dualboxing in instances?

[hendrata]

I have an ethical question, I remember it has been addressed somewhere here but not fully resolved.

A friend of mine ran an instance last night and suspected that someone was dualboxing (melee dps + priest), from the way they moved, and the fact that the priest seems to lag behind and not very talkative, and then always follows the melee. A couple info:
1. My friend is NOT against dual boxing. He's well aware who we are, and he plans to do it sometime in the future for RAF bonus too.
2. The healer did an okay job (not terribly good, but good enough for non-heroics outland instance), but the melee dps was awful.

And he resented the fact that those two didn't admit that they're dual boxers, if they are. His points:
1. you should always warn your party if you are a dual boxer. People may or may not accept you, that's their choice.
2. you get twice as many rolls for loot drops
3. two toons controlled by a single person can't be as good as two toons controlled by two people, assuming same level of player skill. My counter argument is that this way two toons are actually controlled by the same person and therefore more coordinated, but it doesn't really make sense because you are in a group of 5, and not just a group of 2.

What do you guys think? Is this sort of behavior okay or no?

So far I have leveled a pally + priest couple to 50 all "solo" (duo, whatever). I've only grouped once with a third person for a rare escort quest, and even so, I made sure the second toon is "talkative" and "reactive" enough so that he never suspected that we're the same person. But I'm wondering that once we reach 60 and RAF bonus is gone, we would have to run outland instances for gears / XP.

I'm not necessarily looking for a clear cut answer here, but just general opinions whether dualboxing / triple boxing in instances when grouped with other people okay or not.
My server is Proudmoore btw, so multiboxers are not that rare, but not ubiquitous either.

[Hachoo]

If you're doing your job well its none of their business whether you're dual boxing or not, unless you're 4 of the 5 people :P

Who cares if you get multiple loot rolls? You're playing multiple characters, you SHOULD get them. The game is built around characters, not around the number of people playing those characters

[Harem]

2. you get twice as many rolls for loot drops

uh, how does this change anyones chances on rolls? There is still 5 characters total right?

When questing with a group should the game divide the quest reward among the five people? No.

I had to deal with this before and never understood people getting their panties in a wad over it.

Disclosure? I do. If someone doesn't - oh well. If they did good enough job I put them on my friends list - if they suck, I never group with them again.

I'm not necessarily looking for a clear cut answer here, but just general opinions whether dualboxing / triple boxing in instances when grouped with other people okay or not.

I have friends who ask to go with me all the time. I drop a shammy or two and take them. Ask them if it's ok.

[Vicker]

I three-box a team that I have specifically designed for running instances with two other people. Depending on the attitude of the person asking, I will usually be open about what I'm doing. Sometimes I goof around with them a little bit, especially if they whisper my main to "warn" him that they suspect that my other two guys are dual-boxing.

My runs are always full clears. I have a number of people who whisper me the moment I log on hoping to get in on one of my runs. I'm pretty sure most people I've grouped with have no objections. They just want a good group, which is something they can find when I'm there.

[Vyndree]

1. you should always warn your party if you are a dual boxer. People may or may not accept you, that's their choice.
2. you get twice as many rolls for loot drops
3. two toons controlled by a single person can't be as good as two toons controlled by two people, assuming same level of player skill. My counter argument is that this way two toons are actually controlled by the same person and therefore more coordinated, but it doesn't really make sense because you are in a group of 5, and not just a group of 2.

I agree with one and 3, with a simplification...
3. two toons controlled by a single person can't be as good as one toon controlled by the same person.

This leaves the two options: A. they are at a disadvantage because adding another player would raise the group's skill level above what the skill level would be with the multiboxer or B. the one multiboxer is a substantially better player than two other players who could join the group combined, and he/she is raising the group's skill level as a consequence.
... usually it's item "A" unless your only other options are really bad pugs.

Of course, then there's C. The group is doomed to failure, so nobody cares. That's when your tank is a keyboard turner who lacks situational awareness and doesn't speak your language, your healer has an <AFK> tag up and never trained any spells, your DPSers yell things like "Just heal me", "STOP NINJA LOOTING SOUL SHARDS", and "Dude wtf where's the heals" when you're not a healing class... that sort of thing.

As for 2...

If his group knows that he's doing the job of 2 character spots, gearing 2 characters, spending 2 repair bills... then why can't he have 2 rolls (one per character)? The loot still gets split 5 ways, no matter how you cut it.

If they don't like splitting the loot 5 ways, then they should only put 4 characters in the instance.

However, imo one thing he SHOULD NOT do is /roll on say... a leather item twice and his priest "passes" the winning roll to his rogue. Need if YOU (the character) needs it. Greed otherwise. You shouldn't need roll on any gear that you're not going to use (I'm thinking master looter and BoP items, for clarification).

[Boylston]

1. "Warning your party" - I generally warn my party that I'm an above-average player who wants to clear an instance very fast and won't tolerate people in my group that can't play well. I rarely group with people I don't already know, so this is rarely an issue. The fact that I'm multiboxing is generally very obvious to anyone good enough to be grouped with me.

2. "twice as many rolls" - This depends. 99% of the time, it's me grouped with a partner or maybe two. It's almost always the same guys (Druid and Paladin buddies). I generally split shards and stuff more in their favor than 1/5th. We'll do enough runs to get say 10 shards, and I'll split them 6 for me and 4 for my buddy. Loot itself is rarely an issue. The main time "twice as many rolls" comes up is during raids, honestly. The best system I found for BC raiding was to roll on some of my team, but not all. For example, if I took 4 shammies into Gruul's Lair, I might use two of them to roll on a token or item. If I won, I would then tell the master looter which of the 4 shaman he should give it to. Everyone seemed to like this system pretty well, since I'd often bring my "main" shaman (who often needed no gear) as well as an alt shaman on the team who did. They thought it was pretty fair to have less rolls than 1/character in exchange for allocating the items to whoever I was trying to gear.

Being a super nice, non-loot-obsessed person here helps. One Gruul's run, I rolled with 4 shaman on a boss where 2 shaman tokens dropped. I rolled a 100 and a 98 (in addition to two other high rolls), beating out two people in the guild. I told the loot master I'd rather see the items go to the other two people, since I knew I'd be back eventually. Those two guys were very happy about it and later organized a lot of raids around my 3-4 shamans. Be a good player, and take care of your raid team, and they'll take care of you loot-wise.

3. "two toons controlled by a single person can't be as good as two toons controlled by two people". I think this is often the case, but not always. For example, I think I can play a resto druid+2 hunters just as well (if not better in some circumstances) in a 5-man instance. Sure, I don't always have independent movement, but I have instantaneous recognition that there's a mob coming to attack the druid and can trap it much, much faster than if I was 2 separate people. Even if I'm playing 2 characters 90% as well as 2 independent people of my skill level, it's often the case that no average player would notice.

90% of the time, I instance with people I know well, and we set loot to FFA. Depending on who needs what (XP, DE mats, cloth), we just kinda work it all out.

[badashh]

I dual box as well with a Resto druid and mage. I generally don't advertise the fact that I am dual-boxing until after the run. Most of the time people don't realize that I am doing it, and I hope that I can change perceptions due to successful runs. Of course if someone asks I tell them I am boxing. Also due to the lack of healers, I think people are more willing to take my healer + 1 dps.