So, I tested positive for covid and hence, I now have a lot of spare time to play Lost Ark! I haven’t started the game yet even though I had it installed already… and after spending 70 minutes in the character creator, I finally embarked on my journey. Today, I just wanted to share some initial thoughts on the game so far, as I’m quite late to the party with Lost Ark and stuff. I’m happy that I can finally catch up on Naithin’s posts on Lost Ark as he’s been writing a lot about it and I didn’t want to spoil myself too much in terms of big mechanics or whatever.
For the class, I picked a bard – which is a class that is always female and can both deal a lot of damage/debuff and heal/buff. The class is fun and doesn’t feel weak at all. I really have been having a good time blasting enemies through the roof with my harp’s sounds, even though I’ve been having a hard time understanding what certain keywords mean. I’ll most likely look it up later on YouTube and someone there probably explains that stuff in two minutes or less before heading into the more in-depth stuff that I don’t need to worry about. So far, I’ve played about six hours of the game, including the character creation. My character’s on NA East on Azena because I planned on playing with a friend and he’s on there as well. While my internet connection hasn’t been too great, it’s worked out pretty well so far. I doubt I’ll ever really do PvP as I’ve never been too interested in PvP in MMOs… so, I’m not worried about the ping too much. Rather, the disconnects are a bit annoying here and there – but those would have happened on EU Central or EU West as well, so, again, not an issue. I may create another character on EU West as well at some point once I figure out if any European friends are playing, too, and what server they’re on (if you wanna play together, please let me know about that!).
The gender-locking of the classes was a bit odd, in my opinion, but what’s more annoying is that you can’t change your body at all. Character creation took quite a long while due to my fiddling with the hair and face for so long. Meanwhile, my breast and ass are incredibly BIG – not because I did that… but rather because the developers decided that would be the default and only option for all bards. Yup. And yes, cosmetics would have to fit onto every custom body in theory but if other games can make that work why can’t Lost Ark as well? Or at least create three different body shapes to select. Another thing that bothered me is the fact that a lot of the armour that I found in the game is quite revealing in ways that looked odd at best. Not a fan personally but maybe I’ll find some cool armour or robes of sorts later on that looks better on the bard I’ve got here.
That small mini-“rant” aside, Lost Ark is a lot of fun and I love that you can respec all your points at any time – at least so far! Also, it didn’t take too long for me to get a mount, so travelling has been a lot of fun. The areas aren’t too big at the moment but they don’t have to be really… and it’s been really great overall in these past few hours. Like, the Bard actually feels powerful and strong, despite being a “Support”. I can slow enemies and knock them into the air and I upgraded one of my more spamable abilities (“Sound Shock”) to leave behind debris that does AoE damage for a few seconds after the initial impact. The Bard, in general, seems to have a lot of AoE abilities that deal damage periodically, which is pretty great – and once I attack enough, I can either boost my allies’ damage or I heal them all. I guess there is some strategy to it? I’m not 100% sure if I want to go too heavy into damage at the moment as I enjoy the support playstyle quite a bit and would love to try that in late-game… but I’ve been told that the Bard is quite high up there with the damage and it shows so far. I’ve been putting my points mainly into “Sound Shock” and “Stigma” at the moment as those are the abilities I enjoy using the most right now. Maybe I can upgrade other abilities as I go on and then eventually go more into the heal playstyle while still being okay on my own in story content.
Speaking of story btw: We’re searching for the Lost Ark, I guess, but I have literally no clue what the story is about apart from that. I didn’t really pay too much attention at first as my fever made it hard to focus but a friend told me that spamming G means that I get to play more of the game, so I’ve been doing just that. The story is quite forgettable, apparently, and apart from lore entries and side quests, I’ve ignored most of the writing as it just didn’t seem too interesting. Rather, there are quests to befriend certain NPCs and those have been quite wholesome and enjoyable, so I paid attention there but skipped through the rest of the game really story-wise. You have choices to make and I uh… tried saving someone and he died… and I killed demons… also I lied to this person that is super bad at cooking by telling her that her food is delicious and that I’ll always eat it, so I’m not sure where my character stands morals-wise but I’d like to think of a backstory as time goes on, I guess.
Lost Ark has been fun and it’s going to be a good timesink when I’m not playing Risk of Rain 2 or Slay the Spire: Downfall – at least until I’m not in quarantine anymore. I’m looking forward to experiencing the game with other people as time goes on and I can’t wait to unlock more powerful abilities for my Bard! Have you been playing Lost Ark? If so, did you enjoy it? What do you think about the gender-locked classes? What’s your server and region? Let me know! Let’s play together some time!
Edit: MassivelyOP linked to this post (among other people) and it didn’t show up as a pingback, so here’s a link to that article: “Global Chat – Who gets to decide what is ‘fun’ in MMORPGs?”
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well. If you find this post on a website other than Indiecator.org, please write an e-mail to me. Thank you!
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