'Lost Ark' March Update Was A 'Mistake,' Says Amazon Games

The "Lost Ark" update released in March was a "mistake," according to publisher Amazon Games.

This is mainly due to the poor player reception regarding its activity which was considered pay-to-win by many: the Argos raid. To participate, a party of eight players with a minimum item level of 1,370 is required, which is not something that's easy to achieve in the massively popular Korean MMO.

As per Amazon Games, "Lost Ark's" March update likely needed more time in the oven. According to PC Gamer, the publisher says that they initially assumed more players would have already reached the required item level to be competitive in the raid and challenge Argos head-on.

According to them, they "overlooked certain variables" like players spending most of their time on so-called horizontal content, as well as the existing problems brought about by bots that basically sabotage the in-game economy, as per their recent blog post on the "Lost Ark" website.

Upgrading character items to the required level for the Argos raid can be a tough slog, because the prices of honing materials have increased across the board due to botting and black market, real-money transactions-the latter of which are direct violations of the game's terms of service.

In layman's terms, getting to the required item level for the Argos raid would be far easier for players if they just paid actual money for their upgrades, and not by grinding things out to get enough resources. Amazon Games acknowledges this directly, saying that the March "Lost Ark" update made the entire game "feel pay-to-win."

For now, the developers at Smilegate are working with Amazon to help players get to the newly added end-game activities sooner. Among their methods to aid players include introducing extra rewards, as well as new events in the coming weeks.

What's Next For 'Lost Ark?'

For now, Amazon Games and Smilegate still have a ton of work to do ahead of them, if they want to keep their 20 million-person player base intact. And it doesn't stop with just fixing the game's Argos raid.

As previously mentioned, one of the biggest problems they have to deal with right now are bots. Amazon and Smilegate both understand that botting has always been an issue for "Lost Ark" since launch, and it has persisted even if they already banned 1 million suspicious accounts earlier this month.

Amazon did confirm that there's already been a "steep decline" in botting and bot-farmed gold, which led to honing materials getting more expensive. One of their main focuses for now is making these bots more inefficient so other real players can access gold without having to pay an arm and a leg for it.

To close things off, there's still the "pay-to-win" feel of the Argos raid. Among the biggest critics of this is Twitch star Asmongold, who recently said that "Lost Ark" might lose players if it doesn't implement massive changes soon.

The ball is in Smilegate and Amazon's park for now.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by RJ Pierce