EVE General Discussion

many of us have witnessed the increasing number of isboxer bomber squads in EvE. At first it was mining fleets, now its bombing runs, the underlying problem for me is an activity that should involve an entire fleet of people is being done (often more effectively) with a single person.



Is it cheating?

Its 3rd party software that enables you to essentially macro multiple characters in eve to duplicate and/or follow a lead pilot. Sounds like cheating to me. However I can understand why CCP wouldn't mind this, after all its one person paying 10x the amount that others are, financially that person is worth 10 other players.



then, is it Pay to Win?

Competitive games only do well when your on a level playing field. As soon as a person can legitimately buy their way into a positions in which he/she has an edge over opponents, its game over. Being able to purchase ISK with money, is counter balanced by being able to buy game time with ISK. For every plex a player sells, another player can play for free.

This is not the case for ISBoxing, if a player spends 10x more than his counter-parts he gains an advantage that is not offset. This then is paying to win.



Will CCP do anything about it?

I really hope so, short term it may mean more money generated by these individuals for CCP. However its essentially dominating the bomber/blops gameplay and removing that content essentially for 9 other players.

ISBoxer bombing runs have become so much of a problem in nullsec that the entire null-sec doctrine scene has changed. Essentially killing the use of anything larger than cruiser hulls in fear of bombs. T3 doctrines, ishtars and the like are all anti-bomber oriented. The problem here is, the higher efficiency ratio of bombing runs done with perfect timing via this 3rd party program has skewed the impact and effectiveness of an area of the game.

Unfortunately I believe this will lead to a bomb nerf, either towards bombers themselves or in the form of counter-measures. The problem with this is, it will be to combat ISBoxer standards, anyone unable to perform at the impossible perfectly timed commands of a computer program will be hit much harder and it will kill of a section of the game for many normal players.

What do you think EvE-0?

Bland Inquisitor

Ishtars rose to prominence due to their ability to be able to do a large amount of DPS meanwhile retaining an effective tank and a good amount of speed. People with sentry Ishtars would frequently just drop sentries and burn in one direction ensuring that an attacker would have to chase after in a straight line meaning the sentries would hit for massive damage due to a lack of need for tracking.

Money > Common Sense = CCP

not this again...

but as far as actually contributing to the thread...

isbomber fleets are no different from the isboxer fleets of destroyers and tier 3 bc's that people run. so not really a new or interesting twist on the isboxer rage.

This thread again?

To be expected I guess, but if you could, at least make it entertaining rather than the same old QQ whinge and whine.

People use ISBoxer and CCP are ok with it. Get over it and stop blaming your losses on other people. You are 100% responsible for your loss.

any complaint you might have about multiboxing, is in reality a complain about eve online mechanics. did you die to bombers? then who cares if its one person or 10, the problem is bombers being a tool far too powerful for its intended role. did you die to a smart bombing gatecamp? nothing to do with boxing, everything to do with the outdated gate gameplay mechanic. got alphaed? blame it on eves n+1 mechanics, because it had **** to do with boxing.

the good thing is that every single scenario presented has already counters in place. don't warp to zero, abuse tracking mechanics, dscan, EWAR, use scouts, etc, etc. so if you want an answer, then its simple, don't ask CCP to do what you are too lazy to do. most of the terrible smarbombing gatecamps are a pile of batleships waiting to get longpointed and sniped. bomber fleets are dirt easy to kill and easier to evade. and a gate camp with tornadoes or ruptures is an invitation for a few ceptors to get under guns and have a laugh killing them.

and the argument of "its an unfair advantage" is mind numbingly stupid, you are not a player, you are an USER. you didn't get killed by one player, you got killed by individual users, each following the same EULA you are following. if they killed you, its because EVE happened, and you were found on the losing side. and the "perfect timing" is a complete fabrication, specially when you are discussion bombers. i have never seen a bomber fleet with anything less than perfect timing, because its so easy to achieve... all you need is some form of voice communication. if you think bypassing a voice callous is unfair well, cant help you there.

the only moment where it would make a difference is when camping small and agile ships using destroyers instead of a T3 or Command ship. only then i have to agree, the lack of coordination should have an effect. but since it can be easily offset by increasing the alpha and using less, bigger, ships i couldn't care less.

if anything you should be glad multiboxers are there, when was the last time you saw a fleet of battlecruisers or cruisers doing lowsec exploration? just go there and shoot at them, arguing "im only one and i cant win" is arguing "eve is not fair and should be changed to be fair" "make gates in sites allow only one ship per players so we can duel and have fair fights nom nom" and those arguments are deluded and stupid, eve is not fair nor should it ever be.

and your solo elite pvp skills are BY DESIGN supposed to mean nothing when facing a small fleet flying doctrine. just because new players have been brain washed into believing lowsec is a place only cloaky t3 can go do PVE in, doesn't mean everyone has to share that delusion.

and to be fair, the multiboxer is ALWAYS on the losing side, if you cant exploit his extreme weaknesses then you probably need to go back to eve school... they have no way of controlling the number one thing that matters on eve and that's position. there's no way to "multibox" manual flying, it cant be done, doing it is in fact a direct violation of the EULA, so knowing that why don't you abuse it?

and btw, please stop using the name of a proprietary software to refer to a practice, isboxer is just one of the tools that can be used to multibox, you don't even need a 3rd party tool to multibox on eve, because eve online does NOT use mouse movements, it only uses mouse clicks, all you need to do is broadcast mouse click positions... that can be done with far too many applications to list, and most of them are freeware. the only thing isboxer brings is window management.

There is nothing CCP can do about ISBoxer and it is not against the EULA agreement.

Here is what I got from the ISBoxer site please read it and understand what they are saying.



Multiboxing is allowed, and programs designed for multiboxing in mind which allow a player to manually issue the same command to multiple game clients at the same time are allowed. In the same vein as what has been stated above, the player must be manually sending the commands; if a program is automating those commands for you, then it would be considered a breach of our EULA.

please stop posting these threads. I'm running out of new trolling material.

ISBoxer... compulsive gaming... in EVE... whoda thunkit...

EvE is dying.

It's avocado season so I at an avocado with dinner tonight.

I also chuckled heartily at the first post.