Too many BAD bad boxers on Yelinak

I had a different perspective.
I boxed a CLR/ENC and later added in a BRD, and my experience was that the vast majority of the "solo" community want to be instantly invited to your grp, spoon fed exp, bring a <insert mostly useless class> while they collapse into their laziboi chair, eat/drinking and catching up on Netflix; they were more than happy to contribute as little as possible - and in some cases purposely burn mana just to sit back.

Most "solo" players essentially just want to be PL'd, while most boxes enjoy the added complexity/challenge that boxing can bring.

The most irriatating point was that these "solo" adventurers would get very upset/defensive if you ask them to do their primary role, like that mage DS'ing the tank.

Mostly this. Boxers play the game, a lot of solo players (especially caster dps) watch the game, afk every minute or so without telling you and want to be carried. As for bad players, you have bad boxers and bad solo players, I can't say one is higher than the other. Sure, a bad mage perma afk will do less visual damages than a Enc/Cleric bad at boxing.

I tend to agree with you. I got invited to a group in the Hole and once I got down to him he told me, "btw, I am 4 boxing here". I sighed and said to myself, "This is going to suck" but since I appreciated the invite, I gave him the courtesy of giving it a shot. To be fair, I think he did an excellent job of 4 boxing a chanter, tank, cleric and druid. We held CE just fine with no close calls however, any way you shaped it, there was a very perceptible lag to everything and our pull/kill rate was much slower. I stayed an hour out of courtesy but if I got 40% the XP I would have got with a non-boxed group with everyone pulling their individual weight and focused on doing their jobs, I would be surprised.

The thing of it is, I don't care how good you are at boxing, unless your using some sort of automation which my understanding is against the ToS, there is going to be some degree of lag as your transition your focus from one character to another and one keyboard/mouse to another and your likely going to miss critical things from time to time.

Honestly I can generally tolerate someone running a main and a box, but any more than that and I really feel your not being fair to your party.

Also, I am generally opposed to boxes because each box removes a spot a real player could fill and when I am LFG and/or see others LFG and then see a box group hogging the content, I can't help but get just a little bit angry. I also enjoy the social banter that happens in group. When your in a group full of boxes, there isn't much social banter going on. Honestly I could probably comes up with a dozen or more reasons why boxing is detrimental to the game with only scant reasons where it actually improves things but opinions on boxing are pretty polarized and opinions aren't going to change based on logic.

build your own group and don't take boxers, otherwise quit crying.

I guess it is OK then to build my own group of 6 real players and then muscle out the box group at the camp I want right? The issue with boxing has a lot more depth than just who you are or aren't grouping with.

Also let's be honest with the reason why people want to box.

1) I don't want to have to rely on other people.
2) I don't have the patience to create a group of other people
3) I really wish EQ was a Solo game
4) I want to have X class at my beck and call and not rely on there being X class available
5) I want to be able to group and take on content when I want to group, not when other people want to group.
6) I want to be able to powerlevel myself and not rely on other people to help me.
7) It is more convenient if I don't have to rely on other people.
8) Other people might do stupid things that will inconvenience me.
9) It is easier for me to farm plat and loot, if I don't have to split it with other people.
10) If I have a full group at my beck and call, I can edge out other people for content.

I could go on but as you can see it is pretty much all a variation of not wanting to engage in the social aspects of a game that was designed for social interactions to be the linchpin of the entire design. This is honestly why I am so anti-box because 9 times out of 10 the reasons why someone is boxing is to circumvent the intended gameplay mechanics and the vast majority of the time, this circumventions is detrimental to those actually playing the game the want it was intended to be played.

Lastly, the impact of boxing is pretty one sided. Boxes generally aren't impacted at all by non-boxers, because the entire concept behind boxing is to remove the need for social interactions with other players. On the other hand, non-boxers are hugely impacted by boxers. Boxers cause many LFG players to have to sit out for extended lengths of time. Boxer also consume content out of proportion to the number of players boxing vs not boxing.

For example, theoretically a zone with 6 Camps that would normally support 36 players could be held by only 6 players managing full box groups thus removing content for 30 players. Additionally, since only 6 players are in the zone consuming all the content, no pick would be spawned, thus removing content for another 36 players. This is just one example and we can see where 6 players boxing could theoretically prevent 66 other players from utilizing that same content. How is this not a negative impact on the game?

The only clear positives boxing brings to the game is revenue for DP. One could argue we wouldn't even have a TLP to play on if so many people weren't running multiple accounts and/or that the server would be so sparsely populated that it wouldn't be fun to play on if boxing wasn't a thing. Maybe we need boxing but the one thing that is obvious is that 90% of what makes up boxing, has an adverse effect on the actual game play.

Wish I could upvote this more than once.

... yes. I don't compete with players for content as a rule, but camp contention is an essential part of EQ. It pains me when a group of six characters are barely hanging onto a high-value camp and aren't killing all the spawns in the camp quickly. If a poorly boxed group doing that and gets muscled out by a group of real players I won't shed any tears.

To that list, please add why I 6box:
11) Boxing in EQ is really fun. Boxing at a high level is one of the best party-based RPGs in gaming right now. It's like Dragon Age, KotoR, Baldur's Gate, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin but real-time and in an MMO. There really is no other experience like it in gaming.

There's a lot of generalizations made in this thread that likely do not accurately describe the vast majority of players on any server.

I get the feeling that some of you have ran in to one or two people that meet your descriptions in this thread, and then you apply those generalizations upon everyone else who plays the game.

I've met great, good, bad, meh, and somewhere between boxers AND non-boxers in the past two decades of EverQuest. The only generalization I could safely make about the gamers who play this game is that everyone likes to play EverQuest. Beyond that, everyone is different in their own way, and that's perfectly fine.

You're welcome to try, it ended embarrassingly for the last group that tried it with my group.

I normally ignore your walls of text wharglbl you post incessantly but this stood out as spectacularly uninformed while being wrong on multiple levels. You are aware that boxes count as characters right? picks don't go 'Oh that's a box group, only one player there not 6!' Boxing makes it easier to get more picks open as a 6 man group with a couple of out of group characters makes it way easier to hit high thresholds in zones. You also keep making the same silly argument that the RIAA makes, preventing boxing isn't going to suddenly force those players to play with you, they're already choosing not to play with you for what seems like fairly obvious reasons, they're just going to play with someone else or stop playing.

odds are the boxer do NOT want to tank AND pull AND CC AND heal.

but he have to, cause the non-boxed mage/wiz/rogue ain't going to do it.

This thread is like Rangers that want to tank ... L M A O

The reality is most of us are in our 30s or 40s or higher now and can't dedicate ourselves to the game like we could in 1999. I box because my family will pull me away from the game at any moment. If my kid needs me or wants to hang out I have to literally walk away from the game. If I get wife aggro about "doing stuff today" lolol I have to walk away. Maybe you should fire up an old laptop and try it. You can do a lot with EQ's macros.

Most social interaction in EQ I have experienced is about as nice as closing time at the local bar when you are the only female left. I can live without that.

I agree completely. I will go out on a limb and say no one really bad at this game or good. I don't know how you could possible be bad at EverQuest anymore when you have Gina and whatever other 3rd party legal software that exists though along with it as addons if such things exist. It a lot like WoW, are you good because you listen to addons rather then actual player instruction?
I mean, am I good because I slow/malo/cripple on incoming or am I doing it just because I have nothing to do there after? And chances are I will likely just be sitting in med through the rest of the fight minus some top-up heals. Because stuff dies too fast for dots and DD are kind of a joke.

Maybe I just need a clear definition of what they think good vs bad happens to be in EverQuest.

As far as boxing, I always found boxing tricky and I think alot of people are just not used to boxing and when you have two PC's and very little office/desk space, it gets trickier. I know I run into that issue so I only box when I am bored. I think the choice they made to "true box" was a bad idea. It literally hasn't changed anything in the game. If the troll boxers want to 12 box they will do it, and the same with the krono farmers. Feels a bit like the gun laws.

Otherwise, it could just be that people are boxing classes that don't work well together. When I play shaman + x I know it's just a simple alt tab, to toss a slow or cast a heal quickly, but I don't need to be on the shaman for any extended time. I am definitely more methodical in my play.

I've been thinking a lot about quitting TLP's for good for no other reason other than I'm sick of seeing 40 year old men cry about what other people do on a 23 year elf simulator. Life is too short and you're way too old to complain this much.

If I had to guess, the problem is with people streaming one game-instance from another computer via Steam and playing multiple accounts in different windows and then need to alt-tab between; if you don't have keyboard + mouse hardware for each computer, reaction times are too slow. Or, they're Millennial indoor kids and are bad with hand-eye coordination.



Main reason I run multiple characters, is that I can find sitting & waiting for things to happen a bit boring; If someone is having a hard time running two, it's best to avoid them 'cause downtime after getting killed isn't worth it... despite the automation software to help the disinclined.

Diablo 2 can be tricky but once you get the hang of using a mouse in both hands it's very doable.

Any MMO from DAOC, WOW, SWG, EQ, is plenty simple to use 2-3 characters at about 70-90% efficiency on all. Above that, the desk gets cluttered with mice & juggling.

Fallout76 and New World requires concentration to run two accounts simultaneously, and even more-so with Star Citizen. Still doable with practice.

Fair enough. I will admit that I don't know everything but I do know that often times, camps will not be available due to a box squad sitting on it. That is still 5 people who can't utilize that camp that could otherwise if boxing was prohibited.

Also don't make this personal. Just because you don't agree with my opinions, it doesn't make me a troll no one wants to play with. I mean I get that anyone condemning boxing threatens your favorite playstyle and can absolutely sympathize with how sucky it feels if public opinion happens to sway the devs and screws you over but it is ok to have different opinions.

Lastly, I can absolutely understand why people enjoy boxing and acknowledge that their reasons are valid but that doesn't change the fact that boxing has a much greater negative impact on the game than it does a positive one.

Yeah I have had some amazingly negative social interactions in EQ over the years but those interactions are, at least in part, why I have a million memories and stories about EQ while with other games, I can barely remember anything about them.

Yeah I'm real terrified, public opinion has never been on your side. You got Aradune and it was a dumpster fire, meanwhile we're getting more relaxed truebox rules for new servers and the thread asking them to apply it to older servers was one of the most popular threads on this forum.

You've never demonstrated any negative outcomes from boxing, other than your imaginary 'If a box group is there I can't be there!' which fails to explain how that's different from when a real group is there. That argument boils down to 'If there's less people playing I can get camp spots easier!'. You're just arguing for less people to play the game so you can have it to yourself, who's the antisocial one?

There's zero difference as far as your gameplay is concerned between a group of six friends who play together and one person running six characters other than one violates your sense of how to have fun playing the game.

Okay, I call BS. How is EQ in this state or previous iterations fun? Don't get me wrong its enjoyable to an extent but I can not fathom how a turn-based MMO would be fun, I mean its a little more active than that but it basically plays like a weird DnD campaign. Because I highly doubt sitting in front of your PC waiting for Frenzy Ghoul to spawn as engaging game play.