Preface:

I originally posted this in r/lostarkgame and realized my post fits better here for those who want some initial thoughts on the game in comparison to other titles (FFXIV & WOW) specifically for end game PVE content.

Luckily, before the servers shutdown the bunch of rando's I queued with carried me (I still am getting used to ARPG being a boomer. I also have low FPS and high latency at 150~ ish) to see the entirety of the fight and was able to clear. (I started late in the beta)

Huge shoutout to Sheng, Poetat, Dkina, you guys rock!!

There are four tiers offered in the beta. With 2 bosses in each tier, except the last tier which is this video where it has 3 bosses (technically because the two phases of the same boss are different fights).

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ABOUT ME:

I am a world last raider and certainly not a world first raider in any of these games so my perspective should be how a "normie" raider will be. I am a gamer from the third world and I'd like to make content about that in the future. However, that does not mean I haven't cognitively given the time to think about the nuances of these things. Strategy and thought process is what I enjoy the most in MMO's. I spent countless of hours listening to perspectives of people (from the very best to someone who just represent the general populace) in WOW and FFXIV from videos and podcasts and their talks amongst each other. I may not be a hardcore gamer in people's books but I am a hardcore gaming nerd who spends a lot of time studying it. Passion runs deep when it comes to the thought process of any gaming I play. So if you're similar, then I think you'd enjoy my thoughts on the Lost Ark PVE

DISCLAIMER:     

My thoughts will be in comparison to the top dogs of the genre which is WOW and FFXIV in different categories that I'll try to explain the thought process. This was written to shed light for Lost Ark players assuming they haven't played the other two games and vice versa. This won't include the Guardian Raids, because that is a totally different content (Monster hunter like PVE). These are all opinions and must be taken with a grain of salt. I'm also aware and did a bit of research by now that I am completely missing a shit ton of content and technically the things I've done are only dungeon modes

Please avoid Game Tribalism. Game tribalism mostly feeds off of the idea that their game is the more hardcore more superior one. This is not going to be that. This is just me literally comparing my experiences because of the nuances that I know with the amount of time I've spent understanding them. And lastly I love raiding in the three games because all three games' end game PVE content is masterful.

Thoughts on Lost Ark Beta End-Game PVE content compared to Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft

• STRATEGY & MECHANICS

I am not the most mechanical player, but as a theorycrafter this is what I enjoy most on any games. Strategy is the puzzle like elements in the game where when you see a mechanic the first time (not from a guide/vid) the amount of problem solving you do or the people who make the guides put in their brain to execute some strategies. Also the more varied the strategies that pop from group to group (without factoring class meta), the better for me.

-In WOW, Mechanics is like having a big pot of different things the boss does in a Phase, and then the boss will randomly do those things, sometimes in cursed combinations. Most strategies are done by the world first people which are literally two groups (Echo and Limit), and the rest sort of follows that and it creates the meta. WOW also have PTR testing (public beta testing realms) to gather data, and has an adventurer's guide like a blurb to say what a boss can do and what mechanics does. Given that the complexity and mechanics of WOW is pretty straightforward and is mostly on what class to bring due to their specific niches and how to utilize certain immunities to get over a mechanic easier.

-In FFXIV, this is it's biggest strength. You can literally go in with your friends BLIND and just solve the boss and invent your own strats. There is nothing more unfun than just googling a guide or following a video. I love figuring it out on my own. Eventually, Party Finder strats gets homogenized but still differs per region server and more than 1 strat. FFXIV mechanics are very static and scripted which means the boss will choose a path of XYZ, ABC, or 123. This means it could be boring to some. But it being scripted avoid janky HP% triggers which will make you wipe due to just bad luck. This is also why the Mechanics are demonically complex. For instance you have to form a bow tie shape with four people, while the other four kites a ball but those people with bow tie triggers beams so you have to avoid them too. That is orgasm for me.

-Lost Ark seems to have adopted from both and I actually love its ARPG combat (which is new to me in an MMO). I've been seeing some vids of the raids in Korea and I can't wait because I actually like the dynamic mechanics of WOW, and the complexity of puzzles in FF and I'm seeing that within the game design. I'm so excited!

• EXECUTION and COMBAT

End game PVE is very straight forward. Have a boss do mechanics all while a player try to squeeze in damage on their rotations. This is all about pressing buttons, operating your camera, moving where you have to.. or not moving. This can be measured by APM objectively. But I'd like to steer clear from that thought process and move to how the amount of disruptions to your combat rotation plays in the execution. I'd usually call them down time. Not to be mistaken with when the boss is unhittable and you guys are just dancing around avoiding things. Because being able to dish damage while a mechanic happens is that sweet spot of fun for most people. This is assuming you are playing with the most optimal build

-In WOW, Execution is King. If we divide the pie of what WOW raids are, it is mostly how 5head or god presser someone is all while being in the right place for a mechanic to not hurt the raid. The rotations are very proc'd based around 3-4 buttons that you hit per trigger. So there is a huge dynamic fun with it. The punish to your DPS is actually bad RNG and a short window to not be pushing buttons. The uptime of pressing buttons vs downtime significantly affects hitting the DPS required for it.

-In FFXIV, Combat is like they wrote you a piano piece and you have to play it straightforwardly. Most misinformed people say combat is slow in FF but all those opinions came from the early levels where they take a lot from that piano piece until you get to end game where it's full. Still objectively slower than WOW, but given it's more complex mechanic of not just dodging things or standing properly, the amount of brain work floats perfectly while you play that piano piece. It's like the design is meant for you to muscle memory a single set of many buttons because the dynamic part is where to put your character via movement. This means it's extremely punishing to do rotations wrong. The game actually encourages you to think of strats for uptime even it's the more dangerous route just because of how static the rotation is.

-Lost Ark feels like the fastest game versus the three. The mechanics are very precise. The pressing buttons part is also precise. And since it's the only non tab target, it actually requires you to aim which is an unarguably another layer of difficulty. On top of that, there are no healers or tanks so you could be a receiving the hate of the boss or a step on a mechanic and you will have to top yourself via potions. In the raid that I did, you can at most use 60% HP pots 6x on every encounter.

I wish I know how to animation cancel though if there is, or a button like in MOBA's to stop animation. Otherwise it being this dynamic yet precise will be very punishing in a non-fun way. In order to predict when to use animation heavy buttons you have to be able to preempt when the attack is coming but since it is dynamic that poses a challenge that is not fun but janky. (Note that first prog clear is different from re-clears for farm). I like games that challenges me because I was given the liberty to push the button, I just did not push it so I know what to do. But since mechanics are too quick, I wish I could've cancelled some things. It could be just me because I'm 150ish latency. :)

Overall though, combat and execution looks very, very promising. Certainly a giant contender in the future of MMOs.

• PERSONAL RESPONBILITY

Pretty self explanatory. But if you saw my video, I was literally carried by those cool guys. This is important to discuss as you can see how people can get carried in a game. Sure you can play people to play with you or ask gods of games. But if the game gives you decent personal responsibility, then it is still playing it.

-In WOW, it's mostly revolving about hitting your numbers. DPS check is tight and is in every phase. Unless you are assigned a mechanic. In WOW a shot-caller in discord can significantly carry the entire raid by letting people focus on button pushing and just feeding them where to go. Healing and tanking has way way more personal responsibility than DPS. But the group as a whole absent of ASSIGNED mechanics is a bit low.

-In FFXIV, mechanics are like a dance so you have to know the steps. These mechanics could be hugely varying from where 8 of you has 8 different things to do. And one mistake could fuck it all up. Given that, the role of a shot-caller is significantly less in FF than in WOW. High personal responsibility are relatively high across board of any roles.

-In Lost Ark you are your own healer, very, very, very high personal responsibility with very, very little margin for error. However, it seems the DPS check is not quite there yet given the contents that I did we're considered in Normal difficulty.

• EPICNESS

This is more about the atmospheric look of the raids, music and the question in my head that says why am I killing this boss which can be answered by lore and what not.

-In WOW. The oldest of the three is obviously the weakest when it comes to how much its engine can do. However, since it's graphics is timeless. It still managed to be THAT epic of a raid. Given it has the biggest raid size. You do the raids because the stories are predominantly geared towards them. And music is very standard medieval fantasy for most part.

-In FFXIV the raids are tailor fitted to the music it creates. This not only mean that the musical team don't just design songs for the theme of the boss, but also with the mechanics in mind. I have never seen that in any game.. yet. In every phase, some fights shift into song parts. The epicness of boss transitions are so sick that will make you feel really cool fighting this cool boss. However, since raids are one boss instances, it pales in comparison to when you raid in WOW you enter a palace or a huge dungeon where big bad monsters exist and you battle to the top. Also, in FFXIV the hardest contents are simply side stories or canonically a hard reimagining of a Wandering Minstrel as its hard mode. The stories are good, but it doesn't tie up hugely to the grand story of FFXIV.

-In Lost Ark, bruh there's an evil sexy demon dominatrix bending time and space and is being pinned down by a giant fire balrog. How can it get more epic than that??? So far, the 2-boss Abyssal Dungeons (3 for the last one) is over the top magnificent. The journey to each boss feels very epic. The music is looking to be a contender to the masterpieces of FFXIV franchise. I seriously think that the last dungeon of the story quest where they based the Hildebrandt Palace is the BEST DUNGEON I HAVE EVER PLAYED IN AN MMO. And knowing how devs CAN design something like this, there's going to be more, more and more!

• ARIFICIAL DIFFICULTY, RAID SIZE, AND BARRIER FOR ENTRY

I hate to call it this way. Because I hate to touch the word Difficulty for the very reason that conversations get very bias and very toxic sooner than a first baby's cry at birth. I'll do my best to frame my thoughts away from my own biases. Also, you have to understand, that difficulty is something the Devs can literally make extremely, extremely hard if they wanted to. And there's a fine line between difficult for the sake of making people not able to clear or the good kind of difficult where through time you'd be able to do it. Otherwise, it's just difficult to be punishing and not fun. I'd like to keep this category to what is what some call " Artificial Difficulty" like things that doesn't involve pressing buttons, reacting to mechanics, reflex, split time decision making. Like raid size, communication requirements, gold in game, gears. Raid size is very important to me because any game can be the best game granted you'd be able to play it. That also includes the amount of things to do to in the game in order for you to enter it. To some people, they enjoy the bigger raids because sincerely that would make it feel like a "raid". But I think it's not feasible at these times anymore to have a huge raid size.

-In WOW, the hardest content is locked for 20 people, and you can only prog with those people fixed because of lockouts, and you can only find people in your servers until later where you can cross realm it. The amount of chores you have to do and time you have to spend on a character weekly to be raid ready is immense for a working person in my honest opinion. There are so many things that are tied to hero power hat strongly creates a lot of numerical advantage and artificial difficulty if you don't have them. Obviously this is how they keep their game alive by designing things like that. Class balancing is also very meta based. Given you have 30 plus DPS specs, some will always have the misfortune of being in the bottom of the pit. In short, WOW raiding is amazing assuming you got in. The barrier for entry and the amount of artificial difficulty is way too high for me that I have to invest a lot of my time in it.

-In FFXIV, you can literally login buy the crafted gears (which is a different universe on its own) and do the raids. The cost depending on your server is relatively around 40-60% of what you have earned from levelling from 1. At week 1, you need most of your levelling gold and some errands to run to afford the crafted gear to cut the ilvl requirement. If you are racing however, you need a whole lot more than that to hit dps check but that's he only hero power thing you have to worry about it. However, if you just wanna try out raids with the rest of the world, then getting normal difficulty raid gears is enough to be in it. This is absurd because this is what you need on a week 1 raiding where most people don't experience in WOW. Things heavily became cheaper months. Not to mention you can do all old raids. You may ask what's the point of doing obsolete raids, but in FFXIV they have syncing so you can still mimic a freshly released content even you are coming in late to the game. The raiding content is between 8 people. And it hits a sweet spot of getting that amount of friends/acquaintance and do fun stuff together. If you can't, pugging is relatively way easier in FFXIV than WOW. Also since you have to play fix in WOW, in FFXIV you can just jump on any boss with anyone, anytime. It's less cool, but it's more accessible. Also the gearing up could be bland given it's not a meteoric step to achieve them.

-For Lost Ark I have zero idea on how this would work. I head it's 4-8? I'm not sure I like dynamic raid size. But some are fixed 8. I heard there are normalized raids too. And if that's true it will be so awesome. With so many arguments on pay to win or whatever. Regardless if it is, the point of contention is "can I pay my way to be able to do the raids and in retrospect can I just grind it instead". Then if yes, the next question is do I care more about time or my money. If time how long? If money, how much? I have high hopes for Lost Ark and this is primarily a deterrent for me if I'm being cock blocked by a lot of these things in order for me to raid.

• FUN

It honestly boils down to this for most. And I honestly think all three games' PVE end game content are the most fun I have in gaming. Granted I'm able to do them. Highly recommend you try all of them at least in this lifetime. xD

Last note: Lost ark sincerely hits this spot. From the levelling experience which is pristine and well-made up to end game. Game has not given me any dull moment. At the end of the day it is also the people that we play with. And if the game continues to design in creating a harmony towards that, then it is a good game for me. Can't wait for the launch where I no-life crunch data and think about strats and builds. IMO the scene gets better with every great competition that shows. Which is a plus plus for us, the consumers. :)

That's it r/MMORPG! Thanks for reading. Please let me know your thoughts if any or if I said something inaccurate. Again these are all my opinion given my background. :)

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tl;dr Officially or unofficially "The World Last clear of Hildebrandt Palace" and here are my thoughts on strictly end game PVE raid-like content in retrospect to FFXIV and WOW because you can actually play multiple games. 2022 is gonna be lit. It feels like the renaissance of MMO's and we are at the tail end surfing towards it. :)