Macroing

Yeah, so where's my in-game macro tools at devs?

 

The very idea of trying to prevent macroing by some explicit mechanism reminds me of the various "War on X" campaigns in the US. It is futile and counterproductive because it is not addressing the root cause -- which in this case is that certain aspects of gameplay are based on mindless and mechanized repetition. In most such cases the only remedy that actually works is to make the gameplay more interesting, meaningful and lifelike.

If concerning some aspects this would not be possible, I would rather embrace certain legitimized level of macroing than implementing additional mechanisms to enforce mechanisms based on questionable design. For example many RSI prone folks actually need certain level of macroing to be able to play at all.

 

I think the overlying issue here is the system itself, as others have already stated. The fact that when you earn XP it goes into a pool that a person can then later control which skills it goes into training is THE problem. The system should be - like Greymouser2 said - you only skill up the skills you actually use (as you are using them).

Why not make it so that you only get good at the things you use the most in combat (or gathering/crafting)? It would make people choose which skills/spells they use more carefully so they get good/great at what they want to by using them more often. Letting someone grind xp on easy mobs, then use that xp to get better at something they aren't using in combat is not really a "use-base" system IMO. It favors those who can grind xp and then set up a macro to customize their strengths. Skills and spells should improve as you use them. There should be no turn on/off training option. If you use it, you improve it. Period.

Having said all of that, I don't macro and feel that I play enough to stay in the ball park of those that do, even with the system as it is now. I will never be at their level, but I value my accomplishments based on my merits and to me that is important. I would be in favor of a method to disrupt a macro bot, BUT, I would not be in favor of a CAPTCHA popup that interrupts my game play.

Let's examine skilling up in a crafting trade. The repetitive nature of this game is already a PITA and to get better at a crafting profession all you do is keep clicking the same series of buttons with a mouse over and over and over until your hand gets tired or you fall asleep with boredom. Now I guess you can consider me getting better at crafting this way because my muscle memory allows me to get faster and more accurate at clicking those same few spots over and over. But I digress. This is how I skill up that skill by repetitive mouse clicks in a looping pattern. Are you saying that if I do the same pattern a few times in a row I should now have to stop that long drawn out process to answer a CAPTCHA question? There is no way the game can determine if I'm manually repeating those clicks or if there is a macro handling it unless it looked for exact mouse positions and not just repeated button presses. Can this be done? If so, then OK, maybe because I wouldn't be accurate enough on my mouse clicks to trigger the question. So unless the bot checker is looking exact mouse pointer positions on clicks, I don't need another hurdle to break up the monotony of crafting as it is now.

 

You want to stop macros, lets reference UO. Meditation skill the higher the skill the more mana you needed to be missing to level it. Swords skill, the higher you wanted it, the harder the mob had to be you were fighting. Magery, the higher tier the spell had to be the higher your skill got.. Repetitive use of low level should not increase higher level skills.. lets use Healing touch for instance, you can raise healing power which is 3 tiers lower.. by casting this. If you want to stop it then prevent it from being a benefit. Until then some of us continue to Pool the exp up to large amounts. ( because the system levels you faster the larger your pool is) and then micromange it that way. Or we can just wait till final wipe where there is no xp bonus then there wont be a way to macro right? (unless I choose not to level any skills and just mindlessly kill for a week to build up my pool, then back to the original argument. I farmed all this xp shouldn't I be able to spend it how I want?)

 

A big question would still remain: what constitutes "actually using" a skill? Referring to my own little example, should a half-hearted quick arrow toss against a low level critter count as much as a fully charged, well planned bow shot against a high level creature? In the current system they are one and the same. And that to my own mind is the biggest issue.

In short, no it can not be done. Or perhaps it could in principle, but it would involve such a low (OS) level of monitoring/control that it would become illegal. Here and here are couple of quick interviews that illustrate the problem on level way more advanced than the MMORPG world is generally used to.

I would like to add; this is a rather delicate issue because many of the central concepts are not well defined. I mean, for example, actual hacks and simple macroing are very different things, they should never get mixed up, but they often do because of lazy definitions. Macros should never be automatically associated in any way with "hacks", "exploits" or "cheating" because they also have quite legitimate uses.

 

To fix the XP side (since we are stuck), remove the ability to lock all skills. This is what @Chris meant (I think) about macroing harming the higher level skills. If you are not allowed to build up 5M XPs in your pool, then macro will not help you at higher levels because of the greater influx of XP to the skill use (being percentage based on total pool size).
So stop the UI skill micro management, end many macro benefits.

 

Ends all issues with macros and skill gain

++++

 

Ive said it before ,,, make Macroing a crime .... If the system see's it your a Criminal to yourself and everyone around you.... You are now PVP flagged . Good luck when your' hunted..... and yes They could Tag the body/person with the crime ...... John Doh!!! was or is wanted for Crimes against s His Majesty's laws turn his head into a guard for payment......

 

Macroing is the way of Chaos & Truth, There is no crime in that.

 

I just don't understand why there there'd anything wrong with desire to micromanage one's skills. Neither is micromanaging really needed to advance in one's skills - no one is forcing anyone to do it. It's a form of playstyle and there are also good RP justifications for it (should one happen to find such things important).

Removing the ability to lock skills would probably do the trick (of making macros mostly irrelevant) but also (re-)open other cans of worms, for example in the form of endless decay-related complaints (and then, as a direct consequence: "what's the use of decay anyway?" --> "why can't we have the whole system just like it was in UO?" and so on ), so in this case the cure might very well be much worse than the disease.

I'm kind of baffled as to what exactly is the problem here. Micromanaging the skills is a sin? Building a large XP pool is a sin? What's next - perhaps using an ergonomic, high DPI multibutton mouse is a sin? Because unfair advantage and all? One still needs to build the XP pool to make use of macroing, and to my knowledge there is no workaround for that.

Making the game reward true skilled gameplay is the only solution I know of, that will make macroing irrelevant without introducing a host of other problems.

 

CAPTCHA?

No. Hells No. $deity NO!

 

I agree with the point about macroing in the opening post.

Philosophically, I would support some control on that. I think a good game design should limit that type of character advancement. Is the game so unfun that the game has to lead us to macro to enjoy it? If so, lets fix that. Otherwise, from one perspective, if the intent is to macro-leveling, then also let us buy a high-level character in the store outright and save us the hassle of macroing. That would help SOTA with funds better.

Practically, I don't much care about it any more though. I think the concept of "competitive" is an illusion except for the ephemeral short term. Somehow the goal in MMOs has been to level faster, get stuff faster, and compete for some perceived end game faster. But I have seen plenty of people (including me) do that, only to find no great end game and be burned out. I can see risk of that in SOTA which lacks a defined end game.

Those that want to get to that end game and compete eventually will. I'm just not sure the competition is about the speed of getting there. There is something to be said for old school adventure.

 

I know the OP was about skills and xp, but who cares about macroing skills/xp, its the gold macroing that's the big problem.

Beable to stop that kind of macroing, and you can turn it towards combat macroing, because ffs I don't want to see this game go down that path. Where the economy is utterly watered down due to the fact everyone has 7 bot accounts macro farming 24/7.

One way to stop this is the mini games for gathering/crafting. So that it is a random challenge and thus cant be macro'ed.

AAAAAnd just make gustballs only able to have gust cast on them, hey what an idea...

 

Gustball Mimics for the win.

 

Mimic gustballs, awesome. And they will help you with skills if you feed them gold and mats, lots of gold and mats, progressively increasing gold and mats.... bwhaa, bwhaa...

 

I am with the Baron on this. It is just poor form to macro or AFK skill. Perhaps the main problem is not the players that take advantage of the game's exploits (yes this is an exploit); the real problem is the game allows it and encourages it with the skill model.

That said, I played the Black Desert beta and that game requires no macro's because it just does it for you. You can endlessly skill up and farm with the game minimized as it goes into auto-pilot. I was profoundly disgusted at the hundreds of players auto-fishing. Sadly, that is what that game wants its players to do. I hope this will not become that game.

 

You are about 10 releases late with this, I have been arguing against this and how it can be used forever.

I was told over and OVER do not worry about it they are working on ways so that this cannot happen.

The Gust Ball was, and still is, one of my largest complaints, but again I have been told leave it.

Now you are complaining about something they can do NOTHING about since there are so many different ways to run macros. The easiest are the simple key boards macros like Logitech G13 and Mouse macros that can themselves run key strokes, actions, and have delays and complex sting of clicks.

These CANNOT be countered. All they can do is counter if the person is unattended, and if they catch them.

As I have said over and OVER what should happen is that training skills on non viable targets, like gust balls, targets, dummies, or even yourself (for healing) should NOT work over level 20.

At level 20 any and all skills should require direct action targets or damage received from outside influences.

Since they don't have a concern about it then all you are doing by making more posts like this, like I have done at least 20 times. is get what I got.

This game is being setup so macroers and botters are going to have a field day. And I have been told again don't worry they are worki

Do not worry about it skills and training wont work like we think.

 

Obviously some players feel like it is not cheating because it becomes pointless when the experience runs out. Assuming the skill system will not change, the solution may be to just give everyone the ability to put the experience points where they want. If people are going the macro, it defeats the system anyway.

 

Hmm...skilling with the help of macros takes away the fun of 'playing a game' in my opinion.

 

Brilliant!