Vortex Gaming

On May 20th, a Lost Ark emergency live broadcast was held. With a dark atmosphere both inside and outside the game, Director Jeon Jae-hak turned on the broadcast. It was 21 days after the live broadcast last April. In the meantime, Lost Ark has faced several challenges. The growth method of Season 3, which has already reached its limit, the collapsed economic structure, the Chinese server showcase, and the situation is worse than the last live broadcast.

Jeon Jae-hak, the director of Lost Ark who hosted the broadcast, said, "Old things have caused a chain reaction," and "I apologize for not being able to handle the situation to this point." In the broadcast, he directly explained the current issues and problems of Season 3 and talked about future changes and the direction Lost Ark will take. In the broadcast, Jeon Jae-hak also promised to introduce a 'comprehensive combat power index' and a 'combat analyzer', saying, "I will give up my stubbornness."

The combat revival and difficulty reorganization promised in the last broadcast were also mentioned, and various changes after the Kazeros Raid were also covered. Some of the broadcast content will be updated on Wednesday, May 21st, and summer content such as Kazeros will be broadcast online at LOA ON Summer on June 21st. Director Jeon Jae-hak, who hosted the broadcast, said, "I am sorry for showing you a lack of performance, and I will do my best to change my mind and become a Lost Ark that can approach you by abandoning my stubbornness."

Director Jeon Jae-hak said that it has been a year and a half since he took office as director, and decided to sincerely reveal his past actions and intentions. He decided to explain what decisions he made at each stage and why this situation occurred. The task he took on as director was 'vertical'. He promised to develop end content as a top priority, and he actually did so. However, internally, it was also a time when growth reached its limit through the elixir of the Ivory Tower and the transcendence of Kamen. There was nothing more that could be done with the elixir and transcendence, and Echidna and Behemoth were released with ambiguous growth rewards such as weapon transcendence and advanced refinement.

According to Jeon Jae-hak, he did what was possible at the time, but it was not good farming. There was little fun in getting items and the goal of growth disappeared. This is the background for introducing the new Season 3. It was good to boldly introduce Season 3, but problems arose from the beginning. In addition to quickly building up the vertical, new growth elements were released too quickly. At the time of planning Season 3, there were plans to release new growth goals sequentially, but this came out at intervals of less than a month. Jeon Jae-hak expressed this as 'unacceptable'. That's how much burden it put on adventurers.

Since the hurdles for growth were opened high, prices were formed high and growth itself became a burdensome game. This is why the super-awakening road was needed. The price of T4 materials was higher than expected, and the dropout rate before 1,640 was as high as 90%. The super-awakening road was carried out to convert to T4, which is the core growth element of Season 3. It seemed to be stabilizing, but after the release of Act 2 Abrelshud, the number of users parked at 1,640 increased and the economy began to shake.

The parking culture brought about by the super-awakening road led to Nice Dan and Bopum Dan, and promoted the decline in gold value after the release of Act 2. When gold consumption stops, gold accumulates on the server and the value of gold decreases. This makes the value of gold rewards generated from raids meaningless, that is, challenging higher raids. The top bosses, which are vulnerable to damage, and the abnormal reward structure contributed to the creation of a protector party culture.

In the end, they nerfed gold, but it wasn't enough. There was too much gold left on the server. The failure was not properly releasing gold consumption points. However, at the time, they were feeling burdened by the high growth hurdles, so it was difficult to actively introduce gold adjustments or consumption points. They designed passive costs due to emotional issues, which accelerated the decline in gold value.

The answer to this is the release of useful content that can delete gold. Director Jeon Jae-hak asserted that the new farming element of the final act is that. You can grow with gold and feel the fun of getting items, and it is a 'reasonable consumption point' with luck elements.

The extremely poor supply and price of relic engraving books are said to be 'designed for the feeling of getting items'. However, the price was too expensive. The initial relic engraving cost the price of a used car, so it was excessive even if it was designed as a high-value item. The stance on relic engraving is the same as before. The direction is to gradually increase the supply. They say they will avoid methods that give a sense of loss to those who purchased relic engravings, such as the previous Gold Tooth.

Gold Tooth was introduced with the idea of catching gold inflation, but the decline was faster than expected. There will be no extension either. They say there will be no more extreme adjustments like this in the future.

Regarding the gem update, he sympathized with the feedback from adventurers. Director Jeon Jae-hak expressed his regret and regret, sympathizing with the criticism of 'Why did you do it now?'. The gem content has been around for 5 years, and the same measures as now were needed for the transformation of fear-jak (at the time, destruction-hong), but at the time, there was a great burden on value changes to make such adjustments. In response, Director Jeon Jae-hak finally decided to remove the additional attack power of the radiant gem. When transforming into radiance, fear-jak transformation and skill changes are possible, but the damage is the same as the existing gem. Instead, the period for radiance change is extended to 15 days.

As I said in the last broadcast, the raid difficulty was designed with Aegyr being an easy difficulty like Valtan and Abrelshud being a challenging difficulty, but this became a big burden. The difficult difficulty promoted the burden of growth, and even if it became a homework, it put pressure on the party. This is because it was possible to clear only when everyone had mastered the strategy and all conditions were met. When they realized this fact, the development of Mordoom was already completed, so Mordoom was released in a similar way.

Director Jeon Jae-hak reflected on this, saying that he was obsessed with the completeness of the raid. He said that he would alleviate the burden by subdividing the raid difficulty well. For example, the final act will be operated with two dungeons. Dungeon 1 is a dungeon that middle users can challenge without burden, and Dungeon 2 is difficult as it directly faces Kazeros and has challenging content such as The First. Of course, normal will also be released at a playable level. Instead, we plan to take measures to ensure that the vanguard and challenging adventurers can sufficiently gain honor through new honorary rewards. In the future, end-level raids will also carefully separate and place the difficulty and honorary rewards for the vanguard.

Director Jeon Jae-hak, who talked about Season 3 and the past year, talked about the future of Lost Ark and made 5 promises. These are promises about the direction Lost Ark will take. The first is to make end content lighter. He said that difficult raids are outdated and will be modified from the 'Balbi-ku' arrangement to a lighter direction. However, he will continue to develop challenging content such as The First itself.

The second is to reduce the burden of growth. He promised to improve the game in a direction that reduces the burden of growth, saying, "I will bear the losses in this process." Next is the addition of casual content. We plan to add casual content that anyone can easily enjoy. The fourth is the fun of farming. We plan to add fun farming elements that can reasonably match the misaligned economy. The last thing he talked about was 'giving up his stubbornness'.

Director Jeon Jae-hak said that there were many 'stubborn' parts that refused to compromise, such as raid difficulty, and promised to improve in these areas as well. The first change is to add a 'combat analyzer'. A combat analyzer generally records the character's skill usage, damage, etc., and if this is displayed in real time, it is a meter. He talked about the side effects of introducing this, saying that it is a kind of 'red pill', but he eventually promised to introduce it.

Comprehensive combat power will also be added. Previously, you had to look at indirect figures through external sites, but now you can check your combat power more clearly with official indicators. Jeon Jae-hak said, "We will develop it in a way that you can enjoy it without fighting and having fun."

The issue of domestic discrimination that arose due to the recent Chinese Lost Ark showcase was also mentioned. Director Jeon Jae-hak said that 'convenience improvements are being prepared for each global server', and that similar updates will be made to the domestic server, but not all content will be the same. For example, in the case of avatar encyclopedia, it will be introduced in the same way in Korea, but ranking and collecting will be excluded in consideration of sentiment. Daily Epona improvements and new honorary rewards will be updated in the same way. Only class symbols were shown in the Chinese showcase, but in addition to this, there are honorary rewards such as nameplates and animation titles, which can be seen in the character information window or party search. In the case of Paradise content, it is being prepared in a different direction from China.

The class balance update is watching the indicators of the previous update and is checking for all classes. There is nothing confirmed yet as it is still in the collection stage, but adjustments have been confirmed for 3 classes. The 3 classes are 'classes that have become complicated because they wanted to add fun to the operation', 'classes whose operating difficulty has become too high in Season 3 but whose play has become monotonous after easing', and 'classes that have become too strong'. It is not a simple rollback, but we will carefully review and update it.

An additional apology was made for the so-called 'Ella Ella' situation, which required additional growth for Esther weapons. The background for the introduction was to suppress the efficiency of bound Esther's growth, which is called 'Rice Esther', and depending on the economic situation, the 6-gang Ella may be more efficient than the general weapon 25-gang. In response, they forcibly demanded Ella in the second stage, but it felt like a tax forcibly collected immediately after the release of Season 3, so it was 'insufficient and regrettable'. In response, Director Jeon Jae-hak will refund 20 bound Esther's Energy to all adventurers who have completed Ella in the second stage at the time of the summer update, and will provide class symbols and relic titles exclusively for Ella in the second stage after the summer update.

The contents to be updated on Wednesday were also announced. This is the major easing that was announced on the broadcast on April 30th. The difficulty will be adjusted mainly for normal, and hard will be maintained as is for now. All Kazeros raids are included in the adjustment, and the boss's health is also lowered. Patterns with excessive damage, such as Mordoom's elbow attack, and falling sections will also be adjusted, and gimmicks will also be deleted. Representative examples include Mordoom's anvil just guard and blue flag white flag patterns. In addition, the 1 resurrection that was promised in the last broadcast will be added, and you will be able to resurrect once in all raids with the 'Resurrection Feather' item.

Supporter improvement was also mentioned. Director Jeon Jae-hak mentioned that he had 'avoided the issue', and that there are many difficulties in structurally improving the current supporter. Based on the assault raid, the damage ratio due to the supporter's buff is about 38%, and it reaches 36% in Acts 2 and 3. The part where the entire party depends on one supporter is still high. It's no wonder that if the supporter dies, they retry.

In this situation, if the sense of growth is given too high, the proportion of supporters will increase further. As a result of repeated consideration, engraving adjustment, support for skill level 10 or higher, mana, and 'fun' structural changes will be updated. The sense of growth will increase, but it will increase gradually. Supporter improvement will be carried out with the release of Summer Holy Knight (summer).

Kazeros was a boss without a shape. One is because he lost his body in the Chain War, and the other is because he was reconstructing his body inside the shadow after his resurrection. This time, Kazeros' proper appearance was revealed for the first time. The Kazeros Raid is the last legion commander raid method of Season 3, and the last allied forces skill and the last Esther skill will be released. As it is the ending of Part 1 that concludes the 7-year journey, a large-scale ending is being prepared. An ending credit containing the adventurer's journey is also being prepared. Director Jeon Jae-hak described the first half of Season 3 as 'challenge' and the second half as 'adventure'. It is clear that new content and raids will be released in the sea of Aldebaran after defeating Kazeros.

Meanwhile, in the case of the female Holy Knight, new voices are being recorded in addition to the existing female warrior's voice. A famous overseas voice actor was hired.

Webzine InvenChoi Min-ho Reporter
2025-05-20