GGG stance on "Mules" (Multi-Boxing to store gear, improve exp and loot drops)

I don't see a problem with it personally.

Sure they're getting more loot, but they're also making the game more difficult because of it. The game is somewhat easy depending on your character build, so I could see someone doing this in order to get a greater challenge from it--other than intentionally building a gimped character--and thus get greater rewards.

As Sony_Black and Schizoflink already stated, the simple solution here is to put the rewards and monster toughness level at a multiple of the average of the party members. If a single player is playing through with a character at experience level 20, then the rewards and monster difficulty should be around level 20. If, say, three players are playing through, one at 18, one at 21, and one at 24, the difficulty should be scaled as if there were three players of level 21. If you have one level 40 player and three level 1 pseudo bots, the difficulty should scale as if the four players were each about at level 13-14.

I suspect the difficulty fix would be much more difficult than I'm making it out to be, but if it's not, the developers have at least my blessing.

One person here is throwing personal accusations around. Please stop, because you don't know what you're talking about. Making unfounded assumptions about people's personal abilities doesn't win arguments; it only degrades the discussion and makes you appear childish.

This is not an issue of "haves and have nots." It's not an issue of the underdog trying to hold back the achiever. Don't try to skew it into such an argument.

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On battle.net this dilemma didn't exist because people who could clear it with multiple players simply joined others games and did so.

join any dueling/trading game and kill the area you want and it's the exact same thing. There's no shortage of games to ever find either.

This dilemma didn't exist on battle.net because you could only use the command in single player, TCP/IP games, and open realm games. You could not use this command in realm games.

http://diablo2.diablowiki.net/Player_Settings#The_Players_X_Command

Open battle.net used single player character. It is where people go to to have duels to test out the insane gear they made with hex editors etc. I don't think anyone actually takes it seriously.

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This was done constantly without notice of some of the more novice population from D2 it seems though.

Is that a veiled insult? :D

edit: Oh yeah, nearly every public game in D2 is currently a Baal run led by a twinked out bot using a cheesy build that can kill everything that spawns by itself even in 8 player games so I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

In my opinion you are trying to solve a problem which does not exist. This is closed beta so it is natural people are trying out things. With the maps introduced I don't see how anyone could prefer this kind of increased monster difficulty to the proper endgame, where you can enhance maps for more loot and stronger monsters.

Anyway there probably isn't anything which could be done to stop multiboxing, none of the ideas posted would work. There is free MB software available which lets you control multiple characters simultaneously, so nothing prevents you to start playing with 2-3 new characters of the same class in a private party for incresed loot drops. I personally think its not worth the trouble.

When it comes to stash space mules seem useless as they can hold very little, and extra stash tabs are cheap.

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WizardLife wrote:

edit: Oh yeah, nearly every public game in D2 is currently a Baal run led by a twinked out bot using a cheesy build that can kill everything that spawns by itself even in 8 player games so I have no idea what point you are trying to make.

You talking trash about my CBaal bot?

How am I supposed to get all the runes without it?

Wow... this thread gone a little out of hand.

There are many opinions and all are valid. My personal opinion (which you do not have to agree with ether way) is that the use of lvl 1's in merciless or any other difficulty, to gain a advantage (in anyway) is wrong. It will cause further issues in the long run when ladders are more important.

It will make it a requirement for people to do this if they wish to make a dent in the ladder and move there character up. I feel this will take away allot of the fun of this challenge. Many people such as my self would simply think "what is the point of trying if there are others that can just exploit to get to the top".

where is the fun in that?

This thread was made to see what the "Devs" think. It was not intended to be a all out debate between people using this trick and people like myself who are not and will not use this trick.

If any devs have any information on this please let me know. If there are other posts of this also please let me know. Id like to know what the future holds in regards to this topic.

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PureHavok wrote:

But if you think about it, they could of ran with a group of capable players, clearing more content in a shorter amount of time equaling more potential loot. So its not like you're at a disadvantage (loot wise, and in some situations xp wise) if you're just running the legit way.

Thanks for leaving me anonymous, I appreciate it. But I have a couple of problems with this part of your post. Running with a group is great, I enjoy doing it, which is the only reason I do it, but it gets frustrating when you do 40% of the damage (or more, sometimes WAY more) and get 16.7% of the loot (1/6th). If they're not going to assign loot based on damage (or some other reasonable way rather than being completely random), I'm going to continue to use my kids'/extra accounts to boost up loot and reap all of the rewards.

Also, "clearing more content in a shorter period of time" may be true, but it has to be 3 times slower for it to be a disadvantage (assumes active party of 3 vs solo with 2 afks). I clear a ledge about 2 minutes slower solo (in a party of 4) than with 3 active teammates (on average), of course depending on how aggressive those with me are and how much dps they do.

Experience wise, it's not even close. An extra party member = 75% more exp (at least it used to, it's not exactly that now), which if you split the exp evenly, would mean a loss of exp (per mob). But you don't split it evenly, unless everyone is the same level. If they're level 2 (hypothetically :p) you get nearly all of the exp. Running in an active group of 6 gets me exp about as fast as running solo. Running in a group of 3 afks gets me exp about twice as fast.

That said, the game really needs a difficulty setting (I believe Charan referenced /players x from Diablo 2, this would be perfect). Not everyone has 2 laptops on the same desk as their desktop (yes, I can run a full party, if I want). A difficulty setting replacing afks/leechers/"mules" would be best.

They could change the party drops/exp bonuses to not be in effect while players aren't within range, similarly to the way exp isn't shared if you're more than 2 screens away, but that's just going to encourage botting.

EDIT:

Now that I've read the entire thread, I see a handful of people that think multiboxing is evil.

A simple logic puzzle for you:

So, my 2 kids (the ones that are over the age of 1) have accounts. If I log them in, place their characters that have leveled into Chaos in a game with me, this is considered wrong? What if they place them into the game, but still just sit there doing nothing? What if they place them into the game, get up to get a drink and come back, was all the time they were afk me "cheating"? But I got better drops/exp and the enemies were harder and I fought them all alone. At what point is someone afk "cheating"? Laughable.

If you want to complain about my 2 level 2s in chaos, I understand that. I can "game" the ladder (just like anyone else can) by leveling up faster with these low levels in with me. Of course, I'll probably die more often with no support, which means I'll actually move backwards on the ladder, especially with Merciless' unforgiving exp loss. Perhaps the devs need to implement a level requirement for each area? Of course that just means I'll take the time to level some afks up there to get in those areas (which will be rather easy since 2 or my kids play the game).

Comparing this to an FPS and placing afks on the other side to kill repeatedly is hilarious. I'm placing the afks on MY side making MY side gimped. What reward should I get for that? Probably something along the lines of more exp and more loot.

I've used a mule as well and to be honest the exp and drops arent really much different. Why I do it is because I find chaos quite easy. One more character, harder monsters to kill solo. I'm personally not a fan of public groups.

Also isn't MoC going soon? That's really where mules are used. They can't be used in the new map system (from what i've seen, im just guessing) because it looks like the map system does have a level requirement.

And to be a bit exact on the exp,

A normal MoC I will get around 5-7% with maybe a few magic items and very few rares

A MoC with a level 1 I will get around 6-8% (10% if its a bigger map) with maybe a few more drops than a normal MoC


Also, I love the extra space, having said that I have paid for both extra stashes on both my accounts (one has like 25 stash pages, the other has like 50). Its just so me and my ADD self can stop trashing good gear by accident

talking to rwt feels like talking with a radical catholic;
he ignores the evidence and other people opinions, builds-up a strange single-wiee opinion like it's common-sense, based upon some nobodysknows-facts with a no-sensical style of speech.