Is Multiboxing A Form Of Pay To Win?

Oh yeah. I have no problem listening to divergent opinion. A term that defines too many things doesn't define anything accurately, which leaves room for interpretation.

I do not multi-box and I don't see multi-box as an advantage. If I want to spend real money on advantage, I'd just buy gil and cut out the middleman (multiboxing).

Most people I see multiboxing just don't like to play with strangers, but would still like to enjoy the game. Some people think that multiboxing Ambuscade gives you advantage over other players. I don't see how that's the case since it doesn't stop other players from simply making a PT and doing ambuscade without multiboxing, but their point is still valid, which is why I stopped adding to the thread.

However comments like the one in quotes bellow are not something I'm interested in reading when I am pushing 40...

Considering the painful process of logging into FFXI, 1D4 is low.

Things multiboxers dont have to do:
https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/57432/lf-delve-plasm-farming-idrisepeolatry-creation/#3675587


What if I told you these things have already existed:
I know they had that necklace that gave you an ingame item to warp your party to Nashmau?

Would you consider borrowing a friends account to do delve P2W multiboxing (something I have done)? You would not be paying for said account in this instance.


It is an advantage that a multiboxer would get to pool resources over multiple accounts. It is not an advantage that is specifically only for multiboxing. The same advantage is shared with my group of friends I play with. If someone needs currency or a specific item(s) for something, we generally help them farm it.

Getting help is supposed to be a core element of the game.

If you're paying extra subs to circumvent that.... You're paying money to save time. That's a core element of "paying to win"

Just say someone else pays your 2box sub so you're not p2w!

Jeez...

This convo again lol...

duh, it's pay to win, though there still is some skill involved but it's just learning the formula to make it work. Many people who dual box don't do it well enough to even do most content and end up being two to three c- minus players

not everyone can be ejin and use anchor

It doesn't matter how much skill is involved or how much better (worse) you play while 2boxing. If there wasn't an advantage, you wouldn't do it. People aren't paying $20/month for a second character to make it more difficult and put themselves at a disadvantage.

Bonus: You can apply the same logic to anything else: GS, Shortcuts, Minimap, Dressup, Anchor, Cureplease, Tako, Voidwatch bots, anything you like. If there is no advantage being granted, why are you using it? Answer: there is an advantage, that's why it's worth downloading and installing.

Surely we'll get 100% consensus on this completely uncontroversial take.

This is a pretty clear answer, its yes. Don't know how people can spin it any other way lol.

Because they have a conscience they need to try and keep clean.

I paid for 1 character, i'm paying to win! Couldn't have beaten the story without the character that I paid for

that's the entry fee then..

If I can stack my entry fee "x" amount of times to get a better position, to go first, to get more than everyone else, to be taller and have a better chance of winning then that's p2w

My argument is based on the generally accepted definition, that's why it's represented as fact. The term is over a decade old and really doesn't need to be defined or redefined at this point.

FFXI list of pay to win (SE gets the money):
Wardrobes
$1 mules
extra accounts

Besides these things, there's mercs, buying accounts, and buying gil. This stuff isn't money given to SE tho.

Sure they give an advantage but what MMO has no P2W (none)?

How is effort reduced? You have to put tons of effort into gearing another character or multiple characters in order to do more advanced content efficiently.

Never multi-boxed and never intend on it, but this whole thread is a joke and should never have got as far as 7 pages, lol.

My bad.

I can farm the required merits and clear 8 VD HTMB runs in under an hour, solo with trusts. The only real benefit they provide is haste and heals. I don't need the mats or chapters so they hit the vendor or the dirt, respectively. My only real reward is the 40 cases, parcels or boxes of currency.


If I had 5 basic level 99 alts, I could carry them through the same content in the same amount of time or better. The difference is that because of all the personal loot, I get 4x the currency reward for the same time. It would take me 4 hours to earn what you made in 1 hour. Not just that, but you're able to funnel chapters and mats to your alts to gear out priority jobs faster.


Is there maths here? Assume we both have the same playtime with you taking the multibox path and I take the solo path. How many hours would you estimate to boost 5 alts and clear a mission to unlock HTMB? Attribute those hours to me as a head start since I'm not boosting alts. How far ahead am I @40 cases/hour when you finish boosting? Now... how many hours of me clearing 40/hour vs your 160/hour before you catch up?

Because you side stepped the tons of effort it takes to network so that you have actual people that have the jobs you want. You paid to avoid LS drama needed to poach that BRD.

Lol. There are more pocket brd alts than real people playing brd these days.

Sad reality.

Multiboxing is an answer that benefits not only the player who is multiboxing but also others. For example, if one has a static group and for some reason, half of them could not show up, that person still can cover the most crucial roles with his alts. This allows to invite players who have harder time joining parties due to not having the most wanted jobs or being new and not being geared well enough. Benefits to all and not only to the one person having multiple alts.

I can see players, who from time to time join my Odyssey C segments runs, yelling for an hour in search of the last member of the party that has either BRD, Tank, or Healer. There are far fewer players that have healing and support jobs than those who mainly have DDs.

It is also an answer to people being grown-ups. During the weekdays many of us have only 1 to 2 hours to play due to other responsibilities. Now imagine spending the whole time yelling for members and not doing anything else. Multiboxing in this case allows you to spend this hour playing while otherwise you would just waste the short period of free time.

Get rid of all the multi boxers and suddenly "solo" players will realise just how empty the game actually is. I still find it strange that SE hasn't done another server merge to get rid of the 2k population servers. It would solve the pug issue that is rampant on all servers.

This whole topic is stupid but i suppose this is AH forums it is a den of stupidity.

They won't merge servers, they just let players self select.

"If you don't like your low pop server, for the low low price of $18 you to can switch to Asura... and then complain about how you can't seem to do anything because there are too many people in line to do it." - SE

I'll quit if I'm forcibly merged to Asura or Bahamut or Odin. I like my quiet server, thanks.

If you want to go on a heavily populated server, the option is there.

You have the bolded backwards, just fyi

Originally, iirc, your mule characters wound up on different servers unless you had a friend golden world pass you. Same thing went for any second accounts (though at that point you could gold world pass yourself).

So originally you weren't intended/supposed to be able to use multiple characters on the same server.

I don't remember when they started letting us pick our servers for each new creation, but eventually they did.

I'd say they allowed it because unlike real P2W, FFXI P2W has a potential to have no return on investment. Without botting, no one really has the time to make 8 crafting mules and domineer the AH. Without botting, no multi-box players truly excel to the point of circumventing real party members completely.

It's a time and effort based game, you know, and while all the little advantages add up, you still have to invest time into your alts to actually get advantage out of them. If you got to earn your advantage with efforts that aren't money, how is it purely pay to win?

Without botting, aren't you essentially just paying to be allowed to play more?

Naw. There's levels.

Bard cor and geo don't need to be automated. They can be used prebattle and not used to melee. Always use switchmon and manually reup.

That's just buying better trusts.

More auction slots has nothing to do with botting. Having an in town bazaar has nothing to do with botting.

There are multiple p2w reasons to pick up extra bodies.

Does anyone really consider having a character stand around and bazaar as "multiboxing"? I mean sure it is an additional box but that does not feel like it aligns with the why we usually mean the term.

I'm 99% sure accounts on the same POLID wound up on the same server as the primary.

This is only considering the face-value stuff you actually have to work for though. How about statue crusher campaign? Soloing HTBF? Doing SKCNM, Unity battles, etc? There is plenty of content in this game where personal drops are awarded which are worth $$$. Any time you do that content, if you bring an alt in place of a trust, you're getting double rewards for the same level of effort. You could add a little more effort (using that character) to make it easier/faster, but that's not necessary. And even if you do put in effort, the effort != doing a whole second run, thus making it more efficient for the multi-boxer.

I think it's pretty clear that there are advantages and that you pay for them. It is my opinion that P2W does not exclusively include direct payment for an item with no intermediary, or that the item/benefit you purchased is more powerful than existing items/benefits, and that it's not excused by having to do some in-game work to receive the benefit. Others are welcome to disagree, but I think if you allow any of those excuses it's really easy to hide pretty much all p2w behind thin veils.

Were you around in 2008 when SE sold the Tidal Talisman? A cheap necklace costing $40 that came with a code to redeem for an ingame item. A very popular, very useful item considering Einherjar was one of the endgame events at the time.

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Tidal_Talisman_(Merchandise)
Whoever wrote that page (it wasnt me, and it was back in Feb 2022) noted this:

2 screens is 2 screens. Stop adding unnecessary qualifiers. Trying to blurr grey into a yes or no.