The only issue I have is with massive multiboxing that scales up N+1 in efficiency with very little drawbacks.
(aka some activities that are so simple that you can easily use 3, 5, 10 accounts for it, even manually.)
If the decision was up to me, EVE Online would only allow one client at a time being open, but you could use all three Characters on this account simultaneously if you like and can manage them. This would limit the amount you could multibox to 3 Chars at a time, give (RL)rich and poor players the same chances and also be a big step against mass-multibox-botting and input broadcasting (the current software wouldn’t be able to handle that without major adaptations). Also it wouldn’t limit players to do small er QoL tasks on their own if nobody of their friends is around (like a scout, scanner, hauler, cyno), but they can’t clear belts with 20 hulks on their own or bash structures with 10 battleships on their own. And CCP could still make additional money from players using MultipleTrainingCertificates to skill all three of their chars up simultaneously.
It does, unless it was changed. I tried on SiSi back then when beacons were introduced.
On topic, I have no issue with multiboxing in PvP as it requires skill and has efficiency limits, I do have for PvE. Today the optimal way to solve any group PvE content is a single player multiboxing a fleet for max speed. Thus defeating the purpose of group content.
I have no feelings for or against. Everyone plays as they wish within what’s allowed. If they want to manage 20 accounts and 60 alts, well, I’m not the one with the headaches.
I have two characters, I don’t even want to think of a third.
I have no feelings for or against . Everyone plays as they wish within what’s allowed. If they want to manage 20 accounts and 60 alts, well, I’m not the one with the headaches.
I have two characters, I don’t even want to think of a third.
Ultimately, that’s what I think too.
But this:
What irks me is that I feel that it devalues the impact and the experience of each individual player. If I join a corp, and there are 20 members, but it’s just two people controlling all of them, I don’t feel like I’m part of a small gang ready to cause some carnage. Instead, I feel like I’m just another asset for somebody else’s single player game, and not even a necessary one at that.
… really threw me when I first started playing EVE. I joined a corp and realised about half the faces I was seeing were alts - maybe more. So I would strike up a conversation with a new face only to realise on down the line I was actually talking to the same person I talked with yesterday. So it was a little head-wrecking if I’m honest.
Of course multiboxing is an advantage, but so what? It is an advantage available to anyone, so it’s not unfair. Regardless, the game would have to be completely rebalanced (and recoded) to eliminate multiboxing - so I doubt it will ever happen.
Yes. That last corporation I was in not three days ago was probably all alts too. No communication since joining and characters don’t reply. But not going to let it ruin my day. I figure when I have enough time in the game I will get invited to a corporation with more than just alts.
Maybe the answer, then, is to create better rules around corporations in relation to alts. So maybe a corporation can only be active if it has a certain number of members - or something like that.
As I understand it, many solo players create their own corporations to stop (as they would see it) spam invites to other corps coming through their inbox and to limit the corp tax they pay to NPC corps. Maybe having a privacy setting to prevent the invites, and some kind of tax limit scheme, would be better than all of those solo players feeling the need to set up their own corps for themselves and their alts.
I have 6 accounts (5 omega, 1 alpha). There’s really not that much of a profit when you think of a multiboxer… if he makes 200M/hour… divide that between alts… is probably 10-20M/hour, you could make more with a single char. I think alts are useful for roles that you wouldnt want a real person to do… like watching a gate for 2 hours… or just be the combat support guy watching 5 miners.
Im very chatty in my corp, noone can say that we are in silence. I chat thru all of my 15 omega chars, so if you are with a corp that doesnt communicate with new members… you’re at the wrong corp… and that could happen be it with multiboxers or with guys running just 1 char. Sometimes I find some of my single char teammates chat very little or nothing at all, so multiboxing is really not the problem on that level.
Takes skill to run multiple pvp alts… I’ve only used at most 2, and its either a tie or a loss for me. But they are helpful for those roles that I personally wouldnt my guys to do, because I feel they are boring and dont make them profit. So I put alts as eyes, watching gates, or as disposable rolling alts… I could put them all 5 to mine… but lately I havent been in that mood.
I would say though… fleet compression… which I like… is one of those things that makes it easier for multiboxers to mine, but at the same time, it wouldnt be too hard for a multiboxer to jetcan. I have zero experience with cynos and other blops things done with alts.
But no, multiboxing has nothing to do with teammates not being chatty
But thats the point, he does not divide his income. Whatever money he makes does not need to fund the progress, dreams, losses of 6, 10, 20 chars (well, the normal development costs of a char in terms of skillbooks and PLEX are pretty low compared to the additional income they can generate with PI, job slots, research slots, reactions and later skill extraction.) All that money goes to a single player, all the drained resources end up at a single players hangar, all the production steps are no longer shared between a corp, sharing the profits of each steps between multiple persons and creating some joint venture. Its essentially solo-playing the whole foodchain. From resource havesting over production or NPC-farming… everything that is originally designed as group content is done with alts. That cannot be good for the game and since I play that game for more than a decade now my personal experience absolutely confirms: EVE was a lot more social and fun when everyone had one, maybe two accounts and more were the absolute rarity. Massive multiboxing (everything above 3 in my book) is hurting the gameplay experience in my personal opinion.
Not saying this is the situation in your corp since there are definitely ones like that, but if you just joined my corp you might think the same thing is happening with very little being said in game. In reality, almost everyone is talking through TS or discord out of game at the same time, while the in game chat is basically just used for linking names or fits. Some people may not even have it open on screen.
Same for other games. Guilds, Squads… Sometimes there will be a couple of days before I get a message from a friend online, or a player in the group.
But no replies whatsoever in chat or dm or mail for more than a week tells me I joined a ghost crew of someone’s alts.
I think you are doing something wrong… Incursion runners make billions/hr. There are people multiboxing HQ systems with 40 ships. There are people in incursions that can box 10 ish ships in a normal public fleet. The profits after plex are insane.
WH space is also high value ISK for boxing.
I don’t buy that multiboxers are poor. They are filthy rich LOL. My miner multibox friend with about 13 accounts takes in easy 100+mil/hr on a good moon or just normal ore belt.
If the player is doing something dumb and boring, or not profitable, it would be disrespectful inviting people to join. So this player should multibox, it is a form of respect to other people’s time
Maybe they need to do a sweep for that multi boxing programme again (I can’t remember the name of it) because players running ridiculous amounts of alts at the same time really need to be monitored for input broadcasting on a very regular basis.
I am not a fan of it, and I would prefer that it weren’t a thing. That said, it is a thing and has been a thing for a long time. I had a discussion on the topic with a big multiboxer at the time, Shipwreck Jones, and basically decided that, while I don’t like it, I should probably tolerate it at least in the eve game as a whole. I also think it would be unfair to eliminate the feature when so many old hands have used it to create a lot of wealth for themselves. Might as well let new players do that as well.
While I was running a corporation I banned multiboxing within the corporation. If people needed a scout they had to ask someone to scout. It was not efficient, but it was fun and got people to work together. With fewer characters we had more modest needs. I didn’t feel like we were at that much of a disadvantage, except that trust was a bigger issue in our case.
On the subject of Jump Freighters, I also had people inside or outside the corporation light cynos for me or scout ahead. Someone can of course screw you over like this, but I never had it happen to me. I am fairly certain that people did try to infiltrate the corporation, but they almost always try to capitalize on greed as their means of ingratiating themselves. They don’t know how to handle it if you’re not greedy.
It is totally possible to play a single account and character and have fun, even if other people are multiboxing. That’s what I did, and I didn’t feel like other people multiboxing were causing me any problem I couldn’t solve by using my head a little.
Because people in this MMO are generally middle-aged and socially averse losers, who prefer using all the means at disposal to sit on piles of ISK and fleets of Navy Dreads and playing their single player game, than interacting and cooperating with other people.
Even if it means killing the human interaction from a supposedly social video game, and making its mechanics and content irrelevant :
Ie: 15 man destroyers fleets in FW plexes comes to mind…
Multiboxing was made much easier with injectors, thanks CCP, and the general nature of players in this community, thanks Eve players.
