NCSOFT said on the 28th that its MMORPG AION2 will roll out an update to strengthen its response to bot farms and improve user convenience.
NC on the 27th used a live broadcast to unveil measures against bot farms, including ▲ blocking certain overseas VPNs ▲ upgrading the in-game reporting system ▲ introducing hardware-based blocking. To curb the unchecked spread of gathering macros, the minimum level required for gathering was also raised from the previous standard.
The development team also revealed the "permanent sanctions against illicit users and authentication sanction status" during the broadcast, and said it would maintain a standing policy of responding to macros and bot farm account activity. NC plans to continue related monitoring and sanctions to maintain a fair gameplay environment.
User convenience improvements will be applied as well. A feature that makes skill use easier has been added, and support for "auto-attack cancel" using left and right mouse clicks was introduced first. The feature will later expand to other skills. A much-requested "character storage" feature was also added, allowing items to be stored per character or per server.
Game content balance adjustments were also made. In the PvP (Player vs. Player) dungeon "Abyss Ereshuranta mid-level," kinah and abyss points obtainable will be increased by 40% compared with before. While the difficulty of boss monsters appearing in the mid and lower levels has been raised, certain monsters' stats were reduced to balance the overall experience.
Entry conditions for the highest-difficulty PvE (Player vs. Environment) dungeon "Sanctuary" are also changing. The existing "reward count" condition is being removed, leaving only the "attempt count." Accordingly, additional attempts are possible, but opening ode energy cubes that grant rewards will be restricted.
For character balance, the stigma skills of the Assassin and Cleric classes will be strengthened. Skills that boost survivability will have enhanced effects, and some offensive skills will add a combat variable by removing shields applied to targets.