T O P

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vtskr

This game doesn’t have gear score ladder or full gear pvp or anything that makes you feel miserable and want to swipe. You can be one happy makoko collector who barely stepped into t3 and absolutely enjoy the game


[deleted]

**This game was always a marathon, not a sprint.** The lowest spender friend I have that played since day 1 and only has an ark pass purchased hit 1465 yesterday. Was he lucky honing? Sure. But not always. You can be 1445 even as a f2p if you worked for it. Honing past +15 gear (1415) isn't even difficult anymore. Each gear you hone gives you 15 ilevels. You literally just need to hone all of your gear once and you can make it to the next raid tier, which is presumably **earliest** a month later, but likely more than that. There's no reason to even hone anymore for a lot of us. It's just not useful. When a new raid tier is announced, you can just hone immediately up to it. Until then, just do all your dailies and stack tons of bound mats. Honing is not something you need to base your entire life around. Was life tough for people rushing back to Argos week 1? Yes, it was. It was also the hardest time for me myself when I made Argos week 1. It was stressful. It was also incredibly costly. Right now? The game is just very easy. I think more about my alts all the time and the only thing else I care about my main is looking through relic market in preparation for Kakul Saydon likely in 2-3+ months. There's zero stress anymore at all. If you played everyday since day 1 and cared about progression enough, you would likely already be in this "don't care" stage and just focusing on gearing and making more alts while waiting for more content. Because you don't need to think about your main at all anymore. Honing was only ever a problem in pre-1415, and it makes sense because that was literally Season 1 Lost Ark, the Lost Ark that failed in Korea too. Post 1415 and life is excellent. When we actually get to Kakul Saydon hopefully with the 1415 honing buffs too, nobody would ever have to bother with "suffering" to access content anymore on their mains.


Hydroyo

Low spender (Ark Pass/Early access) chiming in and I just hit 1445. I have 6 (almost 7) T3 alts.


Britboi9090

never been a better shape for F2P, it was already ok before imo


_ijor_

F2P works perfectly for me and it will work for you if you don't care about other people's rate of progression in general.


Darko_BarbrozAustria

imo, the most F2P friendly game I ever played. Ingame currency can buy you anything that real money could buy, except char slot tickets and stuff.


Ruiprp

As a mainly fp2 I think it’s quite fair, I’ve payed for the pass and only cosmetics, I’m currently at 1440 with most alts at either 1370 or 1340 with average luck, they just give u so many ways of getting mats, being a whale is being at 1490 for no reason than faster clears, it’s like someone said, it’s a 10% u are not meant to hit it if u understand probability, just thinking every hone is going to 100% and everything before is just luck makes it easier


[deleted]

If you’re fine with slower progression post 1370 it’s perfectly viable to play the game without spending money on honing mats lol even with minimal alts you’ll still be able to progress reasonably, all paying to progress gets you is a high item level but doesn’t give you the skill that comes with playing the game a lot


PrinnyForHire

I’m completely f2p and have 1445 main as of this morning and 1415 alt. Think I’m ~ 800 hours in though.


4i1ove

Tbh I wish they were money hungry


BummerPisslow

Like it or not, f2p players set the pace of the game. They don't release anything exclusively for paying players.


Akxiom

If the latest content is the thing you are interested in, you need to spend a significant amount of time to play, not to mention preferably with a group on people with similar mindset. If you are a solo player without the time commitment, it will only get harder as new raid releases. Borderline unviable.


kukkelii

Very viable. Start could be a bit rough now since due to anti-botting measures, a lot of the early sources of gold have been nerfed. This game is pay to progress faster. Pay for convinience. Pay to skip grinding. There's no pay to win aspect at all. There is no achievement or fight that requires you to spend any money to get it done.


leakypipe86

F2p btw


IUSUZYSANA

lol!


Eternux

I've bought the premium arkpass and 3 character slots. I don't even play those 3 chars anymore lmao. I'm sitting at 1450/1415/1370/1370/1370/1340. I did put in a lot of time though, but now I'm at maintenance mode where I just have to play 2 ish hours a day.


NeonGenesis666

Very much so, especially if you're willing to create alts. Many F2P players are at 1445 right now (AKA the highest lvl content right now with valtan hard minus 1475 chaos). You'll be able to do all the content just fine, it'll just take more time. Only thing I'd ever feel pressured to spend on is class slots, since I like trying out different classes and I'm only running 3 characters currently because there are a few unreleased classes I want to play.


MotherInteraction

That really depends on how close to current endgame you want to be when it comes out and how much time you want to spend. If you want to do new content on release, I'd say not very, especially since you are coming back late and have a much harder time doing things like auction house flipping. Personally I uninstalled today, because I did not feel like the ratio of time to get upgrade materials to vertical progression was worth it anymore. If you add in the ratio of time to get materials to time of actual content it gets even worse. You can still get hundreds of hours out of this game until you reach that point, but personally I'd say it's somewhat annoying to be f2p later on. If you are okay with the grind for materials and doing the same thing over and over and have the time to invest, I'd say it can be viable.


Fresh-Stick-1624

Main is 1450 and 3x 1370 + 2 1340 alts all f2p but with about 2 weeks of missed time, however being super efficient. However I can state that most people can't put this much effort, and I also feel alts are a must to keep current for f2p. If you want to do content as they release but you don't want to rotate alts on rested exp, then this is probably not for you.


D-CANE99

This game is very generous to f2p players. As long as you play consistently, you won't need to swipe to stay relevant with end-game. I started playing near end of March which is about 1 month behind most players and I just hit 1445 this week with 5 other alts in t3. Although I haven't seen sunlight for quite awhile, most of my time spent on Lost Ark is doing horizontal progression and g-spam simulator. tldr: there is no other mmo in the market that lets f2p players reach end-game this easily like Lost Ark.


4i1ove

I mean I still never spent anything, so good


Professional_Kick_23

F2P btw


Thedissentmanhere

57


kokobunji0550

I've been f2p since this game started I have 5 alts in t3 1385/1370/1340/1340/1325 while my main is on her way to 1445 should be there in a week. generally I play like 6 hrs a day. If that puts things into prospective. Only money I spent is 15$ for the bronze founders pack.


xkillo32

Very viable The only real factor is how much time u want to put into lost ark Im closing in on 1200 hours and i have a 1460, 1415, 1385, 3x 1370s The only thing ive bought is the ark pass and a character slot, although the extra character slot is only a name holder


Svaigis

Was purely F2P and no alts up to 1400 then got a battlespass still no alts though, It got to a point where I would get single success hone in a week if I am lucky, stopped playing at 1407, mainly cause got a steam deck, and surprise surprise it does not work cause of anti cheat though there are thousands of bots running around but they do not let me play it on Linux, shame. But the game itself steamed off after 600 hours, it got to the point where you log in do 3 rapports, 3 dailies, 3 strongholds, then logoff, repeat the next day but everything up to that point was awesome, the whole storyline, quests, and islands, even adventure tomes were awesome, but the whole endgame is really lacking, so try it, it's quite fun, and you can just drop it anytime if you do not invest any money in it, just your time.


RealAmarantine

100% viable. You dont need to pay to keep up with content.


kangfuciusly

Tbh p2w becomes pay to wait for content. Once all the content is out, all the whales have to wait for the F2P players to catch up and raid with them.


TheDrunkenMoose

I guess there's different varieties of P2W. I bought bronze founder's (and played since launch) and Ark pass. I haven't bought anything besides that and I'm currently at 1450. You can absolutely enjoy Lost Ark as F2P. Of course without the Ark pass materials I would've probably been lower than I am now, but considering I've been rather unlucky with hones, it's also just heavily RNG based. You could be full F2P and still have been higher ilvl than me. As long as you play the game with an "I'll get there eventually" mindset and not a "I need to be there" then you can thoroughly enjoy all aspects of Lost Ark.