Is Multiboxing A Form Of Pay To Win?

Gdi guys, who keeps puncturing the copium supply line?

A week or month long experience point boost isn't providing immediate advantage. It's reducing the time it takes you to progress. You need to amend your definition.

Sooooooo are you saying if you buy your P2W increased JA duration and your shiny OP weapons and whatever else, but still lose because you're absolutely terrible, its no longer considered P2W?

If mostly losers P2W maybe it really is P2L?

You can definitely pay to lose....winning is never guaranteed.

P2W is a concept that applies to F2P PVP games, whereas anyone can play for free but the people who can afford to buy at the cash shop have an immense advantage against F2P players.

So the paying players win against the free players, hence P2W.

This is just not applicable in FFXI. Who are you winning against?

Having multiple mules or accounts to multibox doesn't let you win more because there are no winners or losers, there is just content to complete and gear to obtain.

If my friend who is a multiboxer carries me through some content am I also considered P2W? Technically I'm not paying for anything tho

For the folks who keep saying that multiboxing is pay to win, how do you feel about login points? I mean someone with 15 $1 mules is going to chapters or empyrean items faster than someone with just one $1 "storage mule".

I simply don't think pay to win (P2W) is a concept that applies to FFXI multi-boxing. More specifically, it's "things you can choose to do to get ahead, that are also available to everyone else to do" (assuming everyone is abiding by the Terms of Service, of course).

Qualifiers don't matter. "faster than" "more than" "able to" it's all irrelevant. The amount of advantage doesn't matter either. And neither does whether you use it correctly.

It's a yes or no. You're payin 12.95 or you're p2w. And again it's not some terrible thing. It just is what it is. Money for advancement(time/ability/etc).
Nothing more nothing less.

Are you paying more than the amount anyone else has to pay. Yes.
Are you getting anything extra for it. Yes.

Timeline of Empyrean items showing up:
July 2022
March 2019
Sep 2018
They're probably not coming back anytime soon.

P2W is not exclusive to PvP games, nor is it exclusive to free to play games. There have been many sub based games with cash shops that provide bonuses that aid both PvP and PvE players.


Content. Multibox can access and defeat content that would otherwise not be available to a single account player or be as easy to overcome.



Multiboxing in FFXI provides advantages over single account players. You're already been told why you're wrong, but you're unwilling to accept it. Stay ignorant? I mean, whatever you need to feel better but it is what it is.

I have a different opinion than you and that's OK. However, you seem to be intentionally degrading me for having a different opinion than you. Please keep in mind that I also expressed my opinion, in deference to you, with no malice or ill-will of any kind.

You also seem to be the only person attaching any kind of morality (righteousness, wrongfulness, etc) to these actions (the smallest of which include, such "P2W" actions as utilizing $1 mules to different degrees).

I applaud and defend your ability to share your opinion on these forums just like anyone else, but you would better served in doing so without so much slander and vitriol. Be better.

what about when your multiboxer friend help you clear content and get drops?

because this is what actually happens quite often. For example I did a lot of Omen runs with a multiboxer that helped me get some nice items. Or very often we would do Ambu with 3-4 real players +2-3 multibox.

I mean there are are huge amount of cases where multiboxing is beneficial to non muliboxers.

So again, who is winning against who?

Paying for advantage is pay to win. Fact, not opinion. I would ask why you feel so bad about it that you need to justify it with flimsy excuses? You really tried to tell me that it's not P2W because 'effort' when you're literally paying to reduce your effort. This is about the same as "I do it for the challenge" meanwhile you're mostly automated because controlling alts is hard...


I don't want you to feel bad about multiboxing, but you clearly struggle to accept it for what it is. I think that's more of a gauge of the morality of the subject than anything else. Denial comes before acceptance I guess.

Nothing changed. You're still paying to overcome content whether it benefits only you or you carry friends.

Not a fact, just your opinion.

In denial until you're not.

I am sorry you cannot seem to accept that how you define P2W is a your opinion, is subjective, and others may define it differently.

You will not believe how good FFX11AH becomes after you start blocking people like Seun. It becomes light and informative.

It's an accepted definition, not my own.


FFXI doesn't have a cash shop and it came before the term was even coined, but 'additional services' have been adapted by the players to create the advantage.

The definition of P2W is inherently negative because it generates from games where paying players can buy items etc that give them an advantage that no level of skill or time spent playing can match.

In PVP games it's quite clear. In PVE games not so much. You could argue that in a PVE game with official leaderboards (where player ratings don't have a cap especially), P2W can exist.

In FFXI, I think it's just ridiculous to talk about P2W. We can maybe talk about P4C - Pay for Convenience (I just made it up). Multibox lets you play solo, mules let you have more inventory or AH spaces, wardrobes let you play more jobs more effectively, paying to change server let you run away with the loot... and so on.

While there are advantages, there is nothing special or unique that a multiboxer can achieve compared to a mono-account player.

There's content you can't even access unless you have enough characters to enter. There are also many different content in the game that can't be solo'd with just trust magic, but are trivial with geared alts.


I don't want people to feel bad or shamed. Do what you want with your money, but trying to justify it as effort or doing it for the difficulty makes it seem like they already question the morality if they're trying to make it sound like some sort of accomplishment.

I'd argue the paid for wardrobes are P2W and a cash shop.

They infer a competitive advantage and allow you to carry more sets and gear more jobs.

The advantage is immediate and you don't have to do anything other than plop down the credit card. This is not the case for alts that need to be geared/leveled.

Then you have paid for accounts though with ready made characters, or existing mains that are sold.

More like pay for advantage than P2W in the strict definition of P2W.

If we're using this definition, I'd argue that:
-It doesn't say anything about excluding any purchase involving effort
-It doesn't exclude pve games, and explicitly says advantage over NPCs is included

I think that it's important that we focus on the same definition, so that we can make more objective arguments one way or the other. You could also say "I think this part of the definition should be changed because XYZ reasons" but just saying "my definition doesn't include the behavior I participate in" is a little bit of a cheap copout, IMO.

Honestly: I participate in some behavior which I classify as P2W, it's fine; FFXI is rife with the stuff.

As far as other "P2W" players helping you complete stuff, that's not you "paying 2 win" in my opinion, because you didn't pay for any advantage

Who the *** started this off again?

A dirty cheating Asuran.

Nynja, you repeat yourself.

Going by this forum and multiple google results of "pay 2 win definition", it is obviously not "an accepted definition". Just because you have accepted said definition does not mean every one else has or now has to accept said definition.


I do not have a problem with what Seun is saying about multiboxing. The issue I have is that they are stating their opinion is fact and then implying another poster was being disrespectful for disagreeing with said "fact".

The fact the OP did not define P2W means this discussion will likely never end. That may have been the point.

The initial necro troll bait was senaki on page 2, considering we are now on page 6 half of FFXIAH took it hook line and sinker.



Folks who aren't happy with the term P2W can't seem to agree on a new term either and even if they could the definition of that new term would still have to include something along the lines of "buying a advantage" in order to properly describe the situation, at which point the reframing attempt imho becomes futile.

Wait was I supposed to writhe on the floor after I said that I consider multi-box p2w and that I also do it?

Am I taking 1D4 self-esteem damage every time I log in?

P2W is a pretty broad label, and has even been applied to things as superficial as camouflage cosmetics in some extraction shooters.

Be careful what you wish for, though. If you sincerely believe that multiboxing and $1 mules mean SE has already sold out XI as a P2W title, what's to stop them from adding a straight up cash shop? They already have infrastructure to redeem item codes for in-game items, and kupons in place for most things people would pay for. All they have to do is list the items in one of their online stores.

They may have held off on that in the past due to concern for how players would react, but with the team gone, the game on hospice care, and subs declining, they may be running out of good reasons not to. For what it's worth, I hope they leave things as they are now.