It’s hard to believe that we’re two years into Lost Ark. I still remember taking my first step into Arkesia and being wowed by the sheer scope of everything. Whether it was the raids or the immense amount of side content, there was, and still is, something here for everyone. While it doesn’t get the numbers it once had, this MMORPG is going strong with a huge update on February 7, celebrating its two-year anniversary. We sat down with Roxanne Sabo, Lead Community Manager at Amazon Games for Lost Ark, in an email interview to discuss the past, current and future of Lost Ark in the west.
[Hardcore Gamer] First, congratulations on the second anniversary in the west. It has been a wild roller-coaster ride watching the game flourish into what it is now. What are some of your personal highlights over the last year?
[Roxanne Sabo] Thank you! It was a busy year with so much to celebrate. Looking back, Maykoko Fest was a unique experience, where players came together to meet in-game goals and community members created emotes that are now a part of our version of the game. The Elgacia content update was another huge moment, where players loved and reacted emotionally to the deep story. We also got the opportunity to try something new, putting together a number of new Lost Ark videos and engaging with the community in new ways, which has been a blast.
What have been some of the biggest challenges faced adapting and maintaining Lost Ark in the west?
We’ve always strived to maintain the authenticity of Lost Ark as a game while ensuring it is approachable and representative of the Western playerbase. That means we sometimes face unique challenges while forging new paths and trying new things when there are differences between the game versions in things like content pacing, monetization, and more. The occasional comparisons between game versions can also be challenging to face, but we remain focused on doing the best we can for our playerbase.
We saw the Jumpstart servers introduced four months ago, which helped new and returning players kick off their adventures. What were some of the positive takeaways from the venture, along with aspects that need improving? Are there chances we see new jumpstart servers in the future?
Jump-Start servers were exciting, and we learned a lot about what parts of the game people get most excited about and what makes a newer player want to stick around — things like opportunities to play with friends, jump into the endgame, and experience content together. Veteran players that came along for the ride also showed us that replaying older content at item level was a fun way to re-experience the game. All of these learnings and more have definitely been noted by the team, and we’re working now to determine what our next iteration could look like.
We’ve no doubt seen an accelerated time frame for content when comparing Lost Ark in Korea. In many cases it has been for the better, such as receiving quality-of-life updates soon after, if not as they’re implemented in Korea, but vertical content distribution such as raids has been put into question by a lot of players as to arriving too fast they can’t keep up. How does Amazon go about balancing the content flow to ensure players aren’t overwhelmed or rushed?
I think that’s something we’re still working on, as it is a very different experience from the original release and update pacing in Korea. We want to make sure content is being readily delivered so that we can continue to close the gap between content releases here and in Korea. To help balance this, we’re leaning into events and other opportunities for additional paths that players can use to catch up, and have tried things like the Jump-Start servers that we just talked about.
We are also aware of the player sentiment over the Thaemine Raid update coming in April. Both Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG are discussing how to solve player fatigue leading into that update. We are not only focused on the speed of releasing updates, but also balancing the timing of each update to fit where Western players are in their progression.
Outside of speeding up the schedule, the western release of Lost Ark follows its Korean counterpart fairly closely. There have been some alterations and western exclusive content, but for the most part, most of what we see has remained beholden to KR. Could we see more exclusive content, such as skins or adjustments to systems that appeal to the western audience, in 2024?
While we do want to stay true to the original intention of the game, it is always exciting to bring a little bit of western exclusive content into the game for our players to enjoy! We’re always working to ensure in-game systems feel right with our audience here, especially with respect to things like the faster release cadence that you mentioned. As far as skins go, it was great to see the reception to the Western exclusive set that was released last year, and we do have something else in the pipeline that we hope players will love.
With the release of every raid tier, there’s a dire support shortage. Five-month-old content such as Akkan still suffers from long lobby queues because of this, and we’ve gotten to the point we now see supports selling their services for gold in the Ivory Tower. Has Amazon considered incentivizing players to create and maintain supports, or is this just an unfortunate reality of how Lost Ark functions?
As with many game adjustments for the Western audience, we’ve had discussions with Smilegate RPG about how we might ease the strain on this situation. Smilegate currently doesn’t feel that coming up with a solution for this is necessary, as the support class ratio remains steady in not-so-low proportions. Depending on which raids players take on, sometimes there are a lack of damage dealers while sometimes there are a lack of healers. Compared to damage dealers, the healers’ settings are more lenient as well, so Smilegate doesn’t necessarily feel that additional incentives for healers are needed at this time. The thinking is that if additional benefits are given to the healer classes, this could cause players who don’t want to play as healers to feel forced to play the class, and also feel left out.
Valtan is still arguably my favorite fight in the Lost Ark, so I’m very excited to dive deep into Valtan Extreme. What can you tell us about how the new raid and its difficulty fit into the overall structure of Lost Ark? Could we see other Extreme Legion Raids, such as Vykas or even Clown, in the future?
A: It’s a very nice throwback to be able to release Valtan Extreme, the game’s first Legion Raid, right around our 2nd Anniversary! While Valtan Extreme is different from other raids in that it’s not a raid that players will need to complete to progress, that “Extreme“ difficulty label does come for a reason! Players that complete it will earn grander rewards — and we emphasize the word earn.
Additionally, the development team at Smilegate RPG wanted to share their comments here:“Valtan Extreme is the content for players to practice controls before the release of Thaemine. Plus, Valtan was the most popular Legion Raid. SGR is constantly striving to provide fun in Legion Raid & party-play by remastering popular contents.”
Thaemine was considered one of the hardest raids in the game when it was released late last year in Korea. Why the decision to retain its difficulty over implementing the nerfed version?
We will be implementing the nerfed version not long after release, however, the original release of Thaemine was a huge moment that was thrilling to watch. We wanted to give players in the West a chance to have that full difficulty race at release, and see how many groups can conquer it. You could also say it’s a shot at a bit of friendly global competition. :)
Is there anything else you want to tell our readers about what they might expect in the third year of Lost Ark? Amazon has bridged the gap between releases in the west and Korea considerably, so we’re intrigued to see what the future holds.
I think it’s important to keep in mind that as that gap continues to narrow, content releases will start to look a little different — while some updates might be lighter, it also means there are a lot more surprises in store when it comes to getting content that is new more globally! The Echidna Raid and Kurzan Continent will be coming to the West this year, and both of these are currently the latest content that’s been added to the Korean version. I won’t reveal everything there is to look forward to yet, but I encourage players to look towards the end of summer for the next installment of Lost Ark’s story that I am particularly excited for.
Lost Ark January Update Announced - Including Inferno Difficulty
Lost Ark’s January Update is just about here! Check the patch notes to find all changes coming to the game.
