CCP prohibiting input broadcasting/multiplexing beginning January 2015

[bugme143]

If someone abuses the rules, make new rules that target abusers, not all populace. CCP is making changes that certainly do not improve the game for me as 5-man boxer, quite the opposite. Besides, one can argue that any game is better off without multiboxers, but developers tolerate us because we bring additional income. There is sort of fragile "understanding" between us, and in case of EVE it is at risk now, arguably because some boxers were abusing the rules, I do not dispute that. Still, I am sure they could have thought of solutions other than outright ban on input multiplexing.

Exactly.
Took some time to browse the F&I forum to find a lot of posts regarding ideas on how to balance multiboxing and EVE. I grouped them into "Mining (ice, ore, gas), Anoms+Missions, Incursions, PvP, and Bombing.

Anoms+Missions had the fewest threads regarding ISBoxers, since any idiot can toss an AFKTar into a Sanctum and earn 60m isk/hour or whatever it is, and multibox missioning, even L5, is garbage income.
Next fewest was PvP, but most of it was filled with ISBoxer gank fluff complaining that their Fenrir with 20b in modules was ganked, followed by just about everyone in the thread saying that they would've been ganked even if we limited EVE to 1 client / computer.
Next was mining. A lot of interesting ideas, ranging from increased rat spawns and toughness and re-balance the bounties, to minigames on lasers. My personal favorites was Minigames on the lasers (reduce m3 amount, add minigame to reward non-afkers with extra yield/faster cycles) and one oddball suggestion (not in the forums, in mining chat) to implement a "interference" modifier to mining lasers so that you start to hit diminishing returns once you get to 50+ on a belt.
Next was incursions. Lots of complaints about boxers, but lots of rebuttals regarding training time, risk and numbers, and false comparisons (e.g. comparing BNI to PL or BL). One thing I did like was a reduction of ISK payouts and an increase in LP payouts, requiring a player to "work harder" for his full ISK return, just like the ESS idea for nullsec (on the record, I still thing the ESS was retarded, but I do enjoy the BRs of the carebears defending it).
Then, bombing. Fairly certain this was the largest of the groups because of the latest issue with the (supposedly (lolright)) reimbursed Rorqual. Lots of ideas, ranging from un-reversing the decloak change (remember when the boxers told CCP it wouldn't work?), to removing bombs (wasn't the rorq killed by torps only?), to some decent ideas such as increasing sig radius of bombers, or reducing agility again. My favorite was implementing a 4-digit arming-code that must be entered when a bomb is in space in order for it to explode. As for the issue with torps being unbalanced on stealth bombers, there isn't really much that CCP can do in my eyes besides increasing align time or increasing sig-rad to help "balance" them, and even then, I'd be skeptical as I've seen first-hand the effectiveness of insta-canes and Zealots used in anti-bomber roles, and I've seen them slowly disappear.

CCP wants to be taken seriously in the MMO world, but changes like the latest announcement remind everyone of the GTA V thing where a small bunch of vocal wingnuts got Target to pull the game after lying through their teeth in the petition article.

[pinotnoir]

Exactly.
Took some time to browse the F&I forum to find a lot of posts regarding ideas on how to balance multiboxing and EVE. I grouped them into "Mining (ice, ore, gas), Anoms+Missions, Incursions, PvP, and Bombing.

Anoms+Missions had the fewest threads regarding ISBoxers, since any idiot can toss an AFKTar into a Sanctum and earn 60m isk/hour or whatever it is, and multibox missioning, even L5, is garbage income.
Next fewest was PvP, but most of it was filled with ISBoxer gank fluff complaining that their Fenrir with 20b in modules was ganked, followed by just about everyone in the thread saying that they would've been ganked even if we limited EVE to 1 client / computer.
Next was mining. A lot of interesting ideas, ranging from increased rat spawns and toughness and re-balance the bounties, to minigames on lasers. My personal favorites was Minigames on the lasers (reduce m3 amount, add minigame to reward non-afkers with extra yield/faster cycles) and one oddball suggestion (not in the forums, in mining chat) to implement a "interference" modifier to mining lasers so that you start to hit diminishing returns once you get to 50+ on a belt.
Next was incursions. Lots of complaints about boxers, but lots of rebuttals regarding training time, risk and numbers, and false comparisons (e.g. comparing BNI to PL or BL). One thing I did like was a reduction of ISK payouts and an increase in LP payouts, requiring a player to "work harder" for his full ISK return, just like the ESS idea for nullsec (on the record, I still thing the ESS was retarded, but I do enjoy the BRs of the carebears defending it).
Then, bombing. Fairly certain this was the largest of the groups because of the latest issue with the (supposedly (lolright)) reimbursed Rorqual. Lots of ideas, ranging from un-reversing the decloak change (remember when the boxers told CCP it wouldn't work?), to removing bombs (wasn't the rorq killed by torps only?), to some decent ideas such as increasing sig radius of bombers, or reducing agility again. My favorite was implementing a 4-digit arming-code that must be entered when a bomb is in space in order for it to explode. As for the issue with torps being unbalanced on stealth bombers, there isn't really much that CCP can do in my eyes besides increasing align time or increasing sig-rad to help "balance" them, and even then, I'd be skeptical as I've seen first-hand the effectiveness of insta-canes and Zealots used in anti-bomber roles, and I've seen them slowly disappear.

CCP wants to be taken seriously in the MMO world, but changes like the latest announcement remind everyone of the GTA V thing where a small bunch of vocal wingnuts got Target to pull the game after lying through their teeth in the petition article.

Mini game or diminishing returns on lasers is a terrible idea. You cannot afk while multiboxing mining. You have to constantly change lasers on different ice/rocks, jetcan your ore, and haul it. The only way you can afk mine is with 1 toon on a large rock. When I am in the ice belt with perfect boost "23second cycles" the ice dies fast and I am always changing targets. If they messed with that it would not only discourage multiboxers from mining it would piss off the solo players too.

[bugme143]

Mini game or diminishing returns on lasers is a terrible idea. You cannot afk while multiboxing mining. You have to constantly change lasers on different ice/rocks, jetcan your ore, and haul it. The only way you can afk mine is with 1 toon on a large rock. When I am in the ice belt with perfect boost "23second cycles" the ice dies fast and I am always changing targets. If they messed with that it would not only discourage multiboxers from mining it would piss off the solo players too.

Thank you for teaching me more about ISBoxing. I never ISBox mined, and the miners who I attempted to talk to in-game treated me like a CODE agent, so my experience is very limited.

What if they introduced the minigame without reducing the yield? As long as a player (or boxer) could re-position it and it doesn't hog the focus on screen, I think that wouldn't cause any issues.

[pinotnoir]

Thank you for teaching me more about ISBoxing. I never ISBox mined, and the miners who I attempted to talk to in-game treated me like a CODE agent, so my experience is very limited.

What if they introduced the minigame without reducing the yield? As long as a player (or boxer) could re-position it and it doesn't hog the focus on screen, I think that wouldn't cause any issues.

Things you do as a miner in null are manage your hold, jetcan when needed, change crystals, target rocks, & watch local like a hawk. It does not need a mini game. If you are multiboxing it becomes a ton of clicking.

[bugme143]

Things you do as a miner in null are manage your hold, jetcan when needed, change crystals, target rocks, & watch local like a hawk. It does not need a mini game. If you are multiboxing it becomes a ton of clicking.

My only real mining experience came from a mandatory mining op in nullsec with Rorq boosts, Orcas, and guards/scouts.
Do mining crystals not auto-reload when they become depleted?

[EaTCarbS]

My only real mining experience came from a mandatory mining op in nullsec with Rorq boosts, Orcas, and guards/scouts.
Do mining crystals not auto-reload when they become depleted?

don't recall, but you'll be swapping to new ones every time you mine a different type of ore. (because each ore has its own crystal)

[bugme143]

don't recall, but you'll be swapping to new ones every time you mine a different type of ore. (because each ore has its own crystal)

Right, knew that bit. I'm guessing that it would work similarly to pulse/tachyon lasers, in regards to timing the swaps and stuff. I know that I'd regularly hit issues with my NM fleet where broken crystals didn't always cycle in a new one so I'd have to manually unload + load it, reducing my efficiency.

[EaTCarbS]

They take a good while to deplete, so its not a huge issue.

[shadowandlight]

Have we still not heard back from CCP? They haven't responded in the main forum thread nor have I heard any activity on them sitting down to answer the questions we compiled.

I'm at a loss on why they refuse to communicate with the multiboxing community, the only thing I have read was a few sentences of "we don't plan on communicating further" on a reddit post a few days back.

[shadowssinging]

This makes most things a little bit harder, and some things a lot harder. It doesn't as some have said prevent you from multiboxing effectively, but it does prevent you from multiboxing perfectly.

For those that don't use isboxer at all, or who use it only for window management, it's business as usual. For those who relied input multoboxing and broadcasting before today, it became a little more complicated, maybe even challenging

There is a diminishing return on multiboxing without the aid of broadcasting. For me, I manage 5 clients without any difficulty for PvE, (afktar anomoly ratting or mining) and could probably manage 4-5 more if my connection and hardware could handle it, Beyond that, I'd be stretching the limits of my ability to stagger the timing between having to reposition each ship, fiddle with drones, modules, etc.

For PvP, 2-3 clients is the limit of what I can manage effectively, but that's just the characters in combat- there's room for another 2 or 3 to run cynos, scout, off grid boosts, or bridging blops/titans. That's going to be a bigger change for a lot of people - PvP is way more demanding, and trying to split attention between multiple clients is hard. The difficulty of fleet ejngagements primarily comes from coordinating multiple players with their own diffrent motivations and skills to shoot the right targets at the right time, or move together at the same time. Input broadcasting completely triviallized that element of difficulty, much to the grief of other players, which I think is one of the strongest arguments behind the ban.

There are some pretty strong remaining arguments:

• As some have noted earlier. the behavior similarities of certian multiboxing PvE setups, and bot PvE have probably complicated efforts to effectively enforce the EULA. against botters.
• Economics and mechanics of mining and large scale multiboxing have made it extremely unattractive for smaller operations as larger and larger multiboxed mining fleets have pushed prices down. Reasonable profits can't currently be made from mining without at least half a dozen clients, and profits competitive with other activities require dozens of clients.

With that said, mutiboxing is far from dead, and with game mechanics that actively encourage, and in many cases require muitiple accounts, we'll see it continue to be important to the game. People will have to adjust and adapt, the same activities may not be possible, in some cases the same scale may not be possible, but there will still be compelling reasons and effective ways to run anywhere from 2 to perhaps 2 dozen clients.