Played it for a short bit (3 of us were trying to split time but given the limited hours the CBT ran, I stopped since it wasn’t enough quality time to try and level that way). Created the following “lost in translation” clip since there is no point in putting up the limited game play clips.
The one thing that I didn’t care for was the newbie prologue area; for Lost Ark, you are in that starter tutorial with other players of the same class (so if you were playing a Battle Master, that was all you saw – and it made that prologue area feel stale).
I prefer the way the starter zone was done in Devilian where once you complete the initial basic tutorial, you end up in the first newbie area with all the other players regardless of class.
The combat was as expected, a non-targeting combo-oriented design. I’m reserving judgement on responsiveness since I did have to play over a VPN. What you cannot tell from just watching videos of game play are the control schemes and the actual feeling of the combat system. I am not sure how traditional ARPG players will take to Lost Ark in that area.
Point to click movement yes but your skill activations are ALL on keys (did not bother checking options to see if can change the keybindings but presume that it is available). In this first CBT, there was no WASD movement and I have no idea if that is something they will be adding (most isometric style games with a fixed camera do not utilize it).
One common aspect of Korean MMOARPG’s like this is mobility when it comes to combat. Most boss mechanics in their games require active movement and dodging so the control scheme and combat system tends to be designed with that in mind (and more so when it comes to the PVP aspects). Thus there is freedom of movement/targeting and certain skills that can be cast while moving. Unfortunately, unavoidable damage in PvE is a thing in Korean MMO design (no difference in Lost Ark) so not everything is skilled based there. But compared to Diablo III, it is still way more skill based combat.
Devilian was an oddball in this area since it allowed multiple control schemes (click to target, click to move, skill on left/right mouse button, combat and movement in direction or opposite direction of cursor, and full WASD movement) which caused the traditional ARPG scheme to feel clunky for some players (as these multiple control schemes created an animation lock issue where the force stop/attack in place function always required the action to be completed first; in other words, the character would not immediately root in place when shift was depressed).
In Lost Ark, you don’t force stand still; you just don’t hold the mouse button down (which is movement) and move the pointer to whatever you want to target and activate skills. You can still be mobile by mouse clicking to move your character where it will continue to move in that direction of the last click even after letting off the mouse button so that you can target and activate skills while the character moves in the direction you told it to.
Again, first CBT so this could all change.
But like I mentioned, players used to standard ARPG movement (point to click, shift to stop/attack in place, key bind to allow force move), might take some getting used to once they actually begin playing.
Another difference that will throw traditional Diablo players for a loop is just how systems/consumables heavy Korean MMO’s tend to be. That design is normally intentional because a large myriad of inventory cluttering consumables and materials (that go way beyond arcane dust, death breaths, forgotten souls, etc) these games throw at you, are cash shop friendly designs. Smilegate has not yet determined the business model for the game in South Korea and China. And any North American/European release is still far off at this juncture to even speculate about that part at this time.
If you were to compare it to the most recent isometric style MMO to come out of Korea (Devilian), Lost Ark came across as much more refined when it came to the actual implementation of the games content. A lot of these top-down fixed camera isometric style MMOARPG’s that have come out from Korea (like the original MU Online, Lineage, Devilian, etc) tend to have a variation of the same things. Also don’t expect any of these (including Lineage Eternal) to play and feel completely like an instanced ARPG though (lack of fog of war, lack of open world variation/randomization, huge possibility that even instanced content like dungeons will be highly static layout wize where more difficult versions just have added mechanics).
October 18, 2016 UPDATE:
Actually, a good way to get an idea is with the upcoming MU Legend CBT that begins on October 25. That along with Devilian (unfortunately mutilated for Trion World’s version of the game) are just very rough versions of what will be this slate of newer releases of MMOARPG’s coming out from South Korea.
All these have large scale open world co-op bosses (normally with the best rewards given to the top 3 to 5 contributors in terms of overall damage with a last hit mechanic allowing anyone a shot at “stealing” a top contributor spot), open world PVP, end game guild versus guild competitions, some form of “infinite” or “endless” tower (Lost Ark = Infinity Tower or Tower of Shadow, Devilian = Abyssal Tower, MU Legend = Endless Tower), various arena/battleground style PVP (3v3, 5v5, 6v6, 10v10, 20v20, 60v60, etc), raid dungeons.
The other weak point with Korean MMOARPG’s (actually MMO’s in general) is weak story/lore. Players expecting Blizzard style storytelling from beginning to end just aren’t going to get this. The beginning part usually has intriguing cinematics and voice overs but after a certain point, it all disappears into dialog boxes that most don’t bother to read. Whether that changes with Lost Ark remains to be seen but I would not count on it.
The other most often not talked about issue that exists with many Korean MMO’s that are published outside of Asia are the challenges associated with dealing with in-game events that were designed for a narrow time zone (like how it is in Asia). When these games are published to regions with a more diverse time zone range, event times that made absolute sense in Korea, breaks apart when trying to run those in say North America where that regional server covers everything from ANZ to the east coast of the US/Canada. Additionally, the underlying netcode normally is more relaxed when it comes to dealing with latency (more so when considering South Korea’s excellent network infrastructure in its major cities).
Basically, once you have played one, the main differences are actual implementation of those designs. Lost Ark definitely has a breadth of systems including the Tripod System (a skill modification system , Life Professions (that system has a different level system than character level). Sailing is purported to be testable in the next CBT (date unknown) which opens up a new level of exploration and activities.
Lost Ark does have a lot of initial low level questing content (including secret side areas on the map) that will probably play out like most MMO’s; those areas will become abandoned once the majority of players are higher level unless the game can maintain a continual influx of new players since dynamically scaling open world questing content is a design nightmare. Very few MMO’s that have come out from Korea have been able to be successful at constantly attracting and retaining large numbers of new players when published to the west though.
Most retain a small contingent of players who personally enjoy the game play (quirks and all) and aesthetics. It remains to be seen which of any of these newer MMO-ARPG’s will be able to break that trend. And a lot of that hinges on business model by the North American and European publisher as well as the games core design where it doesn’t rely heavily on cash shop friendly systems below the surface.
