Absolutely insane what has happened today. My friend logs in at 10 am, does Chaos dungeon, mails me 4k of mats he owed me, and is in the middle of Kalthertz when he gets suddenly disconnected from the game and cannot reconnect because he is permanently banned for cheating.
Okay. Your bot detection system messed up and accidentally picked up a player in the process. Shit happens, honestly it shouldnt in a game like this, but shit happens. The main issue i have here is that in the ban message it literally says “if you believe you received this penalty in error, you may appeal”. Of course any innocent player would go to appeal immediately, as my friend does. But literally within 15 minutes of him sending an essay + bank statements + steam transaction + literally asking anything else they can send to prove innocence / any more information as to what even triggered the ban he receives an automated response telling him “your account remains permanently banned and we cannot share any further information about this decision”
Pardon my french, but this is the most insane fucking thing I have ever read. For a game like Lost ark where players like my friend have no lifed 1000 hours + $200 of their money for your customer service rep to not even read his appeal makes me want to bleach my eyes. Why were these people even hired? How can u just instantly send this automated response within 15 minutes. There is literally no world where within 15 minutes you confirmed that my friend was cheating because that is nowhere near enough time to confirm something like this when somebody sends you an essay trying to appeal such an important decision like their account of 1000+ hours getting banned.
What is even better is that after this how can he appeal further? He can’t make a post on the forums so here I am. @Roxx he has personally messaged you with bank statements, steam purchases, etc. If there is anything he missed he is more than glad/ready to give anything to further prove innocence. His main character in game is Lorjay. His steam name is Lorjay. His steam ID is 76561198044579648. Please do something about this.
@Roxx I know you are just the CM and you are doing a great job at it, but this is such an unreal, irate thing to have happen to a group of friends. Do not make me quit the game after 1200 hours because I fear that if i spend any money or any more time it will go to waste because when will i get banned for simply existing? 300 hrs from now? 1k hrs from now? Where is the trust that I can get unbanned if you guys mess up. If you do not give a proper response to this appeal you set a precedent that everybody is just gambling with their time and that at any moment thousands of hours of their lives could disappear and that the only response they will get in return is “your account remains permanently banned and we cannot share any further information about this decision”. <------ absolutely insane. Whoever is sending these out within 15 minutes of an appeal should be talked to IMMEDIATELY.
@Roxx any CM help the poor guy I’m scared now… I play with my bf and we help each other with mats and stuff if we need something and spent like 1000 plus hours. We don’t want something similar to happen bc we help each other…
This happened to my friend a while back. The people handling appeals are simple folk and overall you are indeed gambling your time. He got the same automated response and was never able to resolve it. If you have an issue in this game, good luck.
He hasn’t tried to log-in in about a month so maybe somehow it resolved itself, but I doubt it. The situation literally caused a handful of friends to quit too. I started with 23 real life/workmates and I’m literally the only one left due to some reason. Mostly due to shit customer service or queue related issues.
I got double charged a while back on a vanquisher pack and Amazon told me “Thanks for the free $60, there isn’t anything we can do.” I can’t report it to my credit card cause I’ll get banned, so I ate it. I’m still really salty from that experience.
This just happened to my friend as well this morning. He was sitting on an island waiting for a spawn timer and he got permanently banned. No warning, no reasoning, nothing. He did the appeal and he got the same response as your friend. He’s still trying to appeal and just getting stonewalled by customer support with no reasoning for why he got banned, just automated responses. He has put 890 hours into the game since launch. The only transaction he said he did recently was buy lumber off the market. He has not RMT, has not botted, has not done anything. It’s wild to me that someone can put 890 hours into a game and get a perma ban with no ability to actually appeal or get any information on why he was banned.
I’m gonna toss his info in here as well to see if anything can be done.
His steam name is Cyphernihil. Steam ID is 76561198060762551
God, they need to address this immediately. I cannot believe how many accounts that have spent so much time and money are receiving a false ban and not even getting a chance to fix the error that is clearly on Smilegate’s end. Help us out and give us a human response not that of a bot. We already deal with enough bots in-game…
I get your frustration with AGS support. They are very inconsistent when it comes to ban appeals. Unfortunately getting unbanned can be a very long and tedious process. Persistence is key. He needs to keep submitting appeals until he reaches a support agent who is willing to actually investigate and not regurgitate a copy pasta.
he can also try live chat. Most agents there will tell you that they are unable to deal with bans but I have also heard of people being unbanned within a matter of hours after talking to live chat agents.
Also posting this in the feedback section is probably the wrong way to go about this as this section is mainly used to gather data related to in game mechanical issues/suggestions ect not to discuss technical or account related issues. You should mirror this thread in the support section so that a CS team member can see it or maybe a community mod will be kind enough to move the post for you.
Not accusing your friend of anything but is it possible that he was using any kind of macro to automate ability usage?
I appreciate the recommendation to mirror the thread and I will.
He doesn’t use any macros or anything of that nature. Literally just a completely random ban, maybe connected to the mail of mats he sent me minutes before the ban?
This is honestly extremely disheartening to see this kind of response from your customer service reps on such a serious matter. Do you not value our time? How can you possibly send a copy/paste reply for such a serious matter. My friend has literally spent over 1000 hours of his time since this game launched and paid his hard earned money for cosmetics and other great things like the ark pass. This player has done nothing but been a great member of the community, never flames users, always helpful and joking in pugs, honestly just a treat to have in the community. I understand there can be technical difficulties when it comes to combating botting in lost ark but this is just purely unacceptable.
Its incidents like these that make myself wonder why I even spend any time in this game myself? I have over 1200 hours played I don’t plan on logging back in to this god forsaken game or donate another cent until you give my friend a fair shake and actually review his case. This is hundreds to thousands of hours of work and joy that we put into our accounts. To have it taken away without even 15 minutes of your time to review it is just simply not good enough.
You guys need to do better before you bleed out your actual loyal playerbase.
sounds weird, i mean innocent people who trades with friends get banned and in the meanwhile people who rmt get nothing or 3days
AGS has to clarify such issues better