Lost Ark has banned 'several million' bot accounts

NA and EU players have been enjoying Lost Ark since it expanded to those regions back in February. However, there have been some road bumps in the experience. This includes the overwhelming amount of bots and scammers that appear to be at every corner. It’s a problem that developer Smilegate RPG is quite aware of, and has provided an update on what it’s doing to combat the issue.

Smilegate recently shared a post to the Lost Ark website all about bots, hackers, and spam accounts. The developer expresses that it’s been an ongoing battle since launch, and that it can be a challenge to stop botting in a free-to-play game where anyone can sign up and play. That said, Smilegate RPG shares that it’s taken the following steps to combat bots and hackers in Lost Ark.

Permanently banned several million accounts that participated in botting, hacking, or gold selling.
Level-gated area chat to keep brand-new accounts from spamming gold-selling advertisements.
Actively updated the game’s automatic chat moderation with lines and phrases that we know are commonly used by gold sellers.
Changed the reward structures of quests and events to add a stronger deterrent against using bots to farm gold.
Updated and improved Easy Anti Cheat detection capabilities to better identify and act against bots.
Enabled a native detection system to help quickly identify bad actors and take action against them.
Improved reporting tools in-game to help our players report bots and our support staff act more quickly on reports.
Blocked IP from regions where we do not have publishing rights that have shown large amounts of bot activity.
Blocked VPNs to stop bad actors from working around IP bans.

Perhaps the most notable tidbit here is that a staggering several million accounts have been banned for botting/hacking. It goes to show just how widespread of an issue it is within the MMO.

This isn’t the first time that Smilegate RPG has spoken out about Lost Ark’s bot issues, but it seems like the developer has a detailed game plan to fight against those ruining the experience for others. For more Lost Ark news and guides, stick with us here on Shacknews.