Is banning a multi-client stupid?

Started by OldPoring, Jun 20, 2022, 01:43 PM

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Insomnia2000

I'll say this every time I see "no multi client" mentioned. Why are server owners insistent on blocking multi-client rather than fixing broken mechanics that necessitate multi-client? Is it because the second a server tries to fix said broken mechanic, players go "no! too custom!" and leave? I really doubt it. Blocking multi-client does nothing to address the issue except for add work for staff members to police people that are trying to get around broken gameplay mechanics.

Look at what was mentioned in this thread already

  • "My second acc Sage putting an enchant on my other character. for 30 minutes. And I can even quit the game, 30 minutes is a long time." - OldPoring
  • "lets brew and need 12 people for it" - Xellie
  • "log a warper/endower occasionally" - Xellie

Why are these things things to begin with? Is it really socializing/partying if a sage is active in your party performing a singular endow on you once every 30 minutes? No, it isn't. It's no wonder endows are multi-cliented.

Instead of saying "Endows are okay as long as you have a legitimate sage that comes into contact with you once every 30 minutes, but not okay if you're logging on a second character once every 30 minutes." We should be saying "something is not correct with the way endows work, what can we do to address it?"

Either you dislike the way that the above functions and put some effort and thought into fixing it or you are okay with the above and leave it alone. Banning multi-client is the worst of both worlds: leaving a broken mechanic in place and banning players who try to make the broken mechanic not so crappy to deal with.

yC

Sigh .. that is one of the thing that official server is supposed to give you and due to the lack of players in private servers there has to be ways to serve as workaround.

In a perfect world, the game is designed for multi-players and thus promote activities that you will need each other to keep the game growing when more people are pulled in to take different routes.

Sairek Ceareste

Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM
I'll say this every time I see "no multi client" mentioned. Why are server owners insistent on blocking multi-client rather than fixing broken mechanics that necessitate multi-client? Is it because the second a server tries to fix said broken mechanic, players go "no! too custom!" and leave? I really doubt it. Blocking multi-client does nothing to address the issue except for add work for staff members to police people that are trying to get around broken gameplay mechanics.

Look at what was mentioned in this thread already

  • "My second acc Sage putting an enchant on my other character. for 30 minutes. And I can even quit the game, 30 minutes is a long time." - OldPoring
  • "lets brew and need 12 people for it" - Xellie
  • "log a warper/endower occasionally" - Xellie


Why are these things things to begin with? Is it really socializing/partying if a sage is active in your party performing a singular endow on you once every 30 minutes? No, it isn't. It's no wonder endows are multi-cliented.

Instead of saying "Endows are okay as long as you have a legitimate sage that comes into contact with you once every 30 minutes, but not okay if you're logging on a second character once every 30 minutes." We should be saying "something is not correct with the way endows work, what can we do to address it?"

Either you dislike the way that the above functions and put some effort and thought into fixing it or you are okay with the above and leave it alone. Banning multi-client is the worst of both worlds: leaving a broken mechanic in place and banning players who try to make the broken mechanic not so crappy to deal with.


In OathRO, Sages can create consumable scrolls, which also serve to endow the user's weapon so people can have a consumable item to endow with. So you don't actually need to tag along with an endow sage in the party or do log-out tactics. Again, it is something they can use to create an economy with or if you own one, just make some scrolls to store for yourself. That way it's like smuggling an endow sage into your pockets. Legally!

As for warps, most people can just ask for a warp in town and people will provide one. Whether you wanna tip them a few zeny for it or not is usually up to you. I made an easy 100k just playing city priest for a day. They'll usually buff you too. No need to risk multi-clienting for that. Y'know, people helping other people. I know it's rare for a server that allows multi-clienting to receive that help, but it's pretty common on our server.


I can't comment on guild brewing though because I'm not in a guild other than my own private one for inter-dimensional account storage. The actual players would know much better than I about that experience.

distilled1

Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM
Blocking multi-client does nothing to address the issue
What exactly is "the issue" in your mind, aside from "NOOOOOOO! I have to actually interact with other people and can't get everything I want by soloing! SAVE ME, FINAL FANTASY XIV!"

Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM
Look at what was mentioned in this thread already

  • "My second acc Sage putting an enchant on my other character. for 30 minutes. And I can even quit the game, 30 minutes is a long time." - OldPoring
This can't be done when multi-clienting is disabled, but it can be easily abused when multi-clienting is ALLOWED. So you're not making a good point for multi-clienting.
You just pissed all over your own argument.

Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM

  • "lets brew and need 12 people for it" - Xellie
Not a "blocked multi-clienting" issue. More of a "spoiled multi-clienter perspective" issue. People who got too used to getting literally everything solo.
First of all, you don't need 12 people to brew. Maybe 4-5 people or whatever the real, non-exaggerated number is for the most brew efficiency possible. This doesn't mean you have to make them that way, and unique players coming together to be more efficient or to succeed is what MMORPGs are about. Don't like it? Wrong game genre for you then. Not even an issue. It's meant to be this way.

Quote from: Insomnia2000 on Jun 21, 2022, 09:17 AM

  • "log a warper/endower occasionally" - Xellie
Also not "blocked multi-clienting" issue as I already mentioned. Everyone has 9 character slots by default. Your buddy can still swap to their sage/priest and buff you then swap back when multi-clienting is blocked. But yeah I agree that the sage should have to stick around for such a great buff to remain in effect or it should have a much lower buff duration like priest skills. This doesn't mean multi-clienting is good for MMORPGs. It's god-awful.

The point of MMORPGs is to reward players who group up and help eachother out.
There's been an evergrowing trend among modern MMORPG design for decades now which encourages and rewards solo play. It's literally why modern MMORPGs suck so hard compared to older ones.
They're soulless and akin to binge watching a very mediocre anime while pressing a few buttons between cutscenes.
DOWN WITH MULTI-CLIENTING!

Butt Force

Meanwhile, on no-multiclient servers: thriving economies and adventuring parties, buzzing with the kind of activity that can only come from support jobs being a main option.

This was the one thing J's mouth-foaming sociopathic rage was right to breathe fire all over.

Plus it eliminates all that s*** about WELL MY SERVER HAS 2000 PLAYERS AND GRAVITY STOLE IT FROM ME!!!  There hasn't been a 4-digit unique player count server in literal decades.

Ralgondo

#20
I wouldn't say it's stupid, some people want to play the game a certain way, that's fine.

However, expectation vs. reality is another story...

Like you said, the reason always cited is this party oriented gameplay idea, but it never happens. In fact, ironically the classes which thrive the most on no-multiclient servers are solo classes. Classes who don't need help getting reborn. Another consequence is that most classes / builds in the game become inaccessible. Without the option to use multi-clients to create less popular or niche builds, you're more or less stuck with the staple class and their most staple builds. If you want to get into a party (which rarely happens) you need to be a priest, or one of the most essential classes like wizard. Other than that you're not needed so most people won't bother playing with you. No multi-client servers end up just being a bunch of priests, archers, and mages. A couple unlucky people buy into the idea about there being all these parties and make the tragic mistake of trying to make a character who cannot solo level. They spam the discord channels and global chats for a few weeks looking for groups and eventually quit. Also, on multi-client enabled servers I see no less partying, people solo because they have to, and party when they can. Partying always happens for MVPs, higher end maps, and even on some lower tier maps just because people want to socialize sometimes. But there's at least options if you want to make certain classes, builds, etc.

That being said, the game was meant to be played solo and multi-client does allow for a lot of progression solo that wouldn't be otherwise possible. I don't blame people for being against multi-client but I have never yet to see this fantasy RO world they are talking about.

charlielovesu

This will never get one solid response from the community. We are all divided on the issues of multi-clienting. I'll try to give my insight and non-biased opinions and look at things objectively from what I've seen as both player and owner:

Upside of disallowing dual clienting is the game is definitely more geared towards how it was INTENDED to be played. You were never intended to do everything yourself.

However, as game knowledge improved over the years players just realized they could dual everything. This is not a dual client issue, this is a fundamental game design issue with RO itself. And you can't argue against that. The game is amazing, but it has its flaws and this is amongst the most glaring.


That said, when you actively make the decision to restrict dual clienting you are now ARTIFICIALLY limiting players. They are not actually restricted in game knowledge, you've just put a bandage on a gaping wound. It's a hotfix, but doesn't actually solve the problem.


The problem is the gap between dual clienting and not dual clienting is often extremely massive because of how the game is designed.

I've played servers that are 1x, no dual client and its a blast! its fun to struggle a bit and have to consider other aspects. And for all the people that enjoy that primarily, I get it.

However, in my experience it only servers to limit players artificially when they could otherwise do content. There could be significantly harder content they know how to accomplish if they could just dual client. But they can't.

And despite what ANY server owner will tell you, no population holds up today to justify limiting players in such a way. No dual clients works if you have the players to sustain the alternative. If i can't dual client the content great, but you better have the players to back it up that i can find at will when I want to do said content.

Do any servers have this population? no. not even. close. You will not have a party going on at all times where you wantand when you want. You can form guilds sure, but finding enough people who also have the right classes or are willing to log someone else's character to do said content, is just not feasible.


As such, I'm firmly in the camp that dual-clienting is a necessary evil in the modern era.


In a perfect world, we'd go back to 2004. When the game was at its peak. no dual clients. we all just get to play with each other at our 1x rates and the game sustains itself as it meant to be.

However, the player base is all split up now. and that just doesn't happen.


That said as well I feel its very important that any server takes measures to limit the need for dual clienting at a minimum. If you just take the base game, and leave dual clienting its a pretty miserable experience. Many core necessities simply mean dual clienting. move speed, buffs, warps, etc.

The game works without duals on these things, if you have players. But without players it becomes a suffering experience.


Now, this is also subjective. The game works even without all the buffs, warps etc. you can still play. its just significantly more tedious and grindy. But people forget that its also not necessarily bad either. Most of RO is the journey and not the destination. As such, a longer grind is generally good. But you have to find players who share that mindset, and most dont. Most players are in to get their nostalgia kick and feel like a true end game fantasy is within reach in a reasonable amount of time.


so the TLDR is I feel dual-clienting is a necessary evil, but in a perfect world we wouldn't need it. I won't argue with any server own who feels a need to ban it as my perspective is entirely subjective. I just disagree with the idea that banning duals rather than discourage dual clienting or lessen the need for it is the way to go.

Playtester

Well, you can always do both, disallow multi-clienting AND fix issues with party play not being fun such as reducing the endow duration.

How strong the party play on a server is strongly depends on the mindset of players, though. Disallowing multi-clienting does not exclusively attract party-loving people but also competitive people.

From my experience you find more party play on a server without competitive people, such as servers with only around 10 players, regardless of whether that server allows multi-clienting or not.

Though it still bothers me when I party with someone and then he plays with around with his alts while in party with me. So I still rather have it disallowed.

Insomnia2000

Quote from: distilled1 on Jun 21, 2022, 10:47 PM
What exactly is "the issue" in your mind, aside from "NOOOOOOO! I have to actually interact with other people and can't get everything I want by soloing! SAVE ME, FINAL FANTASY XIV!"

The issue is exactly as you've described further in your post at the end.  I absolutely believe people should benefit from continued partying and interaction. I do not agree with getting all benefits by soloing and multi-clienting.

Quote from: distilled1 on Jun 21, 2022, 10:47 PM
The point of MMORPGs is to reward players who group up and help eachother out.
There's been an evergrowing trend among modern MMORPG design for decades now which encourages and rewards solo play.

The problem is the way that vanilla RO is designed is *not* to reward players for grouping up and continuing to helping each other out. You can try to force player behaviour that way by saying "only one client" but the game just isn't designed to reward people for grouping up over time. It's almost there, but not quite imo. There certainly is inter-class balance where one class rewards the other, but you need to make sure that the interaction continues (reward continued playing together) and isn't a "one and done" situation.

Example: You have a skill like sage's endow that is designed to help a party member out massively by giving the player potentially 2x damage. However, the way it's designed is not rewarding to have the sage be around you once the interaction is complete. One interaction per 30 minutes is not rewarding people who group up. It's rewarding to come across a sage, but not to party with one.

The correct solution to the example (in my opinion) would be to address the way sage interacts with party members via endow. Come up with a solution that rewards someone for continuing to party with a sage and do not reward someone for just hopping on sage (friend or multi-client) for just a moment to endow and log off.

This applies to more than just endow, but endow is a very easy example of where the game's design does not reward the player for partying up and continuing to play and interact with that person. Blocking multi-client does nothing to address the root problem of why people feel like they need to multi-client.

distilled1

#24
Quote from: Playtester on Jun 22, 2022, 05:12 AM
Well, you can always do both, disallow multi-clienting AND fix issues with party play not being fun such as reducing the endow duration.
This.

Pretty much everyone knows that the default vanilla Ragnarok Online game is flawed when it comes to ideal class balance.
Ideally, every single class available should be equally desired by a party of other players. Should be equally as beneficial to have as every other class without every class becoming homogenized and feeling like they have the exact same playstyles.
But allowing multi-clienting won't fix this issue, so I'm not sure why irrelevant discussion about class balance is even being brought up when the subject is regarding disabled multi-clienting.

Disabling multi-clienting alone does not harm a community. It creates a better sense of community where every player is playing with one character at a time, giving everyone a better sense of immersion and adventure, and creating a benefit to partying.
It's not immersive to see one player controlling 2, 3, or 4 characters at a time, and when players see that happening, they're more inclined to follow that example and multi-client themselves, because obviously the one man army doesn't need help conquering the world's challenges, and neither do you if you copy the multi-clienter. No reason to interact anymore.
Maybe there should be a custom ninja skill similar to Naruto's kage bunshin no jutsu if certain players want the look of having cloned themselves so bad.
DOWN WITH MULTI-CLIENTING!

MaybeImWrong

#25
Quote from: Butt Force on Jun 21, 2022, 11:00 PM
Meanwhile, on no-multiclient servers: thriving economies and adventuring parties, buzzing with the kind of activity that can only come from support jobs being a main option.

This was the one thing J's mouth-foaming sociopathic rage was right to breathe fire all over.

Plus it eliminates all that s*** about WELL MY SERVER HAS 2000 PLAYERS AND GRAVITY STOLE IT FROM ME!!!  There hasn't been a 4-digit unique player count server in literal decades.


he didn't know s***. Unless you police the server constantly 24/7 and follow each player, there is no way to really stop multi-clienting.

Aeroskye

No, it's not. I saw oRO, one of the best servers out there die at its core only because they had dual clients tbh. It takes the soul away from RO. If the server didn't die out right from the start, it most definitely will eventually end due to multiclient.


neethree

No one's mentioned the middle ground yet? How about dual clienting, as in only two clients.
I think it's a nice enough balance of modern QOL for a small population vs encouraging party play without having one-man-armies. Kinda like how arealoot is to autoloot.
Current Server(s):
None ;-;

OldPoring

#28
Quote from: Aeroskye on Jun 24, 2022, 12:21 AM
No, it's not. I saw oRO, one of the best servers out there die at its core only because they had dual clients tbh. It takes the soul away from RO. If the server didn't die out right from the start, it most definitely will eventually end due to multiclient.
If you're talking about OriginsRO, then it was the most lively server I knew. in addition, it was is European, for me ping from the USA is a little frustrating. About 800 players were displayed on the server, so about 400-500 real persons, I usually played no more than 3 chars at the same time, in auto follow with priest and hunter or priest only for warp and buff/heal, sage waited in place for endow,
and it died only because of the Gravity attack (or by another decision of their administration), but definitely not because it was unpopular!
You can even say the opposite - OriginsRO could never have become so popular if it had forbidden a multi client ))

Quote from: neethree on Jun 24, 2022, 04:35 PM
No one's mentioned the middle ground yet? How about dual clienting, as in only two clients.
I think it's a nice enough balance of modern QOL for a small population vs encouraging party play without having one-man-armies. Kinda like how arealoot is to autoloot.
I almost suggested it. Two windows without any restrictions on one IP. This is convenient at least for transferring money and things between merchants without mail. Yes, if there is no NPC healer on the server, it's just stupid to forbid multi client, anyway, ro nerds will make themselves a priest and you will not be able to do anything about it. Make an automatic temporary ban of the character when opening the third window. And programmatically disable auto-following, if possible - then it will be an equivalent position for everyone on the server and the cheaters will not have an advantage over "honest fools".
----------------------
English is not my language, when I created this, it was more correct not "to ban", but not "to forbid".
Maybe the moderator can replace the "ban" in the topic name with a "forbid"?
it is impossible to forbid what can be used easy. Old ro players know all the tricks.

Sairek Ceareste

Quote from: OldPoring on Jun 24, 2022, 06:23 PM
If you're talking about OriginsRO, then it was the most lively server I knew. in addition, it was is European, for me ping from the USA is a little frustrating. About 800 players were displayed on the server, so about 400-500 real persons, I usually played no more than 3 chars at the same time, in auto follow with priest and hunter or priest only for warp and buff/heal, sage waited in place for endow,
and it died only because of the Gravity attack (or by another decision of their administration), but definitely not because it was unpopular!
You can even say the opposite - OriginsRO could never have become so popular if it had forbidden a multi client ))
I almost suggested it. Two windows without any restrictions on one IP. This is convenient at least for transferring money and things between merchants without mail. Yes, if there is no NPC healer on the server, it's just stupid to forbid multi client, anyway, ro nerds will make themselves a priest and you will not be able to do anything about it. Make an automatic temporary ban of the character when opening the third window. And programmatically disable auto-following, if possible - then it will be an equivalent position for everyone on the server and the cheaters will not have an advantage over "honest fools".
----------------------
English is not my language, when I created this, it was more correct not "to ban", but not "to forbid".
Maybe the moderator can replace the "ban" in the topic name with a "forbid"?
it is impossible to forbid what can be used easy. Old ro players know all the tricks.

I don't know if it was 400~500 people. Combined with vendors, and the fact I saw some people using at least 2 people, usually 3 or more though (at a minimum, their "main, a priest, and then a soul linker -- sometimes a bard on top of all that), and I'd wager the actual population was around the 250ish area. I was guilty of having up to 5 characters on at a time in Origins myself (the 5th character being another character I was leeching).


The wording choice is fine. It is forbidden, and we ban for it. That said, fun is subjective. Some people enjoy multi-clienting, and some people wish it wasn't a thing. And until the rabid bear came in, there was plenty of low-rate servers to choose from that offered both options to whoever desired it.

Some of those servers are reviving with a rebranding, if starting all over again fresh on them is a thing you don't mind. So there will be choices again soon. Taking down private servers is a hopeless game of whack-a-mole, after all.