Inven Global

On the morning of Friday, October 16, a sudden notice was posted, and as scheduled, a Lost Ark live broadcast aired at 19:00. During the approximately 1-hour and 30-minute stream, explanations were provided regarding recent controversies surrounding the game and its future operational direction. However, what drew the most attention that day was not the content of the broadcast, but the presenter. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun appeared on stream instead of Director Jaehak Jeon, who currently oversees Lost Ark.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun first explained the background of his appearance on the stream. He shared that Director Jaehak Jeon has recently been struggling to establish the game's direction and felt burdened as misunderstandings accumulated the more he attempted to communicate. Director Jeon approached him directly to confide his difficulties, leading Keum to step in to assist with communication.

However, despite explanations regarding various pending issues, adventurer sentiment remained unfavorable given that Director Jaehak Jeon, the person in charge, did not engage in direct communication himself. Some responses were also deemed insufficient explanations, leaving disappointment behind. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun announced a follow-up communication stream in two weeks—tentatively dubbed 'Is Lost Ark Okay Like This?'—which will feature Director Jaehak Jeon. Below is a summary of the live broadcast.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun first explained why he appeared on the broadcast. Although he had stepped back from front-line Lost Ark operations as he is currently developing a new console title, he stepped back in to address recent controversies surrounding the game and calm worsening public sentiment.

According to former CCO Keum Kang-sun, Director Jaehak Jeon approached him personally to share his struggles with establishing game direction and his worries about misunderstandings accumulating whenever he tried to communicate. He explained that Director Jeon had attempted to communicate in his own way, but things did not go as planned, and he felt burdened when his statements were interpreted differently from his intent. Consequently, former CCO Keum Kang-sun stated he stepped in to broadcast on his behalf to aid communication.

He also addressed recent sentiment among adventurers. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun diagnosed that current player reactions have moved beyond simple anger toward resignation. He concluded this situation could no longer be left untended and decided to engage in direct communication before this week passed. He added that there were previous instances where communication was kept low-profile out of concern that statements might spark further controversy.

However, adventurers expressed continued disappointment over Director Jaehak Jeon's absence from the broadcast. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun expressed his intent to continue communication starting with this stream and announced that a follow-up communication broadcast joined by Director Jaehak Jeon is scheduled in two weeks.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun also addressed the controversy surrounding Mordum Extreme's difficulty and the criteria for Director Jaehak Jeon's comment about "drawing a line." Extreme content was originally designed as special raids for players during content lull periods, intended to feature higher difficulty than standard raids. However, the actual released Mordum Extreme arrived at a difficulty far exceeding initial benchmarks, escalating to a worst-case scenario where clearing itself became nearly impossible.

He also touched on class imbalances. Due to Mordum's stationary raid nature, certain classes can deal damage relatively easily, and the development team was not unaware of this issue. While balance appeared relatively stabilized in Belgardin compared to Act 3, he explained that balance cannot be evaluated solely through raw DPS figures. He added that adjusting class balance based on Mordum alone was also difficult.

Ultimately, he explained that the biggest problems were the initial difficulty setting and the timing of the response. The team fell into a dilemma where lowering difficulty was difficult due to players who had already cleared it, while maintaining it left the raid in an unclearable state. He admitted that they set the difficulty baseline wrong from the start, missed the golden window for a swift response, and ultimately decided to apply a nerf after determining it failed to align with original design intent.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun shared that the team harbors deep concerns about the upcoming Finale raid as well. As with Mordum Extreme, any direction chosen makes criticism unavoidable, assessing that the core problem was getting the first button wrong. He acknowledged that while the team was not ignorant of the issues, they failed to thoroughly review and address fine details.

Along with class balance issues, former CCO Keum Kang-sun noted the need for improvements across general combat systems, including Ark Grid, synergy, and supports. First, while Ark Grid offers the advantage of build freedom, its difficulty in balance adjustment currently outweighs those benefits. He stated that the team needs to consider whether balancing classes through Ark Grid is the right approach.

He explained that the synergy system also requires prompt improvement. He specifically pointed out the "over-crit" issue where Critical Hit Rate exceeds 100%, mentioning the need to overhaul the synergy structure, including handling stats that exceed caps.

He also addressed support dependency. The recent raid meta has shifted significantly from the past, with skill requirements for supports and party dependency on supports becoming excessively high. Since future raids may proceed in a similar direction, he explained that the team will consider improvements such as reducing support dependency or improving convenience when applying attack buffs and branding effects.

He also mentioned systemic methods to mitigate class gaps. Systemic features—such as allowing players to change classes within the same base class when their class is severely disadvantaged in specific content—could serve as one alternative. However, he drew a line stating this is distinct from full class change vouchers, and specific implementation details or schedules are not finalized.

Meanwhile, he mentioned there will be no additional balance patches during the release period of the Finale.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun also spoke about recent raid quality. He evaluated that development mastery in crafting raids has improved compared to the past, with positive changes such as fewer frustrating elements. However, he expressed regret that reception dropped starting from Gate 2.

While acknowledging Mordum served as the starting point for the recent negative trend, he stated that such attempts were necessary. Raids featuring new attempts like Mordum and Armoche remain part of the direction Lost Ark should pursue going forward.

He also expressed confidence in upcoming updates. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun stated that players need not worry about rehashed content in the winter update, revealing that many contents are currently being prepared.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun also addressed the "Nice-dan" phenomenon—raising an entire roster of identical classes to save on gem costs. While Nice-dan existed during his time as director, the practice of raising multiple duplicate classes to avoid gem expenses has grown significantly recently. He illustrated this spread by comparing metrics from summer 2024 with summer 2026.

Regarding Nice-dan, he stated it is not a recommended playstyle. However, rather than simply blocking it or hushing up the issue, he explained that the team needs to consider whether the current structure—where players repeatedly raise duplicate classes to cut gem costs—is truly a healthy state.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun pledged to clearly resolve the Nice-dan issue in the winter update. He stated they are considering ways to protect the value invested by existing players, promising to conclude the issue with a clear stance rather than maintaining an ambiguous stance moving forward.

He also explained the in-game gold economy. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun noted that the cause of gold devaluation need not be viewed too complexly, pointing to rapid content update cycles as the primary root cause. As new raids released quickly and gold rewards increased, the volume of gold accumulating on servers grew, but consumption speed failed to keep up.

However, he explained that carelessly increasing gold sinks is also difficult. While increasing the amount of gold sinks reclaimed from servers is an option, it could increase burdens on players, and lowering gold rewards on existing raids too quickly is difficult when some players cannot keep pace with content update speeds. While stressing that in-game gold value must be protected, former CCO Keum Kang-sun noted several difficulties in resolving economic issues.

He also addressed frequent package releases and players' character growth burdens. In particular, comparing past and present player distributions, he highlighted the decline in mid-tier players as a problem. Explaining that horizontal content enjoyable for diverse players is just as important as top-tier raid-focused updates, he noted the need to review the game's overall content structure. He added that inflation caused by packages remains minor at 2.6%.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun also explained the reasons behind delayed Aldebaran content updates. He stated that Aldebaran is not categorized as side content, but rather approached from the standpoint of distinguishing between endgame and non-endgame content.

Specifically, creating Lasamoa—the sole metropolis in the Sea of Aldebaran—expanded content scale beyond original plans. As a region set at sea, the team wanted to offer a richer area rather than placing just a few islands, alongside an ambition to build a larger metropolis.

He added that Sergatone is scheduled to be introduced alongside Lasamoa. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun explained that Aldebaran's update was not simply postponed, but in the process of expanding content scale compared to initial plans.

Former CCO Keum Kang-sun also mentioned the 6-count gold earning limit per Roster. Explaining that the current 6-count limit affects not only the game economy but also gaps between mid-tier and top-tier players, as well as new class releases and progression, he noted that adjustments are needed.

However, he stated that approaching it by simply removing the limit is difficult. Since multiple issues like economic impacts and growth gaps among adventurers must be considered together, he explained that the team is currently reviewing adjustments across various directions.