KR State of the Game Stream Summary

On August 23rd, Lost Ark Director Jeon Jae-Hak held a livestream to address some of the concerns the Korean community had about recent releases and the Ark Passive system as a whole, as well as present the upcoming changes and content releases for the game.

If you haven't caught up with the recent Tier 4 and Season 3 changes, check out this Dev Letter.

Ark Passive Concerns

As KR players progress through Kazeros Raid: Aegir and unlock more gear pieces and Ark Passive points, some aspects of this system have been flagged as problematic:

• Some of the points for the Enlightenment tab are locked behind RNG, as a drop from the new Field Boss in North Kurzan. These points are very important, since they represent the cut-off for some classes having access to gameplay changing nodes in the system.
• The acquisition rate of shards required to enhance Tier 4 Accessories is slow, leading to a low supply of accessories on the market and slowing down how soon regular players can begin using the Ark Passive system.
• Some classes received innovative changes that can alter their gameplay in positive ways, while others received simple damage increases or effects that negatively impact their gameplay loop. At the same time, class balance is perceived to be extremely unfair.

In order to alleviate these problems, the director introduced the following changes:

• The Enlightenment Points Potion acquired from North Kurzan's Field Boss is now guaranteed to drop after 18 kills. It can still be obtained earlier than this through RNG drops.
• The low supply of accessory shards was intended in order to provide an artificial sense of slow progression, but will naturally improve as more sources of accessories are released in the near future.
• While the August 14th Patch addressed minor problems for some classes, it was acknowledged that there are larger issues to be dealt with. These will be revised in upcoming Balance Patches that touch upon both gameplay changes and damage scaling for overperformers and underperformers alike.

Ark Passive Trixion Update

While missing in the initial Tier 4 update, Ark Passive features have now been introduced to Trixion. Similar to the Tier 3 version, you can select any Engravings and Nodes, regardless of whether you own them or have the necessary points to unlock them. This should facilitate testing for various options on all classes as players continue to explore new ideas and discover new builds.

Hyper Awakening

The long-awaited Hyper Awakening system has been confirmed to release on August 28th.

Just like the Second Awakening, it will require players to complete a questline in order to unlock. Here are the requirements in order to access these quests:

• Character must have achieved Item Level 1640 or higher.
• Character must have completed North Kurzan's main story quest.
• Character must have achieved Combat Level 60 or higher.

These new Awakening skills are formidable, featuring cinematic effects and allowing you to truly unleash the potential of your class's power fantasy. The following considerations apply to Hyper Awakening skills:

• Once unlocked, they can be used as a replacement for previous Awakening skills, but you are not forced to slot them in.
• They can only be cast once per each fight.
• They are not affected by buffs, synergies, and other effects (likely dealing fixed amounts of damage).
• During the animation, your character becomes completely invulnerable (similar to the effects of Time Stop Potions).

Ultimate Skills

Accompanying the new Hyper Awakening skills, each class will receive 2 new Ultimate skills. These will go into a new skill slot (default keybind T) and are meant to be powerful additions to your character's moveset.

System & Content Changes

Another one of the topics addressed by the director was the effective dead-zone for new players, starting at Item Level 1600 through Item Level 1620, as well as the content requiring Item Level 1630 being in an awkward state in players' progression paths.

The main concern here was that this segment of the game is too challenging, and instead of powering through it, most people tend to give up. In order to help diminish this effect, the following changes will be made:

• Abyssal Dungeon: Ivory Tower will now drop Legendary Elixirs in the Normal and Solo modes. Legendary Elixirs can now be cut starting at Item Level 1600.
• In order to access levels 4 - 7 of Transcendence, the requirement of clearing Legion Raid: Thaemine Gate 2 & 3 in the Hard Mode difficulty has been changed to Normal Mode.
• Kazeros Raid: Echidna will have its Hard Mode difficulty raised to Item Level 1640, and the reward structure will feature Tier 4 items. The difficulty of this raid will however be lowered, especially in terms of mechanics. The entry level should not pose a problem thanks to Tier 4's gear conversion allowing players to take a character from 1620 straight to 1640.
• The exchange for Dark Fire and Legendary Elixirs from Epic Raid: Behemoth will now cost fewer Behemoth's Scale in order to encourage players to purchase them without feeling like they're missing out on other rewards.
• The Solo Mode versions of raids will have their difficulty lowered.

Super Mokoko Express

A new iteration of the Super Mokoko Express will also be released in the near future in KR. This is likely to arrive in the West towards the end of this year.

The Item Level restrictions for this version are 1600 - 1620, and besides the bountiful materials from this event, this time it features special rewards:

• A set of 40-point elixirs will be provided, but it will not feature offensive effects other than the set effects themselves.
• Levels 1 - 3 of Transcendence will be automatically completed at Grade 3 once the Express-designated character finishes the event.

September Update (KR)

Moving forward, the major patch for September will release on the 25th in KR, and includes the following content:

• Kazeros Raid: Brelshaza
  • Structured into 2 Gates.
  • Difficulty is somewhat higher than Kazeros Raid: Aegir.
  • Normal Mode Item Level requirement is 1670.
  • Hard Mode Item Level requirement is 1690.
  • Features Tier 4 Bracelet drops.
  • Features Stones of Destiny drops.
• Karma System
  • New feature in each Ark Passive tab.
  • Uses Stones of Destiny to level up.
  • Grants damage boosts (confirmed) and points (not precisely confirmed).
• New Daily Content (assumed entry Item Level is 1680)
  • Chaos Dungeon (and Kurzan Frontline)
  • Guardian Raid
  • Ebony Cube
  • Chaos Gate
• PvP Updates
  • 1v1 Mode will be introduced, where you can select 3 characters from your roster and play them one at a time in a series of 1v1 matches against another player.
  • PvP rewards will be greatly improved.