ETEC 544: Field Notes
Session 1: Before Playing | 15-30 minutes
Each of these question aims to get at a general notion, “what expectations (about this game) am I coming in with?” The goal in this reflection is not to test the accuracy of your predictions; rather, the goal is to identify and reflect upon the assumptions and biases you, as an observer, are bringing into the experience, as catalyzed by the games’ promotional material, introductory screen, any other descriptive or suggestive information.
With this in mind, respond to each of the following questions:
What will I like / dislike about it?
I will enjoy the MMO aspects of Lost Ark the most. I am a career MMO player. I’ve built meaningful relationships with people I’ve never met playing MMO games. When you combine a gameplay loop I typically enjoy (the Diablo-esq dungeon crawler) with MMO mechanics, the likelihood is high I will like this game.
What will I find interesting about it/boring or tedious about it?
Like most MMO’s, the levelling up to maximum level is a very small part of the gameplay. It’s designed to teach you the systems and classes. My concern is the curve after that supposedly increases exponentially. At some point, I will be concerned with how much a grind it is to advance only a very small amount.
What will I need to do in it?
Lost Ark is primarily a gear upgrading dungeon crawler. You run instanced challenges (dungeons) in order to obtain currency. You use that currency to upgrade your weapons and armour. There is a story to the game and some of the progression in upgrading is gated by progress in the story so story quests will need to be completed concurrently alongside the gear progression gameplay loop.
What will I need to learn within it?
There are dozens of game systems in Lost Ark. There are 4-5 modes of dungeon play offering various levels of difficulty. There are upgrade paths not only for your weapons and gear but also player housing and crafting skills. MMO’s over the last decade have become increasingly more complex as developers look to create horizontal progression (progression in mechanics that does not require the player to become more powerful) There are many horizontal progression opportunities at all stages of Lost Ark.
What will it be like / similar to (other games I have played)?
It will have a lot MMO mechanics that feel familiar like grouping for dungeons, crafting, player housing, experience levels, and gear progression. It will also very much feel like Diablo due to the 3D Isometric camera angle.
Session Fieldnotes
I expected a game with a satisfying gameplay loop in the same style as Diablo, where the player is asked to continuously upgrade their weapons and amour to combat increasingly more difficult challenges. I also expected a strong multiplayer/MMO focus giving me an opportunity to face these challenges with friends as we grow our characters together.
Session 2: Solo Playthrough | 45-60 minutes
Play the game on your own: familiarize yourself with the controls, mechanics and interface; get an initial understanding of the game’s narrative and its aesthetic. Your goal is to “get a feel” for what it is asking from you, in terms of: inputs, emotion, and attention. Note: If you use outside help at any point, make a note of that. The effort here is not to do anything “correctly”, but to diligently record whatever you do as you try to get a ‘handle’ on the game.
Descriptive Notes
My initial impressions of the game were that it is everything I was expecting it to be. It felt like a cross between an MMO that I'm comfortable playing and Diablo 3 which I've played a lot of as well. I really enjoyed the graphics of the game and was thankful I had a very good computer that could handle the intensity of the graphics at a high level. It was helpful that I decided to play the game with friends right away and some friends had already done some research on how best to play and what types of skills were required. The game also had quite a number of systems that required in-depth knowledge of how they function in order to play the game of fact of Lee and it was helpful that there were a number of websites and YouTube videos that I could rely on for information on what to do in specific situations. In the end, I've played this game quite a bit more than 60 minutes of playtime recommended, I've actually played the game for close to 160 hours at this point in the last 2 months or so. The pacing of the game seems quite slow, especially considering its very common knowledge that the “real game” doesn't even begin until you've reached the maximum level. It took quite a bit longer to reach the maximum level than I was expecting. The pacing of the game after you reach maximum level continues to be slow when it comes to completing the story mode of the game. I did some reading into whether this was a common perception and found that many players were quitting the game after reaching the maximum level but still finding many dozens of hours more of playtime required simply to complete the story of the game. One benefit that offsets the fact that the pacing being so slow is that there does seem to be a continuous supply of rewards for small amounts of work. This is a pretty common strategy in MMO's to constantly feel like your character is being upgraded, or developing, or progressing in various aspects of strength and abilities.
Analytic Notes
I've always had a few concerns with MMOs designed in non-western markets. There is some commonality in their design choices that make it more than just a coincidence. It seems to be a common strategy for example to create games that have quite slow pacing and that take a long time to progress. There are also common choices when it comes to how the games ask you to spend your money. This is typically referred to in MMO's as “pay to win”. I understood from the beginning that Lost Ark had some pay-to-win elements and I'm generally fine with pay-to-win. I believe that people should have choices as far as where they spend their own money is concerned but it was something I was always thinking about as I was playing the game. One other concern I tend to have with non-western MMOs is how women tend to be depicted in the games, especially your women player characters and their armor and clothing that they can choose to wear. In fact, this came up as a bit of a controversy in Lost Ark as they decided to tone down the skimpiness of the women's clothing in the game for the Western audience compared to the way the women are depicted in the Korean and Russian markets. A vocal minority was upset unsurprisingly, but it was obviously a good decision to put more clothes on the female player characters in Lost Ark.
Affective Notes
I haven't played Lost Ark in about 2 weeks now. I tend to move around games and play a number of different titles as my tastes vary wildly. Like I said before, I played well over 100 hours of Lost Ark in the last month or so, so I feel like it was time to give it a little bit of a break. That being said, I am absolutely sure I'll come back to the game and continue to play especially if they add more content. I think that the pacing of the story, which I have yet to complete by the way, is a real drawback to the game and I think a lot of people quit because of how long it was taking to complete something that seems unimportant to end game progress yet was made important by the game systems being gated by progression through the story. Some of my friends have moved on from playing Lost Ark as well and I think that that is a factor for me in terms of playing a multiplayer game. I like to play with the folks that I play with more than I care about what game we are actually playing.
Session Fieldnotes
The honing interface in Lost Ark. One (the most important) of many complicated systems in the game.
Lost Ark is a fun game to play with friends and constantly rewards your work, making you continuously feel as though you are growing. It has a number of systems and slow pacing which hinder long-term playing.
Session 3: Video Observation | 45-60 minutes
Watch an online video of your game, either via live-streaming (Twitch.tv) or conventional video (YouTube). Get a sense of how an expert plays that game: see how they understand and react to the game and how that differs from YOUR playthrough; see what it is like to watch the game not just as a viewer, but as a mass media spectator. Again, organize your account into three kinds of notes.
Descriptive Notes
The first thing I noticed in TheLazyPeon’s video is that he has 7 characters all in the 1300s in item level and a few more under 1000. As I mentioned above, the amount of work to reach this level on one character is incredible, to do it on 5 suggests he has spent a HUGE amount of time in the game, likely in the 400-500 hour range. Furthermore, all of his characters are at least level 52. This is indicative of a lot of time spent in the game. After your character reaches level 50 the progression to 51 slows down significantly (in the 10x more time range). While I have played a lot of Lost Ark, it is nowhere near the amount of time TheLazyPeon has. He does acknowledge spending close to $1000 on the game. I have linked a video of my streaming session where I detail how one might progress through the honing system to achieve a higher item level quicker.
In this video he gets right into some new content, highlighting the difficulty ramp of the content at higher levels. He also completes his “dailies” Dailies are quests you can complete every day, once per day, for common rewards you need for regular play. In the case of Lost Ark dailies typically reward honing materials. I did notice he is auto finishing the dailies using a token that is purchasable on the item shop. I do this as well as I find the daily quests both annoying and necessary. That being said, the tokens you use are bought, making this a pretty clear-cut form of pay to win.
He does seem to capture the appeal of Lost Ark quite well noting that despite hundreds of hours played in a pretty consistent manner (Dailies -> Chaos Dungeons -> Stronghold Dispatches -> Guardians) he still enjoys the content and the grind. Though also seems to struggle with the difficulty curve between the Chaos Dungeons, which as incredibly easy, and some of the Guardian encounters, which are incredibly hard. This is a very common refrain on message boards and Reddit. Lost Ark has mastered the balance of time sink, challenge, and reward fairly well, though could use some fine tweaking of the difficulty curve. It is worth noting that his gameplay loop through the content is VERY common and applied almost universally among regular players. The order might differ slightly but the premise remains the same. I tend to follow the same process playing Lost Ark as TheLazyPeon does.
In the end, TheLazyPeon highlights one glaring issue with Lost Ark. The content is incredibly repetitive. You have the be very invested in the item level progression alone to be motivated to continue playing the game on a daily basis. The story eventually ends and there is little to no lore attached to the daily gameplay loop of bosses and dungeons. This is where the Diablo-esq gameplay is a factor and players will begin to question their commitment to the game.
Analytic Notes
Much of what I observed from TheLazyPeon, outside of the incredible number of hours he’s likely played, came as no surprise. The gameplay loop is very common, the goals of the game in end-game are very well established (honing items to improve item level) and the time vs. reward calculation is critical considering the number of characters he had and the increased value in having them. It was relieving to see him spending time on cosmetics and collection gameplay as they add no power to the character and would be done almost strictly for entertainment purposes. I struggle sometimes finding the entertainment value in the daily grind and may seek to do some of this additional content as I continue to play the game.
Affective Notes
In the end TheLazyPeon’s game session was familiar. Any Lost Ark player would be able to relate to the gameplay loop, his comments on the ramp of difficulty, his desire to balance time sinks and reward, and even his willingness to pay to avoid grinding through the honing system. Every aspect of his gameplay is similar to mine, simply amplified due to the amount of time and money he has spent. I have spent 25% of the time he has, and likely about 25% of the money (still a lot by most standards!) I was surprised at his pay to win acknowledgement as that is sometimes considered taboo and even more so amongst content creators where their credibility is occasionally gained through achievement in the most challenging ways possible. He made no broader comments or commentary on pay to win outside admitting that he did spend money to progress. All that being said, a large majority of the comments in the video are unsurprisingly about how much money he has spent in the game.
Session Fieldnotes
Incredible progress in Lost Ark requires a massive amount of dedication and patience as the grind is challenging and tedious. To quickly progress through the game and value your time spent you may want to spend money to get ahead. Even under those circumstances, the game remains fixed in a repetitive gameplay loop that some will find boring and soulless with its lack of story connections.
Lost Ark Case Study
The final "bridge" is to put all that together in an analytical and summative "case study" of the game that should be no more than 1000 words. Make sure you make careful and direct connections to the course readings where possible and relevant.
Intro
Initially released in Korea and Japan in 2019, Lost Ark is an action-MMO with a visual style and general gameplay mechanics similar to the incredibly popular Diablo franchise. The game is known for its incredible isometric graphics, its repeatable dungeon and boss content, its gear upgrading system, and its team-based action combat system. While wildly popular initially during its 2022 North American release, the player base has slowly dissipated throughout the spring as a result of the frustrations we will discuss in this summative case study. You will see that Lost Ark can be incredibly engaging to a few, frustrating for many, and temporarily appealing for most.
Expectations
Being a veteran game player with extensive experience in MMO’s, dungeon crawlers, and loot grinding games, I came to Lost Ark with reasonable expectations for the game. With Lost Ark being an Eastern developed MMO I was even expecting a level of “grind” related to the experience curve and gear progression that is not typical in modern Western MMO’s.
Gameplay Loop
While Lost Ark can certainly be described as a “world game” using the definition provided by James Paul Gee (Gee, 2008, p.230) I would not go so far as to suggest that the problems being solved and the world being explored is a draw for the game. The story itself does not contain significant depth but is simply a vehicle for, in the initial 50 levels, training the player how to play the game, somewhat like an extended tutorial.
After completing the initial 0-50 leveling curve, players are ushered into the main gameplay loops of Lost Ark: dungeon running (Chaos Dungeons), challenging boss fights (Guardian Raids), and a number of other combat experiences in the service of the primary progression mechanic, gear honing. Gear Honing is the act of using in-game currencies to improve your armour and weapons, thus allowing you to defeat higher powered bosses which in turn provide higher level currencies for honing. This gameplay loop is incredibly repetitive and slows down considerably at a certain point. This is a common “quit point” for players in Lost Ark. The honing system, along with the required dungeons and boss fights to acquire materials, is a long arduous task that can seem frustrating and devoid of meaning. This gameplay is not tied to story in any meaningful way. For players who need to experience their games with deep connections to the world and story, the game largely becomes stale at level 50.
Lost Ark has an extensive gameplay loop related to item collection. Completionist gameplay mechanics have become wildly popular in gaming and while this aspect of the game remains largely unexplored for me, I can’t deny its value as a gameplay mechanic (Fullerton, 2019, p.353) and believe this might be an aspect of the game I could latch on to for a casual Lost Ark experience.
Is it Fun?
It’s worth acknowledging that fun is subjective. As Fullerton (2019) says, everyone will find something different “fun” and it is entirely up to a person's own gameplay preferences to decide if they are having fun in the gamer they are playing (p. 349) My primary struggle with Lost Ark is my emotional attachment to the game, its world and lore, and my desire for outcomes beyond the progression of power in my character. Games without an emotional appeal to the player tend to either get abandoned over time or not played at all (Fullerton, 2019, p. 349) The saving grace for Lost Ark with me was that my friends were playing the game with me and we were progressing at a similar pace for we could continue to meet in-game challenges together. Social interactions are a critical component in MMO’s (Fullerton, 2019, p. 352) and it is not surprising that I maintained a robust play schedule for as long as I did simply because that is where my social interactions were taking place. When I decided to slow down my pace of play in Lost Ark, my friends came with me. We continue to play games together, we’re just playing something different. Lost Ark has moments of fun for me. The action combat, while fighting a challenging boss, with my friends, was some of the best gameplay experiences I’ve had in quite some time. The feeling of constantly failing honing, and losing materials, especially if those materials had been partially purchased using real money, is devastating and frustrating. Because fun is subjective, I fully acknowledge that the honing system and its slow pace, lack of connection, and frustrating failures can be engaging for some. It doesn’t work for me.
Conclusion
I am a seeker. I own almost 1000 games across multiple systems and delivery formats. I play dozens of different games per year. I am also constantly on the lookout for an MMO I can sink my teeth into and play long term with the same friends I’ve been playing MMO’s with for close to 20 years now. Lost Ark is not that game. While there was a level of initial enjoyment in the newness of the gameplay, there was simply not enough to keep me playing. Watching others on Twitch and YouTube continued to affirm the issues I was feeling and experiencing in the game. While Lost Ark hits on many of the critical aspects of a games’ success such as challenging mechanics, social play, and rewarding progression, (Fullerton, 2019, p.348-388) its lack of meaningful story connections in the late game created a void in interest to continue playing.
References
Fullerton, T. (2019). Game Design Workshop: A playcentric approach to creating innovative games. CRC Press.
Gee, J. P. (2008). Cats and Portals: Video games, learning, and play. American Journal of Play, 1(2), 229-245..