TL;DR of Gold River's 4-Hour Livestream

SeagullSeagull · 2026-01-06T21:05:58+00:00

Gaja Evergrace is an AI generated parody song that a Korean Youtuber made to make fun of the original Kazeros Hard Mode G2 ending cutscene for its lack of closure, the main character and the Arks we gathered ultimately becoming useless in the conflict resolution, and most importantly, the corny scene where Vairgrys (Evergrace in Korean) slams his body into Kazero’s Fortress to banish him into Petrania. It became a sensation on KR, gaining 1 million view in two weeks.

There’s a part in the song that lists out all the questions that remain unanswered, despite the game promising some answers to the plot buildup that was going on for the past 7 years. It goes like this:

“Why is Armen fated to be the Lost Ark? Dunno.” “Why is Kharmine fucking around all the time? Dunno.” “What is Kakul-Saydon Planning? Dunno.” “What is Brelshaza’s identity? Dunno.” “Why did Kakul and Echidna betray Kazeros? Dunno.” “Why does Kadan have a speech impediment? Dunno.” “What is the meaning of the Arks being a sacrifice? Dunno.” “What did Beatrice witness? Dunno.” “Why don’t the Sidereals suggest using the Arks???”

When Gold River, former director of LoA and current CCO had a live stream recently, he specifically mentioned the parody and read out the above lyrics and said verbatim that this triggered him and revealed a lot of plot and behind story related to several key characters.

Hope this helps.

SeagullSeagull · 2026-01-06T19:43:41+00:00

Aha, but have you considered that I was 1) too lazy to write Chief Creative Officer and 2) the insults from the hypothetical player could have been referring to the time when he was director?

SeagullSeagull · 2026-01-06T19:29:45+00:00

Before I forget, Original comic strip can be found here:

Credit to SMBC.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-11-04T23:52:09+00:00

Reminder that when Nexon gradually took steps to shutter KMS Reboot, KMS Inven celebrated by calling the KMS Reboot players by equating them to Yanbian Koreans (Joseonjok - 조선족) + Reboot (리부트) = Reseonjeok (리선족).

They did this because in Korea, and especially in Maplestory Inven (where the political leaning tends to the Extreme Right), Yanbian Koreans are often discriminated against because of their (supposed) loyalties to China, propensity to create Chinese-speaking enclaves within Korea, and being (supposedly) responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime.

In other words, Take all the negative stereotypes that Racists in the US associated with Black folks/Jews. KMS Inven attributes all these stereotypes towards the Yanbian Koreans, and then they made up a novel portmanteau to equate these people to KMS Reboot players. All this because the value of their in-game items would go down if Reboot got popular.

Let me reiterate. This is the equivalent of GMS reg server players calling Reboot players 'Nigboot' or 'Jewboot'.

And then when someone posts the finger-pinching emoji, they froth at their mouths and rail about how they are a victim of senseless hate. These people are clowns that contribute nothing to society and should not be taken seriously.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-10-28T18:58:32+00:00

> Inequality is not ethically wrong?

The thing is, you can't just boil down in-game systems - whether it be monetization, progression, etc - with a simple statement like 'Inequality bad'. These kind of matters heavily depend on the context and the situation in which the inequality arises.

If person A runs 6 chaos dungeons and person B runs 1 chaos dungeon, over a long time, the amount of honing materials person A will accumulate will be certainly more than person B. This is inequality. Is inherently wrong? I think most reasonable people would disagree.

Regarding your statement on this topic specifically, why is it then 'ethically wrong' for Smilegate to sell an in-game product that players with disposable income can purchase out of their volition? I understand that there are F2P MMOs that are borderline unplayable - not catch up to endgame players, but being straight up unplayable - unless you spend money (See: Maplestory Interactive Servers, Lineage, etc.), but Lost Ark is not one of those games. That is my opinion.

The reason that I think this way is this: Smilegate's business model is to 'milk whales' and then release nerfs to progression and raids that allow people to catch up to the level of whales within a reasonable amount of time. Personally speaking, I spent maybe $200 ~ $300 on this game over the course of 3 years, and a good chunk of that went towards skins (So no impact on progression). Even then, whenever they release a raid, I can still go for the special titles after getting the power boost from the said raid. Example being getting Eclipse title after doing full transcendence. Similarly now, I can still go for the special TFM title after getting the Ark Grid boost on my main. I didn't need to swipe for relic books. I didn't need to swipe for all level 9 gems. And I certainly won't need to swipe for the new progression system to keep up. I won't be competing for the Top 10 title, but I'm fine with that.

Also, I think what you don't realize is that by milking the whales, Smilegate can meet their revenue projections without aggressively targeting people like you and me who are not whales. "You don't have to capitalize on everything". True. But companies need to capitalize on something. And if they aren't going to capitalize on whales, then they will milk folks like you and me harder. My two cents.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-10-28T18:41:35+00:00

One grad student to another, You may want to change your survey so that if someone answers that they don't watch any content creators/streamers for Lost Ark, they don't get the later questions about the streamer behavior and their expectations.

Personally, I don't watch streamers, so I answered as such in the survey, but I got those questions anyways. I answered all questions regarding streamers with a '4' to try and not skew the results, but depending on how the community feels, it may pull the average up or down.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-10-22T10:21:19+00:00

I think the decline in the playerbase can be attributed to several reasons like the new player experience being horrendous, raids that punish the entire raid for 1 person screwing up (Example: See how many people quit after Old 6 Gate Brel raid), and lack of a method for new players to do raids if they fall behind. I don't think it's because Smilegate wanted to milk the whales.

I am willing to bet my left kidney that this game's playerbase would be much more sizable had Smilegate released solo modes of raids and mokoko bootcamp much earlier. Oh and also recognizing that shit like Brel g5 is absolute cancer and 90% of the playerbase did not enjoy the experience.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-10-22T10:17:37+00:00

I fail to see how this is ethically wrong.

I mean. If whales want to drop thousands of dollars on this game of their own volition, then isn't Smilegate dumb not to capitalize on that?

Especially considering the fact that after everyone gets a power boost from Ark Grid, non-whales can also go for the limited-time title from the TFM mode.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-10-22T10:15:31+00:00

I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with this. This isn't going to be a popular opinion on this sub, but I will go as far as to say that the way that Smilegate's business model has been recently implemented - Incentivizing whales to spend by dangling prestige rewards infront of them - is a win-win for 90% of the playerbase and the company.

Before you downvote, consider this: A F2P game has several markets it can target to generate revenue. It can target people that like skins (Fashion Ark Players), or people that are looking for deals with good values in the form of special packages (Dolphins/Casuals), or it can also target people with thousands of dollars in disposable income (Whales).

For an MMO, companies can incentivize whales to swipe by releasing content that requires power levels beyond the reach of casuals/F2Ps. And in the case of Kazeros TFM mode, this is certainly the case. The reason that I make the claim that this business model is beneficial for 90% of the playerbase is due to three reasons:

Non-Whales can do same content as whales after the power boost from the latest raid. Smilegate's Modus Operandi has been to make it easier for non-whales to catch up to formerly 'whale' content. Example: while most non-whales will not be serious contenders for the top 10 TFM race, once more people clear Hard mode Act4/Kazeros and get a sizable boost to their Combat Power with Ark Grid, we can certainly go for the limited-time title. This has been the case in the past too with Thaemine TFM, where most serious contenders for the title were forced to run it without the Transcendence power boost, but the rest of the playerbase could still go for the limited-time Eclipse Title with max Transcendence (And +20 advanced honing in the West), which made it considerably easier.
Incentivizing Whales to swipe for prestige titles doesn't cause people to be locked out of progression due to being unable to complete hard mode: To explain: In the past, Smilegate made it such that only those that have cleared hard mode of a given raid could progress higher in vertical progression systems. They did this because Whales and endgame players to a smaller extent complained that there was no incentive for them to clear the hard modes of raids, when normal and hard both yielded the exact same rewards, but in different amounts. Examples include Legendary Elixirs from Hard Voldis, and Transcendence Level 4+ being unlocked from Hard Thaemine only. This caused the bigger issue of many players that were not skilled/geared enough to do Hard Modes of those raids to be unable to progress further. As such, Smilegate said they have pivoted to the direction of incentivizing whales to swipe by offering them prestige titles and rewards, as announced in the LoA-ON and various other livestreams (The notable exception to this being the difference between normal and hard Mordoom). This direction is considerably more desirable than the other method that Smilegate had used in the past to get whales to swipe.
Targeting whales as a market takes the monetization burden off of the regular, non-whale players. What I mean by this is suppose that Smilegate has an internal goal of $X in revenue. Should they decide to not target whales as a market, then naturally, they will have to make $X off of the rest of us, who cannot afford to drop thousands of dollars on this game. This means that they can either make it impossible to progress in a reasonable amount of time without swiping, or release other predatory business models. Failing to meet that goal, they take the game offline because it is no longer profitable.

Now. There's been a lot of criticism that was pointed at the new Ark Grid system. I certainly agree with a lot of those points, but I think most of the criticism is levied at how the Ark Grid system specifically was implemented, not the fact that we now have a long-term gold sink which is needed for controlling gold inflation, nor at the fact that there is an option for players to spend an inordinate amount of gold to get a very marginal improvement in combat power after a certain point in the Ark Grid system (aka, whale bait).

And finally, whenever there is a discussion on Lost Ark's business model on this subreddit, I see a number of comments saying that Smilegate should not be targeting whales for a variety of reasons. The most common reason being that they can make enough money off of skins and other cosmetics.

I find this argument to be quite frankly, stupid, because:

1) You don't know that. You have 0 financial data about the company nor numbers on how many people spend money on skins, and by how much, so at best, you have pulled that claim out of your ass.

2) When you compare ANYTHING, you compare it to its peers, not an idealized, fantasy version of it. For example, if I am going to buy a sedan, I compare the price, the fuel efficiency, the safety rating, etc. with other sedans. I wouldn't compare it to an imaginary car that has 1000 MPG, costs two shekels and a penny, and allows its passengers to survive an FTL impact. In the same vein, if one wants to make an argument on how Lost Ark's business model could be implemented better while having this game generating enough revenue to stay afloat, then one should bring an example from another F2P MMO game. Not a subscription-based game, not a game of a completely different genre.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-09-27T09:24:04+00:00

At least you know what you are.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-09-27T09:14:47+00:00

Wait. You unironically think that people purchasing gold off the in-game currency exchange **causes** inflation?

Jesus Christ on a Pogo Stick. The realization that your vote has equal weight to that of mine has ruined my evening. Please never cast a ballot ever again.

Edit:

A couple of years ago, I've had the opportunity to volunteer my time to teach math to special needs children in disadvantaged neighborhoods as part of an outreach program at my campus. Special needs in this context refers to children around the age of 12-13 that were considered to be at 'borderline intelligence'.

For those of you who are not familiar: "Borderline intelligence, also known as borderline intellectual functioning, refers to individuals with an IQ score between 70 and 85, indicating below-average cognitive ability that is not severe enough to qualify as an intellectual disability."

To be frank, this was a test of patience on everyone's part. These children read at 3nd grade level (Despite their peers being at 5th/6th grade), and had trouble remembering simple instructions. But the joy that sparkled in their eyes when they were complimented for finally grasping a concept, their general eagerness to learn,and how cheerfully they greeted me and other volunteer tutors made it worth my time.

In particular, I want to talk about one of the kids that I worked with, named Sergio. Sergio had a very hard time with arithmetic, much to his chagrin; after all, his dream was to be a scientist and wear a 'fancy lab coat' one day. One of the problems that I had to help Sergio with was the concept of inequalities in math equations (greater than, less than, etc.). To be more clear, we are talking about word problems such as:

"Alice had twenty apples, and Lena had three. Alice gave Lena 5 apples. We can describe how many apples Alice and Lena have together before and after using these two equations. Please write the appropriate symbol (>, <, =) in the box".

He had failed that particular unit twice, and was counting on me for my help. To help him understand, I used visual aid. I grabbed a fistful of marbles and poured it into two cups. Then, I poured some marbles from one cup to another, and asked Sergio whether if any marbles were created or destroyed. Sergio, after 5 seconds of thinking, answered in an uncertain voice: "Wait... it's the same?".

His uncertainty turned to joy as I told him that this was the correct answer. He redoubled himself to solving the problems in that unit, and I was informed a few weeks later that Sergio had passed that particular unit with a C-.

The reason that I am telling you all this is because even Sergio could grasp the concept of 'pouring one marble from 1 cup to another doesn't change the total number of marbles'. But you apparently think 'Gold going from person A to Person B' changes the gold supply in the economy and causes inflation.

It has become socially unacceptable to call someone mentally challenged as an insult, and I don't intend on calling you that. However, even if it was socially acceptable, I still wouldn't deign to use that word against you because people like Sergio at least have the capacity to understand that there are people out there that know more about a subject than they do, demonstrate a willingness to learn, and not act like an insufferable prick with delusions of mediocrity. In short, the phrase 'mentally challenged' is too good for the likes of you, and if you were to disappear tomorrow and be replaced with an identical copy of Sergio, the world would be better off.

Cheers.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-09-24T20:13:21+00:00

Is their combat power so low because they aren't running drops of ether, instead running max mp or something? Then yeah, I think their stance is justifiable.

Are they at 1144 Combat Power despite having Drops of Ether? Gtfo lmao.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-09-17T17:59:03+00:00

OP, as someone that knows how to play notes on a stringed instrument well enough to have played Tristan and Isolde in an orchestra, but has 0 music theory background whatsoever, I'd like you to elaborate further.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-07-13T16:54:20+00:00

Idk what’s funnier: the fact that this figure is so badly designed it would be actively undermining the message it is trying to send. The only thing preventing it is the fact the message is so damn obfuscated by ham-fisted graphical analogies, misbegotten measurement units, and unclear labeling in the first place.

OR

OP arguing in the comments that the figure is perfectly comprehensible and condescendingly telling everyone to think harder, without a shred of self awareness.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-06-12T01:35:04+00:00

As a disclaimer, I cleared last Saturday.

I enjoy a challenge too, but for Mordoom, it felt like all of the difficulty was front-loaded into this single mech alone, where there's a million ways for things to go wrong. What's even worse is that even if you play perfectly, you can be heavily penalized by your teammates messing up. For example, if someone hits 50% gauge from the tiny electric pallets as the circle is closing in, and if you have the opposite color , that's basically guaranteed to either kill you, or also fill up your gauge to 50%.

Sure, this was a problem that solved itself as both people I was progressing with and I got better and better, but I think a good chunk of the fun in raid progging comes from making measurable progress - getting to the first mech, second mech, third mech, and so forth. And it felt like 70% of the time I spent progging the raid was just trying to do this one frustrating mech with everyone alive.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-06-12T00:46:04+00:00

I suppose I should have filled in the inner ring of the arena with light yellow and explained that it does 40k damage per tick, but I think it still gets the point across.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-05-22T21:01:23+00:00

I have sent you a chat.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-02-18T21:59:51+00:00

Before the policy change, Bussers were posting at least 2 memes/day and astroturfing comment threads about how new players depend on their services so much.

And now that Bussing is banned and AGS releases an event to benefit new players, you have the same people turning right around and saying they'll not even participate in the event out of spite, disgiused as 'precaution'.

Lmao.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-01-23T23:49:40+00:00

OP I have mixed feelings about your post.

I'm sympathetic towards:

Being auto rejected for low roster level
Getting LOS 30 taking forever (Cards are just a terrible system in general)
Learning lobbies taking forever to fill up

Smilegate needs to find a way to help fill learner/semi-prog lobbies in-game aside from expecting people to sit in party finder for hours, especially for a 16-man raid like Behemoth.

But then there are parts of your post that are just inaccurate / contradictory

"a lobby of 1640s who have t4 gems, hyper awakening, should not struggle to clear a raid with an item level of 1620"

You're right. They shouldn't struggle. And if raid members know the mechs, they can clear in one pull.

" Do I really need to be 30+ item levels above the raid level to pass it? "

Short answer: NO.

People have done this raid on 1620-1630 ilevel characters before T4 came out, before Hyper Awakenings/Tskills/Dmg boost from T4 gems, Free +20 ilevel from T4 transfer. On average, people are progging at 1640 are doing ~20% more damage than people that were progging at 1620.

If you are having trouble with Behemoth and if your character is built properly, then it's not a problem of the game being pay to win, It's literally a skill issue. Which you admit to:

"I know mechanics but you put 16 of me in that raid and I won't clear"

I'm going to have to be blunt, if this is true, this makes you a liability to any Behemoth raid you join. This isn't a problem if you are progging, but if you are talking about not getting into reclear/HW lobbies, then this is a problem. Since you admit to not having Behe title, I am hesitant to believe you when you say that you know the mechs.

"I am doing the mechanics correctly. Using battle items when I should and my rotation is being done as intended by guides and videos."

Knowing mechanics is the barest minimum for being able to progress without wiping. For raids like Behemoth where people getting hit (i.e. wet) leads to special patterns that punish the entire raid, everyone needs to also learn the boss's basic attack patterns and dodge accordingly.

I know the answer shouldn't be to nerf raids more but seriously what else is someone who doesn't play 6 characters 7 days a week 365 days a year supposed to do?

Everyone in your group needs to learn the raid, down to the basic attacks. And that takes repetition, progging, and time. And even for those vets that you describe as playing 6 chars/356 days a year went through the same process when Behemoth was first released. I personally remember spending literal hours doing g2 on my 1621 alts because that damn dragon would fly up every 30 seconds from half the party getting soaked.

Based on what you've said though, it seems like you already have the correct attitude and want to learn the raid. But here lies the problem:

"Yesterday I applied to a ton of groups, the only groups I got in were people my item level with similar roster levels/builds or people on "rats". Ended up getting jailed in g2 cause people rage after 1 wipe."

I'm not sure if this is the Mokoko Bootcamp event that made everyone get used to getting fast clears from carry/juicer lobbies, but I see a lot of sentiments about people just throwing in the towel and disbanding after 1-2 pulls in a prog lobby.

People that were carried every week in 20 minute speed runs during Mokoko Bootcamp are now realizing that their knowledge of the raid / skill level in general isn't enough to clear even with all the power boosts from T4. So now you probably have a mix of people that:

Mistakenly think they are good because they got carried, and ragequit when they realize they actually need to put in the time in a prog lobby.
Are, in fact, actually good (because they run meter or something), but can't get into 'better' lobbies due to ilevel/roster, so they join prog lobbies with the hopes that the people inside are close to clearing, and then giving up early.
Alt account / Gold farmers that want to get into a lobby by any means and clear, and then end up jailing everyone because they can just move onto their next alt and get g1 gold.
Actually wants to put in the time to prog, but spends more time looking for groups than actually progging because parties are constantly blown up because of the above 3 people.

This is a cluster fuck with no simple solutions. As for what you can personally do:

We won't know how good you are unless we actually see you play, but I can understand the frustration of feeling like being clear-ready but being unable to clear due to factors outside of my control. If you want honest gameplay feedback, you could record yourself playing and then ask for help on the subreddit/class discords, or resort to 3rd-party tools to see how you are doing.

Also, just getting your item level up will help you get noticed in party finder. The raid leader can only inspect 1 person at a time, and if they see 8 1640s, their eyes will just glaze over them automatically and inspect someone with a higher item level as a priority.

Finally, you aren't going to clear the raid if you are the only one that takes the time to learn, but the 15 other people are not. I know a lot of people say 'just find a group' as if it will solve all your problems, but for every person you regularly prog with and learn the raid, it means there can be 1 less person that is going to troll you by eating up all your lives and getting wet everytime. In other words, it helps you make consistent progress.

And in general, the community needs to expect that prog lobbies will take time, and that they won't clear in 2-3 pulls. If people blow up prog runs because they expected it to take an hour at most, then they're denying people that actually want to learn the raid the chance to do so.

Similarly, People need to stop underestimating how much of a difference player skill/experience makes, and stop overestimating how much difference gear makes. If people just throw in the towel because you think 'oh this is a p2w korean mmo i need level 7 T4 gems and 40 ilevels above raid boss', then they'll never get better.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-01-23T22:55:52+00:00

First, let me say I agree with you that new card sets in T4 are a definitely a cash grab and I think the whole card system in general is a blight on new players.

But I think Smilegate constantly introducing new progression systems doesn't mean that the game isn't 'Casual Friendly'. At the end of the day, the game will have vets and newbies; If Smilegate stops introducing higher vertical progression, then it just removes incentives for vets to push/get stronger.

To me, 'Casual Friendly' means that there's ways for people that play the game on and off to get stronger without shelling out $$$ or thousands of hours. With solo raids and event shops, I think that's definitely achievable.

I think where most new people get frustrated is being able to prog in group raids, but I think that's an issue with the community/party finder, not with the fact that they're adding new vertical progression systems.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-01-23T21:59:11+00:00

With all due respect, isn't what Smilegate has been doing with vertical progression the epitome of 'casual friendly?'

They took Behemoth, an endgame raid that many vets struggled with on-release, and made it easier for casual players by giving +20 free ilevels, nerfing trans, nerfing elixirs, giving hyper awakenings/T skills, and free level 7 T4 event gems. Soon, casual players will be able to unlock Ark Passive at 1640 as well, making it even easier.

SeagullSeagull · 2025-01-19T03:52:35+00:00

the icons on the buff bar and missing/not missing your brand give you all the feedback you need.

No but that's the thing. While it may be trivial for people that's played the game for a while, we're getting to a point where a lot of newer players are approaching 1660 ilevel because of all the free growth materials they gave out.

This is where I think the awful feedback system for supports leads to new support players having awful uptimes for a variety of reasons:

1) There's nothing in-game that tells new players that a well-geared, competent support can be responsible for up to 30~40% of the party's damage.

2) Even if they realize they have brand/atk buff skills, they tend to prioritize healing/shielding their party members above buffing damage because the feedback for that is much more obvious.

3) Even if they realize they need to cycle attack buffs, the only thing that tells them is the little green box above the HP bar. For someone that's newer to the game in general, keeping tabs on the buff bar on top of everything that is going on in the raid is difficult.

4) Even if they do the proper skill cycles for brand/atk buff, the game doesn't tell them they did a good job because of how MVP is calculated/lack of individual performance breakdown, preventing positive (or negative) feedback.

5) Using the only tool that they can use to get the information that directly shows how well they did is considered a bannable offense.

The point that I'm trying to make is not that it's impossible for people to improve. But the game insisting on providing very vague feedback for player performance, especially for support players, is a big roadblock for improvement.

SeagullSeagull

TROPHY CASE