"Lost Ark" devs are still trying to figure out the game's problem with bots, and it's giving them a lot of headaches so far.
According to Eurogamer, the massively popular Korean MMO (which recently surpassed 20 million players worldwide) still contends with so-called "illegitimate accounts" even after Smilegate Studios banned over a million suspects last week.
The team is reported as "hard at work," creating specific tools and tactics that help them identify the fake accounts and ban any potential bots. However, they also mentioned that their most recent wide-scale ban might have wrongly identified a handful of legitimate players as bots.
To deal with the bots, Smilegate is also implementing ways to keep them from entering the game in the first place, reports TheGamer. The devs are saying that among the biggest problems caused by these bots are focused on the game's economy, wherein they might exploit some systems for the gain of those who own and run them.
"Lost Ark's" in-game economy mostly deals with buying and selling gold. To handle the bot problem, Smilegate changed some Rapport and Guide Quest rewards to silver from gold so bot owners and so-called gold farmers won't exploit them.
Just How Bad Is 'Lost Ark's' Bot Problem?
Many "Lost Ark" players have aired their grievances online, particularly in the game's subreddit. One post talks about how the bots they encountered while leveling up were engaged in an activity called "chain questing" in almost every in-game location the player visited.
Here is the post, which contains some screenshots of the bots in action. It has earned 1465 upvotes at the time of this writing:
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Commenters on the aforementioned Reddit post say that the bots are more likely from "farmer accounts," which were created to earn as much gold as they can. As previously mentioned, the in-game economy mostly deals with buying and selling gold for real-world money.
But as Smilegate reiterates, participating in these so-called real-money transactions (RMTs) is against the game's terms of service. As such, anybody involved in the process (whether it's the bot farmer or the gold buyer) can face a ban.
There's A Chance That 'Lost Ark' Bots Will Keep Persisting
MMORPGs like "Lost Ark" will always have bot problems. Always. Smilegate might be trying to do everything they can, but botters will keep on finding ways to circumvent any preventive measure to keep doing their thing. Furthermore, it's also worth noting that creating bots for use in video games isn't exactly hard, as this YouTube video indicates:
Botting in itself is considered a common behavior in MMOs. According to PCGamer, these machines are perfectly designed to help their owners automate repetitive actions like grinding quests to level up, which helps them hoard valuable resources to sell at a profit.
Have you encountered "Lost Ark" bots lately?
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Story posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce