Canned Macros. Is this still a thing?

chaz · June 1

Hello. And good day.

I just have a simple question.

Canned Macros. Is this still a thing, being used to pop off all your abilities all at once to basically one shot a un-suspecting player?

And, is there a way ZOS are able to detect the usage of said macros or, is it a waste of time reporting folks and victims just have to move on and eat crow?

My questions are legit, and has nothing to do with lag. But if you want to rant on about it, that's you're choice. But I would appreciate an honest response, feedback, suggestion, or if anyone fell victim to cheaters . Macros to tell a control scheme to fire off a set of abilities instantly is not exactly a hack. But why use them at all?

Thanks.

notyuu · June 1

Given that skills have a 1 second global cooldown (and light attacks have a separate 1 second gcd) using a macro, would, at most allow you to fire off the skill then cancel the animation of said skill as soon as the effect part of it went off (timing varies from skill to skill, but in some cases it's literally frame 1 of the animation) and then slap out a light attack

Incidents where attacks "happen" at the same time is intact during to lag, literally had it happen to me on the pve dude of things where I'd get hit with a moment of lag, but kept doing inputs, second the lag clears server regesterd the hits and client craos the bed in the rendering department showing a fat load of nothing

xylena_lazarow · June 1

no

Amottica · June 1

Skills are set to a GCD of ~1 second. Macros cannot override. Weaving a basic attack into a skill is the only thing that can occur in less than a GCD. Doing something to cut off the animation of a skill does not bypass the GCD.

What does happen, and I think @notyuu has noted it, is server-side lag that can make it look like a bunch of skills fired at once. That is just that the messaging from the server to a player's PC lagged and came all at once. However, the server controlled that the attacks did not actually bypass the GCD.

StaticWave · June 2

Macros are useless for ppl who know how to light attack weave.

What you're describing isn't macro, but a result of 2 phenomenon:

1) Lag causing all your abilities to suddenly register at once, even though they have been casted a few times before that. In this scenario, you would see your opponent's skill animation "freeze" mid air, then after 2-3 seconds they suddenly do a rapid sequence of animation. That's caused by lag, not macros. Here's an example of that in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBSRbGTQY-c

You can see that Fengrush is stuck in Crit Rush animation due to server lag, but he's still able to cast normal abilities. After a few seconds, all of those abilities register and his opponent dies.

2) Some abilities deal damage after a delayed amount of time. Curse is an example of this, as it only does damage after 3.5 seconds. Good players can combo other skills right when Curse goes off and create a big spike in burst damage to kill people, creating the illusion that they're using macros.

CameraBeardThePirate · June 2

StaticWave wrote: »

Macros are useless for ppl who know how to light attack weave.

What you're describing isn't macro, but a result of 2 phenomenon:

1) Lag causing all your abilities to suddenly register at once, even though they have been casted a few times before that. In this scenario, you would see your opponent's skill animation "freeze" mid air, then after 2-3 seconds they suddenly do a rapid sequence of animation. That's caused by lag, not macros. Here's an example of that in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBSRbGTQY-c

You can see that Fengrush is stuck in Crit Rush animation due to server lag, but he's still able to cast normal abilities. After a few seconds, all of those abilities register and his opponent dies.

2) Some abilities deal damage after a delayed amount of time. Curse is an example of this, as it only does damage after 3.5 seconds. Good players can combo other skills right when Curse goes off and create a big spike in burst damage to kill people, creating the illusion that they're using macros.

Worth noting certain abilities do this more often than others.

For example, medium weaving Venom Skull/Ricochet Skull can rarely bug out and cause the skill to hang until your next cast and lob 2 skulls at once.

chaz · June 2

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

chaz · June 2

No apparent lag :-)

Jierdanit · June 2

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

notyuu · June 2

chaz wrote: »

No apparent lag :-)

the lag in the case of this happens on the attackers end, not the targets, the second it clears up everything slaps though.

SeaGtGruff · June 2

Jierdanit wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

Actually, I don't see anything in that screenshot which indicates that it all took place within "less than an actual second." The damage on the recent damage screen doesn't show timestamps, and the list isn't limited to damage that occurred within the last second; "recent" could mean several seconds ago-- the list just shows the five most recent types and sources of damage received. At least, that's my understanding. Am I mistaken about that? (Asking for confirmation or correction as appropriate.)

notyuu · June 2

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

Actually, I don't see anything in that screenshot which indicates that it all took place within "less than an actual second." The damage on the recent damage screen doesn't show timestamps, and the list isn't limited to damage that occurred within the last second; "recent" could mean several seconds ago-- the list just shows the five most recent types and sources of damage received. At least, that's my understanding. Am I mistaken about that? (Asking for confirmation or correction as appropriate.)

The damaged in the death recap lists the 5 most recent damages you took, yes, but if an attack hits more than once from the same source then it has a little number next to it to indicate how many times it hit

Also the "cut-off" point for a damage to show up in the recap is about 60 seconds i.e. if you got shot for 1 damage then 59 seconds later you got shot for 999k damage, recap would show both hits

NoSoup · June 2

notyuu wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

Actually, I don't see anything in that screenshot which indicates that it all took place within "less than an actual second." The damage on the recent damage screen doesn't show timestamps, and the list isn't limited to damage that occurred within the last second; "recent" could mean several seconds ago-- the list just shows the five most recent types and sources of damage received. At least, that's my understanding. Am I mistaken about that? (Asking for confirmation or correction as appropriate.)

The damaged in the death recap lists the 5 most recent damages you took, yes, but if an attack hits more than once from the same source then it has a little number next to it to indicate how many times it hit

Also the "cut-off" point for a damage to show up in the recap is about 60 seconds i.e. if you got shot for 1 damage then 59 seconds later you got shot for 999k damage, recap would show both hits

As someone else pointed out, 3 of the 5 damage sources are "procs". The first two are a simple case of using Silver Bolts to animation cancel a Heavy Attack. 100% legit to fit a single target with those 2 abilities at the same time, the procs then proc.

Jierdanit · June 3

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Jierdanit wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

Actually, I don't see anything in that screenshot which indicates that it all took place within "less than an actual second." The damage on the recent damage screen doesn't show timestamps, and the list isn't limited to damage that occurred within the last second; "recent" could mean several seconds ago-- the list just shows the five most recent types and sources of damage received. At least, that's my understanding. Am I mistaken about that? (Asking for confirmation or correction as appropriate.)

You are correct.

Nothing in a death recap tells you when you get hit by those skills.
For that you would need an addon like combat metrics.

opethmaniac · June 3

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

Your recap is a good example for an absolute legit killer combo, which hits you all within a single GCD:

- Heavy bow attack has a little delay until it hits you (because it will fly to you)
- Silver bolts has instant cast and hit time (it will be cast after ~0.8 seconds after the heavy attack and will hit you in the same moment because of the short flying time of the heavy attack)
- Proccs from Tarnished, Anthelmirs -> no special cast (these two sets are META). Anthelmir will proc after the heavy attack and Tarnished after crit damage (if this was a Nightblade-gank, 100% guaranteed)
- Sundered status effect

This is a META gank combo, especially for Bowblades. In your example does not even lag come into account.

Just_Attivi · June 3

Lol Chaz, im 99% sure this was me that ganked you. I've had a lot of 'cheater' claims the past few days lol.

What people saying here is correct:
The combo is just a heavy attack from stealth ( with cloak to 100% crit chance)
-This procs: Heavy attack, Oblivion Glyph, Tarnished (and Sundered) and Anthelmirs Construct (which has a significant delay, hence it hitting last)
Followed by Silver Bolt or Merciless Resolve ( in this case, Silver Bolt)

if you were in Melee range, I can clean up with a Dawnbreaker ( the .4 channel time gets covered pretty well by the Range delay of heavy bow attack, so it lands pretty close within the same GCD)

On a Dummy Parse, the damage window (from combat initiating to damage dealing ending of the above combo with a dawnbreaker, not including dawnbreakers DOT portion) averaged 1.2 seconds

a streamer felt this wrath and unintentionally got a great angle of it all going off, that might better let you see it in play, if youd like I can dig it up (not my POV, I dont record anything, but they had turned their camera behind them as I was stealthed going into the gank so they got to see it play out).

I will note though: the servers have been very laggy lately, even with a fine ping there has been skill delays, people teleporting all over, etc. this has worked both for and against me at times, and it is entirely possible you got some of that in your play too without noticing. But even without lag, this is just understanding the math behind skill timing/travel times of projectiles and making it work.

Sluggy · June 6

Not only is it not *still* a thing, it never *was* a thing. I won't deny there has been (and still is) some forms of cheating but this ain't it.

chaz · August 9

Jierdanit wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

I certainly appreciate the feed back. And the video. In that video shows playing popping off a few abilities before the enemy player died. In my case, fully buffed, mounted, rappids, and all you see is a blue dot hit you from the side and instant death.

Looking at its recap

which is impossible as all that happened less than an actual second. and I had walls and trees as cover.

All that can absolutely hit you within 1 second.

It's just heavy attack (which procs Anthelmir) into Silver Bolts.
From cloak you get a guaranteed crit on the first hit so you always proc Tarnished.
Sundered is just a part of the Tarnished proc.

Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.

When you say "Anyone with a decent understanding of how the game works could tell you that that recap is perfectly fine.", it wasn't about the recap.

I wasn't recording at the time because I was just stealth questing.

What was this all about is from the left side a Blue glowy ball of light came out of no where, struck me, and insta killed me in one shot. I never seen anything like it before or since.

If what this person said:

notyuu wrote: »

chaz wrote: »

No apparent lag :-)

the lag in the case of this happens on the attackers end, not the targets, the second it clears up everything slaps though.

That the lag was on the attackers end, and once lag resolved, it pushed every thing at me all at once, is a more likely explanation than my theory of cheating with canned micros to trigger actions all at once.

I guess at this point, I will have to be satisfied with that.

Thank you, everyone.

Alchimiste1 · August 10

Someone has been watching too many heyjensen videos

bladenick · August 10

It a normal combo, the normal attack animation could cancel by skill, just heavy attack, then press Silver bolt to cancel the animal of heavy attack after it hit opponent, need some timing control, is not difficult to do this.

the horrible part of this damage recep, it cheapest one shot, even get more strong in next U43 with Undeath nerfed... then it game of Range Proc Ganker vs Range Proc ganker, key to win is initial ,

xFocused · August 13

I wouldn't say it's impossible, there's always going to be someone to figure how to sneak exploits, macros, cheats, etc into any video game, including this one. I'm not going to drop links here obviously but it took me less than 2 minutes to google and find ESO exploits for all platforms, lol.

MEBengalsFan2001 · August 15

Amottica wrote: »

Skills are set to a GCD of ~1 second. Macros cannot override. Weaving a basic attack into a skill is the only thing that can occur in less than a GCD. Doing something to cut off the animation of a skill does not bypass the GCD.

What does happen, and I think @notyuu has noted it, is server-side lag that can make it look like a bunch of skills fired at once. That is just that the messaging from the server to a player's PC lagged and came all at once. However, the server controlled that the attacks did not actually bypass the GCD.

It’s still a thing where players are using Marco to use skill, light attacks and skill.It makes it so they can get 3 damage ticks off in one second. Add to that the damage from proc set and tada instant death. The issue I see is how much of a heavy hitter proc sets are.

I was on my tanky build w blocking with 40k+ resistance and 25% damage reduction and tarnished hit me for 7k damage with a concealed weapon of 12k. I see this regularly with NB. Doesn’t matter my gear, resistance, blocking, not blocking etc…. Sorc I tend to see 5-12k frag and I tend to run into sorc that are able to get the quick and powerful frag 5x in a row. Maybe they are using ward in between their attacks.

What I don’t get is how players are pulling other players through walls, down from the upper portion of the keep, and getting away with triple pulls, three stuns, multiple roots, etc… when the benefit of immovable pot is active and I using my warden bird of prey and my character act like they have zero immunity. Especially with ball groups. Game definitely needs to be fixed with regards to cc effects and immunity.

On my Templar I have tried variety of builds and even my strongest skill dark flare which takes a year to shoot off still does less damage than concealed weapon or frag. Devs please wake up and fix this game.

Alchimiste1 · August 15

MEBengalsFan2001 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Skills are set to a GCD of ~1 second. Macros cannot override. Weaving a basic attack into a skill is the only thing that can occur in less than a GCD. Doing something to cut off the animation of a skill does not bypass the GCD.

What does happen, and I think @notyuu has noted it, is server-side lag that can make it look like a bunch of skills fired at once. That is just that the messaging from the server to a player's PC lagged and came all at once. However, the server controlled that the attacks did not actually bypass the GCD.

It’s still a thing where players are using Marco to use skill, light attacks and skill.It makes it so they can get 3 damage ticks off in one second. Add to that the damage from proc set and tada instant death. The issue I see is how much of a heavy hitter proc sets are.

I was on my tanky build w blocking with 40k+ resistance and 25% damage reduction and tarnished hit me for 7k damage with a concealed weapon of 12k. I see this regularly with NB. Doesn’t matter my gear, resistance, blocking, not blocking etc…. Sorc I tend to see 5-12k frag and I tend to run into sorc that are able to get the quick and powerful frag 5x in a row. Maybe they are using ward in between their attacks.

What I don’t get is how players are pulling other players through walls, down from the upper portion of the keep, and getting away with triple pulls, three stuns, multiple roots, etc… when the benefit of immovable pot is active and I using my warden bird of prey and my character act like they have zero immunity. Especially with ball groups. Game definitely needs to be fixed with regards to cc effects and immunity.

On my Templar I have tried variety of builds and even my strongest skill dark flare which takes a year to shoot off still does less damage than concealed weapon or frag. Devs please wake up and fix this game.

Are you saying a macro is going to override the gcd in such a way to get more attacks off in the same time frame that is otherwise unable to be done without macros ?

I really doubt that.

xylena_lazarow · August 15

Poor game performance can make certain events look like a cheat or a hack. It's not. Sorry. You got outplayed, or just got unlucky with performance. Actual cheating is rare and blatantly obvious, like flying or meteor spam.

There's no need for the rest of us to engage cheat complaints in good faith when the overwhelming majority of such comments just want validation that they're victims and didn't actually lose at an elf game.