Multiboxing input and why its p2w

So I watched the AMA and heard multiboxing is acceptabl. Now I dont know much about the game itself, but not allowing macros etc. i dont know how that will be implemented. What i'm aware of is that it is supposed to not be P2W and here is where i believe multiboxing is pretty much pay to win. You get a crafter set up and have 10 different crafters, now you send all those 10 differenct crafters to different locations and since nodes are time based you can set up a rotating system to gather those nodes and move the characters on each box to different locations, if there is auto run that makes things easier. This p2w, people are paying for multiple accounts to gather at multiple locations to gather and mine resources. PvP exists, but now people have to punish themselves to stop a multiboxer. You are paying for multiple accounts to gather or do things at different locations. Simply alt tabing through the different boxes takes little to no effort. Now you are multi boxing different auctions at the same time working the economy left and right. How did this person get these advantages? They paid for them. Its P2W. You dont need a macro to do these specific things and im pretty sure there will be numerous ways to manually abuse the system by paying to have multiple characters.

This to me is the biggest contradiction to P2W I can see so far. FF14 essentially removed the need to multibox because you could be everything, but when you allow a small amount this is how you create a p2w environment. People with money have no need to care about restrictions. There are 4 categories of a player. People with time, people with money, people with skill and people with both time, money, and skill. However you want to wage the whom can beat whom in these categories, there is one that will always win no matter what. Time skill and money. Those people you can never over come with either time or skill alone as money is the single determining factor.

This all encompasses crafting as well. What can crafting benefit? All aspects of the game. What can abusing the economy by conducting auctions in multiple locations through trading resources etc.? People that can multibox multiple accounts. The person with time, money, and skill now is capable over being better then any player without money.

TLDR; Multiboxing is p2w 2 EX. crafting/gathering multiple locations at once and abusing auctions/economy through numerous accounts at once that require 0 macros.

Edit: Please excuse my ignorance if I dont understand something, but this is simply my take and why multiboxing can be bad.

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Jahlon

Tsukasa wrote: »

Jahlon wrote: »

If you get caught running bots, scripts, or macros say goodbye your 10 accounts.

Its just that simple.

Botting != Multi Accounting

I didn't say it did.

I will be running 2 accounts. I do it old school. Two keyboards, two mice, two PCs.

MrScrewtape

Basing comments on definition of
-Multi-boxing as = Someone is physically at the desktop manually inputting commands (maybe assisted with macros/scripts, though that is a slippery slope).
-Botting = 100% unattended play requiring zero input.

The time investment to go after Multi-boxing would be a massive cost to intrepid for very little return. The amount of effort to try and identify someone at the machine interacting with both/all clients is near impossible. GM shows up, starts asking questions, and the HUMAN sitting there replies and responds, very easy to pretend to be two people, can even spoof different IPs for each client.

Botting on the other hand can be detected easier by first automation monitoring (pretty slick open source pattern recognition stuff is out there that could be monitoring client behaviors). Then when/if a GM shows up to challenge botters they can easily detect if it's a Bot. I think 99% of us who've played MMOs with Bots all can easily identify them without much issue.

Now Multi-boxing won't break the game, but Botting 100% will. I've quite several MMOs simply due to Bots running the server, along with many others.

Botting / Gold Sellers / (companies/groups using 3rd party tools to play the game for money) will kill the game very quickly if people see 100's of bots running around killing everything and harvesting all the resources. I would rather 110% of effort be put into dealing with this type of stuff than wasting any time having a GM talk to a guy running two accounts with some fancy scripts trying to figure out if he is breaking terms of services while 100's of bots are ruining zones.

Kaen

Most people aren't going to want to pay for two accounts and go through the effort of multi-boxing, and in a game like this it might not even have any real advantages. Anyway, people who run two accounts do not bother me. I've done this in UO, EQ, and DAoC for various reasons (out of group buffs, transportation, crafting during mana recovery, etc...). I don't know if I'll care enough or want to do this in AoC even if it is beneficial.

My problem with multiboxing is one person running a team of characters that is essentially controlled via one input source (one keyboard). I've seen farmers in DAoC take out dragons by themselves through multiboxing. I've seen AoE multibox groups for dungeon farming/pvp. In WoW I've seen multiboxers running 5 or 6 shamans or mages or whatever, even in battlegrounds. That's the kind of thing that really bugs me.

If someone wants to run an extra account for whatever reason, whatever. It's more money for the game, makes the server feel a little more full, and very likely will not have a significant impact on anything (since most people won't bother with it in the first place). But even a single player who is controlling 5 active accounts at the same time can be extremely disruptive to all players in an area and provides a tremendously unfair advantage in PvP. Imagine PKer controlling 5 naked mages running around killing people... Also, I would consider controlling multiple characters with one keystroke "botting", which should be an immediate ban imho.

traveler674

I already posted that in discord but I believe it is good be seen here as well. I really hate to see AOC accepting multiboxing, it destroys immersion in-game, gives an advantage to solo players (soloing group quests for example), and gives an unfair advantage to people trying to avoid social interaction, that's my opinion, its only good to make extra money for the company and nothing good for the community, as well it promotes motivation for sellers of characters leveling service and game currency selling for real money... If a person is using multiple computers and manually inputting the commands for all his/her characters it is fine, but then you see a group of almost same dressed characters casting same skills on the mobs in perfect synchronicity and movement it should be banned because there is no way it is controlled by simple macros and looks like scripts. So far that is the only thing I don't like about the game, other than that I'm looking forward to play this game.

Niraada

Jahlon wrote: »

Tsukasa wrote: »

Jahlon wrote: »

If you get caught running bots, scripts, or macros say goodbye your 10 accounts.

Its just that simple.

Botting != Multi Accounting

I didn't say it did.

I will be running 2 accounts. I do it old school. Two keyboards, two mice, two PCs.

You can save yourself a headache with a KVM switch for the keyboard and mouse. Connect Keyboard and mouse to the KVM, connect KVM to both pcs, and then all you need to do is toggle the KVM to determine which computer receives the inputs.

Really makes managing your desk space a lot easier x.x

StevenSharif

Based on today’s feedback I have directed the community team to post the next dev discussion on the subject of multi boxing.

Lazyactor

StevenSharif wrote: »

Based on today’s feedback I have directed the community team to post the next dev discussion on the subject of multi boxing.

its definitely a sore spot for most people. While it wont be possible to satisfy everyone on this topic I think a compromise we can all accept is quite possible. The only question I have from a design perspective really is it even possible to develop useful administrator tools to combat those who take it to far with botting?

unknown

This content has been removed.

Raoul9753

Honestly, if you value a game so much, that you are willing to buy like 10 subs, a PC that can run the game 10 times and are able to do it without botting...
Seriously, just go for it, at this point it seems being ahead of everyone else be the only thing that brings you joy in your life, which is kinda sad...

I am pretty sure that Multiboxing will stay a Problem forever since there isnt anything you can really do against it, but I hav eyet to see it become a big problem...

I mean, lets be honest, how is Multiboxing worse than lets say be a successfull Streamer and have your sheeps flodd you with ressources? And since the Streamers Sheeps are literally just in the game to support their Senpai/Waifu, isnt it basically the same as someone p0laying on multiple accounts at the same time with the goal to make his main account stronger?

Noaani

StevenSharif wrote: »

Based on today’s feedback I have directed the community team to post the next dev discussion on the subject of multi boxing.

Please make sure that the question differentiates between multiboxing and botting.

DontTouchMyHoHos

screwtape wrote: »

Basing comments on definition of
-Multi-boxing as = Someone is physically at the desktop manually inputting commands (maybe assisted with macros/scripts, though that is a slippery slope).
-Botting = 100% unattended play requiring zero input.

The time investment to go after Multi-boxing would be a massive cost to intrepid for very little return. The amount of effort to try and identify someone at the machine interacting with both/all clients is near impossible. GM shows up, starts asking questions, and the HUMAN sitting there replies and responds, very easy to pretend to be two people, can even spoof different IPs for each client.

Botting on the other hand can be detected easier by first automation monitoring (pretty slick open source pattern recognition stuff is out there that could be monitoring client behaviors). Then when/if a GM shows up to challenge botters they can easily detect if it's a Bot. I think 99% of us who've played MMOs with Bots all can easily identify them without much issue.

Now Multi-boxing won't break the game, but Botting 100% will. I've quite several MMOs simply due to Bots running the server, along with many others.

Botting / Gold Sellers / (companies/groups using 3rd party tools to play the game for money) will kill the game very quickly if people see 100's of bots running around killing everything and harvesting all the resources. I would rather 110% of effort be put into dealing with this type of stuff than wasting any time having a GM talk to a guy running two accounts with some fancy scripts trying to figure out if he is breaking terms of services while 100's of bots are ruining zones.

You destroy an economy you essentially destroy a big portion of the game. Crafting and auction are affected by everything the game has to offer. Multi boxing can destroy the game. You can have multiple people at different locations buying and selling items, you can effectively control a market this way. The time isnt that massive that people wont do it. How many people have max level characters on wow for different classes? I myself have every crafter on ff14 level and 70% of the job classes 70+. You have to start from level 1 for each of them so the time investment isnt so big that people wont do it and i consider myself a casual.

Undead Canuck

Way too many people are thinking that multiboxing is bad. Botting is bad.

The difference between me using 2 computers beside each other to control 2 accounts is not as efficient as me and my partner using 2 computers beside each other to control 2 accounts. Technically, both of these scenarios are multiboxing. As in, 2 computers in 1 house playing the game.

DontTouchMyHoHos

StevenSharif wrote: »

Based on today’s feedback I have directed the community team to post the next dev discussion on the subject of multi boxing.

Thank you, while I understand what you said in the AMA, but the abuse potential could be catastrophic in my opinion. If you allow multboxing the only limiting factor is time and there is a crap ton of people who have nothing but time on their hands. They also can set up multiple accounts then cancel the subscriptions until they want to use them and only spend the money whenever they want to abuse the system so they are not constantly spending money. I may not be able to bring forth a solution based on development due to my own ignorance of development, but there needs to be something emplaced to prevent the abuse if multiboxing goes forth.

The ability to make multiple characters on one account is nice and all, but the abuse lies in the ability to be in numerous different locations at the same time. That is an advantage no one gains without spending money.

DontTouchMyHoHos

Raoul9753 wrote: »

Honestly, if you value a game so much, that you are willing to buy like 10 subs, a PC that can run the game 10 times and are able to do it without botting...
Seriously, just go for it, at this point it seems being ahead of everyone else be the only thing that brings you joy in your life, which is kinda sad...

I am pretty sure that Multiboxing will stay a Problem forever since there isnt anything you can really do against it, but I hav eyet to see it become a big problem...

I mean, lets be honest, how is Multiboxing worse than lets say be a successfull Streamer and have your sheeps flodd you with ressources? And since the Streamers Sheeps are literally just in the game to support their Senpai/Waifu, isnt it basically the same as someone p0laying on multiple accounts at the same time with the goal to make his main account stronger?

A collective group of people coming together to support each other is 100% irrelevant to what multiboxing is. There are mobile gamers who drops 10k on games with multiple accounts to stay high in rank. This shit is rampant in mobile gaming. People with money have no qualms abusing the ever living shit out of the system to their advantage. Multiboxing/accounts is immensely rampant in mobile games. They do this on PC to abuse the system.

Undead Canuck

Have you actually tried to multibox? Especially totally separate locations at the same time?

I have tried boxing, but using 2 keyboards and mice is not the easiest thing in the world. That is multiboxing.

Using scripts is botting and it will be policed.

DontTouchMyHoHos

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Way too many people are thinking that multiboxing is bad. Botting is bad.

The difference between me using 2 computers beside each other to control 2 accounts is not as efficient as me and my partner using 2 computers beside each other to control 2 accounts. Technically, both of these scenarios are multiboxing. As in, 2 computers in 1 house playing the game.

You dont have to use 2 computers. You can multibox ith 1 computer. All you have to do is alt tab through the clients. You can run 5 instances on a single computer easily.

DontTouchMyHoHos

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Have you actually tried to multibox? Especially totally separate locations at the same time?

I have tried boxing, but using 2 keyboards and mice is not the easiest thing in the world. That is multiboxing.

Using scripts is botting and it will be policed.

You are multiboxing in a way like 10 years ago, shit is way easier than that. There is software that allows you to send signals to multiple virtual environments and it treats each signal as a separate identity.

phdmonster

I feel like a lot of people don't know the difference between multi-boxing and botting/scripting.

Undead Canuck

Again. How is that bad? You cannot actually control all 5 at the same time. If you could, that would be botting and that will be penalized.
Having 5 instances running on your computer is different than having 5 computers in your house running, how? And why not just have 5 people at those computers. Then it is WAY more efficient.

Also remember that you have to pay for all accounts. And pay in-game taxes on all accounts. And split your time between all accounts. Why not just run 1 account full tilt and be more efficient? You can always have multiple alts on that 1 account that you can switch to in about 35 seconds. There you have your multiple people in multiple places.

DontTouchMyHoHos

Undead Canuck wrote: »

Again. How is that bad? You cannot actually control all 5 at the same time. If you could, that would be botting and that will be penalized.
Having 5 instances running on your computer is different than having 5 computers in your house running, how? And why not just have 5 people at those computers. Then it is WAY more efficient.

Also remember that you have to pay for all accounts. And pay in-game taxes on all accounts. And split your time between all accounts. Why not just run 1 account full tilt and be more efficient? You can always have multiple alts on that 1 account that you can switch to in about 35 seconds. There you have your multiple people in multiple places.

Read my first post, it explains entirely why it is bad. You dont need to control all 5 accounts at the exact same time.

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