Rolling List of Multiboxing Discussion + Additional Conversation

Edit IV: Changed title.

papabear2009 makes a case against multi-boxing and how it affects opportunities for other players. https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45077/a-different-look-on-multi-boxing

CaptainChuck has a lengthy post about multiboxing solutions: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45037/multiboxing-its-solutions-and-why-it-wont-be-as-much-of-an-issue-in-aoc

Tsukasa makes a case for how a series of mechanics can be utilized with multi-boxing for exploitative effect: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44989/heres-how-multi-boxing-can-be-exploited

Reign makes a case for multiboxing not being a gold farming problem, because of full PvP and GM intervention. https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44928/a-discussion-of-gold-farmers-botters-multiboxers

PatrickWillian pleads to the devs to not let multibox botters ruin the game: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44407/bots-and-multibox

Here's a case made by DontTouchMyHoHos that multi-boxing is pay to win: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44910/multiboxing-input-and-why-its-p2w
And a separate point they made regarding multiboxing and virtual machines: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45055/multiboxing-with-virtual-machine

Fae also makes a case that multi-boxing is pay to win: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44890/multiboxing-is-p2w

Runestone also makes the pay to win case: https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/44952/why-multiboxing-is-pay2win

DaRougaroux shares thoughts too.... https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/45081/multi-boxing-is-bad-for-the-game-period

My own original post, which you've also arrived to, is about additional ways to approach the subject of expanding an individual's party without multi-boxing. Enjoy!

__________________________________________

Heya folks! I see that this is the next topic coming up, but wanted to drop some thoughts of my own.

First off I do want to address the technical consideration that has been offered. No multi-boxing on one system, but multiple systems running a single application is okay. That's cool, but I'm pretty sure a dedicated multi-boxer can get all their separate machines to communicate and interact just as seamlessly as one machine running multiple clients. Functionally all this does is make people own more computers and draw more energy. Or utilize a nifty cloud computing / virtual machine solution.

On a functional scale, multi-boxing reduces the number of players needed to play the game in full. I believe this to be counter-intuitive to MMOs as a whole, as this contributes to playing an MMO as a single-player game instead of being one unit in a living, breathing world where you're supposed to interact with others. If making a raiding party is too difficult and frustrates players, they shouldn't have to rely on multi-boxing as a solution. This is also not economical for most players, leading to a disparate situation where players with more resources can go much further and faster, while individual players may be hamstrung by lack of access to participants. It also means individual players will have less ability to deal with a multi-boxer's roving gank squad.

If we want to allow one player to control multiple characters, whether on their one subscription or across multiple subscriptions, I don't believe multi-boxing should be the solution. Here's three ideas I've pitched at other MMOs over the past 15 years or so:

1 - Hireling, Crew, some form of NPCs. If they're part of a dedicated crew for the player, the player would be responsible for arming them, giving them a training regimen, and housing them if there isn't some sorta communal housing locally. Hirelings might come from a pool from nodes that have a mercenary office, or be otherwise hired through direct communication (which may require some discovery on the part of the players, as people won't just be flagged as hire-able and combat-ready).

2 - Alts as NPCs. Allow the player to bring their alts along as NPCs, possibly even being able to switch between them based on who has skills that are needed for the situation. I can understand how that may avert the "multiple subscriptions" part of multi-boxing, so it could be a feature that is locked behind an additional convenience fee, and yes I do feel kinda dirty suggesting that.

3 - Non-subscribers can piggyback on subscribers with a "buddy account" system so friends can tag along as your cohorts, either as their own unique character or as the player's alts / buddy characters that might not be playable by the subscriber. It would need some restrictions to prevent being a superhighway for abuse, but the intent is that a player can have non-subscribers play along with them using a buddy login code. It may be possible that someone has multiple subscribers they buddy for, as well. The restriction is that they're kept within a certain proximity of the subscriber, and is only in-game while the subscriber is in-game, so a group can't essentially buddy their friends in perpetually and give them full access and agency.

These are by no means the only possible routes to go, but I feel like something where players can get access to additional allies without multi-boxing would be worthwhile, and could curtail the need or desire for multi-boxing to begin with.

And this is all in a combat and earning context too. A player who simply wants to RP a town drunk on one box while hammering out goblets on another might not get as much out of the proposed systems.

/endrant

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Comments

Songcaller

This is the second request I've seen to let people with no sub play. The game has a sub fee and all players should have to pay it. It is not fair for some to pay and others not to pay.

Edit: I dont mind some have paid for lifetime subs.

Neurotoxin

Well has the dev discussion happened?

Aardvark

Neurotoxin wrote: »

Well has the dev discussion happened?

Actually yes several of them

Neurotoxin

But I just don't see the official Dev Discussion #21 post. The official post is slated for next week, as per Steven's Discord message.

Neurotoxin

Neurath wrote: »

This is the second request I've seen to let people with no sub play. The game has a sub fee and all players should have to pay it. It is not fair for some to pay and others not to pay.

Edit: I dont mind some have paid for lifetime subs.

That's a fair point, but the intent is for there to be limitation on what a player can do when piggybacking on a paid player's account. Like I don't think you'd be using fancy aesthetics and skins, there would be limits to where you can go or how far from your main player, and if it gets abused than that player's buddy slot is basically disabled for a period of time relative to the abuse that was performed. Beyond that, buddy players could even be used as recruitment filler throughout the world, and there could be (with some sorta success and participation metrics) preferred buddy players who really know the game well and get recruited to fill in better than some random subscribed player.

It wouldn't be a free+sub free-for-all, there would definitely be terms and constraints to encourage the player to buy in and have their own account instead of just playing with friends or family. It would also allow for potentially better parental access for adults who want to let their kids play but not screw up the account, and other parental controls can be added.

Andi

It's important to make a new thread, so all attention is on your words, rather than contributing to an existing discussion, where people could just scroll by.

Neurotoxin

Andi wrote: »

It's important to make a new thread, so all attention is on your words, rather than contributing to an existing discussion, where people could just scroll by.

Feel free to review the edits. Yes MAYBE I was wrong to make my own disparate post instead of lumping my conversation into a completely separate multibox discussion, but I've tried to upgrade this one to be more useful for the community as a whole.

phdmonster

Neurotoxin wrote: »

Edit II: It is preemptive relative the dev discussion #21 slated for next week. Buncha smartasses in here! And yes I understand that I'm not the only one to post a multi-boxing discussion.

Heya folks! I see that this is the next topic coming up, but wanted to drop some thoughts of my own.

First off I do want to address the technical consideration that has been offered. No multi-boxing on one system, but multiple systems running a single application is okay. That's cool, but I'm pretty sure a dedicated multi-boxer can get all their separate machines to communicate and interact just as seamlessly as one machine running multiple clients. Functionally all this does is make people own more computers and draw more energy. Or utilize a nifty cloud computing / virtual machine solution.

On a functional scale, multi-boxing reduces the number of players needed to play the game in full. I believe this to be counter-intuitive to MMOs as a whole, as this contributes to playing an MMO as a single-player game instead of being one unit in a living, breathing world where you're supposed to interact with others. If making a raiding party is too difficult and frustrates players, they shouldn't have to rely on multi-boxing as a solution. This is also not economical for most players, leading to a disparate situation where players with more resources can go much further and faster, while individual players may be hamstrung by lack of access to participants. It also means individual players will have less ability to deal with a multi-boxer's roving gank squad.

If we want to allow one player to control multiple characters, whether on their one subscription or across multiple subscriptions, I don't believe multi-boxing should be the solution. Here's three ideas I've pitched at other MMOs over the past 15 years or so:

1 - Hireling, Crew, some form of NPCs. If they're part of a dedicated crew for the player, the player would be responsible for arming them, giving them a training regimen, and housing them if there isn't some sorta communal housing locally. Hirelings might come from a pool from nodes that have a mercenary office, or be otherwise hired through direct communication (which may require some discovery on the part of the players, as people won't just be flagged as hire-able and combat-ready).

2 - Alts as NPCs. Allow the player to bring their alts along as NPCs, possibly even being able to switch between them based on who has skills that are needed for the situation. I can understand how that may avert the "multiple subscriptions" part of multi-boxing, so it could be a feature that is locked behind an additional convenience fee, and yes I do feel kinda dirty suggesting that.

3 - Non-subscribers can piggyback on subscribers with a "buddy account" system so friends can tag along as your cohorts, either as their own unique character or as the player's alts / buddy characters that might not be playable by the subscriber. It would need some restrictions to prevent being a superhighway for abuse, but the intent is that a player can have non-subscribers play along with them using a buddy login code. It may be possible that someone has multiple subscribers they buddy for, as well. The restriction is that they're kept within a certain proximity of the subscriber, and is only in-game while the subscriber is in-game, so a group can't essentially buddy their friends in perpetually and give them full access and agency.

These are by no means the only possible routes to go, but I feel like something where players can get access to additional allies without multi-boxing would be worthwhile, and could curtail the need or desire for multi-boxing to begin with.

And this is all in a combat and earning context too. A player who simply wants to RP a town drunk on one box while hammering out goblets on another might not get as much out of the proposed systems.

/endrant

I don't see how any of your suggestions fix anyhting. None of them will incentivise a multiboxer to stop multiboxing. In fact it give that person even more reason to do so because now he can leech a lot more (extra characters to do his bidding). You give each of his characters either a crew, his alts as NPCs or an entire playable character. If i am going to have several different accounts running on different machines, why would having my alt characters as NPCs around me stop me from multiboxing? Intrepid can't really track and connect separate accounts and if they are alts or main chacters to the same person.

Multiboxing over multiple machines is only acceptible because there no effective way of tracking and stopping it without having a huge amount of false positives. Nobody wants people to take advantage of holes in the game's design, but some people will. Nobody wants the economy to be ruined (altough i fail to see that), nobody wants to get farmd by an unstoppable 40 man group of balance druids.. i mean mages

EmpyreanIke

sage all multibox threads, do you really fucking think multi-boxing is going to be some widespread issue in one of the most hardcore and un-alt friendly MMOs of all time? why do people act like every person will be multiboxing 20 accounts, so ****.

You people try to invent random new systems to combat multiboxing. You are not allowed to multi-box on the same machine, if you are caught you will be banned. you are allowed to multi box on separate machines if you are arent using macros or scripts. multiboxing is less than 1% of mmo

Neurotoxin

phdmonster wrote: »

I don't see how any of your suggestions fix anyhting. None of them will incentivise a multiboxer to stop multiboxing. In fact it give that person even more reason to do so because now he can leech a lot more (extra characters to do his bidding). You give each of his characters either a crew, his alts as NPCs or an entire playable character. If i am going to have several different accounts running on different machines, why would having my alt characters as NPCs around me stop me from multiboxing? Intrepid can't really track and connect separate accounts and if they are alts or main chacters to the same person.

Multiboxing over multiple machines is only acceptible because there no effective way of tracking and stopping it without having a huge amount of false positives. Nobody wants people to take advantage of holes in the game's design, but some people will. Nobody wants the economy to be ruined (altough i fail to see that), nobody wants to get farmd by an unstoppable 40 man group of balance druids.. i mean mages

I see your point and I can completely agree that it would be an issue for a multi-boxer to have a full party on each account. I would hope that the division of loot and experience would be diluted for anyone trying to do this, compared to just running their 8 boxes as one party, but that's a bit of a narrow view since the game has a high PvP emphasis and squads of 8 will bash someone into the ground much faster than 8 individual multibox players.

Anyone with a system where they can send inputs to their machines in a way that seems like player inputs may be tough to detect, but I have a feeling that--if they so chose--Intrepid could detect behaviors and patterns of suspected multi-boxers, including gameplay behavior, timing of abilities for a given tight-knit group, etc. Reviews of current and past IP addresses, MAC addresses, transaction sources to pay for subscriptions, may also help them track them down. And likely many other methods. Of course if they're using something that interprets game data and acts based on it, I'm pretty sure any ol' anti-cheat program can catch it.

Thanks for your input!

akabear

1 Hirelings NPC
Interesting idea and if the mechanics require that a certain party makeup is required then all for a backup plan of a hireling, provided the are a stop gap measure and not equivalent to a real player

2 - Alts as NPCs
Rather see someone multibox than players use multiple characters from same account
Deflates the income the company can make and in turn potentially reduces the potential service that might be able to provide

3 - Non-subscribers
I appreciate the intent but definate no, if you don`t pay, you don`t play. Not fair for those that do pay.

Neurotoxin

akabear wrote: »

3 - Non-subscribers
I appreciate the intent but definate no, if you don`t pay, you don`t play. Not fair for those that do pay.

Thanks for your input! I would hope that hirelings are functional enough to fill the role, but wouldn't replace a player if you have access to one instead.

That's a completely fair point about alt multiboxing relative to the bottom line.

Regarding the third point, the free-to-play wave revealed to us that players are content. I don't see it in a fair / not fair as much as how much content one player account can be responsible for contributing to the world, while being at the monthly threat of losing access if they stop paying and none of their buddies wanna chip in on it. The subscription, as far as I'm concerned, is to keep cheaters out and keep the team well-budgeted for post-release development and maintenance.

Would you really keep a dedicated MMO player out because they can't afford a sub? Someone who will contribute greatly to the game? Why let money get in the way of a good time?

phdmonster

Actually, i think the Non-subscriber idea is the most interesting out of all of them. It's like hiring a stewart for your knight with a few basic abilities, that is just controlled by your friend and not AI.

The only problem is this can also be exploited, so until they have a good net of checks and ways of detecting bad actors, such ideas should be kept to the level of ideas. I still like it though, don't get me wrong.

Neurotoxin wrote: »

akabear wrote: »

3 - Non-subscribers
I appreciate the intent but definate no, if you don`t pay, you don`t play. Not fair for those that do pay.

Thanks for your input! I would hope that hirelings are functional enough to fill the role, but wouldn't replace a player if you have access to one instead.

That's a completely fair point about alt multiboxing relative to the bottom line.

Regarding the third point, the free-to-play wave revealed to us that players are content. I don't see it in a fair / not fair as much as how much content one player account can be responsible for contributing to the world, while being at the monthly threat of losing access if they stop paying and none of their buddies wanna chip in on it. The subscription, as far as I'm concerned, is to keep cheaters out and keep the team well-budgeted for post-release development and maintenance.

Would you really keep a dedicated MMO player out because they can't afford a sub? Someone who will contribute greatly to the game? Why let money get in the way of a good time?

Neurotoxin

Another thought that comes to mind is that buddy accounts are just unflagged for combat. No raid assist, no gank squad. They can use skills like trying to detect traps or open doors, maybe sing a song encouraging people to hire you for monster slaying, and may have limited inventory space. This takes a lot of the power out of what a buddy can do, but they would still need enough ability to be useful and affect the world in some way. This could perhaps be better for role-playing than augmenting mechanical gameplay.

akabear

Appreciate the sentiment of the poll but would prefer more options as if I am reading correctly, the choices offered are short, long or none..

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