How can you tell difference between extraordinary animation cancelling skills and macros?

Kneighbors

So yesterday playing at BG's below level 50 there was one guy shooting 5 attacks within 3 seconds.
The sequence was always the same:
1) Haunting curse
2) Light attack
3) Force Pulse
4) Light attack
5) Crystal frag proc
6) Light attack
7) Endless fury

Now all this was happening within 3 seconds, Crystal Frag always came together with endless fury in fractions of seconds. Time after time. His normal score was 20 - 0. On encounter any player was dying within 3 seconds, only crystal frag+endless fury sequence was making over 10k damage.

I'm not newbie to the game and I do know how to animation cancel myself, and I can do same things within 7+ seconds. I honestly can't make this sequence in less than 5 seconds. I reported this guy for using macros, but coming from professional gaming I know for sure "cyberathletes" can perform even more amusing things.

My question is, how can you really tell the difference? To me it was looking like all these attacks are bound to 2-3 buttons for this guy. It actually seems alil strange to see someone playing below lvl 50 character and already knows his moves so well. Maybe he just copied the build he was playing with for 3 years, or maybe he is just supertalented, but in the end of the day this was ruining the game for 8 persons who were playing against him and at some point people started to leave as soon as they saw him in opposite team.

Beardimus

I doubt you can. From the receiving side.

I'm seriously glad I'm not on PC to have this doubt. As already I think somethings up with what you get hit with. People hitting you 3 heavy in death recap etc etc just combos that seem too fast.

I'm sure there are tricks going on right now even on console, ut maybe I just need to get gud. Lol but on PC I would have way tpo much doubt

LZH

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

Nurtharikja

When lag was low, death was immediate and the death recap has Dizzying Swing, Heavy Attack, Focused Aim, Heavy Attack, Dizzying Swing all from the same player... Then I suspect foul play. Same with trying to catch five Flawless Dawnbreaker thrown at me by someone.

KingYogi415

LZH wrote: »

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

But then how can I blame people macroslicing as the reason I die over my own lack of skill?

Please advise...

cellobuddy

The combo you showed isn't hard to do. You just wait the full animation for the curse(time starts to land the burst at the end of that GCD), then throw a force pulse for pressure, send frag, and, while frag's en route, wrath. The light attacks all working are a good indication that he was not using macros. As laggy as the game's been as a whole, timing has to be adjusted on the fly to make sure the light attack animation starts before hitting the key for the next skill. That person probably just has a lot of experience w/ sorc and is staying calm so they don't hit keys too soon.

Kneighbors

LZH wrote: »

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

I never said he was noob, don't know where you took this from. I think my post makes it clear that he is good enough ESO player to either use macros or spaming 7 attacks within 3 seconds. 99.9999% that he's 630+cp

My question is, how do you know that abovementioned attacks performed with 7 buttons and not 4?

Docmandu

Don't see how anyone would be able to put Frags in a macro... since that has to proc for it to become instant.. so if somebody literally puts that sequence in a macro keyboard.. he'd seriously gimp himself each time frag wasn't proccing.

so pure macro as in keyboard macro's would not cut it for this sequence... it would take getting feedback from the game in your macro... and that would mean violating the ToS to read out in-game state.


I don't think macro's are that prevalent as people seem to think.. but I could be wrong. Pressing left mouse followed by 1-5 and maybe a right mouse to block ain't that hard.

Think most of the instant 10 attacks at once are more likely to be caused by game lag / bugs than anything else.

Kneighbors

cellobuddy wrote: »

The combo you showed isn't hard to do. You just wait the full animation for the curse(time starts to land the burst at the end of that GCD), then throw a force pulse for pressure, send frag, and, while frag's en route, wrath. The light attacks all working are a good indication that he was not using macros. As laggy as the game's been as a whole, timing has to be adjusted on the fly to make sure the light attack animation starts before hitting the key for the next skill. That person probably just has a lot of experience w/ sorc and is staying calm so they don't hit keys too soon.

It's not exactly correct. My PC got steelseries keyboard so it is really easy to macro here so I was testing it. You can easily adjust macro timing for it to always work. If you'll go in lower timing than requires for light attack animation to start the whole sequence simply won't work. So make it like 200ms and you are ok. Not easy to learn to make it physically tho.

HatchetHaro

Kneighbors wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

I never said he was noob, don't know where you took this from. I think my post makes it clear that he is good enough ESO player to either use macros or spaming 7 attacks within 3 seconds. 99.9999% that he's 630+cp

My question is, how do you know that abovementioned attacks performed with 7 buttons and not 4?

It's just 4 buttons and 3 mouse clicks.

It's called weaving, and it's a player-skill mechanic used by PvErs and PvPrs alike to increase their damage output. Light attacks and abilities are on different cooldowns, so it's possible to stagger them.

Seriously, any good DD in this game already has light weaving in their muscle memory. It's not hard to do at all.

Kneighbors

Docmandu wrote: »

Don't see how anyone would be able to put Frags in a macro... since that has to proc for it to become instant.. so if somebody literally puts that sequence in a macro keyboard.. he'd seriously gimp himself each time frag wasn't proccing.

so pure macro as in keyboard macro's would not cut it for this sequence... it would take getting feedback from the game in your macro... and that would mean violating the ToS to read out in-game state.


I don't think macro's are that prevalent as people seem to think.. but I could be wrong. Pressing left mouse followed by 1-5 and maybe a right mouse to block ain't that hard.

Think most of the instant 10 attacks at once are more likely to be caused by game lag / bugs than anything else.

Nah, it's really easy, you bind a button and call it "Crystal Frag proc". As soon as Frag procs you press it and it launches crystal frag+light attack+wrath. This is what I was seeing time after time playing against this player.

squinceybones

The most impressive part of that combo is how they got frags to proc consistently.

zaria

Docmandu wrote: »

Don't see how anyone would be able to put Frags in a macro... since that has to proc for it to become instant.. so if somebody literally puts that sequence in a macro keyboard.. he'd seriously gimp himself each time frag wasn't proccing.

so pure macro as in keyboard macro's would not cut it for this sequence... it would take getting feedback from the game in your macro... and that would mean violating the ToS to read out in-game state.

I don't think macro's are that prevalent as people seem to think.. but I could be wrong. Pressing left mouse followed by 1-5 and maybe a right mouse to block ain't that hard.

Think most of the instant 10 attacks at once are more likely to be caused by game lag / bugs than anything else.

This, had it been an macro he would send frag down last after the macro was done.
That is also the downside with macros, they are not flexible.

Kneighbors

zaria wrote: »

Docmandu wrote: »

Don't see how anyone would be able to put Frags in a macro... since that has to proc for it to become instant.. so if somebody literally puts that sequence in a macro keyboard.. he'd seriously gimp himself each time frag wasn't proccing.

so pure macro as in keyboard macro's would not cut it for this sequence... it would take getting feedback from the game in your macro... and that would mean violating the ToS to read out in-game state.

I don't think macro's are that prevalent as people seem to think.. but I could be wrong. Pressing left mouse followed by 1-5 and maybe a right mouse to block ain't that hard.

Think most of the instant 10 attacks at once are more likely to be caused by game lag / bugs than anything else.

This, had it been an macro he would send frag down last after the macro was done.
That is also the downside with macros, they are not flexible.

He is casting two attacks, 70% for crystal frag to proc. Most of the time it will proc, if not he presses the button for one more light+spell attack and there he is coming to 100% crystal frag proc. Then he presses combo crystal frag+light attack+wrath macro.

DeHei

If somebody uses it faster then that, its surely time to report, because its possible to use cheat engines. Sometimes its lag, but yesterday i had an opponent, who did 20k damage to me from 8 attacks in under 1 sec... This happened several times in bg, so i dont think it was a fair player!

HatchetHaro

Kneighbors wrote: »

Docmandu wrote: »

Don't see how anyone would be able to put Frags in a macro... since that has to proc for it to become instant.. so if somebody literally puts that sequence in a macro keyboard.. he'd seriously gimp himself each time frag wasn't proccing.

so pure macro as in keyboard macro's would not cut it for this sequence... it would take getting feedback from the game in your macro... and that would mean violating the ToS to read out in-game state.


I don't think macro's are that prevalent as people seem to think.. but I could be wrong. Pressing left mouse followed by 1-5 and maybe a right mouse to block ain't that hard.

Think most of the instant 10 attacks at once are more likely to be caused by game lag / bugs than anything else.

Nah, it's really easy, you bind a button and call it "Crystal Frag proc". As soon as Frag procs you press it and it launches crystal frag+light attack+wrath. This is what I was seeing time after time playing against this player.

They could have done something even better. Instead of binding a full set of actions to a key, they could have created much more flexibility in their macros by, get this, binding each of their abilities to a separate button.

This way, they have much more control over what abilities they cast in which order, and thus create more wreckage in the battlefield and QQ on the forums. What a novel idea!

LZH

Kneighbors wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

I never said he was noob, don't know where you took this from. I think my post makes it clear that he is good enough ESO player to either use macros or spaming 7 attacks within 3 seconds. 99.9999% that he's 630+cp

My question is, how do you know that abovementioned attacks performed with 7 buttons and not 4?

You insinuated that he was a noob by saying " It actually seems alil strange to see someone playing below lvl 50 character and already knows his moves so well."

I don't quite understand what you mean by the last part of your comment, but what he did is 100% doable in a 3-4 second time window like I explained it above.

Juhasow

Kneighbors wrote: »

LZH wrote: »

That isn't unusual at all.

0 seconds - Haunting Curse

1 second - Light attack + Force Pulse

2 seconds - Light attack + Crystal Frags

3 seconds - Light attack + Mages' Wrath

This also doesn't factor in how Sorc skills work. He could've put curse and Mages' Wrath on you before your fight even began but yet they would show up on your death report as if he used them in a row on you.


Also, just because he's under level 50 doesn't mean he's a noob. He could very well have max CP and just be playing on a new character.

I never said he was noob, don't know where you took this from. I think my post makes it clear that he is good enough ESO player to either use macros or spaming 7 attacks within 3 seconds. 99.9999% that he's 630+cp

My question is, how do you know that abovementioned attacks performed with 7 buttons and not 4?

If You want to animation cancell skill it would even take 11 clicks in 3 secodns From my own experience I know it's not that hard.

Global cooldown on skills is around 0,9 sec light attacks have even less GC. So each 0,9 sec You can use 1 light attack+skill combo with optional animation cancel. You start at 0 sec with curse then You're doing normal rotation. You have 3,5 sec before curse blows so You can easily weave 3x light attack+skill(+cancel) to the moment when curse blows. Clicking 2-3 buttons in a 1,2 sec is nothing extremly hard.

Miss_Morphine

You guys. @LZH said all that needed to be said.

As a sorc especially you have to time your stuff just right.
I have never used a macro, ever.
In small scale I depend on my curse-frag-wrath and do it so all three go off at once. Most of the time anyway, lol. And the LA are just muscle memory. I have spent so long practicing my weave I weave after wards and other silly stuff. Easily done.

In Cyro I try to time my curse+prox det+wrath to all go off at once too.
Essentially, no, macros are not necessary here.

visionality

At OP: As many have mentioned already, this supposedly macro-supported use of skills is common gameplay . If you set your skills down on your skillbar correctly, you just press 1-2-3-4 with mouseclicks in between and off you go. The only thing that can slow you down is frags not proccing, but you can swap skillbars or block and thats it. All other skills are more or less instant casts, so you don't loose any time between pressing the buttons. Apart from the mouseclick, you don't even need animation cancelling to finish that rotation in 3 seconds.

Biro123

Its simply how sorc burst works. It wasn't a case of shooting those attacks in a short timeframe - its landing them in a short timeframe.

I mean look at the ability descriptions - and then take into account that anyone can weave - so you get buth a light attack and an ability firing in the same cooldown and you can get..

1st cd: LA, Wrath (wrath stays on target for 4 seconds)
2nd cd: LA with curse (curse stays on target for 3 seconds)
3rd cd: LA with crushing shock. This is the first time you actually get hit by an ability.
4th cd: LA with Frag. At this point curse also goes off giving a large burst of damage. If it takes you below 20%, Wrath also procs.

Basically you get 3 abilities and a light attack all hitting together - but it took him 4 cooldowns worth of casting to get there.

RoamingRiverElk

What Biro said. Landing attacks that do delayed damage and have travel time is a standard part of gameplay. There are other burst combos available in the game too. You need to learn about them so you can counter them. Sorc burst is very predictable due to curse (and/or Meteor) giving an indication an attempt to burst is coming.

Neloth

Kneighbors wrote: »

He is casting two attacks, 70% for crystal frag to proc. Most of the time it will proc, if not he presses the button for one more light+spell attack and there he is coming to 100% crystal frag proc. Then he presses combo crystal frag+light attack+wrath macro.

That's not how probability works, bro, seems you missed some math lessons in school, you can't just sum the values.

The probability of one event Ai happening in event chain A1, A2, ... An, when all those events are totally independent is equal to: P(Ai) = 1 - (1 - P(A1)) * (1- P(A2)) * .... * (1 - P(An))

In case of sorc casting frags, probability of an event of frag proc is 0.35, not proc is 0.65

So, if sorc casts 2 attacks, the probability of frag proc is 1 - 0.65 * 0.65 = 0.5775 ~ 57%

If sorcs casts 3 attacks, it's: 1 - 0.65 * 0.65 * 0.65 = 0.725375 ~ 72%

If 4 attacks, it' is 0.82 ~ 82%, etc

It's like when you throw a coin up twice, and want to get a specific side at least once. The probability of that is 1 - 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.75 = 75%, not 0.5 + 0.5 = 1 = 100%.

Solariken

Just wondering @Kneighbors, was he wearing the goblin polymorph by chance?

Kneighbors

Solariken wrote: »

Just wondering @Kneighbors, was he wearing the goblin polymorph by chance?

nope, don't think so.

Neloth wrote: »

Kneighbors wrote: »

He is casting two attacks, 70% for crystal frag to proc. Most of the time it will proc, if not he presses the button for one more light+spell attack and there he is coming to 100% crystal frag proc. Then he presses combo crystal frag+light attack+wrath macro.

That's not how probability works, bro, seems you missed some math lessons in school, you can't just sum the values.

The probability of one event Ai happening in event chain A1, A2, ... An, when all those events are totally independent is equal to: P(Ai) = 1 - (1 - P(A1)) * (1- P(A2)) * .... * (1 - P(An))

In case of sorc casting frags, probability of an event of frag proc is 0.35, not proc is 0.65

So, if sorc casts 2 attacks, the probability of frag proc is 1 - 0.65 * 0.65 = 0.5775 ~ 57%

If sorcs casts 3 attacks, it's: 1 - 0.65 * 0.65 * 0.65 = 0.725375 ~ 72%

If 4 attacks, it' is 0.82 ~ 82%, etc

It's like when you throw a coin up twice, and want to get a specific side at least once. The probability of that is 1 - 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.75 = 75%, not 0.5 + 0.5 = 1 = 100%.

You are correct but I was going for rough math calculation and not long term probability calculation. Roughly he will shoot frag every 2-3 attacks. Seems like you went to deep with your calculations in school to simply realize that anything over 55% chance means likely to happen than not. As in poker it is called coinflip when chances are around 50% in heads up situations, but you can't call a coinflip 60% chance. When going pure math you must understand what numbers tell you.

rfennell_ESO

The barrages of attacks you see from certain players are likely macros and in some cases macros + more.

The only defense you will see from them is "if it's possible manually" it's possible and you are wrong (ie they are just awesome).

The particular about it is how they do it all, while hopping and moving and animation cancelling everything. You never see them cast shield, you never see them cast anything for the most part.

When you add up all the keypresses they have to be doing to achieve what they are doing, all while moving, it becomes less likely it's legit and some measure of automation has been done. It's trivial to set up a macro to light attack and cast an ability and set it up so it occurs distinctly for every button on every bar. You will never get an admission of it's existence... it will just be the typical responses of l2p, git gud and assorted insults.

It's probably also possible to macro the crystal frags proc cast to the end of every light attack->ability->block cancel/bash.

/cue macros don't work in pvp defense.

Xvorg

Kneighbors wrote: »

So yesterday playing at BG's below level 50 there was one guy shooting 5 attacks within 3 seconds.
The sequence was always the same:
1) Haunting curse
2) Light attack
3) Force Pulse
4) Light attack
5) Crystal frag proc
6) Light attack
7) Endless fury

Now all this was happening within 3 seconds, Crystal Frag always came together with endless fury in fractions of seconds. Time after time. His normal score was 20 - 0. On encounter any player was dying within 3 seconds, only crystal frag+endless fury sequence was making over 10k damage.

I'm not newbie to the game and I do know how to animation cancel myself, and I can do same things within 7+ seconds. I honestly can't make this sequence in less than 5 seconds. I reported this guy for using macros, but coming from professional gaming I know for sure "cyberathletes" can perform even more amusing things.

My question is, how can you really tell the difference? To me it was looking like all these attacks are bound to 2-3 buttons for this guy. It actually seems alil strange to see someone playing below lvl 50 character and already knows his moves so well. Maybe he just copied the build he was playing with for 3 years, or maybe he is just supertalented, but in the end of the day this was ruining the game for 8 persons who were playing against him and at some point people started to leave as soon as they saw him in opposite team.

did he wpn swap while doing the combo? Did he use a shield?

cellobuddy

Xvorg wrote: »

Kneighbors wrote: »

So yesterday playing at BG's below level 50 there was one guy shooting 5 attacks within 3 seconds.
The sequence was always the same:
1) Haunting curse
2) Light attack
3) Force Pulse
4) Light attack
5) Crystal frag proc
6) Light attack
7) Endless fury

Now all this was happening within 3 seconds, Crystal Frag always came together with endless fury in fractions of seconds. Time after time. His normal score was 20 - 0. On encounter any player was dying within 3 seconds, only crystal frag+endless fury sequence was making over 10k damage.

I'm not newbie to the game and I do know how to animation cancel myself, and I can do same things within 7+ seconds. I honestly can't make this sequence in less than 5 seconds. I reported this guy for using macros, but coming from professional gaming I know for sure "cyberathletes" can perform even more amusing things.

My question is, how can you really tell the difference? To me it was looking like all these attacks are bound to 2-3 buttons for this guy. It actually seems alil strange to see someone playing below lvl 50 character and already knows his moves so well. Maybe he just copied the build he was playing with for 3 years, or maybe he is just supertalented, but in the end of the day this was ruining the game for 8 persons who were playing against him and at some point people started to leave as soon as they saw him in opposite team.

did he wpn swap while doing the combo? Did he use a shield?

If you fail to apply pressure to a sorc, they won't reapply their shield before cooldown runs out and they won't swap weapons(especially in the middle of their combo)

Biro123 wrote: »

Its simply how sorc burst works. It wasn't a case of shooting those attacks in a short timeframe - its landing them in a short timeframe.

I mean look at the ability descriptions - and then take into account that anyone can weave - so you get buth a light attack and an ability firing in the same cooldown and you can get..

1st cd: LA, Wrath (wrath stays on target for 4 seconds)
2nd cd: LA with curse (curse stays on target for 3 seconds)
3rd cd: LA with crushing shock. This is the first time you actually get hit by an ability.
4th cd: LA with Frag. At this point curse also goes off giving a large burst of damage. If it takes you below 20%, Wrath also procs.

Basically you get 3 abilities and a light attack all hitting together - but it took him 4 cooldowns worth of casting to get there.

Curse is a 3.5 second duration, so you want to do fury right after curse. Otherwise it'll run out before curse goes off. If either of those proccs frag, you could throw DBoS in there(hits like a truck in no CP and no one expects the stun from the sorc's burst to show up early) and frag them while they break free. Frag hits as they're stunned/breaking free. Curse goes off half a second later. If they're not already dead, they're probably under 20, so wrath finishes them off or they're a tank, and you just continue whittling their resources away.

cellobuddy

If you really want to know if they're macroing, though, you can enable full functionality of combat metrics and collect data from multiple combos of theirs. Look at the times between the initial endless fury hit, curse's explosion, and the force pulse. Don't pay attention to light attacks or frags, though, since those have travel time. If the things I told you to look for have the exact same time between them every time they do the combo, that's strong evidence of macros. If the time between varies by a few milliseconds each time, then they're just a really impressive human.

brtomkin

rfennell_ESO wrote: »

The particular about it is how they do it all, while hopping and moving and animation cancelling everything. You never see them cast shield, you never see them cast anything for the most part.

When you add up all the keypresses they have to be doing to achieve what they are doing, all while moving, .........

There is one particular sorc on PS4 NA that matches this description of hopping around and precise timing/cancelling.... not sure how that player could be using macros on the PS4 though.

Xvorg

cellobuddy wrote: »

Xvorg wrote: »

Kneighbors wrote: »

So yesterday playing at BG's below level 50 there was one guy shooting 5 attacks within 3 seconds.
The sequence was always the same:
1) Haunting curse
2) Light attack
3) Force Pulse
4) Light attack
5) Crystal frag proc
6) Light attack
7) Endless fury

Now all this was happening within 3 seconds, Crystal Frag always came together with endless fury in fractions of seconds. Time after time. His normal score was 20 - 0. On encounter any player was dying within 3 seconds, only crystal frag+endless fury sequence was making over 10k damage.

I'm not newbie to the game and I do know how to animation cancel myself, and I can do same things within 7+ seconds. I honestly can't make this sequence in less than 5 seconds. I reported this guy for using macros, but coming from professional gaming I know for sure "cyberathletes" can perform even more amusing things.

My question is, how can you really tell the difference? To me it was looking like all these attacks are bound to 2-3 buttons for this guy. It actually seems alil strange to see someone playing below lvl 50 character and already knows his moves so well. Maybe he just copied the build he was playing with for 3 years, or maybe he is just supertalented, but in the end of the day this was ruining the game for 8 persons who were playing against him and at some point people started to leave as soon as they saw him in opposite team.

did he wpn swap while doing the combo? Did he use a shield?

If you fail to apply pressure to a sorc, they won't reapply their shield before cooldown runs out and they won't swap weapons(especially in the middle of their combo)

It's not the anwer I'm looking for... what I want to know is how a sorc keeps 4 offensive skills in one bar and if he has room for a defensive skill or buff