There was a time back before the commercial internet when you purchased games on a disk, and played it (bugs, warts, etc) with the specific intent of having fun (i.e. entertainment, escapism from the real world, etc). With games now being online “services” with their own specific play loops, and emphasis on multiplayer game play, disengaging becomes more challenging especially in many MMO’s where the design is about checking off a list of things to do (dailies, weeklies).
Digressing, one of the things that drove me to stop playing Lost Ark KR just prior to the launch of Rohendel, was the item level treadmill design. It was a lot more obvious back then because a key gear upgrading component (acrasium) was locked behind the Epona’s dailies (Una’s Task) and reputation status. Smilegate RPG ended up redesigning portions of the end game (what we see now) where it is a bit more obfuscated with the current gear honing system (acrasium was completely eliminated with other material replacing it). But the existing design is still a time gating mechanic that is more obvious if you don’t play alts where you funnel unbound materials to your main (and keep doing this with your alts to have another alt funnel unbound material up the chain).
I know this is nothing new; gating is a fundamental part of the design of these games. What I don’t like about it in Lost Ark is how obvious it all is with both item level AND time gating mechanics. Even in Devilian, there were ways to get to higher level zones before you were hard blocked and needed a higher level character to open up an actual gate. I know it doesn’t matter since you can’t grind mobs anyway (since they yield little XP) but it’s the exploration nature where I often found it fun to venture into zones that you weren’t supposed to be in yet. Anyway…
The fact there are spreadsheets or daily task apps to help create a checklist of things to do in the game (to assist with tracking and efficiency), represents this “breaking” point for myself since that is not what I consider as “fun” game play. I’m also not saying the game isn’t fun (there are elements spread throughout the horizontal progression); it is when taken in moderation (and that is how I am playing it). I get that content creators do this (spreadsheets/checklists) and put in a lot of hours because that is literally their job (to create content for guides, for entertainment value, etc). For regular players like myself, playing a game isn’t supposed to feel like a job. I’m just 300 hours in since launch (the bulk of that time not playing with any efficiency). I personally prefer the sense of exploration and discovery (knowing that playing this way is often times inefficient) so I effectively do not play using spreadsheets, nor follow any efficient path. It’s why I am chipping away to hit 1100 item level (at 1080 as of this entry and have to grind another weeks worth of mats to attempt honing that last level for each piece). I know that once I am at tier 3, I am going to stop honing at a certain point (since the success rate is already at a lower percentage) and will just unload my unbound mats on the auction house.
Unfortunately, the underlying designs of many of these games is via this “spreadsheet” mentality (Lost Ark is not an exception). Getting back onto the Lost Ark item level treadmill again in the western version has reminded me of what eventually drove me away from playing the Korean version. I’m not quite there yet with the AGS version because I still have so much horizontal progression to complete (I’m at only 30% island souls, 48% mokoko seeds, 20% giants’ hearts, 10% masterpieces, 11% world tree leaves, and 3% sea bounties; the rest are 0%). But imagine just for a second if the majority of this was completed along with max level trade skills, near 100% adventure tome completion, and nearly completed NPC rapport. The end game would be distilled down to dailies and weeklies.
Basically, the end game content in Lost Ark is still relatively thin after 2.5 years in service (KR). I don’t believe that reality has set in yet for many who have already been complaining about the various issues. IMHO, the complaints about honing failures and even the lack of honing materials (even with these running events) are missing the point. It’s a part of the designed gating mechanic that is only going to repeat itself along this item level treadmill. For players who enjoy grinding, maxxing out their gear (including min/maxing), this end game design is perfect for them. For those of us who enjoy the other components (including the exploration aspect), the game begins to lose its appeal once more horizontal progress is completed (and it should be noted that some of this horizontal progress, is mind numbing repetitiveness that isn’t exactly engaging game play).
I’m reminded about this because I decided to spend this past weekend progressing my adventure tome. My highest completion is Retharmis at 60% with my fortitude for grinding out collectibles reaching an end point (I prefer to not buy them off the auction house since that also makes completing these objectives way too trivial). The point of this dichotomy is to highlight the tedium in the design (tedious for the sake of being tedious, and not engaging). Yes, the adventure tome is supposed to be about the long term similar to NPC rapport. We’re coming up on just the 2nd month since launch so I’m not exactly that far back in progress. But they are both repetitive and tedious in their time sink design (not exactly on the high end of the fun scale). These two are also often intertwined where you need the rapport completed for these NPC’s to complete a continent. Sure, there is that “one shot” mechanic to achieve that but it requires a lot of legendary or relic grade rapport gifts (meaning you need to be selective about which NPC’s to utilize this on).
And this is just how I currently feel about Lost Ark. Genshin Impact has slowly fallen off in terms of my play time because each major update, it’s the same formula of time limited events mixed in with some new story quest, all with the aim of pushing the next set of characters to pull for since that (the gacha angle) is the primary objective of each major update. Like many, I despise the gacha business model (it offsets all the good points including the combat, the exploration, lot of the lore, lot of the music, and the entire game world). But the clockwork of time limited events (lots of which could be deployed as actual continuous in-game content) has grown old because it started to feel like work instead of fun. I’ve thus found myself logging in less and less and don’t even view patch 2.6 with The Chasm, as exciting (unlike the feeling that I had waiting for Inazuma to be released).
So this brings me back to the subject of this entry. The game industry in general is a part of this problem. It doesn’t help when this years GDC (Game Developers Conference) was packed with blockchain NFT crap (which means all of that garbage is coming down the pipeline and infiltrating a lot more titles). This direction is IMHO, going the wrong direction in what is simply an entertainment hobby for me. And it’s one that is becoming filled with more negativity than being one where it’s about simple disengagement from real life concerns, and just having fun (versus being captive to intentional time and money sink designs where you are checking off things on a list of tasks to do). I stopped being engaged with game forums and other outlets (which is why I am so bad at logging in to stuff like Discord). With game forums, it’s an inevitable waste of time because most of the feedback ends up in a round “filing cabinet” (aka trash can). But I did have a recent read of the Lost Ark forums and it’s a tsunami of complaints; lot of it targeted at AGS. IMHO, lot of the issues is also Smilegate RPG because they literally sign off on these decisions (basically, the way T3 was released is something they eventually came to agreement with for our region).
In the past, I would’ve likely been an active forum participant. But that is no more. That’s why I have this blog; to “stream of conscious” style, write what is on my mind just to release it (versus cluttering up the already limited space in my head). I don’t deny there are these issues in most games that I play. But my new approach has been to find the parts I find enjoyable, and to focus on that. Once the problems persist to the point where it’s infringing on that parts that are fun/entertaining, is the point that I move on. TERA and slowly Genshin Impact exemplify this for me (and way before these, Diablo III and StarCraft II). ArcheAge Unchained is on borrowed time (as once my sub time ends, then it is literal end game for me there). And that will leave me at exactly one game; Lost Ark (which going forward, is this item level treadmill) along with the future of the gaming industry being filled with blockchain NFT BS. That’s why I feel I’ll be in need a of new hobby soon.
