Lost Ark Korea Livestream Addresses Mordum Extreme Backlash and Balance Concerns

Smilegate’s Korean Lost Ark team held a surprise livestream on October 16, 2026, but the biggest talking point was who showed up. Former CCO Keum Kang-sun hosted the roughly 90-minute broadcast instead of current director Jaehak Jeon, saying Jeon had been struggling with the game’s direction and with player communication.

Keum said he stepped in because player sentiment had moved past anger and into resignation. Jeon is expected to appear in a follow-up broadcast within two weeks, tentatively framed around the question of whether Lost Ark is “okay like this.”

The main issue addressed was Mordum Extreme. Keum admitted the team set the difficulty too high from the start, especially given the raid’s class imbalance problems. He said the content was meant to help cover downtime between updates, but the tuning created a situation where clears became nearly impossible for many groups. A nerf was eventually chosen because the raid no longer matched its intended design.

• Smilegate is reviewing whether Ark Grid should continue to be used as a major class balancing tool.
• Synergy changes are being considered, including problems around critical rate going over 100%.
• Support roles may be adjusted, as Keum said support skill demands and party dependency have become too high.
• No additional balance patch is planned before the upcoming Finale raid.
• The team is considering ways to let players swap within the same base class in extreme disadvantage cases, but not full class change vouchers.

Keum also touched on raid cadence, saying the team is considering a shift from a three-month update cycle to something closer to six months. He said there won’t be rehashed content in the winter update, and a new character is still planned for December, though current game issues are taking priority.

Other topics included the “Nice-dan” trend, where players raise multiple copies of the same class to save on gem costs. Keum said the playstyle isn’t recommended and promised a clearer solution in the winter update, while also saying the team wants to preserve the value of what players have already invested.

On the economy, Keum pointed to rapid raid releases and rising gold rewards as major reasons for gold devaluation. He said package-related inflation is relatively small at 2.6%, but acknowledged that gold sinks and reward cuts are tricky because they can hit slower-progressing players harder.

The Aldebaran update was also mentioned. Keum said it has been delayed because its scope grew, including work on Lasamoa, described as the sole metropolis in the Sea of Aldebaran. The team is also reviewing changes to the six-character gold earning limit, but isn’t simply removing it for now.