Question - TLP boxer looking to try out boxing on FV! Help!

[Esquire]

Hey guys -

So I've been boxing on TLP for a while and am looking to start boxing raids on Firiona Vie.

That being said, does anyone currently do this? What do I need to do? Help me brainstorm!

 

[LurkMcGurk]

Get Isboxer because you will need more on-the-fly customization than MQ2 offers for switching between spell sets/debuff sets/aoe sets on multiple characters/multiple classes. Someone can argue MQ2 can offer all of this and maybe it can, I don't know how to set it up with Mq2 though and when you watch people box actual RAIDS of characters you can easily tell who uses MQ2 and who uses just isboxer. I've raided with people who just use MQ2 on both TLP and on FV and people who just use isboxer on both FV and the TLP.

The ones with Mq2 always had a sole strategy they did: Pet zerg. If they didn't do pet zerg they did melee dps. - both of which will get you NOWHERE boxing raids on live. You may be able to do up to CoTF but you're not doing anything past that.... And honestly what's the point of just doing CoTF? Shit's hard as fuck for a 5mil pay off. You're better just doing RoF or VoA. You'd need a full 54 man raid for CoTF too, trust me I know. Also unless you're in FULL TBM + group gear mana will be a MAJOR issue on CoTF raids.

The ones that use Isboxer though were able to adapt to any situation instantaneously which is a requirement for boxing raids. Main tank goes down? You need to pick it up on the off tank. YOU need to rez your main tank again. YOU need to rebuff him. Maybe adds spawn? You need to swap all your characters to AoE DPS to take them out. Maybe the boss is dying too slow and you need more dps? You switch your Druids over to start nuking instead of healing and pop your mini burns. Things like this are things I never saw those with MQ2 doing on raids. Like I said, maybe Mq2 allows the flexibility that isboxer does, just those people didn't use it right. I am only stating my personal experiences boxing raids in EQ for the last 4 years.

Set up your entire interface, level 54 characters (I use all wizards for Dps, 1 mage per group EVEN in tank groups for Group CoTH moving around - 90% of the time a mage in the tank group is stupid but i don't like reformating Invite macros based on the raid and some raids when you need to move the ENTIRE RAID - it's easier to move 9 mages than 54 characters) and the rest is really up to you. Those are the only hard set requirements I can think of.

Here's a post I made awhile back explaining how I played and linking parses of some of my easier raid targets on FV: https://www.redguides.com/community...uke2-by-Razkle?p=299407&viewfull=1#post299407


P.S - Raiding on live is totally different than raiding on the TLPs. If you are able to box on TLPs don't think for a second you'll be able to just waltz in and box on Live. If all you plan to do is walk into raids and hit kissassist/autocleric/auto wiz and tank mobs manually while your bots blow up targets you're not going to make it past CoTF tier 1. You may be able to cheese Maestro in TBM (Fuck would be the point? Group gear is better now) if you bring the pallies and setup macros accordingly with MQ2 but the raids you can do will be EXTREMELY limited unless you actually PLAY EACH CHARACTER YOURSELF.

 

[MaxD]

ISboxer will help you a ton, like Lurk said. I also think boxing a raid with good efficiency is pretty much impossible without eqbc. There's a few people on a few servers that do this. Really though (imo) you need friends to do this, when something goes wrong in a boxed raid shit can fall apart really really fast.

All that being said you need to get a full raid of 54 up to par on a server you don't play on so it will take a bit of time. Also FV is I think the most populated live server, be careful with AFK leveling people will fuck with you over here.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

ISboxer will help you a ton, like Lurk said. I also think boxing a raid with good efficiency is pretty much impossible without eqbc.

I don't use EQBC on the raids when I box, I control each character manually through isboxer - EQBC *should* give players as much control as isboxer though, I don't know since I don't use it and haven't used it before. From what I have read, both EQBC and ISboxer do the same exact thing (offer you a way to control multiple characters at once). I am still confused why people use both of them simultaneously.

You can use EQBC if that's your preference, boxing your own raids is pretty much all about preference and doing what you feel comfortable doing anyway. However the one thing you absolutely won't be able to do is run macros on your whole box team and expect to just control 1 character like a lot of boxers here do. That's what I meant before when I said people with isboxer were able to adapt to any situation and those depending on MQ2 were not.

If you use macros on your characters your characters have a sole purpose. Whatever that macros purpose is. You could pause the macro, carry out a command than unpause it, but you're adding more steps to the equation and you aren't considering mid fight you're going to be panick'd so you may end up unpausing/repausing that macro 3 times. Also, you can't pause while it's casting which could be a precious 3 seconds you need to perform that task.



There's a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE difference from boxing on TLPs and boxing on Live. YHUGE as trump would say.

If you can box raids on TLPs there's no guarantee you're going to be able to box raids on live. TLPs are pretty much Everquest with training wheels. You can box on the TLPs just controlling 1 char and leaving the rest automated but that's extremely far from the case on live. Playing on live takes a lot more skill, determination and practice than playing on the TLPs. I'm not trying to hurt any TLPers feelings I am just offering some friendly advice if you wish to box on live: Be ready for something completely different than you're used to now. It won't even feel like the same game.

 

[dannuic]

You can pause while casting. And interrupt spells. EQBC is mostly just a way to remotely execute /commands. I find it much easier to setup than ISBoxer, and /commands don't have the dead time that hotkeys have (which I think is the only way to do things remotely in ISBoxer -- I might be wrong on that).

 

[LurkMcGurk]

You can pause while casting. And interrupt spells. EQBC is mostly just a way to remotely execute /commands. I find it much easier to setup than ISBoxer, and /commands don't have the dead time that hotkeys have (which I think is the only way to do things remotely in ISBoxer -- I might be wrong on that).

You can pause while casting? Interesting. I can honestly say I never tested it before but even if you can (and I know you can interrupt spells with stop cast), there would still be a world of difference between someone who automates every character and someone who plays every character. That much should be obvious though, - you can never be as good on a character that's automated as you can be on a character you are actually playing.

I will give you two examples of things that have happened to me while running macros on raids:

1. I go to move the raid and a character ends up auto following his or her pet because when I hit my follow keys they were current in the process of rebuffing their pet.
2. Cleric A is standing in an area he needs to move out of - he needs to focus primarily on movement over healing (TBM has a few movement oriented raids) you need him to drop everything he is doing and MOVE. When you tab to his screen and start running him forward Kissassist/autocleric whatever STOPS your movement when you go to cast a spell, thus costing you more time to move the cleric and thus results in his death because the AoE hits him and he didn't move fast enough.

You could pause/unpause it, stop cast and things like that - but you're taking away valuable seconds when you're trying to control 30 + characters all at once - something 30 independant people should be doing. When boxing a raid every single fraction of a second matters because it all adds up. Some people may also not be taking into consideration your lag on that raid. What if the char you're trying to pause/unpause is getting 7 fps and you don't have time spamming the pause button since when you are lagging EQ doesn't register every click or button press?



As far as the dead time, I'm not sure what the "dead time" you mean is. Unless you mean how Isboxer defaults to activate the keypress on key RELEASE rather on key PRESS (which I do find kind of weird). I have brought up isboxer performance issues in another thread but it only happens when running 24 - 36 chars but that may not be isboxer at all - it may be something on my computer like my GPU. It's an unsolved problem I have and could just be me pushing my computer more than it likes. The program is by no means perfect and I'm not looking to start a pissing contest between the two programs on Macroquest's own forums. That'd be like going to Mc donalds and asking what people like more, mc donalds or burger king. It'd be complete lunacy!


You could probably get EQBC to do exactly what I have my isboxer setup to do - however I would strongly recommend against automating the majority of your raid force simply because the automation tools we have aren't better than you actually sitting there and playing your raid. And that's the difference between downing most current raids and not which is what the guy created the thread asking for insight/help with.

 

[dannuic]

When I say dead time, I mean that and that you can't press hotkeys while casting. If you type out `/mqp`, then it will pause while you are casting (though it will of course finish the cast unless you also interrupt it) -- this is precisely how EQBC works. In your first point, KA actually has a chase mode where the character will stay near the main assist regardless of target, which is pretty easy functionality to replicate (basically, use locs instead of targets). In the second case, you simply pause, move, unpause (you can start moving the same instant you hit pause), or just add an event in the macro (or MQ2Events -- which is the real awesomesauce for raiding) to move to a loc or something when the event happens. Raiding isn't going to be just using KA, the real power of macros shines in raiding when you write custom scripts for the events you are doing. I think you might not be giving macros enough credit for what they can do.

That being said, of course you can raid with just ISBoxer and some MQ2 helpers, but I can't see how it would be easier than writing macros to handle the raid events. But I'm also an engineer, so that probably skews my perspective towards writing code, and this is all about having fun so everyone will have a different style.

 

[Esquire]

Hey Lurch, want to spend some time in a voice chat?

 

[LurkMcGurk]

Raiding isn't going to be just using KA, the real power of macros shines in raiding when you write custom scripts for the events you are doing. I think you might not be giving macros enough credit for what they can do.

That being said, of course you can raid with just ISBoxer and some MQ2 helpers, but I can't see how it would be easier than writing macros to handle the raid events. But I'm also an engineer, so that probably skews my perspective towards writing code, and this is all about having fun so everyone will have a different style.

I definitely know what macros can and can't do and I have taken that into consideration as well. You could write custom macros for a lot of the events, undoubtably - I have never actually seen people do it, just talk about doing it though for each event. As a coder I have a general idea of how I would script each event if it came down to it too where I couldn't use isboxer. I can definitely tell you though that it would be much less effective to code a macro to perform some of the tasks for you in a raid than it would be to do things by hand. And not only that it would take you days scripting a macro and you're also not accounting for how long it would take your team to setup each time you wanted to do this raid or reattempted it with your reformated macro. Each time you want to run a "test" you gotta wipe, rez and rebuff. Sometimes that's going to take 15 - 30min depending on your raid.

I know this because I know both sides of the fence here. I know how to code and know what macros and MQ2 can do and I also know how to box a raid and know what is required of a player boxing a raid. What may sound great in theory may not always work great in practice and in execution. We could talk all day about what MQ2 could do to replicate what I do in isboxer but the truth is until you actually sit down and box a raid you can't accurately say what you can and can't do and what can and can't be coded. There's a lot of variables as a designer, engineer, coder, a player, that you haven't even begun to account for and you wouldn't even know about them until you're in that situation yourself and designing a macro for it. As a coder and engineer yourself I am sure you're aware of things like this.

I'm not trying to be rude or put you down, I have had this same discussion dozens of times with someone who knows how to code, even those that know how to code better than me. The issue is if you've never boxed a raid before (A difficult one i dont mean if you 6 boxed something, if you boxed 36 chars or more at once is what I mean) you don't know enough about it and what goes on to accurately assume you can script every event and every action on every character during that raid/event - and that it would be easier than another alternative route. I'm not disagreeing with you in saying some events can be scripted, I wholeheartedly agree that some raids would be easy peasy to script. But it isn't so black and white.

Hey Lurch, want to spend some time in a voice chat?

I don't really care for voice chat. I will answer your questions on the forums in detail but I dislike talking to other people while I am doing stuff on the computer. Sorry, it's part of the reason I started boxing in the first place, almost all guilds require voice chat and I can't concentrate very well when people are talking to me.

 

[Redraider87]

I will give you two examples of things that have happened to me while running macros on raids:

1. I go to move the raid and a character ends up auto following his or her pet because when I hit my follow keys they were current in the process of rebuffing their pet.
2. Cleric A is standing in an area he needs to move out of - he needs to focus primarily on movement over healing (TBM has a few movement oriented raids) you need him to drop everything he is doing and MOVE. When you tab to his screen and start running him forward Kissassist/autocleric whatever STOPS your movement when you go to cast a spell, thus costing you more time to move the cleric and thus results in his death because the AoE hits him and he didn't move fast enough.

1. Don't use target based movement/follow commands or make sure you incorporate a target swap into the command. Something like /bct toonname //moveto loc ${Me.Y} ${Me.X} while using EQBC would work fine if you just wanted to call the toon to where you are currently standing. Another way to do this would be to call the toon to a specific loc rather than to you.

2. Pause the toon via mqp (/bct toonname //mqp), follow instructions from the answer above, unpause the toon via mqp (/bct toonname //mqp).


There are lots of different ways to do everything with pros and cons to each. Let's make sure to keep open minds, Kumbaya and shit boys!

 

[etherealmist]

First of all, I guarantee you the people who are mass boxing 54 man raids on live are heavily relying MQ2. They have custom versions of macros designed specifically for raiding. I'm pretty sure most of them don't even used kissassist as their primary macro (or even at all). Some of them even code specific macros for specific encounters (or tweak existing ones).

More importantly, if you're not using EQBC, you really can't tell people one way is better than the other, because you haven't experienced one of the more powerful tools MQ2 has to offer. You can literally control every single character from 1 screen without NEEDING to tab to another.

Secondly, like redraider mentioned, you can easily make macros to control the majority of your raid from one screen. I used to use ISboxer for many years and recently decided to stop as the constant crashing was driving me insane. It was a rough transition, but MQ2 has added a lot of functionality to help with said transition. The only feature I'm missing from ISBoxer was the hotkey tabbing between characters. And even then, I have so many characters now that I can't reliably do that anymore anyways.

Also, good luck on FV lil baby T.

 

[dannuic]

First of all, I guarantee you the people who are mass boxing 54 man raids on live are heavily relying MQ2. They have custom versions of macros designed specifically for raiding. I'm pretty sure most of them don't even used kissassist as their primary macro (or even at all). Some of them even code specific macros for specific encounters (or tweak existing ones).

More importantly, if you're not using EQBC, you really can't tell people one way is better than the other, because you haven't experienced one of the more powerful tools MQ2 has to offer. You can literally control every single character from 1 screen without NEEDING to tab to another.

Secondly, like redraider mentioned, you can easily make macros to control the majority of your raid from one screen. I used to use ISboxer for many years and recently decided to stop as the constant crashing was driving me insane. It was a rough transition, but MQ2 has added a lot of functionality to help with said transition. The only feature I'm missing from ISBoxer was the hotkey tabbing between characters. And even then, I have so many characters now that I can't reliably do that anymore anyways.

Also, good luck on FV lil baby T.

I think this is what I was trying to get at before. When I did raids (I stopped in CotF), I ran generic bot macros on most toons and drove one toon that had event command macros that could move/call changes/etc. It wasn't perfect, but I can't imagine trying to control all of them manually -- EQBC won me those raids.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

First of all, I guarantee you the people who are mass boxing 54 man raids on live are heavily relying MQ2. They have custom versions of macros designed specifically for raiding. I'm pretty sure most of them don't even used kissassist as their primary macro (or even at all). Some of them even code specific macros for specific encounters (or tweak existing ones).

I said I didn't rely heavily on MQ2 in my initial post and I have said a few times I box full 54 man raids.

More importantly, if you're not using EQBC, you really can't tell people one way is better than the other, because you haven't experienced one of the more powerful tools MQ2 has to offer. You can literally control every single character from 1 screen without NEEDING to tab to another.

Isboxer does the same exact thing. I can control my entire raid without needing to tab to another character. I know people here get all flustered when I say I don't use EQBC - this is like the fourth time I have had to defend myself and explain this so I am getting pretty used to it by now. I even said it in an earlier post:

I don't use EQBC on the raids when I box, I control each character manually through isboxer - EQBC *should* give players as much control as isboxer though, I don't know since I don't use it and haven't used it before. From what I have read, both EQBC and ISboxer do the same exact thing (offer you a way to control multiple characters at once). I am still confused why people use both of them simultaneously.

I never suggested one way was better, in fact I told the OP to pick which way he felt most comfortable with, because a big part of boxing is doing what YOU feel comfortable with. I would never tell someone what to do - I am telling people what *I* do and so far some other posters have picked apart what I do because they don't do what I do and presume to tell me which way they think is better. That I consider a bit rude as I am the only person here who actually has semi proved they box 54 man raids and I am trying to offer the OP advice on how to do so from my own perspective. I say semi proved because I am even willing to admit the parses, my proof, could be easily fabricated. But that would be MONTHS of premediated planning on my part...

Regardless though, I am not offended by these actions, I am just pointing out that while I am trying to help the OP and give him ideas my actions are simultaneously being picked apart because people don't agree with them. So I am just saying this kindly. Please don't give me shit for not using EQBC and only using isboxer. I know these are MQ2 forums and I know it's weird and hard to understand someone who doesn't use EQBC. I too have found my own unique way to play the game and I cherish that just as much as you cherish EQBC.

I have done my due diligence on what EQBC can and can't do, I am willing to admit when I am wrong and like I have said in numerous posts before this, EQBC - SHOULD be able to do all Isboxer can do. But I don't know this for sure, I am sorry but I can't tell someone "YES" you can use this program and down the same raids I down with it when I do not know with 100% certainty if that is true or not. That would be me lying to that person.

I used to use ISboxer for many years and recently decided to stop as the constant crashing was driving me insane.

I'm quoting this because it's sadly so true... So annoyingly true.


Also as a P.S - my post isn't a personal attack towards anyone and I don't mean it to sound like I am mad at anyone either, my way of playing is different than probably everyone here and I knew that when I made all of my posts. The only thing I really don't like is people spreading misinformation. It's kind of a personal pet peeve of mine. So please don't say you guarantee people who box rely heavily on MQ2 as I feel kind of insulted by that - you're pretty much saying I don't exist and my method of playing isn't credible.

 

[BrianGragg]

Lurk, it's humane nature to want the way you do things to be how everyone else also does said thing. That would also extrapolate to "I" play a group with Mq and EQBC so you should also raid with such said.

I don't ever see my self raiding but I do appreciate you sharing experience and knowledge of such. I really see the limits using MQ and macros unless you have specific macro per group / char per raid which in my kind sounds like a PITA. Having to run from AE, around objects to kill specific item / mob to x % health, while avoiding death circles. Yeah no thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[LurkMcGurk]

Lurk, it's humane nature to want the way you do things to be how everyone else also does said thing. That would also extrapolate to "I" play a group with Mq and EQBC so you should also raid with such said.

I don't ever see my self raiding but I do appreciate you sharing experience and knowledge of such. I really see the limits using MQ and macros unless you have specific macro per group / char per raid which in my kind sounds like a PITA. Having to run from AE, around objects to kill specific item / mob to x % health, while avoiding death circles. Yeah no thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I understand and I am not mad at anyone or trying to suggest I am. I drew the target on my back when I said I used isboxer primarily over MQ2 on MQ2 forums, I knew that when I made the post ;P

I know my tone may have sounded negative towards MQ2 but I do love this program. I have boxed raids for years myself in Everquest before discovering MQ2 and I loved it, then once I found Mq2 i loved it more. Not having to tab screens to accept rezzes? FUCKING AMAZING DUDE. Not having to click that rez box? Ugh it's like an orgasm that change felt so good. Not having to line up all my pickzone boxes and just being able to /pickzone #? Extenteded Target windows on the TLPs????? Living without Mq2 would be just as hard as living without isboxer.


I love both programs and I don't mind sharing my knowledge of either of them. I am just very away of both of their limitations

I think you could easily script the following raids:

Xulous prime
bixie 1
east wastes
crystal caverns (i scripted it before)
west karana 2 (THis would be a REALLY hard raid to script but it would show you that you could script a harder raid)

Raids that you just can't script and if you think you can you gotta prove it to me:

Tower of Rot
King tormax RoF T1
Bixie 2 (it may sound easy to script but I've boxed raids in EQ for 5 years I know something you're not thinking about that would make it impossible)
Xorbb 3 (Won't be able to automate farm twincast clickies, =( )
CoTF - "the void"

And hands down... if you automate this raid you'd surprise the hell out of me.

Chapterhouse RoF Tier 2.

 

[etherealmist]

Get Isboxer because you will need more on-the-fly customization than MQ2 offers for switching between spell sets/debuff sets/aoe sets on multiple characters/multiple classes. Someone can argue MQ2 can offer all of this and maybe it can, I don't know how to set it up with Mq2 though and when you watch people box actual RAIDS of characters you can easily tell who uses MQ2 and who uses just isboxer. I've raided with people who just use MQ2 on both TLP and on FV and people who just use isboxer on both FV and the TLP.

The ones with Mq2 always had a sole strategy they did: Pet zerg. If they didn't do pet zerg they did melee dps. - both of which will get you NOWHERE boxing raids on live. You may be able to do up to CoTF but you're not doing anything past that.... And honestly what's the point of just doing CoTF? Shit's hard as fuck for a 5mil pay off. You're better just doing RoF or VoA. You'd need a full 54 man raid for CoTF too, trust me I know. Also unless you're in FULL TBM + group gear mana will be a MAJOR issue on CoTF raids.

Sorry, I was responding to mainly this part of your post, where you say people can't possibly do raids beyond CoTF, when I know there are people who do. Seems we both assume more than we should.

 

[Esquire]

Hit me up lil baby E.

 

[LurkMcGurk]

Edit: I feel like I can summarize it all with this short paragraph cause I really don't feel like continuing to argue about it if someone post again -

Everyone would agree 1 actual player is better than 1 bot. This is a point most people could and would universally agree on and I was trying to point out it's the same for boxers too. But when it's about 1 person playing 6 characters versus 1 guy automating 5 and playing 1 - it changes things because now peoples feelings get involved. Logic goes out the window at this point. I didn't say what I said in my posts to bother anyone or hurt anyones feelings. I only tried to give the most accurate and unbiased information I could on the subject that was asked. If that makes me the bad guy I can accept that =P