Lost Ark is cutting back grind to add new stuff “as fast as we can”

pcgamesn.com:

As Lost Ark year two continues to ramp up, developer Smilegate and publisher Amazon Games lay out their 2023 plans as they aim to cut back on endgame and daily grinds to introduce more new content faster without player burnout. The Diablo-style MMORPG had a successful first year following its worldwide launch, albeit one marred by a wealth of bots and server troubles, but Amazon says it has big plans to improve the game for both hardcore players and complete newcomers.

“Last year, our top priorities were introducing content into the western shores of Arkesia at an appropriate cadence to avoid burnout, working to pull forward quality-of-life changes, and waging the war on bots,” a blog from Smilegate and Amazon begins. This philosophy is planned to continue, it seems, but that will necessitate some changes to ensure that no-one on either the developer or player side suffers from burnout due to an overload of content.

Chief among these is a proclamation to reduce the amount of grind involved in endgame content and dailies. “We’re aware of the sense of discontent regarding Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids, and Una’s Tasks,” the team admits, saying it recognises how repetitive and mundane such activities can become. While the plan is ultimately to reduce the daily grind, it notes that such activities are currently a core thing to keep hardcore players busy each day, so they can’t be immediately stripped out without replacement.

For now, May will see the arrival of the Ebony Cube activity, which combines Boss Rush and Dimension Cube to create a tool aimed to help cut down on necessary grind. Following that, “quality of life updates like Ebony Cube will be implemented as fast as possible” to help mitigate the need to grind until