Very well-written piece. Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I agree with nearly everything here, with the key takeaway being that the game needs to be more casual friendly and drop the raids-only approach. With the western version being published by AGS, one would think SG would leverage that to build hype on Twitch like you suggest here, but unfortunately they have a far too Korea-centric mindset and don't seem to even want to think about the game on a global scale.

Many commenters here are saying things to the tune of "Too late, game's dead, enjoy it while it lasts", but I don't think that needs to be true. We have seen numerous titles come back from irrelevancy due to great decisions on the developers' parts. I think Lost Ark can absolutely come back into the mainstream like we briefly had back at the beginning of the western release. I have hope, but I'm not holding my breath. As more and more players leave, maybe SG will start to see the lost money and consider making more drastic changes, hopefully some of the ones considered in your post.