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Is Multiboxing in a PvP Game Cheating?
uquipu
Member Posts: 1,516
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Have you ever been one shot by someone playing two or more toons?
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Is multiboxing in pvp fair?
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The image above is a multiboxer who plays 12 accounts at once.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Comments
Doesn't bother me if you are paying the monthly sub for each account.
Unless the players are exploiting the fact they are multiboxing (intentionally feeding kills if there is a system that rewards the act of killing itself - not looting - with something) then yes, otherwise no.
Killing a player who multiboxes two characters is far easier than killing two players who aren't multiboxing. Anything the multiboxed accounts can do can be done by the two players with some coordination (yeah, you can't fire off two spells at exactly the same time, but you can come pretty close). Manuevering two players appropiately multiboxing takes an extreme about of coordination and will never equal the level two skilled players can manuever and react on a single account.
In the extreme cases where players multibox full groups or more, they can do little except perform autofollowing and macro'd functions (albeit across all accounts) like timing powerful attacks to hit you simultaneously. If you think abont it, you are fighting no more than a single person who has to deal with extra distractions (managing all those accounts) and the rest of the group being little more than well managed bots.
It could maybe be considered cheating more in PvE (as someone who has multiboxed before I personally wouldn't call it that though) or in games that don't require as much coordination and have a need for more numbers in PvP (I believe EVE fits in this category), but even then I think you'd be hard pressed to find a reason why this may be considered cheating.
Neither to the game company, I guess
I believe it to be unfair, and in games like wow-pvp I think it is technically cheating as you gain a big advantage by playing a game in a way that was unintended and not possible through normal means.
Advantage? Yes being able to co-ordinate 5 toons, in wow for example, in a way that no team of 5 individuals could does gain an advantage. Yes there are ways to overcome such things, but in my mind it's still unfair. I do not, however, have any desire to see it banned or whatever.
I would say, it depends on the level of the pvp. I am going to use wow as example, for instance if you go for low ratings where teams are mainly casual, you will find that a casual multiboxer will have some advantage since its targetting is completely coordinated, especially for 5v5, 5 shamans can be deliver a nasty almost one shot. When the rating starts going up, more skilled players have better coordination so the targetting advantage dissapears and they are left with problems of movement coordination. So, imho it gives advantages in the lower ratings but disadvantages at high ratings.
In PVE, it is already exploited in some way, after the referral system was created in wow, multiboxers are leveling machines not only for the xp buff but also because of the ability of doing instances, group quests without waiting. In leveling most of the time there are not too complicated maneuvers so multiboxers are able to perform well and quick. Essentially multiboxers skip part of the social requirements of the game(not including complicated dungeons or raids), since they are a group by themselves.
So, I dont mind them too much, but certainly is not a play style that everybody can afford. It is still debatable if those advantages are morally right, or just another form of grouping.
I don't care about PvE, but in PvP it's not fair. Anytime you get instantly killed by another player means the game is unbalanced.
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Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
It is not cheating but if I can't, or it is really hard to counter it with my player skill, the game is lacking. Furthermore if you need to multibox to get forward in the game, the game is lacking.
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I dualbox in EVE, but I am also an industry pilot. Does it give me an edge on people trying to come pk me or steal my ore from my can? You bet. I don't think it is unfair though.
People like to call 'foul' in PVP games. I mean, is the guy who has no job and can grind 18 hours a day 'fair' to normal people?
There is always a way to get an 'unfair' advantage, I think so long as the company allows it, and you are not having to alter code or anything to dual box, it's fine.
Multi-boxing in PvP is cheating, yes.
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I once complained about it in WOW and got a canned response that said it wasn't illegal. However, if I remember correctly, the player needs to be sending commands to each character. They can't have it set up where they issue one command and that command is instantly carried out by all the characters. I don't know if it was OK to have a program that automatically switched to each account and issued the command, I would think that that is illegal too. After I got the canned response, I was going to watch the next multi-boxer carefully: if they all attacked exactly at the same time, it was cheating, and I was going to report them. If they attacked in sequence, even a very quick sequence, I wasn't going to report them. But I wound up never seeing a multi-boxer again. This was a couple years ago....
In Eve multiboxing is fairly common, as it is often a slow paced game... still it's not that easy (except for mining ops and such) and risky (you lose double the stuff if you fail)...
This is a concept over which I've debated with myself for quite a while now. I don't think there's much doubt that multiboxing is indeed an advantage in most cases, but the real question is whether or not it's a fair advantage.
I struggle with the fact that if a player is actually paying for or has paid for the equipment to run the multiboxing operation and is paying for the multiple accounts, then maybe he or she is entitled. In life, if you can afford a Ferrari and buy one, how is that unfair to me, who can only afford a Chevrolet? The opportunity is there, but it is a matter of whether or not I can afford it. The idealist in me thinks that those who can afford to multibox and do actually indirectly affect the rest of us in a positive way by further supporting a game we are playing. Is simply multiboxing itself cheating? I don't think so.
The flipside I see in this is that it has been theorized that many of the multiboxers out there are RMTs and goldfarmers: the archenemy of all MMO gamers. They will exploit any and every possible advantage available to them, legal or not, multiboxing notwithstanding. Without jumping up on my RMT soapbox, I will just say that they are the ruin of ingame economies and giving them any further advantage is detrimental to our ability to have fun in our favorite MMORPG. A single multiboxing RMT in a loot-centered game can be very, very destructive.
Ultimately, I don't see multiboxing itself as an unfair advantage to gamers who can afford to do it. I don't think I would ever do it myself, if for no reason other than the connotation the activity has with me personally. I see it as a tool used by RMTs to further earn an illegal buck at the expense of honest, fun-seeking gamers. As for those of you who use multiboxing to expand your gaming experience, good on ya. Thanks for paying... er, playing.
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Macros are used in WoW. Most boxing doesn't require any form of botting whatsoever and just use of macros and a special keyboard where you can send commands to multiple machines at once (you can find these on sale at e-bay). Botting is pretty much illegal in any game, and it's hard to tell if a multi-boxer is doing so (they probably aren't) or if they are using one or more of these macro keyboards.
Yes, the high burst capability of these hydra boxers using things like 5 shaman/mage setups in WoW or 5 wizard setups in EQ is nasty, but it's nothing 5 players couldn't do using /assist (which you should in any PvP play to begin with in any of these games) and coordination. A 5 player boxed team is no more coordinated than a 5 player team that isn't boxing, after their initial burst (which any 5 player skilled team can do with a similar setup) they have little else they can do, since they no longer have those long cooldown instant bursts they can throw out and are suspectible to CC effects, kiting (which is easy to do since these setups require autofollowing) and various other crap. If you are being beaten by a 5 player burst team in WoW you are either being hard countered by burst (no anti-burst setup like grounding totems, divine shield, PW:Shield, tanky chars) or you need to seriously reevaluate your tactics, since that's essentially being beaten by 1 player and 4 bots.
It gives the player an advantage in PvE obviously that they can do more as well as powerlevel accounts and such (even without the method mentioned in the post aboved and through normal legit means), but personally if a player wants to go through that effort, cost, and is supporting the game with multiple subscribed accounts while maintaining the rules of the TOS, I don't think it's really a big enough deal to ban the player for it.
Farmers usually use hacks or botting to generate large amounts of gold, multiboxing isn't really a part of it, and from what I understand they WILL multibox, but for the most part the bot and/or hacks will do most of the work, and they'll usually have the accounts setup in multiple areas of the game independent from each other. Multiboxing isn't really assisting them with the farmer (making more content available that they couldn't do otherwise), instead it's just another form of income they can get via botting another account or extra damage to bring something down faster.
From the articles I've seen on this most of RMT companies have factories with a lot of people working on it. These people work for around 10 cents an hour 12-16 hours a day rotating on 2 shifts on one to three computers depending on various other factors. Most don't even multibox. Bots do most of the work and they are mostly there to check that the bot didn't fail or in case a GM sends them a tell to confirm if they are online or not. Multiboxing may seem like a problem when RMT is involved, but in reality there isn't much multiboxing going on.
If you go to a multiboxing site/forum, you'll see dozens of scripts that help multiboxers control all those toons. These scripts are illegal for the most part because they automate some of the toon actions.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
This is the picture of the guy's character(s) in the game....
even without scripts it stay unfair, 12 characters focusfire on 1 player by 1 mouseclick because he linked 1 mouse to 12 recievers just isnt fair imo.
but what is the difference between that and guild on vent focus firing several of their parties on one character other than it might take two or three seconds to have everyone on the same target?
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If they are using software such as Keyclone to make all their toons initiate the same actions at once then I would say yes. They are playing one character and using third party software to make all the other characters mimic the main toons actions. This person is not playing multiple toons, just getting the benefit of having a group of synchronous puppets.
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3 seconds (alhough i think its a bit more more then that) is a huge loss of time in pvp
And letting 8 people do the same thing on the same time on the same target is already an achievement on its own
Is it an advantage? yes
Is it cheating? no, unless they are using scripts that use same keystrokes for all characters.
any pvp team can do this just set up a assist macro based on one persons target and have everyones attacks feed into it. it isn't cheating because you are not fighting one player you are fighting how many players the multiboxer is playing so you better bring the same amount if you want to win.
This. Since I view macros as cheating, (most games do too) and can't see a way to multi-box like the example in the OP w/o using macro scripts then yes, its cheating.
In EVE people like myself multibox, but my accounts aren't linked to a single set of keystrokes, I have to issue orders separately to them and especially in PVP isn't really effective to do so since I use a single box and alt tab between them.
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Would you say that a large part of the Eve population multiboxes?
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Yes it's cheating, and it also destroys immersion for other players in a similar manner as botted characters do.