New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….
Original story (published on June 13, 2022) follows:
However, the current status of the Lost Ark servers doesn’t seem to be the best it can be. We recently covered the player demand for an increase in servers capacity.
Another problem that the Lost Ark players are facing is the large number of bots present in the game. These bots log in and play based on programmed commands, without a real player behind them.
But, it seems that there are so many bots that are overloading the Lost Ark servers, and even breaking the game due to an exploit that allow them to deal infinite damage (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
Lost Ark bots plaguing and overloading servers
Many players are disappointed by the high presence of bots in Lost Ark. The issue even causes real players to be unable to access the game, due to the overload on the servers.
Bots are often used to farm items, in-game currency, XP points, and more without a real player behind them. Of course, this is an illegal practice and harmful to the game (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10).
The bot issue is so severe that some players who have invested a lot of time in the Lost Ark world for months are considering leaving the game (1, 2, 3).
I’ve been reading through the official forum and Reddit and see people expectedly frustrated with the bot situation. Nevertheless, a lot of the “solutions” players give out range from naive, useless, to borderline detrimental to real players’ experience. Source
I’m seeing more and more people quitting. Even my guild with multiple valtan groups running each week are having people quit because of the constant queues, bots and RMT. The fact that amazon has stayed quiet after the garbage fire that has been happening recently is not a good look. I’ve invested over a 1000 hours into the game and even I am thinking about quitting Source
Bots equipped with an ‘infinite damage’ exploit breaking the game
In addition to overloading the Lost Ark servers, the bots are also breaking the game by using an exploit or glitch whereby they deal infinite damage.
The exploit allows bots to quickly complete battles or raids and farm exaggerated amounts of loot. This leads to a broken in-game economy and unfair matches.
Players suggestions to solve the problem
Lost Ark players offer their own suggestions to try to resolve or mitigate the issue. Some believe that a player ID verification could be useful.
However, for some players, the ID verification method could be very cumbersome. Therefore, they present their own alternatives:
Thanks to the existence of ID registration, BOTs cannot make problem in KR server
I heard NA/EU don’t like using ID to the game.
But without ID registration, it is hard to solve BOT problem.
What do you think about it? Source
The measures taken by Smilegate have not worked
Smilegate team published an official acknowledgment on the issue in mid-May:
In their post, the devs also detail the specific measures they have taken to try to mitigate the problem:
We know that bots have been causing frustration within the community, and we share in that frustration. Over the past few months we’ve made a number of changes to Lost Ark in order to combat bots. We know that there’s still work to do, and we want to share some detail on how we’re approaching this ongoing issue so we can give Lost Ark players a better experience.
But, judging by the constant surfacing of reports on the matter, it seems that stricter measures are needed to bring about a real change in the situation.
We will update this story as events unfold.
Update 1 (June 15)
11:03 am (IST): In the recent acknowledgement, a community moderator in the Lost Ark community said that they are still working on a fix.
Moreover, the game maker has announced that they will rollout a massive wave of bot bans over the course of next week. You can read the full announcement here.
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