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Poll + Bonus Dev Discussion - Multiboxing

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Comments

  • I made billions of zeny(Lineage2) running 27 clients on 2 PCs for low Zaken :dizzy:
    Multiboxing definitely has an edge compared to just playing 1 client.
  • VirtekVirtek Member, Phoenix Initiative, Royalty, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Current stance is perfect stance.
    No botting or synchronization/automation of multiple accounts and I'm happy
  • Song_WardenSong_Warden Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited July 2020
    Still can't see your posts Tsukasa. Can see your thumbs up but no posts. ;)

    Edit: I can see when you post, just can't see the posts.
    2a3b8ichz0pd.gif
  • SilurienSilurien Member
    edited July 2020
    Everyone seem to forget how a farm cie work, if they allow multiboxing , you will get 1 account an a bunch of sub "dude" working under it, ( the bot or #automatic behavior is'nt the only way for them to farm and try to unbalanced the game) .

    Suggestions :

    1 # Multi-boxing, should'nt be alowed and player that desire to play inside a same network should be treated as familly account whith a maximun restriction of 1 other ID to be able to play at the same time under the same account. As if other want more than an other familly member should be buy an other familly account that gave acces to the same possibility.

    2 # We should provide event further way to restrict access to the creation of fake ID and more. I would even say, maybe gave account only proof of personnal ID and that's might be a work around for allowing multi-boxing.

    3# I know " ID restriction" would offend somes. An other solution might be IP restriction by account // or IP restriction at maximun 5 ( in case of often player depending FSI services, might require by i.e: under a dsl connection to switch often. ) IF the IP are outside the range of previous monthly connection, you block them. ( IP restricition by region > city( of creator account) to, )

    4# Anti cheat software as valorant, make the game disable if not lunch on it ( and verification + flagging multi-boxing).

    #5 The goal is simple to make it so complicated that it will discourage the player from doing it. And provide an easy way for families, and rule out everything else.

    - High requirement to create a family account.
    : think about your options from there....

    At very least we need more thread on the matter i think.

  • 0xFF0xFF Member
    edited July 2020
    collecting personal IDs for game purposes? are you guys high? xD not to mention it would be prolly illegal in half of EU to process such data with no decent justification.

    Multiboxing will be there, people will use vpns/mobile phone hotspots to play with X computers, and you only make that more lucrative to abuse if u enforce 1 account per PC limits.
  • SilurienSilurien Member
    edited July 2020
    Tollan wrote: »
    Multiboxing does not destroy anyone's game experience. It's a choice of some players who want to waste their money as they want too. They bought a product anyway, they do with it as they please . This will not ruin game experience to anyone, this is only a way for some ppl that rather waste money and farm faster then apply as much time as any other hardcore gamer.
    It is clearly “a naive mind if you think so.” You are a person living in a utopia, ask another person who has made “VMs” which doesn't cost a cent, and which takes 15 minutes to create. They laugh at you. $ 16 might not even take him a whole day once they start farming, at this point it's like an F2P for him.
    And after a week you get an account with over billions of "in-game" money, the power is there.
  • 0xFF0xFF Member
    edited July 2020
    Silurien wrote: »
    It is clearly “a naive mind if you think so.” You are a person living in a utopia, ask another person who has made “VMs” which doesn't cost a cent, and which takes 15 minutes to create. They laugh at you. $ 16 might not even take him a whole day once they start farming, at this point it's like an F2P for him.
    And after a week you get an account with over billions of "in-game" money, the power is there.
    Easy Anticheat used by AoC detects and flags VM users by default, its trivial to detect virtualization for modern protections so i wouldnt be worried about these in slightest.
  • SekariSekari Member
    My boyfriend and I will be playing this game in the same household at the same time. We've been tracking Ashes for years now and it would be absolutely horrific if we were unable to play the game together just because we were on the same internet. I will vote and trust that Steven will support couples and families who have been patiently and eagerly awaiting for our time together in Verra.
  • papabear2009papabear2009 Member
    edited July 2020
    Sekari wrote: »
    My boyfriend and I will be playing this game in the same household at the same time. We've been tracking Ashes for years now and it would be absolutely horrific if we were unable to play the game together just because we were on the same internet. I will vote and trust that Steven will support couples and families who have been patiently and eagerly awaiting for our time together in Verra.

    What your concerned about isn't multi-boxing. Multi-boxing is if you were are playing like 5 accounts online all at the same time. Mutliboxing = 1 person(Not 1 household) playing on 2 or more accounts at the same time.
  • ArmatArmat Member
    Sekari wrote: »
    My boyfriend and I will be playing this game in the same household at the same time. We've been tracking Ashes for years now and it would be absolutely horrific if we were unable to play the game together just because we were on the same internet. I will vote and trust that Steven will support couples and families who have been patiently and eagerly awaiting for our time together in Verra.

    What your concerned about isn't multi-boxing. Multi-boxing is if you were are playing like 5 accounts online all at the same time. Mutliboxing = 1 person(Not 1 household) playing on 2 or more accounts at the same time.

    The issue of not allowing any multi-boxing at all would disallow more than one client from the same IP. Intrepid's idea of
    "allowing multiboxing from separate computers without automated/macro or keystroke mimicking software"
    means that as long as each character is being played on a different computer and it's a human controlling each one it should be allowed (ex. Husband & Wife playing together), which I believe most people agree on.

    This won't stop a single person from controlling multiple characters manually on different computers (if there are even any people who do that), but it's a better alternative to forcing only a single account to be online per IP address.
  • MarcetMarcet Member
    Having more accounts in diferent PCs is not a crime, you cant play with 4 keyboards, you could only have people play on those accounts, then its their accounts, then its just playing the game. Its like you tell 10 people of your guild to go farm something or do what you want, that would be even more harmful.
  • Armat wrote: »

    The issue of not allowing any multi-boxing at all would disallow more than one client from the same IP. Intrepid's idea of
    "allowing multiboxing from separate computers without automated/macro or keystroke mimicking software"
    means that as long as each character is being played on a different computer and it's a human controlling each one it should be allowed (ex. Husband & Wife playing together), which I believe most people agree on.

    This won't stop a single person from controlling multiple characters manually on different computers (if there are even any people who do that), but it's a better alternative to forcing only a single account to be online per IP address.

    You are just making a big assumption that if Ashes disallowed multiboxing that they will just do IP bans if more than one account is from the same IP. Clearly banning IP addresses isn't the solution and the more realistic approach is having automatic flagging for suspicious behavior that multi-boxers tend to have.

  • I worry about allowing multiboxing of any kind when you have some of the systems you do.

    For example voting for mayor, crafting allowing to get the best gear and that being sellable, pking, world pvp.
  • If AoC keeps everything as is, I just hope they don't add a follow option for players. Its just stupid seeing multi-boxers with a train of toons following them.
  • BoondBoond Member
    edited July 2020
    I fully support the current decision.

    As I support everyone stating that they are against multiboxing, being my opinion as well, we must also take into consideration that from a technological stand-point it is not possible to fully prevent a person from playing multiple characters on two different devices with alternative network (or using IP changing software, vpn etc).

    I had a problem with a game which was preventing multiple accounts to play via the same network, even on different devices. I was not trying to multibox, I was just trying to play with a friend.
    That is also something that I believe should not be a problem.
  • 0xFF0xFF Member
    Synstra wrote: »
    I worry about allowing multiboxing of any kind when you have some of the systems you do.

    For example voting for mayor, crafting allowing to get the best gear and that being sellable, pking, world pvp.

    you fix these problems with game design choices which will require a lot of effort from abusers. Like, player have to contribute to node X of something in last Y days to be allowed to vote for mayor, and so on.
    PKing or PVPing is out of topic with multiboxing, because you wont be able to effectively play on multiple accounts versus other people in realtime, unless you go for any kind of automation which is bannable by itself.
  • FathymFathym Member
    edited July 2020
    The only two things I'm worried about in terms of multi boxing are
    1. Using multiple accounts combined with the family system for effective fast travel.
    2. Multiboxers buying up multiple freehold plots since there will only be a limited amount on each server.

    Both of these issues become very difficult to solve if we want to allow family members in the same house to play together. It might be in the best interests of the game to just remove the family system entirely. While the system is a nice quality of life addition, there is just too much room for it to be abused.

    The only way I can see to avoid the issues with freeholds would be to make sure there are so many freehold plots, that one player buying multiple wouldn't cause availability issues for others. They would also have to make sure that there is no major, in game, benefit to owning more than one. I am not really a big fan of this because it takes away a bit of the feeling of accomplishment associated with saving up and buying a home for yourself with your own a layout and designs that everyone in the game can see. Hopefully someone smarter than me can think of a better alternative solution than this.

    Other than these two glaring issues, I think multi boxing isn't really that big of a deal. Especially since all scripting is banned.

    Edit: I just read some of the other comments and multiboxing is also a major concern in the election system. Being able to pay real world money to rig an election is absolutely unacceptable.
  • GrimeyeGrimeye Member
    edited July 2020
    Multi-boxing shouldn't be allow at all in my opinion!

    Here is a solution that might work to minimize the multi-boxing if the decision is changed:

    1. Automaticly identify suspected multiboxer and flag the accounts.
    2. Call an GM to monitor these accounts with the priority of the most simultaneous instances.

    How you could automaticly identify a suspected multiboxer is if the current location (ish), changes in movement trajectory and skill activation over time partly matches several accounts for a couple of samplings. It could be done on client-side since this information should be available for nearby players.

    I think this is something that can be tweaked to minimize false positives. The GM could tag the accounts that had a false positive to help improve the multi-boxer identification process/ai.

    A human check could also be triggered for all the suspected multi-box instances and check for irregular completion pattern.

    If you trust this identification process enough no GM will be needed either and the punishment might not need to be too severe either. 1 day ban multiplied by each multi-box instance for first-time offenders?
  • Undead CanuckUndead Canuck Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    And what if I am playing with my partner? We might be running together, fighting together, gathering together.
    What about me and 7 of my guildies crafting? Technically, we would have a lot of actions in common.
    What about a LAN party where we just want to run around?

    So you want to be banned for a day because you and someone else are similar in a random sample?
  • FathymFathym Member
    Grimeye wrote: »
    Multi-boxing shouldn't be allow at all in my opinion!

    Here is a solution that might work to minimize the multi-boxing if the decision is changed:

    1. Automaticly identify suspected multiboxer and flag the accounts.
    2. Call an GM to monitor these accounts with the priority of the most simultaneous instances.

    How you could automaticly identify a suspected multiboxer is if the current location (ish), changes in movement trajectory and skill activation over time partly matches several accounts for a couple of samplings. It could be done on client-side since this information should be available for nearby players.

    I think this is something that can be tweaked to minimize false positives. The GM could tag the accounts that had a false positive to help improve the multi-boxer identification process/ai.

    A human check could also be triggered for all the suspected multi-box instances and check for irregular completion pattern.

    If you trust this identification process enough no GM will be needed either and the punishment might not need to be too severe either. 1 day ban multiplied by each multi-box instance for first-time offenders?

    What you are describing is considered botting to the devs and is already not allowed. They have already said that any form of scripting where multiple characters follow each other and perform the same actions is bannable. This debate is about whether it should be legal to run multiple accounts manually at the same time. From a combat game play perspective there isn't really much of an issue with it since it will be close to impossible to play multiple characters manually at once. However, there are issue having multiple accounts as I described in my post.
  • papabear2009papabear2009 Member
    edited July 2020
    And what if I am playing with my partner? We might be running together, fighting together, gathering together.
    What about me and 7 of my guildies crafting? Technically, we would have a lot of actions in common.
    What about a LAN party where we just want to run around?

    So you want to be banned for a day because you and someone else are similar in a random sample?


    A normal player and a multi-box character is going to act drastically different especially with no scripting or add-ons, they could monitor the time between each action they perform, the overall rate of progression on toons, the rate of items/money being traded, etc etc. So I wouldn't worry about it, just like bots, multi-box accounts act very differently than a normal player.

    Also, there has been plenty of people banned for "acting like bots" so with that logic there shouldn't be enforcement with botting. But those people acting like bots are 1% of a 1% type of people.
  • Meh... Go ahead and multi-box, I don't care. I don't have time for the things like mutli-boxing, or the nonsensical guild drama and spying (it's for children as far as I am concerned), PvP... But go ahead, multi-box until you are content. I game with my kids (which are adults now days). We are a very small demographic, and my vote percentage reflects... that surprising :)

    It's not my brand of fun. If it's yours: I'm happy you found something interesting and fun; good for you - truly! I simply don't care about all that, but I did vote. Hoping my honest vote is helpful.
    "Don't be hasty."
  • KilvorianKilvorian Member
    edited July 2020
    My opinion(which will likely get lost in the sea of posts here) is that If multi-boxing is allowed then it is something that needs to be easily accessible to the entire player base. So... if we are to allow it then it should be something that is very user friendly and incorporated into the game itself. This inherently is the problem with any perceived advantage within any game. If only 5% of the population are able to do it(due to computer knowledge/savvy and also spending the money to virtual box and run multiple clients) then its something only a few people even have the ability to pull off and gives them an advantage over the other 95% that are unable to do it. However if it is something that is made simple enough that the vast majority have the ability to do it, then it wont be an issue at all and those that wish to do it will and those that don't wish to wont. Its when you fall into the category of "I would do that if I had the knowledge/money to do so but I cannot" that an issue arises.
  • Quinny_WinnyQuinny_Winny Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Politically I think its smart for Intepid to take a neutral path when it comes to Multi-boxing the client.
    But unfortunately in reality it doesn't matter. You can lead a horse to water but you cant force it to drink.

    A few pros to multi-boxing
    - More bodies for PvP to target.
    - More loot/economy gain
    - More surveillance
    - Larger Population
    - More scarcity of Player owned Land

    A few cons to multi-boxing
    - More server lag
    - Inflation of economy
    - Bots
    - Pay to win shenanigans
    - High ceiling of entry into PvP


    Honestly the game needs to be designed in a way that AFK activities yield no gains
    - Mining should require contracts or have element like need to survey a mining node before it yields valuable resources
    - Fishing should be done like Archage late game fishing
    - Guilds should have class modifiers so they can specialize in specific jobs.

    Not sure I will even want to play in Ashes being a open world PvP game, but I have seen at least one game figure it out and execute the formula perfectly for about 30 day before they ruined it and removed any incentive to try and stay blue.


    Hopefully multi-boxing wont even be necessary to have fun and the risk/reward for putting a PvE player in a forced PvP world dost turn into the entire game into a certain Candle Quest.

  • I personally don't feel that multi-boxing would be so bad. I feel the reasons against it arise from a bad game design. Problems like auto-follow of 20 characters or keeping loot in a logged off character do make it unfair when multi-boxed, but they also affect the single-boxing (e.g. ability to log off in "unsafe" zone). Hence, I feel that all efforts to blocking multi-boxing easily end up just ignoring flaws in the game itself.

    Thus, I would put all the effort on designing the game so that at least:
    - there aren't any required roles that are only suitable for an alt, or in other words, all roles are meaningful
    - PVP should be challenging enough for a single client and there shouldn't be passive roles
    - mining/nodes/stuff doesn't linearly scale with the amount of characters (e.g. only single character can mine a node or there is limited number of materials to be shared)
    - there isn't ways to logoff when you would normally be in a danger

    On the topic of single client vs. multiple per computer. I personally see restrictions to a single client as a stupid software design. It's now-a-days irrelevant to limit things to a single computer as that is a virtual concept. A Single computer can run multiple sandboxes, which will result of multiple single computers within a single hardware. On the other hand, it's as trivial to use single keyboard+mouse with multiple computers too.

    In other words, don't waste time on restrictions that are meaningless, focus on the game design to make it less beneficial to multi-box. Everything is fine as long as there isn't unfair advantage from running multiple clients.

    There are very good and valid uses for multi-boxing too. For example, one could be doing diplomacy and communicating with two parties at the same time or managing a town while doing some mining on the other screen. I consider it better for them to play only this game with multiple clients than playing other games at the same time.
  • If I ever see 10 max lvls run around gathering The same stuff in a conga line i Will unsub The same day lol
  • AspAsp Member
    Can we get a new poll, far out too many people don't actually understand what multi-boxing is. I bet heaps of people have voted *I agreed with Intrepid* because they are worried they won't be able to play with family on the same IP.

    I'd be interested to see the results if the options were:

    -Absolutely no multi-boxing of any capacity (will not limit 1 user per IP)
    -Allow multi-boxing from multiple computers without scripts (1 person controlling multiple characters, NOT MULTIPLE FAMILY MEMBERS IN THE SAME HOUSEHOLD)
    -Less restrictions

    I think it would be safe to assume, many more people would pick option 1.
  • Undead CanuckUndead Canuck Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    Asp wrote: »
    Can we get a new poll, far out too many people don't actually understand what multi-boxing is. I bet heaps of people have voted *I agreed with Intrepid* because they are worried they won't be able to play with family on the same IP.

    I'd be interested to see the results if the options were:

    -Absolutely no multi-boxing of any capacity (will not limit 1 user per IP)
    -Allow multi-boxing from multiple computers without scripts (1 person controlling multiple characters, NOT MULTIPLE FAMILY MEMBERS IN THE SAME HOUSEHOLD)
    -Less restrictions

    I think it would be safe to assume, many more people would pick option 1.

    You pretty much just quoted this poll. People are just not understanding. They keep assuming botting is multiboxing. For them, please read #1.

    1 - I agree with Intrepid's decision to allow multiboxing from separate computers without automated/macro or keystroke mimicking software.
    2 - I disagree with the decision to allow any multiboxing.
    3 - I believe there should be more restrictions, but do not agree with banning multiboxing completely.
    4 - I believe there should be fewer restrictions, and multiboxing on the same computer should be permitted.
    5 - Long hair, don't care.

    I assume you just mean remove #3 and 5.
  • AspAsp Member
    If you look in the brackets it goes into further detail, there's lots of people who are voting for Agree with Intrepid because they're worried about not being able to play with family. Intrepid did a poor job of communicating what each option means.
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