Game of Alts - Multiboxing Explained

He rives in grorious Nippon, and that’s just not how they do things in their judicial system.

Don’t get me wrong, I love their food and their animes and stuff, but over there you can set foot inside a store, and wind up in jail for a year, just because some security guard had a quota to meet.

I’m not sure I understand your full point here.

Are you saying one has to be wealthy to play multiple characters?
Eve is great for many reasons. The reason I think it’s great and applies to this topic is that you Must learn how to control your wallet.
Proper investments can pay out big time, while throwing money away makes for a bad outlook.
If you’re going to play eve successfully, you need to apply what you learn here into your real life.
Grind some money, invest it, sit on the investment, and collect the payout when it’s ripe.

Proper education in a field can go a long way to building your baseline finances. It’s like training a skill in eve. The good skills take time to learn, and often have a significant impact on your future. While low skills make you capable, you’re just not good enough to compete on a high level.

There have been people who have asserted that it is humanly impossible to control that many accounts, and that therefore he must be cheating. Evidence was provided to the contrary. Now, anti-boxers are effectively moving the goal posts. Not only have they failed to provide evidence of wrong doing, but now they demand evidence that no wrong doing has ever occurred.

No. You absolutely do not need to be wealthy to multibox. I don’t know if you’re being serious, or hypebolic, but this a bad way to bring up a good point.

Okay, so multiboxing can cost extra money, which can prevent some individuals from doing the same (either because of current financial difficulties, or they live in a country with crappy wages).

Now, the problem isn’t actually with sub costs. I certainly don’t pay RL money for all the subs and MCT’s. I trained alphas up for free, and scrimped and saved for the initial plex and ships that I would need. And now, I use the isk I make from multiboxing to pay for everything. So, as far as software is concerned, there need be no additional cost.

Hardware is a different matter. Now, Eve isn’t a very demanding game, which means that you don’t exactly need a 2k dollar gaming rig in order to be able to run 2 accounts. But that still doesn’t change the fact that, generally speaking, you will need more expensive hardware the more accounts you run. This fact will indeed prevent some players from being able to do the same.

So, is multiboxing fair if it’s something that not everyone can do? Honestly, I think the answer is yes. Not everyone can fly a titan, but that doesn’t make it unfair for people to fly titans. What’s important is that there are counter play options. And the simple fact of the matter is that multiboxing is easily countered by making friends. Assuming equal player skill, character skill, and ship cost, 2 real life players will have an advantage over the guy who dual boxes 99.9% of the time (yes there are rare exceptions). And that advantage just increases more and more as the number of accounts increases (i.e. 20 swinging dicks will have a huge advantage versus one neckbeard that is multiboxing 20 accounts).

So no, I really don’t think it’s unfair. That being said, I am concerned about perceptions of fairness, as that is an issue that can drive players away from the game. So, does that mean we should get rid of multiboxing, or limit multiboxing to 4 or even 2 accounts? I’m not so sure. Obviously, it will make some people happy, but most Eve players don’t seem to consider this an issue. Moreover, it will definitely piss off a lot of the more hardcore players, most of the solo demographic, and a lot of content creators (i.e. FC’s who scout for themselves). Not to mention what it would do to CCP’s bottom line. Thus, getting rid of it would probably do more harm than good.

Hm. I should have made a poll from the get go. I guess I’ll just create a new thread with a poll asking how people feel about multiboxing, and link it back to this thread. It’s not ideal, because I don’t want to split the discussion, but I also want to get a decent sample size. Anyway, I’ll provide a link in a few.

Now here’s a question -just how much money does it cost to multibox? Once again, software costs are a non issue. But what about hardware costs?

Well, I am willing to bet that somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of players already posses the hardware required to quad box Eve. So, quadboxing wouldn’t cost a super majority of players a dime to do.

But what about boxing more than that? Well, I first built my rig in 2012. I then spent about 250 bucks getting a GTX 1060 when it came out, and then spent another 350 about 6 months ago to upgrade the RAM, CPU, and Mobo (Ryzen 5 3600 and 32GB of RAM) (Oh, I could have also sold my old hardware on ebay to further reduce my total cost, but instead used it to upgrade friends and family). This allows me to multibox at least 11 accounts stably. I’m not sure what my upper limit is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I could get up to 20 accounts. Obviously, a lot of players would also need to upgrade their PSU’s, and not everyone knows how to upgrade systems, but the fact remains that it would probably cost most players less money to upgrade their systems to the point where they can multibox 20 accounts than it would cost them to buy a latest gen console right now.

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Where I got the 70% figure from
  • I don’t have access to a current hardware survey for Eve players. But I do have access to steam’s December 2020 survey. So let’s use that to get a ballpark idea of what the typically player can do.
  • 89% of all steam users have 8 or more gigs of RAM (You might be able to get away with less, but I know that 8GB can get the job done).
  • I don’t know what is the minimum GPU that can handle quad boxing is, but I found a guy who said he does it with a GTX 650M. Which means that any card which is comparable or better, and has more than 336MB of memory can quad box Eve. This means that pretty much any card from the GT 740 tier or better (that also has at least 512MB of RAM -some of those older cards might only have 256MB. Don’t know, didn’t check) should be able to quad box. This means that around 70% of all steam users should be able to quad box Eve (I stopped adding after I got to 67%. Also, do note that I excluded the “other” category even though a lot of the newest cards appear to be grouped in there).
  • Okay, the number of players that can run eve based upon their CPU’s is even harder to figure out because steam only gives data about clock speeds and cores, and not individual CPU’s. However, given the fact that 85% of CPU’s are quad core or better, and the fact that 76% of CPU’s have a clock speed of 2.7GHz or better, I don’t consider it unreasonable to conclude that CPU’s are probably not a bigger bottleneck than graphics cards are.
  • Long story short, GPU’s are probably the limiting factor for most players. Which means that somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of all players can quad box Eve.

I resent the neck beard comment.
I have 20 hs account for mining, and even more in null. I shave, thus no neck beard.

As for hardware;
I have 3 computers.
2 are desktops that I only run 15 accounts on each.
I7 @ 2.60ghz, 32gb ramm, rx 580 video card.

I have a laptop I run my main 5 accounts on.
I5 @ 2.50ghz, 16gb ramm and geforce mx330 video card.

I am generally on from 7am cst to around 6pm cst.
All together, my setup cost about $1600 and my power bill only went up approx $50 a month. I use less than the 1tb limit my isp provides, so my cost didn’t go up there.
I do pay the subscriptions on each account, instead of working to plex them all every month, so there is definitely cost there.
You could, however, plex your accounts fairly easily doing the same things I do. Even easier if you do things that other people do.
I have 3 characters on each account pulling pi, making bpc’s, and manufacturing various modules and ships.
All but my main 5 are sp farms also. Free injectors for my mains, but if I sold them I would have so much extra isk.

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I edited my original post to link to my poll questions on multiboxing. Check it out if you would like to vote.

Alts can sometimes target the wrong ship.

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That’s like when my boss teaches my class brilliantly for 10 minutes then says that’s how she expects classes to be taught for the whole hour, 5 per day, 25 per week, all year long. She was cheating. She had the perfect set up for that 10 minute class and now acts like that’s her per usual.

Plus, I don’t see any hands in the video. I don’t see a keyboard. I don’t see a mouse. And I certainly don’t see all the installed software.

And how convenient that targeted bowhead was at the top of the long list in the overview.

That video proves little.

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I don’t think you appreciate the full scale of how wealth affects ability to do a lot of things. Pretending economics, including the economics of the particular country one lives, has no effect on being able to multi-box effectively, is pretty blind.

Even just playing EVE at all can be a challenge for some to secure a computer, peripherals and a decent internet connection. Obviously that will affect multiboxing.

And obviously being rich enough to have a comfortable basement with multiple high end computers and fast internet connection in a relatively sparsely populated area of mansions is going to greatly assist one’s ability to multi-box effectively, especailly if actually getting up to go to an actual job is not something you need to do.

I don’t like multiboxing for that and various other reasons I mentioned. But I accept its not going away. Lets leave it at that.

I don’t play in my basement. I have a second bedroom dedicated to my computers.
I live in a neighborhood, on 3/4 of an acre. None of the houses here are mansions.

lol. We play an MMO. Yes, money can affect things like how much you can spend on a computer, but this isn’t a case of the wealthy having a significant advantage over the plebs. This isn’t dressage.

Cram that comment sideways. I am an American living in Japan, and anyone that cannot see the warts in the judicial systems of both countries is a blind and probably nationalist or wannabe idiot.

You should stop reading western press about Japan. They make stuff up and otherwise embellish with the sky as the limit to get the gullible to click. You find some horrific miscarriage of justice in Japan and I will find a matching one in America.

The willingness to believe a 30 second video showing no hands, keyboards, or HD installations proves someone never cheats is proof of how gullible people can be.

To be clear I am not saying he is cheating. I am just saying the “evidence” is flimsy.

Plus, proving a negative such as “He isn’t cheating” is nigh impossible. Cheaters can get away with cheating for years. You have to wait for those two seconds of proof they ARE cheating to really know.

They do for multiboxing. Its pretty obvious. But I think you think I mean only the 1 percent or something. That’s not what I mean. In fact, I think you should look at this the other way: the financially disadvantaged have a disadvantage multiboxing. A poor but employed guy in India with an old computer and one account and a crappy apartment in a slum just can’t expect to multibox on the level of a middle class American kid in a newish house in the suburbs of LA.

So I don’t like multiboxing.

That’s nice! :smiley: Thanks for sharing! :grimacing:

I would think if I lived in a slum, couldn’t buy a newer computer, or have decent internet, a video game would be the least of my worries. v0v

Should I apologize for getting into bitcoin before it cost 10 cents each, and sitting on my investment?
This game teaches you real world skills, if you are smart enough to comprehend it.
Control your wallet. Invest in multi-year goals, and pluck your berries when they’re ripe.
It’s kind of silly to sit in front of a computer, talking about video games, and trying to belittle people.

Btw, I’m 35, don’t live in LA, and my house isn’t newish. It was built in the 80’s.

You have a gift for missing the point. There lies much between the two extremes.

You have a gift for missing the point. Multiboxing is effectively a “pay to win” strategy. Therefore, I don’t like it.

I also don’t like it because it greatly increases the desire for botting and creates the desire for input broadcasting cheating.

Further to compete against a multiboxer I have two options: 1) Multibox. But I don’t want to. That sounds like work when I want to play. 2) Get a gang together. Okay. But we will still be at a disadvantage because we have to coordinate and communicate as individuals and the multiboxer doesn’t.

Are you trying to convince me I SHOULD like it? Why bother? I accept it and its the third time me saying so. Just accept I don’t like it, and move on will ya?

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Input broadcasting? Maybe. But the botting one is reaching hard.

I completely disagree. Yes, you do have to coordinate, but you have (1) multiple sets of eyes, (2) can specialize based on individual strengths, (3) can make a crap ton more inputs per minute (everyone can manual pilot, can get higher DPS because you’re not as reliant on drone damage, can design fits which require more micromanagement), and (4) can more quickly respond to changes (everyone can immediately respond, versus having to adjust each account one at a time). Additionally, (5) having to juggle so much stuff greatly increases the chances for mistakes. For example, with agro switches, I will I immediately decycle reps, but go back to doing something else while I wait for the rep cycles to finish. I then might forget to go back to cycle reps on the new target until I hear that armor or hull alarm, which by then, might be too late. Other mistakes include more likely to lose an input (dropping drones, cycling weapons, anchoring, turning on prop mod), more likely to have one turd flying off into space, SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to burn out mods when overheating.

Trust me all these disadvantages add up real quick. Now, there are times when multiboxers do have an advantage over real people (i.e. they can overgrid sites and still get max payout), but for the most part, they can’t compete with fleets of real people… well, unless those fleets are made up of… um… less than optimal players. For example, I’m faster at a particular PvE activity than some real fleets are, but the good fleets are literally twice as fast as me. It’s no contest. In fact, they move so fast, that I don’t think there is any amount of bling or overgriding that I could do to be able to compete with that kind of speed. It’s just not possible for one person to make that many inputs in that amount of time.

Long story short, fleets of real people get a significant advantage over boxers. And they have to suck pretty hard to lose that advantage.

Anyway, thanks for your input. And, I’m not saying that I necessarily agree with you, but I am open to the idea that multiboxing is unfair on the grounds that not everyone can afford to do it.

Alright, I’ll leave you alone.

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I think all this GREATLY depends on the activities and objectives.

Since Kusion is a center of conversation how often is he getting stomped or thwarted? I am seriously asking, because I don’t know.

I don’t what his success rate is, or how he compares to ganker fleets of real pilots.

I am more interested in how he rates against anti-ganker fleets.

And even if an anti-ganker fleet comes stomps him once a month, how often can we realistically expect an anti-ganker fleets of that effectiveness to form up just to go stomp him?

Its very easy for one man to just wait until a group breaks up and then go back to what he was doing since this is EVE and said group cannot stomp him once and then throw him in a jail cell.