RIP DAOC Multiboxing 2002-2010

[JamieW]

I haven't played in a couple years, but I'd be surprised if a good portion of this problem isn't the animist class.

Prepare to be surprised.

Probably not too long after you stopped playing (and right about the time I went on about a 2 year break), Mythic placed numerical limits on the number of total pets that each Animist could cast, and a numerical limit on the number of total animist pets allowed in a single area. At the time, I believe that they claimed that it was for better server stability and performance, but when they echoed that change to the Theurgist class it made a strong case for the move to be a method of balancing high-end encounters by limiting the number of non-player attackers that a small group of people could generate.

No, mainly the issue has to deal with Mythic's path forward as population has dwindled. They started to "cluster" servers to provide shared RvR areas, since the RvR game suffers the most with smaller numbers. This was fine for the PvE side of the game, since most of the good stuff wasn't instanced, but it was at least duplicated across each server in the cluster (Dragon is down/camped on Server1? No problem, we can just port to Server2's Mainland area and check that Dragon spawn). But, apparently, the ability to PvE more efficiently and get to the real bread and butter of their game, RvR, put somebody's panties in a bunch at Mythic, and they pushed to eliminate the duplicate zones... again in the name of "server optimization". So every area became shared on a cluster. Still, populations were split between several clusters, so most of the population values were still not to the extreme where you could still expect to find a decent farmable mob uncamped if you were looking to make some in-game currency or get some items for your characters.

Fast forward to last year, and Mythic had to keep combining more and more servers together until there were just 3 clusters, and even on those clusters, 2 out of the 3 had < 100 or so players on at a time. So they came up with the grand idea to create a new cluster, force everybody to transfer from their current servers/clusters to that new one, so that all of the population would be together, and everybody could theoretically use any of their characters created. But now for the entire playing population in a particular realm, each decent encounter only has a single instance. And they've gotten to the point where they can be killed by a single person or pair of people running multiple accounts. So the population finds itself in a situation where it becomes nigh impossible to kill certain MOBs and obtain their drops without buying them from the multi-boxers that camp the spawns... most of those groups being from professional outfits that sell the in-game currency for real-life currency in the first place.

Rather than instance these encounters, as many people consistently have asked for, or provide anti-multi-boxer measures in the encounters, or just ban the activities of the anti-social outfits, Mythic has gone down this route. And every person that has ever had a single issue with a multi-box group is applauding them for doing the "right thing", even though it really is not the most optimal solution, and Mythic won't be clear on what is and isn't allowed, because of whatever reason.

Round-robin keypresses, key-press delays, alternate tools all seem like they may provide the answer. However since nobody can really be sure what Mythic CS does to detect what they describe as illegal in-game conduct, it's hard to be sure what will or won't be tolerated.

Me? I haven't actively multi-boxed in DAOC for a few months. Even then, I mainly did PvE with multiple Ice Wizards, but found that the end result wasn't of much use for what I wanted to accomplish. I played around with a pair Necromancers in the Molvik Battleground with a Minstrel for speed, and a trio of Necromancers out in New Frontiers. But nothing very serious like the Team Wizzie, Team Animist, Team SM, etc. that are in the game, and nothing as advanced as the 5-boxing I did when I tried out LOTRO. And while I think that its a stupid decision, I can't say for sure whether it will positively or negatively impact the game for me in the near future.

[Freddie]

Rather than instance these encounters, as many people consistently have asked for, or provide anti-multi-boxer measures in the encounters, or just ban the activities of the anti-social outfits, Mythic has gone down this route.

They ironic thing is, they are providing anti-multboxer measures in the encounters! One of the developers has been doing a ton of work on that, and the first results of his work are in yesterday's Pendragon patch. They didn't even give it a chance to get tested or go live.

[JamieW]

They ironic thing is, they are providing anti-multboxer measures in the encounters! One of the developers has been doing a ton of work on that, and the first results of his work are in yesterday's Pendragon patch. They didn't even give it a chance to get tested or go live.

Perhaps, but from my reading of the patch notes, they aren't targetting just multi-box players that use clone-setups (ie., 4 PBAE casters stacked on each other).

The patch notes say: " New mechanics have been put into place to target inattentive players." I haven't seen the changes in place on Pendragon, but I the wording of it makes me think that non-played bots, etc. may also be targeted with these changes.

[Freddie]

Perhaps, but from my reading of the patch notes, they aren't targetting just multi-box players that use clone-setups (ie., 4 PBAE casters stacked on each other).

The patch notes say: " New mechanics have been put into place to target inattentive players." I haven't seen the changes in place on Pendragon, but I the wording of it makes me think that non-played bots, etc. may also be targeted with these changes.

Your reading makes sense but my comment wasn't based on the patch notes. Additional info was given to me privately. Many changes were made specifically to stop multiboxers.

Edit: I'm not saying those are the only changes they made. I don't know what else they did. But they made a number of changes designed to stop multiboxing at those encounters.

[Tonuss]

Round-robin keypresses, key-press delays, alternate tools all seem like they may provide the answer.

Not if they simply decide to outlaw multiboxing, which is what they seem to have done. They may not have covered every possible action with their "1 button/1 action/1 character" statement, but it looks as if they're saying that they'll take action against anyone who tries to play multiple accounts at once.

Sounds like a response to the shrinking population of a game that is on its last legs. They've probably got no reason to want to spend any more time or money on it, just milk it until it finally keels over.