Lost Ark has come to a new audience in the west, after enjoying regional exclusivity in South Korea and Russia. Throughout the hype, Lost Ark has coupled with Twitch streamers for drops, offered pre-order packs that climb up to $99.99, and there’s an in-game shop prominently featured.
Lost Ark is not pay-to-win, but players can pay for convenience with a pseudo-subscription. A prominent mechanic within Lost Ark is a Crystalline Aura, which players can purchase for either 30 or 180 days at a time, which offers a heft of benefits. However, if a player that readily pays for crystals and the like is competing against a full free-to-play character in PvP or PvE content, the paying player will not have an advantage.
The Crystalline Aura completely mitigates the Triport cost (which players will constantly use while questing), cuts ocean liner costs in half, adds an increased life recovery, and unlocks advanced pet functions such as storage and equipment repair.
That being said, Lost Ark is filled to the brim with content that demands a lot of play time. There are certain conveniences that players can pay for, such as speeding along your island stronghold growth, and some mounts are purchasable, which offer a faster mount speed. Changing your characters’ appearance or name and other conveniences will also cost players real money.
With this consideration, Lost Ark is no more pay-to-win than Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, or other big players within the MMO sphere at this time.
