GM Malkorix on automation, fairness, PvP balance...

[Naylix]

This is entirely an e-peen problem. One "fat slob with pimples that lives in his mother's basement" being able to 1 shot me just isn't fair!!! Never mind it was 5 characters. Some people just refuse to acknowledge the difference between player and character. Nobody here has EVER one shot another character. We all have controlled our characters and maybe 3 or 4 or 5 shot someone but it was never ever a single shot that killed them. Unless people acknowledge this difference they will always disagree.

Uhm, actually, I played a hunter since launch - trust me, when aimshot with Ashr'athul (xbow from BWL, 3.4speed) and 6/8 Tier 3 + 3/8 tier 2 critted a full tier 2 mage pre-tbc, the mage just disappeared. (is "critted" even a word?)

Back then, we didn't need mortal strike, because people simply had too few hp. As a hardcore raider, battlegrounds were a laugh. Guild presets steamrolled pugs like you have never seen it since. I grinded to rank 11, just to get all the pvp mounts (yes, back when faction was needed, and grinded out by turning in 2400+ stacks of runecloth) and the fastest way to grind rank 11, was to run Arathi Basin 8-9 hours a day for a month. 500k honor a week, to be amongst top5 on the server. AB runs took on average 6 minutes to win, going most often 2000/10 or 2000/0. In each, any encounter was most often finished with Scattershot -> Aimshot+Multi and arcane if they somehow survived. Yes, it was ridiculous. I seriously melee'ed down 2handed warriors, simply because we were bored waiting for the counter to reach 2k. Only games that ever lasted much longer, was against other presets. And we won 90% of the games against presets too.

This was usually 4-5 shamans, 2 warlocks, 3-4 hunters and random healers. Arcanite Reaper with Windfury - trust me, if WF procced on the first hit, stuff died back then. Instantly. It may technically have been a "3shot" but everyone knows how instant windfury was.

Anyways, on thread: indeed, we are very powerful. But as allready pointed out, so is the assist function in the hands of capable players. 40 druids going to orgrimmar shows just how effective it is, when the "ion-cannon" is switched on

/mwu

[Tonuss]

The fact remains that 5 characters being played by 1 person has much better coordination than 5 individuals especially in places like AV where you are facing PuGs with no coordination most of the time. I think it is mostly a problem with shaman, other classes don't stack that well.

The razor-sharp coordination that a multiboxer has, works best when he is facing one or two targets which he is able to spot at a distance. If he's caught off-guard and at close range, the disadvantages become much more glaring. I agree that the main issue is that shaman totems interfere with both fear/charm and ranged spell casts, and stacking them can create an imbalance in a PvP situation. I am thinking that at some point, Blizzard will look into totem stacking and find ways to bring it in line for PvP. I think they're being careful with it because shaman are a relatively rarely-played class outside of multiboxing, in part because of PvP issues. Nerfing totems to curb multiboxing could hurt the class a lot for "single boxers."

In any event, some time back when I was playing arenas with guildmates, we ran into a team of five shaman. It was not being multiboxed, and we beat them pretty handily the first time we saw them. Then one or two matches later we ran into them again and they wiped the floor with us by... you guessed it, stacking totems. They hadn't done that the first time, but they learned fast. I never saw that team again, but I don't arena much so I don't know if they were just a novelty. But they learned to stack totems pretty fast, that was for sure.

[Caspian]

This is entirely an e-peen problem. One "fat slob with pimples that lives in his mother's basement" being able to 1 shot me just isn't fair!!! Never mind it was 5 characters. Some people just refuse to acknowledge the difference between player and character. Nobody here has EVER one shot another character. We all have controlled our characters and maybe 3 or 4 or 5 shot someone but it was never ever a single shot that killed them. Unless people acknowledge this difference they will always disagree.

Uhm, actually, I played a hunter since launch - trust me, when aimshot with Ashr'athul (xbow from BWL, 3.4speed) and 6/8 Tier 3 + 3/8 tier 2 critted a full tier 2 mage pre-tbc, the mage just disappeared. (is "critted" even a word?)

Back then, we didn't need mortal strike, because people simply had too few hp. As a hardcore raider, battlegrounds were a laugh. Guild presets steamrolled pugs like you have never seen it since. I grinded to rank 11, just to get all the pvp mounts (yes, back when faction was needed, and grinded out by turning in 2400+ stacks of runecloth) and the fastest way to grind rank 11, was to run Arathi Basin 8-9 hours a day for a month. 500k honor a week, to be amongst top5 on the server. AB runs took on average 6 minutes to win, going most often 2000/10 or 2000/0. In each, any encounter was most often finished with Scattershot -> Aimshot+Multi and arcane if they somehow survived. Yes, it was ridiculous. I seriously melee'ed down 2handed warriors, simply because we were bored waiting for the counter to reach 2k. Only games that ever lasted much longer, was against other presets. And we won 90% of the games against presets too.

This was usually 4-5 shamans, 2 warlocks, 3-4 hunters and random healers. Arcanite Reaper with Windfury - trust me, if WF procced on the first hit, stuff died back then. Instantly. It may technically have been a "3shot" but everyone knows how instant windfury was.

Anyways, on thread: indeed, we are very powerful. But as allready pointed out, so is the assist function in the hands of capable players. 40 druids going to orgrimmar shows just how effective it is, when the "ion-cannon" is switched on

/mwu

Yes I know "back in the old days" things like that could happen, and did frequently. I was a full T2 prot Warrior, with Windfury fully buffed I was well over 10k HP. I don't think I ever lost a WSG flag in a premade. I also ground rank 10 (I didn't want the mounts) on a Warlock with 30+ minute queues, while raiding 7 days a week. Only needed about 100-120k honor to make top 20 on my server though.

Back then there were also a lot fewer boxers.

The whole point of my post was that now, when there is this big movement against multi-boxers with people complaining that we one shot them, nobody is one-shotting anybody. We may be effectively, as a player, be taking out 1 other player in game but it is not one character killing one character - it is however many characters you control killing one character. Multi boxers do not one shot other players in PvP, we 3 or 4 or 5 shot them perhaps, but not one shot.

The trick is to separate the player from the character. It is not easy to do. The Warrior I talk about up there is Caspian, it was the first toon I rolled. For a long time I was Caspian. When I stopped playing him and switched from alliance to horde*, it was an emotional separation. I will still log onto him and check out his bank and get sad because I don't play him anymore. People become emotionally attached to their in game persona. It is a big part of why the game is so addicting. So when another player comes along and beats them, especially if it causes them to lose a game, and if that player is special and seemingly unbeatable because they control 5 characters where they only control 1, it can be an emotional event. Hence all the hate and nerd rage. So we need to try and get people to disassociate their physical self from their character self. Malkorix was trying to do this. It was the basic tenant of his position. Now, getting the forum trolls and the mental 13 year olds with the way oversized e-peen to recognize this is probably impossible. But if we stick to a sane argument, with Blizzard obviously on our side backing us and using the same argument, maybe one day one of them will listen.


*I switched from alliance to horde becasue my raiding group was falling apart moving past Grull. My daughter played horde and her guild needed more DPS so I rolled a rogue to play with her. Now everything is horde including all my boxing toons.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

When was the last time you and your friend next to you got 1-shotted by 5 shaman in a BG that were being played by individuals, ie not multi-boxed?

The fact remains that 5 characters being played by 1 person has much better coordination than 5 individuals especially in places like AV where you are facing PuGs with no coordination most of the time. I think it is mostly a problem with shaman, other classes don't stack that well.

What was your point? Dead is dead.

[Vyndree]

The fact remains that 5 characters being played by 1 person has much better coordination than 5 individuals especially in places like AV where you are facing PuGs with no coordination most of the time. I think it is mostly a problem with shaman, other classes don't stack that well.

The razor-sharp coordination that a multiboxer has, works best when he is facing one or two targets which he is able to spot at a distance. If he's caught off-guard and at close range, the disadvantages become much more glaring. I agree that the main issue is that shaman totems interfere with both fear/charm and ranged spell casts, and stacking them can create an imbalance in a PvP situation. I am thinking that at some point, Blizzard will look into totem stacking and find ways to bring it in line for PvP. I think they're being careful with it because shaman are a relatively rarely-played class outside of multiboxing, in part because of PvP issues. Nerfing totems to curb multiboxing could hurt the class a lot for "single boxers."

In any event, some time back when I was playing arenas with guildmates, we ran into a team of five shaman. It was not being multiboxed, and we beat them pretty handily the first time we saw them. Then one or two matches later we ran into them again and they wiped the floor with us by... you guessed it, stacking totems. They hadn't done that the first time, but they learned fast. I never saw that team again, but I don't arena much so I don't know if they were just a novelty. But they learned to stack totems pretty fast, that was for sure.

QFT.

The majority of the QQ about "invincible" and "all powerful" multiboxers is actually a QQ about shaman stacking in disguise.

"Back in the day", when people QQ'ed about multiboxers when the 1xpriest/4xmage and 1xpriest/4xwarlock groups were standard -- the response was "kill the priest you noob".


Totem stacking is a bit imba, but you're right. As a solo shaman prior to multiboxing, and having to stomach the horribleness that is shaman PvP -- if they nerf totems, the solo shaman community (small as it is) would riot. Not that they don't riot already (dotshocks, bus shocks?)...

[TheBigBB]

When was the last time you and your friend next to you got 1-shotted by 5 shaman in a BG that were being played by individuals, ie not multi-boxed?

The fact remains that 5 characters being played by 1 person has much better coordination than 5 individuals especially in places like AV where you are facing PuGs with no coordination most of the time. I think it is mostly a problem with shaman, other classes don't stack that well.

I've been instantly killed MANY times by 5 individuals. It doesn't take much for 5 to kill one. What do shaman have to do with it? If target coordination were the best way to win BGs, take 4 friends into a BG and tell them to follow you around and assist off of you and follow you. You wouldn't do that because it's not actually the best way to win. Focus fire has its place, and the smart MB player will try to find roles where it shines. But if you could have 4 friends play your alts, you wouldn't have them do the same things as they do when you box it. You'd have them do much more. People who complain about MBers need to just go find some buddies and go into bgs with them on vent.

[Stealthy]

Totem stacking is a bit imba, but you're right.

Don't worry. Totem stacking is more-or-less a thing of the past in 3.0.

I'll be waiting for the multiboixng Thunderstorm QQ train to start up then. :P

[genocyde]

Seems to me some of these people that sport the "this game should be balanced based on players and not characters" argument should take some time to view there argument from the other side of itself. What if you put 25 humans in control of a 5v5 team. Equip them with all of the hardware, software, dedication, and class knowledge that multi-boxers have at their disposal simply because they put the time in. Despite the fact that 2 humans controlling the same toon through say 1 on keyboard 1 on mouse would be a violation of account sharing (lol). Then maybe they would understand the power that multiple humans control. Imagine how expertly a character could be played with one person in charge of line of sight and movement, one in charge of interrupts, one in control of targetting and strategy. All of that control on one toon could be arguably hard to deal with due to more than one person trying to use the same global cooldown, or your CC player targeting his sheep only to have your spell caster use his NS+CL macro expecting his damage target to still be targeted. Now that sounds an awful lot like me accidentally PoM+Pyroing my own sheep because of re-targetting lag. While given the time and equipment to master these issues, it could make that 25 player team seem mighty coordinated despite being only 5 characters, it does not mean that 1 toon with 5 humans controlling it should stand any better chance against 5 toons with 5 humans just like their 1 human 1 toon does not stand against our 1 human 5 toons. I'm sure people much more familiar with multi-boxing arguments could masterfully word this to help shut up the people constantly saying that their 1 shadow priest should be on equal ground as your 5 ele shaman simply because you are both 1 player.

Or maybe they would think you were agreeing with them and continue to chew on their shoulder.

[Vyndree]

Don't worry. Totem stacking is more-or-less a thing of the past in 3.0.

Stacking non-like totems (i.e. Grounding + WoA, Healing + Mana) won't change.

Raid totem stacking is a buff and a nerf for shaman. As a raiding shaman, it's EASY to get into a guild because stacking resto shaman (for the heroisms and buff totems) per group was a decent strategy. In WoTLK, you'll need no more than 1 of each spec -- and maybe not even that. Given that Blizz has been heading for an equal distribution of classes in a 25 man raid, 2-3 of each class should be their target...

Shaman were good in raids because their totems were tuned for 5-person groups -- so you wanted 1 per homogenized group of 5 (1 enh in the melee dps group, and a bunch of resto's -- and maybe an elemental -- in the healer/caster dps groups. Tank groups can even sometimes have a resto shammy laying WF or agi).
Multiboxed shamans are completely OP thanks to the fact that they are maximizing the effect of an class ability (totems) that was tuned for a 5man group. It's the min/max for multiboxers -- in raids, you min/max by putting a shaman in each group so that you get a whole rotation of heroisms and everyone benefits from buff totems. As a multiboxer, you min/max for 5 mans by taking a class that was designed for a 5-man group and stacking it to oblivion.

Now, totems going to be tuned for raids, effectively nerfing them royally in 5-person groups. This is why certain totems will fail to stack any longer -- think about how exponentially worse it would get in a 25 man raid. To compensate, we're (supposedly) going to be given equal dps to pure dps classes. What will this mean for multiboxers? In actuality -- I'm glad. There was much more diversity in group setups (granted, there were a bit of the 4x caster + priest scenario, but even then you had warlock and mage flavors) -- and I'm looking forward to see what people actually come up with rather than following the current min/max trend.


In any case, that was completely offtopic.

[Havelcek]

well now that they are lifting the pve->pvp restriction I might move my old raiding warlock over to my group. I agree with you that there will be more potential for diversifying the multibox 5-man, though I think pally tank will still be the way to go.