Bots and Multibox ???

Dear developers, I beg you, do not let BOTS and Multibox dominate Ashes of Creation, see Blizzard has lost all its dominance, today in the classic it is impossible to farm something without disputing with other 20 bots around you, showing that you care little for their consumers and they only think in the short term, which in the end is destroying the economy the servers and the community of real players!
Thank you and see you soon!

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Asag

I personaly belive, that MMORPG games, should have one simple rule.

One player = One character ONLY, One account ONLY

I know its a bit hardcore in this modern days, but if you think about it from other side...

We play MMORPG games, becouse we like to interact with others, we like to trade, build, farm, pvp, go to dungeons with other players... Thats the spirit of MMORPG games.

But when game, let people to be self sustain in MMO just becouse they can create different classes with different professions to do it all by them selfs... it somehow kills the meaning to play MMO and they should just play Single player RPG instead...

Wandering Mist

Asag wrote: »

I personaly belive, that MMORPG games, should have one simple rule.

One player = One character ONLY, One account ONLY

I know its a bit hardcore in this modern days, but if you think about it from other side...

We play MMORPG games, becouse we like to interact with others, we like to trade, build, farm, pvp, go to dungeons with other players... Thats the spirit of MMORPG games.

But when game, let people to be self sustain in MMO just becouse they can create different classes with different professions to do it all by them selfs... it somehow kills the meaning to play MMO and they should just play Single player RPG instead...

An mmorpg that only lets you create 1 character isn't going to last very long in my opinion.

tugowar

As long as I can be good at everything if I put enough time in, and I can change up my look regularly without heavy cost, I’m fine with it.

My super Duper boxing ranger healing magic casting summoning blacksmith leatherworking enchanting jewelry making fishing cooking Jedi sorcerer starship captain tug-of-war would be a great character

Atama

Star Wars Galaxies, at least earlier on, only allowed one character per account per server. If you wanted an alt, you had to make it on a different server. They really wanted to enforce the Rebels vs Imperials flavor of the game, and made it really difficult to be a “spy” for the other side effectively.

I admit, I liked it. It was different and refreshing. I wouldn’t object to another MMO with that stance.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

Star Wars Galaxies, at least earlier on, only allowed one character per account per server. If you wanted an alt, you had to make it on a different server. They really wanted to enforce the Rebels vs Imperials flavor of the game, and made it really difficult to be a “spy” for the other side effectively.

I admit, I liked it. It was different and refreshing. I wouldn’t object to another MMO with that stance.

The issue with that was they couldn't stop people having two accounts.

It meant those few people that were spies were able to act without suspicion.

I'd be all for one character per account myself. One account per player would also be fine with me - but only if Intrepid were able to find a way to enforce it without preventing different people in the same house playing together.

To me, like many things, this should only be a rule if it can be enforced.

Jamation

noaani wrote: »

I'd be all for one character per account myself. One account per player would also be fine with me - but only if Intrepid were able to find a way to enforce it without preventing different people in the same house playing together.

I don't think I could ever get behind this with a locked class system. I always enjoy playing different classes and experiencing the world from "the other side" once I've hit cap, feel confident in my abilities in high end content, and need a break or refresher. I know with this style of game there will be plenty to explore and do once I hit cap compared to most games, but even then sometimes I need something fresh. If I got bored with my class and had to buy another subscription just to try another class, I'd rather just quit the game entirely.

If it was a game where you could be every class and every crafter/gatherer on one character I'd be fine with one character since I usually only ever have one to begin with, but they already said that's not what they're going for.

Atama

Jamation wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

I'd be all for one character per account myself. One account per player would also be fine with me - but only if Intrepid were able to find a way to enforce it without preventing different people in the same house playing together.

I don't think I could ever get behind this with a locked class system. I always enjoy playing different classes and experiencing the world from "the other side" once I've hit cap, feel confident in my abilities in high end content, and need a break or refresher. I know with this style of game there will be plenty to explore and do once I hit cap compared to most games, but even then sometimes I need something fresh. If I got bored with my class and had to buy another subscription just to try another class, I'd rather just quit the game entirely.

If it was a game where you could be every class and every crafter/gatherer on one character I'd be fine with one character since I usually only ever have one to begin with, but they already said that's not what they're going for.

In SWG, I just had alts on different servers to experience different character types. That would probably be an option in AoC too, if they implemented a similar restriction.

Plateau

George_Black

Multiboxing according to my experience:
Support/bard classess have abililities that improve character stats: buffs.
Those buffs last 20minutes.
A group of 5-6 friends would create 1 tank, 1 healer, 3-4 combat orientated classes.

Those 5-6 friends would log in 5-6 support/bard/gathering characters, have them follow their main char and buff the group once every 20mins.

This playstyle chips away from immersion, feels more like a real time strategy game, or something like Dragon Age, Divinity Original Din, Spellforce RPG.

People who multibox will obviously progress at a greater pace than those who dont, no comparisson.

Organisation needs/skills will go out the window, multiboxing groups will be preferable to other guild members, but wont be as social.
Most of all, people who want to play support/bard classes, and characters based on gathering/farming will no longer be welcome in guilds.

If me and my friends share a few crafters and buffers why would we want to find an active player, who will demand that we also share our mats, drops, and time to improve his gear/progress.
We can just have alts following our msin chars.

Noaani

George Black wrote: »

Multiboxing according to my experience:
Support/bard classess have abililities that improve character stats: buffs.
Those buffs last 20minutes.
A group of 5-6 friends would create 1 tank, 1 healer, 3-4 combat orientated classes.

Those 5-6 friends would log in 5-6 support/bard/gathering characters, have them follow their main char and buff the group once every 20mins.

This playstyle chips away from immersion, feels more like a real time strategy game, or something like Dragon Age, Divinity Original Din, Spellforce RPG.

People who multibox will obviously progress at a greater pace than those who dont, no comparisson.

Organisation needs/skills will go out the window, multiboxing groups will be preferable to other guild members, but wont be as social.
Most of all, people who want to play support/bard classes, and characters based on gathering/farming will no longer be welcome in guilds.

If me and my friends share a few crafters and buffers why would we want to find an active player, who will demand that we also share our mats, drops, and time to improve his gear/progress.
We can just have alts following our msin chars.

I'm curious as to what games your experience here is derived from.

First of all, I've never seen a support class that only buffs once every 20 minutes and then has nothing else to do - I've never actually seen a support class that has more than about 30% of it's effectiveness derived from long duration buffs - most of them gain their real worth from powerful short duration buffs, debuffs, and additional DPS that they deliver themselves.

Generally, multiboxing doesn't progress faster than a single player with a single character. It progresses faster than a single player with two characters, playing one at a time, but that's about it. While you are able to kill things faster while boxing, you also need to spend additional time on handling two characters, getting quest updates on two characters, gearing two characters, dealing with stuck characters - all of this stuff takes up a lot of additional time.

It is possibly faster to level a healer or tank up if you multibox them with a DPS, but you are talking about support classes and they usually level almost as fast as DPS classes.

And if the game in question has content specific to a given class that needs to be completed for any reason, all of a sudden you are left having to solo two classes, neither of which you really know how to play by themselves.

Boxed characters are usually not bought along on group content if that group content poses even the smallest amount of challenge. I have never been in a situation or seen a situation where a boxed character was ever preferred over bringing another player - though have been in many situations where the content dictated that no boxed characters be bought along even if that meant an empty group/raid spot. Some content out there is simply not suitable for boxing at all.

I've also never seen a guild that has not welcomed support classes to guilds due to having boxed characters of the same class - a player playing that class will always be better than a boxed character.

Gathering/farming based characters though, I've never been in a guild that would accept players based on that, so I'm not sure what the point there is.

Your experience here seems to be based more on a group of friends that have closed themselves up to other players, more than it has to do with multiboxers.

George_Black

L2.
2003-2010 and even today.

Wreyna

With VPNS and how sophisticated Virtual Machines are now, I don't see a way for any game to really prevent multiboxing anymore if someone really wants to.

Caeryl

It really shouldn’t be allowed as it’s basically the half-sibling to botting, but there’s no way to prevent it at a software level.

I would hope multiboxing trains gets cracked down on though when reported. It looks really bad to have them in a game. Like, sure you paid for the advantage, but just like we don’t want people to be able to pay for stat boosts, I would think that extends to a dislike of being able to pay to speed-level multiple characters at once.

Noaani

Caeryl wrote: »

It really shouldn’t be allowed as it’s basically the half-sibling to botting, but there’s no way to prevent it at a software level.

I would hope multiboxing trains gets cracked down on though when reported. It looks really bad to have them in a game. Like, sure you paid for the advantage, but just like we don’t want people to be able to pay for stat boosts, I would think that extends to a dislike of being able to pay to speed-level multiple characters at once.

I'd be all for wither not having a follow command in game at all - or perhaps more reasonably (I know people that follow others in groups all the time), make it so the follow command can't be used on a character that is following another character, and each character can only have one other character follow it.

With this last one, you could have a player follow another character if there is reason to do so (which happens), but would essentially kill the notion of multiboxing trains (as a multiboxer, even I don't really like these).

It should be pointed out though, that multiboxing isn't related to botting at all.

You can bot a single character and you can multibox many characters without botting. There is an association that many players have between the two, but that association that many players have doesn't mean that they are inherently connected.

Atama

noaani wrote: »

It should be pointed out though, that multiboxing isn't related to botting at all.

You can bot a single character and you can multibox many characters without botting. There is an association that many players have between the two, but that association that many players have doesn't mean that they are inherently connected.

That’s not true. That’s like saying that guns aren’t related to murder.

You can murder someone without a gun, sure. And there are many more uses to guns than murder; hunting, self-defense, law enforcement, recreational target shooting, etc. But clearly they are related; it’s a very efficient way to murder someone and it happens all too often.

Just as multiboxing is definitely related to botting. It’s much more efficient to farm with multiboxes if you run bot scripts. They are certainly linked. It’s not a reason to ban multiboxing, but you can’t pretend there is no relevance at all.

I don’t personally have anything against someone who multiboxes for fun. Have at it, more power to you. You’re definitely doing more than your share to financially support the game. But there’s a stigma for a reason; it is a heck of a lot more cost efficient to multibox and run bots if you’re farming, and they do often go together.

Caeryl

Atama wrote: »

noaani wrote: »

It should be pointed out though, that multiboxing isn't related to botting at all.

You can bot a single character and you can multibox many characters without botting. There is an association that many players have between the two, but that association that many players have doesn't mean that they are inherently connected.

That’s not true. That’s like saying that guns aren’t related to murder.

You can murder someone without a gun, sure. And there are many more uses to guns than murder; hunting, self-defense, law enforcement, recreational target shooting, etc. But clearly they are related; it’s a very efficient way to murder someone and it happens all too often.

Just as multiboxing is definitely related to botting. It’s much more efficient to farm with multiboxes if you run bot scripts. They are certainly linked. It’s not a reason to ban multiboxing, but you can’t pretend there is no relevance at all.

I don’t personally have anything against someone who multiboxes for fun. Have at it, more power to you. You’re definitely doing more than your share to financially support the game. But there’s a stigma for a reason; it is a heck of a lot more cost efficient to multibox and run bots if you’re farming, and they do often go together.

I don’t know if that’s the best comparison, but the entirety of what goes into multiboxing is required for botting. So they are directly linked as said here.

Without a follow command, which imo is entirely unnecessary to have at any point in time, that eliminates scripted trains of characters as a significant issue.

Regardless of who or what is controlling characters en masse, it would have a markedly detrimental effect of the health of the game economy if one person could reap the benefits of ten+ people.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

it is a heck of a lot more cost efficient to multibox and run bots if you’re farming

This may have been true 15 years ago, but as of about 2006 or 2007, I have GM's asking me questions on multiple characters at the same time to see if I am a player or a script - sometimes multiple times a day.

The simple act of multiboxing brings attention to you. If you are running a script, the main thing you want is to be inconspicuous. If you are inconspicuous, then your bot won't get noticed, thus won't get banned, thus won't waste the time/money you have put in to it.

Generally, most people that are multiboxing are actual people that are multiboxing, rather than people running scripts. Most of these people won't answer questions from random players, as experience dictates that this usually just leads to abuse (people tend to not abuse people if they get no reaction). The reason these multibox groups tend to stay around a long time is because when a GM comes along to have a look at the "botting" group that players have been reporting, the player answers questions the GM has on what ever question they are asked them on. This leaves many players to assume the develop/publisher does nothing at all about bots, when really they are complaining about a multiboxer that is not botting at all.

Caeryl wrote: »

I don’t know if that’s the best comparison, but the entirety of what goes into multiboxing is required for botting. So they are directly linked as said here.

All that is required for multiboxing is having access to more than one account. This isn't required for botting.

There is literally no other requirements in most games. A few games have anti-cheat systems to prevent you from running more than one instance of the game client on one PC, but all that does is add the need for a VM to the otherwise very short list of requirements for multiboxing.

Botting only needs one account, and is usually only done with one account (for reasons stated above). However, botting requires running scripts, including multiple options for dealing with potential discovery.

As an occasional multiboxer, I have been accused of being a botter several times, and so have looked in to botting in MMO's a fair amount. While I have not looked in to it for a while, last time I looked, the really easy way to spot a botter from a multiboxer was it you sent them a whisper, the multiboxer would ignore it, the botter would log out - at the time the only real way to spot a botter was for a GM to ask them a question via whisper, so if the script detected a whisper it would simply exit the game client, thus avoiding the question. Again, this was a while ago, I would expect more sophisticated systems by now, but this was very common from 12 years ago up to at least 6 years ago.

Caeryl wrote: »

Regardless of who or what is controlling characters en masse, it would have a markedly detrimental effect of the health of the game economy if one person could reap the benefits of ten+ people.

I've only ever heard of multiboxers running that many characters - I have never seen it myself. That many characters absolutely does require scripts - but that many characters isn't required for multiboxing (technically, only 2 characters are required).

I've been in guilds where more than half of the members had the ability to run two or more characters at once, and have chatted with many, many others. The most I have ever seen in any game was one player that ran 5 characters in Archeage, but that was literally just a train of haulers to run trade packs - it involved nothing more than auto-follow (and was kind of amusing to watch - a traffic jam in an MMO is more amusing than a real one).

If you are talking about multiboxers in general, assume 2 or 3 characters at a time, not 10+. That many is definitely both an exception, and a breech of the rules - even if the game allows multiboxing, it won't allow for running scripts, and 10 characters would require scripts.

Fae

unknownsystemerror wrote: »

They pay their $15 they can do as they like. As long as they are not automating actions through scripts or bots then multi-boxing will be allowed. They have outlined several of the anti-botting features and mechanics they plan to have in game. Will they be effective? Too early to tell, but until they fail, best to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Uhh no. If paying real money gives an advantage, then that is P2W. Multiboxing is P2W, it gives an advantage over those who do not do so.

Samson1

Third party add-ons will not be allowed so if a person wants to control each character individually, I don't necessarily see an issue with that.

Undead Canuck

So what happens when me and my partner want to play together (technically, that is multiboxing)? We are not allowed? If I cannot play at the same time as someone else in my house, why would I bother with this game? What do I say when I have a LAN party and we all are in the same guild?
Oh sorry, you can't play because the whiners think it is bad.

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