Community MetaSteam | February 2022 - Good night, and good luck, Lowly Tarnished

[Line]

I give up... what's Lost Ark and why's everyone nuts about it?

Take a top down Diablo-style game but as an MMO, add excellent Korean action combat, tons of activities in PvE and PvP including dungeons, Monster Hunter like fights, sailing and everything casual and hardcore you can think of, add great visuals despite fairly low requirements, and you get Lost Ark.
Oh and it's F2P.

But it's not very anime though, it's your regular Korean artstyle which is a weird idealized realistic style. Environments look fantastic, characters are a bit weird. But it does have good customization (for your face anyway, your body is pretty much fixed), and for once I managed to make characters of very different ethnicities without problem, it's not just a skin tone swap.

 

[NarohDethan]

Yeah Lost Ark is less anime and more 'what if we did 3D models of Korean idols'

 

[「Echo」]

I've watched a lot of Vtubers play it. It's so popular, and I loveeeee the character creation. I just know it's not for me though. Also I think it's really funny the way characters move/walk/idle. (In the janky/weird sense lol.)

But I'm guessing the fact it's free, and every streamer under the sun is giving it a shake is probably pumping the numbers a lot.

 

[Dinjoralo]

Lashman's back!

First paycheck's nice as hell...

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

OBS Studio is coming to Steam:

https://steamdb.info/app/1905180/

 

[Firewithin]

i cant find anything to really play as im just waiting for Elden Ring. i was going to try lost ark but i dont really want to get into an MMO like that right now. i think ill go back and try and replay Vampyr lol

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

 

[TioChuck]

 

[Ascheroth]

Honestly the amount of stuff in Lost Ark seems crazy.
People say the game "begins" properly when you reach level 50 (which isn't max level), but there's still so much you can do. I really like the Adventure Tome for example.

There's collectibles you can get from quests or monsters
Local specialities to Buy/Craft (it tells you which NPC has a particular item, some you can buy, others you have to craft by bringing the chef a unique ingredient, which is hidden somewhere and you only get a hint)
Hidden Stories, which are a sort of scavenger hunt. You get a hint where you can find it when hovering over the Story. It's basically mini-stories where you find pieces of the story, with each giving you a hint where the next part is.
And then Rapport is basically NPC friendship, there are certain NPCs that you can build rapport by interacting daily and doing special quests for them.
Etc.

And this is per continent. There are 11 from what I saw.

And that's not even all, there other collectibles too. Like Mokoko seeds that are hidden everywhere. I have 14 so far. There are over 1000, lol.
And lots of other stuff I have yet to even see.

And there's still more stuff.
The game is certainly scratching my exploration/collection itch.

 

[spindoctor]

Yeah the adventurer's tome is certainly a nice feature in Lost Ark. Let's you keep track of the miscellaneous stuff to do in the game. That said, as a bit of a completionist I'm sort of mentally blocking myself from progressing into the next continent without having completed the tome for the first one (Rethramis). That's not good because some of the stuff is definitely busy work and I should be moving on with the game. I see a waterfall of achievements getting listed on the Steam community from my friends list and I'm still doing the stuff they did in the first three hours of the game it seems

I've also been playing Dying Light 2 with a friend and I'm extremely disappointed in the game. The only good things I have to say about the game is that it looks decent (ray tracing is one of the best implementations I've seen so far) and I've not had many technical issues in general (like for example, a lot of people had trouble with getting co-op to work). Unfortunately, the list of negatives just dwarfs these positive aspects. Lifting the stamina system from Zelda BOTW to gate content and limit exploration in a free roaming open world parkour game is madness. The night time UV timer serves no purpose other than to periodically interrupt you while playing the game. The upgrade system is tied to collectibles that you get, including through combat for some reason. Some of the tools you get to counteract these design choices and make your experience better are given out quite late in the game. The city itself is much worse than Harran from Dying Light 1. I remember in that game the playable area felt claustrophobic and it felt dangerous to go out to do missions at night. This new city is much bigger with wide roads which just let you dodge almost all zombies during the day time. And so, to make it difficult at night, they added a 'chase system' where if you get spotted by a zombie, hordes of them will start spawning out of nowhere and chase you until you reach the safety of a UV light. There's nothing else you can do when this happens. You were trying to do something but triggered a chase? Well, now you run away and wait for it to end before you can go back to playing the game. I can't figure out who thought any of this would actually be fun. Then there are all sorts of bugs which seem to be getting worse the further I go in the game. Things like respawning in a locked room that you can't get out of or progression scripts bugging out. There are way too many extraneous cutscenes. You get a quest to go and meet a person and the quest marker points to someone. You go and talk to him and in the cutscene he tells you that he's not the person you want to meet and that guy is actually standing over there so go talk to him. Just why? Why couldn't you just point me to the correct person in the first place?

But by far the worst aspect of the game is the writing. It is absolutely dire. The main character is an errand boy who has no personality and will agree to anything. At one point he casually agreed to partake in the murder of a large number of people just because? They made a big deal about the game having choices and consequences. They do have some gameplay consequences but it seems absent in the narrative. There are times where you make a dialogue choice and the person you're speaking to will immediately negate your choice. So then why? And the side quests have some of the worst writing I've ever seen in any game. You meet people who say the dumbest shit imaginable. I know you're not supposed to expect much from the writing of a zombie game but man this is just terrible. They fired Chris Avellone and then this is the best they could come up with? Damn.

I'd be very surprised if this game has the same staying power that Dying Light 1 had. At the very least they're going to have to patch it a lot. Really seems like a very troubled project and they just put together what they could to get it out of the door.

 

[lashman]

 

[Li Kao]

You will really push me to try Lost Ark at this rhythm.
But as I already said, and at the risk of looking like a bigot, I hate KMMO aesthetic.

And after watching some youtuber, well, meh ? The character is so OP that dying would be a feat (maybe that changes later) and the amount of trash quest is so high that it feels like every time I skipped time in the stream I ended up with the player taking or validating a quest. Snore fest.

That being said, I’m nothing if not open minded. That 70go though…

 

[Arc]

I downloaded Lost Ark to see what all the hype was. When creating my character I noticed there is a Gunlancer class whose moveset is pretty close to the one in Monster Hunter. I already know what I'm going to play if I ever invest time into it.

 

[Alexandros]

But by far the worst aspect of the game is the writing. It is absolutely dire.

That's probably because Chris Avellone's stuff was axed after the allegations against him.

 

[ZKenir]

some resource websites i'm using for lost ark, dunno if there is a better alternative, posting in case people find them useful

this for adventurer's tome stuff

Lost ark Adventurer's Tome guide

Adventurer's Tome is the largest collection in the world of Lost Ark. Adventurer's Tome includes all territories and their Cooking, Vista, Monsters, Boss, Hidden stories and Rapport.

en.game-m.ru

these for maps/other stuff plus adventurer's tome when the previous website isn't helping

Papunika - Lost Ark (Non-Official) Fansite

Papunika is a fansite created for Collectibles, Adventure Tome Completion, an Interactive World Map, a Build Planner and a variety of other guides for Lost Ark.

papunika.com

Home - Lost Ark Database

The largest Lost Ark Online (로스트아크) information site, featuring guides, news, and information on classes, items, raids, exploration, arcrasium, and more.

lostarkdatabase.com

Lost Ark Codex

Lost Ark Codex - the most complete and up to date database for the game!

lostarkcodex.com

 

[kafiend]

I'm still playing Guild Wars 2 so no time for Lost Ark, or anyrthing else in gaming. Looks really fun though.

 

[bobnowhere]

Yeah, I have absolutely no idea about 3/4 of Lost Ark's mechanics, currencies, limitations etc...

It sure is pretty and runs great. I also like how you have plenty of moves from the beginning, no kill 100 rats with base attack.

 

[ZKenir]

 

[dex3108]

 

[Mivey]

Stick to ME1 and you should be fine. Unless you mean the disk space, then yeah, your SSD belongs to EA now.

 

[Arc]

I played through all the games last month on Xbox. It took me about 83 hours to complete them all while doing a healthy amount of side content, but not going for 100%. I did Renegade Vanguard FemShep simply because I played the first two games like a decade ago and did Paragon Soldier MaleShep then and wanted to spice things up.

 

[fearthedawn]

Can i interest you in another 50GB+ of texture mods to make it look like a proper remaster?

 

[dex3108]

I actually finished ME1 and ME2 in 2014/2015 \. I spent around 22h in ME1 and 28h in ME2. My opinion is ME1>ME2. But i forgot most of the things from those games so playing 3rd one would be kinda annoying so i will start from the beginning XD

 

[Digoman]

Finished Dying Light 2 doing almost all the content, except some challenges. I still think the parkour system and traversal are very good, but it was getting a little old by the 45 hour mark. Combat remained "meh".

Everyone has already written about the terrible story.... and they're right. The world concept has some interesting ideas, and the main story, while cliche, could have worked, but they had absolutely no idea on how to tell it, even down to the basics about keeping the minimum of momentum going.

I literally lost count of how many times your character passes out and everything goes to black.... I think it must have been at least 10 times then I was doing the final set of missions. It was really annoying.

And oh boy... the ending is bad... ooof.

That's probably because Chris Avellone's stuff was axed after the allegations against him.

Then his stuff must have consisted of the whole game….

Side Quests are especially bad with maybe a few exceptions. I usually don’t like to skip dialog but here I was smashing the space bar like crazy.

------

I actually finished ME1 and ME2 in 2014/2015 \. I spent around 22h in ME1 and 28h in ME2. My opinion is ME1>ME2. But i forgot most of the things from those games so playing 3rd one would be kinda annoying so i will start from the beginning XD

Yeah, the third game relies heavily on callbacks. Just try to keep everyone alive and don't expect your decisions across games to have a huge impact...

The first game is a good remaster/remake. The other two are basically untouched, at least on PC.

 

[PC-tan]

29,386,140 !!!!!!!!!!!

New Steam peak??


Just ~600k more people till it hits 30 million concurrent users
By the way remember this lashman

 

[ZKenir]

Lost ark putting in work ( if only servers weren’t exploding)

 

[dex3108]

So regarding ME Legendary Edition this is my current mod list

Community Patches for all 1 and 3
Expanded Galaxy
A Lot of Textures/Videos

That is basically all i need right? And that is order of installation?

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I don't remember installing community patches. Most of the mods i use i made myself using the ME Tools to edit the ini files and repack them as most of my mods are just value changes. I did add a bunch of new femshep costumes and i know in ME2 i change the fuel economy on the normandy, the fuel and probe values so i can store more and the reaper chase values and in ME3 i change the war asset values so i didn't have to do multiplayer but i don't know if that's required anymore. I imagine they patched it.

I just had a look and i use:
Easy Console Commands.
LECoal latest build - Pack and unpack the coalescent files for simple changes.
Trilogy Save Editor to check values are correct when importing saves between the games.
FemShep splash images
Skip Launcher intro
ME2LE Casual Appearances

It's been a while so when i was messing about with this at launch i had to have tools for each of the MELE games. They may have unified tools and editors by now. It's probably why i don't have Community Patches as there weren't any for LE when i last played. The Coal tools are handy as you can extract out the mods that conflict and merge the values yourself as they are usually just text, then repack them, copy them into the folder and done.

 

[Stevey]

Downloaded Lost Ark, spent 5 minutes looking at a queue :V
Hopefully they'll improve the servers soon.

Finished Serious Sam 4 which was pretty decent.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yeah the adventurer's tome is certainly a nice feature in Lost Ark. Let's you keep track of the miscellaneous stuff to do in the game. That said, as a bit of a completionist I'm sort of mentally blocking myself from progressing into the next continent without having completed the tome for the first one (Rethramis). That's not good because some of the stuff is definitely busy work and I should be moving on with the game. I see a waterfall of achievements getting listed on the Steam community from my friends list and I'm still doing the stuff they did in the first three hours of the game it seems

Yeaah, I probably wouldn't try and go for 100% before moving on, lol. That seems more like a long-term activity. (The Rapport stuff (which also feeds a bit into the local food collectibles) is basically "progess a bit each day".

You will really push me to try Lost Ark at this rhythm.
But as I already said, and at the risk of looking like a bigot, I hate KMMO aesthetic.

And after watching some youtuber, well, meh ? The character is so OP that dying would be a feat (maybe that changes later) and the amount of trash quest is so high that it feels like every time I skipped time in the stream I ended up with the player taking or validating a quest. Snore fest.

That being said, I’m nothing if not open minded. That 70go though…

So from what I've played so far (at level 22, which is basically nothing):
Enemies in the world are really easy, you're basically not in any danger at all. There are a lot of quests, they are short and they are very well streamlined: you never have to run constantly back and forth to do them, all of them are structured in a way that they will be turned in at the next step of the main story if you pick them up as they appear. They are also entirey optional, I think you get enough EXP by simply doing the main story (you don't even need to grind enemies). This seems to be because level 10-50 seems to be "old content" that the devs want you to clear asap (I like it though) because the "real game" starts at level 50. This is probably also why you're going to get 2 free "power passes" that let you bring a character straight to level 50 once you clear that part normally once.

The dungeons are a bit more challenging. They're still not "hard" but you need to pay attention to the boss moves and evade them. They also get slowly more complex. There's supposedly stuff later on that is really difficult if that's your thing.

The main thing though is that combat feels absolutely sublime. The hit feedback is just excellent, both visually and aurally. It's super satisfying even when it's easy.

 

[fearthedawn]

So regarding ME Legendary Edition this is my current mod list

Community Patches for all 1 and 3
Expanded Galaxy
A Lot of Textures/Videos

That is basically all i need right? And that is order of installation?

Afaik those are the big "everybody should get" ones, maybe galaxy map trackers if you want to do more than just straight main story in ME1 and something to adjust fov. (flawless widescreen if you're not using 16:9)

There is obviously tons more out there but i don't know enough to recommend anything rebalancing / game changing.

edit: iirc you have a gpu with extra horsepower, i very much do recommend using it as it does a lot for image quality in mass effect, the new 2.25x dldsr for example (and/or reshade)

 

[Mor]

We need to talk about this SKUs not merging thing hahah

 

[Li Kao]

I won't play ME Legendary without modding Pinnacle Station in. I'm one of the weirdos that didn't mind it at the time.

 

[Deku]

Currently playing Witcher 3
I have these mods installed

Are there any other mods I should install?

 

[FunnyJay]

Hmmm checking the Generation Zero steam page, I see there are two differents sorts of free DLC. Since I see the Swedish store page, I cannot say what it says in English, but some DLC is stated as "Free" and some are stated as "Without cost" (my translations of course).

Does anyone know why there's two different "versions" of free in the Steam Ecosystem?

 

[dex3108]

Currently playing Witcher 3
I have these mods installed

Are there any other mods I should install?

Friendly HUD
HD Textures Reworked
Better grass mod
Better Sign Effects
Better water animation
Friendly Meditation
STL

But it all depends on your hardware.

 

[curi0usBystander]

Finally done with cold steel IV. I'll probably write my opinions later in the main thread. No more trails games for me until some point in 2023. Sure, I'll (re)buy the crossbell games, so I have easy to access versions) but I doubt I'd replay them any time soon (and since I doubt I could use my clear save I have no much interest).

Now to bide my time until Elden Ring releases.

 

[Deku]

Friendly HUD
HD Textures Reworked
Better grass mod
Better Sign Effects
Better water animation
Friendly Meditation
STL

But it all depends on your hardware.

Any other mods that is not graphical mod?

What is STL?

 

[dex3108]

Any other mods that is not graphical mod?

What is STL?

Friendly HUD and Friendly Meditation are not technically graphic mods. Friendly HUD auto hides HUD outside of combat (you can tweak it however you want) and Friendly Meditation allows you to press button and meditate in real time without opening menu.

STL is Super Turbo Lighting mod.

 

[Mivey]

Currently playing Witcher 3
I have these mods installed

Are there any other mods I should install?

I remember enjoying this Immersive Camera mod

Immersive Cam

Customizable E3 2014 Camera Mod- Customizable Camera Positions- In-Game Camera Control- Smart Rotation (auto centering off until you decide you need it)- Player Head Tracki

www.nexusmods.com

It basically brings you a bit closer to Geralt, plus other neat features you can keep on or turn off.

I also remember this one: No Artificial Player Light
It removes the auto light that's applied to Geralt, and makes him fit the surrounding much better. It's a subjective thing, the screenshots make it clear whether you'll want this one or not.

 

[low-G]

Downloaded Lost Ark, spent 5 minutes looking at a queue :V
Hopefully they'll improve the servers soon.

Finished Serious Sam 4 which was pretty decent.

I don't know why gamers abide any game with a queue anymore. How much time do ya'll have that you can wait for ridiculous queues? It even happens in matchmaking in games these days. Unacceptable.

 

[dex3108]

I know that i am complaining about good free service but oh my god is downloading mods larger than 10mb from Nexus Mods these days panful. Downloads constantly stop then start for few second then stop again. i am waiting more to download 500mb mod from Nexus than i waited for 10GB mod download from torrent.

 

[madjoki]

Valve made small update to creators pages

New

Old

Poor Mor.

 

[--------]

STL is Super Turbo Lighting mod.

Personal recommendation against this mod: it is very inconsistent and very heavy with its changes. For lighting mods I would instead recommend either ULM (Ultimate Lighting Mod) if you are into tweaking or just the Character Lighting Fix which removes fake lights.

 

[Line]

I don't know why gamers abide any game with a queue anymore. How much time do ya'll have that you can wait for ridiculous queues? It even happens in matchmaking in games these days. Unacceptable.

People want to play the games.

But yes, it is fucking ridiculous when decade old games like Guild Wars 2 used sharding to never have any queue, ever. And to have everyone playing together no matter where they are.
It's even dumber in Lost Ark where all names are region wide, so you both can't do a lot of things with your friends on other servers... and you take your own name on other servers and can't use it again! Makes no sense.

Server infrastructure is so, so backwards on so many games still...

 

[Le Pertti]

Valve made small update to creators pages

New


Old




Poor Mor.

 

[Ge0force]

It seems lost ark isn't available in my country. It doesn't show up in the search results, and it isn't even mentioned in the most popular and worldwide bestsellers list. This is strange, since several people from my country are playing it according to my friends list.

Currently playing Witcher 3
I have these mods installed

Are there any other mods I should install?

Friendly HUD to replace the Ubisoft-like in-game markers with an Elder Scrolls-like compass. This makes the game so much better!

 

[ZKenir]

It seems lost ark isn't available in my country. It doesn't show up in the search results, and it isn't even mentioned in the most popular and worldwide bestsellers list. This is strange, since several people from my country are playing it according to my friends list.




Friendly HUD to replace the Ubisoft-like in-game markers with an Elder Scrolls-like compass. This makes the game so much better!

 

[lashman]

 

[Panda Pedinte]

It doesn't look as big as some people thought, but I'm in the camp that think the switch joycons are too small even though my hands small.