Many fans have been complaining about Lost Ark‘s roadmap for the next few months since it was revealed in December, and the criticisms are still not dying down.
In the roadmap, the developers said the upcoming class Artist will release in April, the same month as the introduction of Brelshaza Legion Raid’s hard mode.
Players have been criticizing this schedule for several reasons. One is that some consider Amazon Games’ pace of catching up to the Korean version’s content too slow.
In addition, Legion Raids require high average item level and strong stats, as well as top-notch coordination and skills from players. This means they won’t be able to bring their Artist characters along right away because of the long grind required to gear them up for the fight.
Players criticize the lack and disparity of content in the latest roadmap
Many players are eager to enjoy Lost Ark‘s brand-new content from its South Korean version, such as the newly-released classes, continents, and skins. But in the West, the content released still dates back over a year ago from the Korean version’s patch schedule. In the past, Amazon Games has been repeatedly criticized for stalling the release of content from the original version rather than releasing the full game right at the start.
The Artist was released a year ago in South Korea—and after its release in the West, the Meteorologist and the Slayer (female version of the Berserker) still needs to be introduced to catch up to the initial game. If the developers keep this pace, the Meteorologist would release in summer, and the Slayer during fall.
Players have also complainad about the timing of the Artist and Brelshaza’s Hard Mode releases. Since they’ll be introduced to Lost Ark the same month, players won’t be able to play the Artist at it releases, since it’ll take time to gear her up for the challenging fight.
This criticism concerns not only the players who are looking to play the Artist as soon as it releases and enjoy the most content possible when it releases, but also some who don’t especially plan to test her out.
Players complain of a lack of support options in Brelshaza’s Legion Raid
The current meta in Lost Ark lacks support options, which makes them difficult to find in higher raids, although they’re essential to the party. Some players have been complaining about waiting for hours in Brelshaza’s party finder to get a support player.
The Artist is going to be a great answer to this issue, since the class is focused on healing and buffing allies. Until Artist players can actually bring her to the Brelshaza’s Legion Raid in a sufficiently strong state, however, the issue will remain—especially in Hard Mode.
Not that the Artist will completely fix this issue, either: it persists in the Korean version too, and Smilegate is continuously rolling more updates to make support classes more appealing to players.
Lastly, players criticize the roadmap for its heavy disparity of content between February and April updates. A new continent and PvP activity, large-scale fights, will release in February, while players will wait until April to get the Artist, Brelshaza’s Hard mode, and a new Guardian raid.
The Artist won’t get an early release
For all those reasons, many players have been asking Amazon Games for an early release of the class to fix this.
It led Amazon Games’ community manager to answer those requests earlier today. “The Artist class will not be changing from its April release. I know this is not the answer most players are looking for but it is not able to be pulled forward due to development schedules”, they wrote on the official forum.
After breaking records at its West release in February, 2022, Lost Ark‘s average player count on Steam has been dropping since last summer. It went up of 42 percent from November to December thanks to the last major update, but has yet to recover from last Summer’s fall of average player count, according to Steam Charts. The releases in February and April will more than likely bring players old and new back to the game, if only for a while—and while we wait, a new crossover event with The Witcher is just around the corner, planned to hit the servers later this month.
