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Update regarding Multiboxing and input automation

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Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#1281 - 2014-11-26 16:23:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
Robert Caldera wrote:
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
However, the fact that CCP is doing this to target (and this is just my own hypothesis) suicide-ganking is troubling.


they are not targetting suicide ganking specifically but all activities involving isbotter, because the balance was getting out of whack completely. If you multibox do it on yourself, not some 3rd party automating tool reducing your workload and chances to **** up.

Suicide-ganking is the only new activity being targeted by these rules. Mining and ratting, the two activities that benefit from iSBoxer, were already being illegally botted most of the time when ISBoxer was in the picture. Since botting is illegal (and very much punishable), introducing this change would be meaningless unless suicide-ganking (and fringe cases like multi-bombing) are being targeted.


can you back up your statement regarding illegal botting anyhow? I know people who actively isbotted ratting fleets.
With isbotter you can easily smartbomb ratting, doing regular ratting with a multiboxed fleet (alliance mate used isbotted fleet of tengus for plexing), there are isbotted incursion fleets, you forget about bombing as a popular use - all those things are affected by recent policy change, for good.
What about mining? Have fun clicking trough your 50 clients in belt past January, 1st.
Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#1282 - 2014-11-26 16:29:36 UTC
The majority of people using ISBoxer for those things are automating the processes anyway. Implementing this new rule to punish the minority of ISBoxers who are actually there and manually controlling their input, while the botters go unpunished (as they always were), seems a bit moot to me.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Nolak Ataru
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#1283 - 2014-11-26 16:30:29 UTC
For everyone claiming "ISBoxing incursions" and "ISBoxing anoms" is dead..... nah it isn't. Since we can still use ISBoxer's VideoFX and DXNothing to rearrange our screens, it may take us a little longer to lock each target, but not by much.
Bluespot85
What IU Doing
Brothers of Tangra
#1284 - 2014-11-26 16:31:37 UTC
Hi

Before everyone gets their fanfares out i'd like to point out that there is a huge difference between adding this to the EULA and actually enforcing it, especially where CCP is concerned.

Botting and RMT are against the EULA yet the game is rife with both of these activities and has been for a long time.

A quick seach on google and ebay prove that.

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=buy+eve+online+isk

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2058507.m570.l1311.R1.TR5.TRC2.A0.H0.Xeve+onlin&_nkw=eve+online&_sacat=0

A quick search of far flung empire systems also prove that botting is rife. And before anyone states "how do you know someone is botting" thats easy, you blown their barge up and watch there pod warp back and forward between a station and belt for an hour or two.

A quick search of a botters contracts proves that isk is laundered and CCP does nothing about it. Or someone is stupid enough to buy 1 bullet for 1 billion isk dozens of times.

Reporting these players achieves nothing.

As far as isboxer is concerned, how is CCP going to enforce this? How can you tell the difference between a player that has two screens with two characters doing the same thing and someone using isboxer?

The truth is you cant.

If I can operate two accounts without isboxer and have less than half a second between clients then im sure someone younger and more nimble fingered than me can do so quicker.

TLDR: Just read it.

Elisha Habah
Tactically Armed Vanguard
Tactical Narcotics Team
#1285 - 2014-11-26 16:32:12 UTC
Nolak Ataru wrote:
For everyone claiming "ISBoxing incursions" and "ISBoxing anoms" is dead..... nah it isn't. Since we can still use ISBoxer's VideoFX and DXNothing to rearrange our screens, it may take us a little longer to lock each target, but not by much.

Totally agree..... People have no clue. As stated previously we only use mouse repeat for about 10% of the time.....

in the process of thinking of a witty signature, get back to me

Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#1286 - 2014-11-26 16:32:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Robert Caldera
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
The majority of people using ISBoxer for those things are automating the processes anyway. Implementing this new rule to punish the minority of ISBoxers who are actually there and manually controlling their input, while the botters go unpunished (as they always were), seems a bit moot to me.

again, can you back up you claims somehow?
All isbotters I know arent running ratting bots with it, they are actively ganking people or bombing the **** out of the enemy as one man army.


Nolak Ataru wrote:
For everyone claiming "ISBoxing incursions" and "ISBoxing anoms" is dead..... nah it isn't. Since we can still use ISBoxer's VideoFX and DXNothing to rearrange our screens, it may take us a little longer to lock each target, but not by much.

thats the whole point. To unload all work of multiboxing up on you, not some input multiplying tool.
Congratulations, you realized intentions of this policy. Once you have to click through your 15 incursion clients and click guns one by one, activate hardeners one by one etc. I'm fine with you multiboxing, because I know how big the chances for failure are in all that clicking and how exhausting that is, then I'm good with it. What I'm not good with is when you fly a fleet of machariels with same effort as you'd do it with 1.
Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#1287 - 2014-11-26 16:40:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Destiny Corrupted
Robert Caldera wrote:
again, can you back up you claims somehow?
All isbotters I know arent running ratting bots with it, they are actively ganking people or bombing the **** out of the enemy as one man army.

Go to a null-sec system with lots of NPC kills, and observe the behavior of the locals. Or go to pretty much any system within 5 jumps of a hub, and observe the miners in the belts. Feel free to ask them what they use.

Or you know, just Google up a botting forum and read their discussions. I can safely say there's a three-to-one figure ratio of people using ISBoxer to bot to those using it to gank or bomb.

Nolak Ataru wrote:
Congratulations, you realized intentions of this policy.

The intentions of this policy are to punish anyone who uses ISBoxer for pvp activities, since as we've just established, those using it for pve are already breaking the rules by botting, but go unpunished. And if they've been going unpunished up to this point, something tells me that this new rule isn't really going to do anything to that demographic.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Ser Ganglion
SG Investigation Inc.
#1288 - 2014-11-26 16:42:06 UTC
Wow, 68 pages
Yesterday i celebrate my birthday, today i feel getting gifted again - wonderful, reading about the clarification. Finally CCP did the job right, i always was in trust they will do. Smile
ShadowandLight
Trigger Happy Capsuleers
#1289 - 2014-11-26 16:43:50 UTC
For those hoping that this will stop multiboxing, the more people like myself and those smarter look at this, all it will do is force us to spend an hour or 2 more on our setup.

Using other features in isboxer we could create a "hotkey" that on every press sends "f1", "jump", "target" etc to the client, then move to the next client. How fast could you press a hotkey in you keyboard? That's how fast you could do this setup.

There's already videos on how round Robin works, heres one I found almost immediately.
http://youtu.be/UX6gsNLMsVI

Here's what I wrote this morning on dual-boxing.com

Quote:

You know the more I think about the solutions or look at other peoples idea how to get around this newly imposed limitation I think the end result is your going to have a tremendously hard time differentiating between people who are using input duplication vs those people using hot keys, clickbars / menu bars or round robin.

In fact if someone had time to make a quick video or link something already done I think we have a good chance in the next month + to get ccp to change their mind.

If I setup a round Robin keymap that on every press hits "f1" I could smash that key extremely quickly, sending the f1 command to 20 clients in no time. People with logitech or similar keyboards will probably end up setting up an auto repeat in the logitech software to save them the hassle.

Using click bars, menus or vfx could accomplish the same task, yes you have to click a button each time but that's pretty fast if you line all the buttons up close together.

Now all that aside, I have a hard time believing that in every single case people are going to stop using broadcasting all together. The honest ones will do their best to create workarounds and in most cases it will be very easy to do, the only time it will be tougher is targeting or jumping through gates and I'm pretty sure that using round Robin key maps we can do that in a second flat for dozens of clients.

All you've accomplished is less then an hour of setup to get around this really ignorant rule.
.
I'm hitting the media circuit pretty heavy these few weeks to discuss how incredibly short sighted ccp is being with all this.
icarus1166
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#1290 - 2014-11-26 16:44:40 UTC
Is Good that ccp takes care of all its users. Old and New.

Only with this announcement ccp is probably making an mistake.

Let me line up a couple of things to think about.

1. Ccp, s A.I.

In high sec all players are so called protected by concord that's coming to help for the once that prefer to stay in high sec.
This is a good thing. But multiple players working in a fleet to gank someone because of high value is dead because the A.I. focuses fire also on 1 player. If there are multiple players involved in these kinds of activities concord just add the amount of A.I. multiplied to the amount of players involved. Fair? Don't know after this announcement.

Rat sites and mission areas the same. If one player jumps into a pve site the A.I. automatically focus fire on that specific target.
Now if a fleet of multiple players jumps into the same mission areas the rat A.I. calculates who is the strongest and the weakest. On this base of Intel the rat A.I. focuses het fire on 1 target. explain to me what the difference is between a multiboxer player and the game A.I. mechanic's.

Also emagine these A.I. In low / null / wormhole space.

2. Mining operations

Multiboxers are mostly active on mining operations. This is what think at least. With these guys msrket prices are manipulated to low rate costs. Now lets take out the fast ability of mining and let each individual mine the hell out of everything. Think the overall prices on the market will rise on raw materials. Good or bad? Time will tell.

3. Multiboxers not able to agress/defend his / her assets.

Multiboxers are cut down in there option to lock and load to attack or defend there assets. Now my question is why is a multiboxer
Not able to defend himself on broadcast? And a combined fleet of players is? Don't forget the assets a multiboxer put at steak is worth more then a individual player puts in the field. So with this rule multiboxer can only watch and see how there assets are being destroyed without being able to do anything. Simple the micro management is just to large to oversee. Simply sayd, this is just the best news killboard hunters where waiting for. Being protected by so called ccp rules. If multiboxer player egnore these rules? punishment of being thrown out for 30 days. And after being caught a2nd time no access to the game at all

At least it will make the game less crowded. If this is the final rule. Also the plex market will be less active and ccp will see less money flows. Don't get me wrong, 1 individual player spending 15,- euro / dollar? Or a multiboxer using between 1 up till 10 or more? Rather this is injected on eve game isk or real life money. Ccp will notice a drop somewhere. Good luck with pushing up subscription prices.

Maybe looking for different solutions?

Instead of pushing players away out of the game, push them into low/null/wormhole space. I believe this was the hole idea anyway because of the massive numbers of small updates launched lately.
From here high sec can be a heaven again for new players and players that can't handle the stress of being outnumbered by multiboxer s? Low/null/wh are the places that makes the game harder to survive anyway. Also what is the difference about a Catecamp with multiple players or isboxer in these areas? a solo pilot will see the same result anyway. His/her revival in anpc station. So outcome stays the same.

Wonder what the reactions will be. Fire away guys !!!!!


Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#1291 - 2014-11-26 16:45:51 UTC
Destiny Corrupted wrote:

Go to a null-sec system with lots of NPC kills, and observe the behavior of the locals. Or go to pretty much any system within 5 jumps of a hub, and observe the miners in the belts. Feel free to ask them what they use.


so you're basically saying because isbotter is abused as ratting bot, we should keep it allowed.
for me personally, its enough to see 1-man bombing fleets vanish to appreciate this policy.

Destiny Corrupted wrote:

The intentions of this policy are to punish anyone who uses ISBoxer for pvp activities

yes, and there is nothing wrong with that - if you multibox, you should do all the work, not isbotter.


Destiny Corrupted wrote:
, since as we've just established those using it for pve are already breaking the rules by botting, but go unpunished.

no, its still a mere unproven statement from you.
Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#1292 - 2014-11-26 16:47:37 UTC
ShadowandLight wrote:
For those hoping that this will stop multiboxing, the more people like myself and those smarter look at this, all it will do is force us to spend an hour or 2 more on our setup.

Using other features in isboxer we could create a "hotkey" that on every press sends "f1", "jump", "target" etc to the client, then move to the next client. How fast could you press a hotkey in you keyboard? That's how fast you could do this setup.

This is the conclusion I came to a few hours ago. This is going to be trivial to get around, and will only serve to reinforce the precedent that CCP is setting. Six months later, things will be getting "out of control," and it will be time to "ba;ance" CONCORD again.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

WhatHappensInJita Jitas
State War Academy
Caldari State
#1293 - 2014-11-26 16:50:42 UTC
68 pages of botter tears, excuses, predicting the death of a 10 year old game, playing dumb like CCP is banning keyboards and OSs that have scripting built in lol <3 The botter rage has kept me warm all morning and it's raining ice outside.

I can't believe I read every comment, but it was just so engaging. Did you botters log in all your accounts and post all at once or did you whine individually from each account? I guess the latter will be good practice for when you actually have to play the game like everyone else.

Syllviaa
Hole Exploitation Inc.
#1294 - 2014-11-26 16:52:36 UTC
WhatHappensInJita Jitas wrote:
68 pages of botter tears, excuses, predicting the death of a 10 year old game, playing dumb like CCP is banning keyboards and OSs that have scripting built in lol <3 The botter rage has kept me warm all morning and it's raining ice outside.

I can't believe I read every comment, but it was just so engaging. Did you botters log in all your accounts and post all at once or did you whine individually from each account? I guess the latter will be good practice for when you actually have to play the game like everyone else.



I don't see any botters complaining in this thread.

RIP Richard A. Butt

Josef Djugashvilis
#1295 - 2014-11-26 16:52:50 UTC
Elisha Habah wrote:
[quote=Nolak Ataru]For everyone claiming "ISBoxing incursions" and "ISBoxing anoms" is dead..... nah it isn't. Since we can still use ISBoxer's VideoFX and DXNothing to rearrange our screens, it may take us a little longer to lock each target, but not by much.

Totally agree..... People have no clue. As stated previously we only use mouse repeat for about 10% of the time.....[/quote

In which case, the ISboxers seem to have no grounds for complaining about the new CCP rules?

This is not a signature.

Destiny Corrupted
Deadly Viper Kitten Mitten Sewing Company
Senpai's Afterschool Anime and Gaming Club
#1296 - 2014-11-26 16:53:43 UTC
Robert Caldera wrote:
so you're basically saying because isbotter is abused as ratting bot, we should keep it allowed.

There are other software solutions that can accomplish the same thing. CCP can't "ban" software, so they ban the act. The problem is that the act they're banning now is much less severe than the one that's been banned since day 1, and that they've done nothing about.

Robert Caldera wrote:
Destiny Corrupted wrote:

The intentions of this policy are to punish anyone who uses ISBoxer for pvp activities

for me personally, its enough to see 1-man bombing fleets vanish to appreciate this policy.
+
yes, and there is nothing wrong with that - if you multibox, you should do all the work, not isbotter.

This is no surprise. Your stance against the presence of various "disagreeable" forms pvp in this game is widely known.

Robert Caldera wrote:
Destiny Corrupted wrote:
, since as we've just established those using it for pve are already breaking the rules by botting, but go unpunished.

no, its still a mere unproven statement from you.

You think I keep a Rolodex of all the bots I've encountered or something? All I know is that any I've ever reported have never been banned. Even those that outwardly admitted to me that yes, they were botting.

I wrote some true EVE stories! And no, they're not of the generic "my 0.0 alliance had lots of 0.0 fleets and took a lot of 0.0 space" sort. Check them out here:

https://truestories.eveonline.com/users/2074-destiny-corrupted

Sentenced 1989
#1297 - 2014-11-26 16:56:51 UTC
Elisha Habah wrote:

What's the point in having more than 3/4 accounts if you can't play them all. At the same time. Now here's to my next point.....


I have 3, and I can use them at same time, with only alt+tab assigned to my 3rd mouse button... Nothing else.
Robert Caldera
Caldera Trading and Investment
#1298 - 2014-11-26 16:58:06 UTC
Josef Djugashvilis wrote:
In which case, the ISboxers seem to have no grounds for complaining about the new CCP rules?

^ this
DaReaper
Net 7
Cannon.Fodder
#1299 - 2014-11-26 17:02:54 UTC
ShadowandLight wrote:
Dear CCP, Multiboxing is a huge challenge and time investment, taken on by those who love your game. Don't hurt the dedicated players who have poured countless hours into EVE by banning multiboxing.

Input duplication vs multiboxing
Edit: a clarification for those trying to walk the line between multiboxing and input duplication. I realize ccp is banning input duplication, but I think that the other capabilities of isboxer and similar software, as soon as the mob gets worked up over it, will ensure that owning 2 accounts is "unfair". The main purpose of isboxer is input duplication, allowing you to control multiple accounts as if one person. Removing that feature is a huge blow and on the path to a complete removal of management of alts with any efficiency.


Side Question, is all this about CCP trying to stop ganking???

1st let me say that I have multiboxed in EVE for as long as I can remember, probably it's one of the main reasons I've stayed interested in the same game outside of the increasing diminishing larger scale PVP fights.

Please read the probably too long letter below. I love Eve and all its challenges. There are many dedicated people like myself who love the game and that's why we have multiple accounts and have spent countless hours trying to become competent in multiboxing.

To me, Multiboxing is an end game level content. I spend hours.. weeks learning about the various task I'm going to undertake (recently it's been incursions or bombing), designing and testing fits, dying in horrible fire's while adapting to try and overcome the challenge.

Unlike some, I choose to pay for my accounts with cash. Yes, all my alts I pay for with cash and have never plexed my accounts. Eve is a hobby of mine, like RC planes, model training sets, golfing or any other hobby. I've designed, built and continue to upgrade 2 very high end computers so that my multi boxing experience is smoother and faster, especially as Eve's clients get better graphics or I engage in content with more and more people.

This policy doesn't just hurt the people with dozens of miners, the guy with 50 proteus accounts in wormhole space, the multi boxing haulers or any specific niche. It hurts everyone in EVE.

If this policy is enforced to appease the vocal minority, it's end result will hurt everyone. If you wanted an alt to help you salvage or run missions faster, if you wanted a 2nd hauler to get your minerals moved around the ever larger New Eden... The example are nearly endless.

Mineral pricing, ship and module costs, invention success all will get more expensive, hurting the already fragile industry.

Yes, I am sure to the average player seeing someone with 10 mining accounts when you can barely afford one hulk is annoying and frustrating. However that is part of the same reason that the person your being angry at starred another account and learned how to run 2 accounts at once, then learned how to afford that account. They saw someone else with "more" and instead of pounding on the desk declaring how unfair the world is, they decided to adapt and become better, faster and more efficient themselves.

You see I can't help but detect some level of "it's not fair" attitude among some here who are against multi boxing. I see a thread of complaints bordering on "if I can't do it because of x, y or z you can't do it either."

Star Citizen is an example. I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars in that game, for many reasons, but I appreciate those who do. They are paying the company for better ships and items, helping that company and in turn improving their game experience. Except like Eve and multiboxing it's a fair playing field. Anyone could start a 2nd or 10 alts, all that's stopping them is money and learning the skill to control them effectively.

I feel this policy is extremely short sited. It will cost the players a tremendous amount, it will hurt the bottom line of CCP needlessly and instead placates a group of people who will surely move on to the next pitch fork issue like how unfair of an advantage officer modules are because they can't afford them.

But all that aside, your hurting the dedicated players like myself who aim to be better and more challenged in EVE. We are all extremely dedicated and loyal players, who have stayed in EVE because we love the challenge of the game and want to be ever improving in it. We've spent way more time invested into EVE partly because of our ability to multi box, have spent an enormous amount of money on our hobby which we didn't spend with another game (even the people with only 1 or 2 mining alts or ratters are vital to your game).

The call for people to remove "input duplication" (soon multiboxing all together im sure) is a case of mob mentality from people who don't understand the benefits they are gaining from it, the effort and time people put into it or how much it has helped keep CCP afloat all these years.

Edit: regarding work arounds we are already finding solutions with even adding any features to isboxer or similar software.

See this post I madehttps://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=5245761#post5245761



Multi boxing won't be killed, slippery slope argument Is a logical fallacy. This is like saying that by banning bottign scripts no one will mine. Any work arounds that duplicatce clicks are eula violations. but ill leave that up to ccp.

OMG Comet Mining idea!!! Comet Mining!

Eve For life.

Seven Seas
Jump 2 Beacon
OnlyHoles
#1300 - 2014-11-26 17:03:29 UTC
page 69 :)