Question - Isboxer or VV for my style of play (1 Viewer)

[Farmer217]

I'm a long time boxer, starting with a 2 box setup in Kunark to a 5 box on 5 machines with a kvm during PoP. I took a 5 year break and have been back for almost 2 years now. I've used wineq2 for years for the tabbing but I've added a 6th toon because mercs suck, and I love running a whole group. My problem is I feel like I'm way underutilizing my toons so I'm looking to improve through software.

I run warrior, cleric, shaman, bard, wizard, and ranger all at 115 which gives me lots of synergy and flexibility which I love but six individual classes and abilities is a lot more complicated than having 3 mages or zerkers when it comes to operating.

I've subscribed to both isboxer and here at red guides for a year so that money is already spent and I'm not opposed to spending more for plugins or even private tutoring and setup, but before I invest a ton of time in setup and teaching myself I figure I need to pick a platform. I've spent the last couple of days watching videos and reading guides but I'm feeling very overwhelmed. I don't think I want the full automation of the group for combat, but the navigation and mimicking seems like a godsend, and some automation would be huge, things like group healing and melee positioning look amazing. At the same time, I love the video features of isboxer putting the group buttons on my main screen with key broadcasting would make controlling the group so much more fun and streamlined. But it doesn't do anything for things like moving my team through a zone.

My gameplay goals are to be able to box missions from RoS to ToV solo and to manage t2 ToV named.

My understanding is these two no longer work together so a best of both worlds approach isn't an option. Any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[drwhomphd]

Disclaimer: I leverage isboxer purely for its virtual config files and its nice windows management.

VV and ISBoxer are both very complimentary. You can easily choose how much automation you want with mq2 macros and how much interaction you want with isboxer. There is, however, no 'easy' button for making that configuration so you'll most likely be spending some time determining what works for you. Chances are you will most likely want to leverage Mule Assist or Kiss Assist to configure as much automation as you feel comfortable then dig through isboxer's help to figure out all their button broadcasting stuff. Spending a decent bit of time setting up your hotkeys will most likely be important too.

IHC and the CWTN plugins will be giving you the most automation right out the box. Kiss Assist and Mule Assist start giving you a sizeable amount of configuration control. Entropy and ModBot give you a TON of knobs you can turn to get things exactly just right. Of course, with more power comes more responsibility (and time spent getting things to your liking).

 

[Farmer217]

Disclaimer: I leverage isboxer purely for its virtual config files and its nice windows management.

VV and ISBoxer are both very complimentary. You can easily choose how much automation you want with mq2 macros and how much interaction you want with isboxer. There is, however, no 'easy' button for making that configuration so you'll most likely be spending some time determining what works for you. Chances are you will most likely want to leverage Mule Assist or Kiss Assist to configure as much automation as you feel comfortable then dig through isboxer's help to figure out all their button broadcasting stuff. Spending a decent bit of time setting up your hotkeys will most likely be important too.

IHC and the CWTN plugins will be giving you the most automation right out the box. Kiss Assist and Mule Assist start giving you a sizeable amount of configuration control. Entropy and ModBot give you a TON of knobs you can turn to get things exactly just right. Of course, with more power comes more responsibility (and time spent getting things to your liking).

I tried searching for guides to make them work together because all the videos seemed to be either/or and found a discussion that their compatibility is broken, did that get fixed at some point? The problem with "underground" software in a 20 year old game with a low population is a lot of old information so if they do compliment each other that is great news

 

[drwhomphd]

that their compatibility is broken, did that get fixed at some point?

I use them concurrently all the time. There's a bit of a setup involved getting ISBoxer and Autologin working together. There's two ways to do it depending on if you want to leverage multiple characters on the same EQ account or not. If you only keep one character per account, ISBoxer+mq2autologin integration is considerably more streamlined. The guide I wrote, and is in the guides section of RG, is for if you want to allow for multiple characters on the same account. It's considerably more tedious given how ... difficult... isboxer can be to work with but if follow exactly as written it works out.

After isboxer+mq2autologin integration they are configured wholly separately. Given you are wanting to actively player your other characters, I'd suggest foregoing mq2wire (greatly improves game performance but will stop or greatly slow the rendering of background frames w/o disrupting client execution) for now and just leverage isboxer for its performance profiles. Then you just have to figure out how to set up all those fancy isboxer button clicker bits. Again, I just use it to login all my characters with fancy windows management.

DISCLAIMER: Don't ask in their discord about mq2. They're pretty rude about it. I haven't had the most helpful/useful of experiences getting help from their discord.

 

[Many_Whelps]

No reason not to use both unless that isboxer subscription is going to break the bank.

 

[microscope]

I've used both extensively and once I started using MQ2 (VV) I never looked back to Isboxer. Isboxer basically just copies whatever you do on your first character to the other characters. So if you click hotkey 1 5 2 4 on your main, then the other characters will all activate hotkeys 1 5 2 4. It works but you have to set up your characters appropriately and it is pretty limited. For example if every character needs to activate something in the game world which can't be done with a command, like say clicking something on the ground or whatever, then you can't really do that with isboxer because characters end up facing different directions. It lets you box a whole group from your main character but it still requires plenty of user input. If you enjoy that then it is fine, and for most games Isboxer is the only option.

VV is way more advanced. You basically setup each character to run exactly how you would want them to run, and then they play themselves. For games like Rift I did fine with Isboxer and MQ2/vv wasn't an option anyway. But EQ can be more complex and you really need the characters to do things without you having to babysit them. For example mezzers can mez adds completely independently while you focus on grabbing aggro and tanking. And all the while healers will be taking care of anyone that is injured, debuffers will be debuffing, nukers will be nuking. They will all buff each other automatically, they can be smart enough to ease up on damage when their mana gets low so they can save it for emergency heals, or evac, or whatever you need, they can manage their own aggro, etc. It is amazing really.

You can use both at the same time, Isboxer has some nifty visual features, but personally I don't think it is necessary. VV/mq2 handles all the performance things that you would want to do, in fact MQ2eqWire is the best thing you can get for that. Also you don't even need to tab to other characters to do things like mem spells or equip items because all of that can be done with commands from your main guy. So I don't use isboxer at all anymore, but it is an option if you want to.

 

[Hanlons Razor]

VV alone covers everything you would want. I use ISBoxer on top of it for the awesome window management just b/c I'm used to it and I love it. With multiple displays, I have all my unfocused characters showing on my large second display and the one I'm currently focusing on my main display. It's just nice to be able to clearly see every char's screen at all times at a glance without any switching around.

 

[stig7055]

What is this VV you guys speak of?

I setup the profiles in Isboxer to use the autologin profiles from MQ2, but mainly use Isboxer for its window layouts and hotkeys so I can quickly switch windows with mouse buttons on my G600. It makes getting around 15 clients much easier.

 

[Sic]

What is this VV you guys speak of?

I setup the profiles in Isboxer to use the autologin profiles from MQ2, but mainly use Isboxer for its window layouts and hotkeys so I can quickly switch windows with mouse buttons on my G600. It makes getting around 15 clients much easier.

VV is Very Vanilla - that is the RedGuide's "flavor" of MacroQuest2

 

[manydills]

What is this VV you guys speak of?

I setup the profiles in Isboxer to use the autologin profiles from MQ2, but mainly use Isboxer for its window layouts and hotkeys so I can quickly switch windows with mouse buttons on my G600. It makes getting around 15 clients much easier.

Very Vanilla, the build of MQ2 featured prominently on this site

 

[stig7055]

ROFL, sorry I always refer to it as MQ2, noone ever uses VV in standard discussions. Now i know!