GGG stance on "Mules" (Multi-Boxing to store gear, improve exp and loot drops)

I think the weekly ladder races have illustrated how grouping is much more efficient than solo/small group play. The experience is much greater, the battles are safer and quicker, and the item quantity is increased on top of that.

This advantage is hard to ignore, and when you have a good enough character that you will wipe out a level with or without 5 leechers, it becomes obvious that multi-boxing will give this advantage without the hassle of a train of real followers.

GGG has stated that multiple accounts for extra storage (muling) is just fine (And besides, they could never find out if multiple people were using these accounts or just one, so it would be on the honor system if it weren't the case.). Multi-boxing is normally allowed in online games, unlike bots which are not controlled by a person. There are a whole lotta multi-boxers on WoW, and there is a slew of software which helps people control 5 characters or more.

This bears repeating:

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TehHammer wrote:

I'm placing the afks on MY side making MY side gimped. What reward should I get for that? Probably something along the lines of more exp and more loot.

All we are doing here with "/players 6" is creating more of a challenge in order to make leveling up a bit faster and loot a bit more plentiful for someone who can easily clear the content already. With multi-boxing, it would be like directing a room of low-wage Chinese kids to increase your DPS as well. Although I think the shop would have the advantage there, with real people playing.

Everything GGG has done so far will dissuade real money shops from interfering with the economy and making it Pay-to-Win. They don't want bots, and they probably don't want people to need special software and lots of computers in order to compete in the leagues, so what is their solution?

*The drop-rates can be altered, shops/multi-boxers could probably get their currency drops lowered unfairly. (The average level suggestion really only hurts people who are trying to play with under-leveled friends, not the professionals who will have all their team of the proper level.)

*They could ban everyone who looks like they are using an alternate account and idling / afk-following / dual-boxing. (this would certainly not effect the shop people)

*An option could be implementing for difficulty for solo players or duos who are powerful enough to carry a whole team (very common in most 6-man groups I've seen). This would remove the advantage for those who have consistent teams under their control. If there are no exploitable party mechanics, because anyone can be a full party, then there will be no way for shops to exist.

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rwk wrote:

Trying to lock characters to certain areas by level is unfair and unnecessarily restrictive.

If you've got low levels increasing the difficulty of an area the area is still more difficult so what's the problem? Having equal level players increase the difficulty and is easier because you've got someone helping you. In D2 it was common for people to join public trading/dueling games with 7 plays and then go solo Mephisto and other bosses.


In D2 you could rush level ones through the entire game and it was common. Why try and limit this because someone can do the same thing, except it doesn't even benefit them as much?


If you've got extra players increasing the difficulty it's stilled harder and without the help of someone to clear it. I don't see why you're trying to skew this into a perspective like it's an exploit when it's in fact an accomplishment since they're doing what should require additional people.

Im sorry, but that is a HORRIBLE stance on the matter. So by your thoughts within 2 months of release you would be fine with OP characters running maps with max afk/boxed toons and pulling down the best loot in the game just because they are OP and use an exploit?

why ?

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ionface wrote:

The average level suggestion really only hurts people who are trying to play with under-leveled friends, not the professionals who will have all their team of the proper level.

I agree with you except for this point.

Using erenhardt's equation

I'm a level 26, my friend is level 12

Party_level = 26+12
Scale = 38/26
Scale = 146%

That's not bad, I'll be back in act 1 but I'll be getting 46% more (xp/loot <-obviously not literally)

I don't see where this is a problem, he will level faster since I can help him in higher level areas and our disparity will shrink, increasing the scaling.

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Funkopotamus wrote:

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rwk wrote:

Trying to lock characters to certain areas by level is unfair and unnecessarily restrictive.

If you've got low levels increasing the difficulty of an area the area is still more difficult so what's the problem? Having equal level players increase the difficulty and is easier because you've got someone helping you. In D2 it was common for people to join public trading/dueling games with 7 plays and then go solo Mephisto and other bosses.


In D2 you could rush level ones through the entire game and it was common. Why try and limit this because someone can do the same thing, except it doesn't even benefit them as much?


If you've got extra players increasing the difficulty it's stilled harder and without the help of someone to clear it. I don't see why you're trying to skew this into a perspective like it's an exploit when it's in fact an accomplishment since they're doing what should require additional people.

Im sorry, but that is a HORRIBLE stance on the matter. So by your thoughts within 2 months of release you would be fine with OP characters running maps with max afk/boxed toons and pulling down the best loot in the game just because they are OP and use an exploit?

why ?

So you're saying that boxing is the problem or that the extra loot for doing harder tasks is the problem?

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schitzoflink wrote:

"

ionface wrote:

The average level suggestion really only hurts people who are trying to play with under-leveled friends, not the professionals who will have all their team of the proper level.

I agree with you except for this point.

Using erenhardt's equation

I'm a level 26, my friend is level 12

Party_level = 26+12
Scale = 38/26
Scale = 146%

That's not bad, I'll be back in act 1 but I'll be getting 46% more (xp/loot <-obviously not literally)

I don't see where this is a problem, he will level faster since I can help him in higher level areas and our disparity will shrink, increasing the scaling.

You shouldn't interchange loot and experience mechanics, they are not the same. And they shouldn't be, GGG has done some good things to prevent abuse.

The mechanics thread details how currently experience and loot are modified in a party. There is something called the Effective Difference in gaining experience. That means if you take a clvl 1 exile into an mlvl 50 map, it will get less than just the normal share between two or more characters. It will gain about (14 / 1720339) of that experience. The level gap between your example players are not very wide though, and there would be experience gained by them both, which got the most would depend on the mlvl of the map.

The suggestion I was referring to was about item drop-rate however, it was that the iiq of the map should reflect the average of the player's levels instead of it getting a flat increase per additional player. This makes sense if there weren't such things as multi-boxing or low-wage online game labor. It would only hurt people who were being legitimate if they were to do that suggestion.

That doesn't really solve the problem though. One of two things will happen, people will get their alts up to 60+, or chat will be flooded with "LF leachers lv64 map".

There is some fundamental questions that need answers.

Should 1 person even be able to solo 6 man content? Probably impossible to prevent in a game as complex as PoE.

Is multiboxing allowed? Only ggg can say.

Can multiboxing actually be prevented? From a technical perspective. But leechers have the same result.

Given the fact that players will accomplish the same thing as /players x with multiboxing, leechers, or bots, ggg might as well actually make it a command and save themselves the trouble of trying to police the effects of it not existing.

However, /players x has some serious drawbacks. It makes playing anything but the best build worthless. Let us say the design of the game is that a player clears a map in 15 minutes. Now let us say player crafty creates an amazing build (discharge, burning arrow) that clears maps in an average of 2 minutes. Player crafty get 7x the loot. However, if his build is so strong he can clear a map set at /player 6 in 5 minutes he is now getting something along the lines of 18x the loot of an average player. This shifts the orb economy into the hands of a very small few, and is bad for the game overall imo.

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ionface wrote:

You shouldn't interchange loot and experience mechanics, they are not the same. And they shouldn't be, GGG has done some good things to prevent abuse.

I understand that, hence the "obviously not literally" part directly following. I am being general because GGG would be doing all of the balancing since they have access to the specific data.

The point would be to make the ROI not worth it to rush a lvl 1 to the end so you could multibox, while still allowing parties who are all about equal to still enjoy the benefits that come with the increased difficulty, thus creating a deterrent to the casual multiboxers (aka people with a laptop/second pc who might just make an account and have that character sit idle while they play solo).

You won't be able to stop this completely, and if they try they will have to lock the system down so tightly you get an overall crappier experience for the general user. So just make it inconvenient enough that the small percentage of players who are committed to this will not affect the game overall.

Well there is already solution in game. HC league.

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kavinux wrote:

Well there is already solution in game. HC league.

Hrm, that sounds like Ignoratio elenchi aka missing the point. You could still multibox in HC, albeit with much greater risk. Also on top of that you would still have the 6 pages of discussion on another topic, multiboxing in general.

There is one thing to note. After scaling exp, it is distributed to players as it is now. Higher lvl character gets more exp, lower lvl gets less.
The only thing my formula was meant to change was overall exp and loot yield from flat % increase per player in party to more advanced equation.