On Mar. 2, Lost Ark posted an update regarding some issues regarding the Crystalline Aura, login rewards, matchmaking, etc. Along with the fixes, the developers mentioned upcoming nerfs and other issues as well.

Heroes of Arkesia,

We appreciate your patience while we work through these launch window issues. Your feedback and issue reports are extremely helpful and appreciated, as we continue working together to make Lost Ark the best it can be.

CRYSTALLINE AURA FIX

In the weekly maintenance that took place on February 24, we fixed the ongoing issues surrounding disappearing Crystalline Aura. This was one of the top reported issues over the last few weeks, and we’re happy to let players know that it’s now resolved! Please be aware that after our maintenance periods it can sometimes take a few minutes (or a few loading screens) for Crystalline Aura and store items to display normally after logging in, so don’t worry if this happens!

EU WEST CRYSTALLINE AURA ATTENDANCE EVENT REWARD + EU WEST MARCH LOGIN REWARDS

When we opened the Europe West region we put a special daily attendance login event in place to help players progress. Unfortunately, Crystalline Aura and Crystals were obtainable rewards, which created an unintended scenario that allowed players to redeem upwards of 352 days of Crystalline Aura on their accounts. We quickly swapped these out for new rewards (Una’s Tasks [Daily] +1 x10 and Rare Combat Engraving Recipe Selection Pouch x10), but we understand the frustration around the change. While we won’t be banning players who took advantage of this error, to maintain a fair atmosphere we will be revoking Crystalline Aura that was obtained from the event.

We will host an additional login attendance event again in March exclusively for players in Europe West. This event will contain updated rewards, and we’ll share more details in the near future.

MATCHMAKING ISSUES

While we’ve put some changes in place to help improve the unstable matchmaking that occurs in Europe Central region, it’s clear that these efforts have not been impactful enough to make a major difference. The team is still working on a long-term fix for this problem, and want players to know that it is a top priority for the team. We've identified a possible fix that it is currently in testing, and we will share an ETA as soon as possible.

GUARDIAN RAID AND ABYSS DUNGEON DIFFICULTY

We recently shared that we will be adjusting the difficulty of some T1 and T2 content in order to make it a bit easier for players. This was met with mixed feedback, so we wanted to provide insight as to why these changes are being made.

As a refresher, here are the raids and dungeons that will be adjusted — we will have a breakdown of the changes in this week’s patch notes.

Guardian Raid

1. Vertus

2. Nacrasena

3. Flame Fox Yoho

4. Tytalos

5. Achates

6. Alberhastic

Abyss Dungeon

1. Necromancer’s Origin

2. Hall of the Twisted Warlord

3. Hildebrandt Palace

4. Sea of Indolence

These adjustments are based off a collection of data and feedback, including game data that showed very low success rates for participants (with some raids and dungeons completed by less than 10% of players). We understand that people can practice and improve at the game over time, but for early game content in particular we want to ensure that new players are having fun learning and advancing instead of getting frustrated and giving up.

Looking forward, this change is not an indicator that all future content will be made easier. We know that much of the appeal of T3 and late game content is its unique and challenging mechanics, and we do not want to drastically alter this core experience.

As Lost Ark is a live game, collecting feedback and making updates is an active process and always will be. While tweaks may happen based on this feedback and data, we will always be open to revisiting any hot topics or changes, especially as the game and our player base continue to grow over time.

UPDATE TO GOLD SELLER SPAM AND BOTS

We are constantly adjusting tools, improving chat filters, and acting on reports to ban gold sellers and bots from the game at a rapid rate. In fact, spammers last an average of less than 10 minutes in-game before getting banned. However, it is clear that there are more actions we can take to put a stop to this problem.

Additionally, we’re currently making improvements to our anti-cheat and anti-spam tools. While we won’t detail these plans (as doing so can open the door for bad actors to try and circumvent our efforts), upgrades are on their way. Another step we have taken to help combat chat spam is to restrict area chat for characters under level 30. While we understand that area chat is an important feature in Lost Ark, this will stop spammers from being able to instantly create new accounts in order to spam. Players under level 30 will still be able to participate in chat with groups, friends, in dungeons, and more.

Player reports are instrumental in helping us ban spammers and bots. Submit a report in-game by holding ‘CTRL’ and clicking on a player name in the chat window. Be sure to select the “Suspected Scamming/Cash Transaction” or “Suspected Use of Illegal Programs (Bots)” option from the dropdown menu, as it will aid our support team in taking swift action. It’s also worth remembering that while we work to improve our fixes for spammers in chat, you can always create a new chat tab by clicking the “+” icon in the chat box and selecting the chat types you want to include or exclude, such as area chat.

REGARDING FUTURE DOWNTIMES

Since launch, maintenance and downtimes for Lost Ark have been fairly regular, and have sometimes occurred at inopportune times for impacted regions. We understand that this is not ideal for players, and while this isn’t permanent, we want to share some insight into our approach for upcoming downtimes in the near future.

As we continue to operate in the launch window timeframe, our top concern is fixing issues as quickly as possible. This means that for the immediate future, maintenance may continue to happen more frequently than normal, and occasionally at times that will not always be convenient for players. Although this can feel frustrating, each of these downtimes are critical steps in making improvements for the game in the long term.

Looking ahead, we plan to make sure game maintenance occurs at a cadence that is predictable and convenient to ensure we are not cutting into prime gaming hours. This will involve selecting downtimes depending on regional locations, as well as ensuring as much work as possible can be achieved through a single weekly update.

ONGOING STORE ISSUES AND MISSING PRODUCT INVENTORY ITEMS

Store issues have drastically decreased with last week’s maintenances, but this is not yet fully resolved. We are still working on making improvements to these systems over time as we roll out additional patches and maintenance, and we understand that some players may still be having trouble collecting certain items and packs from their Product Inventories. We are still working to fix this on a broader scale, in the meantime players with any “missing” items may have success getting them to appear sooner by logging into their respective server during an off-peak hour.

EUROPE CENTRAL SERVER QUEUES

We are aware that server queues in the Europe Central region have remained lengthy, but as we have previously mentioned, unfortunately we cannot increase the number of players that each server can hold. Additionally, adding more servers is not possible based on the complexity of the game systems and how they work with each other. Because of this, our current focus will be on improving game health and stability in Europe Central so that we can ensure the players there have the best in-game experience possible.

For players that are considering moving to Europe West but are concerned about losing out on their claimed Twitch Drops, we are happy to share that anyone who has claimed these on Europe Central before March 8 at 8AM UTC / 9 AM CET will receive a second set of the items they previously redeemed (includes the Arkesia Paper Hats Chest, Helgaia Pet Chest, Neugier Gold Mount, and Saphia Pet Chest) on Europe West when they log onto the region following the next game maintenance after March 8. We hope this helps make moving a little bit of an easier choice for players.

As always, thank you for your patience as we work to make Arkesia the best it can be!