How is it possible that wait times are longer now than when the game first launched? The answer is simple, bots are once again on the rise, and don't seem to stop.
In MMORPGs, especially Free to Play ones, whales are the players that skip the grinding portions of the game by using real-life money. They also tend to buy up any advantages they can get via the same method, and boost any and all in-game microtransactions.
In the end, what this accomplishes is creating the demand for what bots can supply, that being items, high-levels accounts, and more. All of this influences Lost Ark heavily, a game that has struggled with bots since its launch in the West.
As it stands now, it is a common occurrence to see an 8000+ queue when logging in to play Lost Ark on your server, all due to bots.
Steam
Amazon have tried to fight the good fight against said bots, but, unfortunately, the game's origin is in Korea, where creating an alternate account is a much harder thing to do than it is in the West, so the game has no inherent anti-bot measure, cornering Amazon into manually banning bots being all they can effectively do.
Luckily for the game, it has already been proven that this problem won't be the death of Lost Ark. Unfortunately for the players themselves though, even with all the effort Amazon are going through, there seems to be no solution in sight for, what seems to be a growing problem of whales and bots making a symbiotic relationship.
