We're here today with the next installment of the Lost Ark 2024 roadmap. We're going to be taking a look at the next few months of content and game updates, and give you a first look at some of the things you can look forward to. I'm Roxx, the Product Community Manager for Lost Ark here in the West, and I'm joined by a couple of familiar faces and important members of the Lost Ark team that are going to help me share everything. Before we get started, Andy, do you just want to reintroduce yourself? [Andy] Hey, everyone. I'm Andy, and I'm the Product Manager for Lost Ark. [Roxx] And, we have Mr. Patchnotes over here. [Henry] Yup. Also known as the three times sidereal dropper. It's, me, Henry, the Head of Editorial at Amazon Games.
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[Roxx] Awesome. Before we get into things, please note that this roadmap is actually only going to cover three months of content. We know you're kind of used to four. But as that timeline gets tighter and tighter with things that are coming out in Korea and the pace that we're releasing them. It's taking us a little bit more time to kind of like lock these plans and get them ready to share with everyone. [Henry] Yeah, there's some super exciting stuff that's going to be coming later in the year that we're really excited to announce. We're just not quite ready for that yet. Some, you know, pretty exciting things. Yeah, I don't know. Andy, do you want to kind of talk about what players should expect heading forward? [Andy] Yeah. We're super bummed that we can't give you guys a longer heads up on content. But on the other hand, we're working really hard to make sure that the West gets content from Korea sooner than ever before. [Roxx] Yeah. So definitely it's all a good change. And we're excited to share more with you later on. But for today, we're just going to focus on those kind of next three months and what's, you know, immediately in front of us. And then when we're ready to share more, we'll see you back here. [Henry] Yeah, I think we we also tried, you know, to give players a little bit more heads up on Thaemine was coming, you know, announcing that date further in advance. You know, we definitely hear your feedback on wanting information as soon as possible, but, and we'll we'll continue to try and give it as soon as we can and as soon as it's ready. [Roxx] Yeah, but, you know, it is important to us to make sure those plans are in place and ready to be shared versus, you know, sharing things too early and having them change. So we're trying to balance the two for sure. [Henry] Yeah. [Roxx] Yeah. So with that, before we head into the next kind of part of the roadmap, let's take a look back at April really quick. It was a really, really exciting month, I think. [Henry] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Thaemine Legion raid came out. Absolutely. You know, amazing raid, super cinematic, really cool mechanics. We're actually actually filming this right before it releases. It's coming out, you know, just right after this video. So we haven't seen what shapes up with the, you know, race to first clear and things like that yet. But we're super excited to see what happens. And personally, I'm super excited both for The Raid and for Thaemine the First difficulty. Haven't done up a lot of Hell content, but, I love the Extreme Valtan and then kind of the added challenge with that. So I'm super excited for it. [Roxx] Yeah, we're taking bets in the background before this about who's going to win and how you're going to perform. So I'm excited to see to everyone will know by now when they all see this video. But yeah, it's been really cool to release that. There's a lot of excitement around that being, you know, the hardest raid yet, obviously in the last of the Legion Commanders. So that was super cool. Something else that's really cool that's still ongoing is the emote contest. We were able to do another installment of the emote contest, which is something we were really excited. Last year, the emote contest went over really, really well with the community, and we were just excited to have another opportunity to kind of bring in something that's both, you know, made by Western players, kind of for Western players and get the community involved in voting. So when this video releases, I believe voting will actually be ongoing. So if you haven't taken a look, be sure to head into our Discord and check out some of those emote contest entries and let it be known what you want to see in game. I'm sure we're going to get a ton of really exciting drawings and entries and things, and it's always just an absolute blast to go through all of those. So definitely check out our Discord. [Henry] Yeah, the, the stare emote from the first one is by far my most used emote in the game. So I'm super excited to see what the community comes up with this time. I think all of the the ones that we released last time were like probably my top five, most of you, so I'm super pumped. [Roxx] I think they are in the entire game, like, I don't know for which one. I don't know if, you know, which one's the most used, but I think all five of those emotes are literally like by stats, like the most used emotes, the entire, like, Western version, like, our team pulled that for us at one point. [Andy] Another interesting thing that we released in April is what we call the instant fulfillment system. So taking a few steps back, when we first launched Lost Ark in the West, we had some issues with, you know, fraudulent users buying royal crystals and then refunding it. So we had to introduce a three day escrow system, which significantly reduced the amount of fraud that we saw. But ever since then, we know exactly how painful it is for players to buy royal crystals in exchange for gold and not be able to use it. I feel that personally all the time. I'm sure Henry does too. [Henry: Oh, yeah.] Yeah. So? So we've been working really hard to design a machine learning algorithm that would understand how trustworthy a player is and how much gold they should be able to use, because we don't want the 1% to ruin the experience for the 99%. So instant fulfillment system essentially assigns every player a credit score, and this credit score is calculated on the back end based on your past purchase history and your behavior in-game. And so with the April update, you should have been able to get some of your royal crystals exchanged directly into gold that can be used right away and over time, assuming you don't commit fraud, the amount of real crystals that you get to use upfront will continually increase. We'll be iterating on the system over time, and so things may change. But we think we're we think the system is really promising and we hope it'll give everybody a better purchasing experience. [Roxx] Yeah, it's definitely a really fine balance between, you know, keeping players safe, preventing fraud, keeping the game a vector not for fraud. Ideally, fraud is bad. And, you know, but also we hear players and we know some of these systems can be frustrating. Like you said, the 1% of fraudulent folks will make things harder for all the players that are just trying to play and enjoy the game. So definitely really appreciate the work your team has kind of done to head that. And we're constantly looking for ways to kind of improve these systems so that they don't impact regular users quite as much. Sweet. So I think we've already covered a lot, but with that, let's look ahead and move into May. [Henry] All right. So first up we have May. This month is going to have a ton of different types of content. The theme is just going to be kind of like an exploration and story month. There's going to be some new islands, some new stories for players to experience and should just be kind of like a fun collection of new activities. You know, we're coming right off of Thaemine; a lot of people are still playing through Thaemine, learning the ins and outs of the fight, you know, experiencing the transcendence system. So we wanted to keep things kind of fun, light exploration focused since we know players are still waging the war against the Legion Commander of Darkness. So you want to walk us through like one of the first, you know, major stories that players are going to do. [Roxx] Yeah definitely. So for players who have managed to clear Thaemine, they'll actually be able to experience the next part of the Darkness Legion Commander's story, in his sort of epilogue in the new Thaemine after story. The quest, "Shadow of the Moon" can be acquired from Knight Oscar and Luterra Castle. Be sure to pay him a visit if you want to learn more about what's happened with Thaemine after his recent assault on Arkesia. He's definitely a very scary Legion Commander so you're going to want to take a look at that epilogue. I'm very excited to kind of get a look at the next part of his story. [Henry] Yeah, it'll be fun kind of having, like, the closing of the chapter of Thaemine. You know, obviously, as we mentioned, players are still going to be playing through it, but from a story beat, just kind of having that natural, you know, conclusion to the saga of Thaemine. And that kind of leads us into one of the next, like major stories that's going to be unfolding in Arkesia, which is going to be the upcoming events taking place in the new continent of Kurzan. We're going to dive more into Kurzan itself in June. But in May we actually have the Kurzon Prelude event, which is called Chaos Assault. It's going to be a two part event kind of unfolding over the course of two months. But in May, we're going to have the first part of that event. It's going to arrive and players are going to need to head to Mount Zagoras, where Chaos has taken hold of the, you know, region and defeat hordes of enemies by entering Distorted Chaos Rifts. There's a special suppression meter for the event that kind of increases the more enemies you defeat and resets on a daily basis. Defeating the enemies or filling up the suppression meter is going to grant special powders that can be exchanged at the event shop for, you know, all the classic rewards that we have in in an event shop. But there's also going to be a really cool new type of reward that are called Wishful Embers. It's a new kind of fate drop, a new take on fate embers. So I think that'll be a lot of fun. The difficulties just going to kind of depend on your character's item level, kind of scale up, but the same rewards are going to be distributed regardless of the item level that you go in and experience. Going to be a fun event with some lore tie ins as we head towards Kurzan on and also just give some cool rewards. Personally, fate embers are like one of my favorite things that have ever been added to Lost Ark. Like I don't... the sound when they drop and like the visual, I don't know, it just like itches the right part of my brain. So I'm excited to check out, you know, the new Wishful Embers in this in this event. Should be cool. [Roxx] Also noted now, if you're ever not paying attention in the office, I'm just going to play that sound and get you to "huh"? [Henry] Yeah, that sounds definitely like Pavlov Me. So you'll probably... I'll perk up and look over probably. So, good plan. [Roxx] Yeah I think players are going to be really stoked on those rewards too. And it is very exciting. Already spoilers but to be heading to Kurzan very soon? [Henry] Yeah, absolutely. So Hanumatan going to arrive in May for heroes that want to test their skills and speed against a powered up version of the Guardian. So this trial Guardian is going to work a little bit different than previous iterations. Two key changes are that the item level is going to be a lot higher. And there's also first time clear rewards. They grant gold alongside the classic rewards of titles and achievements. So it's going to come in at item level 1600 for normal mode and 1630 for the hardmode version of this challenge, players are going to be able to take on Trial Hanumatan to fight for fastest clear times and these all new rewards. And one thing to know if you just want to go right into hard mode, defeating hard mode will also grant the gold rewards from normal mode. I think this is like kind of a more fun take on trail Guardians, you know, kind of like the, the Valtan extreme approach of like, we're going to give you this kind of, like, cool event, but you're also going to be able to earn gold from it. I haven't done a lot of the trail Guardians myself, but I'm definitely gonna do this one for these, you know, kind of amped up rewards. [Roxx] Yeah. Being able to earn gold in like a normal mode version. That's my jam, for sure though, it's definitely something that I think is more kind of broadly appealing, like you said, like more players will be interested in it than kind of a typical trial guardian raid. [Andy] So yeah, and I think we're looking at it more of it as a speedrun contest now, with players racing for the fastest time and trying to solve the various puzzles of the fight. [Henry] Yeah. [Roxx] Definitely. I mean, it's still going to be a real challenge no matter which kind of difficulty you play on. But you know, you'll you'll definitely get some nice rewards from it. So give it a shot. And I think we're excited to see how that kind of shakes out. [Henry] Yeah, kind of like Valtan. It's just fun coming back to those like where you mastered these mechanics. But maybe you haven't played the Guardian read in a while. Hanumatan had like some cool like counter patterns and balance to the fight. So I'm excited to see the, you know, new mechanics along with the the old ones. [Roxx] I remember you teaching me and June that that Guardian Raid shortly after it came out. [Heny] Pheromone now! Pheromone now! Yeah, exactly. [Roxx] Yeah, yeah. So we might have to revisit it. That was, it was a really fun guardian raid, honestly. [Henry] It has like a fun rhythm. [Roxx] Like keyboard smashing for me. [Henry] But yeah. So trial Hanumatan will be arriving in May. Should be fun. [Roxx] Another system that's going to be worth kind of revisiting is the Music Box of Memories. Music Box of Memories is actually going to be updated with six new stories to uncover. These stories, as you probably know, are a lot different from the stories we normally see across Arkesia and the stories that come with the music box focus on kind of the more ordinary day to day lives of some of the citizens of Arksia and how they react to the world around them. So much of our focus, I think, when we regularly play through the game, is on the heroes and the epic moments and facing off against Thaemine most recently. But these stories really kind of showcase how there's something special in the ordinary and kind of gives a glimpse at what life is like for the rest of the citizens of Arkesia. This update will also come in with some new jukebox music, achievements, titles, and some other QoL and UI updates for the system. So if you haven't started collecting those collectibles, now, it's going to be a great time to start. And there'll be a couple more for you to gather as well. [Henry] Yeah. Should be kind of just a fun flavor change with all the the epic big stories we've had. It'll be fun. Just, kind of diving back into everyday life in Arkesia. [Roxx] Yeah. I mean, I think about this a lot. Obviously, I'm really into the stories and stuff around games, but, like, can you imagine just like being a random person, like living in Luterra through, like, all this crazy stuff that's happened, like, especially with Thaemine, especially with everything recently. But even all this stuff at very early game with like Thrain and the power struggle, like, these people are just trying to live, you know, so it's really kind of interesting to get that sort of viewpoint on what it's like for just like Joe Schmo in the corner living through these like very exciting times, right? [Henry] So alongside experiencing some of those new storylines, new quests, that sort of thing, we're also gonna have a new Adventure Island. We're going to have, Cruel Toy Castle Island. It has appeared in the southern seas near Shushire, and players are going to be able to enter using Procyon's Compass, just like other adventure islands. You're going to find an ominous paper when disembarking that will send you on a curious quest. You're going to be able to earn some new achievements, new title and the island soul. Kind of getting back to the new collectibles coming into the game. And also, new Mokoko seed and new toy should just be kind of a fun new adventure island. We had Lailai Island come in a couple months ago, but for people that like collecting all the island souls, collecting all the Mokokos should be, you know, just a fun thing to to check off the list. [Roxx] Definitely. And kind of outside of all of these new things to explore and experience, we have something else very exciting coming into the shop. [Andy] Absolutely. So last year we had Western specific skins, which we called the Arthertine Night Rider series, and you guys love those. And so this year we'll be bringing back a new set. As you all know, we do regular surveys of the player base, and I don't know what I expected, but we found that the most popular genre by far among Lost Ark players is anime. So this year we're bringing to you Magical Girl and Magical Boy cosmetics and skins. Reminiscent of the 80s and 90s anime that some of you may have seen, where school boys and school girls went around in every day academy uniforms during the day, but then powered up at night to fight evil. The magical school of magical boy girls will be coming to Arkesia in May. [Roxx] Yeah, I am very, very excited for those. They appeal to me greatly, and I think a lot of our players will really like them too. They're looking really cool. All the concept art and watching you kind of lead that charge in, like those get created, has been just a lot of fun. And I'm really excited for, I don't know if it's a spoiler, but the pets and things that are coming with it too are absolutely adorable, so. [Henry] Yeah, while we're while we're recording this, we're still, you know, kind of hammering out some of the final details. But, I think we'll be partnering with Smilegate pretty soon on a showcase to kind of go through all of those cosmetics and show off, you know, exactly what they're going to be. So we're excited for you to be able to take a look. And, yeah, like Andy said, designed for the Western community, should be really cool. I think they're going to stay Western exclusive for, at least six months. So our players are going to be the first ones to get to experience those in Arkesia. [Roxx] So that's a good look at a lot of the content that will be coming in May. There will also be some quality of life changes that players can look forward to. And some of those things, particularly around strongholds, are really exciting if we want to get a little bit into those. [Andy] For those of you that love to customize their strongholds, May will be a great one. The design points have been expanded and optimized so that players will have nearly two times as many available points for decorating their stronghold, which allows for a lot more characters and structures to be placed. We're also adding the Structure book, which allows players to view information on stronghold structures like how it'll appear and how it can be earned. Players will also be able to trade and purchase and craft structures within the stronghold UI. You can also use it to learn more about other players' structures when you visit your friends strongholds. We're also adding 20 new structures to the strongholds, which includes a special signpost that can be used to post messages for any of your visitors. [Roxx] Yeah, I think, these changes will be really cool. There are some players that are super, super into decoration and I'm always super impressed. And it's you know, one of the things is like you'll go visit someone's stronghold and you'll be like, what is this thing? How do I get it? You know, and you can always ask them or now you don't have to. Just like the real world, you can just pull up your phone and look at it. Now you can pull up your structure book and look at it. No, but I think this will be a great change for even, like more stronghold customization. And having that two times as many design points is huge because that character pool and the structure pool of design points is also being combined, so you'll be able to just go even crazier with however you want to decorate things. [Henry] Yeah, it should be cool. I, my stronghold is pretty barebones. I'm not a very good host, but I do enjoy visiting other peoples' strongholds and seeing what they've cooked up. So I'm excited to see what, you know, some of the new things that have been added to, to my friends that I frequent for feasts and other things. [Roxx] I was wondering if you said cooked up this. [Henry] Yeah. It was it was a little play. [Roxx] Yeah, I got yeah, I got that. Yep. Awesome. Well, that was a look at May. And with that, I think we're ready to head into June. [Hery] So June. June is going to be a really fun month and I'm super looking forward to. It's going to be all things Kurzan. We're going to have new continent, new raid, a bunch of stuff we're going to talk through. Just because it relates to kind of the prelude that we talked about in May. The first thing that's going to be arriving is Chaos Assault Part Two. Chaos Assault is going to continue with some new activities titled Return of the Dragon. You're going to be able to talk to Researcher Marcus at Mount Zagoras to learn about the giant shadow appearing in the Fortress of Chaos. You can enter the Fortress of Chaos through a portal and Mount Zagoras during the event period to defeat Kaishuter and receive a ton of cool rewards. Just like part one, the difficulty is going to vary depending on your character item level. But the same rewards are distributed regardless of item level. You're going to be able to obtain Chaos Crystals this time by participating in the event which can be exchanged at the event shop for a ton of awesome rewards. And then that'll kind of lead us into Kurzan, which is a big focus of the month. [Roxx] Yeah, Kurzan is going to be huge, as we kind of touched on earlier. It is an entirely new content and we'll be heading into Kurzan South. With the arrival of the Red Moon, strange events have begun occurring across Arkesia. A mysterious, pungent red liquid is corrupting the Sea of Gienah, and people fear that it could be an omen of the Demon Lord Kazeros' return. Researchers in Arthentine have investigated the substance and has determined its origin to be Kurzan. Adventurers will need to set out to South Kurzan to continue these investigations. Players above item level 1580 will be able to enter Kurzan, a harsh barren land following the Chain War. Kazeros's body was sealed here inside of Mount Antares. Even today, his evil power is seeping through the land due to the volcanic activity in the mountain. Take on new quests, meet new rapport NPCs, earn new achievements, titles, cards, emotes, and more when you get to explore South Kurzan. [Henry] So arriving with South Kurzan is the first Kazeros raid. It's an all new eight player raid with two gates featuring new enemies and mechanics. The main enemy is Ladon, who was the Covetous Legion Commander long before Vykas came to power. She was jealous of Brelshaza, who was Kazeros' favorite, and concocted a plan to use Vykas, a lowly demon. Men who served Ladon to sabotage Kazeros' trust towards Brelshaza. However, Vykas saw this as an opportunity to rise, betraying Ladon and taking her place ever since. Viscous betrayal. Ladon has been absent from Petrania. After a long time, Ladon has reappeared in Arkesia, and players are going to need to face true desires in The Lotus Blossoms of Ladon. The raid introduces a new mechanic, Allied Forces Skills, which are kind of a new fun twist on sidereal skills from Legion raids, where you kind of summon the power of some of your other, you know, adventurers and heroes that you've met throughout Arkesia. You're going to be able to challenge Ladon in normal mode at item level 1620 or in hard mode at item level 1630. So along with gold achievements, titles, trophies, mounts, all the like cool rewards you expect from, you know, an awesome raid in Lost Ark. The Ladon Kazeros' raid is also going to include new materials for like an all new progression system. We're going to talk about Ladon for a second. But Andy is going to give us a breakdown of that new system, which is called Advanced Honing in a second. But I'm super pumped for this raid. It looks super cool from what I've seen. [Roxx: Yeah.] Is there anything you guys are looking forward to? [Roxx] I mean we've really known Ladon to from her history with Vykas and Brelshaza. So I'm really excited to kind of have her, you know, in the game and existing as a character on her own and like, learn more about her there. [Andy] Yeah, but you know, she's the OG. I'm counting on all of you third party developers to build the typing test, training tools, because I think that typing test will be even more difficult from the last. [Roxx] Yeah, I think so too. [Henry] Yeah, I think, you know, Vykas was a fan favorite for a while, but I think, she might be dethroned with this update. [Andy] I can see that. [Roxx] I agree. Oh. All right. Cool. Do you want to get a little bit into, yeah, some of the advanced toning with those new rewards? [Andy] So advanced honing is a system that helps get players to 1640 more easily in a more predictable way. First, you must temper your sidereal or upper ancient gear once you've hit item level 1620. You can temper it with new materials that you get from Ladon normal mode. Once you temper it, you can upgrade the gear a total of ten times and you'll gain one item level each time. Those upgrades are a little more predictable, because there'll be an XP bar that you can fill all the way to the top, and sometimes you can get lucky and you'll get more XP than other times. Once you've upgraded each gear ten times, you have to temper again, again with the materials from Ladon normal mode, and then you can upgrade another ten times to get your gear to a total of 1640 item level. [Roxx] Yeah, I think this is a really positive change, or new system, I should say, that'll help players kind of feel like they have a very clear progression path to keep increasing those item levels. [Henry] Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, even if you have been kind of over honing your gear like my glaiver's already 1640. It'll still, you know, be able to apply those and continue increasing your power in the same way. So it's, you know, just kind of continues the vein of like kind of fun new progression systems that we've been seeing with elixirs, transcendence and now Advanced Honing. [Roxx] Cool. [Andy] This is a very complex system. So Henry's editorial notes will have all the details. [Roxx] Before we close out June, we know this isn't a piece of in-game content, but we did want to touch on the fact that region merges are still being targeted for this month. The team is still working on this, and we'll follow up with all of the details as we get closer to the summer. But just know region merges will be happening in the month of June. [Henry] Yeah, we should have some updates in, probably an article format coming out in May. Just to give players kind of a rundown on what the plan is. Like Roxx said, still still ongoing, but we'll we'll follow up as soon as we have those details locked in. [Roxx] Awesome. And with that, let's look ahead into the month of July. Get ready to celebrate the summer with a new Maharaka Paradise Event Island, which will be located east of Luterra in the Sea of Gienah. Players will be able to hit the pool and participate in an event race, transforming into a big pirate Mokoko to jump, headbutt, dash, and swim their way through a water based race before attempting to fight off a giant rubber duck. And so the event shops and rewards for the Maharaka Paradise event are still being finalized, but as always, you can expect to earn some fun kind of summer themed rewards and some good old progression items. So, like we said earlier, there will be more content coming in July. But for now, we're kind of focused in on knowing that this event will be there for sure. [Andy] Yeah, coming off the back of Kurzan South, Ladon, as well as of course Thaemine. And we think players will still be working on their advanced honing gear in July. So we want to have a fun summer event that's for players to relax in. [Henry] Yeah, it should be. It should be just kind of a fun relaxation like you said, Andy. Obviously this roadmap is really focused on the story of South Kurzan and Ladon. So we wanted to kind of just tie a bow on that. It should be, you know, kind of a fun couple months coming up after Thaemine. And I'm super excited for it personally. [Roxx] Yeah, definitely. All right. With that, we're going to close out today with actually two Community Questions. Please let us know what your answers are in the comments. Andy, why don't you kick off the first question we got? [Andy] Yeah. Community Question number one, Vykas or Ladon? [Roxx] It's a very important question. Henry, what about our other question for our heroes at home? [Henry] Yeah, that's a tough one. But for the second question, you know, we're coming out of Thaemine, where your raid groups able to hold strong through Thaemine. And will you be challenging Ladon with that same group or need to swap things up? Let us know in the comments. [Roxx] Yeah, definitely. Cool. Well, thank you for joining us for the next part of our 2024 roadmap. Be sure to like, subscribe, and we're excited to hear what you think in the comments. And with that, we're heading out. But we'll see you again in Arkesia really soon.
