People with 4000+ hours in this game are just angry because they've finally realized they're idiots for being too emotionally invested in this game to the point where they've sacked a major portion of their time and money into the game.
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I originally started the game because it was free and it seemed to sort of have the same gameplay style of Path of Exile 1 (PoE). Lost Ark is not as twitchy as PoE, but I feel it is definitely way more engaging combat. The levelling process is fun, and completing the main story quests for each of the regions was pretty fun. Exploring the seas was an interesting idea and turned out to be fun too for a while. I played for almost 150 hours before I felt the time-gated mechanics really start to hurt. There's a great deal of content. I didn't even join a guild or have any friends to play with. It's pretty fun. This is the sole reason why I would recommend this game. If you don't force yourself to get to end-game raiding, it's a good game.
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YOU CAN STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T PLAN ON GETTING TO END-GAME CONTENT.
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If you want to get to the latest release content and be a top raider, you must be efficient. There's a lot of different things to grind, and if you want to do so efficiently, you're going to have to do quite a bit of research. This is not foreign to the MMORPG genre, but just because this is the case for most MMOs, that doesn't make it any less bad. I play Oldschool Runescape (I'm almost maxed btw, and yes I know that makes me a loser), so I feel it's safe to say that I am familiar with grinding in games. I just breached the 10,000 hour mark recently, but I've been playing since I was a kid (Halloween of 2005 to be exact). The fact that there are people reviewing the game with 11,000+ hours... and this game was released in 2022? Holy.... anyways... back to the point. This game's grind is different. In Oldschool Runescape, you can drop the game whenever you want, come back 6 months later and most of the training methods you knew about are probably still viable. In Lost Ark, there are certain areas and certain things to farm that can only be completed at specific times per day. Sometimes these change depending on the day of the week, and these also change between time zones. The different classes are fun, but the content remains the same. The classes are not different enough to make it feel like a completely different game when you play a different class, which brings me to one of three major pitfalls of the game in the long run.
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Major pitfall 1: If you want to reliably get to and maintain your status as an end-game raider, you're going to have to play several different classes just to farm materials to feed your main character. I don't know how people stick with this game because this is extremely time consuming to the point where it will affect your real life in some way, shape or form. It may not be immediate, but it definitely will be a matter of time before suddenly your brain takes this game as a priority to other things in real life. This game is a second job.
Major pitfall 2: A great deal of actions in the game are purposefully gated by time, which forces you to play different classes if you really want to continue playing the game.
Major pitfall 3: Gear upgrades have a significant chance to fail in the end-game. Resource requirements only get worse and worse the further you get, which brings you back to major pitfall 1.
Hidden major pitfall: It feels real scummy that the developers purposefully create these problems just to sell you the solutions for real money. I understand that the game is free to play, but does that really make it okay for them to purposefully insert mechanics into a game that make it less fun?
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Even with those pitfalls, those still aren't the real reason why the game fell from grace. It's ironic really. The decline of the game stemmed from issues players found when they reached the end-game. The really awkward thing about the end-game are the raids themselves. The raids are really fun, but getting to them is basically a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ job interview. It's a huge double-edged sword. The raids are fun because they are difficult, but because they are difficult and really punishing against mistakes, people will gatekeep others out if they're not min-maxed. To be fair, this happens in group PvE content across most MMOs in the gaming industry, but this game is on a whole new level. When I say it's a job interview, I mean it. When you apply to a raid, people can inspect your character. The character inspection is basically a resume. It lists the titles/achievements you completed, gems and cards equipped, talents, gear, stats, etc. If anything seems off or if you don't have a specific title, you're getting declined from the group.
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The worst part is, I can't even blame them for gatekeeping. This is the double-edged sword part. Most raids have raid-wiping mechanics where if a single player makes a mistake, you have to restart the boss fight. End-game bosses take double-digit minutes to take down, and raids have anywhere between 3-5 bosses in them. If you're already playing the game with multiple classes feeding your main class, then you're already using up a lot of time out of the week. You cannot afford to spend time to teach someone, or let them learn from their mistakes. It's the good old catch-22. You need to learn the mechanics to beat the boss, but to get in a raid party, you need to have beaten the boss. Even with the major pitfalls I described earlier, I feel the gatekeeping is actually what killed the game. It is unfortunate that the bosses are so punishing towards mistakes that the players feel the need to be extremely cautious as to who they allow in their raid party. You can blame the players for gatekeeping all you want, but it's the developers who incentivize this behavior by making extremely difficult and very long boss battles. Add the 3 major pitfalls I described earlier, and now you realize why this game went from having a strong playerbase of 300,000+ people for its first YEAR of release (1.3 million all-time peak) to now struggling to get above 20,000 people to play it.

People with 4000+ hours in this game are just angry because they've finally realized they're idiots for being too emotionally invested in this game to the point where they've sacked a major portion of their time and money into the game. - I originally started the game because it was free and it seemed to sort of have the same gameplay style of Path of Exile 1 (PoE). Lost Ark is not as twitchy as PoE, but I feel it is definitely way more engaging combat. The levelling process is fun, and completing the main story quests for each of the regions was pretty fun. Exploring the seas was an interesting idea and turned out to be fun too for a while. I played for almost 150 hours before I felt the time-gated mechanics really start to hurt. There's a great deal of content. I didn't even join a guild or have any friends to play with. It's pretty fun. This is the sole reason why I would recommend this game. If you don't force yourself to get to end-game raiding, it's a good game. - YOU CAN STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON'T PLAN ON GETTING TO END-GAME CONTENT. - If you want to get to the latest release content and be a top raider, you must be efficient. There's a lot of different things to grind, and if you want to do so efficiently, you're going to have to do quite a bit of research. This is not foreign to the MMORPG genre, but just because this is the case for most MMOs, that doesn't make it any less bad. I play Oldschool Runescape (I'm almost maxed btw, and yes I know that makes me a loser), so I feel it's safe to say that I am familiar with grinding in games. I just breached the 10,000 hour mark recently, but I've been playing since I was a kid (Halloween of 2005 to be exact). The fact that there are people reviewing the game with 11,000+ hours... and this game was released in 2022? Holy.... anyways... back to the point. This game's grind is different. In Oldschool Runescape, you can drop the game whenever you want, come back 6 months later and most of the training methods you knew about are probably still viable. In Lost Ark, there are certain areas and certain things to farm that can only be completed at specific times per day. Sometimes these change depending on the day of the week, and these also change between time zones. The different classes are fun, but the content remains the same. The classes are not different enough to make it feel like a completely different game when you play a different class, which brings me to one of three major pitfalls of the game in the long run. - Major pitfall 1: If you want to reliably get to and maintain your status as an end-game raider, you're going to have to play several different classes just to farm materials to feed your main character. I don't know how people stick with this game because this is extremely time consuming to the point where it will affect your real life in some way, shape or form. It may not be immediate, but it definitely will be a matter of time before suddenly your brain takes this game as a priority to other things in real life. This game is a second job. Major pitfall 2: A great deal of actions in the game are purposefully gated by time, which forces you to play different classes if you really want to continue playing the game. Major pitfall 3: Gear upgrades have a significant chance to fail in the end-game. Resource requirements only get worse and worse the further you get, which brings you back to major pitfall 1. Hidden major pitfall: It feels real scummy that the developers purposefully create these problems just to sell you the solutions for real money. I understand that the game is free to play, but does that really make it okay for them to purposefully insert mechanics into a game that make it less fun? - Even with those pitfalls, those still aren't the real reason why the game fell from grace. It's ironic really. The decline of the game stemmed from issues players found when they reached the end-game. The really awkward thing about the end-game are the raids themselves. The raids are really fun, but getting to them is basically a god damn job interview. It's a huge double-edged sword. The raids are fun because they are difficult, but because they are difficult and really punishing against mistakes, people will gatekeep others out if they're not min-maxed. To be fair, this happens in group PvE content across most MMOs in the gaming industry, but this game is on a whole new level. When I say it's a job interview, I mean it. When you apply to a raid, people can inspect your character. The character inspection is basically a resume. It lists the titles/achievements you completed, gems and cards equipped, talents, gear, stats, etc. If anything seems off or if you don't have a specific title, you're getting declined from the group. - The worst part is, I can't even blame them for gatekeeping. This is the double-edged sword part. Most raids have raid-wiping mechanics where if a single player makes a mistake, you have to restart the boss fight. End-game bosses take double-digit minutes to take down, and raids have anywhere between 3-5 bosses in them. If you're already playing the game with multiple classes feeding your main class, then you're already using up a lot of time out of the week. You cannot afford to spend time to teach someone, or let them learn from their mistakes. It's the good old catch-22. You need to learn the mechanics to beat the boss, but to get in a raid party, you need to have beaten the boss. Even with the major pitfalls I described earlier, I feel the gatekeeping is actually what killed the game. It is unfortunate that the bosses are so punishing towards mistakes that the players feel the need to be extremely cautious as to who they allow in their raid party. You can blame the players for gatekeeping all you want, but it's the developers who incentivize this behavior by making extremely difficult and very long boss battles. Add the 3 major pitfalls I described earlier, and now you realize why this game went from having a strong playerbase of 300,000+ people for its first YEAR of release (1.3 million all-time peak) to now struggling to get above 20,000 people to play it.