Lost Ark Jump Start Servers Are Not Enough

it's been a while since I last played Lost Ark and with a recent hype of some positive changes in the release of the jumpstart servers I took it upon myself to take the opportunity to come back and check out how the game's been doing while Stark is a game that I was highly anticipating and played for quite a large amount of time before getting burnt out and admittedly irritated with some of its design choices and systems and decided to call it a day some time ago of course I was not the only player to do this Lost Ark has had a rather notorious player count drop since its Western release somewhat inflated by the culling of an insane amount of bots that were plaguing the game but a huge drop off of players overall regardless over the last year due to many players sharing much of the same irritations that I had the jumpstart servers provide a great excuse or an opportunity depending on how you look at it to return to check out the game as I have been doing sort of poking my head into the shop to look around so to speak rather than just peeking Through the Windows as I have been but what are jump servers anyway to be specific and give some quick details essentially the jumpstart servers are brand new Fresh Start servers where players starting here are reset back to the starting line in terms of account and character progression if you are a current or returning player basically nothing you have done as far as account progression on any other server matters or will transfer over to these jumpstart servers they are entirely meant to be a fresh start relaunch-esque experience players here are given a South Vern power pass to boost a character to 1415 item level as well as a jump start makoko Express event pass to use on a character which further provides boosts and benefits too quickly and I do mean very quickly get your character up to 1540 item level and into the current end game the jumpstart servers themselves are not directly connected to their Associated Regional data center or server group yet for example the N A East jumpstart server while on the NA East server cluster itself is not connected directly to any of the other standard na eased servers for now to quote directly from Amazon jumpstart servers will be isolated from other servers with independent PVE matchmaking party finder Marketplace and auction house this allows restarting players to have an independent experience that's unaffected by existing servers slash regions we will be closely monitoring the progression and populations of jumpstart servers and plan on reconnecting jumpstart servers with their respective regions within the next six months the jumpstart servers are by Amazon's own admission a way to get new and returning players back into the game specifically they stated we're excited to welcome new and returning players to the shores of Arcadia and help them experience the many unique raids Dungeons and character systems that make Lost Ark special we recognize that the game encountered many challenges at launch with a steep progression curve Bots and stability issues we've made serious strides in addressing these and feel confident that we're in a good place to bring players back generally speaking I would agree that the game has made good strides in addressing some of its issues and also generally speaking I'd say that the game is in a better place for players to return to the game or come try it out for the first time however I will say that I still believe the game needs work in many areas and some of its core Central problems still have yet to be addressed or need more attention I could go into more detail about the game's State overall sometime but I'd like to stay focused specifically on the jumpstart servers for now now before I get critical as I am prone to do I think I should state that conceptually the idea of the jumpstart servers is something that I can say is a net positive every game especially long-running MMOs need to have systems in place to help onboard and railroad new players into their games to ease them into the play experience to be frank most MMOs suck at this like really really bad like they really suck at this it's one of the main reasons why guide videos are so prevalent in the genre and essentially are required for new players when joining an MMO for the first time lost ark is no exception to this so seeing Amazon and smilegate takes strides to make improvements in the new or returning player experiences in every way a huge W for the game and at the very least I will respect them from making positive forward strides and we as Gamers should take every w we can get the jumpstart servers have by all accounts at least for now been a success if you measure success as a metric based on play accounts and number of new and returning players that is because just like myself there are a lot of new and returning makokos running around in the game right now however while I agree the need for change to help new and returning players and provide them with a fun experience is a great goal to strive for conceptually I see a lot of problems with the implementation of the jumpstart servers and trying to achieve this goal the first question we have to ask ourselves is who exactly is the jumpstart server for this may seem like an obvious answer but in all honesty it really isn't they stated that the jumpstart servers are for both new and returning players I myself am the returning player so as the server made for me well no it's absolutely not made for me or maybe you either even though the Boost provided could be a huge benefit in getting a character to end game and my jump start character could quite literally out gear my old main character within a matter of days the fact that no account wide or horizontal progression that I have done transfers over at all means that the server is basically useless to me and tons of returning players all of the makoco seeds ignea tokens Giants Hearts masterpieces sea bounties rapports Adventure logs world tree leaves Island Souls una's daily reps toys mounts skins crystals stronghold progression and arguably most importantly cards and roster levels are all reset to zero on This Server meaning that if you have ever played the game before and done any amount of this content you would have to do all of it over again so saying This Server is for returning players to me is somewhat disingenuous I'm willing to bet that if you were to ask most any returning player who's done any of that content if they would want to do all of that content again it just to get the jumpstart server benefits their answer would probably be that but if you are one of those select people who's done tons of that content and gets genuinely excited about going back and getting the opportunity to do all of that again then that's great I'm genuinely happy for you but you are a crazy person like an actual crazy person but grave you might ask if the jumpstart servers are only for brand new players then why are so many veterans and advanced players and content creators also playing on the jumpstart servers well the answer to that is relatively simple but also a long-term huge problem for large content creators specifically many were likely encouraged or incentivized through Amazon and smilegate to promote the servers and make content for it as an advertising mechanism nothing wrong with that streamers and whatnot gotta eat too and it can genuinely make for some fun content for people to watch and as is par for the course their audiences will follow as they often do that's the point on top of this many veteran players are just using the jumpstart servers as a way to utilize the bonuses and express passes and events to try out new classes that they may be interested in and to just goof around and have some fun as some side content which is basically what I was doing and on top of that you also have your Omega sweat Lords who are utilizing these servers as a springboard to create an alternate roster knowing that this server will eventually merge into the regular server cluster and can leverage it for some minor advantages later down the road so why is this problematic it's a problem because most of these players are what you might call tourists people who are just checking out the jumpstart servers with no real plans of actually sticking around and creating or developing a community on it because for them what's the point their home is already somewhere else on some other server the thing to note and remember here is that the jumpstart server is an isolated server and not connected to the larger clusters the PVE matchmaking party finder Marketplace and auction house are limited to this server and This Server only it's already taking me longer for my cues to pop for content on the jumpstart server than it is on my home server and harder to find and create groups through the party finder itself due to the fact that the pool of players with which you have access to group from is so much drastically smaller than the clustered normal servers and right now the jumpstart servers are more popular than they are ever going to be going forward with each passing day more of the tourists are going to get bored or have their fill and go back to their Home Server where all of their stuff is if it's already more difficult to find groups for con content now what's the server going to be like a month from now two months from now three four Amazon stated that they would monitor the health and population of the server but it could potentially be up to six months before merging it into the main server cluster it's also not only the veteran tourists that will leave but new players as well while the server is a great start for new players to Lost Ark it stands to reason that many if not most will end up not actually staying with a game for very long in the most statistically have very poor player retention rates for new players partially due to their horrible onboarding systems how many players who try the game for the first time will actually like it and out of those who do how many will play for a while and become frustrated when the jumpstart server they are stuck on has so few players that find in groups for Content becomes a chore and they leave because they work an odd hour shift job and there's literally no parties being made on the server for the very specific piece of content that they need at 3am or 7 A.M in the morning so they quite literally can't progress in the game because Lost Ark by Design requires players to participate in multiple tiers of relatively difficult eight-man group raid content for progression that you have to find and form parties for it's a setup for catastrophe a potential death spiral every time someone quits the server it's another domino in the chain another potential player to group with gone and with every Fallen Domino the experience of playing the game just gets worse for everyone else on the server and then there's the problem of the market and auction house which is also completely isolated the full and healthy economic Market from the primary server groups doesn't exist on jumpstart servers prices and availability of needed items fluctuate wildly and you bet your ass there are veteran players who are drooling over the opportunity of taking advantage of their game knowledge over new players playing the market to rake in as much gold as humanly possible while the getting is good because they are already acutely aware of item's value on the primary server clusters are both of these problems corrected eventually when the server merges into the standard cluster yes but the question is how much damage will be done before that even occurs how many players will join and leave did a poor player experiences before Amazon decides to merge the servers and if they merge them sooner rather than later then was there really a point to these servers being created in the first place I could actually make a somewhat of a logical argument that for a new player to the game it may actually be in fact a better idea to go to the standard servers than it is to go to the jumpstart servers because the standard servers offer you the added benefit of actually having access to a larger healthy active Community player base and market and the standard servers also have running events and boosts for releases like right now if you start a new account on the standard servers you will be given a 1415 item level South Vern pass and Moco Express to use on a character for the aromancer release event on the jumpstart server I created a Slayer to try it out with all the bonuses just because why not and once I played it for a little bit and decided I liked it I immediately went over to my standard server created a Slayer used the South Vern pass to 1415 and makoco Express on it and was level 1490 item level and ready to start raiding brell shaza Gates one and two literally the same same day I created the character and I didn't even need to be on the jumpstart server and here is where the notion comes in that the jump start servers really aren't actually for any of those benefits that the real reason the jumpstart server exists is to help new players avoid the rampant problem that lost ark has with gatekeeping the idea being that gatekeeping is so problematic on the standard servers that new players need a separate server to actually be able to get into raid content and learn the content in an environment that is more stress-free and less daunting with less fear of being kicked or berated for making singular mistakes Amazon and a video discussing the jumpstart servers even stated this was one of the primary goals of the servers and again I have to reiterate that I applaud any effort that goes towards improving the a game experience for new players and I'm glad they are actively trying to take steps to improve the game but I can't help but feel again that this is a good theory only conceptually and in practice ultimately doesn't actually help or solve the problem gatekeeping is not a lost Arc specific issue it exists in every MMO that has any kind of challenging content that requires multiple people to complete I've experienced it in literally every single MMO with group content across nearly two decades of raiding and across I can't even count how many different MMOs my experience has ultimately led me to come to one simple truth yesterday's gate kept are tomorrow's Gatekeepers it is simply inevitable the design of these games and the psychology and nature of humankind itself leads to only one outcome no one wants to spend tons of time learning something only to have to sit back and wait for someone else to learn the same thing that they already know the very same new player who is get kept out of raid content and swears that gatekeeping is the root of all evil and chastises those who do it once breaking through the wall will immediately turn around and gatekeep those behind them and these jumpstart servers are no exception before the first reset of raid content even occurred on the jumpstart server there were already groups being made by veteran and returning players accepting experienced main server players only and after only one reset there were already tons of parties looking for only players who had cleared the content in week one and with each passing week it will only just get worse and worse and worse you can change the board by flipping it on its head and resetting the pieces but you can't change human nature and for those of you who are genuinely participating in jumpstart for the sole purpose of aiding and teaching new players and welcoming them into the Lost Art Community I salute you and your efforts but I can't help but feel like you are fighting an uphill battle like standing in the middle of a River Arms outstretched trying to stop it from flowing at some point it's not up to the community to fix itself they are quite literally incapable at some point it's up to the developers to design solutions to prevent players from cannibalizing their own game to protect players from themselves and their own nature and if jumpstart servers were meant to be the solution to these problems then I think overall it is a very poorly thought out one and before you think I'm all criticism but offer nothing solution wise myself here's a few suggestions of my own I thought of in like 10 minutes while taking a shower that I think would improve the experience overall for one the problem is that there is no personal incentive for experienced players to do content with or help new players so the solution is simple but elegant incentivize them it's not even a New Concept in MMOs games like Final Fantasy 14 for example will offer bonus rewards to party members who clear content with a new player who has not done that content yet imagine how many more new players might get brought along for Content runs or how much more accepting and helping players would be of mistakes if they knew that they would be rewarded for doing so if they stuck it out and cleared the content imagine if each person in the raid for a gate with a new player would get a sack of enhanced materials or a few card packs or some bonus gold or blue crystals for their efforts imagine the psychological effects the new player would feel like they were actually benefiting the veterans and the veterans would feel like they're potentially extra time spent actually provided some kind of tangible reward and they might be excited each time they see a new player in their party they may actually even intentionally seek them out for another suggestion and while admittedly this will require more work you could also add something like a special separate learning player Q for Content or new players can queue for a gate or boss and automatically be placed with other learning players queuing and the kicker is to have an option for veteran players to cue his teachers and be rewarded for it for example queuing for a brell shaza Gate 1 learning queue six new players could be joined together and two veteran teachers who joined through a teaching queue for any content could be placed into their group with the sole purpose of providing help and guidance and upon completion the new players get their kill and the teach teachers are rewarded with some sort of you know reward anything could be a sack of goods just like her cards whatever like I mentioned earlier from the Q system directly you could break down these suggestions into finer details but I'm speaking more conceptually here it's really systems like these that I think the game needs more than Fresh Start jump servers because quite frankly I don't really think they actually solve any of the real core problems that they were created for in the first place they just simply aren't enough not enough to make a long-term difference it's possible that maybe this is only just the beginning of what jumpstart servers might end up being they might be changed and shaped over time to be more tightly tuned and better experiences with time if they decide to pursue them from a development perspective but it's also possible that they just never change them at all and drop them out every so often to try and scoop up new players when numbers dip or maybe they never even make jumpstart servers again who knows we have no idea what their future plans are in this regard but I'm genuinely curious also how other players feel about the jumpstart servers I know I'm Downing on them here and I know a lot of people have been having a great time playing on them so I'd love to hear what your personal experience has been with them so far I personally checked it out briefly and kind of just hopped back over to my standard server and I think a lot of people are probably doing the exact same thing and if you think you have any great solutions to some of the problems I'd love to hear those as well because I'm always down for games getting better and there's not much I like more than a good discussion or debate about MMOs Lost Ark as a game has so much great potential that I would love to actually see pan out and it's definitely been on thin ice recently to say the least but as much as I'd like to do a breakdown of all the other problems I'd still love to see changed within the game even after the most recent updates I think that's probably let's just call it too much ranting for one day and one video for me so maybe next time

Channel: GraveTheory

Views: 10,184

Keywords: lost ark, mmo, mmorpg, jump start

Id: KABJI7ZLAJU

Length: 22min 7sec (1327 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 26 2023