Macroing

@Chris

Yesterday, I'm walking through a control point and I see someone with a Daemon. It's the first time I've ever seen a Daemon in-game so I stop to take a look at it. (It looked very cool, but I found myself saying "You look bigger on TV.")

Anyway, the owner of the Daemon wasn't concerned with it because apparently there's no need to control them yet, so the Daemon was just standing there endlessly looking cool. The player was casting all sorts of defensive magic and skills on himself over and over again, and occasionally recasting the Daemon spell. I watched this for about 10 minutes and realized that because I was not macroing I was never going to be able to compete with this guy or most of the population that will inevitably do this to keep up with the macroing joneses.

One of the major reasons I only played a few weeks of UO when it originally came out was because of macroing. It was so rampant I found myself surrounded by a world of people that weren't really there. Instead, they were off at work or spending time with their families while their characters were standing around somewhere repeating the same actions over and over again. I can still remember seeing a long line of characters "hiding" in the bushes. It was funny, but it was also very frustrating because to me that's cheating and its only real value is that it puts you ahead of anyone else that's not doing that.

So I've put some thought into this and I know of a sure fire way to stop it. In fact, I guarantee this works and I beg the developers to use it as a preventative measure against macroing.

CAPTCHA

Imagine if after the same series of macros were performed twice a message would appear asking the player if they were human or not, and requiring confirmation of that? If the confirmation fails, the player is kicked off. If the same player is a repeat offender, it's a warning. If the same player is caught multiple times they're automatically banned. End of problem.

Now I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that the reason people are macroing is because it's "not fun" to use all these skills and players just want to be good at what they're doing so they can be competitive. I think that's the reality and I think that's a fair complaint. However, we should all be on the same playing field, and no one should get an advantage from leveling up their skills while they're sleeping.

I know that there's an argument that players are only hurting themselves by attacking gust balls or macroing out in the middle of no where, but that's obviously not a practical concern here. Because at the end of the day it may be more efficient not to macro, but it's not as much fun, and that's what matters because this is a game.

 

But ask yourself, who are you to control how someone spends the XP they earn.. If you are stating that the guy was afk casting fire ball on everything that walked by.. yes that is an issue.. If you are saying that he had all his skills turned off for 3 days straight and gained a pool of 5 million xp and he is now burning that xp ( which isn't being replenished only used because he is not gaining only losing) I cant agree with your argument here.. as I too am guilty of this... I build up a pool and then decided exactly where I want that buik to go.. If I decide to go make dinner and watch a movie, that is my right. I earned the xp. Although I do it in the privacy of my own home.. but still it is my xp to burn how I see fit.. I earned it..I may as well say that you can only earn and burn 20k a day.. because we need to keep it fair.

 

I too, train this way sometimes.. no harm, no foul.. except I DO make sure to do it in SPO mode.

 

I'm someone that wants the game to be fair. I don't believe it's part of the game design that you guys are doing this. In fact, I believe @Chris has said that he intended for people NOT to do this.

 

in response to captcha:

pls no, ty.

false positives and other annoying things would happen

on a side note, i plan on using macros for playing songs(playlists) in game, so i hope i will be able to do that

 

This would be difficult to limit for non-combat skills. However, an easy fix for combat skills is to not have them consume XP or improve unless a hostile creature has some amount of agro on you. This means casting spells on your pet/gustball/etc have no effect on your skills, since you don't get better if you are not challenged. They only improve when you are actually threatened.

Sure, folks will end up going to low tier scenes, agroing a wolf and then macroing, but at least it isn't a free ride and they could *possibly* die doing it. Not sure how to go about limiting non-combat skills, or if its even worth trying.

 

CAPTCHA works for all use cases. Which is why if the devs even hinted they were interested in doing this, players would come out of the woodwork to say that it wouldn't work.

I believe the reason people hated the card deck system being random was (mostly) due to the fact that it made it harder to macro, now that's changed and it's very easy to macro. MMO's have a culture of macroing that should not be supported by this game.

 

CAPTCHA sucks. For all uses. So no, find another way.

 

HA!

If you're not macroing you wouldn't have to worry about it. They could turn down the thresholds so that it's never seen by 98% of the player base. You'd only see if you were performing the same actions over and over again. There really isn't another way. What's going to happen is that you'll have two kinds of players, those that macro and those that don't.

 

At no point do I want the game popping up a captcha, especially if I'm engaged in fighting something. Also, I see no harm in using up my accumulated pooled experience points (which will largely go away with the 4x multiplier). Also, you need to stop worrying so much about what other players are doing.

 

If the threshold is that low, then its easy to bypass for most macro programs. Which defeats the use of CAPTCHA to begin with. Even then, CAPTCHA has been notoriously easy to defeat, in both web applications and other games that have tried it.

Or, you can find a way to not make macroing beneficial. I even offered a suggestion. CAPTCHA doesnt work.

 

MMO culture. le sigh

 

Look, I've played a ton of MMOs, and seen tons of different methods for combating macroing. The only way its ever worked is if macroing provides zero benefit you can't get without playing.

I'm not trying to protect macroers. I hate people that use macro programs to cheat. I'm just saying, the *one* suggestion you are pushing won't work. Its been tried. Its failed. Trying it here will likely fail too. So why not look for something that actually works?

 

I just see a big problem with a single pool of XP that you can then train up certain skills. If the game is use-based, then why is there a need for XP at all? Just a throw away rant... sorry.

 

I wasn't aware this has been tried before, where was that?

 

YES, exactly. Why are there experience points in this system? Just so people can get something for questing? Ya know what would be great (read better) for completing a quest? If an NPC would help you train up your skills.

 

I still don't understand the true problem. Either you have XP to burn or you don't.. how you do it is no concern of anyone but yourself. Is it because you wander by someone say hi, and don't get a response? They may feel like not talking.. Is it game breaking that they are using the skill advancement system that is in place? I need xp to raise skills.. I go farm xp.. I burn it raising skills.. I just raise my skills using my own personal micromanagement system.. Does that make your way better, to the point you can justifying telling me my way is wrong? It falls back to play your game that you paid for like you want to, and ill play how I want to. I am by no means getting any and I repeat ANY unfair advantage by macroing. I am utilizing my gained xp the same way you are.. putting it into skills..

 

Stop dictating what and how people should play this game.. bottom line. You are no more important than the next guy. So you have no right to say how ANYONE should play. If we want to have a "Fun" game, let people play it how t hey want.

 

The problem is that macroing is not supposed to be better for character advancement but it is. It's better because MOST players don't have endless amounts of time to just grind their mind away. So when people sleep, go to work, be a responsible member of society, and generally do something other than SOTA 24 hours a day, there's supposed to be DOWN TIME. The game functions off of that premise. For people that macro during their downtime, they're getting ahead of the people that don't.

So if you're going to say that people should just macro during their downtime. That's true. Or we could make a game where that's not possible (or as Browncoat Jayson suggested, it's not going to get you anywhere) and that would be a lot better.

 

I'm just giving feedback. I'm not saying "Mordakai, play the game how I think you should play."

The developers have said multiple times that the game is not designed to encourage macroing. If you have a problem with that, take it up with them.