Macroing

Never been reported that would be a first..actually I'm very well liked, I help every new person I come across get enjoyment from the game. It's just that different people have different outlooks on things. My problem is when people say that macro's are chaeating when the cheaters are those who knowling repeat a broken quest for 55mil .. or someone who sets up a macro to fireball everything that walks by.. that is a macro problem.. not someone who spends xp they earned.. no argument you can come up will convince me otherwise..

 

Oh and as for the I'm perma flagged come at me.. that is no sarcasm that is fact son.. come give me your bodyparts plus the orcales discretion..

 

Like it or not, if I catch someone macroing after the final wipe, I am going to report them. It is actually strange because I have never been compelled to report a person in game (except gold sellers), but in this case the stakes are the game itself which I am highly dedicated to. If someone has to cheat, then they better do it in SPO mode.

I am not going to PvP a cheater. I am not going to do anything at all with a cheater. That is beyond stupid.

 

how is it a cheat?

 

@Chris @DarkStarr @RichardGarriott get some clarification on this, as you well see this is splitting a community..

 

+1

 

I will solve this for all of you...

Do what the game allows and be the best at it.

 

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but how is Mordakai "cheating" or even getting ahead if he's only spending the xp he earned and not macroing to farm xp? He gains nothing you haven't gain while you level your skills instantly while killing. He's not gaining anything while you sleep he's just allocating the xp how he wants specifically, he's not earning more per hour. In fact his way would actually take longer per hour to level a character, obviously if he's macroing the allocation while he sleeps it's a wash. I completely understand not wanting to have him macroing skills to farm xp, but why is it an issue to spend xp he's earned. It's not like he can gain levels all night, it would run his xp to 0 and he gains nothing extra. If you walk to a river and drink 1 cup of water on the spot while he puts it in a bottle and uses a macro to drink his later, at the end of the day you both have had 1 cup of water each. His bottle doesn't magically produce 2 cups because he macros to drink it later, he's just drawn out the process. Are people upset because he can spend the xp on skills he didn't use while earning the xp? I mean while you get stronger each use and technically can farm easier every slight statistical increase you get instantly on the spot, he has to farm with active skill advancement turned off, which makes his avatar stuck at the same power level not advancing the entire time he farms the xp, making the farming harder than someone who is getting stronger every second during it...

 

Out of respect, this discussion is not about Mordakai or any one person. In fact, Mordakai and I had a private and very civil discussion on the matter.

 

That is not true. People are creatures of habit. Those who use a fixed deck are going to be difficult at times to distinguish from macro users, and they will run the risk of false positives in the middle of combat. That is not a good time to have a CAPTCHA prompt interrupt you.

 

DISCLAIMER

OK, first a disclaimer. I do not own a gustball, nor have I used macros in R26 or R27 (although I have used them previously).
My current adventurer XP is 2,724,124. (Probably that high because I never go above level 80, and prefer difficult areas. The only skills I have turned off are the two skills at level 80.)
I raised every point of that through genuine adventuring. Interestingly, if I used a gustball and/or macros, that figure would be much, much lower.

Proof of XP (and notice the lack of GMs):



HOWEVER

Having said that, I have absolutely no problem with people using macros and/or gustballs to spend XP that they have earned adventuring. I don't see the problem, provided they do it in single player so as not to frighten the horses or offend those with a delicate constitution. It is their XP, and they earned it legitimately. In fact if they have no interest in going above level 80 (I know I don't), that may well be the only way to allocate it all. (Short of switching to single skull areas to reduce XP gain, which is no more challenging than hitting a gustball.)

 

I think we're smart enough to make it work.

 

Baron I'm going to choke the Captcha right out of you when I catch you, you do understand this right? (still love ya)

 

I'm asking the devs to give me the tools (titles for macro-ers) to be able to choose who I play with and interact with. Also, I'd rather purchase non-macro'd goods. (You can see easy parallels in real.) It's a question of fun for me... not fun for me to waste time in a game with macro'd skills and goods, not fun for me to macro. I play games to have fun. (if you need a definition, read Ralph Koster on this matter)

It's the way I want to play the game and so like all the macro-er's are claiming, should be respected. If the devs make macro-ing possible (or fail to address it sufficiently) they should make it possible for the rest of us to choose how we play too. It's a question of fun - in this situation, give everyone the tools to have the fun they choose.

 

@Vyrin, I'd be interested to know how exactly you define "macro-ing" and "macro-er"? Because the way you describe it sounds like the epitome of evil.

For example I personally use some things that I call macros (in the computer science sense), mainly to circumvent some RSI-causing aspects of the game that the developers have so far not addressed. A case in point, for example, in here. It's a dev+ link so might not work for all, but the gist of it is that forcing a user to chronically press down some key is a surefire way to cause physical damage sooner or later (for folks prone to RSI, that would be much sooner). So the only way to circumvent this is by the use of a "macro" -- in my case, pressing a mouse back/forth side button presses a key mapped to mouselook toggle + sends a "key-down" event to an appropriate key. Pressing it twice in a row toggles the mouselook off and sends a corresponding "key-up" event. In practice: I click the mouse side button "back" once and I go backwards with mouselook. I click "back" a second time and I stop and get my cursor back. This way I can move without needing to keep pressing down anything chronically, which is the worst RSI-inducer in the game. Crafting is another example - make 200 ingots from materials I gathered (quite legitimately I might add) -- that's around 200*2/70% = 570 clicks on average, in a repeating fixed doubleclick-click-doubleclick-click-pattern. I have enough mouse skills to repeat such patterns without even looking at the screen, so I could for example easily read a book or a document or watch a movie while crafting like a manic automaton, except that my hand would surely be sore after such an exercise - do that repeatedly and the result would likely be RSI. So I will typically activate a keyboard macro to perform this, to ease strain on my hand. It does not necessarily mean being AFK, not at all, just not repeating hand motions that would in any sane implementation be completely superfluous: The correct way would be to set the amount one wants to craft directly in the game interface, press "craft" once and wait for completion (or until something else happens, like some ingredient runs out, or a tool breaks). The current implementation shows blatant ignorance about ergonomic aspects of gameplay.

So this makes me a "macro-er" and therefore apparently evil -- how exactly? Would you care to elaborate?

 

Everyone single person in this thread has already cheated. We have a huge head start over those starting later than us. Not only our pledge items, but our social contacts, knowledge of the environment, knowledge of the game, owning POTs, and quite a few other major advantages equates to CHEATING and/or Pay to Win.

So while I most definitely understand the nature of the concern and have a great deal of respect for everyone in this thread, get off your HIGH HORSES. The XP pools mostly prevents serious macroing. Scripting can be done to automate the entire leveling process and go completely undetected. So long as the economy isn't destroyed, I personally don't give a damn if someone is GM in everything within a week.

Make the game fun is my concern. If someone wants to "cheat" their way out of the fun involved with leveling, more power to them.

Something about throwing the first stone comes to mind.

 

For those who think the game is about adventure, and reward for participation in that adventure, it is really easy to feel disappointed or even disgusted seeing egregious macroing. This is why I opposed the UO style skill based system in the first place. The skill based system is engaging. I enjoy that part of it. But it is also prone to macroing. And now, here we are far down that road.

But my feeling is that this is about the game, not the gamers. The game design and system is what enables this. Gamers will use the systems presented to them, and reporting someone for simply using the system as designed will not fix anything. Fixing the design is the answer. At this point, fixing the design means applying smarter detection and controls as presented in the OP.

The conspiracy theorist part of me also wonders if this macroing phenomena is an intended feature to attract a certain type of UO gamer to SOTA.

 

FWIW, I started a separate thread to discuss some of those design aspects, here.

 

The concept you all have that Gust balls and None Viable targets are what is going to bite you all in the hinny. I know you all don't think it is a big deal but it is. There is no reason anyone shold gain any skill on a gust ball if they skil the are using is already above 50. I say 20 but ill give them 50 as a buffer. And if it isn't an issue then why not just cap all skill gains on Non Viable Targets, (Targets that cannot fight back) (and do not give me the excuse I will just attack another player) Dummies or Gust balls at 20 (ok 50) and see what happens. After all it isn't a big deal so test it out.

Until you all prove that it can be handled it is a big deal, as the numbers of players who have spoken are showing you.

And tweaking how much people gain of skill use, I am sorry, is not the answer. You explanation alone says that I can cast EQ on a gust ball after your "tweaks" and it will gain faster because it is a harder skill?????

The problem is Exp will be gained - not used - and then spent on no viable targets. I know , I KNOW, you are working on a way to mitigate this - - but the ability to not lock all your skills I do not see working. I have already thought of ways to circumvent that idea, but we will see.