Factional 3 way (avoiding lockdown)

[Korr]

Out of respect for those organizing the relic event, I wanted to continue discussion on a different thread, to avoid lockdown of the important one.

Just to recap (no pun intended!)

The recent debate was about factional enemies joining forces to raid against AO/RK... says AO/RK. It has been stated that Neils claims were baseless. Neil refutes this by giving recent in-game examples and adding some flourishes of his own. I'll pick it up myself from there...

DD does not have a pet TSS bard. We have a bunch of our own DD and allied IO and even a GoDS bard that run with us. I am honestly racking my brain to think of any TSS tagged bard in any recent history that has come on any raids with me and I can't think of any. So I will side with the 'baseless' claim on that one. Even if you meant TC instead of TSS, I still have no clue who you are trying to refer to.

As far as FoN Clad TSS DD IO and GoDS all joining forces to raid... you clump a number of different sessions into one and it sounds much worse than reality. Here is the truth on a day to day basis:
If the AO or RK cradle get tapped, there are typically 5+ toons that come to defend in either faction. This is usually 3 being neil plus who ever else they have or can call/IM etc. 5 is actually a lowball number. Remove the multi boxes and most days AO/RK get creamed. Even with the multiboxes, when you raid you get creamed, unless we have 3 players on, in which case it takes you guys 3 hours to move and buff all your toons around and you still only empty the cradle 1/2 way.

Back to AO/RK holding relics, all of their enemies know the futility of raiding with 1 or even 3 toons. To Neil, this is a fair fight, cuz its really just him, but he can pull out 3 toons to even the odds. Add a few more AO/RK players and the odds are stacked every time you raid them. So... when the odd man out from an enemy faction is in the mood for some PvP they see the need to get some allies on the fly, just to even the odds. They aren't doing it cuz they are best chums. They don't do it because the other guys helped em out the other day. They do it because they have an hour or so of play time and they want some relic PvP. Right now. If a raiding group is large enough, they will shun outsiders 99% of the time. I pose this to Neil: when was the last time 7 DD/IO/GoDS stomped you with a straggler TSS or FoN in group? Never. When was the last time 7 FoN/Clad/TSS came barreling though town with 1 DD? Ok, so I heard about that one time. One time! And Nyeleni didn't even want that solo, battle hungry DD with em.

The truth is people want PvP daily. AO/RK hold the relics by multiboxing numbers of 5+ between 2 guys. TC/NC will never raid SL/MA with a PWnD, maybe they might with a reaver/hn/tlb, ask em yourself. DD/IO/GoDS will never raid TC/NC with a PWnD/HN/RR/tLB. But will these 2 groups raid AO/RK with mixed groups? Yeah, it's been known to happen, but it isn't as common as you make it out to be.

I left SyN out because the do whatever they want. Gotta keep your eyes on those fellas... but they are still welcome to raid with us against all of y'all.

only read this post (cuz who cares about the (assumed) flames afterwards). When I was heavy in my (A) stuff neil was one of (3) of the AO/RK (12+?) who didnt care when my 2-3 (occasionally + rando others) stomped them. I was actually VERY VERY VERY shunned from the AO/RK (guilded pwnd/wtfever i dont remember) vent when I would raid/defend with toons that opposed them. So to make a (could be VERY VERY VERY) long story short. Enjoy yourself?

PS : I am heavily considering a return to NS4, but not as a player... as a developer. I dont have time to play games anymore because of work and my son (OMG please ask for pics he is TOO [censored] CUTE!(takes after daddy after all. HAHA!) for words). And unlike some (no offense) there is no shroud of wonder or anything. I just really DO like to program and [censored] (check out my latest workings at www.aobot.org). NWN is my favorite game ever (yes im a D&D dork) and would love to get in on this server to try and help make everything balanced and better. If nothing other than that I have been a DM of multiple PnP games and would love to run some fun events in my spare time (any typing like : "uykasdbo87fasdf" is to be considered work my son and not a riddle!) little as it is.

[Merrip]

As far as factional three ways hmm go, I have not seen that much of it from a defending view, as in whilst defending AO I have not seen to much of it going on when the offense comes to raid us.

Where I have seen it, is with other factions defending, now I am not saying I see it three times a day or even that I see it every day, but I do see it probably twice to three times a week, and probably once a week it does happen during defending (as in we are defending and someone is attacking us).

At the end of the day though, my personal thoughts are who gives a [censored], do I like it? No not really I would prefer not to fight 3-4 factions at once, saying that it would been fine if there was fighting going on across the board e.g ao/rk defending ao, sl/ma/tc/nc comes and raids, tc toon gets relic, sl/ma toons jump the toon whilst ao/rk try to as well, and tc/nc trying to get the tc toon out of there. That sort of thing is cool, just makes for a much more dynamic and interesting PvP match when there is so many side line fights going on.

And then there is the eternal debate of dual/tri/w/e boxing. I can honestly say regardless who is behind there several computers, someone can not actively play to the best of there ability 2 or more toons at once, so if you are facing someone who is working across three computers, you know there focus is not on all of them at once, just attack all three at once, you know what? it is effing hard to try and work three toons getting attacked at once.

So your 100% focused toon is facing a toon that has 33.33333% focus on it ... hmmm I can see where you may complain about that.


But nevertheless people do need to realise and they have always needed to realise, this is a game, we don't walk away from the computer and cast WoB on the neighbourhood when they cross the street and you don't like the look of them, and no we don't sing a merry song to boost our skills before we head off to work for the day.

Take a breath, have a drink/cigarette/bong or whatever your drug of choice is, chill out and have fun.

[mining]

I think the point of tri logging is that with 6 toons controlled by 2 or 3 players, even though they have poor control, against 3 or 4 toons, they will most likely triumph.

[Bargeld]

it would been fine if there was fighting going on across the board e.g ao/rk defending ao, sl/ma/tc/nc comes and raids, tc toon gets relic, sl/ma toons jump the toon whilst ao/rk try to as well, and tc/nc trying to get the tc toon out of there. That sort of thing is cool, just makes for a much more dynamic and interesting PvP match when there is so many side line fights going on.

That's what happened when I raided RK last night. And then I raided TC.

And then there is the eternal debate of dual/tri/w/e boxing. I can honestly say regardless who is behind there several computers, someone can not actively play to the best of there ability 2 or more toons at once, so if you are facing someone who is working across three computers, you know there focus is not on all of them at once, just attack all three at once, you know what? it is effing hard to try and work three toons getting attacked at once.

So your 100% focused toon is facing a toon that has 33.33333% focus on it ... hmmm I can see where you may complain about that.

This is simply incorrect. When a player practices and builds for triboxing, it's not the way you make it out to sound. Bontot (bard) is always standing around with a bunch of buffs already cast on the group and just waiting to curse the enemy... that toon rarely moves, except when the player targets a taunt and then forgets about him again. The same with smoke (sanct cleric). He just stays 2 or 3 maps back from the actual raiding party (after a load of lvl 40 buffs) and when the party gets wiped, he sancts up, and swoops in for the repeated resses. This is only an example of 2 toons, in a group of many choices for the triboxer(s). RK has sets as well.

There is a concept called synergy, which basically means that 'a cohesive group is more than sum of its parts'. And that is what happens here. So when you say 33.3333% - it's not. Buff the one you plan on using, leave the other 2 to fend and that one toon you stick with is much more than it's solo 100%. Add to that, if it dies, you now fall back to 2 others.

If the toon numbers are even, then your claim holds true to some degree, but rarely is it even odds for any faction vs AO/RK. We (SL/MA) typically take a head count at the beginnings and at the ends of battles/sessions. We rarely count below 6 ever (with less they wont raid). Often times it's 11 or 12. Count the players and the numbers are usually even, but count the toons and it's not. So your claims rarely apply.

[mining]

There is a concept called synergy, which basically means that 'a cohesive group is more than sum of its parts'. And that is what happens here. So when you say 33.3333% - it's not. Buff the one you plan on using, leave the other 2 to fend and that one toon you stick with is much more than it's solo 100%. Add to that, if it dies, you now fall back to 2 others.

Agreed.

Also, there are things like pure fighters, barbarians, casters, etc. that can drop off their nuke which wins the day for the party, then sit there, or just click on something and hope it gets hit.
In a theoretical 3v2 example, with the 3 one tri logged, and the 2 being 2 different people, the 3 should win every time. Say, for example, the 3 are an RDD dragon, a cleric and a mage. In defence, the RDD can sit in the doorway, while the cleric drops a heal on it on occasion and the mage nukes anything that enters. In offence, the RDD can target a cleric, or mage, or w/e, while the cleric and mage hellball his target, turning it into an easy 1v3 in seconds.

Hellball/fighter kd/ w/e + dual logging turns a once per fight game changer into a means of stopping the enemy, and even if he dies, there's still another. This last point is key. A 40 mage to hellball, followed by the 35/5 mage to do the actual spell battle? Best of both worlds. Rogue/fighter/WM faltering? Sanc domain cleric can drop a GR then hellball.

How many builds can't last more than a round or two against 1 or 2 foes, especially bard/cleric buffed.

If you're fool enough to try to run a 35/5 wiz/sd, a hipser and a pure cleric all at the same time, in combat, then yes, you will likely be fighting at 10% efficiency.

But who actually does that?

[Merrip]

I understand synergy and the point you are trying to make Bargeld.

The point I was trying to make, to use your example "Bontot (bard) is always standing around with a bunch of buffs already cast on the group and just waiting to curse the enemy... that toon rarely moves, except when the player targets a taunt and then forgets about him again. The same with smoke (sanct cleric). He just stays 2 or 3 maps back from the actual raiding party"

My point was, send someone after the cleric, send someone at the bard, focus on all three of those toons at once, and then see how effective tri boxing will be, now I am not trying to give ways to defeat my fellow players, but, it is an easy way to counter the tri boxing issue, because if all three are being tagged constantly it gets really quite hard to play them all.

Strategy.

[Bargeld]

You assume they are on the front lines, on the same map, able to be attacked. You also assume that anyone can target smoke (sanct cleric). Even with him sitting on the sidelines on the front lines of the same map, very few can see him, and hence he's pretty safe. Put him 2 maps back and he is always available for the ressing run.

We have stratgeies to beat them... it would be dumb not to try to take advantage of the weaknesses of that play style, and just ignore it. But that is the annoying part... saying we need to learn certain strategies in order to fight a multi-boxer. It takes away the fun of playing actual players 1v1 or 6v6. I want to play against a group of players, not one guy.

There are a lot of aspects that aren't always brought up... usually just the obvious like these. What about communication? In order for our teams to have good communication and share intel, we have to get on teamspeak. Usually that's only 1/3 of our team. When we are lucky, we can get a few guys on, just listening while we bark out orders and info. When you play against someone playing 3 toons, they share all that information simultaniously. Even simply things like, 'hey come heal me, so i can kill XXXX' takes a few secs to communicate, then have the other toon change plans and act on it. For the multi-boxer, that whole situation was planned on before they even entered battle. Even if you run into the unexpected, it's easier to compensate instantly.

We know that this will not (theoretically) come into play in the relic event. But for everyday battles, the other 99.99% of the time, it really does kill the fun. Dealing with this same crap every day gets really tiresome. You should try the other side of the fence and see what it's like, and then do it over and over again every single day. See if it becomes annoying to you.

Just as an example... last night, I beat the TC/NC crew to RK and managed to pop a relic and return it to SL. In the meantime, TC/NC proceeded to wipe the floor with RK/AO, gank all the relics and take em to TC. For a good hour, they continued to wipe the floor with the AO/RK raiders, with pretty even odds (1 to 1 player ratio). Then the multiboxes arrived. TC defense crumbled almost instantly. The kill messages took a 180 degree turn, and the relics got ganked from TC. Had one player arrived, it wouldn't have been so dramatic. But when 3 arrive it is devastating. If 2 players arrive, it can make it a much more difficult fight. But when 6 more show up, you have no chance.

Edit: and after re-reading a little... even using strategy to kill the unattended toon is a win for the multi-boxer. Essentially he has removed a thinking player from the battle in exchange for an unattended toon. If there are 3 or 4 unattended toons, and our defense team of 5 or 6 (even up toon odds) have to go and find/fight those unattended toons, our defense is left with 2 players/toons (maybe!) defending. Now it's 2v2 player vs player for the multi-boxer... in a battle that is 5 or 6 vs 2 (players). Not to mention the buffs and informational aspect of it. But even this rarely happens... usually the AO/RK team outnumbers (toons) when they raid, so the defense it realistically now fighting 2 v 4 player vs player.

Or we can just ignore those unattended toons and deal with them as it comes. Which is usually the better strategy, and usually why it sucks so bad. You start beating the current toons and more just keep coming to fight and res.

I could even go into the fun factor of choosing toons... of course everyone has a couple favorite toons they want to play. It may not make for the best, most efficient party, but at least it is fun. The multiboxer always gets to play their favorite toon... and the cleric they need, and the bard, etc.

[Merrip]

I have played on both sides of the fence as you call it, many times being on the side without multiboxers. And I can honestly say, I really and honestly do not see what you or others for that matter see so difficult or unfair/unjust about it.

I was on during the raid between tc/nc rk/ao with the little slip out you mentioned of the relic to sl. The reason the tides turned was not because the "multiboxers arrived" to quote you again, it was because we changed up our strategies and wore them down bit by bit. To my recollection no new toons logged on for a good while, maybe 1 if my memory is not mistaken, but another did join who was already logged on the server who was just wondering what was going on so they tagged along.

But back to my original remark in this post and to quote you again "You assume they are on the front lines, on the same map, able to be attacked. You also assume that anyone can target smoke (sanct cleric). Even with him sitting on the sidelines on the front lines of the same map, very few can see him, and hence he's pretty safe. Put him 2 maps back and he is always available for the ressing run."

As far as rezzing runs go, the numerous times ao/rk has raided ma or even sl when it has not gone so well for our side, the cleric in question has not done rezzing runs, it is generally someone who has managed to stay alive who is doing the rezzing, so I would not just to conclusions on that one. You can call me wrong all you like as well, but the toons are in my party and I know what they are doing

As for communication that right there may be your most profound comment, on the AO/RK side of things a vast majority of the players do use team speak, and if they don't they at least sit in there listening. So as far as communication goes along with strategies, speedyness to respond to threat etc etc. That may be our winning factor not the fact someone is logged on more then 1 toon at a time.

Communication is key to anything in real life and in a game that requires any form of strategic approach, maybe your "side of the fence" should try and encourage people to at least sit in teamspeak even if they don't want to talk any things may go a tad different for your side.

But just to reiterate and to make my post longer because that is what we seem to do ... I have been with and against multiboxers and I can 100% hand on my heart say, I really do not see it as the all's all that ends all to the outcome of any battle. Strategy, communication and following through with things are key to any form of success.

[Korr]

I have played on both sides of the fence as you call it, many times being on the side without multiboxers. And I can honestly say, I really and honestly do not see what you or others for that matter see so difficult or unfair/unjust about it.

I was on during the raid between tc/nc rk/ao with the little slip out you mentioned of the relic to sl. The reason the tides turned was not because the "multiboxers arrived" to quote you again, it was because we changed up our strategies and wore them down bit by bit. To my recollection no new toons logged on for a good while, maybe 1 if my memory is not mistaken, but another did join who was already logged on the server who was just wondering what was going on so they tagged along.

But back to my original remark in this post and to quote you again "You assume they are on the front lines, on the same map, able to be attacked. You also assume that anyone can target smoke (sanct cleric). Even with him sitting on the sidelines on the front lines of the same map, very few can see him, and hence he's pretty safe. Put him 2 maps back and he is always available for the ressing run."

As far as rezzing runs go, the numerous times ao/rk has raided ma or even sl when it has not gone so well for our side, the cleric in question has not done rezzing runs, it is generally someone who has managed to stay alive who is doing the rezzing, so I would not just to conclusions on that one. You can call me wrong all you like as well, but the toons are in my party and I know what they are doing

As for communication that right there may be your most profound comment, on the AO/RK side of things a vast majority of the players do use team speak, and if they don't they at least sit in there listening. So as far as communication goes along with strategies, speedyness to respond to threat etc etc. That may be our winning factor not the fact someone is logged on more then 1 toon at a time.

Communication is key to anything in real life and in a game that requires any form of strategic approach, maybe your "side of the fence" should try and encourage people to at least sit in teamspeak even if they don't want to talk any things may go a tad different for your side.

But just to reiterate and to make my post longer because that is what we seem to do ... I have been with and against multiboxers and I can 100% hand on my heart say, I really do not see it as the all's all that ends all to the outcome of any battle. Strategy, communication and following through with things are key to any form of success.

You are indirectly condescending yourself with your statements.

Youre saying that communication is the key.
1 Person = 3 toons means that the "communication" between each toon goes without saying. If I had a cleric a bard and a fighter on, I know when the bard buffs are down... noone need say ANYTHING. I know when I die/cleric buffs drop... noone need say ANYTHING.

Not exactly the best explanation, but I hope you get the idea. Multi-boxing circumvents the need for ALOT of communication, which you say is the key to victory.

[Merrip]

I am sorry to say I don't put much focus into things by people who don't play anymore

[Korr]

I am sorry to say I don't put much focus into things by people who don't play anymore

because the game is entirely different now? I doubt that

I played single and multi boxed myself. If you havent... then how can you have any true "focus" into anything about this topic?

[mining]

Well, in a 1v1, the multiboxer will win. God knows how many times I defended against bontot/sandbags/(that melee wm thing) with either Roz or Gold.

If I succeed in killing Sandbags, Sandbags will be ressed. If I succeed in killing bontot, Sandbags resses bontot. Etc. With Roz, sandbags counters, the other two get their killing suits on.

I've seen tri loggers take down a lot of epic planar areas and bosses, with good toon control. Dual loggers could almost definitely run both a pure cleric for buffs and a hellball, and a pure bard for melee, and buffs.

Point is, a killed pure cleric has still given off a hellball and given undispellable buffs. A killed pure bard has given them 4 AB/AC/saves etc. and knocked off the same for the other team. The HiPSer (or w/e) remaining is super buffed, against dispelled (depending on how long the cleric and bard lasted), cursed, damaged enemies. I'd put that 2v1 or 3v1 (players) at an advantage to the tri logger.

[Mixtli]

My favorite scenario:

AO defending.
2 mele toons (pure fighters/barb/RDD) on the entrance.
2 pure casters for HBs
2 AA to the back of the room.

Takes only 1 click / toon to activate the defense. Setup can be multiboxed with no problem at all.

Everybody but ppl using more than one toon in relic wars are aware of the benefits, and the result is one faction getting more exp than others from the relic bonus.

Multiboxing shouldn't be allowed in relic wars. Chances of that happening are low, i understand from prior posts. While that is to, there is a lot less relic raiding on NS4 than could be.

[VagaStorm]

My favorite scenario:

AO defending.
2 mele toons (pure fighters/barb/RDD) on the entrance.
2 pure casters for HBs
2 AA to the back of the room.

Takes only 1 click / toon to activate the defense. Setup can be multiboxed with no problem at all.

Everybody but ppl using more than one toon in relic wars are aware of the benefits, and the result is one faction getting more exp than others from the relic bonus.

Multiboxing shouldn't be allowed in relic wars. Chances of that happening are low, i understand from prior posts. While that is to, there is a lot less relic raiding on NS4 than could be.

I ca see how you multibox pure fighters and aas, but I'd love to see ya mulitbox in 2 casters at the same time :p

[mining]

Define caster beyond hellball, greater ruin, bigby and mord.