Скорошни рецензии на spho

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Perma dc when playing in co-op mode

I'd say it's a disappointment but let's be honest, barely any game lives up to anyone expectations nowadays. Although I played it for only an hour, I don't feel like I was playing The Forest 2, it was more of an original The Forest just after some (not-so-good) updates.

- Optimization doesn't exist – way above recommended hardware and 35-45 FPS on lowest settings possible, FPS drops when opening settings.
- QoL is lacking – need to press several different buttons to close inventory/guide/cooking windows for god knows what reason, it's impossible to skip cutscenes, building high structures is (perhaps) more realistic but it's nowhere near fun, there's also chromatic aberration in options menu so your eyes keep bleeding.
- Bugs and other stuff you would expect from The Forest franchize notwithstanding the ea tag – disappearing logs, glitching textures, audio not playing, teleporting animals.
- No dedicated servers at the moment.
- General feeling of playing a copy of an already existing game – pretty much everything feels the same, some things are better, while some are worse.

Hopefully we won't have to wait for years just to get a full version of the game, just like we had for the previous The Forest. Would not recommend this one in its current state.

Epic Games

Touching story, great gameplay, beautiful music and amazing graphics. Truly a masterpiece.

// OUTDATED: I don't play Lost Ark anymore, it takes way too much time to get to anywhere if you don't spend a lot of money on it.


Within the past few days I've read hundreds of Lost Ark reviews on Steam, out of curiosity and... it's exactly how I thought it'd be when the game started to be free to play. Number of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ reviews that occurred since then is ridiculous. Whereas positive ones don't tell you anything about the game and just fill up the space in reviews tab, people that gave the game negative review made me want to write a review myself. I haven't read such ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ about any game in years, so let me try to put things straight.

Firstly, I would like to say that I'm not a huge fan of Lost Ark, just so you don't call me fanboy defending his favorite game. Despite my playtime on Steam, I haven't been playing the game as long and as much as other "veterans" from KR/RU. Although I started months before Lost Ark was even announced to be released in EU/NA, I played the game for only 1100+ hours. That's maybe 2 hours a day on average but I still think it's enough and it's way more than majority of peoples' playtime here. Also, most of my playtime is from RU version which is considered the most "pay to win" version out of all.

Before full release the game had overwhelmingly positive reviews (96-98% positive from closed alpha/closed beta) and now it fluctuates around 70%.
Lost Ark was (and still is) a very hyped MMO. People expected much. I think too much. If you are just a bit clever you should know that there could be problems with launching the game, especially when it's an MMO genre. Not to mention that publisher in our region was AGS.

Most of negative reviews are from people that are crying about queues, bad story, the game being "pressing G simulator" or petty problems that can be fixed within few minutes using Google. Maybe 2-3% of all reviews have any sense and are worth reading. The rest is trash. It's picking apart you could do with any other MMO. Here are some very popular statements that people keep repeating over and over in their garbage reviews, just so you know and don't spread ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ all over again:

1. The game is made on UE3 - it is, so what? Everyone says the game starts to look outdated - ok, it's subjective. Some people can say the graphics are bad, others can say the graphics are good, but why nobody mentions animations which are excellent or the fact that the game is extremely well optimized? You can run this game on potato, I'm having 100+ FPS on Ryzen 5 3600 & GTX 1660 Ti on very high settings in every area/dungeon/raid. You can't have it all. Decide what's more important to you - graphics or playability. Lost Ark to this day still looks good and runs even better.

2. The game is P2W - show me at least one mechanic in this game which is pay to win. I think peoples' definition of P2W in 2022 equals to "I can spend money on a game so the game is pay to win". The game is pay for progress/pay for convenience, there's like nothing you can get for real money but can't get for money in-game. PvP content is equalized so your item level doesn't matter. The only content that might be considered as pay to win are GvG 'cause gear actually matters but nobody will buy you knowledge or skill (and you don't have to attend GvG at all, it's optional).

3. The story is boring as hell - it is, you're right. But let's be honest, who cares about story in MMO? Despite the fact that story is boring as hell, there are still some cutscenes that are touching or actually well made (and you can't skip them). If you really want to play MMO mainly for plot then run FF14, unless you can name any other MMO with decent story.

4. The game is pressing G simulator - it is, you're right. But if you're out of the woods and finish tutorial, it changes. There is no spamming "G" for 10 hours in a row with zero other activities anymore. You can do whatever you want. I must admit that leveling process gets dull very fast and is a huge mistake but name me any other MMO in which leveling is as entertaining as end game.

5. The game is queue simulator/matchmaking simulator - sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. Queue depends on which region/server you play on and when. At night, in the morning or in the afternoon there are barely queues (maybe with little exception for the weekends) so the only problem are evenings. If you have job, move to another region just so you can play without queues anytime or just wait for casuals to quit the game and keep playing on the region you've started playing before. When it comes to matchmaking - yes, it's laggy most of the time but slowly gets better. We can just hope that litter employes from AGS start doing something to fix it as they did with IS and Aura.

6. There is nothing to do in the game - people saying so have no clue what game they are playing or they watched Twitch streamers for too long and don't know where to begin the rush to their idol's item level. There is so much to do that you won't finish the game within several months, even if you played 24/7 on one character. There is a lot of PvE content (Chaos Dungeons, Guardians, Cubes, Towers, Boss Rushes, Abyssal Dungeons, Abyss Raids, Legions, Gates and more), a lot of casual content (sea content, events, islands, Platinum Fields, quests, housing system, collectibles, adventure book, affinity with NPCs, life skills and more) and even some PvP content (equalized arena with rankings, PvP on islands and GvG).

7. The combat gets boring very fast - I think the combat system is one of the best when it comes to isometric MMOARPG games. There are different types of skills (direct, aim, hold, timing, preparation, combo, chain) and there are a lot of skills for each class out of which only 8 (in most scenarios) can be put onto skill bars. Additionally, there are runes, gems and tripods that can change the way the skill behaves and so on. Even if you play the same class as your friend, you can vary a lot from them. Every spell and auto attack is also a skillshot, there is no auto aim so if you are bad you can miss everything (except spells like shields for yourself for example). The hitboxes of players and bosses are pretty accurate too.

I ran out of space so if you wonder about any other concerns, read my comments down below.


Another conclusion I came to:
I think people forgot that games should bring pleasure. Especially MMO games which are no competitive at all (or are very little competitive in comparison to FPS or MOBA games). Nowadays everyone wants to be the very best. Such people watch Asmongold or other popular streamers that spend a lot of money and push themselves to the end game, and then they want to do the same. They completely ignore everything else and forget what they were supposed to do with the game and what's the game about. That's why afterwards we see reviews from people that have 50, 100 or even 200 hours into the game and are bored after getting to X item level. They say they don't enjoy the game but how can they enjoy it if they spent all time doing garbage storyline quests and upgrading their gear for god knows what reason?


TL;DR: In my opinion, Lost Ark is one of the best MMOs ever made but published by one of the worst publishers ever seen. The game itself is very good and once you manage to suffer for the first 10-20 hours to get past tutorial, you will probably stay for a while. Sadly, Amazon is responsible for servers and item shop, and they ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up both of them - servers are laggy, game is sometimes a queue/matchmaking simulator and we don't know what they add to IS in the future. Once the servers are fixed, Lost Ark will probably be top 1 MMO on Steam for months or even years. Content is ready to be released, the game is very polished and refined overall, all classes are very balanced and playable, the game is player friendly and very well optimized and the most important - the game respects your time.