Lost Ark game settings are OK for the most part, just the way they are set by default. However, you can improve your experience by making a few tweaks here and there.
The only challenge is that some settings are not very intuitive when you look into the menu, and it may become confusing as what some things do.
To keep things simple, there are a few essential settings that you need to be aware of and how you should set them.
Force 21:9 Aspect Ratio
You will find this setting in the video settings menu. It forces the game to run in a 21:9 aspect ratio. If you have a normal monitor, this will cause black bars to appear at the top and bottom.
The direct effect is an increased field of view. You will immediately notice this effect in the menu when you activate it, as you will see more details on the sides of the screen. Using a 21:9 aspect ratio does not help much for PvE, but if you are a PvP player, you will benefit from seeing more around your character.
I only use this for PvP and not for PvE.
Screen Effects Settings
Lost Ark is very well optimized. You will not notice a considerable difference if you switch texture quality between very high and medium. If you have frequent framerate drops, you can tweak these settings to improve your FPS.
Audio – Cooldown Alert
This setting can be found in the Audio settings tab right above Voice Char Options. You will hear a sound whenever an ability goes off cooldown if you enable it. You cannot set the alert to trigger for particular abilities. It triggers all of them. This can be useful and annoying at the same time.
There is only one sound effect, and you cannot change it. If you have extremely low cooldowns, the sound can become annoying. However, you can have this enabled if you play a character with reasonably long cooldowns and do not use too many abilities.
Voice Chat
Right beneath the Cooldown Alert, you will find Voice Chat options. By default, you will have the Auto-Join Voice Chat enabled. You should turn it off as you do not want to automatically join a voice chat. Also, you can use the Push to Talk feature since it is much more useful than having your microphone input always on so that the party hears everything you say.
Mouse Cursor Style
You can alternate between different mouse cursors by pressing down CTRL and scrolling your mouse wheel. If you want your mouse cursor to be bigger, you can do so by going to Settings, and in the Visual perception tab, look for Mouse Cursor Size.
Chat Box Colors
The Chat Box that you see in the corner of the screen can have customized text colors for different chat types. You can set different colors than the default ones for Errors, Warnings, Whispers, Guild chat, Party chat, etc. While they are fine in the default settings, you can alter them to make certain messages more visible. To do so, you need to go to settings and in the Community tab, look for the Text sub-menu.
Macros
In Lost Ark, macros are not what you think. You can find them in the Community tab in your settings menu. They allow you to have predefined messages that can be sent to different chat groups. In a party chat, you can set something like “I have applied X debuff to the boss” and bind that phrase to a particular key. To assign keys to macros, you will need to go to the Hotkey tab and scroll down to the Macros sub-menu.
Events tab
The events tab refers to trade requests, duel requests, party invites, or guild invites. You will find that in Lost Ark, everyone wants to duel you. This can be annoying. If you want to no longer be spammed by some of these requests, just go to the Community tab, Event sub-menu, and tick all the boxes for the events you want to reject automatically.
Gameplay Settings
This is the most important section in which you will tweak how the game plays. You will find this extensive menu in the Gameplay tab under the Show sub-menu. You should start with the below settings customizations:
– Show Damage. You will want to leave Show Damage, especially if you play a DPS class.
– Show Recovery. Show Recovery means that it will show healing numbers if you leave it on. These numbers add no value and make your screen more cluttered when in raids or parties. Untick this box.
– Effects. This should be left on. It shows a text on the screen when someone receives a buff or debuff. It also applies to bosses and mobs in Lost Ark. In raids, in particular, it is important to be aware of what is happening to your character. Otherwise, you can get into situations where you will wipe an entire raid because you did not notice a debuff on your character.
– Player. Having this box ticked will show your HP right above your character. This makes it easier to focus on fights than to look at the bottom of the screen.
– Party and Raid. Having this checked will show the HP bars of the player in your party. If you are in a raid, it will only show the HP bars of your party members and not the entire raid. Leave this on since, during a raid, you can only heal or buff your party members.
– Over raid members. As mentioned previously, you only buff and heal your party members. Leave this setting unchecked since it adds no value and confuses fights.
– Hostile target. You will want to have this on as it will show the HP of a boss right above it.
– Summons. Seeing the HP bar of a summoned critter adds no value and makes the visuals messier. Uncheck this setting.
– Guild Members. You can have this on when not in raids, but raids, you should have it off.
Show battle and pet section
– Combat Effects. Leaving it set “All” can make the game very messy in terms of effects, especially when in raids. You might want to leave it Party only or Opponents (mobs and bosses).
– Apply Battle Outline. It makes your character glow and has a white outline when behind objects. During fights or in large raids, it is much easier to see your character. You need to leave this checked.
– Marking Skills. This does not add much value, just more confusion. You should have it off but feel free to try playing Lost Ark with this setting enabled.
Interface settings
For the interface settings, the default settings are fine the way they are. There are only a couple of tweaks that you may want to do.
– Display Low HP. You should have this box ticked off. If you leave it on, you start hearing a heartbeat and the edges of the screen become red. This is anything but helpful, especially during chaotic encounters.
– Show Tutorial. You should uncheck this if you are familiar with the game.
Combat Settings
You only need to play around with a few settings found here for combat settings.
– Auto Move. If you want convenience, use the Mouse option. Using the Keyboard option will allow you to do other things while moving, such as using your inventory.
– Camera shake effect. This can be very distracting. Turn it off if you enjoy a cleaner gameplay experience.
Conclusion
There are plenty more settings you can play around with within Lost Ark. Everything else that was not mentioned above is self-explanatory. You should look at the Hotkey section to understand the default hotkeys or customize them.
