I checked out a botting Discord server, and I have to say good luck to those playing legitimately

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Introduction

I decided to do a bit of digging to see what the botting landscape looks like in Lost Ark NA / EU currently, and found a Discord server for an infinite chaos pixel bot run by English-speaking sellers (and not people reselling Chinese bots). I wanted to share a few screenshots from it that I found interesting, and for the most part just downright disheartening for players trying to keep up and play Lost Ark legitimately.

Efforts have been made to not share the name of the bot and hide Discord user information, and I will not be sharing this information in comment responses either. My goal is not to advertise whatsoever.

It’s my hope that by sharing this that I can spread a little awareness about how bad the situation is currently, and the fact that it’s not solely players from other countries botting on our servers for the purpose of RMT, but that previously legitimate players are now engaging in botting as well to get ahead.

Discord Screenshots

Servers Stats - This server has been around since April and has managed to rack up 2670 members, with about 1000 currently botting.

Bot cost - 50 euros for a lifetime license. As someone with experience in the shadier realm for other games, this is incredibly cheap and basically an ignorable startup cost for most. You could probably recoup the cost in a week of botting.

Works on all classes - This bot seems to have some level of functionality for all classes in the game, not just the hordes of Sorc / Berserkers that you tend to see running around. This has helped people start botting on their main accounts / characters as well.

Bot Ban Status - After searching through it seems like one person has received a 3 day ban for botting culminating from user reports in matchmade chaos dungeons. I wasn’t able to find anyone else claiming they had been banned. This is probably the most disheartening part of this post.

Botting Discussion - Some botters talking about how long they bot per day and detection chances. Many of the members claim they just bot 24 hours a day due to having no fear of being banned any time soon.

Botting Progress - One member remarking that their main account has 9 t3 alts and has been botting for hundreds of hours undetected. Doing this legitimately would be an extreme (boring) time sink for other players.

Bonus: Even Botters Have Standards - Maybe I’ll dive in to the Market Scam Discord for another post, but that’s another can of worms I’d rather leave unopened for now.

Bonus: Unaware Botter

Conclusion

All in all, I think this paints an extremely bleak landscape for Lost Ark NA / EU, and its only going to get worse as more people flood in to these communities and new / better bots are created. None of the players in here seem to express any fear of being banned or punished by Amazon / Smilegate, and feel empowered to bot with impunity, even on their main accounts.

Outside of this Discord, I’ve also seen an uptick in new accounts and groups beginning to post on RMT sites. Whether these are new startup operations also stemming from China / Russia / other countries I can’t say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if NA / EU players begin deciding to make a little extra cash with their ill-begotten honing materials.

I really hope Smilegate and Amazon start trying to solve this problem in earnest, because what they’ve been doing has not been working in the slightest, despite claiming millions of account bans. I personally feel incredibly disheartened to keep putting so much effort in to my alts when I could just be farming 24 hours a day without issue.

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@Roxx @Shadow_Fox

Can you please speak with the team, and find out why Smilegate / AGS is not taking PERMANENT actions against these GD botters?!

:rage: :rage: :rage:

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Bump for visibility.

Only one ban… and it was a 3 day one… really makes you think.

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Wow, this is… disheartening.

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I have spent 1200 hours on the game legitimately and I feel scammed.

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Oof. Makes you question all that time you spent diligently doing Chaos and Guardian Rifts daily huh…

#feelingcheated

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so bad, but hey, also those are potential customers ;); :wink: :wink: ;)); ) :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink: :wink:

we should be kind with them :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :wink: :wink: :slight_smile: :wink:

here goes your 3 dayz ban, pliz be nice after coming back :slight_smile:

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Don’t worry fellow real player. All your efforts will be worth it, you’ll be able to get one Grudge engraving per week if you keep going !

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That bonus unaware botter complaining about queues killed me.

Probably plenty of RMT whales complaining about queues in the forum too when they are the cause and unaware.

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Man this is pretty sad. Of all the times AGs give us the info about SG is working on something against bots, which makes me think they might be working on automated ban bot system or some kind of prevention system? From the looks of it, I dont know if they even working on something at all?
Sigh, just looking at those screenshots are disheartening.

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Yikes. I really appreciate all the screenshots, tho. Many people have told rumors about the botting “community” and their scumminess, but I’m glad there’s actual proof of it now too.

As someone who has 1100 hrs on the game and although I do feel cheated and scammed, I really hope this will get remedied. I for sure will keep away from RMT’ing however tempting it might be. It isn’t fun to create queues for fellow players. It isn’t fun to fuck up the economy for f2p or anyone else for that matter.

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Hot take - these botters aren’t the ones farming chaos dungeons/story quests on HUNDREDS of thousands of accounts. Even their alts - they can only bot one at a time because, again, they all belong to one roster account. These people are just lazy players that want to get the mats they need to push their main. And if they’re doing this strategy, maybe they’re not the RMT whales either, because why do this tedious task instead of just RMTing and buying mats from the AH?

What they ARE guilty of is providing alternative methods for botting companies to take advantage of their strategies and apply it to their own methods.

So pretty much, there are different botters: these lazy guys here trying to push one character on their account vs the botting companies farming for RMT with 400k+ accounts. Just my 2 cents tho.

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That was the point of making this post, to show that previously legitimate players are now engaging in botting to get ahead, even if they’re not running massive farms or RMTing to other players.

The massive amount of bots and lack of punishment for botting have enabled players to feel incredibly safe botting now. Like I said, I was only able to find one person claiming they were banned for 3 days from user reports, and that was it.

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Many players already RMT, but they are also botting? GG Amazon

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because they need bots to boost numbers like 800k and then brag about it & use it to hype LA launch in China, it’s a choice.

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Fair enough, but I would much rather have people do this individually than pay for RMT, imo. Lesser of evils, I guess. I personally think this is lower on the priority list, but still good to know of that communities like this exist.

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As a wise moderator in these forums said : “no kingdom ruled through fear is worth ruling”.

Be safe RMTers and botters, you’re fine.

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And I bet that botter that got banned still acumulated their rested bonus.
6378652476009646172

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I bet that the only thing that will happen due to this is Doctor_Bread getting banned because he admitted he was on a bot server and then the whole thread getting deleted.

Just watch.

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At this point if you use legitimate means to spend money on lost ark you’re a sucker. I just don’t spend any more but why not bot or rmt? Looks like if you spent in the past you’re good to go.