Dual-Boxing PVE

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

A couple of points: In my experience people open-world multi-box because they've landed on this as a "local maximum" on the rewards vs. effort curve. I never seen multi-boxers setting up for (event) Giant Monsters in zones above a certain level because the GMs get harder as the zones level (this was an old effect no longer in play for typical zone GMs). IN other words: no multiboxer is going to waste time in Grandville hunting the Giant Monsters when Atlas Park is available.

 

I see multi-boxers in just about every zone farming ToT and GMs.  They are more prevalent in Atlas, but they are in other zones too.

 

1 hour ago, tidge said:

As for enforcement: It would have to be like every other code-of-conduct element is enforced. How that actually shakes out is up to others, not me. I have no idea how these things are enforced, except when I witness "genericed" characters. I don't expect folks to be actively policing, but if it was a code-of-conduct violation then at least I'd have an expectation of investigation when reported.

 

Again, how do you plan to enforce the rule?  What you are suggesting here is correct in that enforcement is reliant upon others reporting activity that may violate the CoC.  With that said, how are you individually going to determine someone is multi-boxing to report them without knowing for certain if they really are multi-boxing?  Just tossing it over the fence and letting someone else decide is making work for the GMs.  

 

1 hour ago, roleki said:

On the flip side, I ran about 50 SBBs back-to-back with someone who was dual-boxing Masterminds and the way she had everything macro'd and mapped, her 'alt' was more active than all but the most-caffeinated of PUGlies.  Point being, it is possible to multi-box and contribute with both characters, so don't be too hasty to write them off completely.

 

This is not the same thing as SBB and TFs/SFs/Missions are instanced content.  This is not the same as open world multi-boxing.  I sometimes multi-box to solo higher level TFs for badges and such.  That does not impact others in the open world.

[tidge]

1 hour ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

Again, how do you plan to enforce the rule?  What you are suggesting here is correct in that enforcement is reliant upon others reporting activity that may violate the CoC.  With that said, how are you individually going to determine someone is multi-boxing to report them without knowing for certain if they really are multi-boxing?  Just tossing it over the fence and letting someone else decide is making work for the GMs.  

 

If I was a GM I wouldn't share HOW I was enforcing any element of the code-of-conduct.... my "leaving it up to the GMs" is the de facto approach to such things. As for "how to tell if someone is multi-boxing?"... It takes very little insight to see a pattern of the same four global accounts consecutively logging in within seconds of each other to summon Adamastor. The Global Account names are often a dead giveaway, as mentioned above: Neckbeard, N3ckbeard, Neckb3ard, N3ckb3ard, Neckbeard2, etc.

 

If such a thing is coincidence (on multiple days) let the GMs sort it out, if they care.... right now, there is a limit to how much they care, I wish the threshold was lower but it isn't like I could do much of anything under either limit. 

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

52 minutes ago, tidge said:

If I was a GM I wouldn't share HOW I was enforcing any element of the code-of-conduct.... my "leaving it up to the GMs" is the de facto approach to such things. As for "how to tell if someone is multi-boxing?"... It takes very little insight to see a pattern of the same four global accounts consecutively logging in within seconds of each other to summon Adamastor. The Global Account names are often a dead giveaway, as mentioned above: Neckbeard, N3ckbeard, Neckb3ard, N3ckb3ard, Neckbeard2, etc.

 

If such a thing is coincidence (on multiple days) let the GMs sort it out, if they care.... right now, there is a limit to how much they care, I wish the threshold was lower but it isn't like I could do much of anything under either limit. 

 

I was not suggesting GMs should divulge the inner workings of how they monitor everything, only that enforcement of the CoC seems to generally come from reports from players.  It also seems very clear that despite all of the reports and flagrant CoC violations, the violating activity merrily goes on year after year.  My thought was that in order to curtail a behavior, you have to remove the incentive for it.  Unfortunately that could mean others are impacted, however it is pragmatic and there is precedence for it - see removal of converting EMP merits to Reward Merits.  There were a few abusing it, so it was removed for everyone.  

[tidge]

18 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

 My thought was that in order to curtail a behavior, you have to remove the incentive for it.  Unfortunately that could mean others are impacted...

 

A multi-boxer that claims (for example) 4x rewards for Adamastor once-per-day is still claiming multiples of the rewards for a solo player... so I don't see this (implemented) change as disincentivizing open-world multi-boxers. Multi-boxers pretty much end up bringing the hammer down on everyone. Even though I don't care about multi-boxing in instances, I'm not naive enough to believe that the change to Empyrian rewards was driven by solo farmers.

 

A truer disincentive for open-world multi-boxing would be loss of days of game time for the multiboxer, "smoothing out" (over time) the rewards they'd have earned without multi-boxing. This of course would be an applied penalty and not strictly speaking a disincentive. I think part of the motivation for the two rounds of Giant Monster revamps was to disincentivize single players (mbox or not) from tackling Giant Monsters. Most got harder for solo players, but almost all of them are pretty straightforward for a pair of players... so it isn't as if multi-boxers are losing out after those changes. Certain multi-boxers may avoid nuEochai and Lusca, but otherwise I don't much change in behavior.

[ShardWarrior]

5 minutes ago, tidge said:

A multi-boxer that claims (for example) 4x rewards for Adamastor once-per-day is still claiming multiples of the rewards for a solo player...

 

While true, it does curtail their ability to farm Adamastor every hour 24/7 for easy merits as they can with Halloween event GMs.  

 

7 minutes ago, tidge said:

Even though I don't care about multi-boxing in instances, I'm not naive enough to believe that the change to Empyrian rewards was driven by solo farmers.

 

That was precisely one of the stated reasons for the change.  There were a few who were farming up alts to a certain vet level, then deleting and starting over to farm merits by converting EMP merits.

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

That was precisely one of the stated reasons for the change.  There were a few who were farming up alts to a certain vet level, then deleting and starting over to farm merits by converting EMP merits.

 

That sounds like multi-boxing, not solo. One character leveling up multiple others from the same player.

 

If GMs can figure out this is happening in instances, I'm sure they can figure out multi-box Adamastor summoners. It's literally only a single zone to check the logs. The instanced AE farm is harder to police/specify than open-world actions... so I can see enough daylight between the two circumstances that would demand a different approach. Giving someone a timeout for playing in an AE instance wouldn't really make sense from my PoV.

 

As I noted earlier: that was a secondary effect on me, and yet I'm not non-plussed by it like I am about the open-world multi-boxers. 

[ShardWarrior]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

That sounds like multi-boxing, not solo. One character leveling up multiple others from the same player.

 

Correct.  It also set the precedent that I was referring to in that the behavior of a few led to a change that impacted everyone.  Were HC to ever look into limiting the merit rewards from Halloween GMs to once a per day drop same as Adamastor, it would be a change that would unfortunately impact everyone due to the multi-boxing behavior of a few who are farming GMs in open world zones.  I do not expect any changes to be made to stop multi-boxing in open zones.  I think it more work than its worth and unfortunately multi-boxing is going to be something we will just have to put up with.  

 

9 minutes ago, tidge said:

If GMs can figure out this is happening in instances, I'm sure they can figure out multi-box Adamastor summoners. It's literally only a single zone to check the logs.

 

As I recall, and my memory could be wrong, it was discovered by finding accounts that were leveling to a certain level and deleting an inordinate amount of alts.  As for checking logs, how do you determine that accounts coming from the same IP address is an individual player and not family/friends playing on the same network?  Again, I think it more trouble than its worth and I do not expect we will see any drastic changes to stop multi-boxers open world GM farming.

[Snarky]

All of this catch and punish multi boxers seems to assume the Devs can easily determine who is multi boxing.  The only clue I know (and i suck at tech, and, um, everything…) is the IP address.  Which, I believe, can be masked.  Also, what about a household with multiple people playing at same time.  I know of two such houses I game with regularly through Justice Superteamers.  Are we going to punish them because they share the same IP address?   
 

These are just questions from a non tech old world vampire.  You tell me…

Edited Tuesday at 08:10 PM by Snarky

[tidge]

48 minutes ago, Snarky said:

 Also, what about a household with multiple people playing at same time.  I know of two such houses I game with regularly through Justice Superteamers.  Are we going to punish them because they share the same IP address?   

 

This is a "red-faced" test. If the only extra cost is have to explain the particular behavior... I'm talking about a hypothetical family of 4 that logs in a different character from teh same 4 accounts every hour to only fight Adamastor... let each of them claim that this is what they are doing.

[Scarlet Shocker]

Is Dual Boxing like Duel Blades only with Brawl six slotted? 

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, tidge said:

 

This is a "red-faced" test. If the only extra cost is have to explain the particular behavior... I'm talking about a hypothetical family of 4 that logs in a different character from teh same 4 accounts every hour to only fight Adamastor... let each of them claim that this is what they are doing.

so, ... you are hunting communists?  you are going about this really round a bout....

[huang3721]

I used to multibox 3 accounts to do  old blue missions back in 2020. (Five when I ran Praetorian contents.) During that year, as far as I know, nobody joined my "team" complained. 

 

Fyi, those alt account were also bot accounts. I scripted them so that they would execute certain attack chain based on their HP left ( Offensive chain vs. defensive chain when they were low on hp). 

 

Maybe we should legalize bot accounts? This way those alt account would contribute to the team. 

[tidge]

11 hours ago, Snarky said:

so, ... you are hunting communists?  you are going about this really round a bout....

 

I feel like you missed the layup on the blood rushing to the face.

[Ukase]

17 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

There were a few abusing it, so it was removed for everyone. 

There were people using it. It was an option at the merit vendor. 
To call it abuse is suggesting people were doing something they weren't supposed to. 

[ShardWarrior]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

There were people using it. It was an option at the merit vendor. 
To call it abuse is suggesting people were doing something they weren't supposed to. 

 

Correct.  Unfortunately, the HC folks disagreed and saw this as abusive, so the option to convert EMP merits to Reward merits was removed.  

[Ukase]

19 hours ago, huang3721 said:

I scripted them so that they would execute certain attack chain based on their HP left

You did what? 

I want to know how - but don't tell me, as I'm sure that's got to be a no-no. And yes - per the CoC it is a no-no. See the entire thing here.



Pay particular attention to number 2. 

[Neiska]

Got the feeling we may have gotten a bit off topic here. People are debating how to prevent/punish people from doing something that's not even against the rules. Technically if people want to go and solo a GM or multibox and kill one, they can. I agree it's kind of poor form, personally when I am about to fight a GM i put a shout in the LFT channel, but we aren't obligated to do so. But to be clear - there is no official rule against such activities. And I know it sucks missing out sometimes, I've gotten within 10m range of attacking of a GM dying and didn't get credit. But I would prefer those rare circumstances than the "No fun allowed" police dictating to other players how they can or can not play, especially if it's not against the rules.

[huang3721]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

Pay particular attention to number 2. 

You told me that 2 years ago, if I am not mistaken.

 

Anyway, I've got what I wanted back then. Even with such rudimentary logic, those bots could still pull a coordinated attack against the mobs. It was beautiful.

 

Too bad bots are forbidden here in Homecoming. They could make door sitters contribute better to the team. A win/win solution for me. 

 

[Troo]

On 11/4/2025 at 12:10 PM, Snarky said:

I know of two such houses I game with regularly through Justice Superteamers.  Are we going to punish them because they share the same IP address?   

 

Of course not.

Unless there is unusual or suspicious activity happening. In which case there would be questions.

and FYI - They can tell and it isn't terribly difficult to derive what's going on. 

[Troo]

On 11/4/2025 at 5:22 PM, huang3721 said:

I scripted them so that they would execute certain attack chain based on their HP left

On 11/4/2025 at 5:22 PM, huang3721 said:

Maybe we should legalize bot accounts? This way those alt account would contribute to the team.

 

I'll go on the record - I'm okay with the termination of all accounts that share your IP address and every IP address you've logged in from. All transactions from said accounts should be reviewed and potentially also terminated. 

 

Play the game or don't. Play how you want. Just don't abuse the opportunity to play. This isn't bitcoin mining.

 

 

The whole Empyrean Merits experience shortened my fuse for these type shenanigans.

(4 or 5 servers) x (3 accounts each) * 24 * 7 * (# of weeks) = ridiculous levels of abuse while crying "I'm not breaking the rules"

 

 

Don't get me wrong - If a player finds a way to earn some extra cash or experience, I won't begrudge that. Kudos.

If said player begins to scale operations and it turns into excessive abuse or exploitation.. well.. a big part of this game is Choices & Consequences.

[Snarky]

4 hours ago, Troo said:

well.. a big part of this game is Choices & Consequences.

Wait….  What?!?