Discussion on Policy: Dual or Multi-Boxing.

[Etterwyn.5263]

Is it okay if one account is in PVE and the other in WVW? I generally log on to both at once, and leave one account idle (guild hall or town) while doing dailies/etc on the other. I'll admit I used to pip down both at once before you buffed participation decay, but I don't have to do that anymore.

[TallBarr.2184]

"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

Does this mean you are not allowed to do pvp dailies in pvp matches with several accounts if its in private arenas. Also what does "activities" mean, like keg brawl?

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@"TallBarr.2184" said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

I think you mean "not permitted". And, indeed, the wording of the policy is crystal clear. It is, indeed, not permitted.

[Schnuschnu.9857]

@"Steve The Cynic.3217" said:

I think you mean "not permitted". And, indeed, the wording of the policy is crystal clear. It is, indeed, not permitted.

Yup, fixed it. Thanks.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"TallBarr.2184" said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

Does this mean you are not allowed to do pvp dailies in pvp matches with several accounts if its in private arenas. Also what does "activities" mean, like keg brawl?

I would read it as prohibiting multiboxing PvP dailies, except, I guess, if there's one like "Big Spender" in WvW.

And for activities, clearly anything you do by visiting the Activity NPC in LA is an activity, and those things are players competing against players, and therefore count as "competitive environments". Keg Brawl in the western part of Hoelbrak? Not sure.

EDIT: On the question of WvW Big Spender: I'd suggest that it's a bad idea to have two or more of your multibox accounts actually in WvW at once, even just to do Big Spender. Leave the idle ones idling in DR or similar, and go in one account at a time, see the vendor, spend the tokens, exit WvW, wait for the other map to load, go to the next account.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

I'll throw in another observation. In general, asking the sort of questions I've seen so far suggests that people want to skate close to the edges of the policy, and in my experience, that's asking for trouble. (That idea is sometimes phrased as "If you feel it necessary to ask if thing X is prohibited by the policy, it probably is.")

[TallBarr.2184]

@"Steve The Cynic.3217" said:I'll throw in another observation. In general, asking the sort of questions I've seen so far suggests that people want to skate close to the edges of the policy, and in my experience, that's asking for trouble. (That idea is sometimes phrased as "If you feel it necessary to ask if thing X is prohibited by the policy, it probably is.")

Their previous policies have been vague and perceived differently from both players and GMs so i dont see why questions regarding the updated policy shouldnt be asked. I personally dont do pvp dailies in personal arenas but people on reddit voiced their concerns with the pvp dailies done in the personal arenas if it was allowed or not. Doing dailies in a private arena happens in a competetive gamemode but it doesnt effect other players.

[TallBarr.2184]

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@"TallBarr.2184" said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be not permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

Same thing could be said about multiboxing in general then, i can "exist" on multiple locations in pve aswell. As for advantage over other players any player can have multiple accounts. Playing wvw or pvp with voicecoms gives you an advantage aswell if the enemy team doesnt have it. Scouting is a trivial thing both teams do, it doesnt give you any substantial advantage other then doing something people dont generally enjoy. As a commander i wouldnt have to beg and ask people to scout something when i can do it myself.

[System]

This discussion was created from comments split from: Policy: Dual or Multi-Boxing.

[BlueJin.4127]

@TallBarr.2184 said:When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?

I used to compete in many games and this would definitely be cheating in an environment when you’re using this against other players. If Anet is certain you’re multiboxing, your account can get banned for something like this.

[Cyninja.2954]

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be not permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

Same thing could be said about multiboxing in general then, i can "exist" on multiple locations in pve aswell. As for advantage over other players any player can have multiple accounts. Playing wvw or pvp with voicecoms gives you an advantage aswell if the enemy team doesnt have it. Scouting is a trivial thing both teams do, it doesnt give you any substantial advantage other then doing something people dont generally enjoy. As a commander i wouldnt have to beg and ask people to scout something when i can do it myself.

There are multiple issues at stake here though. First off, the reward structure in spvp and wvw is a lot more multibox friendly (not to mention afk leechers or bots) compared to general pve.

Second, and specific to wvw, your multiboxed characters are taking away active slots from other characters on the map. That is an issue, especially since on fuller servers there will be queues. Now one could argue you might log out your extra characters when prime time hits, but the general rules can't take into account benevolent action from single players because there might just as well be players who would simply keep occupying the wvw slots.

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be not permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

Same thing could be said about multiboxing in general then, i can "exist" on multiple locations in pve aswell.

Correct, but that doesn't give you a direct competitive advantage in a player (team) versus player (team) game mode. It doesn't matter that others can do it. To get the advantage that you directly have, they must do it, so the Powers That Be have decided to avoid all sorts of issues (including an element of P2W, given that multiboxing isn't free, even though you aren't paying that money to ArenaNet themselves) by prohibiting it.

[TallBarr.2184]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be not permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

Same thing could be said about multiboxing in general then, i can "exist" on multiple locations in pve aswell. As for advantage over other players any player can have multiple accounts. Playing wvw or pvp with voicecoms gives you an advantage aswell if the enemy team doesnt have it. Scouting is a trivial thing both teams do, it doesnt give you any substantial advantage other then doing something people dont generally enjoy. As a commander i wouldnt have to beg and ask people to scout something when i can do it myself.

There are multiple issues at stake here though. First off, the reward structure in spvp and wvw is a lot more multibox friendly (not to mention afk leechers or bots) compared to general pve.

Second, and specific to wvw, your multiboxed characters are taking away active slots from other characters on the map. That is an issue, especially since on fuller servers there will be queues. Now one could argue you might log out your extra characters when prime time hits, but the general rules can't take into account benevolent action from single players because there might just as well be players who would simply keep occupying the wvw slots.

If i wanted scouts as a commander i would ask my squad, not many would be interested and most of the times they would want payment for it, which is acceptable for how boring it is. By using my alts i wouldnt need to ask people to do it, i could do it for as long and wherever i wanted. If its not my characters it will be someone else doing it. There are 4 different borders to chose from its not like 3 scouts is gonna mess it up for everyone, there are more single account players simply afking at any given time.

The shared partcipation is there for scouters, thats why it was implemented. You cant just give out shared participation, you would need to have a squad with enough members to get the slots.

[Gehenna.3625]

I think having two sets of eyes at the same time gives you an unfair advantage. I mean you could park alts in forts just to keep an eye on them as just one person. That is a huge tactical advantage.They can't really forbid it if you have multiple computers to do that because then they cannot assume it's the same person playing.

[TallBarr.2184]

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?

I used to compete in many games and this would definitely be cheating in an environment when you’re using this against other players. If Anet is certain you’re multiboxing, your account can get banned for something like this.

Using voicecoms in any competetive gamemode gives you advantages but to do that you would need a headset and a mic, i dont use voicecoms when i lead and i dont have a headset with mic does that mean using voicecoms is cheating? Anyone can invest in a headset or a second copy of the game if they want to.

[Cyninja.2954]

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@Schnuschnu.9857 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

This should be not permitted because it gives you an advantage over other players. You exist in multiple locations. A normal player can't do this. Simple as that.

Same thing could be said about multiboxing in general then, i can "exist" on multiple locations in pve aswell. As for advantage over other players any player can have multiple accounts. Playing wvw or pvp with voicecoms gives you an advantage aswell if the enemy team doesnt have it. Scouting is a trivial thing both teams do, it doesnt give you any substantial advantage other then doing something people dont generally enjoy. As a commander i wouldnt have to beg and ask people to scout something when i can do it myself.

There are multiple issues at stake here though. First off, the reward structure in spvp and wvw is a lot more multibox friendly (not to mention afk leechers or bots) compared to general pve.

Second, and specific to wvw, your multiboxed characters are taking away active slots from other characters on the map. That is an issue, especially since on fuller servers there will be queues. Now one could argue you might log out your extra characters when prime time hits, but the general rules can't take into account benevolent action from single players because there might just as well be players who would simply keep occupying the wvw slots.

If i wanted scouts as a commander i would ask my squad, not many would be interested and most of the times they would want payment for it, which is acceptable for how boring it is. By using my alts i wouldnt need to ask people to do it, i could do it for as long and wherever i wanted.

Thus you are automatically entering an area where this gives you an advantage over the other sides, provided no one there does this. Even if they did, the moment they went up against a server or server composition which doesn't, people would get disadvantaged.

@TallBarr.2184 said:If its not my characters it will be someone else doing it.

That is of no consequence as far as legality goes. Doing something unacceptable is not justified by saying some one else would do it instead if you didn't. That's not how rules work.

@TallBarr.2184 said:There are 4 different borders to chose from its not like 3 scouts is gonna mess it up for everyone, there are more single account players simply afking at any given time.

Two wrongs do not make a right. Single player afk accounts are not allowed and require action. That does not justify that you get to log 3 characters. That said, what about person B who wants to log his 3 characters, and person C who wants to log their 3 characters? You are either in a unique position getting an advantage, or the problem scales up to where people can't enter wvw. Both are not acceptable.

@TallBarr.2184 said:

The shared partcipation is there for scouters, thats why it was implemented. You cant just give out shared participation, you would need to have a squad with enough members to get the slots.

The shared participation is there to be given out to active players and encourage scouting. It is not there for the commanders personal scout army.

[Rozbuska.5263]

Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments.

This should exclude personal arena. The locked arena where I'm alone with my boxes doing daily is nowhere near competitive. It does not affect other players and there are basically no rewards to exploit.

[Shagaliscious.6281]

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?

I used to compete in many games and this would definitely be cheating in an environment when you’re using this against other players. If Anet is certain you’re multiboxing, your account can get banned for something like this.

Using voicecoms in any competetive gamemode gives you advantages but to do that you would need a headset and a mic, i dont use voicecoms when i lead and i dont have a headset with mic does that mean using voicecoms is cheating? Anyone can invest in a headset or a second copy of the game if they want to.

Where in the GW2 policy does it state that voice coms are not allowed? Because now it clearly states that multiboxing is not allowed. You have no argument point with these changes, it's now clearly against policy to multibox in wvw, so stop trying to justify it, just stop doing it.

[RSLongK.8961]

Update that wvw policy, if we have to control attentive why shouldn't it be allowed., it does not give any advantage OVER anybody.

[borgs.6103]

Meh. I'd say just keep on doing it. If you've been playing WvW for a long time, you know how much they play or police the game mode. At worst you'll take a slap on the wrist for punishment. I've seen enough hacks that still persist today and people in my block list come back into the game after committing game-breaking hacks (passing through walls, not taking damage or dying, infinite teleports). Compared to those, multi-boxing for scouting purposes is nothing.

[BlueJin.4127]

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?

I used to compete in many games and this would definitely be cheating in an environment when you’re using this against other players. If Anet is certain you’re multiboxing, your account can get banned for something like this.

Using voicecoms in any competetive gamemode gives you advantages but to do that you would need a headset and a mic, i dont use voicecoms when i lead and i dont have a headset with mic does that mean using voicecoms is cheating? Anyone can invest in a headset or a second copy of the game if they want to.

Those are very different.

In games like GW2's WvW, stealth is a big part of the strategy, attacking a base when the enemy is not aware. The players are granted vision of their own character's FOV. They're not meant to have access to 2 screens so that they can see one area of the game to see what the enemy is doing, while playing in another part of the game. That goes against the design of the game. Having voice communication for better communication is not against the design of the game mode. Hence, the difference. Not only that, by having a player's slot taken up for your second screen, you're creating a disadvantage for your team. That you have another screen to help alleviate that is not an excuse as 2 wrongs do not make a right.

Every player who cheats has excuses on why their cheating is not cheating and how it's justified. If Anet allowed these, then the game would be an unplayable mess. This is why every competition has rules and all players who play must comply with those rules. Otherwise, the game loses its integrity. If you purposefully break the stated rules without really good reasons, you can get banned and Anet won’t care what your justifications are.

[Substance E.4852]

@"TallBarr.2184" said:"Multi-boxing may ONLY be used in PvE areas. You are not permitted to run multiple accounts simultaneously in PvP, WvW, activities, or in other competitive environments."

When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?I understand if you dont want people to afk in wvw but actively scouting is part of the gamemode and usually frowned upon beacuse its boring. It should be encouraged not discouraged.

According to the word of the law no, but neither is using macros to play instruments and we all know Anet gives 0 fucks if you have a program mash 50 keys for you as long as it's to play Sandstorm on a harp.

The pvp/WvW thing is just there to prevent people from match fixing or other general shenanigans. I doubt you're gonna get banned for having a scout account in a tower as long as it on your own server and you aren't using a macro/bot to keep it from afk timing out.

[mauried.5608]

Ive often wondered about common phrase of a player gaining an advantage over someone else, and that should be banned somehow.A player with a super upmarket computer with a hi speed internet link with no latency, has a super advantage over a player with an old laptop connected via a low speedADSL link on the other side of the world, but this isnt considered as something thats bannable.

[bernstein adelheid.8590]

This make me wonder:Do 2 or more PC connected to the same internet connection are counted as multiboxing?For example, i invite my friend at my home and he bring his laptop/own pc so we can play together in WvW. Will this be an infraction of the new policy?Are the festive events ( jumping puzzles, bell choir, toyapocalipse, Halloween labyrinth ) counted as well?

[TallBarr.2184]

@Shagaliscious.6281 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:

@BlueJin.4127 said:

@TallBarr.2184 said:When i command wvw i would usually have alt accounts positioned in towers or other borders to scout. Is this not permitted with the updated policy?

I used to compete in many games and this would definitely be cheating in an environment when you’re using this against other players. If Anet is certain you’re multiboxing, your account can get banned for something like this.

Using voicecoms in any competetive gamemode gives you advantages but to do that you would need a headset and a mic, i dont use voicecoms when i lead and i dont have a headset with mic does that mean using voicecoms is cheating? Anyone can invest in a headset or a second copy of the game if they want to.

Where in the GW2 policy does it state that voice coms are not allowed? Because now it clearly states that multiboxing is not allowed. You have no argument point with these changes, it's now clearly against policy to multibox in wvw, so stop trying to justify it, just stop doing it.

Nowhere, but people say multiboxing is "cheating" or "unfair advantage" and that its "p2w" beacuse you have to buy the game copies, you also have to buy headser with a mic to use and listen to voicecoms. Multiboxing have never been a problem in wvw before. Is it a problem some people make accounts on their enemy servers to grief and spy - absolutely, but there are also legitimate ways to multibox is wvw.

It not being allowed in pvp makes sense, beacuse people have been signing up for pvp tournaments and then just afk with their team.