“Following launch, botting has been a growing issue for Lost Ark,” the studio said in a blog update on the official forums. “Our team has been hard at work on crafting effective tools and methods to identify and remove bots from the game.
“As the result of this work, today (4th March) we will be permanently removing over a million illegitimate accounts from the game that have been determined to be running bots.”
The post acknowledges that “in this massive ban wave, it is possible that a small number of players may be erroneously identified as bots” and while it believes it’s taken “every step possible to prevent that from being the case”, it’s possible real accounts have been mistakenly labelled as bots. If that’s the case for you, players can appeal by submitting a ticket to support site.
“Maintaining a fair and fun gameplay experience for our players is a top priority for the team,” the post concludes. “While we intend to make a massive impact with this ban wave, we know that there is more work to be done and want players to know that this is only one step in what will be an active and ongoing process.
“Looking ahead, we will continue our work on detecting and removing botting, cheating, and harmful behaviour from Lost Ark at scale, which includes expanding our anti-cheat tools, improving bot identification methods, and rolling out more ban waves as frequently as is necessary.”
The ban wave has seemingly had a positive impact on queue times, as a number of players have responded to Lost Ark’s tweet, reporting that since the ban, waiting times have dropped considerably.
Lost Ark is now Steam’s second-biggest concurrently played game ever, second only to PUBG. Bertie was “impressed” by it, too, complimenting its “lovely touches” and depth of combat.
