How bad is the multiboxing?

[Vireys]

Thinking of getting back to EvE as subbed player (the free model is really bad), but last time i played there seemed to be exessive amount of players multiboxing to the extreme (playing several accounts at once) and thus making the uneven play field even more uneven.

What is your experience guys, do people still go grazy with multiboxing?

Lord knows its a expensive and time consuming process to IP one character, but to think i would have to sub and IP 2+ accounts just to be on par with everyone else is a bit too steep with my wallet with the risen monthly fee as an added negative.

Any thoughts?

Any other negative aspects i should take in to consideration before making my decision? IS there still good 1v1 fights to be had or is it just gang warfare with fleet bros and multiboxers?

[Vireys]

Publicado originalmente por Heathy:

I can't really explain it to you, I have 1x 1440p monitor, 1x 1080p monitor, I can crank the sensitivity up so that it takes a small flick to get the cursor from one screen to the other, but then the sensitivity is too high for a single screen.

its no the doing it that is difficult, I never said it was difficult, I said it wasn't intuitive because the sheer scale of moving it back and forth.

I dual boxed nestors in a c5 doing the drifter escalation, that wasn't so bad because the nestor were cap chaining to each other so each box was a single unit, one nestor capping and repping the other. but I still had to mouse back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over and over and over and over again, to tell the drones which target to attack.

its just better to have them on one screen like the guy in the multiboxing video, then you don't have to move the mouse that much. there is still a delay and that delay is what will get your boxes killed in pvp.

Aha ok i get what youre saying, thanks for feedback.

[Shotgun]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Ok thanks for your tips, good info, very helpful.

Do you personally think it would be a good idea to include multiboxing in the new player guides to let new players get familiar about the mechanics of EvE in this regard? Or is it better for them to notice it for them selves? It would save them alot of time to start training the multibox army right away.

The knowledge of the severity of multi-boxing in EVE would be a significant turn-off for new/potential players. This is something I acknowledge about the game even as a (relative) fan. In my opinion, putting it out on the table right away would do more harm than good for player retention, but at the same time I don't believe it's ethical to withhold the information. I don't have a complete answer to this question, as I simply don't possess the data and statistics that the devs do, who have went all-in on the multi-boxing mentality because it probably makes them more money than having a bigger number of unique players with fewer accounts each.

I don't think anyone needs a multi-box army, though. I've never used more than two characters in combat at the same time, which is already difficult to pull off in terms of control. The people who multi-box for PvP tend to do it in groups and environments where they outnumber and outgun their enemies already, as a kind of psychological element to curb-stomp the resistance. In a true engagement, let's say between 4 players using 5 accounts each versus a group of 20 players using 1 account each, assuming other variables like player skill and ships/equipment are constant, the multi-boxers would lose, badly.

[MegaKootz]

Multibox miners are great. Have you ever seen a multiboxer flipout after losing 4 of the 6 retrievers brought out? Priceless.

[Heathy]

it scales for things like mining because the level of input is low, it scales for industry jobs, all kinds, research, copying & manufacturing. you can only have so many slots on 1 character. same for PI, you can only have 6 planets per character. so if you really want to go Ham on PI then you're probably going to want multiple characters with PI skills.

its also beneficial just because of the amount of skills that there are, I trained my main into gallente, caldari and minmatar upto medium projectiles (can't do minny battleships or large guns but I will one day), and i trained my alt into amarr, it was, for a while pure amarr but over time I've cross trained it into caldari and missiles, it also has my market skills and it flys my freighter, it has recons 5, hacs 5, logi 5, marauder 5, it can fly hics and dics, stuff my main doesn't have, because it was an alt I could waste the time going for 5s and not just be happy with 4s because I wanted to train other things. With your main characters you're constantly juggling things that you'd like to have and you have to settle on 4s a lot so you can squeeze other stuff in and get that to 4, so my alt ended up highly specialised and good at what it does. so you're using multiple characters for different reasons they aren't all on grid shooting. my main character used to fly thanatos/ninazu but I extracted my capital skills and switched to fleet boosting, I pretty much exclusively fly either logi or command ships with my main char. my alt has become my main in some regards due to it being able to fly a perfect paladin or golem. it definitely makes more isk than my main, but they both do PI and I have a 12 planet setup. that makes repair paste and the mats for fuel blocks. which I usually just sell as i'm not mining ice. I think I make maybe 200m a week from highsec PI. not amazing but something relatively passive. they have tied PI into industry pretty heavily so its something you'll want to do if you want to make stuff.

when you go upto capitals you kinda need your own cyno character, it used to be easy to get a cyno character any ship could light a cyno, these days it has to be a force recon so the cloaky recons. that means a cyno char can't just be some random no skilled alt but it needs one of the cruiser skills trained to 5. you could rely on your corp/alliance cyno beacons, but it is very preferable if you can light your own cynos. and yes ofc the cyno character can't be on the same account as your capital. the very mechanics of the game itself force you into the situation where it is just flatly better to have at least 1 other account. that does everything your main account can't do. or simply reinforces the things that it can do. even if that just means being able to fly all main faction ships upto battleships in half the time. (assuming you spread the load between both) you can split toons any way you like, it might even be beneficial to train up one character doing armor tanked ships and one character doing shield tanked ships, that way, either armor or shield you should be able to fly a ship for that fleet.

[Sadpan]

It's not that bad, and you are not at a disadvantage not multiboxxing for a huge part. If you play with other people in a corporation or alliance, you won't need to multibox. If you play solo, you mostly won't need to multibox either. It only really came in handy for me when I tried multibox exploration. It's neat but it got too unwieldy with three, didn't wanna push it more. Mining could use multiboxxing pretty easily but it's not worth your time to mine usually, better off doing other stuff that pays more and isn't so dull. The only time you really NEED to multibox is to scout out the next system or two on a route when you're flying a freighter.

[Myriad]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Aha most use 2-3 in combat settings

I mean control 2-3 toons, including the main. So with 2, you'd have your main, and 1 alt account.

Knowledge of the battlefield, or travel path, is the most important thing you can have to give you an edge. More important than bringing a dozen ships. So a single alt acting as a scout (and if need be, a little backup) would be my first choice.

[Vireys]

Publicado originalmente por Myriad:

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Aha most use 2-3 in combat settings

I mean control 2-3 toons, including the main. So with 2, you'd have your main, and 1 alt account.

Knowledge of the battlefield, or travel path, is the most important thing you can have to give you an edge. More important than bringing a dozen ships. So a single alt acting as a scout (and if need be, a little backup) would be my first choice.

Yeah 1 main account 1 alt account is the bare minium, and people can always add more in time. Its a good mental adjustment to acknowledge that 1 account doesen't cut it if you want to be on par with other players multi boxing.

Another guy here said he multiboxed 2 x nestors repping eachother and giving cap to one other. Nice combo, but i surely wouldn't want to play against it, what a nightmare xD.

[Vireys]

Publicado originalmente por Sadpan:

It's not that bad, and you are not at a disadvantage not multiboxxing for a huge part. If you play with other people in a corporation or alliance, you won't need to multibox. If you play solo, you mostly won't need to multibox either. It only really came in handy for me when I tried multibox exploration. It's neat but it got too unwieldy with three, didn't wanna push it more. Mining could use multiboxxing pretty easily but it's not worth your time to mine usually, better off doing other stuff that pays more and isn't so dull. The only time you really NEED to multibox is to scout out the next system or two on a route when you're flying a freighter.

Yeah atleast 1 scouting alt is really nice to have to be on par with majority, maybe new players have bad experiences since this information is not common knowledge, that to be on par more than 1 account is indeed a good idea.

[Heathy]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Another guy here said he multiboxed 2 x nestors repping eachother and giving cap to one other. Nice combo, but i surely wouldn't want to play against it, what a nightmare xD.

they had a strong tank I think it was somewhere around 3k dps tank, but they would have gotten steam rolled by an actual rolling corp. like lazerhawks or whoever else is rage rolling these days. they bring in a fleet of cruisers with logi and they'll break your reps but you probably won't break theirs with your ratting fleet. when I dual boxed nestors it was for pve and the wormhole was made safe, statics critted. its usually a good idea to sit a cloaked character on your statics if you are in w-space however. if someone jumps in, you'll see them. but ratting fleets are no match against an actual pvp doctrine. i think when I did it there were, 3 to 5 of us dual boxing, so maybe 6-8 nestors depending on who was on. I think to kill the drifter battleship you needed at least 6. so 3 ppl dual boxing. each nestor only does about 500 dps, 6 of them is 3k dps. you're also only sharing the blue loot between 3 ppl rather than 6+ if each person is using 2 ships you make more isk per person.

like someone else mentioned the best part of a second account is just the ability to sent it ahead of your other character as a pair of eyes. a scout, I lived in w-space a bunch and used one character to web myself off wormholes when moving stuff in and out. you have a second character with a web, you can make yourself pretty much instant warp.

I've seen a rage roll happen right in front of me, archon warps to the site, c5 blackhole, inertia is insane, big things don't stop moving so the carrier needs to be webbed by a loki to make it stop, new signature pops up, interdictor on d-scan i'm like 'new sig new sig! on voice 'warp off...' then 'dictor on dscan', carrier tries to warp, bubbler lands on top of the archon. then the fleet comes in. it all happens in about 30 seconds. after 1 minute the rolling fleet is on grid shooting the tackled archon. i'm just sitting like 80km away in a dominix trying to pop frigates with sentry drones. nothing I could do.

to answer the guy below me, I lost one of them in the hole, I think the corp I was in that c5 with eventually just went idle, less and less ppl logged in and eventually no one defended the citadels, I think the corp lost about 30-40b in total when they died but I was in the middle of a mega break, I've lost a bunch of ships in w-space that I just left in there and forgot to take out before stopping playing. I think I did get one of my 2 nestors out and sold it. but i've lost probably about as much isk as i gained from w-space from ships that were in citadels or, PoS SMA's.

hell if you're super lucky, you can find stuff like that in w-space, towers that ppl forgot about.

like these.

https://zkillboard.com/kill/51628933/
https://zkillboard.com/kill/51628947/

I can remember someone saying on comms 'I've just found 2 smas at an offline PoS in a wormhole, come help me kill them!'

it might be less frequent these days but there is stuff like that just sitting around in w-space.

[Myriad]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Another guy here said he multiboxed 2 x nestors repping eachother and giving cap to one other. Nice combo, but i surely wouldn't want to play against it, what a nightmare xD.

Sounds nice hey. Under the right circumstances it's doable, if you can keep a low profile, which might be impossible with two Nestors, or have guild mates you can call on in a moments notice.

Whoever said that would have been a very juicy target, at the time he was referring to, and I wonder if he still has those two particular Nestors.

[Sadpan]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Publicado originalmente por Sadpan:

It's not that bad, and you are not at a disadvantage not multiboxxing for a huge part. If you play with other people in a corporation or alliance, you won't need to multibox. If you play solo, you mostly won't need to multibox either. It only really came in handy for me when I tried multibox exploration. It's neat but it got too unwieldy with three, didn't wanna push it more. Mining could use multiboxxing pretty easily but it's not worth your time to mine usually, better off doing other stuff that pays more and isn't so dull. The only time you really NEED to multibox is to scout out the next system or two on a route when you're flying a freighter.

Yeah atleast 1 scouting alt is really nice to have to be on par with majority, maybe new players have bad experiences since this information is not common knowledge, that to be on par more than 1 account is indeed a good idea.

It is not a good idea. Especially for new players, but even veterans don't really use their alts all that much. CCP statistics even show that only half of players even have a second account at all (not just one they actively play), and the chart sharply drops off the more accounts each player has. It's not necessary to gameplay, and may even be detrimental depending on what you do.

[Sadpan]

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Publicado originalmente por Myriad:

I mean control 2-3 toons, including the main. So with 2, you'd have your main, and 1 alt account.

Knowledge of the battlefield, or travel path, is the most important thing you can have to give you an edge. More important than bringing a dozen ships. So a single alt acting as a scout (and if need be, a little backup) would be my first choice.

Yeah 1 main account 1 alt account is the bare minium, and people can always add more in time. Its a good mental adjustment to acknowledge that 1 account doesen't cut it if you want to be on par with other players multi boxing.

Another guy here said he multiboxed 2 x nestors repping eachother and giving cap to one other. Nice combo, but i surely wouldn't want to play against it, what a nightmare xD.

That's a loot pinata

[Vireys]

Publicado originalmente por Sadpan:

Publicado originalmente por Vireys:

Yeah atleast 1 scouting alt is really nice to have to be on par with majority, maybe new players have bad experiences since this information is not common knowledge, that to be on par more than 1 account is indeed a good idea.

It is not a good idea. Especially for new players, but even veterans don't really use their alts all that much. CCP statistics even show that only half of players even have a second account at all (not just one they actively play), and the chart sharply drops off the more accounts each player has. It's not necessary to gameplay, and may even be detrimental depending on what you do.

Hmm by looking this entertaning multibox ganking video i get the picture that multiboxing can indeed be a BIG HUGE help in PvP. This video says its really easy and fun and effective way to club them seals xD.

Im not sure who to believe? My eyes when i watch many, many videos like this online, or your good solid statement without any back up. Its a really tough call, but i just cant stop seeing what i see here.

It seems you guys who say "Multiboxing is not beneficial and doesent help in PvP" that you guys are telling us the altered truth, or lying, but i will not be as bold as to say so. I have decided that my eyes are lying to me and multiboxing in this video did not help the video maker in any ways.

How do other see this video? Do you see that there is just a littlebit of help from 4 alts in multibix PvP?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnNcjsuM2XI

[Vireys]

Oh my god, i must live in alternatave universe, i found another Multibox PvP video, but as stated earlier by honest bro's (joke hehe), we all can see that again the video maker DID NOT have any help from multiboxing, in fact in hindered him and made the whole thing harder, imagine how much better result it would be without the multibox what is clearly holding him back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_cHEkP48cA

[Heathy]

no one is saying it doesn't help what i've said is that having other players is better, if you're boxing its because you don't have other ppl to fill those roles, if you have other players you don't need to box as much. just think of the extra multiboxed clients as other players which is what they are making up for. in a fight with equal numbers, 5 ppl playing 5 individual clients, vs 1 guy boxing 5 toons, it is much more likely that the 5 ppl playing those toons will beat the single guy boxing 5 toons by himself. just because each individual player is going to react much better than a single guy trying to react with 5 clients. THIS is how its balanced. in other words, l2p, make friends, beat ppl boxing.