[Translation] Macros

[Postiez]

I don't see why Aion wouldn't be able to stop bots at least as well as wow does. If Aion turns out to be l2 im not gonna play.

[Elementalist]

Originally Posted by plasma06

well i never played l2, i like the drop and drag feature now you don't have too type out long skills like supper mega pownzor shadow bomb

Hopefully they increased the max # of characters in a macro line, so "supper mega pownzor shadow bomb" would actually FIT in a macro.

[chaosdruid]

The delay function has plenty of uses.

Say you're a priest and you're soloing. You've got your high damage mace equipped so you can wail away at the monster more effectively. After a little bit you get hit by a devastating critical hit super move from the mob and are now in the red. You can have a macro that does. . .

/equip mainhand "Generic Club of Healing"
/cast "Generic Heal 5"
/delay 3
/equip mainhand "Generic Club of Smashing"

And then bam, you've got a heal that's a little more healy than your standard heal. And if you know anything about timing a spell cast between mob attacks (which, by the time you learn Generic Heal 5, you should) you'll switch right back to your weapon that's actually good for hitting things after the heal because you weren't hit during the cast.

[Marchosias]

Macros are bad. Period. I hate them. I don't use them. I don't think they're necessary in the least. All they do is take the need for combat skill and replace it with skill in writing macros. I don't care if it's a macro that only uses 2 trinkets simultaneously, that is broken imo. Switching weapons is even worse... you're giving yourself an edge that you shouldn't have by increasing the amount of healing you're doing with that spell. Imo, this is broken.

Furthermore, delay timers are an absolute MUST NOT! Anyone who played early SW:G can understand this... people would sit afk in the same spot for hours on end with a macro that just spammed skills for them. You do it a place where you don't lose any life to the mob because it's that easy, but that stills gives you exp. People leveled while not playing. This is bad, and with a delay time is all too easy.

Now, if there are some anti-looping restrictions that prevent you from semi-botting like this, fine, but that's putting a lot of faith in players' lack of ingenuity. You're still playing with fire, and for the benefit (which does not exist) it's just not worth it.

I see no point in macros. None. "They let you do things more easily to gain an advantage in combat." That definitely sounds like a good thing to me... right... **** THAT. Macros are bad for games. I will never support them even with the harshest restrictions.

[Fleiva]

dude, these macros are the same as in L2 basically, no harm was done there.

[chaosdruid]

Gee, Marchosias, didn't mean to offend you like that. I'm sorry I got you all worked up like that, but I seriously doubt there's looping in the macro system because that's easily exploited. And I don't think you'll be able to xp off something that can't hurt you because most MMOs have xp cutoffs from level difference.

Besides, macros or not, you'll still be able to download a leveling bot less than a week after Korean release so it doesn't make much of a difference.

[Marchosias]

Why does everyone assume I'm upset with my posts? I'm just really opinionated... I'm perfectly calm, I assure you.

And yah, even with exp cutoffs every game I've played there have been spots at any level with mobs that gave exp that you could kill without losing any health given the rate of HP regen. This is also fixed by heals, pots, etc. Also, it's not hard to control a botting problem. Widespread macro-farming is a lot harder, and it would be VERY widespread.

However, if you read my entire previous post, that's not even my issue... I hate macros in general. They remove an element of skill from the game and allow you to a lot of things with short cuts that make balancing a lot harder than it would be without them. Macro ftl.

[chaosdruid]

Originally Posted by Marchosias

Why does everyone assume I'm upset with my posts?

Yeah, I imagined you yelling at your troops during a military parade through Berlin in the 1930s.

But I did read that bit about skill but I mean it doesn't unbalance the game. Everyone has those same shortcuts. Also you still need the strategy to use the right moves and macroing multiple abilities to one slot is just stupid in PvP.

In all honesty, if Aion is like WoW in the sense that every single action activates a 1 second universal cool-down then you can't equip swap like I said. This is just a hunch, but I think the only practical use for macros will be a pre-session buff macro where you cast a few buffs while you idly admire your own gear in town. Anyone could do it the long way which takes the exact same amount of time but slightly more effort, and it's not going to take long enough for you to scratch your nether-regions, let alone do something productive.

[[PhiberOpticks]]

If you've ever played FFXI, you'd see that macros can be an essential part of gameplay. It doesn't transform a game into a veritable botting mechanism, as you preach. Given the available macros, it would be impossible to bot. It would be careless of NCsoft to not put a cap on the size of the macro. And it takes skill to design macros. It offers the player the ability to strategize better and can kick it up a notch, especially in PvP.Honestly, I don't see where there is reason to hate macros. You simply have a different preference when it comes to play style.

[Cylicon]

Yeah, macros are a godsend. If I didn't have equipment swap macros in FFXI I would have killed myself. I hate that there aren't more lines for macroin, having too much crap to swap and such, but there are multiple macro buttons for a reason hehe. I haven't played much of L2 to familiarize myself with the macros, but for anyone that has played FFXI and L2, are they similar?

[Marchosias]

Honestly, I don't care enough to continue to argue about this. Yes, I have a different opinion of what should and shouldn't be allowed... I don't think making it so you can have chains set to one key (say, trinket for spell damage, second trinket for spell damage, skill for instant-cast, massive spell) is something that should be allowed. The example here, for those WoW players, is obviously a 3-minute mage. Macros weren't the reason they were broken, so don't claim I said that. It's an opinion, nothing more, there's point arguing.

I never said they would break the game, I said without the right restrictions it's possible. I didn't say they unbalance the game, I said they make it harder to balance (not everyone uses them, not everyone uses the same ones). I also said that wasn't what I really cared the most about. Don't reply to that part of the post, I just won't care.

[Postiez]

Originally Posted by Marchosias

I never said they would break the game, I said without the right restrictions it's possible. I didn't say they unbalance the game, I said they make it harder to balance (not everyone uses them, not everyone uses the same ones).

QFT, thats exactly the point i was trying to get across. But I don't feel that macros are 100% evil, take the focus system in wow. For those of you who don't know what that is ill give a quick explanation.

Its essentially a second target, so take for example 2v2's, you are a mage fighting a warrior pally team. you can type(or macro) /focus, typing this while targeting the pally will bring up a second target frame for the pally. Then you are free to fight the warr while watching the pally heal see his life and mana at all times without detargeting the warrior. Now say your getting the warrior low on health and your trying to finish him off but the pally is casting a heal, you can have this macro
/cast [target=focus] counterspell
That macro will, without detargeting the warrior, counterspell that pallys heal and let you finish off the warrior.

Now you can say that it can lead to imbalance due to some people using macros like that and others not, and its true, the people using macros like this will always win(given an equal skill matchup). But you also have the option to turn with A D but the people who turn with the mouse will always win. You have the option to click your hotkeys, but the people who bind them to keys will always win. I think if macros were thought about in more of a part of the game sense rather then an extension sense there wouldn't be any issue with using them.

But as I said in the beginning, i completely agree the strong need of restrictions on them. If they aren't completely on the ball with that aspect of the game it would be better left out. Blizzard has done a great job in WoW keeping what macros can do down to a minimum, if NCsoft can do the same, I don't think there will be any issues(and i still think the /delay is too much freedom).

[Marchosias]

Postiez, that to me sounds ridiculous... Unless you have a very thorough understanding of what you can and can't do with macros you're always going to be at a disadvantage. Moving and key binding are things that are very easily accessible, learning all the cans and can'ts of macros is not. What you just described is a way, using a system in the game, but one that not everyone (far, FAR from everyone, even among 70s) has even a basic understanding of, to give yourself a very significant competitive edge.

I played the game on and off since release, I only ever looked briefly at macros, I don't like them. I never knew you could do what you just described. However, now I feel that in order to keep my competitive edge with my rogue it's a macro I have to use. I'm not kidding when I say that literally as soon as I finish writing this I'm putting in a focus macro. I mean, that's not a subtle skill-based difference here (like moving with mouse or a/d), you're talking about essentially is being able to watch a target for CC while fighting someone else seamlessly. That is a BIG advantage. This is a perfect example of what I don't like about macros... Unless you know literally everything you can and can't do you're going to miss out on something that makes a very noticeable difference.

[chaosdruid]

I learned a new acronym from my friends recently and I think it applies here.

RTFM

Then you won't miss out on any strategic advantages the developers built into the game.

[Postiez]

Originally Posted by Marchosias

Postiez, that to me sounds ridiculous... Unless you have a very thorough understanding of what you can and can't do with macros you're always going to be at a disadvantage. Moving and key binding are things that are very easily accessible, learning all the cans and can'ts of macros is not. What you just described is a way, using a system in the game, but one that not everyone (far, FAR from everyone, even among 70s) has even a basic understanding of, to give yourself a very significant competitive edge.

I played the game on and off since release, I only ever looked briefly at macros, I don't like them. I never knew you could do what you just described. However, now I feel that in order to keep my competitive edge with my rogue it's a macro I have to use. I'm not kidding when I say that literally as soon as I finish writing this I'm putting in a focus macro. I mean, that's not a subtle skill-based difference here (like moving with mouse or a/d), you're talking about essentially is being able to watch a target for CC while fighting someone else seamlessly. That is a BIG advantage. This is a perfect example of what I don't like about macros... Unless you know literally everything you can and can't do you're going to miss out on something that makes a very noticeable difference.

And I think the mouse vs a/d movement is a HUGE advantage, enough so that I laugh and dance around a/d turners. To me these kind of things are the same thing, like the example with the keys, there is a place to bind more spells to different bars, thats a HUGE advantage. How is that different than focus? There are keybindings for "focus target" and "target focus" in the same keybinding menu as everything else. What would you want the game to do to let you better know what to do with macros to put it to the point that you feel it would be balanced?

Also if your interested in an extensive list of everything you can do in a macro, you can just go to the WoW website. Complete Macro Guide