What this person isn't telling you is they either dumped at least close to 1000 hours to get to valtan, dropped a bunch of money, or was the .0001% that got lucky and didn't fail much on gambling. However Lost Ark Gold, despite all that, they were behind in the third raid and they will never be able to fully catch the pace without spending a ton of money. You may like that type of play loop but understand the importance of it before you go in. It's possible to say that you do not need to keep up but within a week or two you will find that the vast majority of community is running the raids by autopilot and they are a kind of content that you can shut off your brain's ability to process.
My friend sells Argos runs and two men's the same as his friend. the buyers are killed immediately and go on to afk. Also, the community will get mad at you for not making side content like islands because your roster is lower. This tells people that, apparently, you don't really play the game.
If you're speaking of me when you speak of "what this person isn't telling you" If so, none of these three aspects you've listed are applicable to me. I've not put in nearly that many hours, and I've never invested a dime in it (no founder's pack , either as I began the game after its announcement but wasn't able to capitalize on the early market because of my schedule during the week), and had fairly average success in honing the game based on the probability of winning.
I'm not sure why you are having the above perception, as I have known people who are in no way restricted to playing who play substantially more money than I do, even with the same times. It's a video-based game but not a race which is why it's not such a big issue for Buy Lost Ark Gold me. There are other things that I'd like to accomplish, and other things that I prefer over this one.