My amateur quad-box set up for City of Heroes

[Alvdraken]

I have played 2-4 accounts at the same time a bit (and thought I would go up to 6 accounts in July, I really want to try that) and I am going to ask you other multiboxers what kind of team balance you are looking for.

I have no software help to multibox, but use two computers (would use 3 for 6 accounts), with two keyboards, two mice etc.

When playing 4 toons, this has been my setup:

Toon #1: On my main computer. This is the main toon. I usually go for a tank here, but sometimes a scrapper 1-2 levlels higher than what the team is doing. This is the toon I will be playing the most and that all others follow. Someone said that he wanted this to run on a separate computer with maximum graphics etc but I use it together with two other clients.

Toon #2: Alone on the other, less powerful computer. This is the toon I will be playing second most. This is often either a controller or a blaster (and the one with the highest level of the other toons) as I am free to use most of their powers with my left hand. I want to be able to use a scrap or a 2nd tank here, but I am just not good enough.

Toon #3: Often a controller with a few devastating powers that I need to click only at the start of a fight (such as flashfires/cinders). Can also be a defender (see toon 4). This toon is running on the first computer, next to the main toon.

Toon #4: I try to go for a toon that need very little attention in this slot. I have even built empaths with leadership pool specific for this purpose... and even tanks with leadership pool and a damaging aura with auto-taunt. The idea is that this toon must not be clicked too often. However, as I have improved in my multiboxing, I can also use a toon #3 here and do occasional attacks. This toon is running on the main computer, on my secondary screen.

Having said all this, I have actually managed to actively play all four, but that gets a bit stressful sometimes. In that case #3 and #4 are often blasters with a #2 firekin for transfusions as the only heal.

All toons have one power on auto, often a heal to give me more time to handle mobs and they all follow toon #1.

What can I improve with this setup? What kind of software help should I get (that is OK to use with the game with NCSoft)?

[Tonuss]

You need to check with NCSoft and see if they allow you to broadcast keystrokes from one client to others. If they do, then it's just a matter of selecting an option. I believe that there are tutorials here on setting up a hardware solution for broadcasting keystrokes, and there are two or three programs that do the same for networked PCs.

If they don't allow the use of keystroke broadcasting, then you are limited in your options, as you'll need to do what you do now, which is go from computer to computer to control your characters individually.

[Frosty]

I haven't been able to get a thing working in COH/COV..
I refuse to go back to my old method of 2 keyboards 2 mice and hopping back and fourth between PC’s. I’ve seen a few people mention being able to do it though.

(PS - I’ve searched our boards many times and there isn’t a lot of info on boxing this game). :S

[Catamer]

I used to dual box CoH using two PC,two keyboards and two mice.

kind of a limited amount of boxing support there, had to manually target my main and then hit the follow key , which I think was F and I think that allowed you to target thru the main although I can't remember if they nerfed it for PvP

if you had hardware broadcasting of the keyboard to several PC you should be able to do it.
I would suggest doing 5x fire/rad controllers with your main character getting team teleport.
I was part of a guild that did this once and it was so much fun, we got to 50 in less that 30 days.

a 5x fire/rad team will MOW down anything in the game including the hardest settings.

once you get Accelerate Metabolism 5x all of your characters you will be at max +dps without enhancements and you will rarely be without it because the cool down is reduced 5x.
once you get team teleport you don't have to follow, your team teleport transports the whole team at once, imps included. you litterally POUNCE on the target.
once you get your imp pets all bets are off.... you are now a killing machine.
you just have to have everyone set to fire off some type of stun, fire cages and let the imps do their thing while on crack ( AM ).

[Mooni]

There isn't because they've managed to block artificial keystrokes through the use of some kind of hidden character every time you hit a key.
You can see this sometimes because you'll try to type while zoning and after your screen is done loading you notice your character has hit their "RUN!" button or something a bunch of times. So there's some kind of hidden ASCII going on that won't work unless the client you're controlling is in the foreground. Someone could look through the code and figure it out, but it seems it's there to prevent botting. Unfortunately it also prevents broadcasting keys AND mouseclicks (even something simple like Mouse Machine wouldn't work)
So with no emulators at all, you're stuck using hardware solutions (which I don't like because my room is too messy to fit in another system) and arranging your macros so that button 1 is your opener, 2 is your group's AoE, etc.
So I had a recommendation for you! I was thinking you'd probably want to keep that kinetic on the team to heal your tanker/scrapper (whoever fills that role), but also to speed boost the whole team. You can do this with a one-button macro.
You also probably want a radiation defender around because it's a fire-and-forget kind of power. Just toggle on the debuffs to someone your main waits to kill till last and you'll really like the results. Rad/dark might be good because once your tank has them gathered up the rad/dark can use tenebrous tentacles to immob all of them (prevent knockbacks)
Let me just tell you from my experience running 3 Masterminds at once: Team Teleport is HILARIOUS when you move your whole team into a pack of enemies.

[Frosty]

There isn't because they've managed to block artificial keystrokes through the use of some kind of hidden character every time you hit a key.
Someone posted about this, and I think you are ok as long as you keep the windows in focus. But I wasn't able to get any keys to pass via software.

I was running 2 PC's each with 1 session of the game.

[Alvdraken]

if you had hardware broadcasting of the keyboard to several PC you should be able to do it.
Being a noob in multiboxing, please explain this further, it sounds very useful

[Alvdraken]

So I had a recommendation for you! I was thinking you'd probably want to keep that kinetic on the team to heal your tanker/scrapper (whoever fills that role), but also to speed boost the whole team. You can do this with a one-button macro.

Do you know how to write that macro? i realize learning more about binds is necessary to make my multi-boxing more effective

I want to thank everybody for the good team suggestions. I have been stuck targeting my goal of getting one of each archetype primary/secondary, so my teams have been kind of mixed. When I go to six accounts in July, I will try out these teams. Sounds really great!

[elsegundo]

if you had hardware broadcasting of the keyboard to several PC you should be able to do it.
Being a noob in multiboxing, please explain this further, it sounds very useful Vetra Keyboard Multi-plexer ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=14')
try that!

[Catamer]

as for hardware broadcasting of keys... The Vetra was what I was thinking about and it requires a serial or PS/2 keyboard...
your setup would have one serial keyboard sending the same keystrokes to all of the PCs it's connected to and seperate USB keyboards on each PC so you manually control just one PC ( if you think you need manual controll on each )
CoH does not run in seperate windows so you can't run multiple copies of it like you can WoW ( or at least that's what I remember about it , I know I couldn't get two copies going at once on one PC )
which limits you to having a seperate PC per copy of CoH

Several people here do the hardware mboxing thing, I'm sure their 5 box setups could run 5 copies of CoH.

[Frosty]

CoH does not run in seperate windows so you can't run multiple copies of it like you can WoW ( or at least that's what I remember about it , I know I couldn't get two copies going at once on one PC )I can launch two copies and log into the game right now with the same icon without changing anything. ;)

[Mooni]

So I had a recommendation for you! I was thinking you'd probably want to keep that kinetic on the team to heal your tanker/scrapper (whoever fills that role), but also to speed boost the whole team. You can do this with a one-button macro.

Do you know how to write that macro? i realize learning more about binds is necessary to make my multi-boxing more effective

I want to thank everybody for the good team suggestions. I have been stuck targeting my goal of getting one of each archetype primary/secondary, so my teams have been kind of mixed. When I go to six accounts in July, I will try out these teams. Sounds really great!Crap-in-a-hat, I was wrong. It won't be a one-button macro, but you could bind it to your numpad(with a modifier like alt so you can still use your numpad for something else)
For instance:
/bind Alt+NUMPAD1 "team_select 1$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD2 "team_select 2$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD3 "team_select 3$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD4 "team_select 4$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD5 "team_select 5$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD6 "team_select 6$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD7 "team_select 7$$powexec_name Speed Boost"
/bind Alt+NUMPAD8 "team_select 8$$powexec_name Speed Boost"

Do those eight and they'll buff whomever is in those team slots, regardless of character name.

http://starsofparagon.org/forums/default.aspx?do=top&id=1526 <---- for MOAR bind goodness (stuff @Ixnay has actually put together, not just a guide on binds)