AION 2 Dev Stream Recap: NCSoft Escalates War on Macros, Reshapes Economy and Updates Class Balance

NCSoft held a new Korean livestream dedicated to the current macro crisis in AION 2, upcoming economic changes, class balance updates and winter events. The broadcast featured business lead Seo In-seop, game director Kim Nam-joon, operations head Lee Sang-min and legal lead Kim Hye-ma-suk, underlining how seriously the studio is taking the situation.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Why the Macro Issue Exploded
• Macro Crackdown and Legal Action
• Economic Changes and Anti-Bot Measures
• Dungeon Rewards and Multi-Character Limits
• World Auction House and Server Features
• Class Balance Updates
• Abyss, Rifts and PvP Adjustments
• Pets, Soul Stones and Hidden Cubes
• Compensation, Events and Winter Cosmetics
• What’s Next for AION 2

Introduction: Why the Macro Issue Exploded

At the start of the stream, the developers openly acknowledged that the macro situation in AION 2 has “gotten out of control”. Despite multiple ban waves and previous warnings, players continued to see macro users everywhere – in fields, Abyss zones and Eternal dungeons.

According to NCSoft, the problem is no longer limited to classic “botting factories”: a significant portion of offenders are now regular players using hardware or software macros for farming kinah, items and pet progression. The studio stressed that this behavior harms the game’s health and honest players, and that they are prepared to respond with both in-game punishments and real-world legal action.

Macro Crackdown and Legal Action

Operations head Lee Sang-min and legal chief Kim Hye-ma-suk detailed how NCSoft is escalating its war against macro users:

• To date, the team has carried out 18 ban waves, permanently sanctioning around 58,000 accounts. However, both NCSoft and the community agree this is still not enough.
• Starting from December 3, all accounts detected using hardware mouse macros are being added to a separate list for final verification and punishment. Those accounts will receive a 30-day suspension and will lose all gains made during the period of macro usage.
• “Full confiscation” means irreversible deletion of:
  • Leveled and upgraded pets,
  • Accumulated Soul Stones,
  • All kinah obtained,
  • All items and loot gained while using macros.
  These will not be restored even through customer support, as they are treated as illegally obtained content.
• NCSoft now classifies large-scale macro and RMT activity as “obstruction of business”, a criminal offense under Korean law. The company has already hired major external law firms to prepare real lawsuits against the worst offenders and currency/account sellers.

The developers emphasized that they are collecting robust evidence to prevent false positives and to withstand legal scrutiny. Offenders who also engage in account or kinah trading on black markets are being prioritized for legal action.

Economic Changes and Anti-Bot Measures

Alongside bans and legal steps, NCSoft is also targeting the economic incentives that make macroing attractive in the first place.

Technical Countermeasures

• The AION 2 client now checks the system tray and running processes for common macro software (e.g. Logitech G Hub and similar tools).
• If such programs are detected while the game is running, the client can forcefully disconnect the player. According to NCSoft, this is already happening to 7–10 thousand accounts every hour.
• The list of blocked tools will expand over time as the team gathers more data.

Daily Kinah Cap and Item Drops

• The current daily kinah cap from open-world hunting per character will be reduced from 2,000,000 to 1,000,000 kinah, with the possibility of a further reduction to 500,000 after additional monitoring.
• When a character reaches this kinah cap from field hunting, monsters will no longer drop items for that character in the open world. This completely removes the benefit of 24/7 macro farming.
• Only around 5% of legitimate players currently earn more than 500k kinah per day purely from field grinding, so most players should not be heavily impacted by these changes.
• Kinah obtained via Od Energy in dungeons is handled separately and is not subject to this field-hunting cap.

Global Economic Targets

NCSoft shared internal economic statistics to explain their long-term goals:

• Across all servers, around 700 billion kinah are created per day, while roughly 670 billion kinah are removed via sinks.
• Their goal is to reduce total daily kinah generation to about 500 billion in order to stabilize prices and fight inflation.
• Approximately 85% of all kinah is generated in dungeons, while the suspicious portion of field-grind income is heavily associated with accounts using illegal programs.

Dungeon Rewards and Multi-Character Limits

Another major topic was the dominance of “alt armies” that spam dungeons to generate kinah and rewards.

• Starting around December 17, the team plans to introduce a system where, after an account completes a certain number of dungeon runs across all characters, the amount of kinah rewarded per run will gradually decrease.
• This diminishing returns system is designed to shrink the gap between players who focus on one main character and those who run an entire roster of alts through every dungeon every day.
• Efficiency on a small number of alts will still exist, but mass farming with large alt armies should become significantly less rewarding.
• These changes will be rolled out together with the new Expedition “Hard” modes, planned in two phases (around December 17 and December 24).

World Auction House and Server Features

The long-awaited world auction house is finally going live:

• Launch planned for December 10, running alongside existing per-server auction houses.
• Players will be able to list up to 10 items on the world auction, in addition to server-only listings.
• The tax rate on the world auction will be set to double the regular server auction fee, as a trade-off for the increased convenience and larger buyer pool.
• Some new servers (such as Poeta and Isgen) will initially be excluded from the world auction and will continue using only local auction houses.

NCSoft is also working on dungeon matchmaking unification for new servers and a character transfer feature, though the latter still has no confirmed release date.

Class Balance Updates

As promised in the previous stream, the developers are continuing with Class Care updates. This round focuses on global buff mechanics, Groggy interactions and specific class tweaks.

Global Changes: Attack Buffs and Groggy

• There is a system-wide 100% cap on attack power buffs. To avoid wasting potential, some skills that previously increased attack are being converted into damage amplification effects.
• This affects core skills for Gladiator, Templar, Sorcerer and Cleric, allowing them to benefit even when they are already at or near the attack cap.
• The popular Groggy boss mechanic (stagger / exhaustion) is also being toned down. The passive that reduced skill cooldowns by 3 seconds on hit during Groggy will now reduce them by only 1 second across all classes, as the previous value made PvE content too easy.

Templar

• Improved tools for aggro recovery, so Templars can more reliably hold bosses even with strong DPS classes in the group.
• Increased damage for skills such as Continuous Strike and Punishment Strike.
• Enhanced shield-based defensive skills, raising survivability and frontline stability.

Chanter

• The two key mantras, Hit/Sprint and Speed, are being merged into a single buff, simplifying buff management.
• A new offensive stigma, Crushing Strike, is added in place of one of the old mantras, giving Chanters a more active DPS role.
• Animations for several skills, including Meteor Strike and others, are being sped up for smoother combat.
• The debuff Promise of Earth will now reduce the target’s physical defense instead of attack speed, improving synergy with physical DPS.
• Both damage and healing on multiple skills are being raised, making Chanters more useful as hybrid support/DPS in parties.

Sorcerer

• The popular stigma Hell Fire is being reworked so that one of its specialization options turns it into a wide area-of-effect skill.
• Steel Barrier is buffed so that the shield won’t break too quickly under monster attacks.
• Sorcerer attack buffs are also converted to damage-amplifying effects, fitting the new global rule.

Spiritmaster

• Damage of certain left-click skills (such as Cold Shock and Vacuum Explosion) is being reduced to curb overly safe, spammy gameplay.
• In exchange, other skills receive damage buffs, keeping overall DPS competitive.
• The animations for summoning elementals will now be much faster, and summoned spirits will start using their skills immediately after being summoned.

Cleric

• Overall DPS and healing output for Cleric skills is being increased.
• The debuff that reduces elemental resistance on enemies is being strengthened, boosting Cleric synergy with magic-heavy parties.
• The team will carefully monitor Cleric performance over the week following the patch and make further adjustments (including on December 17) if needed.

Developers also reiterated that Assassin and Gladiator are considered very strong right now. They plan to gradually lift other classes closer to that level instead of heavily nerfing the top performers, with more changes coming in the next balance pass.

Abyss, Rifts and PvP Adjustments

Abyss Bosses, Medals and Faction Balance

• The respawn time of field bosses and Abyss bosses is being halved, while field boss HP is increased so more players can participate before the boss dies.
• Elite monsters in the Abyss will now drop Silver Medal Fragments, which can be combined into full Silver Medals via item conversion. This gives players a stronger incentive to hunt in the PvP zone and work on Abyss gear.
• To help losing factions, the race that loses more Artifacts in the Abyss will receive stacking combat buffs based on the number of lost structures.
• In future seasons, Abyss PvP gear will likely receive penalties or reduced efficiency in PvE dungeons, encouraging players to maintain separate gear sets for PvE and PvP.

Rift PvP and “War Mode”

• The controversial removal of PvP from certain time-space zones sparked heavy debate. To make PvP in Rifts more meaningful, NCSoft is introducing a revamped War Mode.
• Players who choose to enable PvP mode in Rifts will be highlighted in purple to each other, making it clear who is open to combat.
• Kills achieved in this mode will grant additional Abyss Points beyond existing limits, rewarding active PvP participation.
• The team is also reviewing Abyss Point caps and death penalties, acknowledging that heavy AP loss on death discourages players from joining large-scale battles.

Animation Cancel (“Weaving”)

The controversial mechanic of animation canceling remains in the game for now. Developers consider it part of player skill expression, but they are exploring ways to reduce the physical strain on players (constant button mashing) without destroying the mechanic’s gameplay depth.

Pets, Soul Stones and Hidden Cubes

Pet growth and Soul Stone acquisition are another focus of the update, as the current system heavily encourages repetitive grinding.

• NCSoft wants to move away from “kill mobs forever” style progression. Soul Stones for pets will increasingly come from new Hidden Cubes that require special keys to open.
• These cubes are designed to shift the focus from static farming spots to treasure-hunt gameplay, where exploration and key management are more important than raw mob count.
• To compensate players for the frustrating pet grind up to now, for one week the in-game shop will offer 1,000 Heroic Pet Soul Crystals for only 10,000 kinah each – essentially a heavily discounted bundle so players can quickly raise their pet understanding levels.

Compensation, Events and Winter Cosmetics

Apology Gifts and Daily Items

As an apology for the macro chaos and recent inconveniences, the developers announced several compensation packages:

• A one-time distribution of 1,000 Heroic Pet Soul Crystals (as mentioned above) via the kinah shop.
• Daily Od Energy items will be sent via push mail for about a week, helping players who were stuck without energy for dungeons.
• A free Expedition ticket will be granted to all players so they can try the new content.
• Players will also receive around three Resurrection Stones, aimed at easing progression in more challenging content.
• The team is preparing a 7-day appearance change ticket so players can freely adjust their character’s look as part of the apology.

Winter Event and Kina Deva Pass

The upcoming winter / Christmas event will kick off around December 10 and includes:

• A login calendar event where regular attendance grants various seasonal rewards.
• A new Kina Deva Pass that can be purchased for kinah rather than real money, featuring cosmetics and bonuses themed around winter.
• Six new outfits, including Christmas-themed costumes, bath/relaxation looks and more stylish sets that can be dyed in multiple colors and stored in the wardrobe.
• The existing launch-era skin rotation is ending, and the new winter lineup will take its place after the update. Prices will be similar to current cosmetic offerings.

What’s Next for AION 2

The stream closed with a renewed apology from the AION 2 team and a clear message: they will neither tolerate nor ignore macro abuse. Instead of quick but unstable fixes, they are working on:

• Building strong technical detection and prevention tools,
• Rebalancing the in-game economy to remove macro incentives,
• Adjusting class balance and PvP systems step by step,
• Pursuing real legal consequences for large-scale offenders and RMT operations.

While some features, like server transfers and deeper PvP reworks, still require more development time, NCSoft promised ongoing Class Care updates, economic tuning and regular communication through future livestreams.

For now, the message is simple: if you are still using macros or participating in black-market trading, stop immediately. The studio has the data, the tools and now the legal backing to make sure AION 2 remains fair for the players who choose to play by the rules.