On PS4, I believe the maximum is 4 controllers.
On x-box it’s als 4.
I would also like to point out that the reason for dragging three toons around is NOT to reach higher GRIFTS, but to get more loot per Rift. In non-seasonal you can get all the loot for your main acount. It doen’t take a genius to figure out that this is a really fast way to gear your characters. It is a form of cheating, as it lets you gear way faster than you otherwise would, but it’s nothimg you wouldn’t be able to do on your own.
And yet, per the EULA, it’s legit.
Sounds not unlike benefits that can be had grouping, bringing balance to play with less than a full group or solo.
Splitting up to complete bounties, benefits of meta, etc.
But it pretty much got killed off the towing with the introduction of the follower system. I did it for the same reason as OP normally with my wifes toon. And once she was geared enough would run her for starter gear on any Alt I wanted.
But with the extra death breaths, keys, Flavor of Time, Nemesis Bracers on followers now, why would you!
My take on followers is it presented a genuine choice to being semi active with play of a second controller, with pros and cons for different situations. Follower often won out with pushing, for example.
It’s a good point you make though, as that is a penalty associated with playing multiple controllers.
Similarly for just connecting, towing/allowing to die and leaching off multiple controllers rather than playing them as the OP describes.
well that’s a terrible game design.
- has to buy 3 other controllers.
check - has to use each controller 1 by 1 to get each character into rifts
check - slow, tedious picking up, salvaging, etc
check
no man, you need to like sit back and just think about how much you’re embarrassing yourself with your mis-perceptions, cause its definitely not cheating
2 Likes
it is still automation and still cheating. I suggest that you re-read the TOS.
Not so according to the EULA from what MB’s put forward:
Followers don’t get their own loot drops. That is what the OP uses the multiple controller groups for: extra loot. I would say it would also be advantageous if one of the zombie controllers was a barbarian who could cast War Cry-Veteran’s Warning with Inspiring Presence passive to give the guy a nice 4 minute buff. That would be very helpful, I am thinking.
To clarify:
You don’t need to actually do anything, the Zombies just follow you.
You can’t make them do anything that’s not autocast. Also, even if you make them ultra tanky, thay still tend to die all the time.
In no way do the zombies actually help you reach higher levels, the fact that they do nothing while you as the player take on everything makes sure that you farm between 5-10 GR’s lower.
With autocast powers you can make the Zombies do a little work (Belt of The Trove, Wormwood, Thorns, Pets) but they really don’t get you much.
Yes, you need 4 controllers, but I have them anyway (my boys all have their own).
It is purely for loot & gem upgrades in off-season or to break the monotony in season.
And it IS morally cheating, that much I am convinced of by now.
The post you’re quoting from writes from experience of a second controller on a semi active basis sometimes and follower other times and comparing the two.
By rights the extra loot drops belong to the second controller, with a character that also needs to be equipped and optimised unless being neglected to constantly die and/or not be played, furthering the burden it presents.
Remember that each extra controller increases the difficulty, so controllers with characters being ignored rather than played are holding you back in terms of speed / efficiency and GR level. Then there’s the inventory management, build optimisation, salvage, etc. all further impacting efficiency.
The point in the post you’re quoting from is that the introduction of followers presented a genuine choice. Sometimes the follower is better, sometimes it’s not. People can make their own Judgement call which applies and when.
It appears the OP has convinced themself playing a feature of the game provided for by the producer isn’t for them. it’s their call, regardless of any question around effectiveness of their approach (neglecting the controllers) and that efficiency costs presented by members remain overlooked. So be it - good luck to them.
Swings and roundabouts.
It makes for a more interesting game IMO - the game otherwise gets quite one dimensional for me. Some have posted on this topic before that they just couldn’t be bothered with the extra effort of (actually) playing multiple controllers.
To each their own.
If we’re going to clarify, let’s clarify accurately.
As Trashcanman points out,
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You need to click each of them into each GR (and click through each GR empower).
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You need to salvage four times as much trash for your four controllers.
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You need to spam select to pickup each item of extra loot.
Further,
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You need to click through each gem upgrade.
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You need to sort trash / keep on each item of loot four times as much for your four controllers.
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You need to spam click shard spends four times as much for your four controllers.
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Picking up and putting down controllers, moving from one character to the other.
All of that is time.
Time that a single controller is not spending while ripping through rifts - town is lava.
This does not mean it’s pointless playing an extra controller (no comment for more than one extra). It’s costs and benefits. Players can make their own minds up what works for them or doesn’t.
They might die all the time for you while running four, neglecting them and leaching their loot.
They don’t die for me running two, playing them semi actively and optimising their build.
At a point of increasing GR level they become more burden to keep alive and less fun / effective to play. They’ve outstayed their usefulness at that point and it’s time for a follower imo.
I’d be surprised if you’ve seen anything more than completely negligible dps from any additional controller.
They can bring passive utility in some cases, but there is still…
- the need to offset: the increase in difficulty (by what they contribute)
- the need to offset: the loss of utility of follower skills / emanates
…to mitigate the efficiency loss for each extra controller.
Relying purely on passives is a waste and ineffective imo.
While speaking to the benefits, you dont seem to speak to the time cost of the play choices you make. Other players do write about time cost / efficiency.
At the end of the day it’s up to you how you want to play.
Again, you are missing the point of why the OP stated he does it: more loot.
It doesn’t matter how good the follower is, a follower will not get you more loot. He appears to be using this multi-controlloer method to gear up his alts, and level their gems all at once. Seems to work. The question was: is this cheating?
He didn’t ask for advice on how to play. He just wanted to know if the community thought it was cheating. The morals of the question are still up for debate, although the question of this being against the EULA has been answered.
Answer: No, it’s just stupid. Anyone who does that is stupid.
No, it really isn’t. You get four times the loot from a single GR. You get 4 times the number of upgrades. If you take 4 LoD Crusaders and make them ultra-tanky you can run GR 100 in roughly the same time, and the Saders usually survive without any effort. On X-Box you don’t need to click anything, and Player 1 picks up all loot for everyone. When upgrading Gems below level 91, everything just goes 4 times faster, there’s no arguing that. The same goes for bounty-mats: you get four times as much.
And yes, my only question was: is this morally cheating, or not? In terms of playing, having extra contolers gets you nothing usefull, and I never sais it did.
And really… Stupid…
Morally cheating is up to you. It doesn’t matter what the rest of us say. Unless you’re using controllers that have turbo functions or some sort of macros, or can play for you, etc., what you’re doing is allowed by Blizzard. They created couch co-op to work exactly that way. If some people want to play all 4 players, that’s no more objectively unethical to me than having 4 real human beings playing.
Anyone with 4 controllers could do what you’re doing. But things like save scumming, save hacking, etc., are cheating though, because those aren’t default behaviors of the game, and require external assistance.
Also, cheating in terms of exploiting could be something in game, that you couldn’t accomplish through default play. What I mean is, even if you could replicate something in game 100% of the time, let’s say the GoD exploit, if you have to go out of your way to pull it off, then it’s cheating. Even something like collecting gold with Custerian Wristguards is an exploit, because it gives different amounts of xp, depending upon your class. But that I would say is more of a less harmful exploit, as it really only matters at the beginning of the season, and you can pull it off consistently through sheer ignorance. But you’re not going to pull off the GoD exploit consistently through sheer ignorance. What I mean is, there’s a reason why people on the PC got banned for the GoD exploit. But if something like the Custerian exploit had a bigger impact on the game than just the day of the season start, that’s something I don’t think anyone would be banned for, because you could naturally find that bug.
Now, is it unethical though to simulate multiple players, that’s a different question. And I’d say that’s up to the individual. There are plenty of shortcuts that everyone can do, but people have conflicting opinions on. For instance, if someone runs a full bounty set, then invites you to join them, is that morally objectionable? Many here would probably say no. But a few people might say yes, as you didn’t contribute yourself. Clever use of mechanics vs exploitation of mechanics is often a fine line.
Not at all.
It’s not disputed that four characters get four characters worth of loot. Four mouths to feed if you play them, or three mouths to neglect and drag round like a ball and chain if you don’t.
It doesnt come without cost, which is now outlined in the discussion despite refusal to weigh it in the equation.
People can balance the net effect of benefits and cost, be it positive or not for them.
People have been playing multiple characters since the dawn of time. By all means, decide if you want to do it or not for yourself.
There is a point to be had on the smart loot implementation side of D3. In that benefits are assigned to players present, servicing playability. This differs from other games where benefits are assigned to the group and divided up between players present. The latter further requires players present to contribute to earn their keep.
I wouldn’t have an issue with the game design being changed so that players that didnt actively contribute to the rift did not benefit.
This comes at the cost of further imbalance between solo and group play though (eg splitting up to do bounties), so I’d expect somehow else for solo play to be buffed / balanced if solo players who utilise what’s available for them in game were to be penalised.
It could equally be argued that splitting up to do bounties should be treated the same. Players not present at the kills/flags for bounty completion steps dont earn credit. Watch on as most group players have kittens if Blizzard make a move on this one.
and Blizzard is doing jack squat diddly bugger all about the modder cheater scum in game…people are reporting it to hacks@blizzard.com and nothing is being done. AS I have long stated, Blizzard are either lazy, or incompetent, or both.
They might as well remove seasons from consoles altogether if they’re not gonna ban hammer the cheaters.
about a week late responding, but you know, i just have to.
anyways, dude is using only in game means to do stuff that is like 4x the tedium. all in game, no external “assistance” whatsoever.
seems to me more than likely you’re just perceiving this as like exploiting the “4 players at once on console”
but there really isn’t any “exploiting” involved if you took 10 seconds, gather up what remains of your thinking power, and realize the guy has to go through 4x the tedium.
which, YOU KNOW, comes out to, if it hasn’t been stated —
- 4x the trash filtering
- 4x the chest stashing
- 4x the gearing up
- 4x (if not more) the time on setting up builds
- 4x controllers being used
- 4x batteries wasted / recharged / literally wasted energy
- 4x etc, etc, etc
BUT DOES THIS POP INTO YOUR SIMPLE SLEEK GOLDFISH BRAIN?
idk, you tell me.
edit:
just imo, its a total waste of time, when gems of ease and rift farming build exist.
having like 5x gems of ease and getting them to rank 25 (1 or 2 for weapons, 3 or 4 to use with kanai cube for easy leveling gear + hellfire ammy & ring. makes for easy fresh 70’s in under an hour.
d3 is extremely easy, only hardcore / first softcore character has any semblance of difficulty