The Real Problem With FFXI

Multi boxing straight up boils down to convenience. It's convenient that I have the flexibility to adjust a party to fill in slots needed to win an event. It's convenient that my WHMs, or BRDs, or GEOs, that are in my shell are not stuck doing that one job for everything. It's convenient that if a better geared player comes along wanting to fill that role, they are allowed to do so. It's convenient that when they get tired of that job they can swap to something else without it turning into a power struggle and delay to accomplish the goal that all players in attendance are shooting for.

As said many times over, it's a game design issue, solo play is the new norm, they added trusts because of this.

The BiS mule thing is also a pretty big stretch. I would gladly replace my craptastic geared mule in favor of a real player who knew the job.

Even with the help of multi boxing, gearing all possible job combos that you may have is an extreme amount of work. Starting a character from scratch is a gauntlet, buying just basic spells/dice/songs adds up fast, even then you still have skillup process, unlocking warps, mission clearing, foot in the door gearing, battle clears, assault clears, vorseals, accumulating basic currencies just to be mobile, coalitions, I mean..... You could avoid all that work and adopt a friend's character or buy one I suppose. But yea this assumption that it's easy button is false.

But yes, all of that extra work does pay a return. Ease and flexibility of creating a group, speed once everything is rolling, you also have the freedom to try out wildcard strategies most people wouldn't bother with.

There are a few paths to success in this game. Buy ***from mercs (how you aquire that Gil is a separate issue, 2nd option, *** yourself out on a support job til your eyes bleed for a "pro-shell' or mercs, the line is getting to be indistinguishable anymore, 3rd option wait, wait, wait some more, keep waiting, oh ***look something that outclasses that item came along in an update, keep waiting.

Or, either you, or a friend has some multibox setup, go smash ***, experiment with strata, have fun, quit treating this game like it's a business/job/chore.

The biggest gripe I am hearing is that better geared mules exist, because the people who own them took the time to build them that way, I am hearing, wah someone picked their bettered geared BRD over mine and I don't want to play a different job..... Hmmmmm maybe it's you who needs to put more effort into becoming something more than a one trick pony.

Because multiboxers heard the call of "level more jobs" a little bit more to heart than most. Don't be mad that instead of having 8 different support roles stuck to one character and instead with the gear and time put into multiple jobs, I can bring all of them to the scene at the same time, instead of just one.

A trip box of mediocre geared COR BRD GEO, is straight up more useful and flexible than a single player who has all 3 of those jobs decked to the nines, but can only bring one of those jobs, at any given time.

The ultimate, is a mixture of both, a character who has a few jobs leveled and geared, in combination with a trip box to make up other essential roles in a party.

Stop getting mad at people who choose to multi box. Make friends with them, team up with them, go have fun.

Edit: I gave away a pair of regal cuffs last night out of AMAN trove to a LS mate, I had a surplus of tickets, my RUN is leveled, but I opted to give them to a person who really likes PLD and RUN, multiboxers aren't in it for the greed of it, they are just tired of wasting their time waiting for ***to happen.

Wait til you see the disappointment on their face when they realize RUN isn't on regal cuffs :/

Heh, not sure exactly what the name of the hand item it was, but it was the run/pld one. Apparently he owes me his 1st born now? lol at least that's what he said.

Ah yes the gauntlets, first born is the standard price.

Legit, I only started dualboxing because I made the unfortunate error of judgement by fully gearing bard on my main, which ended up me being on that job for mostly everything I ended up doing. I got so sick of playing bard that I literally made another character and fully geared it just so I could throw all my crap in storage and never play it on my main again. The biggest irony in the whole thing is that now I literally always play bard, lol. Having geared buff job alts is definitely better imo because it lets a smaller group like mine be able to actually get out and get things done, it’s only 5 of us really and everyone has an alt geared decently enough that we were able to even kill aeonics like that.

I just don’t see the downside of dualboxing but maybe that’s just me ?‍♂️ It’s more of a convenience for me more than anything else, usually given the choice I prefer not to dualbox but if that’s the difference between easy clear/just getting something going and standing around doing nothing, I’m gonna take that option every time...

Missing the point, they were pointing out an issue within the community(whether the issue came from multibox is debatable), not complaining about their BRD not getting invite. It's actually some multibox supporters here complaining about personal issues, such as the lack of time.

What are the Pros and Cons of this whole debate, let's break it down.

PROS:
Flexibility of time

Flexibility of job roles for a given situation.

More resources per character capable of being produced over a set period of time being put into circulation on the server markets. (in that same regard, less materials produced by "legit" players used up on a wasted "mule"), More subscriptions paying to help the game stay alive.

Less "elitism lockout" because *** it, my jobs arent perfect but I am here to try this out anyway, let's test our capabilities.

Less "cookie cutter strats" because *** it, these are the jobs we have, let's see if we can make a win happen.

Less competition in a PUG for the item YOU want. Case in point yesterday, I helped a friend on an NM he could not quite farm on his own, he was after one particular item, I didn't care about any drops really, we quickly got his drop, and everyone was able to move on to their next goal. The alternative would have been, shout for hours long enough to make a group specifically tuned to take on that mob, anyone who is interested in a shout like that, is also after items, for every one body that is after the same drop you are, the obligation to keep spamming that NM until it's RNG favors all of the members of your group is multiplied based on a factor of drop rate, is a time sink from hell.

AAAAAND in a pug of that nature, what are the chances everyone will walk away from that same original team, that got the item they wanted? slim to none. This is the inherent game design flaw that has existed since day one, this is the major game design flaw that a multi boxer can bypass for himself, and for others. This is why we multibox.

Another pro, an entire linkshell of peoples time does not need to be used up to accomplish mindless grinding at a reasonable rate.

I am sure I am missing other fringe benefits but w/e

CONS:

.... Single players who have their nose in the air, dont get to lord their BiS BRD over everyones head in order to progress...

Legit, there are *** multi boxers only in it for themselves (but this doe not affect you, unless you choose to interact with that person, and cant learn a lesson once you have been burned)

Oversaturation of materials on the server, meh, cheaper crafted gear, this should be in the pros.

communication and community, again it's all a matter if who you are choosing to associate with. already heard tons of examples of multiboxers being the exact opposite of greedy loner people.

cons, the elite single players dont get to lord their army of brain washed fan boy support jobs (i would argue about as useful as a multiboxers mule) over others for progression, bad news for for-profit shells, and mercs.

con..... *** i got nothing.

PROS > CONS

From my experience, it's not tough to get people redo the songs if they are dispelled, just say something in chat(which any DDs can do if their songs are dispelled). When I said "worst player", I actually meant people that can at least read chatlog and follow instructions :p.

That isn't the case for DD jobs. It's near impossible to tell people how to play DDs with so many in and out. Even giving instructions on the fly like "don't stand in front of MNK DRG" "Keep shadows up on WAR" takes a lot of time and attention span. Mob engage priority needs decision making, DDs positioning needs decision making...it's tough to baby sit everyone.

So if I have people good at decision making, it'd be healer/CC/DD because these slots needs most quality decisions IMO.


Edit: on a side note while we are having a conversation about BRD...Once I used a BRD mule with full REMA for ambuscade, then decided to replace the mule with a real player without full REMA for the sake of "build a better community". Our kill speed was legit reduced with worse songs. The fact that BRD doesn't really need a real player is probably part of the problem, lol.

We can discuss the pros and cons of multiboxing without piling on the OP.

OP, multiboxing isn't going anywhere. You need to accept the reality of the world around you:

• by joining a bigger/more active LS

• by gearing your own mules

• building your own parties

• other solutions I'm sure? get creative

I would also remind you that being a jackass about it will definitely not work out the way you hoped. Your big complaint is that it's hard to find people to do things; there's no Duty Finder/random matchmaking here, so getting known as a pain in the *** isn't gonna go so hot.

I'm going to leave this thread open for the time being, but seriously, play nice with each other. This is a valid discussion to have, and we can have it without getting shitty at people.

The best solution is probably ask SE to create more content that favors group play like ambuscade, and adjust "mule jobs" so real player makes a bigger difference.

If multibox goes away even big LS will suffer, since event LS frequently use mules to cover support jobs so everyone else can play DD and have fun.

Same boat as the other multi boxers here. Mainly use them for convenience such as building Ou pops or filling support roles to get things done and to get loot for our group. Much prefer to log off my alts if the roles can be filled. It's convenient to multi box but that ***is NOT fun (for me at least), feels more like work than anything even if you can automate it efficiently, plus there's extra lag too. With the help of my alts I've helped hundreds of people that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise, and that's just helping noobs. Can't say how many times we do job checks for ambu or dyna and zero main players want to come as a support job, so it falls on the alts to cover those roles. I can't speak for everyone but to me alts is 100% a plus barring the *** but those people will be *** no matter how many accounts they have.

Mutli is very much a double edged sword. You get X rewards but you have to put in X effort.

6 box? congrats on doing wotg 6 times. yay. But also congrats on getting 6 Ou pops. (unless you make all 6 at the same time, not many people do that)

It's also like, congrats on having 6 independent Odyssey farmers, but also congrats on spending 6x longer IN odyssey farming.

I definitely don’t want Duty Finder. I have a good group to play with that I enjoy. My primary reason for starting this thread was to post my perspective as someone who has played since 2005 and watched as the game has changed into what it is now.

Anyway, game on boys.

I have 4 characters, of those 4 I only use 2 regularly, the 4 together I only use to farm delve if I need money. All the rest I cant be bothered, mostly because I do not want to automate anything (I just use send).
I prefer to play with just one character, focussing on multiple characters is so intense (unless its something you've done 50 times) and at some point its not relaxing anymore and playing turns into a chore.

I'm OK kinda with ls's bringing alts to events as a back up plan, but after a couple of runs people get so used to it and it seems so handy to have those unwanted jobs filled, that it turns from being the exception into it being the rule.
The rule where it comes at a point that people who control the alts demand that the alt is in their pt, because it makes it easier for them to operate the alt. And sadly enough this results sometimes in the non dualboxed player with equal job gets pushed into the "scrub" pt.

I so wish send worked for me...

Hmm I don't normally post much but I have a couple thoughts


First,like to see a revamp of the Linkshell system. Give people a reason to want to put time into organizing a large group of people in game and providing something unique to those that join. I think this would get more people working together and less need to multibox everything.

Right now a linkshell offers no real incentive in game. For Nudawn we run everything through Discord. We organize everything through a shared spreadsheet. Some days there is little use of the linkshell except to rock that red pearl. :) I'm not sure what they could do but I'd love to see a revamp.

I do recognize for people short on time that still want to experience the game, dual boxing is a great way to still play.

Secondly, I am really not a fan of the scaled hp mechanic for everything that comes out. I think they should make content that requires 12-18 people. People have mastered the content for a party, which is great, but we I'd like to see some hard fights come about that would get people working together. Maybe bring some timed spawn content back? I guess bots are advanced now so it would just be battle of the bots claiming, lol. I dunno. Just some thoughts

At this point it's not even just that, but often because folks want to get CP/cards/unlocks/RP/etc on a variety of jobs. Same general end result, but the motivation isn't necessarily just not liking/being bored of support jobs.

This so freaking much. Not sure how people can't get that through their heads, multiboxing is about the convenience of knowing you will have support jobs covered ahead of time. Game design practically requires COR + BRD + GEO and a WHM (though some argument for RDM or SCH exists). Out of those the BRD, GEO and healer is easily automated. It doesn't need to be intelligent or adaptable, it only needs to be fast and predictable. COR can be easily automated for rolls, though it also does damage which isn't as well automated. This leaves the two DD / tank slots open for friends. Heck just having a single mediocre geared WHM / RDM / GEO alt is a huge leg up on getting stuff accomplished.

This is what happens when game design attempts to force people together while simultaneously heavily restricting job selection.

I view multiboxing as a way of having control.

Something obvious only to me but for some reason not all of the other versions of me is that in the world of Solipsism it is almost impossible to control the world around me. By multiboxing I am able to exert some form of control on the world around me, albeit a virtual world, but I digress. While all of my thought creations are whittling away the time doing whatever peripheral tasks that have been assigned by the Self I will control the immediate and worry less about the more distant.

As far as game limitations go I can only surmise that my mind created those limitations so that all of my detached personas could argue about them on the internet.

Carry on me... carry on.

3 things ill never do in FFXI

1: Buy a large sum of gil from RMT

2: +Quad Box

3: Pay a Merc to clear content for me

To me - These just devalue the game to the point Id rather play something else. I don't care if you do any of those things either because it doesn't effect me in the slightest. Enjoy the game anyway you see fit.

If you can't take the time to get to know groups and linkshells, Learn about game mechnics and read up on content you need done or not actively working on fleshing out your job spread to be useful the games not gonna be forgiving

Even FPS games has information that can improve skill (bullet spread, Recoil, best distance for each gun, character builds)

FFXI's real problem is its infostructure and the fact SE DOESNT GIVE A *** ABOUT FFXI AT ALL TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. It Really needs some type of upgrade at this point and SE just doesn't want to do it. (Be it they don't want to or the cost - Who knows)

SE logic for FFXI at this point is to do the least amount of work they have ever done along with the least amount of effort they have ever put in, and make sure that decreases with each update (Odyssey) while they make sure to keep that sub fee the same and to figure out more ways to make the dwindling player base pay more (mog wardrobes, More mog space, not working on the game to get new players or returning players back forcing current players to either dual box, support RMT and using those funds to support mercs)

Who know's if it will change in the future when the game turns 20...

The irony, these buff jobs are THE most important jobs in the game, and the least popular.

This game really is all about buffs, debuffs, and support. YOu would be surprised at how trivial fights can become, even with not as strongly geared front liners, when you find the Goldilocks zone of the perfect buff and debuff adjustments on a specific fight.

People who care to take those jobs above and beyond are the real god players of this game. Any multiboxer opting to choose his less optimal geared and capable mule, over your badass one is dumb.

As with anything you can abuse it or use it to your advantage. And while I think we know of some people that abuse multiboxing I think the vast majority of them out there do it to help the shell out and maybe make their own solo endeavors slightly easier.

We have a general rule within my LS that’s basically real people before alts. It’s that simple. Now do lots of us still have an alt and bring them to content and fill in gaps when needed. Of course and we would be dumb not too. I find alts to be a vital part of keeping content/events moving for the LS so as one or two people in vacation or on a break don’t bring everything to a halt. It’s just good practice. And it allows people to not feel like they let the shell down, of feel obligated to participate, because a Main Tank or whatever has some real life ***they had to take care of.

And the whole KI holding stuff is on SE. I mean having OU wiping out the entire LS KI’s is stupid. So yeah we farm up a bunch of those on alts so we don’t have to leave real players out as much as we can.

A buffed BST is far more damage then an unbuffed Samurai / Warrior / Dark Knight / Dragoon / Monk.

The holy trio of BRD GEO COR increase a players damage exponentially while the healer lets them keep fighting. This results in any content being way faster and easier with those three jobs present along with some healer. Those are also the hardest jobs to fill as relatively few want to play them.

Like this isn't hard, if you want stuff done you need those jobs and players who like those jobs are rare. Combine those two problems and the obvious solution, if possible, is to create your own automated version of those jobs. It's not about being anti-social, liking or avoiding people or even the friends you play with, it's about easily solving a problem every group faces. Nobody likes being forced to come BRD for every single fight, nor GEO, nor WHM.

Sorry OP, but everyone in this game benefits from the efforts of multiboxers a lot more than they suffer from them.

Realize that a huge chunk of your AH's supply comes from multiboxers doing content like Delve and Vagary, and taking advantage of bringing 3+ characters thru that content to earn triple (or more) the rewards of a single boxer. Then those mats get purchased in bulk by crafters, and that's how so many HQs exist in the game.

Realize that the game wouldn't make near the money for SE that it does without multiboxers- to a point where I often wonder if SE would have continued content beyond RoV without that extra income. You casually say "2000 characters online but only about 500 real people"...well if those multiboxers all were only "allowed" one character, its not going to spawn 1500 new subscriptions to make up for it in SE's eyes.

And lastly, realize that while you worry about losing party places to multiboxers, its a safe assumption that you have done some content that was made beatable for your group because of a multiboxer, be it someone who just has an alt, or a fleet.

The real problem is that Geo doesn’t have enough DD gear.

They nerf/reduce geo bubble effectiveness anymore you might as well replace them with a BST...there I said it.

Oh I totally agree. In my original post I say a lot of what you’re saying here in a different way. I even mention that everyone benefits from multi-boxers—including myself. I’m not special.

To your other point I’m not worried about being replaced. I’m geared. I can get parties.

The whole point of creating this thread was to make an observation about the community. I understand that multi-boxing won’t be going anywhere. I don’t expect it to. I see it becoming the new normal that SE will welcome with open arms because subscription fees are cash money. That doesn’t mean I have to like it. It’s pretty clear to me that the majority of players in 2020 find it acceptable and okay even if the TOS says it isn’t.

If trusts would pre-buff you when they were out, instead of having to wait until the mob is engaged and starting to try and smash your face in with 0 buffs, trusts would be damn near as strong and effective as most multi boxers.

Also I think a reason why damage dealer jobs are more prominent is due to trusts not being a good system at all for those who do enjoy playing a back line job, but still needing to spam the "solo" tier of content.

Not being able to raise them, IE recast them, while a battle is going on makes them unsuitable replacements for clinch fights also, they may as well allow people to cast them in alliances too. it really would not break anything.

You know... they could easily rotate (vary) buff strength.

September all songs are half potency but pet debuffs are double potency! October geo is halved but rolls are doubled. November geomancy is removed entirely but everything else is tripled. That'd be neat. Make ***interesting again. Get some variety instead of the "same ol ***everyday, every month, for 20 years"

(could do the same with weapons, GS -50% Scythe +100% dagger -50% h2h +100% etc)

My Idris hates you.