Dualboxing - What classes?

[Feba]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

Dualboxing is all about skill-- particularly, with the Macro system. There used to be a guy who had an entire party multiboxed, and who was pretty damned good at it. The trick is setting up your macros so you can jump around a lot; you have to know what one character is doing before they do it, and your other characters have to be built to interact with it. You need to make up for lack of reaction time with increased perception of what is happening.

[Chainspell]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

There used to be a guy

lol i agree with everything except that part up there

[Feba]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

past tense doesn't exclude present tense.

[Shiro_Hayate]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

See I'm already sensing a bit of hostility from some posters here.

I recently went through an instance in WoW where the minute they found out I was dualboxing, one of the DPSers yelled "OMFG EPIC FAIL" and left. This lead to the tank leaving and we couldn't do the rest of the instance with 3 people.

Afterwards, I sent the little jackass a /tell to ask if I had done anything wrong. He said no, he just didn't believe that dualboxers could be played well.

So wait a sec, I hadn't done anything wrong and he jumped ship 45 minutes into the instance. God damnit.

I've played Final Fantasy XI before and I know how the mechanics work. For the people saying there are timers to keep count of: I know and it's no way in hell as hard as WoW is. WoW is a much easier game, but when you shove in a second character and are trying to play it to full potential; it's nearly impossible (unless I multibox 5 Elemental Shamans and use keyclone).

And yes, I would like to SOLO (yes, solo) as far as possible with two people. I'm starting to lean towards WHM/SMNorBLMorRDMorBLUorDNC? with DRK/WAR, SAM/WAR, WAR/NIN

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

A lot of people that dual box in game use a program for it. The character follows the other character, engages when a mob is brought to camp, uses abilities/ws's at set %'s, etc. It's gotten a LOT easier for the people that use these programs too recently. In the past, you worked as a team to skillchain so there could be a magic burst (or just for the extra damage) but now with so little skillchaining going on its a lot easier to use these programs. They can also be set up for mages. When to rest, what % to cast at, what spells to cast on yourself, wake you up if you are slept, etc.

Of course, there are drawbacks to these programs as they can glitch or fail to do what is required of them. Also, they are against the TOS and you will be banned for using them if you are caught. Happened a couple years ago to a friends account but he knew it eventually would because he loves using programs like this and taking the code apart and rebuilding it. LOL

Dual boxing is more accepted in FFXI. Many many people do it especially in endgame.

Whm/blm to start. Whm/dnc would mean the whm is going to melee and thats not always a good idea with a squishy mage. Whm/smn isn't a good idea until you get auto refresh anyways and thats not till your whm is 50 but I don't see them bringing a lot more to the table than other subs when you are duoing. And whm/rdm I really don't see much benefit from. You'd eventually get Gravity and Phalanx which is nice but the really cool tools like refresh or convert you never get. Whm/blu.....no freakin idea! LOL

[Feba]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

Also, they are against the TOS and you will be banned for using them if you are caught

As you should, as it's no different than botting, and you're just fine with FFXI's built in macro system.

With dualboxing, you're going to want jobs that are at least a little robust, and won't need the same reaction time as it was designed for a single player. So I'd stay away from anything involving NIN tanking, for one; Utsusemi is predictable and easy to manage for one player, but falling at the wrong second could kill you. A tank geared to take hits, howeveer, would be able to deal with distraction.

Personally, I'd say if you're going to be solo'ing anyway, go with something relatively bizarre. Two DRGs, a BST and an RDM, a Black Mage and a Monk.

[Telera]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

Dualboxing is all about skill-- particularly, with the Macro system. There used to be a guy who had an entire party multiboxed, and who was pretty damned good at it. The trick is setting up your macros so you can jump around a lot; you have to know what one character is doing before they do it, and your other characters have to be built to interact with it. You need to make up for lack of reaction time with increased perception of what is happening.

I wish I was that cool.

There's a relatively well-known Tri-boxer on Laurelin server of LotRO, but I don't think I've ever met anyone that did anything over that. She's apparently pretty good at the three of them. *envyenvyenvy*

Would make getting my Radiance gear twice as easy, since 3 of the 6 people wouldn't be lotting against me. :p

[aegina]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

I 2-box here in FFXI sometimes. My main is on PC and the 2nd character is on ps2.

I use this for "soloing" sometimes, so both characters are bst's. I have never tried to party with 2 characters at once before.

It took some practice to get the hang of controlling 2 characters at once, but you do it through macros.

/follow ionia
/assist ionia
/a
/wait 1
/pet "fight" <t>

She'll target whatever I'm targeting, run towards it, attack and sic the pet on it. When the mob is dead, she automatically runs to me. Ususally, I disenguage early and find the next mob while she finishes it off. 90% of all her actions are done with 3 macro buttons. The only thing I really need to watch for is for her pet to uncharm, and to ws when her TP reaches 100%.

And for those who say 2boxing isn't "real" soloing, I understand BUT... controlling 2 characters is hard, and it takes practice. I don't mean plling yourself with your 75 rdm, I mean having 2 characters level synched together, meleeing.

After I 2 boxed my bst for awhile, one day I took my bst outside to solo (didn't feel like 2 boxing that day) and found that, after learning how to play 2 bst's at once, playing just one was much easier, lol...

[Shiro_Hayate]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

On a side note guys, reason why I thought of this:

I'm an impulsive buyer. This is my old computer

Q6600@3.6ghz
280GTX
8GB DDR2@8xx mhz

Recently, I saw some i7 bundle for INSANELY cheap (12GB DDR3 and i7 920 for 400!!!!). So I impulsive bought a new computer. I was dualboxing before and it was slightly laggyg. So now I have two computers....side by side, on an L shaped table. I really don't know what game would give me a huge advantage if I dualboxed....except this one.

[wrongfeifong]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

Dualboxing is annoying if you have to do everything TWICE...

Promies TWICE, Diabolos fight TWICE... and god forsaken ZM missions TWICE.

the benefit isn't always that good. Beside dual box camp you chrybdris like me...

[ospeff]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

I dualbox just to powerlevel myself, I agree with the above poster in that there is no way in hell I would redo so many missions. My powerleveling mule doesn't need any missions , it's only used to follow me around and heal.

[Telera]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

I had no intentions of doing Promys, etc on my Taru alt, so yeah. Once through was enough, and if I was going to solo my entire career and give Endgame a big middle finger, there was no reason to worry with it, and I wasn't going to.

Now those people that do worry about it, yeah, it sucks.

[Marnault]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

I recently started up a second account for dual boxing. Overall my main plan for the second account is to get to a decent lvl where I can safely farm stuff paying as little attention as possible, this way I can farm while waiting for the airship, crafting, lfg, etc, with my main. I can almost be sure that I wont use them to dual box in a 6 man party, as I feel there is too much going on to risk 4 other players with my ability to multitask. Other than that being able to get a second craft to 100, and able to send over 8 items to a mule without logging off are added benefits.

I do know that I want to duo with my two accounts though, still not sure on what classes to go with though. But I was thinking maybe do BST/WHM & BRD/WHM, this way I focus 90% on the BST, and just use the BRD for buffs and help limit downtime. Personally I don't have much experience with bard yet, but I don't think the bard would require full attention since I wouldn't need to worry about positioning, different songs for melee/casters, and pretty much everything a bard in a full party has to worry about.

Other idea was to go with BST/WHM & RDM/WHM, using the red mage to eliminate downtime, raise, and maybe even a little auto attack. But I think BRD would be better since it could buff my main, rather than having to debuff each mob with the red.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on duoing with two accounts, specifically class selection? And has anyone tried duoing where one class wasn't bst? Not sure if it would work as well since I would lose the dps and tanking that the pet brings.

[Shiro_Hayate]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

<Sorry Shiro but this url has other links to software that is in violation of the TOS so I had to take it down. If someone wants they can PM you for the info.>

Anyone that is looking for a way to connect two computers together without having to buy a KVM, use this program.

I was trying to figure out how to play WoW without physically having to use two keyboards..and this...holy hell. I can't wait to try this on Final Fantasy. I would go so far as to use 3 or even 4 box for this.

[Chainspell]

Re: Dualboxing - What classes?

past tense doesn't exclude present tense.

I meant the guy you're talking about is me, and I still play all 6 characters