Since its debut in the North American and European markets in 2022, Lost Ark has continued to receive consistent content updates. This has appeared in the form of an expanded narrative, new classes, and diabolically difficult Legion raids.
As part of the April 2024 update, the Thaemine Legion Raid has appeared in the game, with its much more challenging version was released on April 20, 2024. Much like the Legion Raids that have come before it — most notably Kakul Sayden and Brelshaza — Thaemine has added a new challenge to throw themselves at, while also expanding upon the worldbuilding of Lost Ark.
MMORPG had the opportunity to ask the team at Amazon Games about the inclusion of the Thaemine Legion Raid, its significance to the narrative, and the decision to usher in the hard version with the same difficulty as it had appeared in the Korean version of the game. Community Lead Roxane (or as most know her, Rox) Sabo provided some in-depth and highly detailed answers for these decisions and more.
MMORPG: Thaemine is notorious for being one of the hardest Legion Raids in Lost Ark. What was the decision to bring Thaemine to North America, Europe, and other regions, with the same difficulty it released at in Korea — at least temporarily?Rox: When the Thaemine raid launched in Korea last September, it was a very big deal. Players came to the game in droves and both hardcore and lapsed players rushed to experience the hardest raid in the game. Eventually, after 11 days, the first team in Korea cleared the Thaemine raid to much celebration. Even though the raid’s difficulty was adjusted after launch to make it more manageable for more players, there’s no denying the excitement that surrounded the raid when it first went live, with players throwing themselves at the content in their quest for glory. We wanted to replicate that for Western players, to give them a similar experience. While the original Thaemine raid was made a bit easier after launch for Korean players, the West will be getting the opposite treatment. They’ll experience the adjusted version of the raid, and upon completion, they will be able to take on the harder version, Thaemine The First. Through this, we hope to foster that same sense of competition and accomplishment that Korean players were able to experience. We’ve even got a race for players to get on the leaderboard to immortalize the accomplishments of the first teams in each region to take down Thaemine.
Like previous Legion Raids in Lost Ark, Thaemine requires players to have precise movement and make use of the stagger and counter mechanics. What unique use of these mechanics have been added into Lost Ark through the Thaemine Raid?Rox: As you mentioned, precise movement and timing are going to be essential to taking down Thaemine. As he is the last Legion Commander standing, he is naturally the strongest. His damage output is on another level from any other Legion Commanders players have faced so far, and so timing, skill in movement and player controls is an upgraded challenge from any other content in the game. You mentioned stagger and counter mechanics, and that’s a great point. In fact, in the first gate of the Thaemine raid players will have to procure damage dealing through careful timing by countering or staggering the boss. Each gate has a unique mechanic that makes it different from the one before it. Thaemine is notably the commander of the Darkness Legion, and this Legion Raid marks a turning point in Lost Ark. Can you speak to the lore surrounding the Legion Raid and what makes it so significant?Rox: The lore behind Thaemine and this raid is interesting for sure. As we mentioned, Thaemine is the most powerful of the Legion Commanders, and his claim to glory is having conquered half of Petrania alone a long time ago. As Lost Ark players probably know, Petrania (aka the Chaos Star) is a world created from darkness and chaos. So Thaemine claiming half of that world of darkness running solo shows how much power he possesses. After facing Kazeros the Lord of Abyss (the archdemon who ruled over Petrania), Kazreros was impressed by Thaemine, who had single-handedly conquered half of Petrania. Thaemine accepted an offer from Kazeros to become his Legion Commander and lead the most powerful legion – the Darkness Legion. Baratron, the beacon of darkness, is spreading chaos and eating away the light in the world. Adventurers will be able to stand up to Thaemine and this threat to Arkesia.
How was that lore incorporated into the mechanics of this Legion Raid, and the use of Dark Baraton as a backdrop for the encounter?Rox: As mentioned, Theamine is the final Legion Commander, which to be clear does not mean that this is the end of raids for Lost Ark. There will be more raids coming in the future! But as the final Legion Commander, and the battle with him coming with so many stakes, the team at Smilegate wanted to make this raid feel as epic as possible. Of course, this comes with the ultimate level of challenge associated with raids as Thaemine is the strongest of all. But in addition to this, the dev team also bumped up the presentation of the content by using artwork, cutscenes, backgrounds, as well as sound effects and music, to enhance the overall experience. This symphony of presentation and gameplay sets the stage for the battle against Thaemine to be the most impressive to date. Legion Raids in Lost Ark generally feature their own gimmicks, with the meteor mechanic in Brelshaza having been especially notorious among North American players before the game properly launched in that region. Would you say that Thaemine is easier to parse than previous Legion Raids for those looking to get their Normal clears out of the way?Rox: The mechanics in the Thaemine raid are completely new to the game. The dev team did not use any ideas from existing raids when creating this one, and in fact did a lot of research and development to formulate all-new patterns specifically for this raid. Given the significance of Thaemine to the game and its lore, the team wanted this raid to be the peak challenge to players’ physical and mental finesse. We don’t anticipate this raid to be easier than previous raids in any regard. For those new to Lost Ark, if they wanted to get into the game now and purchased a jump once they were able, would Thaemine be approachable by comparison to previous Legion Raids?Rox: Since the Thaemine raid is built upon the raids before it, given that it is the ultimate challenge that players are gearing up toward, it would be very difficult for a player to come in and take it on with no previous raid experience. That said, if they were willing to go through the trial and error of learning the raid via many, many attempts, it could probably be done by some. We’d recommend trying other raids first though, to get the hang of things. There’s so much that goes into raids like movement, timing, and communication with your teammates... These are muscles you should develop before you take on something at the highest level like Thaemine.
Because content launches in Korea ahead of when it reaches North American and European audiences, do you expect Thaemine The First clears to be faster than what you’ve seen in Korea?Rox: It took 11 days for the first clear in Korea, but as you mentioned players in the West have the advantage of having seen how it was done. There’s still the fact that the raid is very challenging and even if you know what’s coming, it doesn’t mean you’re 100% prepared for it. We’re not really making any expectations for how quickly the West clears the raid versus Korea, we’re just enjoying the experience and engaging with our community as they work through the content. Have the developers considered adjusting Legion Raid content, outside of difficulty adjustments, to keep the experience fresh for audiences outside of Korea?Rox: Outside of difficulty adjustments, the core gameplay and mechanics of the Legion Raids that have already been released aren’t likely to change much. However, Thaemine being the last Legion Raid Commander doesn’t mean that new raids are disappearing from the game! In the near future, players will be able to look forward to a new set of challenging raid content called Kazeros Raids, which will begin with Ladon, the original Covetous Legion Commander who was replaced by Vykas.How do you think the inclusion of the Breaker ahead of the Thaemine Raid has impacted potential party compositions for the raid, specifically the Thaemine The First Challenge?Rox: With the release of the Breaker class and all of the special progression events that came with it, we definitely wanted to support players in moving their Breakers into the end game as quickly as possible so that they could experience the raid with the class without having to spend too long catching up. Being fully ready to compete in the Thaemine the First race itself is likely to be a bit challenging and we aren’t expecting to see many, but for completion of that content in general it will definitely be interesting to see how many Breakers join up.
When new Legion Raids release, do the developers see an uptick of specific Classes being played to cater to the mechanics and meta introduced by a new Legion Raid?Rox: Because all classes have different strengths and weaknesses of their own when it comes to combat situations, the devs at Smilegate are aware of the fact that certain classes have inherent advantages against certain Legion Raid bosses compared to other classes.In Korea where the updates arrive fastest, each class’s combat is tested against the Legion Raid during development so that the devs can polish the Legion Raid until the very last minute prior to release. After the raid is live, Smilegate RPG will monitor player data and community sentiment. If they spot a case that goes greatly against designer expectations, balance patches or content difficulty adjustments are planned and made afterward. Of course, such post-release adjustments for Korea are also applied to the Western version of the game along with the launch of our Legion Raid updates or sometimes even before or after the Legion Raid is live.
An example of this is how difficulty adjustments were applied to the Thaemine Legion Raid update for Western territories. Western players got access to the original version of Thaemine (as it was before it was adjusted in Korea) only after completing the modified version (with the difficulty adjusted based on Korean player feedback). It’s a bit confusing, but players in the West get the latest content based on Korean player data as their first experience with new Legion Raids, and in some instances get the same experience that Korean players had when the content was released there.
The key point is that diverse combat synergy gets created in Lost Ark by clashes between various Legion Commanders, monsters, and the player character classes. Lost Ark focuses on developing, and also improving the Legion Raid so that each class can accumulate various combat experiences based on different situations. On top of this, we at Amazon Games and Smilegate RPG are also discussing bringing balance changes to reflect the major content updates mentioned above, at a faster pace.
