Heroes of Arkesia,
Downtime for this week’s update will begin at 10PM PT (6AM UTC) on March 3, with an expected downtime of 6 hours. This update will include general bug fixes, work on improving issues with matchmaking, and the balance updates to some Tier 1 and Tier 2 content that we announced last week on our official forums.
Balance Updates
Before we dive into the specific changes and updates, we wanted to share our reasoning for adjusting the balance for some of the Tier 1 and 2 Guardian Raids and Abyssal Dungeons.
It’s been less than a month since the hordes of heroes arrived on the western shores of Arkesia. Many players are still uncovering and learning the advanced systems during their adventures, from finding the perfect placement of their skill points in the Tripod System to customizing their playstyle with Engravings, Skill Runes, and Gems. It’s been exciting and humbling for us to see players at different stages in their journey as they quest to level 50 before encountering the diverse Tier 1 and 2 content— progressing step-by-step and exploring all that Arkesia has to offer.
In other regions, players had to stay in Tier 1 and 2 for a considerable duration, as Tier 3 had not yet been released. With the amount of time spent in these stages of the game, players had a long time to study the patterns and mechanics of the Guardians and Demons they encountered— leaving only a few monsters that ended up posing as challenging hurdles for them. As Lost Ark has progressed and added more content, the time and progression required for Tier 1 and 2 has decreased. In the western release, Lost Ark launched with Tier 1, 2, and 3 content. Tier 1 and 2 are designed as a prologue for the wealth of end-game Tier 3 content that Smilegate RPG has developed since their original launch. We hope that Tiers 1 and 2 will be used as a road for players to understand the many systems that comprise Lost Ark, encourage players to explore the vast world of Arkesia, and learn how intricate mechanics within battles play out.
With the different purpose of Tier 1 and Tier 2 in our regions, there were some overly difficult Guardians and Abyssal Dungeon encounters left behind. This balance update isn’t about simply adjusting the difficulty as whole. Rather, the focus is to improve some of the difficult patterns to better prepare players as they progress through each Tier and work their way toward Tier 3 endgame content.
We are aiming for players to ramp up into more challenging and complex content as they progress in their journey. There’s a variety of challenging future Tier 3 content that has yet to be infused into the western release - stay tuned for our roadmap article that will share what you can expect in the coming months. These upcoming encounters will serve as the hurdles for players to challenge themselves, master systems, and learn complex mechanics. Even Argos, arriving this month, will be an unforgiving opponent ready to test the mettle of the so-called heroes infesting Arkesia.
Abyssal Dungeons
Ancient Elveria
Necromancer’s Origin
- Improved player forgiveness during the orb phase when trying to defeat Sigmund during Stage 2 of Necromancer's Origin.
- Improved the visual effect of Sigmund's color wave to make it more clear to players.
Phantom Palace
Hall of the Twisted Warlord
- Made a change to the Phantom Legion King attack pattern and Phantom Cut debuff stack that is applied to the character.
- Updated the Phantom Legion King Illusion Sword summon attack pattern.
- As the swords follow the players, if a player receives two stacks they will incur damage and upon reaching three stacks, they will die.
Hildebrandt Palace
- Decreased the amount of damage required for the Stagger phase when Ephernia appears in Stage 3 of Hildebrandt Palace.
- Increased the Phantom Energy effect range from the Meteor mechanic during Stage 3.
- Changed the attack shape of the second Meteor mechanic from a circle to a front attack during Stage 3.
Gate of Paradise
Sea of Indolence
- Increased the warning time for the omen attack in Stage 2 of Sea of Indolence.
- Changed Indolence Sentinel Akam’s attack from a wipe mechanic to a high damage attack in Stage 2 of Sea of Indolence.
Guardian Raids
Vertus
- Removed the stun debuff that was applied when players were hit by the tail swing attack.
- Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
- Jumping out of the ice.
- Grabbing a player and breathing ice fire.
Nacrasena
Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
- Tail attack after thumping the ground with tail.
- Jumping out of the ground.
- Lightning projectiles.
Flame Fox Yoho
- Reduced the duration of Flame Fox Yoho's Flame Ground attack.
- Decreased Flame Fox Yoho’s HP.
- Reduced the effect of the Burning Soul ability.
- Decreased the damage dealt by several attacks:
- Throwing Fox fires.
- Jump forward and claw attacks.
- Jump upward and claw attacks.
Tytalos
- Decreased the duration of Tytalos’ Circle of Spalling rock attack.
- Changed Tytalos’ attack that collects sand energy and explodes from a wipe mechanic to a high-damage attack.
- Decreased the damage dealt by Tytalos’ earth explosion attacks.
Achates
- Modified Guardian Achates summon statue pattern to always summon four Guardian Statues.
- Decreased the damage required to apply Weak Point to Achates.
- To keep Achates challenging in Trial Guardian Raids, that encounter will not have these changes – but more on that in a future update!
Lava Chromanium
- Decreased the damage dealt by the lava eruption attack used by Lava Chromanium when becoming Berserk.
Levanos
- Decreased the damage required to apply Weak Point* to Levanos.
*Weak Point is a mechanic which requires players to break a part of the enemy (such as shields, shells, wings etc.) or target a specific area with abilities and battle items marked with the ‘Destruction’ keyword.
Alberhastic
- Reduced Alberhastic’s beneficial effect that was granted when obtaining the Heat Orb.
- Changed the wipe mechanic to a high-damage attack.
General Updates & Bug Fixes
- Fixed an issue that caused the “Battle Effects Display – include buff effects of party members” setting to not show some debuffs affecting party members.
- Fixed an issue that caused the top-left in-game clock to show the wrong time zone due to daylight saving time.
- Added an update to prevent players from being booted out of the server while logging in. We will continue to monitor data, feedback, and reports to ensure this issue is resolved.
- Applied a fix to help improve matchmaking issues. We will continue to monitor data, feedback, and reports to ensure this issue is resolved.
- Fixed an issue preventing an object from being interactable during “Nineveh's Aura of Chaos” rapport quest chain.
- Fixed an issue where the Abyss Trader was missing from Rothun.
- Fixed an issue where the Weekly Battle Item Bundle stated it could be claimed 10 times, correcting it to reflect the purchase limit of once a week.
We will do our best to provide detailed information for future updates, and look forward to witnessing the impressive battles and challenges you’ll encounter in your journey into Lost Ark.
Thanks for your support, we’ll see you in Arkesia!