More frequently ban waves to remove all of the current existing bots.
Revisit the registration process and change it to that of how games allow players in for an alpha/beta test.
In that scenario, the server or the game itself remains locked down so no new accounts can access it unless they’re filtered through a registration process to demonstrate how eager/interested the new player is in playing Lost Ark while current existing accounts/players are able to continue to create new characters and enjoy Lost Ark.
The method is very aggressive, but it would definitely have an impact. Efforts should be put towards keeping the current player base instead of shuffling in new players anyways, or the potential to grow is weeded out.
I’m still certain that the best thing they could do is make the game as independent and secure as possible.
Remove the game from Steam and give it a standalone launcher
Game specific account instead of Steam login would instantly remove bots as the transfer process would have to be completely manual.
Force 2FA, everyone should have it anyways, would tie accounts to phone numbers, there are already methods for making sure phone numbers aren’t through burners or out of the region as well. Many games do it.
I’m sure with more time I could think of more security features, but for the vast majority of bots this would suffice.
How in gods name did I not think about this… Kill bots AND get revenue back into the game at the same time? It’s not like matching it would be something insane like $1 for 1M Gold either. From what I could see it matches Royal Crystal to Gold exchange in Korea.
And how many times do you think they would be able to undercut before it becomes unprofitable? They already have to sell it at a very low price to even make it desirable, you have to understand that these large bot farms started as Crypto miners. They will go back to mining once the profit isn’t in this game. I doubt they could undercut effectively enough times to make botting an issue over again.
Enough times to win the undercutting war if such a scenario was to take place.
Realistically, AGS/SG would never consider matching RMT prices because objectively from a business stand point that is a very illogical thing to do. If you want to play devil advocate and say they did such a thing, then ultimately AGS/SG will lose in this aspect because they have a bottom line whereas the people behind bots don’t. Afaik, the people behind bots don’t really have to put that much effort into running bots and their scripts. On the other hand, you have procedures and long meetings for the director or whoever with the authority to make such a decision as it strictly involves one of the way AGS/SG makes a profit/income from a f2p game that is not capitalizing on the cosmetic aspect of games.
The bottom line doesn’t matter if the line isn’t being utilized at all, matching it at any point will bring them more money than zero money, since people are buying from bots and not the company. Matching even for a short time just to stimulate the economy would do enough good to bring the crystal exchange price back to a normalized point and end the need to buy gold from outside sources.
Okay, let’s say they do match the prices, but does that have any direct impact on the ever-growing number of bots? Imo, it really has no impact has the people behind bots are still free to continue on making even more bots supplying even more gold into the game.
Maybe you’re forgetting something or maybe this is the unpopular view, but one of the views of AGS/SG is to remove the gold from the game hence with all the existing gold sinks.
Going back to my original post, I do state that one of the problems is the lengthy login queues so please elaborate how AGS/SG matching the prices of RMT have any real impact/solves this issue as well.
I mean if they beat or are close to bot prices why would anyone risk getting suspended by using RMT?
Logically if the prices are close in price then ppl are gonna use the ingame shop for gold as you would in theory get close to the same(or better) amount of gold without the risk of a lenghty suspension which in turn would drive out gold sellers because its no longer profitable or because ppl wont bother using them as its not worth the hassle.If anything we might get a decreae in bots atleast.
As to how it would remove gold from the game?I honestly think the game already has enough gold sinks trough enhancing/consumables/rerolling weapons and armour for better stats/making alts/Engravings/Pheons/Getting a perfect stone and etc…hence why ppl are buying so much gold trough RMT.
Yes I do realize in korea you get a lot of gold but we are not there yet.
I agree with what you said and that’s all a valid point, but that doesn’t really address the ever increasing number of bots. It’s great the chaos dungeon vendor change has finally arrived and i’s really a good cause for celebration and all that, but after thinking about it a bit more, that only fuels for more bots to made to compensate since now the people behind bots can only rely on the two daily aura runs for exchangeable destruction/guardian stones. Sure, some botters might get discouraged entirely by this change, but the hardcore/committed ones will find a way hence making even more bots to compensate for their losses of no more infinite vendor.
In the scenario where AGS/SG suddenly matches their gold prices to RMT/Bot prices, the people behind the bots will immediately find a way to workaround it to maintain some sort of profit despite it being less than before such as
Undercutting their prices immediately again as they’re in a position to be flexible whereas AGS/SG has to get even further approval/meetings/a long process to even consider changing gold prices again.
Simply continue on with what they’ve been doing and creating more bots to flood the servers which is one of the core bot issues.
It’s kind of subjective when the term profitable is discussed. Imo, the people behind bots aren’t placing that much effort into running them so, it remains quite profitable despite incurring heavy losses from the infinite dungeon vendor or even if a undercutting war started. AGS/SG has a high bottom line that they can’t cross when it comes to their gold prices so the prices would never dip down to a very cheap price for both sides.
Now let’s play some devil advocate and go off tangent or a bit.
Some if not most people by nature tend to gravitate to doing things they shouldn’t do. It’s a whole psychology thing really whether it’s their ego or some sort of satisfaction they find going against what’s legal or what have you. Classic example are kids who rebel against their parents. While I am not trying to say that most players have the mentality mindset of a kid, I would lean more to the idea that a lot of people have bad habits or a higher likelihood if doing something “bad”. Hence in this case, I am sure there will be a good amount of people who would choose to continue buying gold from bots/RMT than buy from the legitimate market. Maybe they just don’t care like most wealthy whales or people with a lot of money to they don’t want to support AGS/SG because they don’t like AGS/SG or what they done so far. Also, the light punishment of 3 days ban for RMTs doesn’t really have the impact it was designed to have to discourage people from RMT.
Anyways, more than enough gold has been thrown into circulation into the NA/EU version and that is primary because of the whole bot issue. While I can agree this game has enough gold sinks, I would argue that the current state of the game when it comes to gold is not where it should be so that AGS/SG would be more inclined to get rid of all this extra gold that should not have existed in the first place.