Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

Box/Bot perma camp issues

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    • 1315 posts
    June 13, 2019 5:05 AM PDT

    This discussion is one of the reasons I favor Mac Address registering accounts with only one account being able to utilize a unique Mac address at a the same time.  This makes it much harder to steal an account if you cannot log in with a Mac address that isn’t registered to an account.  Mac address would only be half of the unique identifier for the account and could be updated with a CS ticket if your PC were to fail.  Several unique identifiers could be registered to the same account to allow a family to share a group of PCs but there would be a limit.

    The true Mac address also includes the ISP data path so it would be possible to track offenders to specific ISPs which would also help spotting naughty behavior.  Its not full proof and semi skilled hacker/scripter/moders will have ways to spoof Mac addresses at least partially but most of those techniques have their own finger prints that can be detected over time.

    • 297 posts
    June 13, 2019 5:14 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    This discussion is one of the reasons I favor Mac Address registering accounts with only one account being able to utilize a unique Mac address at a the same time.  This makes it much harder to steal an account if you cannot log in with a Mac address that isn’t registered to an account.  Mac address would only be half of the unique identifier for the account and could be updated with a CS ticket if your PC were to fail.  Several unique identifiers could be registered to the same account to allow a family to share a group of PCs but there would be a limit.

    The true Mac address also includes the ISP data path so it would be possible to track offenders to specific ISPs which would also help spotting naughty behavior.  Its not full proof and semi skilled hacker/scripter/moders will have ways to spoof Mac addresses at least partially but most of those techniques have their own finger prints that can be detected over time.

    Barring the fact it has literally just been stated that multiboxing will be allowed, what about people who play games on more than one device? I frequently switch between my PC and my laptop. What about playing in different locations?

    • 1315 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:00 AM PDT

    Mac address registering doesn’t prevent you from multi-boxing with different PCs you just can run multiple instances of the game on the same machine which I think is a fair restriction, each network card has its own Mac address which in most modern motherboards the network card is built directly in.  As far as multiple devices it falls under the same heading as the family setup. You would register a few devices to your account maybe up to 5 different devices but you would still have a primary device that had to ok new registrations to your account.

    This does a LOT to stop account theft and gives more data points to spot botters and gold farmers.  It also cuts down on a lot of the scamming and harassment behavior involved in trial account as they will still need an original mac address when they sign in which can be referenced later.

    • 297 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:13 AM PDT

    I think the Everquest TLPs show pretty clearly this idea that requiring you to use multiple devices to box only hurts the people who would box legitimately. 

    • 297 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:13 AM PDT

    But, regardless, multiboxing will be allowed, it will just (supposedly) be difficult to do.

    • 297 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:22 AM PDT

    Sorry to triple post, but I really think the opposition to boxing is entirely misguided opposition to other things.

    Cheating is rightfully opposed, but boxing is not cheating. Most people who box do so because it alleviates the problem of a low population community. Some people do it because they like the extra challenge. These are not bad actors who should be reviled.

    The first problem should be solved by a game that draws in enough players and incentivizes keeping the game healthy at all levels of play (an impossible dream to some extent, but can be done much better than has been done by other games in the past). Not focusing development solely on the raid game/end game and not balancing the game around raiding will result in a healthier group game and lower level game. 

    The second problem isn't a real problem. Let people play how they want if they can (and it's within the rules).

    There isn't any legitimate reason to expend development resources to prevent people playing multiple characters if they aren't cheating, and the resources spent to prevent people playing multiple characters who aren't cheating tend to only actually prevent people playing legitimately because the cheaters find ways around the prevention anyway.

    I'm not saying you don't try to prevent cheating, you just have to be smart about how you do it, remember that cheating is what you're actually trying to prevent, and bear in mind the cheaters will always be a step ahead of you.

    • 1315 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:34 AM PDT

    Another option that would allow for multi-boxing on the same PC without losing the added security of mac address registering is allowing a single game client to open multiple game sessions.  In this way the servers would only accept one connection from a specific mac address but that session could access any account with the mac address registered to it.  I still personally view multiboxing as a negative to the game world and community health but currently VR appears to believe it will not be an issue and they are in a much better position to judge than I.

    *edit*

    I have been kindly advised that I am incorrect in how Mac addresses work.  Rather than mac address I am looking for something more like the unique machine identifier that Microsoft uses to identify a PC to authenticate Windows.

    *end edit*


    This post was edited by Trasak at June 13, 2019 7:57 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    June 13, 2019 8:47 AM PDT

    The allowance of multi-boxing is antithetical for this kind of game.  The topic has been discussed to death (on here and in Discord) and from what I have seen over the years, there is a very strong demand for a strict no-box server.  That demand stems from people who want the best possible version of what a community-focused game should be like.  Allowing multi-boxing in Pantheon is akin to allowing customers at your restaurant to bring their dog inside the establishment and drop deuces for an extra $15, IMO.  This comes at the behest of other paying customers who simply want to enjoy a good meal at a location that prides itself on the idea that #communitymatters.  In any event, I have played games where multi-boxing wasn't much of an issue due to how the game was designed.  While multi-boxing might be a "legal" activity, VR still has the burden of trying to make it "extremely difficult if not impossible" as they suggested in their FAQ.  At the very least I hope to see a couple no-box special ruleset servers.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at June 13, 2019 9:11 AM PDT
    • 297 posts
    June 13, 2019 9:36 AM PDT

    Funnily enough I have met far more people who are vocally anti-boxing that are toxic community members than people who do box. Most people I've encountered who box are more than happy to help others or invite people to their groups. It's perhaps the ones standing on the side yelling about dog droppings that are hurting community?

    • 12 posts
    June 13, 2019 10:12 AM PDT

    TRAIN...boxing/botter prob solved lol

     

    • 2756 posts
    June 13, 2019 1:59 PM PDT

    I'm not particularly anti-boxing, but if boxing has to lose out in order to stop botting and other hacks/abuses, then, bye-bye boxing.

    • 3237 posts
    June 13, 2019 2:12 PM PDT

    Chanus said:

    Funnily enough I have met far more people who are vocally anti-boxing that are toxic community members than people who do box. Most people I've encountered who box are more than happy to help others or invite people to their groups. It's perhaps the ones standing on the side yelling about dog droppings that are hurting community?

    I never claimed that people who box have any sort of natural tendency to be toxic.  My point was that boxing, in general, goes against the spirit of this game.  One key point that has been mentioned many times over is how important it is to manage the population of each server.  Every account that gets multi-boxed only serves to skew that assessment.  If multi-boxing is allowed then many people will feel compelled to do it for the sake of efficiency.  At the end of the day, many folks would appreciate a real sense of player interdependence.  You know ... one of the main tenets of this game.  The allowance of multi-boxing violates that tenet because it allows a single player to do things that should require help from other real players.

    If a no-box server were offered then I would gladly play there, as well as countless other folks who want a genuine version of the experience that Pantheon seeks to achieve.  Every single boxed account takes away from the type of experience that I value the most.  A real community full of real players with real reputations.  Pantheon is a deeply social game and it should be a requirement that players overcome the social challenges of having to interact with other real players.  Multi-boxing offers a path of least resistance where you can bypass a huge chunk of interdependence.  It's pseudo-pay-for-advantage in my eyes, as it relates to various game tenets.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at June 13, 2019 2:34 PM PDT
    • 2419 posts
    June 13, 2019 2:21 PM PDT

    disposalist said:

    I'm not particularly anti-boxing, but if boxing has to lose out in order to stop botting and other hacks/abuses, then, bye-bye boxing.

    There is no causal relationship between the existence of built-in macro functionality and 3rd party applications injecting control commands for bot controlling or other hacks/abuses.  You can have one without the other.

    • 1479 posts
    June 13, 2019 2:26 PM PDT

    Honestly seeing boxing as a way to circle around low pop servers is much like saying you buy a 4x4 for the week in winter you're going to the mountain while you use it the remaining 358 days to drive to work.

     

    If servers are empty then multiboxing is mostly the only solution to play in a group centric game, but that means the game failed to it's audience and boxing is the last problem on earth.

     

    I'm not one to force players not to play as they want, but boxing is pretty much like having less cash trouble than others, and then paying to have a higher success ratio. It's a bit more complicated than that, and I eventually two boxed for one month or so before closing the account a friend gave me when retiring from the game. I didn't enjoy it much, because I don't enjoy playing with myself in a MMO setup.

    That's where the question mark goes, outside of all the negativity of lowering player interdependancy, tricking servers population or allowing to solo content throught multiple accounts :

     

    Why working so hard to play alone in a game made to play with others ? To me, that's just not the place to do so, performance or not, even if I'm not here to judge where everyone gets his satisfaction, that seem simply weird to flee others in a particular setup that has been made to allow large scale interractions between players.


    This post was edited by Mauvais_Oeil at June 13, 2019 2:28 PM PDT
    • 125 posts
    • 59 posts
    June 13, 2019 6:02 PM PDT

    Kilsin said:

    Darck said:

    So.. just reporting the player will provide proof of illegal action? Will they require installation of spyware operated by VR?

    Again.. good luck with that.

    No, reporting the player will alert us to their time-stamped data including location, account details, history, any previous warnings/flags and allow us to review their actions, chat logs, unusual behaviour, including timing of clicks/actions etc. and contact the person or make a decision if we believe we have enough evidence or shadow them with an invis GM account to see first-hand evidence for ourselves.

    The community will play a huge part in helping us identify and eliminate bots and scrips so reporting will be a very effective way of letting us know you have found an account breaking the rules.

    Multiboxing, on the other hand, is allowed. Regardless of your opinion on multiboxing it has been discussed to death and multiple threads have official replies from me and other team members so please search for them rather than continue it here.

     

    More power to you. I however do not share your optimisim on your success with all that, but as a player, I certainly hope I'm wrong. Again, good luck proving that someone was scripting/botting rather than lets say, hitting keys on a second keyboard for one easy example. I hope we don't see alot of false positives leading to bans with that approach, since multiboxing is allowed, and nothing says your second account has to be in the same location doing the same thing as your first. I certainly wish you guys success though, without a doubt.

    • 287 posts
    June 13, 2019 7:06 PM PDT
    Static named spawns are the problem. Have the named spawn in different spots....or part of triggered chains will get rid of the permanent campers. It's really an easy fix. It's 2019...static spawns are 1999.
    • 627 posts
    June 13, 2019 11:36 PM PDT
    Well you cant do random spawns all the time, sure it can be done for some cases. But many bosses need to have a static spawn within an area or a specific spot. The boss of an area cant suddenly spawn at the entrence of the cave, that would not make sence. Mini bosses can be more random to a degree.

    For instsnce the Jail keeper should spawn in the Jail area and not in the libery. But it would be fine if he had multipel spawn areas inside the Jail.
    • 124 posts
    June 14, 2019 1:42 AM PDT

    Boxing and botting are indeed 2 different things. To me boxing (playing multiple accounts where i control the input) is not a bad thing to a certain degree. I think it becomes a bad thing when its abbused to circumvent immersion with the other population of the server. If like many have stated the boxing person is willing to allow others to join the group with equal chances of gaining what they're after i do not see it as a problem.

    The reason i state this is because in the past it has enabled me to start a group up till population was good enough to have a group with dedicated players. This in turn was mostly caused because i was playing on american based servers (personal preference, for some reason i don't like the multilingual european servers where people simply refuse to speak the commonly accepted language). And to be honest, i plan on doing the exact same in pantheon if i feel it is needed.

    In some cases i will admit that i won't allow others to join my group (not likely ill be playing more than 2 characters) if i am going after a specific drop, quest or loot, tho. since a 2 person group is generally not efficient i'm not worried about my impact on the community at that time.

    • 724 posts
    June 14, 2019 2:09 AM PDT

    oneADseven said:

    I never claimed that people who box have any sort of natural tendency to be toxic.  My point was that boxing, in general, goes against the spirit of this game.  One key point that has been mentioned many times over is how important it is to manage the population of each server.  Every account that gets multi-boxed only serves to skew that assessment.  If multi-boxing is allowed then many people will feel compelled to do it for the sake of efficiency.  At the end of the day, many folks would appreciate a real sense of player interdependence.  You know ... one of the main tenets of this game.  The allowance of multi-boxing violates that tenet because it allows a single player to do things that should require help from other real players.

    If a no-box server were offered then I would gladly play there, as well as countless other folks who want a genuine version of the experience that Pantheon seeks to achieve.  Every single boxed account takes away from the type of experience that I value the most.  A real community full of real players with real reputations.  Pantheon is a deeply social game and it should be a requirement that players overcome the social challenges of having to interact with other real players.  Multi-boxing offers a path of least resistance where you can bypass a huge chunk of interdependence.  It's pseudo-pay-for-advantage in my eyes, as it relates to various game tenets.

    100% agree!

    Regarding the perma camp issue: If no GMs are available to step in and observe such situations, then things WILL go as they do on the EQ TLP servers. I think VR would be wise to formulate a play nice policy, and actively enforce it then.

     

    • 1714 posts
    June 14, 2019 10:03 AM PDT

    Trasak said:

    This discussion is one of the reasons I favor Mac Address registering accounts with only one account being able to utilize a unique Mac address at a the same time.  This makes it much harder to steal an account if you cannot log in with a Mac address that isn’t registered to an account.  Mac address would only be half of the unique identifier for the account and could be updated with a CS ticket if your PC were to fail.  Several unique identifiers could be registered to the same account to allow a family to share a group of PCs but there would be a limit.

    The true Mac address also includes the ISP data path so it would be possible to track offenders to specific ISPs which would also help spotting naughty behavior.  Its not full proof and semi skilled hacker/scripter/moders will have ways to spoof Mac addresses at least partially but most of those techniques have their own finger prints that can be detected over time.

    Beyond that, they can use GPUid and CPUid. 

     

    To the OP: VR is on record many times on the subject, and frankly I'm sick of people lumping boxing and botting into the same category. They are not the same. VR will not discuss, nor should they, the security measures they will use for exploits and the like. They will have them. Botting is a bannable offense. Boxing is not. After PVP, and maybe even before it, a 1 box server seems to be the most popular demand as far as server flavors. 


    This post was edited by Keno Monster at June 14, 2019 10:09 AM PDT
    • 1714 posts
    June 14, 2019 10:04 AM PDT

    Sarim said:

    oneADseven said:

    I never claimed that people who box have any sort of natural tendency to be toxic.  My point was that boxing, in general, goes against the spirit of this game.  One key point that has been mentioned many times over is how important it is to manage the population of each server.  Every account that gets multi-boxed only serves to skew that assessment.  If multi-boxing is allowed then many people will feel compelled to do it for the sake of efficiency.  At the end of the day, many folks would appreciate a real sense of player interdependence.  You know ... one of the main tenets of this game.  The allowance of multi-boxing violates that tenet because it allows a single player to do things that should require help from other real players.

    If a no-box server were offered then I would gladly play there, as well as countless other folks who want a genuine version of the experience that Pantheon seeks to achieve.  Every single boxed account takes away from the type of experience that I value the most.  A real community full of real players with real reputations.  Pantheon is a deeply social game and it should be a requirement that players overcome the social challenges of having to interact with other real players.  Multi-boxing offers a path of least resistance where you can bypass a huge chunk of interdependence.  It's pseudo-pay-for-advantage in my eyes, as it relates to various game tenets.

    100% agree!

    Regarding the perma camp issue: If no GMs are available to step in and observe such situations, then things WILL go as they do on the EQ TLP servers. I think VR would be wise to formulate a play nice policy, and actively enforce it then.

     

    People, myself included, want the problem to go away without being a part of the solution. I challenge everyone who is upset by the prospect of open world competition to become a guide, assuming they have such a program. 

    • 264 posts
    June 14, 2019 4:59 PM PDT

    oneADseven sees it the way I do, very well said. The main reason I see boxing and botting as the same is because most multi boxers using more than 2 characters tend to be running bots/scripts. That's just a fact. Maybe some of you are the rare exception to the rule but I've seen enough to know better when it comes to allowing multiboxing. Is it nice to have a guy running a tank and healer to fill gaps in groups? Yes. But it pushes out actual players and that is where the multibox philosophy directly clashes with the tenets for Pantheon. If you want a great example of alts/multibox gone wild look into ArcheAge. It can kill your game.

    • 945 posts
    June 14, 2019 8:28 PM PDT

    It's simple really; multi-boxing will be allowed due to the dramatic increase in revenue.  (They didn't give everyone reading this now two accounts for nothing... either you will give the account to a friend to subscribe and play, or you will activate it yourself to play at some point).

    If their plan (as they have mentioned) is to make content so "difficult" that players are reluctant to box, then I foresee a lot of players using a 2nd account to play an alt and have their main character /follow them around for support, circumventing the "difficult" content by using their main for things like teleporting, single pulling, clearing content to get to otherwise hard/group-centric content, or just scouting other areas of the game (tracking maybe).

    VR's "difficult deterrence" would likely only ipmact certain classes in some situations. i.e Boxing a tank/healer through a dungeon in a group situation would likely be too difficult with at level content (but trivial with a higher level);  While boxing something like a Summoner and Enchanter would likely be a cake-walk for an experienced player.  

    To reiterate my personal opinion, I foresee a LOT of people boxing once the game has been around for a while if there is nothing put in place to disallow it.  Deterrence through difficulty will do nothing after people start having max level characters.

    Add:  The classes that can get away with being stationary throughout a majority of a battle will likely be easy to multi-box. 


     


    This post was edited by Darch at June 15, 2019 10:44 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    June 16, 2019 5:32 PM PDT

    Sicario said:

    Being able to multi-box would actually be a direct reflection of VR being unable to deliver on at least two of their tenets: 1) A commitment to a style of play that focuses on immersive combat, and engaging group mechanics, and 2) A requirement that classes have identities. No single player should be able to do everything on their own.

    Regarding the first tenet I listed, such a combat experience involves multiple layers of engagement that require dedicated focus on the player's part. Such a system will involve a spectrum of brief and extended combat ability synergy windows (synergies between not only one character, but the entire group), proactive and reactionary combat abililities (activation of interrupts, defensive abilities, mezzes, etc), and positioning requirements. Tactically, the need for every character to be able to participate in these levels of engagement will be a requirement for the challenging content VR wishes to create for Pantheon.

    For the second tenet I listed, mastery of a class is a sub-aspect of the concept of class identity. Class identity exists on two tiers: the explicit identity of the class' role in the game world (i.e., e.g. a defensive Warrior excelling at physical damage mitigation), and the implicit identity that is awarded for the player of that class upon its mastery (something that comes with dedication and time-investment into that class). Ideally, every class will have a high skill-ceiling (with varying levels of skill-floors). As such, the idea that someone could effectively play my class while multi-boxing would, frankly, be insulting and undermine the feeling of players in general mastering the nuances of a particular class.

    So, these two ideas in combination should result in a combat system that is exceptionally prohibitive when it comes to multi-boxing.

    This quote is from a locked thread but it really resonates with me.  To be honest, I would go so far as to say that the allowance of multi-boxing violates the majority of game tenets.  I'm not going to break them all down (yet) but I will say that I sincerely hope that VR reconsiders their stance on multi-boxing.  It is antithetical to what this game is supposed to represent, and I'm going to quote Ben Dean here from the most recent newsletter:

    "You have our sincere commitment to continue to evolve and change how we create and present the game based on community feedback, whenever the changes are in line with the spirit and vision of the game."

    I understand that this topic has garnered official responses that suggest that multi-boxing is perfectly fine and I challenge VR to rethink that stance.  The fact that the community has to request "special ruleset" servers so that they can enjoy the "spirit and vision of the game" that has been advertised doesn't really sit well with me.  Player interdependence.  Meaningful reputation.  Engaging group mechanics.  Risk vs reward.  Meaningful downtime.  Shared experiences.  Earned accomplishments.  Truly challenging game.  Meaningful progression.  And this beautiful tenet:

    "A sincere commitment to creating a world where a focus on cooperative play will attract those seeking a challenge."

    I would humbly request that VR allows their testers to "test" multi-boxing whenever testing opens back up.  I'm willing to bet that there are plenty of dedicated testers who would be willing to show you just how far they can push the advantages of multi-boxing and how allowing it to happen would effectively ruin the spirit and vision of the game.  Imagine a stream of one or two players multi-boxing a full group through Halnir Cave or Black Rose Keep.  I don't think people would enjoy watching that because it would contradict one of the major selling points of this game.  Player interdependence shouldn't be a fairy tale in Pantheon.  It should be the glue that binds the community together.  This (the envisioned combat system) isn't something that should be swept under the rug until it's too late.  The spirit and vision of the game (as it relates to the various items cited throughout this thread) are at stake.  If anybody should be asking for a special ruleset server, it should be those who want to multi-box.  The spirit of Pantheon should be the rule rather than an exception when it comes time to picking a server.

    Beyond all that, I would like to cite this FAQ excerpt:

    10.4 Will multi-boxing be allowed in Pantheon?
    "Our reaction to multi-boxing is to try something first before we even entertain the idea of artificially restricting it. We want to make combat, especially mid and higher level combat, so tactically intense, with so much going on, so much to do, so much to counter, so many companions to keep alive and the timing of many abilities crucial, that multi-boxing is extremely difficult if not impossible and likely far inferior to having an actual real person in your group."

    Again ... please allow your tester community to "try something first" when Project Faerthale opens up so that you can begin to entertain the idea of artificially restricting multi-boxing.  I'd like to quote Brad from the February newsletter:

    "Project Faerthale, as I mentioned earlier, is about implementing those differentiators.  It’s about showing the game off and having people immediately say, “Oh, that’s Pantheon. I can tell just by looking at that screenshot or video.”  It also takes us much closer to Alpha 1.  Our goal for PF is to establish our identity and really get the word out about the game."

    The identity up to this point, based on my observation of various streams and the discussions I have had with many other followers, is that Pantheon combat is highly conducive to multi-boxing.  If multi-boxing isn't going to be artificially restricted then there is already an expectation that it should be extremely difficult, if not impossible, based on public design goals.  If you could demonstrate as much during Project Faerthale, it would go a long way toward securing the envisioned identity of Pantheon.  This is and always will be a hot topic because it's directly attached to the spirit and vision of the game.  The proof is in the pudding.


    This post was edited by oneADseven at June 16, 2019 5:43 PM PDT