Please stop with the knockback effect moves

This is the single biggest annoying thing in the game right now, you keep adding knockback effects and they are so tiring and annoying. It's bad enough for normal players (I lost count how many times I was knocked back in Ambuscade today) but for multibox players it's insanely annoying to the point of canceling accounts over, considering these are people who spend a lot of money on the game is makes no sense to annoy them to the point of ubsubscribing many alt accounts pointlessly with these moves.

Just stun instead, stop with knockback moves already. Alternatively, just add 100% knockback resistance capes instead of +40-50%. It's an all or nothing problem.

The BST's worst nightmare...

"Reward"...
"Out of range".......
*Pet dies*

Forget anything to do with multiple mobs, such as ambuscade, with the added draw back of being knocked back from your pet.
I ended up chasing my pet around the arena, just to Ready and Reward, rather than fighting the monsters.

I prefer knockbacks over most other mechanics really.

Nothing is more infuriating then getting stunned/slept/petrified etc and not being able to actually play the game for 30seconds to a minute.

At least with a knock back you get to actively deal with.

Unless of course in your situation where you are multiboxing. To that I say: too bad

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for multibox players

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The real problem of the game !

But i do agree, that spam KB is a pain for us all.

But i'm also glad that a Multi-box account cannot do Everything in the game all by themself !
Next time, try to do like the "good old days" and find a real group, you'll get less KB...

Knock backs are only bad for multi account users because it becomes annoying. They need to lessen the reliance on multi accounts because its damaging the game.

SE needs to change the user agreement to allow the use of malware detection to detect bots/scripts/packet corruption (known 3rd party invasive add-ons) within the FFXI program itself, which upon detection would terminate the server connection.

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Originally Posted by Typral

Knock backs are only bad for multi account users because it becomes annoying. They need to lessen the reliance on multi accounts because its damaging the game.

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Without the multibox players you might not have a game to play at all, a wider array of players means the game is profitable for you to play the way you want to play it.

Speaking personally, I would not be playing any of my accounts if I could not play them all.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Without the multibox players you might not have a game to play at all, a wider array of players means the game is profitable for you to play the way you want to play it.

Speaking personally, I would not be playing any of my accounts if I could not play them all.

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I'd be interested to see you elaborate on the assumption that multi-boxing is a net positive for the game.

You would acknowledge that it has led to some players quitting, yes?

The issue you have is agaisnt the reality of the modern MMO players (and people with far less time who grew up with ffxi), the reason you can't have "old ffxi" is because most people don't want that anymore. Back in the day FFXI had very little competition so you had to put up with those 3 hour waits for a xp or spending an hour building a group for something, now they will simply just leave the game. You can't force people to put up with annoyances anymore, which is why old ffxi worked.

FFXI changed because it had to, as such they enabled Trusts (which is a kind of simplistic multibox). Multibox players aren't your enemy, if any exists it's trusts.

In a game with a subscription you need players to keep paying money, so the game continues to run and developers get paid. As such, multibox players are an asset because they spend a lot of money on the game every month and do very little damage to you in the process. If Square turned on me and people like me to stop us using our alts we would not party with you anyway, we would either just quit or go back to 100% using trusts. It would be a financial loss for no benefit.

Regardless, the point was for all players and not just multiboxers. Knockback is annoying, just add a cape with 100% knockback reduction and we can take a loss of a useful cape to gain this benefit.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Multibox players aren't your enemy, if any exists it's trusts.

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Not really. Trusts do not replace humans, they are a subtle help.

The problems with multibox (and I'm not referring to all people who do it):

- JP bots: I haven't seen hardly any people yelling for CP parties, I'm guessing some people have referred to paying the hundreds of suspect "players" in Dho gates. Possibly RMT!?
- Mercs: Selling everything under the sun does not have a positive effect on the game, it eliminates situations where people could have gotten together to do content.

You say about the game being alive because of multlibox, but what kind of game do you or people want?
A game kept alive by cheating, scripting, multi-boxing mercs, bots and JP? Or a game where players actual play it, together?
Take away the JP sellers and the mercs, and people would have to do stuff together.

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Players who multibox who claim they'd quit if they can't multibox do so because they are so accustomed to multiboxing. If SE had policed multiboxing from the start then those players wouldn't be accustomed to having that advantage over other players, and the community would be healthier as a consequence.

FFXI isn't the same game as it was when we had to wait 3 hours for NMs to pop, so that's not an excuse to multibox. Everyone is busy; a person who decides their time is worth more than fair play isn't some sort of visionary who is better at being an adult than everyone else.

Multibox players contribute to the game financially, but there's no way to assert for certain that this is actually a good trade as the very existence of multiboxing destroys community play. There are plenty of people in this game who lament being unable to access content, or having to pay a multibox army run by one person to get clears or acquire gear. How many people have quit because they can't do what they want to do? How many people have quit because they're sick of being in an alliance which is half automated? We don't know. There's no way to say if the multiboxers who caused this damage are compensating for it economically; however, we can be absolutely certain that they can't compensate for the reduction in the size of the community. Bots aren't people.

Trust are intentionally limited. Whether they are a good thing for the game or not is another debate; they aren't, however, directly comparable to a person multiboxing. Everyone has access to trust - not everyone has access to a perfectly customisable party of bots. And of course, a multiboxer can clear tough content. Generally speaking, you can't do that with trust. There are exceptions, of course, but they are in the minority.

And the elephant in the room is that it's not possible to multibox without cheating. I've tried to run two characters on two different machines - perhaps some people can do it effectively, but I really don't see how. It's almost impossible, and it's exhausting. So every single person who's got a small army on /follow behind them is cheating to some degree; they either have means of transferring commands to their other characters, or those characters are straight up bots. That's a massive advantage they have over other people who are using trusts, or even partying with other people - it's intrinsically unfair. Advocating a change in the game and justifying it by stating that it'll help someone cheat more effectively is absurd.

I have some sympathy for the people who've grown dependent on multibox cheating because, for them, returning to playing on the same level as everyone else would be a massive jump in the difficulty of the game. But that's not a reason to allow it to continue. I'm very tired of people asking if they can "bring their alts" to everything and having bots whirring around in the background while I'm trying to enjoy myself. They certainly aren't enhancing my game experience. There have been many days when I've just not wanted to log on because I'll have to deal with multiboxers and bots in almost every zone I go to.

So yes please to reducing knockback spam, but let's do it for legitimate players and not for people who want to cheat with bot armies, eh?

I think one of the problems is people don't understand what multiboxing is, they just assume it's a person controlling one character and having bots on all the others? this is now what mutiboxing is for most people. They control them all themselves and swap between instances to do so, they are not glorified trusts. In-fact there are many well geared players who can solo far better with trusts than someone can with multiple characters, I've seen them do it in Reisejima.

Most players play ffxi as a solo game, multibox or not. They can use trusts to solo ve/e endgame just fine, and what they can't they can merc.

Regardless, I think most would like to see capes to reduce knockback to 100% anyway.

Not a big fan of Knockback either. It's fine to have it here and there, but it can get pretty ridiculous. Equipment to nullify it would indeed be pretty nice.

I think we need more things using something like Reaving Wind, because that can be funny. :]

(Okay maybe that's not such a good idea.)

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

And the elephant in the room is that it's not possible to multibox without cheating. I've tried to run two characters on two different machines - perhaps some people can do it effectively, but I really don't see how. It's almost impossible, and it's exhausting. So every single person who's got a small army on /follow behind them is cheating to some degree; they either have means of transferring commands to their other characters, or those characters are straight up bots.

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At least with only two accounts at a time, it is possible, but yes, it can be quite exhausting, and not very effective. That said, having a bard as a secondary character for example is most definitely better than any of the alter ego bards, and it doesn't require control all the time.

Indeed, I can only talk about doing it with two accounts though, and certainly have no desire to try with three or more. These days I only play one because, well, it's expensive, and I don't have the energy or real need for it.

So, to an extent, I agree, but it is somewhat doable. I believe it doesn't necessarily require a machine per account, as one can use Wine or virtualisation (neither modify the game client or fiddle with RAM, and as such, I don't know of a rule forbidding these methods). Having actual machines does allow for better simultaneous control, though one could use multiple gamepads or/and keyboards for each client.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

I think one of the problems is people don't understand what multiboxing is, they just assume it's a person controlling one character and having bots on all the others? this is now what mutiboxing is for most people. They control them all themselves and swap between instances to do so,

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In my experience this is absolutely not what most people consider multiboxing to be. To be clear, I'm not accusing you of misrepresenting the truth, and this may well be how you operate, but no-one I know who multiboxes tabs between instances to do so. They either use third party software to control their personal army from one character, set them up as bots, or some combination of the two. Controlling two characters at once is only vaguely feasible - I've seen (and unfortunately unwittingly grouped up with) people with whole parties that are clearly automated or centrally controlled. It's incredibly annoying.

I think that tabbing between completely non-automated instances is (perhaps debatably) a different issue to a fully automated personal multibox army. If that's what you've been talking about the whole time then I apologise for somewhat derailing the thread. However, I do maintain that multiboxing even without central control or automation is damaging to the community because the bard you level to pre-buff you is replacing a real person. Perhaps it's not the same level of problem as the multibox armies, but the effect on the game isn't positive. I recognise that finding that person isn't always easy or even possible, but that's the price we all pay for playing an MMO. The game has changed, and so have we as players, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the impacts of our choices.

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Originally Posted by Dragoy

So, to an extent, I agree, but it is somewhat doable. I believe it doesn't necessarily require a machine per account, as one can use Wine or virtualisation (neither modify the game client or fiddle with RAM, and as such, I don't know of a rule forbidding these methods). Having actual machines does allow for better simultaneous control, though one could use multiple gamepads or/and keyboards for each client.

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It would be interesting to know what SE's take is on this. As a fellow Wine user I agree with your assessment that there's no rule that forbids these methods, and it's not something I'd condemn someone for in terms of ToS violation so long as it's not used in conjunction with any additional third party automation. But it's hard to say what the word of God would be.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

I think one of the problems is people don't understand what multiboxing is, they just assume it's a person controlling one character and having bots on all the others? this is now what mutiboxing is for most people. They control them all themselves and swap between instances to do so, they are not glorified trusts. In-fact there are many well geared players who can solo far better with trusts than someone can with multiple characters, I've seen them do it in Reisejima.

Most players play ffxi as a solo game, multibox or not. They can use trusts to solo ve/e endgame just fine, and what they can't they can merc.

Regardless, I think most would like to see capes to reduce knockback to 100% anyway.

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A single person soloing ambuscade can get X amount of hallmarks per month

That same person with 2 (or more) accounts can get X amount (times 2+) of hallmarks per month. Even if the alts just sit there and don't contribute, they still get the hallmarks.

Is the negative effect on the single player not obvious here?

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Originally Posted by Divaud

Is the negative effect on the single player not obvious here?

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It can also have a negative degree on prices. On Asura gil has lost most of its value. People are spending crazy amounts of cash and increasing the prices of common items. There is so much in circulation, it is out of control.
New players coming into the fold don't stand a chance. 3 million gil for Utsusemi: Ni, as an example.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

They can use trusts to solo ve/e endgame just fine, and what they can't they can merc.

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Multibox can enter any content. Trust's can't. Example: Delve, a party of 3 (multibox) and repeat Delve all day long filling the AH with the items and setting the prices. A solo player can't even enter.
This has the potential of people grabbing control of certain aspects of the AH and completely monopolising it. Obviously Delve drops a lot of important items, and also need to be cleared for progress into other things.

The things with multi box is,

Do you play them alltogether (3 or more), if so, how ? i can't think of a multi-account that can play 5 chars at the same time without the use of third program.

I wanna point out that this argument against mutliboxers who "cheat" is pointless in regard to knockback anyway.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

I wanna point out that this argument against mutliboxers who "cheat" is pointless in regard to knockback anyway.

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It's not simply the multi-boxers that "cheat" that negatively affect the game. (whatever it is you mean by cheat)

They all do.

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Originally Posted by Divaud

It's not simply the multi-boxers that "cheat" that negatively affect the game. (whatever it is you mean by cheat)

They all do.

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Everyone that plays impacts the game, if you have a day off work you impact the game more. This thread is about knockback, not your personal bugbear anyway.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Everyone that plays impacts the game, if you have a day off work you impact the game more. This thread is about knockback, not your personal bugbear anyway.

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I recall you bringing the topic of multi-boxing into this discussion in the OP:

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Originally Posted by Pixela

This is the single biggest annoying thing in the game right now, you keep adding knockback effects and they are so tiring and annoying. It's bad enough for normal players (I lost count how many times I was knocked back in Ambuscade today) but for multibox players it's insanely annoying to the point of canceling accounts over, considering these are people who spend a lot of money on the game is makes no sense to annoy them to the point of ubsubscribing many alt accounts pointlessly with these moves.

Just stun instead, stop with knockback moves already. Alternatively, just add 100% knockback resistance capes instead of +40-50%. It's an all or nothing problem.

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It's clearly more of an issue for a certain group of "players"

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Originally Posted by Pixela

This is the single biggest annoying thing in the game right now, you keep adding knockback effects and they are so tiring and annoying. It's bad enough for normal players (I lost count how many times I was knocked back in Ambuscade today) but for multibox players it's insanely annoying to the point of canceling accounts over, considering these are people who spend a lot of money on the game is makes no sense to annoy them to the point of ubsubscribing many alt accounts pointlessly with these moves.

Just stun instead, stop with knockback moves already. Alternatively, just add 100% knockback resistance capes instead of +40-50%. It's an all or nothing problem.

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Not even a multi-boxer and I agree, for the most part (save for knockback resistance capes). Never cared for knockback.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

SE needs to change the user agreement to allow the use of malware detection to detect bots/scripts/packet corruption (known 3rd party invasive add-ons) within the FFXI program itself, which upon detection would terminate the server connection.

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Yep, just what we need. Malware-infested, computer-destroying rootkits in the name of anti-cheat software.

E-sport titles are using these countermeasures, there should be no viable reason to argue FFXI would not benefit from doing the same.

While knockbacks are annoying, to suggest that people quit games over it is ridiculous. Basically every MMO has these, some more than others, and ive never heard of people quititng them over it.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

E-sport titles are using these countermeasures, there should be no viable reason to argue FFXI would not benefit from doing the same.

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Privacy conrcerns, and such measures aren't legal in all countries. They have explicitly stated this as one of the reasons they don't scan people's computers for cheats etc.

You sounds like mulboxing players are filling the servers ....
Like if there is 1000 players on a server. There is in reality less than 500 real player due to multiboxing.....

SE should remove all 3 characters restrictions acces and allow TRUSTS and FELLOW in every content. That way classic players can enjoy all content like multiboxing players.

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Originally Posted by TullemoreAsuraFFXI

E-sport titles are using these countermeasures,

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Do you also break your leg when everyone else breaks theirs? Those games are next-level stupid as are their users. People who actually pay for their computers and care for them do not tolerate malware-infested rootkits. Ever.

In fact, it seems that the real problem is with you Asurans. You want all the benefits of a mega server with none of its cons. "Mercing" and such is an inevitability when you're on ANY game's largest server. Here on Sylph, we don't really have any such problems, and I'd wager the same is true for nearly every other server too (obviously the case for Shiva based on other users' inputs).

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Originally Posted by Dragoniks

You sounds like mulboxing players are filling the servers ....
Like if there is 1000 players on a server. There is in reality less than 500 real player due to multiboxing.....

SE should remove all 3 characters restrictions acces and allow TRUSTS and FELLOW in every content. That way classic players can enjoy all content like multiboxing players.

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And also optimize trust AI, at least in the case of healers and tanks.

Most posts opposed to ethics reforms are missing the environment. Either due to being uninformed, not doing proper evaluation, or grandstanding to protect illicit advantages they are partaking in themselves.

Interactions that do not break ToS are free from criticism.

The criticism is directed at ToS violations that are being utilized to attain absurd advantages that are transferred through player interactions to corrupt the community status quo.
They also corrupt the intent of the game developers at Square-Enix utilizing these ToS violations.

We are discussing ToS violations where users are employing prohibited tools to fabricate gil, cheat character progression objectives, or charge gil for access to advantages attained by ToS violation.

The most obvious of these include but are not limited to:
Bots utilized for AFK command inputs.
Bots utilized for the sale of illegitimate gains in equipment, materials, EXP, capacity points.
Hacks utilized to dupliacte items.
Hacks utilized to corrupt synthesis (crafting).
Scripts utilized to pollute /yell with billboard advertisements, most of which are offering gains derived from the utilization of ToS violations.
Laundering of gil attained through the use of prohibited activity to perceived 'clean' accounts.
RMT suppliers, retailers and customers.
Exploitation of prohibited conduct to hire achievement gains for character progression.

Nefarious greed begets more nefarious greed. Corruption begets further corruption.
The proliferation of which is and has been massively detrimental to the traditional and intended game play.

Is that Starcade?

I'm about as fanatically anti-cheating as someone can get, and even I don't support the use of cheat detection on machines. It opens a door to some very shady stuff. We shouldn't encourage the trend for manufacturers to take away our control of our own devices.

We just need more boots on the ground. I know they don't have many staff, but it's becoming a really serious problem. Like I said on the digest thread, people are having to choose between supporting cheaters (and becoming guilty by association), or cutting themselves off from massive parts of the game. For some people that's an obvious choice, whichever way they choose, but the fact that they have to make that choice is really not acceptable. What do I spend my gil on if the entire HQ gear market is cut off from me?

Oh and less knockbacks, obviously.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

I'm about as fanatically anti-cheating as someone can get, and even I don't support the use of cheat detection on machines. It opens a door to some very shady stuff. We shouldn't encourage the trend for manufacturers to take away our control of our own devices.

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Same here, and very much agreed.