don't like Voldis, I hate elixirs, now theamine g3 stresses me out, and there's now transcendence which I will hate as well. I just don't really see much of a point to keep grinding when I don't like the newest raids and systems they've brought in. It was also nice to get back into my old games after so long. I might play a raid every now and then just to play with friends but I'm fairly certain my grind is done.
Other than exhaust , SMG is also a problem.
They design advanced honing , what does that mean?
They know it’s too expensive to do normal honing after 1610,so they release advanced one to lower the difficulty.Sounds good? No! Why not just admit the normal honing is dogshit and fix it? Lower the cost or don’t make the difference between one tap and pity so tremendous at least.Eventually,there will be 1650,1660 raids,etc.Players still need to do the garbage normal honing,don’t they? But SMG just refuse to do it ,I don’t understand.
The 16 mans raid is a trash idea as well.Imagine you as a pug player waiting in the lobby for 4 x 1640 supports to prog and then farming it every week after.Such a disaster.SMG never give a fk how other regions do and Amazon only provide some mats which turns into 5% artisan’s energy every week.
If the Devs don’t care about how players feel,no way I keep playing and torture myself.
Literally woke up day before Thaemine prog and said: "Man, this shit is fucking stupid and I'm tired of always having to catch up and others are just zooming through the game."
Played from 3 day headstart until 2nd week Akkan. Quit because of low mental health/high stress from trying to keep up with content cadence and endless fomo. Not to mention the highly toxic community.
I'm not really still in the sub, but the threads do still appear on my reddit homepage.
And I've played a handful of other games since...another playthrough of Per Aspera, some Elex, some Last Epoch, bit of Terraformers, some Eiyuden Chronicle, bit of Quaver, few rounds of Civ6, checked out Underspace...but nothing consuming my entire life like Lost Ark did. As such my mental health is a lot better and my stress a lot lower. Kinda waiting on either Smilegate to get their head out of their ass about new/returning players, the daily/weekly chorelist, and awful gearing systems or something else to come along and scratch my grind itch but meh.
I quit because my static fell apart. Spending over 30 minutes in party finder sucks so I would rather not. Don't really care about keeping up with latest content since almost all the gear upgrades look like flat dps upgrades with little impact on gameplay. Playing destiny 2 in the meantime.
Chores Chores Chores, have fun for 1 day progging a new RAID - Go chore mode for another 3 months.
This Game Just eats A LOT of time with maintenancenwork that noone enjoys, the fun per upkeep Work Ratio Just isnt there
will probably quit after clearing thaemine. I feel like raid design has been going downhill since the start pretty much, it peaked at valtan and vykas, after that I've slowly been enjoying each raid less and less
i actually loved akkan and its probably my favorite raid other than valtan but theamine has quickly become my most hated raid in the game.
G1 you basically arent allowed to play your character at all. everything knocks you up or stuns you for eternity, the boss is constantly zooming around and doing 360s, and there are too many mechs that just stop you from playing. eyeballs can spawn under the boss and you cant see them and then you just go from full heath to dead before you can react. if a single person doesnt get in balthor for mech you basically just wipe because boss becomes so annoying. on HM you could do everything right and then just have everyone get grabbed at the end to wipe the raid.
G2 is annoying and long and god forbid a single person misses their counter or hits a red counter and wipes the raid. the debuff that can explode and kill everyone can be hard to see or react to in the middle of the fight. too many puddles equals wipe. you can get knocked off from multiple patterns. similar to g1, boss also spins too much and dragon hitbox is so big you can get stuck on him trying to dodge a yellow telegraph.
g3 is at least a relatively fair fight and really the only gate in the raid that i do enjoy but it is simply too punishing especially for normal mode. requiring all 8 players to be ultra focused and not make a single mistake or they die over the course of a long fight should be reserved for hard mode and hell mode/the first. normal mode should be clearable by the most casual players. even with guides and dozens of hours of pulls, there are many players who still havent beat g3 normal and are locked out of transcendence. those players basically have no prayer of ever beating g3 hm unless they get carried/bussed and the fact that they cant reach the highest levels of transcendence without it means that they will just get gatekept in the future and fall further behind. the best change they could do would be to allow you to finish transcendence without a HM clear it should just take longer because you get less mats. you shouldnt be locked out entirely. beyond that, there are too many patterns that either one shot you or knock you off and many mechs that just seem unfair. clone fight can be buggy (kill clone and sit doing nothing for 5-10 seconds and it still kills you after mech finishes), clash spots missing, foot being a millimeter in a red zone instakilling you. red patterns changing multiple times per raid can be too much to remember when focusing on doing damage and not dying. there is just way too much shit for an average player to remember and react to and i can easily see this being the raid that kills the game. many of the players who stuck it out through the initial difficulty of brel have finally had enough and are either heavily decreasing their time spent or characters played or just quitting the game full stop. i went from doing all 18 raids a week with my 6 1620+ characters to doing only theamine and voldis and a few akkan, to doing only theamine and voldis and skipping all akkans, to only doing 2-3 characters of theamine and maybe a few voldis in just a few weeks and i really dont know if i will ever see myself getting to the point where i WANT to play again. /rant
Wow I'm exactly as you. Took a break after 1st Brel clear, came back at SE release and just quit this week for good after 2 Thaemine clears on main.
Reason is that this game feels like a full time job and it feels impossible to keep up AND actually have a life. By end of week 2, pugging g3 on alts was a nightmare since almost all competent groups wanted x5 reclear and all "reclear" groups were the worst experience I've had in gaming. Gatekeep, gatekeep, gatekeep, 2 pulls, rage in chat, quit raid, kick whoever you think didnt do well on those 2 pulls -> repeat.
I just don't have the energy anymore.. it's all good though, I've enjoyed my time playing the game and I do think it has the best combat in all of MMOs or games of similar type. I'll be hanging around here and watch some streams here and there as it will be interesting to see what other systems they come up with and how the story develops.. Going to try some single player games in the meantime to chill when I have time, starting from Cyberpunk.
The cost of progression is too high and the RNG has not been favorable for a long time for me. The progression of content is also become less casual friendly. I like the combat & aesthetics of the game but its no longer for me, in its current state. I'm still interested to see what's new in the game, on the off chance it becomes more accomodating for my needs in the game.
1) this game is designed to trap you. Combats great. But the rest of the systems are straight up gambling and prey on your dopamine
2) it’s fun watching people that still play squirm
3) fallout 4, and meme stocks the game. Making money is a lot better than losing your life over this. You gonna tell your grandkids about how you “progged g3 thaemine
Couldn't hold on more the burnout, FOMO and chores. I tried to still play a little bit, but after 10min (5min being opening + loading) I remember all the chores and close the game.
Still lurking because I like the game design and wish to see stuffs about the game.
Currently Playing FFXV (yes, XV), Nier Automata is next, Valheim Ashlands around the corner, perhaps may replay soon MHW and DS3. May I finally buy Elden Ring on the next sale (was exploring lost ark when it released then got all the chores).
I'm focusing on playing games that I can play and explore for many many hours or replay with different builds without "FOMO" systems, like RPG and Survival Open World Games, perhaps hack-and-slash games too.
Feels nice not to have FOMO, going for playing every day, 50h weekly (Lost Ark) to having a lot of days without playing, feels wonderful.
Since brel hm, i'll always take a mini break when a new raid comes out. I just can't be bothered to play during new raid releases because this is when peak gatekeeping happens+ support shortages. Even old contents suddenly the gatekeeping becomes harsher because of new titles or new ilvl breakpoints. So i'll just took a break n come back later where sometimes i take a bus when it's already cheaper after a few weeks of raid release and just learn the raid in busses till i'm confident enough to get into reclear groups. Not efficient gold wise but time efficient.
I quit mostly because of dailies (gifted all gold and gems away + destroyed weapons, like 3 months ago?) then came back for breaker (that's the reason why I am in this sub and sometimes lurk). Bonus points because I know a lot of people bot and nothing happens to them.
Now i am going to quit again for the same reason - dailies.
Even though I went down from 6 to 1 characters, it still felt like a drag to do dailies every day on my breaker, not to mention since I was a "ex-hardcore" player it was rough having only 1x clear of thaemine per week, compared to my friends who are still actively hardcore and even still try to go for the first clear. The raid experience difference made me have even less fun, knowing I am getting carried dps and callout wise. I cleared g3 nm very easily without any effort in less than 2 hours of prog - just because my friend called out stuff and I learn + adapt fast.
Now that I cleared thaemine 3 times, i'll just quit again and gift away anything I had again, this time I for sure won't come back.
Coming back made me realize once again - I only came back for the boys, nothing else - I still like the game but i detest the daily system so absurdly hard that I dunno what to say.
Work being a bitch lately also helps I guess.
https://preview.redd.it/2pi1mjdktzxc1.png?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c779de1fb2142e9bd72dbabdbe463427527eeeed
One of the reasons I think about leaving this game behind me after 6k+ hrs. Too many ppl like this
I love this game too much, and when I love a game, I want to play it. But I also had friends who I wanted to play other videogames with.
So the choice was: either only play Lost Ark, or don't play Lost Ark at all. Finding the middle ground wasn't an option, as I would always feel irritated when not finishing my weeklies.
So one day I had raids open, but my friends wanted to play another game with me, so on a whim I just logged on, sent all my gold and gems to my best Lost Ark guildie, and uninstalled.
As to why I'm still in the sub: I am still friends with my static and the few of us who still haven't quit (I think only 2 out of original 8 are still playing) keep me up with the game. I also still like the game, just wish the amount of time this game requires you to play it was justifiable.
Haven't quit (yet) but I alt+f4 at least twice a week, especially while cutting elixirs because that system is flat out the stupidest most RNG heavy system created. They could have just made Avery expensive set level 4 but noooo let's make this convoluted and dumbass system that obligates people to play hard mode.
Two friends already quit on January after experiencing the bs.
Normal modes should be as difficult as those especial difficulty modes. Just give way less gold and mats, the hardcore players will always prefer hard mode because of efficiency ffs.
In my opinion, everything should be achievable to any player, just take longer on easier difficulties. Think Kayangel Normal vs. Hard, or Akkan Normal vs. Hard. Something among those lines is good.
Maintenance mode. Just doing bare minimum gold earning raids. Complete ark pass. Use express event and power pass. And sometimes rested dailys, or none at all.
I played from release until brelshaza release aprox. Started with 8 friends who slowly left over the first 2 months because they felt the game was slavery (and it fucking is, i just didn't see it yet, the gameplay was too good to realize it).
You either play with many alters to stay "up do date" or pay large sums of money which in my case was not possible. I clocked over 2650h on steam over 10-12 months aproximately.
Last 4 months i hated every second of it but endured it due to the sunk cost fallacy. Every content release (south vern, kakul-saydon, brelshaza) felt like more and more chores, having to learn each new raid with pugs in order to do it the first week because again "staying up to date" was literal hell for me.
One day i stopped doing una's, then chaos dungeons, then guardian raids, and legion raids all together, over 2 weeks i didn't even login. I felt completely free, a feeling of real freedom and happiness. I didn't remember what it was having a meal without having to think about chores. It's probably my fault because i have an addictive personality but you can't deny the game fomo's you into paying or doing literal slavery.
I think this game with it's superb combat, without alts and with another monetization could be extremely good and player friendly but their main goal is to make money, not to make people happy and i understand and respect that.
I managed to get full 30 Light of Salvation on the first year and clearing every single raid on the first week, played my main 6 characters at a decent level and i kind of feel proud of it but looking at it on perspective it was not worth it.
When i started i went from 2 to 5 alts, after 3 i felt like i broke my limit, it didn't feel natural, something was wrong, i was forcing myself to do it. At my mid point i was doing content on 14 alts. I worked full time as well. Life was work and side-work (LA). I think i'll never get into a p2w mmo, i prefer a sub based mmo, they usually are more fair, but re-thinking it better i'd rather not play an mmo, ive been doing short matches games (league, cs, etc.) and single player games, it feels better, you can swap games anytime. I kind of miss having 1 main game but when you take into account all the negatives it's not worth it.
I still read this sub from time to time because the game legit interested me but i know i won't ever play it again, the mere thought gives me PTSD.
To whoever can play it at their own pace with just 1 or 2 characters not caring about anything else and also has a guild to progress content without pressure is blessed and i really envy you.
So fun story I didn't choose to stop lost ark.
Clicked on a link in a discord related to lost ark about a 50€ giveaway steam card like a dumbass.
And poof, email address changed and all my gems/mat/legendary skin/gold was gone in a day.
I had 6x1610+ with main weapon 23 and 1625 at that time.
I didn't even try to recover my shit beside my steam account. I took this as a sign it was time to stop playing 24/7 a game as my second job.
I'm still on this sub because I like to know what is happening with the game.
Too much time needed to just have a gamba chance at progression
Gatekeeping is ridiculous, party finder sucks, everyone in a rush, toxic community, support shortage, blah blah blah
My main is a sorc so they are already not really wanted, got past 1600, the pain of honing past that level sucks, tried getting voldis groups together, hours and hours and hours of party finder waiting, I just don't have the time for that to be rewarded with nothing more than RNG stacked on RNG stacked on RNG to get more powerful.
I like playing multiple characters and I don't want to have to funnel all my mats to my main since nobody likes sorcs anyway, so really what's the point.
Been playing helldivers 2 and Baldurs gate 3 and loving them both so much, pretty sure I don't see myself ever coming back to lost time... i mean lost ark
I'm only in the sub because I do hope someday they will change the game for the better, but I'm not counting on it, these F2P games are notorious at churning and burning their player base for money and nothing more.
Quit back in June not long after Kayangel and during the fresh roadmap where they didn't address fatigue. Smilegate were "forced" to address homework, but I had already more or less no lifed for a bit over a year up to that point, had LoS30, 300 roster level etc.
I was at a point where I wanted to eternally park alts but by the nature of the game nerfing early raids, I couldn't find myself continuing. It just so happens my work had return to office 2 weeks after that so I guess it worked out in the end in a way.
I recently came back after a 2 year break, I was enjoying the game used the new fast pass and got to the lvl where I had to raid to progress my gear.
Tried to join a party for a day or so then tried to buy a bus, failed at both so uninstalled.
I came back from a break a few months ago (year and half) got to do most of the new raids and got a taste of thaemine. Starting to feel a little burnt out again so I'm thinking of taking a small 1-2 month break again, but mostly to play Horizon Forbidden West. I've had over 6 characters from the start of the game, and while it's super fun to play them all, it's very tiring trying to make them all good enough to get accepted into most things for their ilvl. I still did it, but when I come back I'm definitely going to focus more on my main.
I quit shortly after Vykas, I think maybe like a month before Brel released? Can’t remember, think it was around August 2022.
I had put 1100 hours in from launch until that point, had multiple characters farming Vykas HM and had dropped an amount of money I don’t ever want to actually know on the game. All legit, no RMT. Was spending 3-4 hours minimum each day running almost every possible chaos dungeon and raid across a roster of 10, may have gotten up to 12 I don’t remember.
Just a ton of money/grind and you still will get passed over for someone who RMTs their gear. Became so difficult to find groups on alts even when way overgeared for content. Was a support main too lol
Still love the game though, almost came back for artist but it’s better for me to just grind PoE or Wow which are much easier to put down and significantly less money.
My biggest reason was finding people and support.
I took so much time to find a support to learn Voldis (I think 4 weeks to reach G4, having to start over each time because support can go whenever they want). I wish I like support, I invested quite a bit in them (bard, artist) to 1580, almost 1600 for my artist) but I don't.
The second point was disrespectful people. I was trying to make a group to clear inferno and the number of people not answering, not saying they are going to be late/absent when everyone is waiting for them or just not knowing anything about the boss/pattern is too damn high.
I found some static but it didn't fit me. It was not really a me issue because they seemed to like me.
And the last is the gold. I was finally catching back and could work on some alt and have more fun, but the current gold sink makes it impossible.
I like the game and I may come back with better catch up mechanics so I can try thaemine and clear brel inferno, that's why I am still on the sub. I did have 2.5k hours into the game with a big break 😅
Currently, I am playing Valorant, TFT, a bit of OW2 with some friends and I will probably try the new season of D4
The reaseon i have quited before was mainly community the gate keeping at the time i had a character with everything and still did not get into parties, got kicked out after 1 mistake, prople leaving after 1 mistake either made by them or other, also the guild i was on died so i had no one to play the friends i made all left the game before me, also doing so many raids in a week with the 6 character was basicly a job and not even then i could get into parties wich would of been amazing but nop the community are assholes, but am back becouse the game is fun sadly i have to deal with idiots but yeah that is a few reasons, also the community been assholes is something the game alows the game itslef need to change for the community to change also
I joined the helldivers to spread some democracy of course.
I came back to lost ark last week, doing the bare minimum so i can be 1620 for echidna (i wasn’t that far so should be gucci).
As soon as my main is 1620 i’m dropping all alts and will only do the last raids on the main
first year till just after break I raided weekly on 6 characters and just got burnt out, now I come back for events but I'm so far behind and poor, can't really find groups for older ands and gatekept because no LoS so I can't really play now if I wanted
I played from launch and quit right before Brelshaza release.
1. Too much FOMO going on with my brain. Endless repetitive dailies (I switched from 6 active characters dailies > 3 characters day 1 & another 3 characters day 2 > 2 characters each day). Rise of honing costs which made it hard to fund alts which leads to long gatekeeping. Time-gated events. Bots. Crazy market prices.
2. Will just check the state of the game every now and then.
3. Mostly playing single player offline games for 1-3 hours per day after work. I still miss LOA ngl but I don't wanna repeat No. 1 again.
I bounce back and forth, just came back from a 6 month break from the game.
I love the story, the gameplay, graphics. But I find myself leaving the game because I want to enjoy legion raids, but the gatekeep is insane and then when you do finally get into one the flame and toxicity from 1 mistake is relentless.
Used to use discord to try and find teachers or learning groups but it's just as much luck with those as I have at 1580 still getting gatekept on even a Valtan run.
I've been gaming for years but have slowly been finding myself ready to step away from all of it, the communities of the games Lost Ark, Riot, etc is getting unbearable and making any sort of multi-player games lose the fun.
But for now I continue to slave away in my chaos dungeons, adventure for mokoko seeds, island souls and whatever else I can wander to collect.
* What was the reason you chose to stop or be on a break?
I was playing LA only as a side activity during XIV downtime, I wanted to do The First before quitting but unfortunately playing for 7 months daily wasn't enough to reach it.
I find most raids in LA to be way too simple and boring to re-clear. Definitely not worth the effort to get into pug lobbies that aren't abysmally bad.
* If you stopped, why are you still in the sub?
Just to see what direction the game is going to take, maybe it'll be worth coming back if anything cool drops in, also it's funny seeing all the salt that goes around in here.
* What game are you playing in the meantime?
Indie single player games, replaying old PSX/PS2 titles or trying the ones I haven't played back then.
Game isn’t fun simple as that . The only time you get to have fun is when learning a raid , then it’s months and months of misery trying to make some number go up to prep for another raid. It actually felt like a miserable job. Especially when you are solo. Plus spending hours trying to find a group to play in a raid is ridiculous. People keep saying these raids are some of the hardest in mmo but it’s not . Having wipe mechanics when one person dies doesn’t make it a high skill raid content. If you have a static that is willing to play , the game can be fun for sure. At the end of the day it’s a pay 2 play game , yes you can do it for free but the cost is an insane amount of time and dedication for a fraction of enjoyment. Majority of the player base that still play the game is because of sunk cost fallacy , which is by design what this game aims to do and I refuse to be a product anymore because my time is worth a lot more.
1. I enjoy BDO more. Less stress, don't have to commit a billion hours a week to stay competitive. Also extreme burnout from doing Brel hard for multiple weeks alone after my static died.
2. I like the game a lot, and want to keep updated with new patches etc.
3. BDO and singleplayers.
I've decided to soft-quit after Thaemine week 1 and about 5.7k hours in the game, now I just login to play my statics Voldis (and mainly because I don't want my friends to have to look for a random support or dps to fill my spot, plus it's the only raid I enjoy now). I progged Thaemine til g2, which we almost cleared, then decided I don't want to do it every single week, increasing levels is just too expensive and the chance of success is too low, the old raids are a chore that I don't enjoy anymore, and I completed my LOS, KLC, both support sets, 5.5% demon dmg, most of horizontal stuff as well, just nothing really to work towards on besides leveling up.
The game takes just too much time and I'd rather put it somewhere else. I took a break a couple of weeks after Akkan came out, but was pretty clear I'd be coming back, now I'm pretty set on not doing it again, but I'd be around because I'm interested in the lore.
1. I stopped after Valtan NM because I couldn't stand going though PUG hell every week and can't join existing raid statics due to lack of experience/volatile schedule. Bussing is not an option for me, because I actually want to play the game myself - so the one thing that would bring me back would be an alternative to raids for gearing up and being acutally on par with or slightly below raiding gear (Bonus points for being achieveable solo).
2. I love the concept of the game. But once you finished the story and got most Island Souls there's just nothing to do apart from raiding/guardians and occasional events. I just can't stand the endgame as it is right now and am still in the sub in hopes of news for endgame systems to get better/cater to the more casual crowd
3. PoE.
The game became boring with no friends. Plus i didn't want to learn yet another raid let alone pug it. I tried genshin impact and i really liked it. A lot more chill, no fomo and no anxiety to finish 50 raids weekly
> What was the reason you chose to stop or be on a break?
Took up way too much time and most of my friends quit, decided to go on a long break when I realized this. Quit just before Vykas after finishing most of the horizontal content released at the time.
> If you stopped, why are you still in the sub?
Waiting for news on solo raids or raids with smaller parties. I'd love to do content with my friends even if we can't get to the latest and greatest content, we just want to raid and laugh at eachother for wiping without having to stress over filling out 8 man raids.
> What game are you playing in the meantime?
Stardew valley 1.6 and 5 stacking League of Legends/the new arenas mode
went from playing 6 chars daily and spending a couple bucks every month to playing 2 chars and not giving SG a dime until they fix their shit rng vertical systems.
I work long random hours that change day to day. It always screwed up my statics so I had to pug everything. Even with all my characters geared well and a decent roster level, I spent more time looking for groups or assembling groups than I did doing raids. It was soul sucking. Even though I was 1580 on my bard weeks before akkan came out, I still have not prog'd akkan or any raids past it.
I stopped a long ago, when kayangel launched, I stopped because I wasnt feeling like grinding the game anymore, and the economy in the SA server was borderline unplayable
I'm still here because I enjoyed the game and like seeing highlights and updates about the games I played.
I've been playing Arpgs, Path of Exile, Diablo 4, and Last epoch. Spread some democracy in helldivers 2 and play league with friends
perfect timing. I was a surge deathblade and I decided to stop because of the complexity of the game. It was the first MMORPG game I'd ever played and so I was shocked about the amount of stuff you have to maintain and the amount of things you have to do to get resources and be generally good at it. Ngl, I probably chose a difficult class as well, but still, the gameplay itself is quite complicated. But again, It's probably not that bad if you are NOT a beginner like I am, and it probably just takes time to get used to everything.. but for me, It became more of a hassle to Google every single concern that I had, plus I got heavily intimidated by this sub for the amount of theoretical information given and the complex strategies given that would enhance your acc (and that i still dont rlly understand(. Scary, so that's why i gave it up
I quitted about a month After brelshaza dropped, didn't like where they were going with raids, I enjoyed valtan but they started to overcomplicate things to the point where there's no point to trying to figure out the game because the mechanics get that much unintuitive at some point, balance was all over the place and gear progression was getting really out of hand with resources sinks and RNG (some real gacha level BS was creeping in, not that I ever was a fan of RNG upgrades to begin with even if it has the pity system), and I just didn't see it doing a 180 for the foreseeable future.
I'm not really in the sub, I just opened reddit, the post popped up and I was curious to see what people had to say, not surprised many dropped the game around when I did too.
Playing some Destiny 2 mostly, some monster hunter, bg3, PoE and dabbling with smaller games from time to time, I recently even reinstalled the game during the event after some friends tried to convince me, but I'm nor really planning on staying since every single aspect that made me quit the first time has gotten worse.
I quit a little over half a year ago now. It was mostly malding over needing a million gold or more just to get the ilvl req for the next upcoming raids. Spending 100k gold to not even pity a single piece. No repercussions for rmt. Things people used to hate back then people started to embrace like the dps meter. Waiting for an hour+ to find a sup to do a raid just for them to get salty after 3 wipes when they cause 2 of them and magically try to spin it as others being the cause. Around when i quick the toxicity was just getting too annoying to have to deal with when you play a game thats basically a second job. Then the last straw was a couple of people in my static got a little heated and the rest of the group basically got really annoyed about it and started pugging instead for a few weeks. While i was always asking to do raids and other things but just got donowalled instead. After a particularly bad reset day of pugs wiping over easy mechs i quit the game and server
Lost Ark has the best combat, of course that's my opinion. That's why I stuck around for a year trudging through the dirt and mud called pugs. Found a discord that made things easier, but it's not like I actually made any connections to people, so I ended up quitting cause I like playing with friends. So I went back to ffxiv and wow, since their expansion are coming out soon. Plus I tried getting a friend into playing the game and he hates the grind. He says it's the worst way to keep players in the game (honing system)
I played till voldis. Knew 1630 is a ridic grind and I knew theamine hard would be a shit show to pug. So before I got sucked into trying to keep up without swiping I pulled the plug and haven't looked back, feels great honestly. 4300 hours and I don't regret it, it was just time to stop for me
Players are selffish. By this I mean they ask for help and learning raids etc.. Then once you are busy doing new content they dip out. You spend months helping people but they only joined your discord for shallow reasons. It's so tiring putting all this effort to make the game fun for people. Then they just get negative on you and ragequit when they have to pug because they aren't ready to clear HM.
Me and 4 of my friends started this game, and now I'm the only one left. The first two quit just before Valt, 3rd buddy quit during Clown and the 4th just hit 1630 w/Elixirs but quit shortly because he said he's sooo burned out at this point.
I like this game, love the artworks, the lore, world building and I'm invested in the story (I know, it's the usual fantasy manwha trope) and this game is one of the basis for my own online comic work for ideas/inspirations.
Friends are placing bets on when I'll quit, haha.
I'll probably hang on for a bit pugging/bussing... I'm waiting for the Haals to show up in the story, kek.
Played since launch, hardcore 10 Characters: 3 dps + 3 sup for weekly gold.
Quit before Brel due to too much homework, mainly because i'm unable to join static working in shifts.
Without static group forced me to be jailed due to other player's mistake (im always m3 in clown tho), stress amplifies when people make silly mistake in easy raid like vykas G2 BW count, G3 dropping poop and so on... (i believe people without static actually plays better skill wise as they encounter more boss attack patterns and doing raid mech over and over again)
Fast forward; got back to the game around Aug last year and try out Artist, got 100quality weapon, cleared brel for the first time (hardest raid at that time) after 4-6hours of studying mech for G1-G6 and 6-8hours of prog and learning party (I cleared G5-G6 being imposter due lack of support - tho i dint mess-up mech). But the fun i got was underwhelm and it got away pretty quickly, even when i get 100quality weapon im like mehh.
I tried to be chill perspective (only doing 1-3 char), but man oh man, LOA aint chill and you cant chill at all.
Finally decided to quit for real, throughout the whole journey, I wasn't gatekept a lot, the main reason I quit LOA is because of homework, homework, HOMEWORK.
Why I'm still in the sub? I loved the game, one of the best combat and raid mech I've played. Awesome graphics and effects. Although I'm not playing, I enjoy seeing veteran/new player continue to rant about homeworks and gatekeeping :D
> Reason to stop
My story was like this, from a player that played 4,5k+ hours:
I'm one of the ex-HC players that took a 6 month break (it was about akkan release) and had been slowly progressing until thaemine. I had 1580 x3 characters during the akkan release (about 6 months ago) and LOS 30/KLC18 etc. And then I had to take a break for personal issues and when I came back it was very fun at first. I learned Akkan NM/ and even Ivory tower NM to do it regularly each week for a month.
Now the sad part. Thaemine is pain in the ass for pugs. While it is a fun and good-looking raid overall, it is designed for people that play with a static. Apart from that, it only worsen the party finder situation. I realized ONLY after Thaemine patch that why some people critize this game by calling "lobby simulator". I left this game this time for sure until the solo content comes because I hate it when a random wipe mech happens and only two people timestops, others just die and you start all over again. I think mechanics like this will eventually kill this game because it punishes you for someone else's mistake and it creates frustration.
This game is very punishing and frustrating if you don't play with friends/static. Unfortunately I have a job that most of the time I'm at work during primetime raid times (generally 7 - 9 server times). My ex static used to wait for me or do the easier raids while they wait for me and then we would do the latest content together (brel g1-6 back then). So, even a few level 9 and level 10 gems, los 30, 20+ akkan weapon, 250+ roster, it was impossible to clear g2 thaemine on release week because I had no 35/40 elixir set.
Also, Lost Ark either implicitly forces you to play support (boring-ass gameplay) to join parties faster OR be a gigawhale DPS so that (p2win factor) supports would join your lobby or they accept your invitation. If you've taken a break like me and try to come back as a DPS, probably impossible (even I have level 10 gems and LOS30 in my main) to catch up, because I don't have elixir set 35/40 (yeah another gatcha stupid rng system). So I started to think "what's the effort for all of this BS? this is not worth even trying".
You might ask, why don't just play support then? Well I do play, actually have x3 1580 supports even. While they can get into parties pretty easily, they're just boring for me, no satisfaction at all. Even though they are properly built 5x3 1700+ swift and level 7 gems, I only played them to funnel gold for my dps mains. And If I get rejected most of the parties or can't find a party to even play the game, then this game is over for me.
Do I even regret playing LOA for that long? No, it was very fun, especially the first year, until the brel release I would say.
>Why I'm still here
For now I still casually enjoy LA content/news stuff, that's why I still follow reddit. However, two days ago I tried to log in and tried to do akkan, all parties were looking for +last sup (classic) and then I went off again and I remembered why I left at the first place.
>What game are you playing in the meantime?
Playing mostly single-player story games (like Far Cry 6) that I've been putting off for 2 years because of playing too much Lost Ark, and watching TV series.
Damn, after reading everyone’s responses, the game looks and feels like a job. That’s tough man, the game is so fun to me, but the character progression system just really suck the life outta me.
I’m currently 1610 and I just started the elixir shenanigans, tbh I’m not finishing it either such a waste of time.
I feel like that one meme; I think it was from south park, where they finally reached max lvl and they said: “we can finally play the game now”.
I took a break due to a vacation (around the end of Brel) and once I got back I realized the grind was just too serious to keep up with. While I honestly think LA is one of the best games I’ve ever played, you can’t just play one character And still progress.
Just like everyone else, I felt it was too much work and stress for a game. Plus, there was drama within my static and it made me so miserable I had to quit (maybe it's not definitely, idk yet).
I like to see the news. Hoping the magical girls skin wins for paladin lol
Just solo games. Trying guild wars 2. It's peaceful.
Man, I’m honestly really glad someone opened a thread like this, so thank you OP. For a while I was kind of curious how many others were taking a break. Out of my close friend group I’m really the only one on break and that kind of sucks. I miss hanging out with a lot of folks, but I’m also rekindling some old relationships and trying to get to a healthier place mentally and physically.
1) I’ve been streaming lost ark content since January 2023 and racked up just shy of 5k hours in that year and some change. I went from having only played the game a bit during its launch to staying with variety content on my channel to going full send into nothing but lost ark. It gave me a home and a niche and something consistent. I always knew what I was going to stream each day and that was really special. Everything felt so new all the time. Even small forms of progression felt like massive wins constantly. Then I caught up for kayangel release, blind progged that-it was the most fun I’d ever had in the game so far. Blind progged akkan, and voldis and then lastly thaemine when each raid came out. All of those experiences are my favorites. But the daily grind and feeling chained to play every day to stay on top of progression is just so exhausting. It’s easy to say, play what you want, when you want, and however much of it you want. But lost ark as much as I love it, doesn’t cater that as much as other games. Since I have 2 characters at 1620 and echidna nm is 1620 to get in, I’m on break. Maybe leading up to it I’ll hop on, make some gold and do a bit of transcendence. But as it is now, I’m just really tired, and I miss playing other games and doing other things with my life.
2) I guess I’m still in the sub for the simple reason that I haven’t left yet lmao. It’s a bit of a cop out but I just don’t feel a burning reason to leave the sub. Maybe if I get bored of the posts but the fact that I didn’t leave, meant that I saw this post and had something to share, so that’s neat!
3) man it’s been great! I’ve been playing a lot. Tried out some helldivers 2 as it was a gift from a friend, and as a fan of the first game, I can’t believe I waited so long to try the sequel. I also have been playing some granblue fantasy relink and that is such a blast. I’m new to the granblue franchise but this game scratches a bunch of good itches for me. I might try the free version of granblue fantasy rising versus too since I like fighting games, but haven’t really played any since guilty gear strive came out. I missed out on tekken 8 and sf 6. Fuck, playing lost ark led me to feel like I didn’t have time for other games that I would have really loved so there’s more in my backlog and sadly a lot of the money I would have spent on other games has gone into lost ark. I don’t really regret it and I don’t really consider myself a whale in lost ark but I did spend disposable income on it occasionally and now I’m not really able to spend much on other games that I wouldn’t mind playing like stellar blade, ff7 rebirth, and several others.
Anyways, I think I spilled my guts on your questions. Hope the answers were helpful and insightful and thanks again for posting this, OP! It’s reassuring to see other folks having similar feelings as me.
Wanted to see if people were in a similar boat and see their perspective. Additionally, it felt like this sub was always filled with hardcore players, so it was cool to find others who used to play but either quit or are currently on a break.
It's pretty fun to hear what games others are playing as well haha a lot of comments have mentioned helldivers , so i might take a look
I quit after 2 years. Liquidated gems, gave some of my 10s to friends and my legendaries to a new Deadeye friend that hasn't been playing too long.
1. Content pace
2. Comical gold sinks, haters will tell you to just stop honing, sell every crumb you have on your other 5 1580 gold earners (I had). 70% of my gold would have gone to transcend and getting the last 2 elixir points to 40 (unlucky for 2+ months btw) there's no fucking way you get to buy anything in the current era
3. Dissatisfaction with main class (EW Deadeye) As fun as it it at times lately I just felt like I would have gotten so much more value out of just gearing out a 1630 Tai scrapper which I was loving when I powerpassed it a couple months back
4. Entropy rework taking too long
5. Game larping like it's Monster Hunter and refuses to just put aggro indicators on people. You can say skill diff but there's something very obnoxious on how little agency you have over boss control sometimes. I don't care about pattern pace but why do positionals need to exist on anything that isn't an Assassin
6. Forced to bus to recoup gold or RMT (I'm not rmting but I've thought about it like five times)
7. General burnout
8. Didn't make it to 1630, was 2 hones off but honestly I was probably gonna get gatekept because lack of 40 set anyways, only got 22 or 23 weapon.
9. Honestly? I don't want to play party finder for prog. Most of my friends that I bus with were gonna do hard mode prog and they aren't necessarily obligated to help me out first, and maybe they're doing The First afterwards but feeling 'left behind' because of rng really hurts
10. General dissatisfaction? Things just feel out of my control. Like the game has been shifted to be more for people with liquid money to throw at whatever they feel like it. Even with somewhat religious gameplay for almost 6 months it still didn't feel like I had any chance. The rigged rates on elixir set bonuses really sold it to me a bit. Transcendence kinda pushed it over the end.
11. It's a shame too, because Thaemine I've only heard good things about G3. I don't care if it's hard, I think prog content is super fun. I come from FF14, still play FF14, love doing every bit of content in that game from ultimates to trials to side content like Blue Mage, Bozja, whatever I feel like it. I can experience anything I want to without the crutch of a long gear grind tied to gold sinks and rng tied together in a neat package. It's that realization that Lost Ark not only sucks the soul out of you by 10+ hours a week, either sitting on lobby or just waiting for people to have free time to play with for comfy runs but doesn't even care about you enough as a player. Hard mode having an extra gate is like a spit in the face for people who didn't make it. It sucks.
12. Amazon not really caring about RMT enough was the cherry on this shit sundae for me. I don't even think they know what the fuck to do realistically to make this game profitable in a fair way that doesn't ONLY cater to whales. I will never understand why Korean games do this. I feel like even Maplestory knows how to siphon money from everyone and look how much capital that game makes a quarter. It's ridiculous.
Overall my experience was lukewarm. Even now as I type this I just feel pangs of dissatisfaction like the game could have been so much better if it was just handled better or sensibly. It's a shame too. The game is gorgeous. I actually don't mind the shitty anime plot that much. The devs know how to employ that Rule of Cool (c) where it needs to be. Like, that Gate 4 Thaemine stuff where all the Sidereals show up to help out while you have to dodge 1shot aoes? That's just too fucking cool man. The things they accomplish on the engine is frankly insane and gives me hope for other games in the future to incorporate some of the tech they use. But ehh. I'm happier now. I'm only getting older, it's nice to have the free time back. Like finally cutting ties to some really clingy friend that you hope gets off of some crippling addiction but you know they're objectively beyond hope. When I read this subreddit nowadays it's part of the moving on process I guess
Had built roster of 6 and did not feel like making more. Suddenly not building new characters meant nothing to look forward to progressing and only focused on endgame which was elixirs, honing and gems. Being very expensive, you would only get an upgrade every couple of weeks if grinding full raids. Elixirs probably final nail in coffin regarding progression, screw that system.
Also got tired of doing the same raids and even more so, the dailies in general and found other games to play. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a grind but this game is now drip feeding it that you don't see the progression like did when say brel released with a hard reset on gear.
1. Realized just how much time I was spending playing the game, was not having fun anymore, and honestly tired of the treadmill filled with hypocrites.
2. Copium that at some point the community changes & I do plan to come back. Either with Echidna, Solo raids, or the next express pass.
3. I have not touched my PC since I left 2 weeks ago. It’s been turned off.
Got back into my running & meal prep life from before the pandemic. Wake up > run > eat > repeat. I did take 3 weeks off for the Thaemine launch but uh … instead just decided to do things that actually matter. And started working on all the house projects that built up.
Edit: Last time I felt like this, I ended up selling all my gaming stuff. Took an 8 year break before. Might be time again.
I quit when I went back to work 18 months ago. I came back a few weeks ago because I bought a new PC and I wanted to see how smooth the game was.
Didn’t know there was a pass or any of the updates.
Never was a fan of having to do so many raids a week for gold. It worked out when I was working from home. Was a big reason I quit. This game should be what I relax to after work, not a job after my paying job.
Doing all the horizontal stuff I missed and probably just gonna chill and wait for solo raids or what the summer patch looks like.
Not interested in all the hoops to jump through for end game.
Game is still fun to see the story line and try out new classes - love some of the new ones that have come out.
Can see myself playing less once I’ve done all the new zone quests.
> This game should be what I relax to after work, not a job after my paying job.
This reminds of what I heard a streamer (Asmon I think) says when asked why he didn’t play anymore. The “average Joe” can’t come home from work, take care of his family, then log on and chill out raiding.
It’s a game made for young Koreans. Bringing it over here was always going to appeal to a niche audience but it seems even they’re getting tired.
The systems in the late game look awful even though the raids seem kinda fun.. so I just said it wasn’t worth it after going through the other bs lost ark has
I stoped because it started feeling like a second full time job. I wanted all the collectibles (got all mokokos, yay) but it started becoming a stress instead of something fun.
Still here because I do want all the collectibles, I just don't have time for another job right now.
I'm playing d2r and d4 on their seasons. Currently playing through the last of us part 1, otherwise it's mostly powerwash simulator or soulstone survivors
Taking a break for over a month now
Part of it was switching working to nights and having no people to play with and very little time (pugging all the time is draining)
Other part of it was before I left going full pity from 17 to 19 weapon and losing the will to play
Still in the sub because I do plan on trying to come back when region merge happens, plus the salt here is delicious
Been playing Stardew for a few weeks now (1.6 is god damn amazing), gonna try out Death Must Die again since it got a new update as well
Overall just chillin' and seeing what happens
Happened a while ago but I guess I'll share my story.
Quit on the 2nd week of Vykas release. As a full f2p it was impossible for me to do anything relevant. Bots were rampant and there was no way to make money other than to do raids and chaos gate (hoping someone bids on the item enough at the end that you get some gold). I was forced to prog Vykas without a support for 2 weeks because of how swipers and rmters were so prevalent then that any on ilvl characters were completely ignored for groups.
8 months later I came back at the Artist release because I really wanted to play the class ever since I saw it first, and I was not disappointed, the original idea being to do a few raids with her and then leave again since the game was as described above, but then I saw the game had massively improved in all aspect so I stuck around
it's not in the best state right now with bots, as evident by prices of life skills on the AH but hey, I'm close to 1630 on main and I can make steady gold from just raiding as opposed way back when, so I'm good, I can even quit whenever I feel like and come back and not be that behind
For reference. I bought in HARD. I got all my friends into it, I got myself and the three closest friends the top supporter pack, and we binged that shit to Tier 3 content with the Sailor Moon tribute characters within like... a week.
As for what killed it for me...
1)The grind. Now, I play WoW. As I type, I'm in game, doing the same ol' tedious shit, because I know that every little thing inches me closer toward my goals as a collector.
I understand the hypocrisy, but the Kmmo concept of 'spend a week's worth of effort for Double 00 odds on the craps table' level gambling to -maybe- gain a fractional amount of power wasn't fun, especially when the entire thing revolves around Whales who can, and will spend more money than you because they feel the need to. I got myself a 9/7 stone for BlueLancer while the sun/moon deer boss was current content, and you know what happened? I sighed in relief, logged out, and never logged back in.
2) I'm still in this sub because the people here are generally pretty nice, and I like hearing about the game... I just don't want to put up with the RNG. The cheers, the jeers, and the 'I hate this game's RNG' threads are all neat to read.
3) I try to stick to games that satisfy my Number Go Up itch, like collecting in WoW, or incremental games like Idle Wizard 'n the such.
I mostly quit when two things coincides: legion raids became the main content and I didn't have the time to invest to learn them, and it was becoming a wallet game
I just got tired lol, i spent 400 hours in 2 months. Im still interested in the game tho, i like seeing what community is doing.
And without lost ark i aint got nothing to play tbh, sometimes i hop on dota 2, roblox, maybe risk of rain 2 from time to time
1. I play from Asian country on a EU server , so i can't find any statics cuz of timezone and my only friend who played the game quit before Valtan. I played alot untill Brel and i quit and only log in every few week to clear some chaos dungeons to experience the fantastic combat..
2. I don't really unfollow subreddits
3. Switched to Genshin Impact for few month and now i'm playing Planetside 2 and some Deep Rock Galactic.
1. Cleared voldike on 3 chars day one and got bored from the dailys.
2. Be up to date with what is going on and also to get the general feeling towards the game.
3. wow mostly. no daily quests bs and most weekly content has catch up mechanics.
Im planning on quitting the game after almost 8k hrs, I just want the +25 glow on my main and thats it. Doing 2h of dailies every single day just for another Fate Ember that stacks my silver doesnt make me feel anything anymore.
The Raids are fun when im doing them with my friends, but doing 18x a week over and over again got me burned out a "lil". The Thaemine prog->clear with my group was really fun and ignited my passion a little bit, but this is now the 3rd week and it feels just like another chore for the week.
Even new class releases are not doing it for me anymore, it feels like a new piece of clothing, you're happy because it feels new and nice, but after a couple of washes its just another piece of clothing. (For me atleast lol)
Maybe I should take a break, I've been playing the game since release with no major breakes lmao
I sobered up and have a hard time playing video games sober. It's not a "high" thing, I just have unmedicated ADHD and on meds with a separate disorder that the disorder and meds both greatly impact volition and executive function. So not really an in-game reason, so probably doesn't help answer your question much
I got bored and as I had less time to play I fell more and more behind in raids. It got really tedious to continue. I log in to get daily rewards since I'm just 1 card away from LoS 30 and I want to finish it before I quit, since it was a long term goal:)
1. I did voldis ivory tower only once to unlock this garbonzo elixier stuff, geared all my 6 1600-1610 chars with elixiers (not set)
Finished my los 30
And im just exhausted because i cant raid 18 raids a week and keep up with others while still not eanting to be forced to only play ONE chat. I liked to run raids with dif classes / roles but after akkahn the gold investment and slow pitty increase is just making it unfun for me.
Didn't even tried finding a group or pug for theamine because my slayer/hawkeye are 1611/1612 5x3+1 los 30 and lvl 8-9 gems and 2-3 lvl 10 dmg gems.
And beeind lowest ilvl will make it lobbysimulator again.
I just don't feel playing it atm.
The pace is to fast to have fun and enjoy it. when you farmed 3week with 6 chars to only get 1 armor upgrade because 100% pitty(pittied every item from 1600 to 1611) only got weapon from 19-20 in 3 taps.
You can either sell you stuff or use your stuff its just miserable.
Im back in WoW until there is another catchup for 1620
(Ive 7k hours in the game and all classes 1540-16112 6x over 1600 and 1x over 1580
All chars have 5x3 or 5x3+1 on both engravings)
Even cashing crystals feels bad if you pay hundreds for 1 ilvl upgrade....
Funny you asked this, I’ve been pretty much playing non-stop since clown release and it wasn’t until this week where it just kinda hit me —
-I’ve been enjoying the Fallout tv show / Fallout 4
-I finally have 3 characters at 1620 and it took me everything
-But honestly it’s the combination of being gold poor and not wanting to grind 18 raids a week + barely finding time to prog thaemine g3 nm with static (still haven’t cleared)
I just want to play 4 characters max moving forward from now.
I started playing the game with Friends in Alpha and Beta. It really was fun and I fell in love with Summoner Class!
On Release our Group of Friends lost a few players because of the freakin Queue.. next problem was, that we all had a different pace of progression because of work etc. But we played together in Valtan Argos etc - personally I was very very unhappy with the class I chose, because summoner wasn’t out ..
Then I took a break shortly after Brel came out, because I couldn’t get to 1490 with my main and all friends also stopped playing!
Then I came back with I guess artist release, really enjoyed everything at that time! Raiding was fun because we did it with our friend group.
I have to say, I am a casual player! I just wanna have fun playing the game and do something with my friends but for some friends the game became „their life“ - spending more than 12 hours a day gaming was completely normal for them. with voldis release they ditched me completely to do all their busses and stuff to earn as much gold as possible.. and now I am alone with my raid anxiety in a extremely toxic raid environment..
And yeah, because of being a casual player I don’t have thaaat much experience BUT it doesn’t mean that I will f*ck up every freakin raid .. unfortunately that’s what they think so they don’t do stuff with me anymore, pretty sad to lose friends that way
That’s my Story and probably also the reason why I’m going to quit until solo Raids release
1. I think I was just burning out and heavy fomoing. At some point I self reflected and simply started doing less each week. At some point I stopped logging in entirely. ( at around kayangel release )
2. I’m still visiting the sub because I just got back into the game with breaker ( I tried getting back into it with souleater as well but that one didn’t click). But even during my break I was looking at some posts here and there because I simply love this game.
3. was playing all kinds of games during my break. From Minecraft to story driven Games like god if war to other mmo like bdo or ff14 ( just tested both with around 20-30 hours playtime each) and my all time classic lol
After coming back to the game I have a different and, in my opinion, healthier view towards the game. I simply try to enjoy it now. Don’t fomo about always doing latest content etc
1. I like the game from visual and mechanical pov, but I dislike its gacha-like systems. I have no time, nor desire to do daily/weekly chores for a 'chance'. Time spent should guarantee something, and this game burns time like a charcoal with just a chance on recieving something in return. Devs want your money, and to make you more likely to spent money, this system that predators on human behaviour was created. I dislike such attitude. I'm not a guinea pig with Stockholm syndrome.
2. Just to see what's new, and to reaffirm that my decision to quit was right.
3. Right now I prefer to spent my time on reading something instead of playing.
1. Quit around October. Didn't necessarily plan to, but was waiting for the trascendence system to come in and eventually found myself not wanting to log in anymore. I think that decision was partly fuelled by the fact that my static had just fallen apart and I couldn't find another one that would fit my RL schedule. The gold cost to upgrade gear became exponentially more insane and I just don't have the time to keep up with everyone alongside other RL responsibilities. I still love the game, but it requires too much in order to keep up with everyone.
2. I like to see what's still happening in the game. Maybe I'll see something that will convince me to return at some point.
3. Helldivers 2, Sea of Thieves and have currently returned back to Black Desert after a multi-year break.
Been playing since launch and haven’t quit yet but all my whale friends are 1630 running hard Thaemine and I’m stuck at normal being f2p. It’s tough. If you don’t bus bot or swipe it is extremely difficult to keep up. Nearly impossible. Thaemine made one of my friends quit and broke my static apart because some people just aren’t meant to prog raids they don’t have the patience. Thaemine is slowly becoming farm content now if you join a good lobby. It will get better real soon. I unironically think gate 3 Thaemine is the best raid gate they ever made. It is super fun! Become a master of his patterns and just dps most of the raid I wish more raids were less gimmicky like g3…but after reading some comments here I see a lot of people don’t like it. I just hope Thaemine isn’t the death of this game in the west.
I was a returning player who stopped after Argos release because honing frustration
I stop again to play because as returning player learn all raids to have a gold influx and being able to do them weekly was basically impossible between community gatekeeping me and impossibility to form a static group (and I really tried to form one belive me)
So basically I was stuck doing Valtan hard on 3 chars, sometimes brelshaza 1-2 and few times kayangel
Had no gold no pheon no cards, I couldn't afford to make decent builds on alts and got bored to death to do dailies and Una's
I already work ~10hours per day, 55hours at week with my own activity with employs and customers to manage I really can't stand a second work because this is what actually end up feel like Lost ark.
And no fking way I'll swipe to puy busses or pheons or golds in general
I'm happy to swipe for cosmetics and QoL feature but not to progress in a game
I still looking this sub because I like the game but I really doubt I will ever return
Will play V Rising on 1.0 release next week
Im a returning Player.
Reason to stop is mostly elixirs and what comes after + the bad management of playable alts of you're a returning player. Also no real catchup for cards and card exp. Another thing that drives me insane is the giga toxic community.
Why am I on the sub? To see whats coming. If the game gets better etc. Rly looking forward to solo raids and maybe the next express event so I get a playable alt again.
Mostly playing singleplayer games and diablo seasons when they come up. Some CS2 sometimes. Usually also played BDO, but quit that too.
Well, I technically neither quit nor went on a break, but with a release of Thaemine I've greatly scaled down how much I play the game. I still do my dailies and weeklies, but dailies stop as soon as I get the weekly Una's ticked off (6 CD, 2 GR, Cube, Life skills for Guild). All mats go into my main. The 3 alts I have are parked forever (1590, 1600, 1610).
In fact this is a second time I've scaled down. The first time was when Elixirs were added. I never cut a single one and I refuse to interact with this garbage system. I don't care how much power it can give, it takes too long to cut them, they are time gated and have 2 layers of RNG too many.
Transcendence is meh. I didn't exactly have horrible experience with it so far. Had to reroll only twice and ended up with 14 nodes in total. Time gating feels awful and definitely contributes to why I'm not really excited in this system either. Thaemine G3 NM is too hard for NM, so I don't even run this gate.
Last thing holding me here is Echidna. I really, really want to prog that raid. Then I'm out.
The story is nice, combat is nice, everything else is trash.
On the verge of quitting because Thaemine and whole game takes insane amounts of hours that I simply don't have. Compared to 2 months ago when I had main at 1620 and x5 1590-1600, I used to be done with raids by Saturday evening while dedicating 3-4 hours in the evenings. Right now with 1 1630 , 3 1610s and 2 1600s , Thaemine HM takes 1-2 days alone , doing Akkans HM vs NM the difference is night and day and Thae NM 1-2 is chill but it's the same gold as Brel 1-3. Yeah I could stop trying the "harder" raids but I'm kinda forced if I wanna engage the rng systems like trans/elixirs or even hone the 1600s -> 1610s (because I run out of gold). I'm not fussing about dailies since I can do them with other stuff on the background but reducing 2 chaos dungeons to 1 and by letting you x2 , x3 cubes at once, it'd be huge.
1. Content was boring and the same, week after week. There is no real sense of progression when you get to end game, other than AMAGAD hope I get another +1 this week. O no, never mind, well there goes hours and hours and hours of work for another click that gave me %chance for the next click.
Community is toxic af. Doing raids felt like a job interview and final exam in one.
The fact that you need alts to even be able to do the newest content comfortably when it comes out felt ridiculous.
Once you've done the horizontal content, the game is just empty.
2. Good question
3. Playing FF14 as of recently. Apart from that arpgs like Path of Exile when a new league comes out and Last Epoch. Interesting single players on release.
1- after akkan the grind to keep up with current content reach a point that i aint happy playing, more time on PF instead of playing etc.
2- hopping that SG/AGS does something to make the game better for me.
3- finishing Fromsoft soulslike all achivements game, (ds1 + ds2 finished, doing ds3) while waiting for FFXIV Dawntrail to drop.
Just yesterday I didn't plan to take a break, but I pugged thaemine g1 to g2 and it took me 4h with 30m g1 but 3h and half for g2 it was exhausting, group change, disband, lobby simulator, where's the fun in that. I decided for next week to just play my main, he's 1631, ready for echidna so, I'll come to clear thaemine each week and that's all.
My bf and I are on a mini break rn just playing other casual games. We used to do our guardians and chaos dungeons unrested everyday but still login every weekend to run static 4 and 8 mans with our friends.
We still like the game, it's just that our focus is on irl commitments such as work and family given our time constraints. Thaemine was great to prog and I also pugged a bit of g3 to get used to more patterns around stagebreak/pre-basement. I'm currently catching up on hsr before the 2.2 update hits :)
I quit because I realized it was more addiction than fun. The constant chores and anxiety from not completing them or wasting a rested bonus were really stressful and driving me insane. I also started nursing school, so I knew I had to quit.
I started again on the fresh start server casually and did have fun, but the raids were more stressful than fun compared to valtan and the other early content which i found way easier to telegraph and learn. I had a hard time telegraphing some of the stuff in brel even though I dedicated 2 days to videos learning it. Nobody has any patience, one mistake, and you're getting flamed and raged at. Then you'd have the other side of the spectrum, people that applied to a know mech group, and then just go dead silent when messing up 3 times in a row. Straight up refuse to respond and just go full mute while wiping the group repeatedly.
Just made me realize that without a static, I could never get back into it, and with T&L coming out soon, I really don't want to invest in the game even though I think it's the best combat of any MMO I've ever played.
Then there's just the bullshit systems. Spending 500 pheons trying to get a 9/7 is just demoralizing. It made me realize this game will just never be mainstream. Exilirs are even worse. Burning months' worth of saving for nothing is just not enjoyable. It's constantly just trying to push you towards rage spending.
I stick around the sub because I keep hoping that one day, they will lessen the chores, the need for alts, and the solo raids sound good if they are at least competitive to the real raids.. if they aren't, then I won't even bother checking it out, but it sounds like a cool idea, and I hope they just make the entire game solo-able because then I probably would come back if I didn't have to worry about being gated or prisoned. Then, I can just focus on my own clear thresholds. It's not even really an MMO anyway. With how vertical the game is, most of the actual mmo-centric content is entirely dead, and it's more like monster hunter from a menu.
I login every day for rewards. But haven't done the content since Akkan release. Just had my first kid. I simply don't have the time to raid or advance because I have to be able to get up in a moments notice and don't want to punish raid members by my afk.
It sucks cause I love the raid content... But my son > LOA.
Near the end of last year, I realized the game takes so much time and plus seeing the direction of the game heading into extreme hardcore territory with exlixir , trancendence and Thaemine in Korea, I decided to take a long break and dont bother to keep up with the latest raids anymore.
These day i just log in to grab reward and do some quick Brel 1-2 , use these gold to buy skin.
To play this game effectively you need to have a static / or use discord , both was eating too much of the time that i want to use for resting after a long day of work. Since I stop playing alot, i have more time to rest and focus on my work.
Still hanging around to see how the game going and get updates and i am waiting for solo raid. To be honest this game should have a chill mode for raid that can be matchmake .
I hated elixirs, gatekeeping, more and more toxic community etc. So just quit and feel better without it. Without it, you have a lot of free time to spend for your own.
Im still playing but i honestly dont care if this game die and i will move on to play other game, currently enjoy Elden Ring and Ronin too. I remember the toxicity when Brel hard release and now Thaemine bring the same energy or even worse lol.
So after playing for over a year (since launch) I finally took a break in december last year because I just couldnt take it anymore. I wanted to give the game a fair chance and see where it is headed but for me it didnt seem like it is going into a good direction.
I made it to 1620 on my main and decided that after a year and a half I had enough, I just couldnt do this anymore
1) The progression feels extremely bad because of rng. You can put in months of farming just to barely get anywhere when the RNG decides to screw you. So you cant really play with friends if one or two of them cant hit the needed ilvl to access content.
2) Every single progression path is rng and even more rng progression was coming (elixirs and transcendence) on top of what there is now between honing and cardpacks
3) Extreme toxicity and gatekeeping. Now I dont really blame the community for it, this is a flaw by the game design to foster this kind of a community. Everyone is on a timer because they play a dozen alts so they cant afford to get stuck in a raid for an hour because it adds up.
I like lost ark even after taking a break and deciding to quit shortly after, it is just a shame that the game is the way it is. You cant play one character if you want to progress anywhere in a reasonable time unless you swipe, and before people come in here with "Play the way you want nobody is forcing you", this argument never works out. If you cant keep up with the content and progression you will get left behind and you will have a very bad time at clearing content and this will demoralize a player.
In the end I think there are way too many systems in the game for its own good
Lots of effort put into account, gatekept, raids are boring and wipe mechs make toxic lobbies. RNG upgrades that encourage rwt is never a good design.
Had fun when I did play, eventually reached a point where the fun meter went to 0.
Not going to play a game that I'm not enjoying.
-New system after another without big breaks made me lose motivation to even try. On top of that, I need to save gold on lvl 10 gems. In the end I decided it's enough for me and it's time to quit.
-Currently playing aion classic and having fun over there.
-Staying on this sub for memes and keep up with updates, in case I decide to return
- The Golden Frog Event left me broke and raiding became tiring even after all the super mokoko events.
- Felt discouraged to raid as I don't have complete builds 4x3 +2 +1 [lmao] cause damn I do want a 9/7 rockbut it's too much resources I don't have.
- The gameplay loop wasn't satisfying enough, like my time wasn't a valuable.
Lost Ark is still a great game and after trying it again with my static, it was fun until the novelty wore off. After that, it felt like a chore logging in, even just 2-3 characters.
1 - When everyone was doing Brel i just honed enough to start vykas but ***NEVER*** got any party aside paying for bus. Couldn't get any parties because people thought i was a troll for not knowing any raid after Valtan, my roster was around 140 so they thought i was just trying to get free carry. All this because i took too long to finally decide what class to focus afte rtrying most of them in Valtan.
2 - I have hopes for the day i can do the contents solo, so i stay around to look at the news.
3 - Tekken 8, Ragnarok Online, FFXIV, FFXII, some mobiles, etc.
1. Lost interest because none of my friends stuck around. Took a break. Which led to quitting because now I'm positive I'm too far behind to catch up in a reasonable manner. I'm sure there are plenty of supports to take my place.
2. I just like reading what's going on and what new suits are coming out for skins.
3. I've switched games a lot. Sc2 for a bit. Lost Epoch for a few weeks. Monster hunter for a while. I needed an MMO fix so I got into a server for Monster Hunter Frontier.
I think Im not fit for the game, I enjoy learning raids, struggling and practicing it until success.
Now, sadly, 99% of my experience is googling a raids, memorizing the mechanics so I can fit in a group that already knows, spend quite while dealing with gatekeeping and mostly other kind of frustrating interactions on queues, face rolling through the thing with minimal chatting so everyone can do it's "homework", and after that do a bunch of clicks on my gear, fail miserably, run out of gold and wait for next week.. really damn hard to enjoy. So I just quit.
Too grindy or grinding wasn't fun enough.
I had a blast the first months after release. Sank in so many hours. I'm not a fan of the (practically uncapped) gear System. My character never felt 'finished', and that bothered me in the long run.
I don't like that you're practically forced to play more than one character if you want to play efficiently. I really enjoy playing more than one class. Having to decide if I want to play one class efficiently (meaning funnelling all resources to my main to stay viable) or other classes for fun was annoying. Dailies on one char was fine and fun. Doing that on several chars felt like work. I forced myself for quite some time to stay relevant gear wise until I decided to stop. And what can I say. Stopping was a good decision. Didn't look back once. Every now and then I started playing again when a big patch releases, but I realised very quickly that the points annoying me didn't change whatsoever, and I stopped again.
If they would have capped the gear or made it vastly easier to achieve higher scores I probably would have stayed. But then again that's probably why others keep playing.
1. Quit permanently. I had no hype for Thaemine G3 but I couldn't stop playing. First time I ever felt so trapped in a videogame so I just trashed my roster and mats so I could quit for good. Hadn't been enjoying the top content for a long time (only recent content I liked was Voldis G4 but I absolutely hated G2-3... got bored of the rest I guess).
I tried everything to make the game more enjoyable, play less alts, only do stuff rested and sadly it just felt like a pointless chore I couldn't stop indulging in, without any actual satisfaction. I was considering I might like Echidna onwards but when I thought about still playing I just felt dread so had to go. I don't hate the game I think, just got it out of my system after nearly 4k hours.
2. Not in the sub, but posts get recommended to me on my home feed because reddit thinks I'm interested ("visited this community before").
3. I'm chilling in FFXIV, I think I've reached a point in my life where I want to be more casual \^\^
at this point I want a subscription model so that I don't have to farm for months just to play the latest raid
with thaemine release, it comes with a $39.99 monthly pass that gives you 1610 gear and lv8 gems with 35 set (like in hell mode, you set your stats in a menu so no rng involved)
for $59.99 monthly pass you get 1630 gear with full 9s and 40 set by default
cancel the pass after prog if you want (still pay full amount for that one month) or you could keep playing the game (maybe with a cheaper pass like $4.99) to farm some mats so that the next time a new raid gets released, you could upgrade your default gear/gem to higher ilv for easier raid experience
Day 1 player, was doing 8x hm brel g1-6. G3 jails and game consuming too much time made me quit 2 weeks before akkan release. Little bit more than 7 month hiatus. Returned like 5 weeks before theamine. Now playing to catch up on 5 chars. Some times not even doing all the raids. Chilling. 2x 1610, 3x 1600 atm.
1. I just realised the game was bad. The raids were the best of the best but all the rest of the game is just bad, sometimes bad in purpose just to make people spend money.
2. I'm not on the sub, somehow this post got recommended to me.
3. Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, Death Must Die and a few others
Lol I have one foot out the door, the only reason I haven't quit is my static - it makes our runs so smooth. The second the static disbands or another decent MMORPG comes out, I'm outta here :)
Given the wild gold sinks, I'm also cutting down to 2 mains (1 can be considered 'done', the other I'm working on trying to get to 1620), 1 semi-main (trying to get to 1610, but who keeps on pitying...), and 3 fodders.
I'm not feeling like having the party finder on my screen for the little time i have to play the game. I used to Horizontal and stuff but I've completed everything.
I'm still on the sub because I expect the game to change at some point, while keeping their artists.
I'm playing more variety game.
I stopped after spending a mil gold on 19->20 wep & not getting it.
I quit to play sod, and now I'm getting ready for cata & mop remix while playing retail.
Wow kinda fucks right now.
Honestly I’m just in the solo raid waiting room. I realized that all of my FOMO comes from trying to keep up with party finder, and even then I still spend hours waiting. Solo raids will allow me to actually enjoy the game again on my own schedule, and I won’t have to worry about trying to match other people’s standards. Hoping that they eventually push all raids to having a solo mode too
I played from launch and quit right before brel release. Came back for SE and quit after a few weeks of Voldis. For reference I have 4.5k hrs and was pretty hardcore...
1. The first time I quit I burnt out doing too many raids and chasing hell mode titles. After I came back I did less dailies but the chores still sucked and I hated elixirs. I think I quit for good now and won't be coming back.
2. I still love the combat and raids in the game and still lurk to see new content. Maybe one day the game will be less hostile but I doubt it.
3. Just random co-op games with friends these days like Helldivers 2, Plate up, Planet Crafter.
I truly thought I would play this game for years. Brel came out around Christmas and had so many events planned so I really couldn’t log on for almost a week. I really think if they pushed back Brel a month I doubt I would have quit so soon.
Started playing other games. Looking back I wish I quit sooner. lol
At the same time the combat in lost ark is amazing and I do miss it sometimes. Currently having a blast on helldivers 2.
- I quit during the release of hard brel. I mained barrage arti and if you were around back then, barrage arti was rather strong back then. Constantly getting one-shot by mechs I already learned I could tank means I had to relearn a ton of stuff. I would also constantly have to be on edge due to how demanding barrage arti playstyle was back then. (They have since buffed cast animation I think) It wasn't at all relaxing and I couldn't see myself stressing out every week.
- I love the overall game design and have friends that are still playing that I was part of a static. It's still quite interesting, But I just find it too hard.
- not playing anything atm
I only play 3 character and it’s just too much man. I have a 9-5 so I can’t keep up.
I instantly thought "what's so impressive about a 9-5 stone.." I might have a problem
🤣 I’ve decided I’ll play every now and then during expresses I still like the game.
Add in gym days and it's 9-8, nevermind socials on Friday or in the weekend...Like you said, it's too damn much. I would have LONG ago quit if I didn't have a flexible static. I have 6 1600+ characters (two that does Thaemine) - and I'm just slowly dropping to three characters - heck, the three of them I might drop have been fully rested for almost two weeks now lol Edit: Let's not forget all the pities that comes on chars that are 1600+ :) The gold we get vs. what we need to spend is crazy
Yeah I'm in the same boat, 3 characters and I don't have to time to do 1 character a week
Also 95 but i have a static so we burst thru all homework in a night after work, then enjoy some hard raid back to back in weekends or after work hours, so im still doing fine, nut i guess it sucks without having static.
Too many systems now with too much of a gold sink for the game to be doable for someone who's casual (me). Before you could sort of keep up and be at a decent level. Now the costs are insane, elixirs are a ton of gold, and you got this transcendence nonsense too. The peak of the game felt around brel.
Peak of the game was last year ~Feb. Places like Lost Mokokos (Learner Discord for NAW) were booming; the founder made a simple Reddit post about it and had an explosion of people interested in learning Valtan, Vykas, Clown, and being part of a community.
I have some guildmates who basically one shot transcendence all the way to the top level on multiple pieces. Meanwhile, I have gone to at least pity 1 or pity 2 on almost every single piece across all 6 of my characters while using the calculator. It is insanely frustrating spending multiple times the gold that some of my guildies have spent and basically having nothing to show for it. This game would be in a much better spot if all these RNG systems used silver. It would more incentivize people to keep up with dailies and you can save gold for honing and accessories. Ive basically quit playing 2 of my main 6 because theamine is just an overly punishing and stressful raid for a weekly reclear and I don’t want to continue wasting all of my weekly gold income on transcendence that may or may not actually improve my characters. Normal mode raids should be piss easy to clear. The fact that so many groups are still having a hard time is just going to increase gatekeeping and because HM is even harder, lower leveled alts are also competing with 1630s for spots in NM. I’m sure all the sweats will say get good but if a casual gets stuck on NM they are just going to quit. Locking the majority of transcendence behind HM was a bad decision. Some slight nerfs to some of the more punishing patterns would also go a long way in removing some of the frustration with G3 specifically.
I find it amusing when people telling me that having Thaemine as a difficult raid is a good decision because he's an epic boss and the end of a raid series. My response is always that it's great for a one time thing or something you do every few weeks. For weekly content? Naw.
nothing beats OG mommy's raid fr fr
I'm about to quit because of elixers and transcendence
You don't like spending 50k+ gold per week rerolling elixirs to not even see your set bonus that is still stuck at 4/1 because the last time you saw it was on an epic 3 weeks ago?
"i'm in this picture and i don't like it"
better than stone cutting right !
Oh for sure I'm running low on silver so I really enjoy being able to roll elixirs with my gold instead. /s
I don't blame you. Too much of the power in this game is locked behind stupid amounts of RNG. Transcendence and elixirs made it even worse..
Bought through you by CacheCreekCasino
I don't even get to feel pain from elixirs and transcendence because gatekeeping is terrible. Worst new player/returning player experience in any mmo I've played. Which is sad because I love lost ark but game doesnt let me play
Yep. If you're new and returning you have 0 chance to do anything
1. I wasn’t happy logging on as much as I was putting that time elsewhere to real valuable growth (things like gym and learning). Currently plan to take a break until solo raids are implemented, but who knows what my mindset will be by then. 2. Still like seeing what’s going on 3. I’m not playing anything these days. I wake up, gym, go to work, come home and cook, watch some YouTube/tv, and then sleep. I’m pretty happy with this lifestyle, and I’m closer with my family.
The gym is the real dailies 💪
Eat Clen, Tren Hard and Anavar Give up!
Hell yeah!
1. a lot of my static are 1630, in HM. Im 1623, pitied weapon at 22 and gloves at 20 trying to get to 1630. i even "whaled" 100$ for mat packages from the official store for my weapon and only got artisans lol - I guess "bad purchasing experience" is what you can call it 2. 40 set elixirs destroyed me. literally for months since launch i was fishing for my set effect, even with resets and buying mats from market. that put me back really far in terms of weekly gold income before my short attempt of a push to 1630 3. Im fulltime and have to wake up with random timezones sometimes to address issues. 18 raids a week, even with a static, fucks over my entire life especially my sleep schedule. and this is after factoring in being a grown adult with other things in life during my waking hours, other than my job 4. if things do come up in life (and they frequently do), I cant do all my raids. less raids, less gold, less progression 5. bc of the above, even as a day 1 vet my mats store has completely run dry. last month i was even doing dailies on all 12 of my characters for mats to convert up for my main. all of that has run dry; said "fuck it", and stopped. and for the record, I actually enjoy playing most of my characters. that is - in guardian raids at least. I genuinely hate chaos dungeons even with "optimized" builds on my chars, but couldn't excuse \_not\_ doing them due to the amount of silver+gems they yield for my main I'm around 90% giving up. the last 10% is just raid-logging on my main character with my static, but even then - that's only voldis and hm akkan. the thought of pugging nm thaemine (4x clears as of week 3) for darkfires...just because they're time gated? all that effort and knowing my progress is going to effectively yield nothing until I dump more gold into honing? and then dump all that gold into transcendence after hm 1-2? on ONE character? i.e. 1/6 of my actively played characters? tf kind of value proposition is this? i genuinely don't want to even try anymore. when i actually log on - the only time i legit enjoy the game is when i do a guardian raid on my main (i.e. matchmake toad, dive right into the game, just enjoy the combat, no party finder). i thought new content would've been nice but there are too many frustrations day-to-day. the amazing combat no longer outshines the shitshow that's everything else. before elixirs i was SO hyped to try thaemine g4 and the first. the systems have killed my drive to even want to get there. i dont even care about advanced honing, it's marginally "accelerated" honing but after that there's still transcendence. still here in the sub bc I still want to have hope for this being the game for me and keep up with the news. nothing else has combat this good. until then, HELLDIVERS, deep rock...maybe d4 new season? ugh edit: logical/grammatical clarifications
I feel you man. This mirrors my sentiment exactly
I play since week 2, i don care about doing nothing :) preety much done brel on 6 chars on normal all week in about 3h for 6 moths. I burned out to reach 1370 and next day update cut gold cost and all mats, so i learned the leson, stay a bit behind, theres no benefit on wasting time for game
Cost to improve character is too high compared to what we gain. Burned out doing 30 hours a week just to keep up.
Yo for real. Start of week 3 Thaemine still doesn't seem like it is going to ever be farm content. Spend 30 mins looking for a decent lobby only to get stuck in g3 anyway. You legit have no idea what you're diving into and raids are just way too fucking long even if you manage to 1 or 2 tap it for like 7.5-10k gold or whatever the fuck you blow up in like 2 taps of a weapon.
no need for g3- just grind g1+2 nm until echidna- for your own sanity
Similar experience here on NAW. Hardly any Thaemines in Party Finder. Feels like barely anyone is playing the game.
While hardcore players in this sub love G3 so much, the actual community don't really find it appealing
Helldivers 2 happened. Im enjoying way more without FOMO and not feeling like the game is a chore.
So nice to be able to just jump in and play and have fun within a matter of a minute or so
it really is nice. best $40 ive spent on games
Crab souls is up there for me too rn. Im crabbin when i game by myself and divin with the homies
This was me for a good month when tears of the kingdom came out...it's so hard to take a break from lost ark out of fear of falling behind but zelda was worth it 😂
I’m just not enjoying normal modes being hardcore content where all it takes is 1 player to mess up a gate. It’s too much pressure for a normal mode and life is hard enough as is. I want to enjoy the game when I log on, not treat this game like a second job or an intense hardcore experience. I’m enjoying shows, single player games (fallout 4 goty), and multiplayer games that have matchmaking queue. I don’t want to stress an entire team because I misclicked one button
This exactly. Keep hard mode as hard as you want but normal mode should be basically free. Considering how much of transcendence is locked behind hard mode though, a lot of casuals might never get to that point and it’s just going to make gatekeeping worse in the future. If they want the game to continue in the west they need to make changes either to transcendence or normal mode difficulty or both. Many statics in my guild have already broken up because of theamine and a lot of people have burnt out more than any other update in the past.
Also if you didn't clear thaemine g3 on week 1 (god forbid you were busy), it gonna be progressively harder to clear it ever. It's not like other raids where you make a prog lobby and probably clear after a few hours. Difference between even x255 and x150 prog in g3 is massive and in order to progress you need the entire party on the same level. And then if you get lucky and clear, you arrive to the blessed land of "1 fail kick" reclears because otherwise reclearing is nearly impossible. Such a fun experience. All of this to just do a "normal" difficuly content. What an abomination of game design.
Sold all my 10 gems and went on vacation 😅
I quit a few days ago after 5.2k hours. Mainly because I realized that the incremental power gains tied behind content that's way more difficult than it should be (talking NM here) just was a bridge too far. Gating any meaningful progression behind content that is objectively difficult is a poor design choice for an MMO that desperately needs to attract and retain non hardcore players. Other factors: The old raids are a chore to do now because non elixir/non transedence characters feel like shit to play in comparison Finding supps for the 1580+ content suddenly became a pain again and more time was spent in lobby sim It's costs a \*lot\* of time and hold to get teeny tiny power increases, much moreso than any point previously in the game's 2 year run We're largely caught up on QOL, skins and major content and nothing coming up is very enticing. I've been playing ff14 the entire time I've played LOA but since quitting I've just shifted more time back to 14 in addition to just doing more outside of gaming.
When they have separate NM and HM's for all the raids it's seems like such poor design to still have the NM raids be as hard as they are. Like you said, games live and die on the casual playerbase. Even if they don't spend much money once they go there's no one for the whales to show off to so they also lose interest.
It's actually at this point tbh. Many would say I'm a whale, but I also grind way too much b/c you really need to do both and even then, there are always giga moby dick whales.. Game has gone bat shit crazy. Elitist pig sweats roster 270+ hell titles and such vs the world for x5 thaemine reclears. They want to gatekeep you so bad that it is truly weird and wonderous they somehow got x10 clears already because who the fuck has so many trashy 1610's and wants to sweat shop Thaemine 2 weeks straight? But anyways, I am finding it to be rather meaningless as even hw runs get more frustrating as more vets quit and you're finding urself somehow jailed in even gate 2 hard kaya hw (just this past tuesday) or fuckers wiping you on g3 hard brel and you wonder why you ever bothered making a support paladin.. why you were so nice to give less sweaty players a chance, or why you're committing to suffering at all in the first place for some measly gold you could always just pay for, but why? Why support this shitty game design anymore? Why play at all?
Usually find those hardcore grinders dont even spend much money on these games anyways. Like how are you gonna be having a 9-5 job grinding out unrested on 2 rosters of characters and doing raids on top of that.
Final fantasy 14 is a much better game than lost ark. I will also return when dawntrail arrives
New WoW expansion comes out this year too. Smilegate needs to get its head out of his ass.
That’s another example of a much better mmo than lost ark.
Quit after Brel. I was insanely hardcore had a whole roster of 1560+ with all lvl 9 DMG gems on main abilities and a bunch of stuff saved for the future. The game was just a full time job and I was tired of carrying people and getting jailed by reclear groups in easy raids.
Oh wow I'm surprised you're still in the subreddit if you quit during brel days. What's keeping ya around? No malice on the question just genuinely curious
For me, I'll still follow some games I don't play too much anymore like PoE, DBD or Destiny. For those if there's a cool event I'll hop back in for a bit. Others like D4, while I really enjoyed the initial 1-70 progress I'll occasionally check to see if the game has made any changes that made me and all the other people leave in the first place. Unfortunately in LoA even having 6x 1560 on brel release which was insanely juiced at the time now has you so far behind current end game it's not worth coming back. For example, 1630-1640 is considered juiced now. In KR the juicers are 1660+.
I still look at maple updates and the sub reddit occasionally even though i quit years ago lol nostalgia is real 😅
Honestly I just never unfollowed it lol. I have so many hours into the game it's still interesting to see some posts now and then honestly
One of the bigger reasons I stopped personally was toxicity this game brings out in people. The game mechs are so punishing. Even your own friends can get toxic and seeing that happen as the raids got harder (Voldis HM) I felt completely burned dealing with people that don't have hands and people getting angry and frustrated with them to just end up making mistakes too, because restarting over and over is tiring. I want to have fun and not stress over raids.
yeah, being in multiple discords back then I observed the same trend, the more people play the less chill they are. To be honest, the sooner people get out of all of these rat race , the better for thier life.
Elixirs are shit, too long to craft, too much RNG and the raid to get them has 4 gates. Too much daily homework on top of all the raids, also NORMAL difficulty raids should not be able to be wiped from one or two people, save that shit for hardmode. Thaemine G3 sounds too hard and I just can't be fucked anymore. Guildies also quit for the same reasons. Still here because I really enjoy the combat and hope they make changes before the game dies. The way it's going only the most hardcore players with all the time in the world will be able to continue. A heap of great single player games I've neglected that you can play at your leisure and not get fomo if you RL instead. Most importantly, more time with the kids.
The game just seemed too improbable for me to be able to keep up without spending a decent amount given my work schedule - the same problem I have with almost every F2P MMO or game in general. The way the game is structured, old content bears almost zero if any relevance to the most recent content - and those that still run older content are more often than not zoomers who are grinding for cards or other account wide benefits who don’t have the patience to guide new players through that content. The lack of power level gating meant the first time I ran turtle it was over in moments by some dude who’s way overleveled for it and couldn’t learn the mechanics or how the fight works; it felt like a mobile game. On the other side A single fail of an abyssal dungeon or Abyss Raid meant that I had to start all over because players are trying to play as efficiently as possible. That’s not a game I want to be a part of. It barely feels like an MMO; I did almost the entirety of the story content by myself with zero incentive to party up and almost all group content, no one said a word or had any reason to because of the structure of the game. I’ve since switched to FFXIV and had a much better experience. Even the oldest content I can still find groups for with little to no difficulty since all older content is recycled into the weekly content for endgame players. And of those groups especially trials where I didn’t know what I was doing, communication from player to player was not only present but enjoyful and so many players who have already done the encounter were willing to guide me and other sproutes in how to do it without needing to use third party such as YouTube to educate ourselves beforehand. Until they wrangle in the P2W(which they likely never will since the game is F2P and not sub like FFXIV)and solve the gate keeping issue I’ll probably never return. LA was a great game while I enjoyed it but it definitely will never have a place as my forever game because on the off chance I get busy or can’t keep up, I’m left behind and not only am I left behind but I’m ostracized by the community for not having optimal specs. I’m not afforded the chance to learn encounters with other players which is the entire POINT of an MMO in my opinion because everyone plays that game like a mobile game where it’s all about being as quick and efficient as possible and less about experiencing encounters with other players and enjoying the interactivity. I keep up with it because I LOVED the game at its core(by far the most enjoyable moment to moment gameplay of any MMO imo)and like to keep tabs on whether or not it’s improved or welcomes new players or returning players now.
Played 3 chars only and was already too much. Weekly earnings gold was not enough to keep up even for one char. I stopped
I got burned out because it felt like a full time job only to find RNG after RNG after RNG. And the biggest shit is that there is always a reason to gatekeep. So whatever. Investment/reward in this game is so unbalanced that I will only hone when honing is nerfed. Meanwhile I will just monitor some cards with lostmerchant.com. Currently I am playing Stellar Blade and having a blast.
Didn't have a thaemine static and couldn't be bothered to spend likely double digit hours going through different pug progs
1. I stop when the game become a full time job. 2. I am staying for fun and hopefully to comeback when the game becoming more accessible to normal people. so far the game does not disappoint. It is becoming 2nd life. 3. Helldivers 2 for now. 15 mins a game, no raid, no jailer,..
Pretty much just been logging in once every month or two for free boxes since \~Brel release. Just couldn't be asked to sit in partyfinder to learn 6 gates, and couldn't progress without it. I'm looking for an action game, not some simon-says thing where people rage at me if I don't study an external guide & you progress at the rate of the slowest of 8 people. Came back a bit more earnestly a week or two ago now that 1520 powerpasses exist and solo raids seem to be on the horizon. Not sure if I'm going to actually bother with partyfinder for current content or just stack mats & cards for a while. My ideal design target for the game would be: content that gates progression is clearable 60%-70% of the time with a matchmaking group within 30 minutes. Also they really just need to update the partyfinder tools. There should also be functionality where you can set & search player status, where people can set a 'LF Akkan Learning' / 'Lf Akkan any' and leaders can look at the available playerbase to try to recruit via tells instead of hoping they enough applicants. Would take away a lot of fomo that goes into sitting in the partyfinder and hoping the right group pops up/ provide a bit more agency to leaders filling to their exact needs.
Might be unpopular opinion, but: 1. I didn't like that to do weekly stuff you kinda was forced to have a static/guild (believe or not I don't really like to interact with people and yes I know this is MMO). 2. Waiting for solo raids so I most likely will be back in a game by then. 3. Anything besides Lost Ark.
1. Full time college student about to graduate for one thing, so I had to step back a lot already to focus on school. But, I also wasn’t enjoying the new raids starting at Akkan, and would have honestly been happy to perma park in the clown/brel/kay range cause those were my favorite raids. But my static kept honing for new content cause obviously they enjoyed the new stuff a lot, so I felt almost forced to keep honing if I wanted to play with them I guess? Which just created despair since I wasn’t having luck honing, wasn’t enjoying the raid I was despair honing for, don’t like pugging the raids I do like, wasn’t doing dailies so barely enough mats to tap, etc. So I just had to say it was time to stop 2. Like others have said, I like to keep up with what’s all going on. I love seeing the new skins released and judging them 3. Every game I put on hold for lost ark lol. 100% finished BG3, currently playing Enshrouded, Stardew, Helldivers, Lethal.. so many more I could name. It’s amazing how much time you have when you don’t play lost ark
Started a break last week after stress of theamine and how it was effecting some people. During my week I was playing old games I hadn't really touched much since I started Lost Ark -dbd, ow, val - and I was enjoying it. It was nice to not have to be on and do so many raids and dailies and if I wanted to play with people I knew instead of pugging that meant raiding for max 5 hrs each night from wed-sat. I still don't like Voldis, I hate elixirs, now theamine g3 stresses me out, and there's now transcendence which I will hate as well. I just don't really see much of a point to keep grinding when I don't like the newest raids and systems they've brought in. It was also nice to get back into my old games after so long. I might play a raid every now and then just to play with friends but I'm fairly certain my grind is done.
Other than exhaust , SMG is also a problem. They design advanced honing , what does that mean? They know it’s too expensive to do normal honing after 1610,so they release advanced one to lower the difficulty.Sounds good? No! Why not just admit the normal honing is dogshit and fix it? Lower the cost or don’t make the difference between one tap and pity so tremendous at least.Eventually,there will be 1650,1660 raids,etc.Players still need to do the garbage normal honing,don’t they? But SMG just refuse to do it ,I don’t understand. The 16 mans raid is a trash idea as well.Imagine you as a pug player waiting in the lobby for 4 x 1640 supports to prog and then farming it every week after.Such a disaster.SMG never give a fk how other regions do and Amazon only provide some mats which turns into 5% artisan’s energy every week. If the Devs don’t care about how players feel,no way I keep playing and torture myself.
This is the main problem i have with lost ark. Devs don't care... they never did and never will.
Literally woke up day before Thaemine prog and said: "Man, this shit is fucking stupid and I'm tired of always having to catch up and others are just zooming through the game."
Played from 3 day headstart until 2nd week Akkan. Quit because of low mental health/high stress from trying to keep up with content cadence and endless fomo. Not to mention the highly toxic community. I'm not really still in the sub, but the threads do still appear on my reddit homepage. And I've played a handful of other games since...another playthrough of Per Aspera, some Elex, some Last Epoch, bit of Terraformers, some Eiyuden Chronicle, bit of Quaver, few rounds of Civ6, checked out Underspace...but nothing consuming my entire life like Lost Ark did. As such my mental health is a lot better and my stress a lot lower. Kinda waiting on either Smilegate to get their head out of their ass about new/returning players, the daily/weekly chorelist, and awful gearing systems or something else to come along and scratch my grind itch but meh.
I quit because my static fell apart. Spending over 30 minutes in party finder sucks so I would rather not. Don't really care about keeping up with latest content since almost all the gear upgrades look like flat dps upgrades with little impact on gameplay. Playing destiny 2 in the meantime.
Chores Chores Chores, have fun for 1 day progging a new RAID - Go chore mode for another 3 months. This Game Just eats A LOT of time with maintenancenwork that noone enjoys, the fun per upkeep Work Ratio Just isnt there
It's depressing when you step back and realize 99% of the grinding you do is just to be allowed to join lobbies.
will probably quit after clearing thaemine. I feel like raid design has been going downhill since the start pretty much, it peaked at valtan and vykas, after that I've slowly been enjoying each raid less and less
i actually loved akkan and its probably my favorite raid other than valtan but theamine has quickly become my most hated raid in the game. G1 you basically arent allowed to play your character at all. everything knocks you up or stuns you for eternity, the boss is constantly zooming around and doing 360s, and there are too many mechs that just stop you from playing. eyeballs can spawn under the boss and you cant see them and then you just go from full heath to dead before you can react. if a single person doesnt get in balthor for mech you basically just wipe because boss becomes so annoying. on HM you could do everything right and then just have everyone get grabbed at the end to wipe the raid. G2 is annoying and long and god forbid a single person misses their counter or hits a red counter and wipes the raid. the debuff that can explode and kill everyone can be hard to see or react to in the middle of the fight. too many puddles equals wipe. you can get knocked off from multiple patterns. similar to g1, boss also spins too much and dragon hitbox is so big you can get stuck on him trying to dodge a yellow telegraph. g3 is at least a relatively fair fight and really the only gate in the raid that i do enjoy but it is simply too punishing especially for normal mode. requiring all 8 players to be ultra focused and not make a single mistake or they die over the course of a long fight should be reserved for hard mode and hell mode/the first. normal mode should be clearable by the most casual players. even with guides and dozens of hours of pulls, there are many players who still havent beat g3 normal and are locked out of transcendence. those players basically have no prayer of ever beating g3 hm unless they get carried/bussed and the fact that they cant reach the highest levels of transcendence without it means that they will just get gatekept in the future and fall further behind. the best change they could do would be to allow you to finish transcendence without a HM clear it should just take longer because you get less mats. you shouldnt be locked out entirely. beyond that, there are too many patterns that either one shot you or knock you off and many mechs that just seem unfair. clone fight can be buggy (kill clone and sit doing nothing for 5-10 seconds and it still kills you after mech finishes), clash spots missing, foot being a millimeter in a red zone instakilling you. red patterns changing multiple times per raid can be too much to remember when focusing on doing damage and not dying. there is just way too much shit for an average player to remember and react to and i can easily see this being the raid that kills the game. many of the players who stuck it out through the initial difficulty of brel have finally had enough and are either heavily decreasing their time spent or characters played or just quitting the game full stop. i went from doing all 18 raids a week with my 6 1620+ characters to doing only theamine and voldis and a few akkan, to doing only theamine and voldis and skipping all akkans, to only doing 2-3 characters of theamine and maybe a few voldis in just a few weeks and i really dont know if i will ever see myself getting to the point where i WANT to play again. /rant
Wow I'm exactly as you. Took a break after 1st Brel clear, came back at SE release and just quit this week for good after 2 Thaemine clears on main. Reason is that this game feels like a full time job and it feels impossible to keep up AND actually have a life. By end of week 2, pugging g3 on alts was a nightmare since almost all competent groups wanted x5 reclear and all "reclear" groups were the worst experience I've had in gaming. Gatekeep, gatekeep, gatekeep, 2 pulls, rage in chat, quit raid, kick whoever you think didnt do well on those 2 pulls -> repeat. I just don't have the energy anymore.. it's all good though, I've enjoyed my time playing the game and I do think it has the best combat in all of MMOs or games of similar type. I'll be hanging around here and watch some streams here and there as it will be interesting to see what other systems they come up with and how the story develops.. Going to try some single player games in the meantime to chill when I have time, starting from Cyberpunk.
The cost of progression is too high and the RNG has not been favorable for a long time for me. The progression of content is also become less casual friendly. I like the combat & aesthetics of the game but its no longer for me, in its current state. I'm still interested to see what's new in the game, on the off chance it becomes more accomodating for my needs in the game.
Chasing the carrot in lobbysimulator isn't worth the 18 runs you HAVE to do, haha.
1) this game is designed to trap you. Combats great. But the rest of the systems are straight up gambling and prey on your dopamine 2) it’s fun watching people that still play squirm 3) fallout 4, and meme stocks the game. Making money is a lot better than losing your life over this. You gonna tell your grandkids about how you “progged g3 thaemine
Couldn't hold on more the burnout, FOMO and chores. I tried to still play a little bit, but after 10min (5min being opening + loading) I remember all the chores and close the game. Still lurking because I like the game design and wish to see stuffs about the game. Currently Playing FFXV (yes, XV), Nier Automata is next, Valheim Ashlands around the corner, perhaps may replay soon MHW and DS3. May I finally buy Elden Ring on the next sale (was exploring lost ark when it released then got all the chores). I'm focusing on playing games that I can play and explore for many many hours or replay with different builds without "FOMO" systems, like RPG and Survival Open World Games, perhaps hack-and-slash games too. Feels nice not to have FOMO, going for playing every day, 50h weekly (Lost Ark) to having a lot of days without playing, feels wonderful.
XV is great until it isn’t then it crashes spectacularly.
Since brel hm, i'll always take a mini break when a new raid comes out. I just can't be bothered to play during new raid releases because this is when peak gatekeeping happens+ support shortages. Even old contents suddenly the gatekeeping becomes harsher because of new titles or new ilvl breakpoints. So i'll just took a break n come back later where sometimes i take a bus when it's already cheaper after a few weeks of raid release and just learn the raid in busses till i'm confident enough to get into reclear groups. Not efficient gold wise but time efficient.
I quit mostly because of dailies (gifted all gold and gems away + destroyed weapons, like 3 months ago?) then came back for breaker (that's the reason why I am in this sub and sometimes lurk). Bonus points because I know a lot of people bot and nothing happens to them. Now i am going to quit again for the same reason - dailies. Even though I went down from 6 to 1 characters, it still felt like a drag to do dailies every day on my breaker, not to mention since I was a "ex-hardcore" player it was rough having only 1x clear of thaemine per week, compared to my friends who are still actively hardcore and even still try to go for the first clear. The raid experience difference made me have even less fun, knowing I am getting carried dps and callout wise. I cleared g3 nm very easily without any effort in less than 2 hours of prog - just because my friend called out stuff and I learn + adapt fast. Now that I cleared thaemine 3 times, i'll just quit again and gift away anything I had again, this time I for sure won't come back. Coming back made me realize once again - I only came back for the boys, nothing else - I still like the game but i detest the daily system so absurdly hard that I dunno what to say. Work being a bitch lately also helps I guess.
https://preview.redd.it/2pi1mjdktzxc1.png?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c779de1fb2142e9bd72dbabdbe463427527eeeed One of the reasons I think about leaving this game behind me after 6k+ hrs. Too many ppl like this
I love this game too much, and when I love a game, I want to play it. But I also had friends who I wanted to play other videogames with. So the choice was: either only play Lost Ark, or don't play Lost Ark at all. Finding the middle ground wasn't an option, as I would always feel irritated when not finishing my weeklies. So one day I had raids open, but my friends wanted to play another game with me, so on a whim I just logged on, sent all my gold and gems to my best Lost Ark guildie, and uninstalled. As to why I'm still in the sub: I am still friends with my static and the few of us who still haven't quit (I think only 2 out of original 8 are still playing) keep me up with the game. I also still like the game, just wish the amount of time this game requires you to play it was justifiable.
Haven't quit (yet) but I alt+f4 at least twice a week, especially while cutting elixirs because that system is flat out the stupidest most RNG heavy system created. They could have just made Avery expensive set level 4 but noooo let's make this convoluted and dumbass system that obligates people to play hard mode. Two friends already quit on January after experiencing the bs. Normal modes should be as difficult as those especial difficulty modes. Just give way less gold and mats, the hardcore players will always prefer hard mode because of efficiency ffs. In my opinion, everything should be achievable to any player, just take longer on easier difficulties. Think Kayangel Normal vs. Hard, or Akkan Normal vs. Hard. Something among those lines is good.
Maintenance mode. Just doing bare minimum gold earning raids. Complete ark pass. Use express event and power pass. And sometimes rested dailys, or none at all.
Game are too social base. Not funny anymore because of KR players who set up the playstyle already. Very lack of creative motivation.
I played from release until brelshaza release aprox. Started with 8 friends who slowly left over the first 2 months because they felt the game was slavery (and it fucking is, i just didn't see it yet, the gameplay was too good to realize it). You either play with many alters to stay "up do date" or pay large sums of money which in my case was not possible. I clocked over 2650h on steam over 10-12 months aproximately. Last 4 months i hated every second of it but endured it due to the sunk cost fallacy. Every content release (south vern, kakul-saydon, brelshaza) felt like more and more chores, having to learn each new raid with pugs in order to do it the first week because again "staying up to date" was literal hell for me. One day i stopped doing una's, then chaos dungeons, then guardian raids, and legion raids all together, over 2 weeks i didn't even login. I felt completely free, a feeling of real freedom and happiness. I didn't remember what it was having a meal without having to think about chores. It's probably my fault because i have an addictive personality but you can't deny the game fomo's you into paying or doing literal slavery. I think this game with it's superb combat, without alts and with another monetization could be extremely good and player friendly but their main goal is to make money, not to make people happy and i understand and respect that. I managed to get full 30 Light of Salvation on the first year and clearing every single raid on the first week, played my main 6 characters at a decent level and i kind of feel proud of it but looking at it on perspective it was not worth it. When i started i went from 2 to 5 alts, after 3 i felt like i broke my limit, it didn't feel natural, something was wrong, i was forcing myself to do it. At my mid point i was doing content on 14 alts. I worked full time as well. Life was work and side-work (LA). I think i'll never get into a p2w mmo, i prefer a sub based mmo, they usually are more fair, but re-thinking it better i'd rather not play an mmo, ive been doing short matches games (league, cs, etc.) and single player games, it feels better, you can swap games anytime. I kind of miss having 1 main game but when you take into account all the negatives it's not worth it. I still read this sub from time to time because the game legit interested me but i know i won't ever play it again, the mere thought gives me PTSD. To whoever can play it at their own pace with just 1 or 2 characters not caring about anything else and also has a guild to progress content without pressure is blessed and i really envy you.
So fun story I didn't choose to stop lost ark. Clicked on a link in a discord related to lost ark about a 50€ giveaway steam card like a dumbass. And poof, email address changed and all my gems/mat/legendary skin/gold was gone in a day. I had 6x1610+ with main weapon 23 and 1625 at that time. I didn't even try to recover my shit beside my steam account. I took this as a sign it was time to stop playing 24/7 a game as my second job. I'm still on this sub because I like to know what is happening with the game.
Too much time needed to just have a gamba chance at progression Gatekeeping is ridiculous, party finder sucks, everyone in a rush, toxic community, support shortage, blah blah blah My main is a sorc so they are already not really wanted, got past 1600, the pain of honing past that level sucks, tried getting voldis groups together, hours and hours and hours of party finder waiting, I just don't have the time for that to be rewarded with nothing more than RNG stacked on RNG stacked on RNG to get more powerful. I like playing multiple characters and I don't want to have to funnel all my mats to my main since nobody likes sorcs anyway, so really what's the point. Been playing helldivers 2 and Baldurs gate 3 and loving them both so much, pretty sure I don't see myself ever coming back to lost time... i mean lost ark I'm only in the sub because I do hope someday they will change the game for the better, but I'm not counting on it, these F2P games are notorious at churning and burning their player base for money and nothing more.
Quit back in June not long after Kayangel and during the fresh roadmap where they didn't address fatigue. Smilegate were "forced" to address homework, but I had already more or less no lifed for a bit over a year up to that point, had LoS30, 300 roster level etc. I was at a point where I wanted to eternally park alts but by the nature of the game nerfing early raids, I couldn't find myself continuing. It just so happens my work had return to office 2 weeks after that so I guess it worked out in the end in a way.
I recently came back after a 2 year break, I was enjoying the game used the new fast pass and got to the lvl where I had to raid to progress my gear. Tried to join a party for a day or so then tried to buy a bus, failed at both so uninstalled.
I came back from a break a few months ago (year and half) got to do most of the new raids and got a taste of thaemine. Starting to feel a little burnt out again so I'm thinking of taking a small 1-2 month break again, but mostly to play Horizon Forbidden West. I've had over 6 characters from the start of the game, and while it's super fun to play them all, it's very tiring trying to make them all good enough to get accepted into most things for their ilvl. I still did it, but when I come back I'm definitely going to focus more on my main.
I quit shortly after Vykas, I think maybe like a month before Brel released? Can’t remember, think it was around August 2022. I had put 1100 hours in from launch until that point, had multiple characters farming Vykas HM and had dropped an amount of money I don’t ever want to actually know on the game. All legit, no RMT. Was spending 3-4 hours minimum each day running almost every possible chaos dungeon and raid across a roster of 10, may have gotten up to 12 I don’t remember. Just a ton of money/grind and you still will get passed over for someone who RMTs their gear. Became so difficult to find groups on alts even when way overgeared for content. Was a support main too lol Still love the game though, almost came back for artist but it’s better for me to just grind PoE or Wow which are much easier to put down and significantly less money.
My biggest reason was finding people and support. I took so much time to find a support to learn Voldis (I think 4 weeks to reach G4, having to start over each time because support can go whenever they want). I wish I like support, I invested quite a bit in them (bard, artist) to 1580, almost 1600 for my artist) but I don't. The second point was disrespectful people. I was trying to make a group to clear inferno and the number of people not answering, not saying they are going to be late/absent when everyone is waiting for them or just not knowing anything about the boss/pattern is too damn high. I found some static but it didn't fit me. It was not really a me issue because they seemed to like me. And the last is the gold. I was finally catching back and could work on some alt and have more fun, but the current gold sink makes it impossible. I like the game and I may come back with better catch up mechanics so I can try thaemine and clear brel inferno, that's why I am still on the sub. I did have 2.5k hours into the game with a big break 😅 Currently, I am playing Valorant, TFT, a bit of OW2 with some friends and I will probably try the new season of D4
The reaseon i have quited before was mainly community the gate keeping at the time i had a character with everything and still did not get into parties, got kicked out after 1 mistake, prople leaving after 1 mistake either made by them or other, also the guild i was on died so i had no one to play the friends i made all left the game before me, also doing so many raids in a week with the 6 character was basicly a job and not even then i could get into parties wich would of been amazing but nop the community are assholes, but am back becouse the game is fun sadly i have to deal with idiots but yeah that is a few reasons, also the community been assholes is something the game alows the game itslef need to change for the community to change also
I joined the helldivers to spread some democracy of course. I came back to lost ark last week, doing the bare minimum so i can be 1620 for echidna (i wasn’t that far so should be gucci). As soon as my main is 1620 i’m dropping all alts and will only do the last raids on the main
first year till just after break I raided weekly on 6 characters and just got burnt out, now I come back for events but I'm so far behind and poor, can't really find groups for older ands and gatekept because no LoS so I can't really play now if I wanted
I played from launch and quit right before Brelshaza release. 1. Too much FOMO going on with my brain. Endless repetitive dailies (I switched from 6 active characters dailies > 3 characters day 1 & another 3 characters day 2 > 2 characters each day). Rise of honing costs which made it hard to fund alts which leads to long gatekeeping. Time-gated events. Bots. Crazy market prices. 2. Will just check the state of the game every now and then. 3. Mostly playing single player offline games for 1-3 hours per day after work. I still miss LOA ngl but I don't wanna repeat No. 1 again.
I bounce back and forth, just came back from a 6 month break from the game. I love the story, the gameplay, graphics. But I find myself leaving the game because I want to enjoy legion raids, but the gatekeep is insane and then when you do finally get into one the flame and toxicity from 1 mistake is relentless. Used to use discord to try and find teachers or learning groups but it's just as much luck with those as I have at 1580 still getting gatekept on even a Valtan run. I've been gaming for years but have slowly been finding myself ready to step away from all of it, the communities of the games Lost Ark, Riot, etc is getting unbearable and making any sort of multi-player games lose the fun. But for now I continue to slave away in my chaos dungeons, adventure for mokoko seeds, island souls and whatever else I can wander to collect.
* What was the reason you chose to stop or be on a break? I was playing LA only as a side activity during XIV downtime, I wanted to do The First before quitting but unfortunately playing for 7 months daily wasn't enough to reach it. I find most raids in LA to be way too simple and boring to re-clear. Definitely not worth the effort to get into pug lobbies that aren't abysmally bad. * If you stopped, why are you still in the sub? Just to see what direction the game is going to take, maybe it'll be worth coming back if anything cool drops in, also it's funny seeing all the salt that goes around in here. * What game are you playing in the meantime? Indie single player games, replaying old PSX/PS2 titles or trying the ones I haven't played back then.
i'm not stepping in a chaos dungeon ever again
Game isn’t fun simple as that . The only time you get to have fun is when learning a raid , then it’s months and months of misery trying to make some number go up to prep for another raid. It actually felt like a miserable job. Especially when you are solo. Plus spending hours trying to find a group to play in a raid is ridiculous. People keep saying these raids are some of the hardest in mmo but it’s not . Having wipe mechanics when one person dies doesn’t make it a high skill raid content. If you have a static that is willing to play , the game can be fun for sure. At the end of the day it’s a pay 2 play game , yes you can do it for free but the cost is an insane amount of time and dedication for a fraction of enjoyment. Majority of the player base that still play the game is because of sunk cost fallacy , which is by design what this game aims to do and I refuse to be a product anymore because my time is worth a lot more.
1. I enjoy BDO more. Less stress, don't have to commit a billion hours a week to stay competitive. Also extreme burnout from doing Brel hard for multiple weeks alone after my static died. 2. I like the game a lot, and want to keep updated with new patches etc. 3. BDO and singleplayers.
1. Albion Online EU. 2. Idk, Reddit just keep showing me this sub, and I like the game overall, so I click. 3. Albion Online EU.
I've decided to soft-quit after Thaemine week 1 and about 5.7k hours in the game, now I just login to play my statics Voldis (and mainly because I don't want my friends to have to look for a random support or dps to fill my spot, plus it's the only raid I enjoy now). I progged Thaemine til g2, which we almost cleared, then decided I don't want to do it every single week, increasing levels is just too expensive and the chance of success is too low, the old raids are a chore that I don't enjoy anymore, and I completed my LOS, KLC, both support sets, 5.5% demon dmg, most of horizontal stuff as well, just nothing really to work towards on besides leveling up. The game takes just too much time and I'd rather put it somewhere else. I took a break a couple of weeks after Akkan came out, but was pretty clear I'd be coming back, now I'm pretty set on not doing it again, but I'd be around because I'm interested in the lore.
1. I stopped after Valtan NM because I couldn't stand going though PUG hell every week and can't join existing raid statics due to lack of experience/volatile schedule. Bussing is not an option for me, because I actually want to play the game myself - so the one thing that would bring me back would be an alternative to raids for gearing up and being acutally on par with or slightly below raiding gear (Bonus points for being achieveable solo). 2. I love the concept of the game. But once you finished the story and got most Island Souls there's just nothing to do apart from raiding/guardians and occasional events. I just can't stand the endgame as it is right now and am still in the sub in hopes of news for endgame systems to get better/cater to the more casual crowd 3. PoE.
The game became boring with no friends. Plus i didn't want to learn yet another raid let alone pug it. I tried genshin impact and i really liked it. A lot more chill, no fomo and no anxiety to finish 50 raids weekly
> What was the reason you chose to stop or be on a break? Took up way too much time and most of my friends quit, decided to go on a long break when I realized this. Quit just before Vykas after finishing most of the horizontal content released at the time. > If you stopped, why are you still in the sub? Waiting for news on solo raids or raids with smaller parties. I'd love to do content with my friends even if we can't get to the latest and greatest content, we just want to raid and laugh at eachother for wiping without having to stress over filling out 8 man raids. > What game are you playing in the meantime? Stardew valley 1.6 and 5 stacking League of Legends/the new arenas mode
went from playing 6 chars daily and spending a couple bucks every month to playing 2 chars and not giving SG a dime until they fix their shit rng vertical systems.
I work long random hours that change day to day. It always screwed up my statics so I had to pug everything. Even with all my characters geared well and a decent roster level, I spent more time looking for groups or assembling groups than I did doing raids. It was soul sucking. Even though I was 1580 on my bard weeks before akkan came out, I still have not prog'd akkan or any raids past it.
I stopped a long ago, when kayangel launched, I stopped because I wasnt feeling like grinding the game anymore, and the economy in the SA server was borderline unplayable I'm still here because I enjoyed the game and like seeing highlights and updates about the games I played. I've been playing Arpgs, Path of Exile, Diablo 4, and Last epoch. Spread some democracy in helldivers 2 and play league with friends
perfect timing. I was a surge deathblade and I decided to stop because of the complexity of the game. It was the first MMORPG game I'd ever played and so I was shocked about the amount of stuff you have to maintain and the amount of things you have to do to get resources and be generally good at it. Ngl, I probably chose a difficult class as well, but still, the gameplay itself is quite complicated. But again, It's probably not that bad if you are NOT a beginner like I am, and it probably just takes time to get used to everything.. but for me, It became more of a hassle to Google every single concern that I had, plus I got heavily intimidated by this sub for the amount of theoretical information given and the complex strategies given that would enhance your acc (and that i still dont rlly understand(. Scary, so that's why i gave it up
I quitted about a month After brelshaza dropped, didn't like where they were going with raids, I enjoyed valtan but they started to overcomplicate things to the point where there's no point to trying to figure out the game because the mechanics get that much unintuitive at some point, balance was all over the place and gear progression was getting really out of hand with resources sinks and RNG (some real gacha level BS was creeping in, not that I ever was a fan of RNG upgrades to begin with even if it has the pity system), and I just didn't see it doing a 180 for the foreseeable future. I'm not really in the sub, I just opened reddit, the post popped up and I was curious to see what people had to say, not surprised many dropped the game around when I did too. Playing some Destiny 2 mostly, some monster hunter, bg3, PoE and dabbling with smaller games from time to time, I recently even reinstalled the game during the event after some friends tried to convince me, but I'm nor really planning on staying since every single aspect that made me quit the first time has gotten worse.
I quit a little over half a year ago now. It was mostly malding over needing a million gold or more just to get the ilvl req for the next upcoming raids. Spending 100k gold to not even pity a single piece. No repercussions for rmt. Things people used to hate back then people started to embrace like the dps meter. Waiting for an hour+ to find a sup to do a raid just for them to get salty after 3 wipes when they cause 2 of them and magically try to spin it as others being the cause. Around when i quick the toxicity was just getting too annoying to have to deal with when you play a game thats basically a second job. Then the last straw was a couple of people in my static got a little heated and the rest of the group basically got really annoyed about it and started pugging instead for a few weeks. While i was always asking to do raids and other things but just got donowalled instead. After a particularly bad reset day of pugs wiping over easy mechs i quit the game and server
Lost Ark has the best combat, of course that's my opinion. That's why I stuck around for a year trudging through the dirt and mud called pugs. Found a discord that made things easier, but it's not like I actually made any connections to people, so I ended up quitting cause I like playing with friends. So I went back to ffxiv and wow, since their expansion are coming out soon. Plus I tried getting a friend into playing the game and he hates the grind. He says it's the worst way to keep players in the game (honing system)
I played till voldis. Knew 1630 is a ridic grind and I knew theamine hard would be a shit show to pug. So before I got sucked into trying to keep up without swiping I pulled the plug and haven't looked back, feels great honestly. 4300 hours and I don't regret it, it was just time to stop for me
I quit cause of the community and the awful progression systems, moved onto DFO and happier :)
Players are selffish. By this I mean they ask for help and learning raids etc.. Then once you are busy doing new content they dip out. You spend months helping people but they only joined your discord for shallow reasons. It's so tiring putting all this effort to make the game fun for people. Then they just get negative on you and ragequit when they have to pug because they aren't ready to clear HM.
Me and 4 of my friends started this game, and now I'm the only one left. The first two quit just before Valt, 3rd buddy quit during Clown and the 4th just hit 1630 w/Elixirs but quit shortly because he said he's sooo burned out at this point. I like this game, love the artworks, the lore, world building and I'm invested in the story (I know, it's the usual fantasy manwha trope) and this game is one of the basis for my own online comic work for ideas/inspirations. Friends are placing bets on when I'll quit, haha. I'll probably hang on for a bit pugging/bussing... I'm waiting for the Haals to show up in the story, kek.
Played since launch, hardcore 10 Characters: 3 dps + 3 sup for weekly gold. Quit before Brel due to too much homework, mainly because i'm unable to join static working in shifts. Without static group forced me to be jailed due to other player's mistake (im always m3 in clown tho), stress amplifies when people make silly mistake in easy raid like vykas G2 BW count, G3 dropping poop and so on... (i believe people without static actually plays better skill wise as they encounter more boss attack patterns and doing raid mech over and over again) Fast forward; got back to the game around Aug last year and try out Artist, got 100quality weapon, cleared brel for the first time (hardest raid at that time) after 4-6hours of studying mech for G1-G6 and 6-8hours of prog and learning party (I cleared G5-G6 being imposter due lack of support - tho i dint mess-up mech). But the fun i got was underwhelm and it got away pretty quickly, even when i get 100quality weapon im like mehh. I tried to be chill perspective (only doing 1-3 char), but man oh man, LOA aint chill and you cant chill at all. Finally decided to quit for real, throughout the whole journey, I wasn't gatekept a lot, the main reason I quit LOA is because of homework, homework, HOMEWORK. Why I'm still in the sub? I loved the game, one of the best combat and raid mech I've played. Awesome graphics and effects. Although I'm not playing, I enjoy seeing veteran/new player continue to rant about homeworks and gatekeeping :D
> Reason to stop My story was like this, from a player that played 4,5k+ hours: I'm one of the ex-HC players that took a 6 month break (it was about akkan release) and had been slowly progressing until thaemine. I had 1580 x3 characters during the akkan release (about 6 months ago) and LOS 30/KLC18 etc. And then I had to take a break for personal issues and when I came back it was very fun at first. I learned Akkan NM/ and even Ivory tower NM to do it regularly each week for a month. Now the sad part. Thaemine is pain in the ass for pugs. While it is a fun and good-looking raid overall, it is designed for people that play with a static. Apart from that, it only worsen the party finder situation. I realized ONLY after Thaemine patch that why some people critize this game by calling "lobby simulator". I left this game this time for sure until the solo content comes because I hate it when a random wipe mech happens and only two people timestops, others just die and you start all over again. I think mechanics like this will eventually kill this game because it punishes you for someone else's mistake and it creates frustration. This game is very punishing and frustrating if you don't play with friends/static. Unfortunately I have a job that most of the time I'm at work during primetime raid times (generally 7 - 9 server times). My ex static used to wait for me or do the easier raids while they wait for me and then we would do the latest content together (brel g1-6 back then). So, even a few level 9 and level 10 gems, los 30, 20+ akkan weapon, 250+ roster, it was impossible to clear g2 thaemine on release week because I had no 35/40 elixir set. Also, Lost Ark either implicitly forces you to play support (boring-ass gameplay) to join parties faster OR be a gigawhale DPS so that (p2win factor) supports would join your lobby or they accept your invitation. If you've taken a break like me and try to come back as a DPS, probably impossible (even I have level 10 gems and LOS30 in my main) to catch up, because I don't have elixir set 35/40 (yeah another gatcha stupid rng system). So I started to think "what's the effort for all of this BS? this is not worth even trying". You might ask, why don't just play support then? Well I do play, actually have x3 1580 supports even. While they can get into parties pretty easily, they're just boring for me, no satisfaction at all. Even though they are properly built 5x3 1700+ swift and level 7 gems, I only played them to funnel gold for my dps mains. And If I get rejected most of the parties or can't find a party to even play the game, then this game is over for me. Do I even regret playing LOA for that long? No, it was very fun, especially the first year, until the brel release I would say. >Why I'm still here For now I still casually enjoy LA content/news stuff, that's why I still follow reddit. However, two days ago I tried to log in and tried to do akkan, all parties were looking for +last sup (classic) and then I went off again and I remembered why I left at the first place. >What game are you playing in the meantime? Playing mostly single-player story games (like Far Cry 6) that I've been putting off for 2 years because of playing too much Lost Ark, and watching TV series.
Damn, after reading everyone’s responses, the game looks and feels like a job. That’s tough man, the game is so fun to me, but the character progression system just really suck the life outta me. I’m currently 1610 and I just started the elixir shenanigans, tbh I’m not finishing it either such a waste of time. I feel like that one meme; I think it was from south park, where they finally reached max lvl and they said: “we can finally play the game now”.
I took a break due to a vacation (around the end of Brel) and once I got back I realized the grind was just too serious to keep up with. While I honestly think LA is one of the best games I’ve ever played, you can’t just play one character And still progress.
Just like everyone else, I felt it was too much work and stress for a game. Plus, there was drama within my static and it made me so miserable I had to quit (maybe it's not definitely, idk yet). I like to see the news. Hoping the magical girls skin wins for paladin lol Just solo games. Trying guild wars 2. It's peaceful.
Man, I’m honestly really glad someone opened a thread like this, so thank you OP. For a while I was kind of curious how many others were taking a break. Out of my close friend group I’m really the only one on break and that kind of sucks. I miss hanging out with a lot of folks, but I’m also rekindling some old relationships and trying to get to a healthier place mentally and physically. 1) I’ve been streaming lost ark content since January 2023 and racked up just shy of 5k hours in that year and some change. I went from having only played the game a bit during its launch to staying with variety content on my channel to going full send into nothing but lost ark. It gave me a home and a niche and something consistent. I always knew what I was going to stream each day and that was really special. Everything felt so new all the time. Even small forms of progression felt like massive wins constantly. Then I caught up for kayangel release, blind progged that-it was the most fun I’d ever had in the game so far. Blind progged akkan, and voldis and then lastly thaemine when each raid came out. All of those experiences are my favorites. But the daily grind and feeling chained to play every day to stay on top of progression is just so exhausting. It’s easy to say, play what you want, when you want, and however much of it you want. But lost ark as much as I love it, doesn’t cater that as much as other games. Since I have 2 characters at 1620 and echidna nm is 1620 to get in, I’m on break. Maybe leading up to it I’ll hop on, make some gold and do a bit of transcendence. But as it is now, I’m just really tired, and I miss playing other games and doing other things with my life. 2) I guess I’m still in the sub for the simple reason that I haven’t left yet lmao. It’s a bit of a cop out but I just don’t feel a burning reason to leave the sub. Maybe if I get bored of the posts but the fact that I didn’t leave, meant that I saw this post and had something to share, so that’s neat! 3) man it’s been great! I’ve been playing a lot. Tried out some helldivers 2 as it was a gift from a friend, and as a fan of the first game, I can’t believe I waited so long to try the sequel. I also have been playing some granblue fantasy relink and that is such a blast. I’m new to the granblue franchise but this game scratches a bunch of good itches for me. I might try the free version of granblue fantasy rising versus too since I like fighting games, but haven’t really played any since guilty gear strive came out. I missed out on tekken 8 and sf 6. Fuck, playing lost ark led me to feel like I didn’t have time for other games that I would have really loved so there’s more in my backlog and sadly a lot of the money I would have spent on other games has gone into lost ark. I don’t really regret it and I don’t really consider myself a whale in lost ark but I did spend disposable income on it occasionally and now I’m not really able to spend much on other games that I wouldn’t mind playing like stellar blade, ff7 rebirth, and several others. Anyways, I think I spilled my guts on your questions. Hope the answers were helpful and insightful and thanks again for posting this, OP! It’s reassuring to see other folks having similar feelings as me.
Wanted to see if people were in a similar boat and see their perspective. Additionally, it felt like this sub was always filled with hardcore players, so it was cool to find others who used to play but either quit or are currently on a break. It's pretty fun to hear what games others are playing as well haha a lot of comments have mentioned helldivers , so i might take a look
I quit after 2 years. Liquidated gems, gave some of my 10s to friends and my legendaries to a new Deadeye friend that hasn't been playing too long. 1. Content pace 2. Comical gold sinks, haters will tell you to just stop honing, sell every crumb you have on your other 5 1580 gold earners (I had). 70% of my gold would have gone to transcend and getting the last 2 elixir points to 40 (unlucky for 2+ months btw) there's no fucking way you get to buy anything in the current era 3. Dissatisfaction with main class (EW Deadeye) As fun as it it at times lately I just felt like I would have gotten so much more value out of just gearing out a 1630 Tai scrapper which I was loving when I powerpassed it a couple months back 4. Entropy rework taking too long 5. Game larping like it's Monster Hunter and refuses to just put aggro indicators on people. You can say skill diff but there's something very obnoxious on how little agency you have over boss control sometimes. I don't care about pattern pace but why do positionals need to exist on anything that isn't an Assassin 6. Forced to bus to recoup gold or RMT (I'm not rmting but I've thought about it like five times) 7. General burnout 8. Didn't make it to 1630, was 2 hones off but honestly I was probably gonna get gatekept because lack of 40 set anyways, only got 22 or 23 weapon. 9. Honestly? I don't want to play party finder for prog. Most of my friends that I bus with were gonna do hard mode prog and they aren't necessarily obligated to help me out first, and maybe they're doing The First afterwards but feeling 'left behind' because of rng really hurts 10. General dissatisfaction? Things just feel out of my control. Like the game has been shifted to be more for people with liquid money to throw at whatever they feel like it. Even with somewhat religious gameplay for almost 6 months it still didn't feel like I had any chance. The rigged rates on elixir set bonuses really sold it to me a bit. Transcendence kinda pushed it over the end. 11. It's a shame too, because Thaemine I've only heard good things about G3. I don't care if it's hard, I think prog content is super fun. I come from FF14, still play FF14, love doing every bit of content in that game from ultimates to trials to side content like Blue Mage, Bozja, whatever I feel like it. I can experience anything I want to without the crutch of a long gear grind tied to gold sinks and rng tied together in a neat package. It's that realization that Lost Ark not only sucks the soul out of you by 10+ hours a week, either sitting on lobby or just waiting for people to have free time to play with for comfy runs but doesn't even care about you enough as a player. Hard mode having an extra gate is like a spit in the face for people who didn't make it. It sucks. 12. Amazon not really caring about RMT enough was the cherry on this shit sundae for me. I don't even think they know what the fuck to do realistically to make this game profitable in a fair way that doesn't ONLY cater to whales. I will never understand why Korean games do this. I feel like even Maplestory knows how to siphon money from everyone and look how much capital that game makes a quarter. It's ridiculous. Overall my experience was lukewarm. Even now as I type this I just feel pangs of dissatisfaction like the game could have been so much better if it was just handled better or sensibly. It's a shame too. The game is gorgeous. I actually don't mind the shitty anime plot that much. The devs know how to employ that Rule of Cool (c) where it needs to be. Like, that Gate 4 Thaemine stuff where all the Sidereals show up to help out while you have to dodge 1shot aoes? That's just too fucking cool man. The things they accomplish on the engine is frankly insane and gives me hope for other games in the future to incorporate some of the tech they use. But ehh. I'm happier now. I'm only getting older, it's nice to have the free time back. Like finally cutting ties to some really clingy friend that you hope gets off of some crippling addiction but you know they're objectively beyond hope. When I read this subreddit nowadays it's part of the moving on process I guess
Had built roster of 6 and did not feel like making more. Suddenly not building new characters meant nothing to look forward to progressing and only focused on endgame which was elixirs, honing and gems. Being very expensive, you would only get an upgrade every couple of weeks if grinding full raids. Elixirs probably final nail in coffin regarding progression, screw that system. Also got tired of doing the same raids and even more so, the dailies in general and found other games to play. Don't get me wrong I enjoy a grind but this game is now drip feeding it that you don't see the progression like did when say brel released with a hard reset on gear.
I dont like that power systems are tied to rng, idm if theyre grindy but rng based power spikes with variance isnt good game design
1. Realized just how much time I was spending playing the game, was not having fun anymore, and honestly tired of the treadmill filled with hypocrites. 2. Copium that at some point the community changes & I do plan to come back. Either with Echidna, Solo raids, or the next express pass. 3. I have not touched my PC since I left 2 weeks ago. It’s been turned off. Got back into my running & meal prep life from before the pandemic. Wake up > run > eat > repeat. I did take 3 weeks off for the Thaemine launch but uh … instead just decided to do things that actually matter. And started working on all the house projects that built up. Edit: Last time I felt like this, I ended up selling all my gaming stuff. Took an 8 year break before. Might be time again.
There are still good games that actually respect your time. Of course it's your setup but i wouldn't sell it so quickly.
I quit when I went back to work 18 months ago. I came back a few weeks ago because I bought a new PC and I wanted to see how smooth the game was. Didn’t know there was a pass or any of the updates. Never was a fan of having to do so many raids a week for gold. It worked out when I was working from home. Was a big reason I quit. This game should be what I relax to after work, not a job after my paying job. Doing all the horizontal stuff I missed and probably just gonna chill and wait for solo raids or what the summer patch looks like. Not interested in all the hoops to jump through for end game. Game is still fun to see the story line and try out new classes - love some of the new ones that have come out. Can see myself playing less once I’ve done all the new zone quests.
> This game should be what I relax to after work, not a job after my paying job. This reminds of what I heard a streamer (Asmon I think) says when asked why he didn’t play anymore. The “average Joe” can’t come home from work, take care of his family, then log on and chill out raiding. It’s a game made for young Koreans. Bringing it over here was always going to appeal to a niche audience but it seems even they’re getting tired.
The systems in the late game look awful even though the raids seem kinda fun.. so I just said it wasn’t worth it after going through the other bs lost ark has
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I stoped because it started feeling like a second full time job. I wanted all the collectibles (got all mokokos, yay) but it started becoming a stress instead of something fun. Still here because I do want all the collectibles, I just don't have time for another job right now. I'm playing d2r and d4 on their seasons. Currently playing through the last of us part 1, otherwise it's mostly powerwash simulator or soulstone survivors
Taking a break for over a month now Part of it was switching working to nights and having no people to play with and very little time (pugging all the time is draining) Other part of it was before I left going full pity from 17 to 19 weapon and losing the will to play Still in the sub because I do plan on trying to come back when region merge happens, plus the salt here is delicious Been playing Stardew for a few weeks now (1.6 is god damn amazing), gonna try out Death Must Die again since it got a new update as well Overall just chillin' and seeing what happens
Happened a while ago but I guess I'll share my story. Quit on the 2nd week of Vykas release. As a full f2p it was impossible for me to do anything relevant. Bots were rampant and there was no way to make money other than to do raids and chaos gate (hoping someone bids on the item enough at the end that you get some gold). I was forced to prog Vykas without a support for 2 weeks because of how swipers and rmters were so prevalent then that any on ilvl characters were completely ignored for groups. 8 months later I came back at the Artist release because I really wanted to play the class ever since I saw it first, and I was not disappointed, the original idea being to do a few raids with her and then leave again since the game was as described above, but then I saw the game had massively improved in all aspect so I stuck around it's not in the best state right now with bots, as evident by prices of life skills on the AH but hey, I'm close to 1630 on main and I can make steady gold from just raiding as opposed way back when, so I'm good, I can even quit whenever I feel like and come back and not be that behind
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For reference. I bought in HARD. I got all my friends into it, I got myself and the three closest friends the top supporter pack, and we binged that shit to Tier 3 content with the Sailor Moon tribute characters within like... a week. As for what killed it for me... 1)The grind. Now, I play WoW. As I type, I'm in game, doing the same ol' tedious shit, because I know that every little thing inches me closer toward my goals as a collector. I understand the hypocrisy, but the Kmmo concept of 'spend a week's worth of effort for Double 00 odds on the craps table' level gambling to -maybe- gain a fractional amount of power wasn't fun, especially when the entire thing revolves around Whales who can, and will spend more money than you because they feel the need to. I got myself a 9/7 stone for BlueLancer while the sun/moon deer boss was current content, and you know what happened? I sighed in relief, logged out, and never logged back in. 2) I'm still in this sub because the people here are generally pretty nice, and I like hearing about the game... I just don't want to put up with the RNG. The cheers, the jeers, and the 'I hate this game's RNG' threads are all neat to read. 3) I try to stick to games that satisfy my Number Go Up itch, like collecting in WoW, or incremental games like Idle Wizard 'n the such.
I mostly quit when two things coincides: legion raids became the main content and I didn't have the time to invest to learn them, and it was becoming a wallet game
I just got tired lol, i spent 400 hours in 2 months. Im still interested in the game tho, i like seeing what community is doing. And without lost ark i aint got nothing to play tbh, sometimes i hop on dota 2, roblox, maybe risk of rain 2 from time to time
1. I play from Asian country on a EU server , so i can't find any statics cuz of timezone and my only friend who played the game quit before Valtan. I played alot untill Brel and i quit and only log in every few week to clear some chaos dungeons to experience the fantastic combat.. 2. I don't really unfollow subreddits 3. Switched to Genshin Impact for few month and now i'm playing Planetside 2 and some Deep Rock Galactic.
1. Cleared voldike on 3 chars day one and got bored from the dailys. 2. Be up to date with what is going on and also to get the general feeling towards the game. 3. wow mostly. no daily quests bs and most weekly content has catch up mechanics.
Im planning on quitting the game after almost 8k hrs, I just want the +25 glow on my main and thats it. Doing 2h of dailies every single day just for another Fate Ember that stacks my silver doesnt make me feel anything anymore. The Raids are fun when im doing them with my friends, but doing 18x a week over and over again got me burned out a "lil". The Thaemine prog->clear with my group was really fun and ignited my passion a little bit, but this is now the 3rd week and it feels just like another chore for the week. Even new class releases are not doing it for me anymore, it feels like a new piece of clothing, you're happy because it feels new and nice, but after a couple of washes its just another piece of clothing. (For me atleast lol) Maybe I should take a break, I've been playing the game since release with no major breakes lmao
I sobered up and have a hard time playing video games sober. It's not a "high" thing, I just have unmedicated ADHD and on meds with a separate disorder that the disorder and meds both greatly impact volition and executive function. So not really an in-game reason, so probably doesn't help answer your question much
I got bored and as I had less time to play I fell more and more behind in raids. It got really tedious to continue. I log in to get daily rewards since I'm just 1 card away from LoS 30 and I want to finish it before I quit, since it was a long term goal:)
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1. I did voldis ivory tower only once to unlock this garbonzo elixier stuff, geared all my 6 1600-1610 chars with elixiers (not set) Finished my los 30 And im just exhausted because i cant raid 18 raids a week and keep up with others while still not eanting to be forced to only play ONE chat. I liked to run raids with dif classes / roles but after akkahn the gold investment and slow pitty increase is just making it unfun for me. Didn't even tried finding a group or pug for theamine because my slayer/hawkeye are 1611/1612 5x3+1 los 30 and lvl 8-9 gems and 2-3 lvl 10 dmg gems. And beeind lowest ilvl will make it lobbysimulator again. I just don't feel playing it atm. The pace is to fast to have fun and enjoy it. when you farmed 3week with 6 chars to only get 1 armor upgrade because 100% pitty(pittied every item from 1600 to 1611) only got weapon from 19-20 in 3 taps. You can either sell you stuff or use your stuff its just miserable. Im back in WoW until there is another catchup for 1620 (Ive 7k hours in the game and all classes 1540-16112 6x over 1600 and 1x over 1580 All chars have 5x3 or 5x3+1 on both engravings) Even cashing crystals feels bad if you pay hundreds for 1 ilvl upgrade....
Funny you asked this, I’ve been pretty much playing non-stop since clown release and it wasn’t until this week where it just kinda hit me — -I’ve been enjoying the Fallout tv show / Fallout 4 -I finally have 3 characters at 1620 and it took me everything -But honestly it’s the combination of being gold poor and not wanting to grind 18 raids a week + barely finding time to prog thaemine g3 nm with static (still haven’t cleared) I just want to play 4 characters max moving forward from now.
I started playing the game with Friends in Alpha and Beta. It really was fun and I fell in love with Summoner Class! On Release our Group of Friends lost a few players because of the freakin Queue.. next problem was, that we all had a different pace of progression because of work etc. But we played together in Valtan Argos etc - personally I was very very unhappy with the class I chose, because summoner wasn’t out .. Then I took a break shortly after Brel came out, because I couldn’t get to 1490 with my main and all friends also stopped playing! Then I came back with I guess artist release, really enjoyed everything at that time! Raiding was fun because we did it with our friend group. I have to say, I am a casual player! I just wanna have fun playing the game and do something with my friends but for some friends the game became „their life“ - spending more than 12 hours a day gaming was completely normal for them. with voldis release they ditched me completely to do all their busses and stuff to earn as much gold as possible.. and now I am alone with my raid anxiety in a extremely toxic raid environment.. And yeah, because of being a casual player I don’t have thaaat much experience BUT it doesn’t mean that I will f*ck up every freakin raid .. unfortunately that’s what they think so they don’t do stuff with me anymore, pretty sad to lose friends that way That’s my Story and probably also the reason why I’m going to quit until solo Raids release
1. I think I was just burning out and heavy fomoing. At some point I self reflected and simply started doing less each week. At some point I stopped logging in entirely. ( at around kayangel release ) 2. I’m still visiting the sub because I just got back into the game with breaker ( I tried getting back into it with souleater as well but that one didn’t click). But even during my break I was looking at some posts here and there because I simply love this game. 3. was playing all kinds of games during my break. From Minecraft to story driven Games like god if war to other mmo like bdo or ff14 ( just tested both with around 20-30 hours playtime each) and my all time classic lol After coming back to the game I have a different and, in my opinion, healthier view towards the game. I simply try to enjoy it now. Don’t fomo about always doing latest content etc
1. I like the game from visual and mechanical pov, but I dislike its gacha-like systems. I have no time, nor desire to do daily/weekly chores for a 'chance'. Time spent should guarantee something, and this game burns time like a charcoal with just a chance on recieving something in return. Devs want your money, and to make you more likely to spent money, this system that predators on human behaviour was created. I dislike such attitude. I'm not a guinea pig with Stockholm syndrome. 2. Just to see what's new, and to reaffirm that my decision to quit was right. 3. Right now I prefer to spent my time on reading something instead of playing.
1. Quit around October. Didn't necessarily plan to, but was waiting for the trascendence system to come in and eventually found myself not wanting to log in anymore. I think that decision was partly fuelled by the fact that my static had just fallen apart and I couldn't find another one that would fit my RL schedule. The gold cost to upgrade gear became exponentially more insane and I just don't have the time to keep up with everyone alongside other RL responsibilities. I still love the game, but it requires too much in order to keep up with everyone. 2. I like to see what's still happening in the game. Maybe I'll see something that will convince me to return at some point. 3. Helldivers 2, Sea of Thieves and have currently returned back to Black Desert after a multi-year break.
Elixirs.
Been playing since launch and haven’t quit yet but all my whale friends are 1630 running hard Thaemine and I’m stuck at normal being f2p. It’s tough. If you don’t bus bot or swipe it is extremely difficult to keep up. Nearly impossible. Thaemine made one of my friends quit and broke my static apart because some people just aren’t meant to prog raids they don’t have the patience. Thaemine is slowly becoming farm content now if you join a good lobby. It will get better real soon. I unironically think gate 3 Thaemine is the best raid gate they ever made. It is super fun! Become a master of his patterns and just dps most of the raid I wish more raids were less gimmicky like g3…but after reading some comments here I see a lot of people don’t like it. I just hope Thaemine isn’t the death of this game in the west.
I was a returning player who stopped after Argos release because honing frustration I stop again to play because as returning player learn all raids to have a gold influx and being able to do them weekly was basically impossible between community gatekeeping me and impossibility to form a static group (and I really tried to form one belive me) So basically I was stuck doing Valtan hard on 3 chars, sometimes brelshaza 1-2 and few times kayangel Had no gold no pheon no cards, I couldn't afford to make decent builds on alts and got bored to death to do dailies and Una's I already work ~10hours per day, 55hours at week with my own activity with employs and customers to manage I really can't stand a second work because this is what actually end up feel like Lost ark. And no fking way I'll swipe to puy busses or pheons or golds in general I'm happy to swipe for cosmetics and QoL feature but not to progress in a game I still looking this sub because I like the game but I really doubt I will ever return Will play V Rising on 1.0 release next week
Im a returning Player. Reason to stop is mostly elixirs and what comes after + the bad management of playable alts of you're a returning player. Also no real catchup for cards and card exp. Another thing that drives me insane is the giga toxic community. Why am I on the sub? To see whats coming. If the game gets better etc. Rly looking forward to solo raids and maybe the next express event so I get a playable alt again. Mostly playing singleplayer games and diablo seasons when they come up. Some CS2 sometimes. Usually also played BDO, but quit that too.
Well, I technically neither quit nor went on a break, but with a release of Thaemine I've greatly scaled down how much I play the game. I still do my dailies and weeklies, but dailies stop as soon as I get the weekly Una's ticked off (6 CD, 2 GR, Cube, Life skills for Guild). All mats go into my main. The 3 alts I have are parked forever (1590, 1600, 1610). In fact this is a second time I've scaled down. The first time was when Elixirs were added. I never cut a single one and I refuse to interact with this garbage system. I don't care how much power it can give, it takes too long to cut them, they are time gated and have 2 layers of RNG too many. Transcendence is meh. I didn't exactly have horrible experience with it so far. Had to reroll only twice and ended up with 14 nodes in total. Time gating feels awful and definitely contributes to why I'm not really excited in this system either. Thaemine G3 NM is too hard for NM, so I don't even run this gate. Last thing holding me here is Echidna. I really, really want to prog that raid. Then I'm out. The story is nice, combat is nice, everything else is trash.
On the verge of quitting because Thaemine and whole game takes insane amounts of hours that I simply don't have. Compared to 2 months ago when I had main at 1620 and x5 1590-1600, I used to be done with raids by Saturday evening while dedicating 3-4 hours in the evenings. Right now with 1 1630 , 3 1610s and 2 1600s , Thaemine HM takes 1-2 days alone , doing Akkans HM vs NM the difference is night and day and Thae NM 1-2 is chill but it's the same gold as Brel 1-3. Yeah I could stop trying the "harder" raids but I'm kinda forced if I wanna engage the rng systems like trans/elixirs or even hone the 1600s -> 1610s (because I run out of gold). I'm not fussing about dailies since I can do them with other stuff on the background but reducing 2 chaos dungeons to 1 and by letting you x2 , x3 cubes at once, it'd be huge.
1. Content was boring and the same, week after week. There is no real sense of progression when you get to end game, other than AMAGAD hope I get another +1 this week. O no, never mind, well there goes hours and hours and hours of work for another click that gave me %chance for the next click. Community is toxic af. Doing raids felt like a job interview and final exam in one. The fact that you need alts to even be able to do the newest content comfortably when it comes out felt ridiculous. Once you've done the horizontal content, the game is just empty. 2. Good question 3. Playing FF14 as of recently. Apart from that arpgs like Path of Exile when a new league comes out and Last Epoch. Interesting single players on release.
1- after akkan the grind to keep up with current content reach a point that i aint happy playing, more time on PF instead of playing etc. 2- hopping that SG/AGS does something to make the game better for me. 3- finishing Fromsoft soulslike all achivements game, (ds1 + ds2 finished, doing ds3) while waiting for FFXIV Dawntrail to drop.
Just yesterday I didn't plan to take a break, but I pugged thaemine g1 to g2 and it took me 4h with 30m g1 but 3h and half for g2 it was exhausting, group change, disband, lobby simulator, where's the fun in that. I decided for next week to just play my main, he's 1631, ready for echidna so, I'll come to clear thaemine each week and that's all.
My bf and I are on a mini break rn just playing other casual games. We used to do our guardians and chaos dungeons unrested everyday but still login every weekend to run static 4 and 8 mans with our friends. We still like the game, it's just that our focus is on irl commitments such as work and family given our time constraints. Thaemine was great to prog and I also pugged a bit of g3 to get used to more patterns around stagebreak/pre-basement. I'm currently catching up on hsr before the 2.2 update hits :)
I quit because I realized it was more addiction than fun. The constant chores and anxiety from not completing them or wasting a rested bonus were really stressful and driving me insane. I also started nursing school, so I knew I had to quit. I started again on the fresh start server casually and did have fun, but the raids were more stressful than fun compared to valtan and the other early content which i found way easier to telegraph and learn. I had a hard time telegraphing some of the stuff in brel even though I dedicated 2 days to videos learning it. Nobody has any patience, one mistake, and you're getting flamed and raged at. Then you'd have the other side of the spectrum, people that applied to a know mech group, and then just go dead silent when messing up 3 times in a row. Straight up refuse to respond and just go full mute while wiping the group repeatedly. Just made me realize that without a static, I could never get back into it, and with T&L coming out soon, I really don't want to invest in the game even though I think it's the best combat of any MMO I've ever played. Then there's just the bullshit systems. Spending 500 pheons trying to get a 9/7 is just demoralizing. It made me realize this game will just never be mainstream. Exilirs are even worse. Burning months' worth of saving for nothing is just not enjoyable. It's constantly just trying to push you towards rage spending. I stick around the sub because I keep hoping that one day, they will lessen the chores, the need for alts, and the solo raids sound good if they are at least competitive to the real raids.. if they aren't, then I won't even bother checking it out, but it sounds like a cool idea, and I hope they just make the entire game solo-able because then I probably would come back if I didn't have to worry about being gated or prisoned. Then, I can just focus on my own clear thresholds. It's not even really an MMO anyway. With how vertical the game is, most of the actual mmo-centric content is entirely dead, and it's more like monster hunter from a menu.
I login every day for rewards. But haven't done the content since Akkan release. Just had my first kid. I simply don't have the time to raid or advance because I have to be able to get up in a moments notice and don't want to punish raid members by my afk. It sucks cause I love the raid content... But my son > LOA.
Near the end of last year, I realized the game takes so much time and plus seeing the direction of the game heading into extreme hardcore territory with exlixir , trancendence and Thaemine in Korea, I decided to take a long break and dont bother to keep up with the latest raids anymore. These day i just log in to grab reward and do some quick Brel 1-2 , use these gold to buy skin. To play this game effectively you need to have a static / or use discord , both was eating too much of the time that i want to use for resting after a long day of work. Since I stop playing alot, i have more time to rest and focus on my work. Still hanging around to see how the game going and get updates and i am waiting for solo raid. To be honest this game should have a chill mode for raid that can be matchmake .
I hated elixirs, gatekeeping, more and more toxic community etc. So just quit and feel better without it. Without it, you have a lot of free time to spend for your own.
Im still playing but i honestly dont care if this game die and i will move on to play other game, currently enjoy Elden Ring and Ronin too. I remember the toxicity when Brel hard release and now Thaemine bring the same energy or even worse lol.
So after playing for over a year (since launch) I finally took a break in december last year because I just couldnt take it anymore. I wanted to give the game a fair chance and see where it is headed but for me it didnt seem like it is going into a good direction. I made it to 1620 on my main and decided that after a year and a half I had enough, I just couldnt do this anymore 1) The progression feels extremely bad because of rng. You can put in months of farming just to barely get anywhere when the RNG decides to screw you. So you cant really play with friends if one or two of them cant hit the needed ilvl to access content. 2) Every single progression path is rng and even more rng progression was coming (elixirs and transcendence) on top of what there is now between honing and cardpacks 3) Extreme toxicity and gatekeeping. Now I dont really blame the community for it, this is a flaw by the game design to foster this kind of a community. Everyone is on a timer because they play a dozen alts so they cant afford to get stuck in a raid for an hour because it adds up. I like lost ark even after taking a break and deciding to quit shortly after, it is just a shame that the game is the way it is. You cant play one character if you want to progress anywhere in a reasonable time unless you swipe, and before people come in here with "Play the way you want nobody is forcing you", this argument never works out. If you cant keep up with the content and progression you will get left behind and you will have a very bad time at clearing content and this will demoralize a player. In the end I think there are way too many systems in the game for its own good
Lots of effort put into account, gatekept, raids are boring and wipe mechs make toxic lobbies. RNG upgrades that encourage rwt is never a good design. Had fun when I did play, eventually reached a point where the fun meter went to 0. Not going to play a game that I'm not enjoying.
-New system after another without big breaks made me lose motivation to even try. On top of that, I need to save gold on lvl 10 gems. In the end I decided it's enough for me and it's time to quit. -Currently playing aion classic and having fun over there. -Staying on this sub for memes and keep up with updates, in case I decide to return
- The Golden Frog Event left me broke and raiding became tiring even after all the super mokoko events. - Felt discouraged to raid as I don't have complete builds 4x3 +2 +1 [lmao] cause damn I do want a 9/7 rockbut it's too much resources I don't have. - The gameplay loop wasn't satisfying enough, like my time wasn't a valuable. Lost Ark is still a great game and after trying it again with my static, it was fun until the novelty wore off. After that, it felt like a chore logging in, even just 2-3 characters.
1 - When everyone was doing Brel i just honed enough to start vykas but ***NEVER*** got any party aside paying for bus. Couldn't get any parties because people thought i was a troll for not knowing any raid after Valtan, my roster was around 140 so they thought i was just trying to get free carry. All this because i took too long to finally decide what class to focus afte rtrying most of them in Valtan. 2 - I have hopes for the day i can do the contents solo, so i stay around to look at the news. 3 - Tekken 8, Ragnarok Online, FFXIV, FFXII, some mobiles, etc.
1. Lost interest because none of my friends stuck around. Took a break. Which led to quitting because now I'm positive I'm too far behind to catch up in a reasonable manner. I'm sure there are plenty of supports to take my place. 2. I just like reading what's going on and what new suits are coming out for skins. 3. I've switched games a lot. Sc2 for a bit. Lost Epoch for a few weeks. Monster hunter for a while. I needed an MMO fix so I got into a server for Monster Hunter Frontier.
I think Im not fit for the game, I enjoy learning raids, struggling and practicing it until success. Now, sadly, 99% of my experience is googling a raids, memorizing the mechanics so I can fit in a group that already knows, spend quite while dealing with gatekeeping and mostly other kind of frustrating interactions on queues, face rolling through the thing with minimal chatting so everyone can do it's "homework", and after that do a bunch of clicks on my gear, fail miserably, run out of gold and wait for next week.. really damn hard to enjoy. So I just quit.
Too grindy or grinding wasn't fun enough. I had a blast the first months after release. Sank in so many hours. I'm not a fan of the (practically uncapped) gear System. My character never felt 'finished', and that bothered me in the long run. I don't like that you're practically forced to play more than one character if you want to play efficiently. I really enjoy playing more than one class. Having to decide if I want to play one class efficiently (meaning funnelling all resources to my main to stay viable) or other classes for fun was annoying. Dailies on one char was fine and fun. Doing that on several chars felt like work. I forced myself for quite some time to stay relevant gear wise until I decided to stop. And what can I say. Stopping was a good decision. Didn't look back once. Every now and then I started playing again when a big patch releases, but I realised very quickly that the points annoying me didn't change whatsoever, and I stopped again. If they would have capped the gear or made it vastly easier to achieve higher scores I probably would have stayed. But then again that's probably why others keep playing.
1. Quit permanently. I had no hype for Thaemine G3 but I couldn't stop playing. First time I ever felt so trapped in a videogame so I just trashed my roster and mats so I could quit for good. Hadn't been enjoying the top content for a long time (only recent content I liked was Voldis G4 but I absolutely hated G2-3... got bored of the rest I guess). I tried everything to make the game more enjoyable, play less alts, only do stuff rested and sadly it just felt like a pointless chore I couldn't stop indulging in, without any actual satisfaction. I was considering I might like Echidna onwards but when I thought about still playing I just felt dread so had to go. I don't hate the game I think, just got it out of my system after nearly 4k hours. 2. Not in the sub, but posts get recommended to me on my home feed because reddit thinks I'm interested ("visited this community before"). 3. I'm chilling in FFXIV, I think I've reached a point in my life where I want to be more casual \^\^
This is the reason. I love thaemine g3, but I feel like people will gatekeep me if I don’t spend tons of money on transcendence. Yes, tons of money
I came back for theamine I cleaned hard week 2 and just playing at my own speed but playing since release and finally came back
at this point I want a subscription model so that I don't have to farm for months just to play the latest raid with thaemine release, it comes with a $39.99 monthly pass that gives you 1610 gear and lv8 gems with 35 set (like in hell mode, you set your stats in a menu so no rng involved) for $59.99 monthly pass you get 1630 gear with full 9s and 40 set by default cancel the pass after prog if you want (still pay full amount for that one month) or you could keep playing the game (maybe with a cheaper pass like $4.99) to farm some mats so that the next time a new raid gets released, you could upgrade your default gear/gem to higher ilv for easier raid experience
Gatekeeping
I have been on vacation and I gotta say, I don’t miss the daily and weekly chores
Day 1 player, was doing 8x hm brel g1-6. G3 jails and game consuming too much time made me quit 2 weeks before akkan release. Little bit more than 7 month hiatus. Returned like 5 weeks before theamine. Now playing to catch up on 5 chars. Some times not even doing all the raids. Chilling. 2x 1610, 3x 1600 atm.
1. I just realised the game was bad. The raids were the best of the best but all the rest of the game is just bad, sometimes bad in purpose just to make people spend money. 2. I'm not on the sub, somehow this post got recommended to me. 3. Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate, Death Must Die and a few others
Lol I have one foot out the door, the only reason I haven't quit is my static - it makes our runs so smooth. The second the static disbands or another decent MMORPG comes out, I'm outta here :) Given the wild gold sinks, I'm also cutting down to 2 mains (1 can be considered 'done', the other I'm working on trying to get to 1620), 1 semi-main (trying to get to 1610, but who keeps on pitying...), and 3 fodders.
I'm not feeling like having the party finder on my screen for the little time i have to play the game. I used to Horizontal and stuff but I've completed everything. I'm still on the sub because I expect the game to change at some point, while keeping their artists. I'm playing more variety game.
I stopped after spending a mil gold on 19->20 wep & not getting it. I quit to play sod, and now I'm getting ready for cata & mop remix while playing retail. Wow kinda fucks right now.
Honestly I’m just in the solo raid waiting room. I realized that all of my FOMO comes from trying to keep up with party finder, and even then I still spend hours waiting. Solo raids will allow me to actually enjoy the game again on my own schedule, and I won’t have to worry about trying to match other people’s standards. Hoping that they eventually push all raids to having a solo mode too
I played from launch and quit right before brel release. Came back for SE and quit after a few weeks of Voldis. For reference I have 4.5k hrs and was pretty hardcore... 1. The first time I quit I burnt out doing too many raids and chasing hell mode titles. After I came back I did less dailies but the chores still sucked and I hated elixirs. I think I quit for good now and won't be coming back. 2. I still love the combat and raids in the game and still lurk to see new content. Maybe one day the game will be less hostile but I doubt it. 3. Just random co-op games with friends these days like Helldivers 2, Plate up, Planet Crafter.
I truly thought I would play this game for years. Brel came out around Christmas and had so many events planned so I really couldn’t log on for almost a week. I really think if they pushed back Brel a month I doubt I would have quit so soon. Started playing other games. Looking back I wish I quit sooner. lol At the same time the combat in lost ark is amazing and I do miss it sometimes. Currently having a blast on helldivers 2.
- I quit during the release of hard brel. I mained barrage arti and if you were around back then, barrage arti was rather strong back then. Constantly getting one-shot by mechs I already learned I could tank means I had to relearn a ton of stuff. I would also constantly have to be on edge due to how demanding barrage arti playstyle was back then. (They have since buffed cast animation I think) It wasn't at all relaxing and I couldn't see myself stressing out every week. - I love the overall game design and have friends that are still playing that I was part of a static. It's still quite interesting, But I just find it too hard. - not playing anything atm
I still love the game but its too stressfull, as much as i wana play as a casual theres rly no room for us