Lost Ark Criticism for Queues and Gambling Intensifies on Steam

The online RPG Lost Ark turned out to be a huge hit on Steam, reaching the second highest activity score in the history of the service. However, the developers have reason to be concerned, as the game's reception is clearly deteriorating.

1. Lost Ark Review: Setting the Standard for a Modern MMORPG

Steam users are increasingly critical of Lost Ark

At the time of writing Lost Ark has 46 thousand user reviews on Steam and only 69% of them praise the game, which is categorized as "mixed reception". The share of positive reviews has been steadily declining since launch day - as of Saturday morning it was 78%.

The trend is well shown by the rating charts on Steam:

Growing share of negative reviews of Lost Ark on Steam

Going below 70% of positive reviews caused a change in Lost Ark's reception category on Steam from "mostly positive" to "mixed".

What do the players dislike?

Queues on the servers

Most players giving negative reviews complain about technical problems. The most serious ones concern the servers being full. One person even claims that Steam is stating that she spent 33.5 hours in Lost Ark, but only 5-7 hours went into actual gameplay - the remaining time was wasted waiting in queues.

The developers are trying to tackle the issue by putting limits on character creation. People who already have characters on a clogged server can continue playing and create additional ones, new players, however, are blocked from joining the game. This solution was also met with criticism, especially since in some regions such problems have already occurred on most servers.

Steam users also recall that similar problems occurred in the case of New World and the claim that Amazon Games specializes in "queuing simulators" became popular.

Virtual casino syndrome

There are also other accusations aimed at Lost Ark. User Rwar, who spent almost 70 hours in the game, criticizes it for the gambling elements appearing in the endgame. Korean players are used to it, but Western users usually do not tolerate such solutions in MMORPGs.

1. The problem is the so-called honing system, where we collect materials to improve the equipment. It also serves as a kind of progress indicator through which we unlock access to new content.
2. The catch is that when our inventory reaches a high level, there is a chance that the honing will fail, causing us to lose materials. For example, to gain access to "tier 2" content, we need to successfully upgrade six pieces of equipment 15 times. At this stage, the chance of success is only 40%.
3. This randomness and its connection with access to new content spoil the gameplay, especially its multiplayer aspect. If we play with a group of friends, there is a good chance that some people will unlock content a few days earlier and they will have to wait until their companions catch up with them.

Such solutions are nothing new, but according to Rwar they are particularly condemnable in Lost Ark, because they only appear around the endgame phase. The initial few dozen hours are devoid of these problems and thus many players may invest a lot of money and time in the title before they find out how the rest of the game will look like. By then, they may not want to give up.

Casinos make money on the same principle, where gamblers play longer than they should, arguing that they have already lost too much money at the table to walk away from it now. It's human nature that we have trouble letting go of something we've already put a lot of time or resources into, even if the rational decision would be to quit.

Players complain, but keep storming the servers

Deteriorating ratings on Steam do not translate into decreased interest so far. Yesterday, at the hottest moment of Sunday Lost Ark was being played by 1,316,854 concurrent players, which is only 9 thousand less than on Saturday.

It won't be until next week to judge whether all these technical issues are undermining interest in the game.