Multiboxing

[woq]

Is multiboxing a symptom of people circumventing unfun design, a cheat, a fun way to enjoy the game in a different way, a natural progression due to a dwindling population, a reaction to living in an inactive timezone, an attempt to help others more, problematic player behaviour that makes balancing certain mechanics/effects harder (EA aura anyone?)... There are many perspectives you can take, I think there is no easy answer and all of the aforementioned have some merit to them.

When it comes to grouping etiquette: The answer is the same as it always has been boxing or not - tell them how you feel and if you can't see eye to eye, then don't group with them. It is no different than joining a player who plays at a completely different pace/difficulty/way than you - there are playstyles and players that are incompatible. This is common and normal and completely fine imo.

Tokens of the Twelve and Slayer Areas were the reason I made alt accounts that I mostly leave in the stable (I prefer playing one character). Seeing those empty LFM's begging for people to help them with tokens make me cringe. Been there, quit the game over that before - now have alt accounts for that specific purpose and I have by now passed far more tokens and items to other players than farmed items for myself. My experiences with other multiboxers have been nothing but positive, whether it was someone using autofollowers, a buffbard, tokenpullers or item pullers. This no doubt affects my perspective on it. YMMV.

 

[vryxnr]

Is multiboxing a symptom of people circumventing unfun design, a cheat, a fun way to enjoy the game in a different way, a natural progression due to a dwindling population, a reaction to living in an inactive timezone, an attempt to help others more, problematic player behaviour that makes balancing certain mechanics/effects harder (EA aura anyone?)... There are many perspectives you can take, I think there is no easy answer and all of the aforementioned have some merit to them.

I started multiboxing because I've had too many negative experiences with other people, so it became a solo game as I'd rather enjoy being by myself than dealing with trolls, griefers, and a-holes. Some of my accounts were previously friends of mine who stopped playing due to being harassed for being female.

And the more I soloed and solo-boxed, the more value I found in doing so. I also grew to enjoy the unique challenges of boxing. Not using software, no auto-following, but sometimes controlling more than one at once by having a laptop nearby so one hand controls the laptop while the other controls my main PC, and the challenge of making builds that can take punishment and give other benefits (buffs, heals, debuffs, some DPS too even) while afk/just standing there and doing fast window swaps to move around and do what is needed. The hardest window swap was me solo-boxing the north doors in VoN5, as the timing is tight!

But again (and last I heard from the devs talking about it), so long as it's you controlling them and not a piece of software, boxing in DDO is allowed (not an exploit).

 

[The_Apocalypse]

I love hanging out on the HC Server and seeing the notifications for 5 similarly named toons dying by lava.

 

[SunTzu]

Another exploiter's win. Devs may wonder why many people hate their game.

 

[Bjond]

Is multiboxing a symptom of people circumventing unfun design

Any time there's a game with multi-boxing, the reason is always "advantage", never "I just like playing 4 at once".

What would it take to park my bot forever?

1. Gamewide deterministic loot; eg. unpassable tokens (like raiding) or ESO-style "sticker-book"
2. Working hirelings; ie. can stay alive & heal
3. LFMs that fill quickly (eg. via more players / mega-server)

That about covers all the reasons I use a bard-bot now and/or contemplate using a full party of bots. The last one is actually the least important for getting rid of the bot: 1+2 covers questing. 3 pushes the bot out of more raids (we only bring bots when raid doesn't fill -- typically only newer raids for which most still lack access).

 

[Mokune]

My gut instinct told me multi-boxing toons on follow in epics was the reason for the Exalted Angel healing aura nerf.

I cannot believe it was changed for balance reasons. It seemed more a punitive change to target specific styles of gameplay that affected everybody whether they exploited the healing aura mechanic or not.

Like the Night Revels Dodge clicky hat....Instead of JUST fixing the Exclusivity bug peeps exploited they also had to punish the rest of us with the CD change.

I could be wrong? /shrug but I doubt it.

 

[Mindos]

.Instead of JUST fixing the Exclusivity bug

But it had the word exclusive right on the description!

 

[Mokune]

But it had the word exclusive right on the description!

Wait what?!?! Are saying words *actually* mean stuff and things?

 

[Smokewolf]

Back in the day, I knew people from EQ and WoW that could seamlessly multi-box an entire party for raiding. However, DDO does not directly support boxing or macros, so multi-boxing kinda sucks in our environment.

That being said, the main reason for multi-boxing DDO, is getting your alt flagged or just as a means to abuse a Necro opener. Otherwise, dedicated multi-boxing is clumsy at best, a nightmare at its worst.

 

[Ying]

That being said, the main reason for multi-boxing DDO, is getting your alt flagged or just as a means to abuse a Necro opener. Otherwise, dedicated multi-boxing is clumsy at best, a nightmare at its worst.

Underrated comment. People who don't multibox look at those that do through some kind of highlight reel, thinking it's so much better than what they're doing. That's the thing though. The grass isn't any greener, it's just a different shade of brown.

It's also laughable to see the people raging about multiboxing never had a problem with someone logging in a Shadow Crypt opener.

 

[Smokewolf]

Is multiboxing a symptom of people circumventing unfun design, a cheat, a fun way to enjoy the game in a different way, a natural progression due to a dwindling population, a reaction to living in an inactive timezone, an attempt to help others more, problematic player behaviour that makes balancing certain mechanics/effects harder (EA aura anyone?)... There are many perspectives you can take, I think there is no easy answer and all of the aforementioned have some merit to them.

When it comes to grouping etiquette: The answer is the same as it always has been boxing or not - tell them how you feel and if you can't see eye to eye, then don't group with them. Imo it is no different than joining a player who plays at a completely different pace/difficulty/way than you - there are playstyles and players that are incompatible. This is common and normal and completely fine imo.

Tokens of the Twelve and Slayer Areas were the reason I made alt accounts that I mostly leave in the stable (I prefer playing one character). Seeing those empty LFM's begging for people to help them with tokens make me cringe. Been there, quit the game over that before - now have alt accounts for that specific purpose and I have by now passed far more tokens and items to other players than farmed items for myself. My experiences with other multiboxers have been nothing but positive, whether it was someone using autofollowers, a buffbard, tokenpullers or item pullers. This no doubt affects my perspective on it. YMMV.

So I take it your butthurt cause so multi-boxer didn't want you in their group? Or, are you just sour that you can't box?

TBH, It's not like there's a significant advantage to boxing vs playing with a real group. Yet there are always those that are spiteful and disagree with how someone else plays. From which we end up seeing chain-threads full of QQQ. That can't make a rational argument or just simply fail to understand that DDO's an open world until the Dev's state otherwise.

 

[woq]

So I take it your butthurt cause so multi-boxer didn't want you in their group? Or, are you just sour that you can't box?

TBH, It's not like there's a significant advantage to boxing vs playing with a real group. Yet there are always those that are spiteful and disagree with how someone else plays. From which we end up seeing chain-threads full of QQQ. That can't make a rational argument or just simply fail to understand that DDO's an open world until the Dev's state otherwise.

Wait, what? That was not the sentiment I was going for with my post at all. I'm a multiboxer and not butthurt at all and not advocating for anything.

Edit: I even said my experiences have been nothing but positive. That means... positive. My experiences have been positive.

 

[woq]

I started multiboxing because I've had too many negative experiences with other people, so it became a solo game as I'd rather enjoy being by myself than dealing with trolls, griefers, and a-holes. Some of my accounts were previously friends of mine who stopped playing due to being harassed for being female.

I'm sorry to hear that. Glad you found a way to enjoy the game despite of others making it harder for you and your friends.

 

[Col Kurtz]

I don't see the problem. Just drop and move on...
I don't usually mind Multi boxers, especially if its an eXtra Bard Buffer giving everyone buffs at the entrance - I'm all in on that.

I don't recall ever joining a LFM posted by a multi-boxer that wasn't labeled as such or they didn't tell me straight away.
I don't think I have ever had a multi-boxer join my LFM (maybe once but he asked first).
Now I don't stand around and wait for anyone to re-run the quest for loot... that I won't do. Ima hit that bell and check out.

exactly,like a few others noted. ..often the player multi-toxin..woops> I mean multi-Boxin !
is fairly proficient at it.

Now, i dont see it listed in the lfm much anymore...the old timers know to just post 'MB' in their LFM...theres your FYI, AOK

 

[Br4d]

I feel that I have experienced exactly the opposite to the original post. I have yet to join a group with someone who is multi-boxing and wished they weren't. My experience with mutiboxing accounts has been nothing but positive. I do not have the skills, to hyperzerg through all the quests. In the past week, everytime I have been in group when I suspect someone is multi-boxing, I was weak link. Not only did they run the quest well, but they ran two characters through better and faster than I ran one. Additionally, I was able to benefit as they pulled the gear I was looking for on their second account which they then passed. I feel bad the original poster has had difficult experiences when they have grouped with multi-boxers. I am curious as to which of us is the norm and which is the exception.

I've been multi-box capable since 2018 or so. I took it seriously the first year that I set it up, including toming out a Bard, Cleric and Rogue on alternate accounts.

I realized after awhile that the process was valuable mainly for the ability to flesh out alternate accounts. My main was nothing but inconvenienced by the alternate accounts and leveled much slower as a result of my multi-box play. I tried everything to optimize the process including just bringing the alt accounts into an instance with the main and doing nothing else with them, ignoring looting unless an item was being farmed.

Lately I only run the alternate accounts when I am leveling a low power alt with no intention of advancing them into the power meta. The coupons really helped when they were released but I mainly run very fast quests when I am multi-boxing. I think I have a couple of alt accounts that have gotten to 20 and TR'd without ever seeing anything other than a small set of daily quests.

 

[Eulrik878]

IS there a KILL command?? /kill ??

 

[Ying]

IS there a KILL command?? /kill ??

Yes, ALT-F4.

 

[vryxnr]

IS there a KILL command?? /kill ??

/death does kill your character in game, but it also sends you to your bound point right away, so you don't use it in a quest to turn into a soul stone.

Hence, Greensteel.

 

[Genkiba]

/death does kill your character in game, but it also sends you to your bound point right away, so you don't use it in a quest to turn into a soul stone.

Hence, Greensteel.

I just zerg my naked alt into the first group of enemies.

He blows up real good.

 

[PersonMan]

Really depends on how much of friends we are. If we are good friends I would have 0 issue with me running all the quests solo while my friend runs multiple characters to the quest to get himself some leveled up lootbots.
Multi-boxing isn't the issue; it sounds like it was a lack of communication between strangers. A while back someone was requesting to remove the lfm description text; personally I would love more room to give clear info.