Character Cloning - The New Cheat?

[Legend_]

ahh so it's FFXI vs WoW thing, I'll let y'all sort that out.

Usually when someone see something like that and wants to post it on a forum they take enough screenshots to make a short animated film.

I don't doubt it though, I already believe they are generating their own Gil . Pure speculation though.

[Wobble]

After the second time toon was used I had to stop reading, sorry....

[Pyreflye]

Awww crap. Looks like the game crash corrupted the video capture file...

[MeeDeggiThePunisher]

/jumps on that bandwagon.

Did somebody say toon? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhkNLHictW8

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Toon is an old EQ/WoW term that should be left behind.

But .. but .. I still PLAY EQ!

I can't leave behind a term from a game I'm still playing!

On a less .. whimsical .. note, I should state that the situation the OP describes does NOT sound like a boxer, but it *could* be. I just don't know. It would depend upon the degree of automation (botting) that the boxer makes use of.

First, the point of boxing. You box because you cannot find groups, you do not want to find groups, or you simply would prefer to provide the group essentials yourself and maybe take along an incidental person or two along the way should one happen along, all while looking to actually do group, rather than just solo, content. That requires that you have characters that fill the various roles of a group : tank, healer, damage dealer, crowd control (only real CC in this game is Sleep/Repose, more a necessity in other MMO's). You rarely have multiple characters of the same class, unless that class literally can do it all (EQ's Magician, or FF14's Summoner) OR the class in question is the best combination of "high damage, low attention" damage dealing class the game offers.

Second, the economics of gearing. While bought gear (and, to a point, crafted) is relatively simple to obtain, higher levels of gear are not. Often, gearing up one character is at the expense of another, even if it is a simple question of which class can use the item that dropped from the boss this time. After you get out of the crafted or storebought gear (as opposed to gear bought from the market board or whatever version of a bazaar the game uses) you will never find two boxed characters of the same class geared identically while they are gearing up (unless the boxer is deliberately avoiding dropped upgrades). The upgrades that drop for one will not always drop for the other.

The OP reports three or four WHM's, all identically geared, in a mix of AF and other stuff. The gear level suggests that they are still gearing up in the range of storebought/crafted, so they are not necessarily into the realm of uneven drops (short of aetheryte drops from dungeons). That means that identical gear is a real possibility. The fact that they are all WHM's, however, is what makes it so suspect. WHM's .. don't tank. They can deal great PBAE damage, as long as the mana holds out, but Holy is SUCH a mana-intensive spell, you cannot get a great deal of casts out of it before needing to recharge. Could four WHM's plow through low level dungeons? Could four WHM's plow through level 50 dungeons? I don't know. Holy is quite an effective PBAE spell, it really puts WHM's on the map for group damage dealing.

My gut says that 4 WHM's would be horribly inefficient at running any level of dungeon other than Dzemael Darkhold and possibly Aurum Vale, simply due to the combination of mob HP and the costs of Holy ... but in theory it could be possible for them to run around all wily nilly Aero'ing and Stone'ing. That's just not boxed character behavior though. You lose too much efficacy controlling more than one character at a time.

In theory, I could see it possibly being a boxer ... but my gut says its something worse.

[Lstkaws]

I'm not sure how a term used to refer to a online PC since the 90's has become derogatory.
If someone has an issue with "toon" I would assume they are newish to the MMO genre.
If someone would use avatar to describe their character I would probably go into a laughing fit.

It's strange how language changes though.
I remember after leaving EQ saying to a group I was gtg after a brief afk. They all got pissed off at me and I realized that outside of EQ gtg doesn't mean "good to go" after a afk return.

.

Not new to MMOs; it's just the Final Fantasy way. No one uses the term "toon". In XI it would get one mocked and ridiculed. XIV is a bit lighter the ridiculing is now more in jest. It does make me cringe when I hear or read it, but if someone wants to refer to them as "toons" then who the hell am I to say hey can't or shouldn't.

[Destinova]

Toons >_>.

[Tashigi]

Really? You guys took this thread this far out, over the term toon? And then say this is not WOW? The game that's basically 90% WOW?
Sad.

Anyway, OP.
As previously noted, that's multiboxing. It's just a guy with enough money to run around as 4+ characters.

[Kat_Manx]

You know what upsets me?! :O

When people say "Raid" referring to doing basically anything. This game has very few Raids. Labyrinth of the Ancients, and Coil. Just open the Duty Finder and check if you don't believe me. ; ;

[Elim]

So anyway on toon....I mean on toon...er on topic, right. I think you should toon....toon...and uhm I mean toon and toon toon toon....toon....toon. Toon toon, toon...

...toon.

I'm sorry, I tried but I just can't.

Toon.

*eye twitch*