Confessions of a Quad-Boxer

[Codewalker]

Table of Contents

Part 1 - The Origin Story
Part 2 - Planning



Note: This isn't about PVP recipe farming or l33t sploitz, just a fun experiment I did when Freedom launched that I felt like sharing. I hope that the hard-core players will find it mildly interesting, but if you weren't into pushing the game to its limits it will probably just bore you.

This is something I've been meaning to write about for a while, but never could find the time to sit down and do it. The parts may be a little slow to show up, but I'll get them done eventually. The first post will be updated with links to the other parts as I go.



Part 1 - The Origin Story

When I first joined up with the Titan Network, I needed a fresh identity. I had been playing City of Heroes for a while, lurked on the forums, and mostly kept a close circle of friends and a low profile. But if I was going to be doing more work with public-facing projects like City of Data (which I had hoped to adopt since it had been abandoned), I was going to need a point of contact.

Since the stuff we were working on was technically against the terms of service, I wanted an extra layer of protection. I guess you could say I'm attached to my characters. Even though the chance of my account being banned was extremely remote, I didn't want to take any chances. So I took an old account that couldn't be tied back to me, sweet-talked Avatea into changing the forum handle, and Codewalker was born.

I had a concept in my head for a while, but didn't actually make a matching character for quite some time. I started playing before things like /getglobalname, so global handles to me were something to only be shared with friends. In the time had I played before, I never subscribed to the "your first / main character is your global" idea, so it was a little foreign.

When Freedom was on the horizon, I snagged a couple of extra accounts during the $2.99 special. Mostly I got them in order to camp names on Exalted during the land rush, but once the free-to-play transition happened it left me with a couple of extra tier 2 premium accounts with a handful of points from the conversion.

That's when the idea started to condense. I had previously dual-boxed a pair of Fire/Kin controllers to 50 using a spare laptop and keyboard cloning software, and found it to be immensely fun. So why not "take it to the next level" and try the challenge of playing 4 at once? Not only could I finally create my namesake, but the exercise would leave me a with a couple of 50s on premium accounts that I could use to help start task forces with my friends if we didn't have enough. Maybe I could even blog about my progress or something.

That last part didn't happen, until now...

[Codewalker]

Part 2 - Planning

For a project this big, I needed a plan. First came looking at the constraints and coming up with a set of ground rules:

• All 4 characters must be actively played simultaneously, and must use as much of their powersets as feasible. No "single autopower on follow" or any of that. Hasten should be the only power on Auto. Emphasis as this is the single most important rule of the experiment.
• All 4 characters should use different powersets, and preferably be different ATs. I'd played "clones" before.
• Character concepts are important, and the team must be cohesive.
• Team should have plenty of buffs and debuffs, in order to be able to "solo" task forces.
• Vigilante team on Triumph, in order for the resulting characters to be the most useful to help out friends.
• Very tight Paragon Point budget on the premium accounts. Had a bit from the F2P transition, but didn't want to spend more on them. Not an issue for the 2 VIP accounts.
• I was definitely going to need to use a chunk of them to unlock the alignment system, and a few for costume parts. So right off the bat, no Controllers, Masterminds, or EATs on the premium accounts.
• No fancy slotting. I'm not a min-maxer anyway, but since two of the accounts can't even slot IOs, the team should be designed with SO slotting in mind. The sheer amount of time it would take to do builds for all four would be prohibitive in any event.

Okay, so with those out of the way I needed a place to start, and build the rest of the team around. My concept for Codewalker was a mutant with the innate ability to control machines and computers. Kind of like Micah from Heroes, but more on the software side (rewriting programs on the fly). The name also sounded vaguely Native American, so I wanted to work that into his backstory in some form.

Well, controlling machines, that's easy - Robotics Mastermind it is. MM pets would be difficult to direct well on a second instance, so having him be the "primary" on the bigger screen works out. Time Manipulation is a very well rounded support set to go with it. I decided to be a little "meta" and play with the idea that since he's so powerful at controlling programs, he's able to influence the world of Paragon City itself, since unbeknownst to its inhabitants it's just a computer simulation.

One down, now for the rest of the team. A lot of thought went in to the selection process -- none of these choices are arbitrary but were carefully picked to optimize the performance of the team. For concept, I wanted to stick to both the nerdy-pun names as well as an overall technology based theme.

Here's the final lineup:

• Codewalker - Mastermind: Robotics/Time Manipulation
  
  
• Debugger - Controller: Ice Control/Kinetics
  Slightly crazy, all Vigilante, Debugger is the only other "human" member of the team, at least concept-wise. Purely technology based; all powers produced by devices created by her mad genius. She went on the other VIP account so that I could use the Controller AT.
  
  
• Code Freeze - Defender: Cold Domination/Ice Blast
  A holographic projection created by Debugger's tech. Concept-wise all of his powers are actually Debugger's, and Code Freeze is just a decoy. Mechanically it doesn't really work that way of course. Took Stealth just for the shimmering effect.
  
  
• Static Memory - Brute: Stone Melee/Dark Armor
  Codewalker's seventh pet, an android "heavy". I'm not a huge fan of melee ATs, but tossed in a brute because I thought it might be handy to have for doing task forces with a hard-hitting AV. Dark Armor is a bit of a stretch for a tech origin, so I used the good old "swarm of nanobots" justification for it. The same ones create the crystalline mallet that randomly appears and disappears.
  

Now, I'm sure some of you are looking at my powerset choices and scratching your heads. Why did I pick some that were generally regarded to be underperformers? The answer is that I didn't intend to play these powersets in isolation -- I intended to play them as one character with a LOT of powers.

• Robotics - Heavy AoE damage to wipe out spawns, good defense on the pets.
• Time Manipulation - Good mix of team buffs and enemy debuffs. +Recharge effects stack with Speed Boost. Good defense from Farsight, especially if I go villain long enough to pick up Power Boost from Mace.
• Ice Control - Generally regarded as a "bad" control set, but has excellent debuff and control potential in melee range. Arctic Air + Time's Juncture is just a nasty combination.
• Kinetics - The obvious pick of the bunch. Provides offensive fuel for the group. Speed boost means 3/4 don't have to worry about endurance. ID keeps my main control character from being mezzed. Fulcrum Shifted Assault Bot = Win.
• Cold Domination - Ice Shields on top of Farsight guarantee that the team is at the Defense soft-cap or better on SOs (except for the Defender). Gets an AV-killer in Benumb. Sleet stacks with the -RES in Time and also with the slow and knockdown of Ice Slick. Heat Loss keeps Debugger from running out of endurance if Transference misses.
• Ice Blast - Taken solely because Blizzard at the time still used Blaster numbers. Or maybe the Blaster version used Defender numbers. Either way, simply the best of all the Defender nukes. Also includes two single-target holds to help stack magnitude.
• Stone Melee - Some people don't like Stone because it's such a slow set. In this case, a slow and hard hitting set was perfect. I was going to have enough things to keep me busy as it was, didn't need to add micromanaging an attack chain on top of that.
• Dark Armor - Defense based sets would have been pointless since the brute would be Def capped anyway just by standing there. Of the resist sets, Dark Armor provides the best resistance against exotic damage types like Psi. It also has a variety of soft control auras to make life even more difficult for the unfortunate critters that happen to be caught in melee range. Its main weakness is its endurance intensiveness, which is already taken care of by Kin and Cold.

And of course the pool powers. All four got Assault, Tactics, and Hasten. Static Memory got Tough. Codewalker and Debugger both got Recall Friend. Codewalker also got Teleport and Team Teleport.

Four stacks of Tactics is one of the most amazing things in the game that you don't realize you're taking for granted until you play without it.

If you actually made it this far, you probably have picked up on what I'm going for here. This team is designed to be extremely effective in a small area. The team needs to be bunched up as tight as possible to get AoE buffs and heals, and the enemies that are in melee range are subject to a variety of nasty AoE debuffs. Once they are in the kill zone, stacked slows, control auras, and if necessary hard immobilizes keep them there.

Well, that's enough rambling for one post. Next time I'll tackle the technical issues of actually controlling all 4 of these at once!

[wei yau]

/e grabs some popcorn and settles in

[Electric-Knight]

Thread title also the working title of this man's tell-all book...
https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.stampede-entertainment.com%2Fpostcards%2Fmonstermakers%2Fgoro-1-pl.jpg

;D

Carry on...

[Minotaur]

Static Memory - Brute: Stone Melee/Dark Armor

Now, I'm sure some of you are looking at my powerset choices and scratching your heads. Why did I pick some that were generally regarded to be underperformers? The answer is that I didn't intend to play these powersets in isolation -- I intended to play them as one character with a LOT of powers.

Stone melee/dark armor (mine was a tank) is in no way an underperformer, it's a full scale controller with the oppressive gloom/fault combo, I loved mine, it neutralised entire groups including the bosses in one attack. The only thing that made mine cry was tower buffed recluse on the STF.

[Codewalker]

Well Stone was definitely one of the most damaging Brute primaries, no doubt about that, at least until Titan Weapons and Street Justice were on the scene.

Dark Armor I've always liked but heard a lot of complaints about because the endurance usage made it prohibitive except for certain builds (usually IO-heavy), and it tended to get overshadowed by Willpower. I decided against WP because the passive regeneration wasn't as useful as the resists when you have the potential of constant Kin/Time heals being spammed. That and a defense toggle that would do me no good.

I'll touch on it more in later posts, but past soaking the occasional alpha I really didn't need the brute's defenses that much anyway since everything died so fast -- he was mostly useful for the single target damage.

Edit: To clarify, Ice Control and Ice Blast were the main "underperformers" I was referring to.  Dark Armor to a lesser extent because the opinions seemed to be split between "godly when played right" and "not significantly better than any other set to justify the extra work and skill needed for it".

[Minotaur]

Ice blast again was not a real underperformer, it hit pretty hard single target (I loved my ice/mental blaster with the added cones from mental and epic elec), although was not the best for AoE again it was quite controllery. Ice control was low damage, but your troller set isn't really there for the damage.

[Mistress Urd]

I know Torrment and Agony 8 boxed and there were several others who did so. Nice read.

The most I did was 3 box with an Arachnos Soldier and a Sonic Defender with whoever I chose to run. Leadership x2 + AS training + sonic res + pink tutu of doom(tm). I did some of it but I often would stop with 1 minion.

[Tenzhi]

The mere concept never appealed to me.  Heck, when I played the first Etrian Odyssey I initially went at it solo... for about 20 levels.  And if anyone here is familiar with that series, they know how crazy that is.  And even putting aside the need for simple focus, the idea of trying to deal with that many sets of controls simultaneously just boggles the mind.  I imagine some crazed Phantom of the Opera character hunched behind a dual shelf of keyboards and mouses with wires, monitors, and liquid cooling tubes running up the wall in some sort of insane marriage of a Pipe Organ and Serial Experiment Lain.

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Heck, when I played the first Etrian Odyssey I initially went at it solo... for about 20 levels.

Are... are you absolutely sure you're not a F.O.E. in disguise that's attempting a confusion attack on me?

Because if you are, it's working.   How...

:gonk:

Oh god, I can't stop hearing it...

Part 2 - Planning

For a project this big, I needed a plan. First came looking at the constraints and coming up with a set of ground rules:

Well, that's enough rambling for one post. Next time I'll tackle the technical issues of actually controlling all 4 of these at once!

Terror at F.O.E.s aside, I gotta say that I'm really impressed by the kind of dedication you put forward, especially with the ground rules of your multiboxing attempt.  The fact that your team is actually meant to operate as a cohesive team and not as a bunch of damagemonkeys taking up group slots while following around a main is pretty impressive, and I appreciate it.

The primary thing about multiboxing is that, in games where it's rampant, a genuine soloist can't find a group - everyone who would have group slots fills them with bots or boxes, and most of those bot/box characters don't even get played properly.  The fact that yours do is wonderful.

[GuyPerfect]

The best part was watching Codewalker control his characters. They would all jump at the exact same instant.

[eabrace]

The best part was watching Codewalker control his characters. They would all jump at the exact same instant.

It's like watching some kind of crazy Monty Python bit.

[Arachnion]

Man, is there any aspect of you that *isn't* awesome Codewalker!?

;D

Keep doing what you do, man. Great read.

[Codewalker]

The primary thing about multiboxing is that, in games where it's rampant, a genuine soloist can't find a group - everyone who would have group slots fills them with bots or boxes, and most of those bot/box characters don't even get played properly.  The fact that yours do is wonderful.

I was adamant that if they were going to take up a character slot on a team, they'd pull their weight. I'll go into it a little more in the next post about the keybinds and macros I used when on a team so that they didn't break if the team order changed, and to make sure that teammates got buffs and such. My original pair (Fire/Kins) even had some special macros that, before SB was made into an AoE, could speed boost a whole 8-man team with only 4 button presses.

I didn't team much with the quad box team, but when I did it was usually with friends and I was always very up-front about what I was doing. Everyone who I ran with seemed cool with it.

[Victoria Victrix]

*Joins with popcorn*

This sounds epic.  I wish you had demos of this.  I'd pay to watch it.

[Mister Bison]

Another thing should be noticed - Cold Dom + Kinetics + Time Manip... Did you have something against Sappers ? Or against endurance shortage ? That must have been the best counter in the game against sappers. Capped def to boot must have been a sight to behold.

In fact it must have capped (or soft capped) pretty much anything, didn't it ? (Max health, damage, to-hit, defense, recovery, recharge, regen, stealth (just needed super speed or grant invis), ...)

Actually, your tactic would have been even more epic if you had a squad of 4 VEATs. Those tend to get really unstoppable when bunched up, especially what I call 'inquisitors' (non-specialised arachnos soldiers, with their infamous grenades). Well, it would miss the Kin, but then you're not epic, you're overpowered :D

[houtex]

My guess here is that the Sapper is targeted first (if not macro-auto-targeted as a first choice target) and dealt with post haste.  You might get hit once, but not enough to kill the group.  SB and triple slotted Stamina together means endurance quickly comes back.

Of all enemies... Sappers die first.  Period.  The rest are mop up. :)

[Kuriositys Kat]

*walks through.. reads.. pulls up comfy chair... ports  in a popcorn machine*

[Aggelakis]

My guess here is that the Sapper is targeted first (if not macro-auto-targeted as a first choice target) and dealt with post haste.  You might get hit once, but not enough to kill the group.  SB and triple slotted Stamina together means endurance quickly comes back.

Of all enemies... Sappers die first.  Period.  The rest are mop up. :)

With this group, based purely on the builds listed in the beginning, it doesn't matter who's targeted first. They're all dead in seconds anyway. lol

[Mister Bison]

With this group, based purely on the builds listed in the beginning, it doesn't matter who's targeted first. They're all dead in seconds anyway. lol

If they are not, at least they're stunned and being knocked down to death.

I didn't nickname my Stone/Fire brute "Trampoline" for no reason... Add Ice Slick and Sleet...

*has an idea*
*Grabs popcorn waiting for Code Walker to explain how he did simultaneous location-based power launching*