Q: Are any macros acceptable?

Cpt_Teemo

either Software or Hardware related ? Cause I thought they were basically the same thing cause they both do the same thing, if you click left button it cancels light attack and uses a spell as well?

Ackwalan

A single button push should only perform one action. If it does more then one action, it is cheating.

Cpt_Teemo

ah ok someone told me it was ok for gaming mouses and since it was hardware it was safe, but I didn't believe it

Ackwalan

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

ah ok someone told me it was ok for gaming mouses and since it was hardware it was safe, but I didn't believe it

There will always be those that rationalize cheating. They will look for whatever loophole or some vague post a DEV made to make a claim.

driosketch

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

ah ok someone told me it was ok for gaming mouses and since it was hardware it was safe, but I didn't believe it

This sounds more like they were talking about the chances of getting caught rather than adhering to the TOS.

Drummerx04

Macros are one of those things that I feel most people don't understand. All they can do is send button sequences with optional delays or basically as fast as possible. If the game can't process those control inputs fast enough (like in laggy cyro or just with global skill cooldowns) then the macro will essentially fail and accomplish very little if anything.

For a game along the lines of an RTS where you are more likely able to take actions as fast as you can make them, a macro can give an unfair advantage, but for ESO... I'm skeptical that they can even help with combat.

Astanphaeus

Many people use the fish filleting macro an guild bank stacking macro add-ons, and I'm definitely going to say yes for those. But if you meant just combat related ones, then no; Boo those cheaters.

Cpt_Teemo

Yeah someone explained to me how to get better dps by animation cancelling so i'm guessing all the people that want better dps in vet and such or even normals that leave if its not speed run they want you to run a hardware macro to increase the dps to make it faster, or from the looks of it they're probably using it

FriedEggSandwich

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

mb10

PC PVP sounds so toxic

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO

They are against TOS but most most people DPS-ing in trials always run them.

FriedEggSandwich

mb10 wrote: »

PC PVP sounds so toxic

Honestly macros aren't an issue in pvp. I have no evidence to show you but I've pvp'd since about june 2014. There are very few situations in pvp where a macro would give you a consitent advantage. Ganking is the only one I can think of right now, maybe zerg surfing. But 1v1 or open world anything more than a light attack>skill macro is going to put you at a disadvantage most of the time. Personally I'm not worried about anyone using a LA>skill macro because I believe I can do that as efficiently as any macro, or as near as makes no difference. And I'm not worried about anyone using more complicated macros because they are just making things harder for themselves.

Think about what eso pvp combat is, and think about what a macro does. It only takes a bit of pvp experience and common sense to realise the limitations of macros in eso pvp. Most people don't bother, and those that do don't get noticed because it doesn't make them any better at the game.

kargen27

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

FriedEggSandwich

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

kargen27

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

You misunderstood me. You have to hit the one button to get it started, but hitting one button is a lot easier than hitting a series of buttons especially when you are in mid battle. A "oh $#!^" macro could be very handy. It would be situational as you say and you would have to initiate it (sorry I wasn't clear on that part) but still an advantage.

For me personally using a macro would be a huge improvement over what I can do on my own. I am always really badly messing up my timing when I try to weave. For better players not so much, but for most of us a macro would improve our gameplay.

lynog85

certain combiations would benifit hugely from macros, light attack puncture bash for example, alot of pc players use macros, most gaming mice and keyboard have macroable keys now so its easy to do, next time you watch a streamer play, watch his bread and butter combo, if its he NEVER gets it wrong then chances are hes using a macro for the said combo. I know a few who im certain use them.

FriedEggSandwich

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

You misunderstood me. You have to hit the one button to get it started, but hitting one button is a lot easier than hitting a series of buttons especially when you are in mid battle. A "oh $#!^" macro could be very handy. It would be situational as you say and you would have to initiate it (sorry I wasn't clear on that part) but still an advantage.

For me personally using a macro would be a huge improvement over what I can do on my own. I am always really badly messing up my timing when I try to weave. For better players not so much, but for most of us a macro would improve our gameplay.

Yeah sorry, I realised I misunderstood after posting and re-reading your post, oops. But taking the example of your "oh snip" macro; do you program it to start with a bar swap or not? It might be wise to assume you'd be on your front bar when taking a thump, and therefore the macro would need to start with a bar swap. But what then happens on the occasions where you weren't on your front bar when you used the panic macro? You'd be screwed. There's no way for the macro to know what bar you're on at any given time so it would get you into trouble sometimes, unless you left the bar swapping to yourself in which case your macro just got less useful.

Also I stand by what I said after misunderstanding you; I don't always want all my shields up whenever I need a shield. Sometimes I just want harness for some regen, sometimes I just want hardened, and sometimes I want hardened and healing. To cover all bases with macros adds far too much complexity to be worth the trouble. Also I feel that if you have enough knowledge of the game to write effective macros then you probably are a good player. Ain't no noobs gonna be writing macros that make them win. I'm not saying this to justify it in any way, just to respond to your point about macros helping bad players.

Of course this is all my opinion, but it's opinion based upon over 2 years experience in pvp, much of that as a solo player. I could be wrong, and if someone showed me hard evidence that I was wrong I would accept it, but for now I will continue to believe that macros are not widespread in pvp for the reasons I've outlined.

Elder_Martin

Is it even possible to macro on consoles?

Cpt_Teemo

Yeah I just considered it to be macro either way if it was hardware or software, in game or out it basically multitasks one button into doing 2 separate things at the same time

FriedEggSandwich

lynog85 wrote: »

certain combiations would benifit hugely from macros, light attack puncture bash for example, alot of pc players use macros, most gaming mice and keyboard have macroable keys now so its easy to do, next time you watch a streamer play, watch his bread and butter combo, if its he NEVER gets it wrong then chances are hes using a macro for the said combo. I know a few who im certain use them.

Those combos don't benefit hugely from macros, just slightly at best. What you say is still only speculation. The prevalence of gaming mice and ease of macro use doesn't mean lots of people use macros. Lots of people talk about lots of people using them, but that's not the same. The biggest advantage of an mmo mouse such as the naga is just having 6-12 buttons under one thumb, this can produce results that can look like macro use because of how quickly you can push the buttons in succession. I use a razer naga and can execute well practiced combos quickly and reliably. Of course I do screw up, but if you watched me for half an hour you might not see it.

I do watch streamers and youtubers and what I notice that they do is double tap or spam skill buttons during their rotation. You can see this by the skill icon on their bar flashing when they use it. I do this also, you probably do too, and it's to make use of the gcd time to reinforce your choice and counter latency/unresponsiveness. You wouldn't program a macro to do this, it's a human thing.

JamieAubrey

This is another thing ZOS dont care about

starkerealm

Elder_Martin wrote: »

Is it even possible to macro on consoles?

With some third party controllers? Yes.

starkerealm

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

You misunderstood me. You have to hit the one button to get it started, but hitting one button is a lot easier than hitting a series of buttons especially when you are in mid battle. A "oh $#!^" macro could be very handy. It would be situational as you say and you would have to initiate it (sorry I wasn't clear on that part) but still an advantage.

For me personally using a macro would be a huge improvement over what I can do on my own. I am always really badly messing up my timing when I try to weave. For better players not so much, but for most of us a macro would improve our gameplay.

Yeah sorry, I realised I misunderstood after posting and re-reading your post, oops. But taking the example of your "oh snip" macro; do you program it to start with a bar swap or not? It might be wise to assume you'd be on your front bar when taking a thump, and therefore the macro would need to start with a bar swap. But what then happens on the occasions where you weren't on your front bar when you used the panic macro? You'd be screwed. There's no way for the macro to know what bar you're on at any given time so it would get you into trouble sometimes, unless you left the bar swapping to yourself in which case your macro just got less useful.

Also I stand by what I said after misunderstanding you; I don't always want all my shields up whenever I need a shield. Sometimes I just want harness for some regen, sometimes I just want hardened, and sometimes I want hardened and healing. To cover all bases with macros adds far too much complexity to be worth the trouble. Also I feel that if you have enough knowledge of the game to write effective macros then you probably are a good player. Ain't no noobs gonna be writing macros that make them win. I'm not saying this to justify it in any way, just to respond to your point about macros helping bad players.

Of course this is all my opinion, but it's opinion based upon over 2 years experience in pvp, much of that as a solo player. I could be wrong, and if someone showed me hard evidence that I was wrong I would accept it, but for now I will continue to believe that macros are not widespread in pvp for the reasons I've outlined.

As I recall, the biggest issue with macros in PvP has been the autoweaves. No idea if people are still doing that or not, though. I remember it being a huge issue in the IC at launch.

FriedEggSandwich

starkerealm wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

You misunderstood me. You have to hit the one button to get it started, but hitting one button is a lot easier than hitting a series of buttons especially when you are in mid battle. A "oh $#!^" macro could be very handy. It would be situational as you say and you would have to initiate it (sorry I wasn't clear on that part) but still an advantage.

For me personally using a macro would be a huge improvement over what I can do on my own. I am always really badly messing up my timing when I try to weave. For better players not so much, but for most of us a macro would improve our gameplay.

Yeah sorry, I realised I misunderstood after posting and re-reading your post, oops. But taking the example of your "oh snip" macro; do you program it to start with a bar swap or not? It might be wise to assume you'd be on your front bar when taking a thump, and therefore the macro would need to start with a bar swap. But what then happens on the occasions where you weren't on your front bar when you used the panic macro? You'd be screwed. There's no way for the macro to know what bar you're on at any given time so it would get you into trouble sometimes, unless you left the bar swapping to yourself in which case your macro just got less useful.

Also I stand by what I said after misunderstanding you; I don't always want all my shields up whenever I need a shield. Sometimes I just want harness for some regen, sometimes I just want hardened, and sometimes I want hardened and healing. To cover all bases with macros adds far too much complexity to be worth the trouble. Also I feel that if you have enough knowledge of the game to write effective macros then you probably are a good player. Ain't no noobs gonna be writing macros that make them win. I'm not saying this to justify it in any way, just to respond to your point about macros helping bad players.

Of course this is all my opinion, but it's opinion based upon over 2 years experience in pvp, much of that as a solo player. I could be wrong, and if someone showed me hard evidence that I was wrong I would accept it, but for now I will continue to believe that macros are not widespread in pvp for the reasons I've outlined.

As I recall, the biggest issue with macros in PvP has been the autoweaves. No idea if people are still doing that or not, though. I remember it being a huge issue in the IC at launch.

I can't for the life of me think why an autoweave would be impactful in pvp, or even detectable by other players. There are gcds that, afaik, can't be bypassed by any regular inputs (macros included), so an autoweave would just make you slightly more consistent, it wouldn't increase the speed you could execute the weave. You don't weave skills in pvp the same way you do in pve because you need to mix it up with defensive measuers more. My point is a LA>skill>bash/block macro only really becomes beneficial if you can use it repeatedly like you would in pve. That macro in pvp doesn't save you any time because you most likely need to bar swap after it to do something else.

I'm not denying macros get used, I'm just not worried about it because I genuinely don't see the advantage in pvp, unless you're ganking maybe. If someone managed to prove macros could somehow bypass the global cooldowns and/or increase your damage output in pvp I'd be worried and annoyed. But I don't think that's the case.

What annoys me more is people using the phenomena of macros on pc as their reason for not wanting to play on pc, because that clearly shows a misunderstanding of the capabilities of macros imo.

starkerealm

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

kargen27 wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

They are against the tos, and that's all that really needs to be said. I agree that, in pvp at least, combat macros would be of limited use given the reactive nature of the combat. I can imagine a light attack>skill macro being the most useful macro you could come up with for pvp, and that's easy enough to do manually, no need to macro it. In pve where combat is a bit more predictable and dps parses matter you might get more of an advantage from a combat macro. I still believe you'd be better off practising to get good though, macros are completely unflexible and don't leave you any room for improvising. For this reason they can't completely replace your single skill buttons and therefore can only add to the complexity of any rotation, which kind of defeats the point of a macro.

They can be used for your buff rotation or hitting the sequence to start a fight just right. In large group fights not much good but for lying in wait and jumping someone that first bit often decides the battle. Can help there a great deal. In longer fights having a macro that will do your buffs can be an advantage. Instead of having to bar swap>skill 1>skill 2>skill 3>bar swap you can just hit one button and as soon as you see the animation on the 2nd bar swap go into your attack phase again. Another macro that will get your health up and shields cast when you take a hard thump without having to go through the whole thing yourself also provides an advantage. Sure you could hit the rotation on your own but without the macro there is a decent chance you miss the timing just a bit and that can really matter.

Putting up shields automatically when you take damage is beyond the capabilities of a macro; they can only take inputs from you not the game. Software that takes inputs from the game and orders it to respond is called a hack. Besides I don't always want the same shields up, casting all 3 shields all the time is a massive waste of magicka. So to effectively macro shields you would need about 3 separate macros, so now you're just adding complexity. I can kind of see the point of a macro for your buff bar, but that would be a quality of life thing rather than an op advantage over your opponent. The only situation where that would be the case maybe is if you macro'd your gank routine to ensure it went off as quickly as possible.

You misunderstood me. You have to hit the one button to get it started, but hitting one button is a lot easier than hitting a series of buttons especially when you are in mid battle. A "oh $#!^" macro could be very handy. It would be situational as you say and you would have to initiate it (sorry I wasn't clear on that part) but still an advantage.

For me personally using a macro would be a huge improvement over what I can do on my own. I am always really badly messing up my timing when I try to weave. For better players not so much, but for most of us a macro would improve our gameplay.

Yeah sorry, I realised I misunderstood after posting and re-reading your post, oops. But taking the example of your "oh snip" macro; do you program it to start with a bar swap or not? It might be wise to assume you'd be on your front bar when taking a thump, and therefore the macro would need to start with a bar swap. But what then happens on the occasions where you weren't on your front bar when you used the panic macro? You'd be screwed. There's no way for the macro to know what bar you're on at any given time so it would get you into trouble sometimes, unless you left the bar swapping to yourself in which case your macro just got less useful.

Also I stand by what I said after misunderstanding you; I don't always want all my shields up whenever I need a shield. Sometimes I just want harness for some regen, sometimes I just want hardened, and sometimes I want hardened and healing. To cover all bases with macros adds far too much complexity to be worth the trouble. Also I feel that if you have enough knowledge of the game to write effective macros then you probably are a good player. Ain't no noobs gonna be writing macros that make them win. I'm not saying this to justify it in any way, just to respond to your point about macros helping bad players.

Of course this is all my opinion, but it's opinion based upon over 2 years experience in pvp, much of that as a solo player. I could be wrong, and if someone showed me hard evidence that I was wrong I would accept it, but for now I will continue to believe that macros are not widespread in pvp for the reasons I've outlined.

As I recall, the biggest issue with macros in PvP has been the autoweaves. No idea if people are still doing that or not, though. I remember it being a huge issue in the IC at launch.

I can't for the life of me think why an autoweave would be impactful in pvp, or even detectable by other players. There are gcds that, afaik, can't be bypassed by any regular inputs (macros included), so an autoweave would just make you slightly more consistent, it wouldn't increase the speed you could execute the weave. You don't weave skills in pvp the same way you do in pve because you need to mix it up with defensive measuers more. My point is a LA>skill>bash/block macro only really becomes beneficial if you can use it repeatedly like you would in pve. That macro in pvp doesn't save you any time because you most likely need to bar swap after it to do something else.

I'm not denying macros get used, I'm just not worried about it because I genuinely don't see the advantage in pvp, unless you're ganking maybe. If someone managed to prove macros could somehow bypass the global cooldowns and/or increase your damage output in pvp I'd be worried and annoyed. But I don't think that's the case.

What annoys me more is people using the phenomena of macros on pc as their reason for not wanting to play on pc, because that clearly shows a misunderstanding of the capabilities of macros imo.

To be fair, I'm not worried about it either. I just vaguely remember an issue where people were managing to stack up multiple attacks through animation canceling in the Imperial City. I want to say that lasted for about a month, before something changed.

Also, the other scapegoat that comes to mind, and bugs me, are the people who think addons are analogous to mods for Skyrim.

Runs

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

What annoys me more is people using the phenomena of macros on pc as their reason for not wanting to play on pc, because that clearly shows a misunderstanding of the capabilities of macros imo.

What annoys me is people downplaying what macros can accomplish when done right. Most people just think of simple keypress macros, but they can get pretty complex. You could write a macro to be a full on bot, assuming you make sure to put some failsafes in for those odd times you go off course due to lag. You could also have a macro that does full rotations for you in trials. You can even make the delay between keystrokes randomly delayed between two fixed amounts so it's virtually undetectable.

And what really baffles me is that each time they are brought up someone seems to mention how useless they would be if you needed to break out of them. A simple kill process macro bound to go off when you hit your block keybind would fix that.

label: waysrhine 1
key press: Right
delay 20
key press: Right
delay 20
key press: Right
delay 20
key down: W
delay 589
key up: W
delay 150
key press: E
delay 150
key press: left
delay 20
key press: left
delay 20
key press: left
delay 20
Key down W
delay 1209
key press E
delay 150
key press M
delay 1200
Move Mouse: x , y(insert cords to waysrhine of choice)
delay 200
right mouse click
delay 1500
Move Mouse: x , y(insert cords to accept fast travel)
right mouse click
delay 15000
goto: waysrhine 1

It's been awhile so I'm sure the commands are off, but starting at the waysrhine this would face you a little to the right, then you would walk forward so much and press e to pick up the node, then it would face you to the left and you would walk for the given time to the next node after that node it would open up the map, select the waysrhine and accept the fast travel. It would then go back to the start point. You could even through in an "if image" in there to make sure the map has poped up, and would probably want to have it run another macro just before the wayshrine, one that would res you at the shrine if you had died.

The timings would all have to be figured out ahead of time by recording a full on macro then editing it. Obviously you would want more than 2 nodes, since you don't even know if they will be there. You would want to time it out to 10 minutes or more so you could get back to 146 cost for the fast travel as well.

This type of thing is what was available 5 years or more ago... I have to wonder how much easier they have been made by now.

I do understand most people when talking about macros automatically switch to the PvP aspects of them, but every aspect of the game could have them used if someone was willing to take the time and program it right.

It all goes back to what game you are playing. Some of us are playing the game itself. Some are playing the economy. Some are playing the players. Some are playing bending the rules and some are playing breaking them completely. This game like all others can be and is played in many different ways by many different people.

FriedEggSandwich

.

Runs wrote: »

FriedEggSandwich wrote: »

What annoys me more is people using the phenomena of macros on pc as their reason for not wanting to play on pc, because that clearly shows a misunderstanding of the capabilities of macros imo.

What annoys me is people downplaying what macros can accomplish when done right. Most people just think of simple keypress macros, but they can get pretty complex. You could write a macro to be a full on bot, assuming you make sure to put some failsafes in for those odd times you go off course due to lag. You could also have a macro that does full rotations for you in trials. You can even make the delay between keystrokes randomly delayed between two fixed amounts so it's virtually undetectable.

And what really baffles me is that each time they are brought up someone seems to mention how useless they would be if you needed to break out of them. A simple kill process macro bound to go off when you hit your block keybind would fix that.

label: waysrhine 1
key press: Right
delay 20
key press: Right
delay 20
key press: Right
delay 20
key down: W
delay 589
key up: W
delay 150
key press: E
delay 150
key press: left
delay 20
key press: left
delay 20
key press: left
delay 20
Key down W
delay 1209
key press E
delay 150
key press M
delay 1200
Move Mouse: x , y(insert cords to waysrhine of choice)
delay 200
right mouse click
delay 1500
Move Mouse: x , y(insert cords to accept fast travel)
right mouse click
delay 15000
goto: waysrhine 1

It's been awhile so I'm sure the commands are off, but starting at the waysrhine this would face you a little to the right, then you would walk forward so much and press e to pick up the node, then it would face you to the left and you would walk for the given time to the next node after that node it would open up the map, select the waysrhine and accept the fast travel. It would then go back to the start point. You could even through in an "if image" in there to make sure the map has poped up, and would probably want to have it run another macro just before the wayshrine, one that would res you at the shrine if you had died.

The timings would all have to be figured out ahead of time by recording a full on macro then editing it. Obviously you would want more than 2 nodes, since you don't even know if they will be there. You would want to time it out to 10 minutes or more so you could get back to 146 cost for the fast travel as well.

This type of thing is what was available 5 years or more ago... I have to wonder how much easier they have been made by now.

I do understand most people when talking about macros automatically switch to the PvP aspects of them, but every aspect of the game could have them used if someone was willing to take the time and program it right.

It all goes back to what game you are playing. Some of us are playing the game itself. Some are playing the economy. Some are playing the players. Some are playing bending the rules and some are playing breaking them completely. This game like all others can be and is played in many different ways by many different people.

I'm downplaying what macros can accomplish in pvp dude, I'm clear about that in all my posts. You just (psuedo) wrote a bot which I would consider pretty serious and would not try to play down. When most people talk about macros in pvp they mean the simple keypress macros not bots. I feel like you're being pointlessly pedantic, or just addressing me when you should be talking generally. PvP combat is reactive and dynamic, macros are inflexible. The use of macro you outlined doesn't require flexibility which is why it would work well. In pvp a macro is screwed as soon as it needs to know what bar you're on.

If you spent a lot of time writing macros for every possible eventuality in pvp combat you could probably come up with a collection of macros effective at what they did, but it would increase your skill button count from 13 (if you include weapon swap) to something much more than double that, therefore massively increasing complexity and making combat harder. I'm fine if people want to pvp with 30+ buttons to remember, the game doesn't need to be that hard, I chose to play eso not starcraft. I've already addressed the autoweave macro and said that it might well give you an advantage in pve. What you wrote has no relevance to anything I said, you didn't address any of the points I made except what annoys me. Read all my posts maybe.

Julianos

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

either Software or Hardware related ? Cause I thought they were basically the same thing cause they both do the same thing, if you click left button it cancels light attack and uses a spell as well?

Macros are againts rules but everyone using it and zos cant detect macros so you can use it if you like.

Cpt_Teemo

Axorn wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

either Software or Hardware related ? Cause I thought they were basically the same thing cause they both do the same thing, if you click left button it cancels light attack and uses a spell as well?

Macros are againts rules but everyone using it and zos cant detect macros so you can use it if you like.

Ah, yeah its odd they can't really detect it yet its against the ToS, seems like they should have a way to detect it though

FriedEggSandwich

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

Axorn wrote: »

Kyle1983b14_ESO wrote: »

either Software or Hardware related ? Cause I thought they were basically the same thing cause they both do the same thing, if you click left button it cancels light attack and uses a spell as well?

Macros are againts rules but everyone using it and zos cant detect macros so you can use it if you like.

Ah, yeah its odd they can't really detect it yet its against the ToS, seems like they should have a way to detect it though

They can in theory by examining the regularity of keystrokes over a period of time, if all your keystrokes follow a pattern to the millisecond you're probably not pressing the keys yourself. But this is pretty resource intensive as a way of banning people and they don't bother. It's also possible to program a macro with slight variations in timings to make them look more human, they would still follow a pattern, just a broader pattern that was more difficult to detect. It's not possible to detect macros directly as they just appear as mouse and keyboard inputs.

BuddyAces

I'm so confused. When people say macro I think of it as binding more than one function to one single key, let's say 3 functions. In order for you to use the 3 functions bound to said key, you would have to push that same button 3 times. So instead of hitting 1, 2, and then 3, you'd only need to push (for instance) the 1 key 3 separate times. That to me is a macro.

If you bind 3 separate functions to one key and only need to push the key once to have it run through the commands...I thought that was classified as something else =\ I'm so lost.