wow Multiboxing and the Top Raiding Guilds

[Starym 3,800]

 

The recent crackdown on input broadcasting software (not multiboxing itself) has had a lot of reactions across the community, as we've already covered, but it's also going to affect the top guilds and the race to World First in Castle Nathria, so we'll be taking a look at what's happening there.

While you may not think of top raiders immediately when you think of multiboxing, it's actually been a fairly common practice for a while now - no, not in the actual raids (although that would be hilarious) - as the utility that's provided by input broadcasting software has been just too powerful a tool to pass up.

The entrance of multiboxing into top end raiding came along as a consequence of the increasing need for many, many alts for each raider, as each of these alts also needed to be well-geared so they could accommodate any and all raid compositions, as crazy as they may be. Getting as many characters as possible ready for Heroic split raids, where many, MANY outside players from the guilds' communities join in and help funnel gear into a couple of characters for each raid is crucial, and anything that can help with that is a tool that has to be used. Maximizing efficiency, when you play as much as these guilds do when prepping for a raid, is the most important thing. And perhaps those extra characters you get from the extra multiboxing efficiency are precisely the ones you might need for a crazy 12 of a kind spec strategy, or the many hours these tools take off your grind for all those chars can be spent better in other areas.

Multiboxing is particularly relevant to the race when a new expansion pops up, as all those alts aren't going to level themselves... except they will if you use a multiboxing tool! Leveling up around 3 characters at a time seems to be the norm, and while they're still going to be doing that now, with some simple /follow commands and similar, they will be losing quite a lot of leveling efficiency, as you lose the DPS and have to manually pick up quest items and similar between the accounts. The tool was also used for World Quests and similar activities at the beginnings of expansions. So overall what will happen now is the loss of some efficiency, with most likely fewer alts being available and a lot less loot trading happening in Heroic splits.

Some have already spoken out about the changes, as Complexity Limit GM Max is pretty happy about it:

I’m so glad I never have to explain to a new raider how to use ISboxer again holy fuck

— max (@maximum) November 4, 2020

Blizzard just straight up banned multibox software. its always been cringe bless up https://t.co/nWdoxH1XrV

— max (@maximum) November 3, 2020

And NNoggie from Echo also acknowledged the change in policy, mentioning their previous use of the tools and how they would be used in prep for the raid:

A week ago @MeeresTV and me gave an hour long TED talk to the guild on how to properly use ISBoxer.

— Nnoggie (@nnoggie) November 3, 2020

And so while this new Blizzard policy might not be a huge event in the world of WF raiding, and even come as a relief to some raiders, it will definitely have an impact, especially in this first tier. Whether this will just mean more work for the raiders themselves (who already spend 16 hours a day pretty much from when the expansion starts until the final boss is dead on Mythic), or if it might also affect the availability of some more extreme raid compositions due to a smaller number of alts remains to be seen, especially due to the Covenants, Conduits and other additional Shadowlands mechanics.

[TheRagingwolf 258]

Big props to Blizzard for finally doing this. For folks like me that are going to have to find a different way to make gold, due to the squish and reduced leveling income, this means gathering professions should get a boost. #MakeGatheringMatterAgain 

[Ragingwolf 310]

I'm not surprised in the least same thing when the spotlight was shown about the top Guilds buying Gold to help pay expenses from BoE's and etc.

[CharlesF 7]

I don't know whether this really matters or not, but I don't expect multi-boxing to go away entirely, especially from organizations who make money selling resources. The reason being is that it's likely still cost effective to switch to multiple separate computers using hardware keystroke broadcast switches. If Blizzard's game agent is set to detect the presence of key broadcasting software and detects none, I wonder how they will handle reports of people multi-boxing. (They may have been very careful to exclude hardware broadcasters in their announcement and specifically mention software broadcasting so they don't have to eliminate or ban such accounts.)

[Sarabandethemage 6]

Well, this affects ALL the top guilds, so I guess they'll just have to find another way.  As long as it doesn't give one guild an advantage, I don't see a problem.  It may slow things down a bit but sooner or later, someone will take down the last boss on Mythic.

[Koxsos 38]

I guess we reached a point (probably quite a while ago) when the added benefits of grinding gold * 5 even if accompanied by a software cost or subscription outweighed costs of 5 subscriptions through tokens.

It was totally fine back when it meant 5 subs, but now that it means 5 subs are missing due to tokens it's suddenly bad.

I don't think it will change much about world first raiding given there are 3rd country people who will still grind for you at very low costs.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Koxsos