There is a difference between automated inputs and key broadcasting. The key broadcasting was banned. You cannot use hardware or software to key broadcast your toons anymore.
I used to see it back in bc and cata, but then havenât seen it since other than forum wining.
I got a second account to play with my daughters back in BC. I started playing them both at once and really prefer to mulibox in open world. I just like have two toons together. I use two laptops side by side and nothing for assisting, no software or even macros. I just use easy rotations and mainly mouse on right side and keypad with left. Sometimes Iâll run a tank and healer together for a world boss. Can basically just play the tank and hit a heal spell from time to time on other toon. If i pick a main for mythics or something, i basically need to relearn the spec rather than button mashing.
Blizz said:
Weâve examined the use of third-party input broadcasting software, which allows a single keystroke or action to be automatically mirrored to multiple game clients, and weâve seen an increasingly negative impact to the game as this software is used to support botting and automated gameplay.
/Boops Perlâs nose.
A wild Perl appears from the CS forum and appears on GD. Sheâs a brave one!
OT: I think thereâs some conflating going on here. Yes you are 100% correct that Blizz does not see MB as a breach of the ToU. Although Blizz clearly took some issue with it back in BfA when they amended those rules to exclude certain software that they previously had left in a grey area. As to why they decided to revise the rules, who can say.
That being said, I have my own anecdotal experience from BfA re MB and from my perspective at least, there has been a sharp decline in MBs since the new rules took affect. Thatâs not to say there arenât still software augmented MBs. Because there are. Funnily enough, they still seem to be farming BfA and SL zones. Probably because the software they use only has BfA/SL route plugins and the authors of said software closed up shop during SL.
The issue here however is the concept of âcheatingâ. As in not just want Blizz sees as a breach of the ToU. Take wpvp in the Azure span for example. A common tactic to avoid getting killed is to hang around the traveling npc cart as an assassin because when you jump into it, you become immune to all damage. Now this sort of behavior is not against the ToU. However I suspect most people would view it as a form of cheating.
So really what you have here is people who see MBs as basically cheesing the concept of playing the game on one toon at a time. A more relevant example would be when I used to see MBs in BGs. Usually it would be a flock of boomkins. Now if a player got targeted by such a group, chances are they would melt instantly. Such an interaction was not viewed as fair and was therefore considered âcheatingâ. Can MBs do that now? No. The level of coordination you would need to pull off such an instant nuke necessitates software.
So the conclusion here is people still see MBs in this light and its understandable, even deserved due to past examples. Hence why you have this discrepancy between what Blizz sees as cheating and what the players see as cheating.
iâm still waiting for GD to decide playing alts is cheating and start a campaign to get that banned too
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Well, thereâs your problem!
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Yes it supports automated gameplay because a bot can just run a script and have /follow put on to anyone in a bg and soak up all their HKS and that is done with auto. An actual multiboxer controls all their toons so it is nothing like that. And the bots still exist. Just as many now as there were before that was removed so it did nothing. Key broadcasting is not the same as automized inputs. Key broadcasting a player controls it all. The other version a nonbot program that is not operated by a human controls everything.
Wild, because I still do it every day. The only time I installed key-passthrough software was during Burning Crusade, so that I could do the Quelâdanas island daily quests on my Paladin and have my following Mage do Arcane Explosion without me having to tab over to that window.
Since my three-year Cataclysm break Iâve multiboxed my two accounts without any software or hardware. That was allowed before the rule changes, and itâs allowed now. Is it efficient? Nah, not really. Itâs really kind of a pain. But itâs not impossible.
The problem is that you and Solitude are saying âmultiboxingâ but what youâre referring to specifically is the part where people either use software for fully automated gameplay (botting), or use now-forbidden key passthrough software or hardware. And the term âmultiboxingâ does still refer to a playstyle of manually playing more than one account at a time, though, like it or not. And manual multiboxing is still called âmultiboxingâ and itâs still allowed, and it still happens.
I continue to maintain that if someone decided to convince people that chewing their food was the easy way out and that real people with grit and determination swallowed all food whole that vast swaths of the population would gladly choke to death just to spite imaginary people who they thought were judging them.
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Yes, i have 5 accounts and i do dungeons all by myself that way I donât have to interact with other pkayers
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Its def still a thing but mostly you will see dual boxers now. Some still move with 5+ or 8 if your doing 4x4 farms, but it can be annoying and inefficient to deal with tab swapping between 8 screens now as any software or hardware to help with it is now no longer allowed.
Except that really isnât what they said. Also to disagree with them somewhat, multiboxing in XIV is less egregious because itâs primarily done for gags like the Jades of Primal or the various bard troupes running around on the RP servers playing instruments.
In WoW multiboxing was actively being used to abusively farm commodities because of Blizzardâs stupidity regarding Personal Loot and their excessive pride when told in beta that was going to become a very big problem because instead of splitting loot itâs now multiplied, prior to Legion it was mostly used in very niche cases typically for pvp like the 5 arcane mages who pom pyro one guy then spam AE on your 5s team, or CL shamans taking out two targets instantly.
Thereâs a lot more of a reason to hate it in WoW.
Though that being said, I donât mind multiboxers. If someone wants to pay for the software, hardware, and accounts to do that more power to 'em. It isnât like it actively prevented me from doing anything.
I havenât seen it since Horde Druids and Hunters can kill mobs faster on just one account.
Prepared on darkspear had over 100, I think 3 raid groups at his height
PreparedWoW & RuinGaming vs Swifty, Soda and Chinglish (Short version) (youtube.com)