Rampant cheating in PvP, what is being done about it ZOS?

NuarBlack

That link lordrichter shared seems to have an admin say that macros are illegal period.

"using macros is against the terms of service."

Vaoh

Turelus wrote: »

Normally people aren't cheating and are just playing well with knowledge of meta and mechanics.

The problem is everyone blames everything they don't understand or don't like an exploit or cheat and we end up with everything thinking literally everyone cheats.

CyrusArya wrote: »

Messy1 wrote: »

I'm not even a diehard PvPer, but I sure do die easy from all the cheaters . . . pun intended

Do you die easy because cheating is rampant or do you think cheating is rampant because you die easy? A very important point to ruminate on.

^^^^^^^

NuarBlack

Thogard wrote: »

Addons can take information from the API and reformat it for you in an easier to visualize way, but they can’t actually “do” anything for you other than things you can do out of combat (like changing gear or skills).

Reformating information received is pretty different from automating a reaction to that information.

My mistake. I assumed you had a better understanding of macros and scripting cause you are clearly not understanding what I am saying. No action has to be automated for it to be game breaking. Your macro script just has to pull that info to answer it's conditional statement in order to decide which skill to cast for that button press. I am not even talking about macros that script several actions from one button press. There are ways to script macros if the info is available to only cast or initiate one action but to have it be the best action possible based on the conditions. Thus no downside. It automatically does all that reactive thinking for you but without the chance for human error and processing time.

Thogard

NuarBlack wrote: »

Thogard wrote: »

Addons can take information from the API and reformat it for you in an easier to visualize way, but they can’t actually “do” anything for you other than things you can do out of combat (like changing gear or skills).

Reformating information received is pretty different from automating a reaction to that information.

My mistake. I assumed you had a better understanding of macros and scripting cause you are clearly not understanding what I am saying. No action has to be automated for it to be game breaking. Your macro script just has to pull that info to answer it's conditional statement in order to decide which skill to cast for that button press. I am not even talking about macros that script several actions from one button press. There are ways to script macros if the info is available to only cast or initiate one action but to have it be the best action possible based on the conditions. Thus no downside. It automatically does all that reactive thinking for you but without the chance for human error and processing time.

I see what you’re saying now. The action is initiated by the player, but which action gets initiated is determined by your macro’s decision tree based on data fed by the API.

I wouldn’t consider that to be a macro in the most common sense of the word, but the semantics is pretty irrelevant.

I can’t imagine how complex that program would have to be to play well. The biggest hurdle it’d have is that the API doesn’t read enemy buffs or debuffs, so if you go against anyone with a purify or purge or vanish then it’d be useless because it would mistime the burst window. It would also have a very very hard time reacting to kiting and LoS issues - the program would have to involve all kinds of checks to make sure it actually lands the required effects when the right player is both targeted and in range, the latter of which is a server side check and not available from the API.

In short I could see it working in monotonous PvE, but not high level PvE. And certainly not high level PvP - there are just too many variables that are not available to addons and have to be visually approximated.

NuarBlack

Thogard wrote: »

I see what you’re saying now. The action is initiated by the player, but which action gets initiated is determined by your macro’s decision tree based on data fed by the API.

I wouldn’t consider that to be a macro in the most common sense of the word, but the semantics is pretty irrelevant.

I can’t imagine how complex that program would have to be to play well. The biggest hurdle it’d have is that the API doesn’t read enemy buffs or debuffs, so if you go against anyone with a purify or purge or vanish then it’d be useless because it would mistime the burst window. It would also have a very very hard time reacting to kiting and LoS issues - the program would have to involve all kinds of checks to make sure it actually lands the required effects when the right player is both targeted and in range, the latter of which is a server side check and not available from the API.

In short I could see it working in monotonous PvE, but not high level PvE. And certainly not high level PvP - there are just too many variables that are not available to addons and have to be visually approximated.

Yes realistically a one button macro like that would probably be difficult to perform well and still would require some player skill to know when to use for it to be effective. But 2-3 different ones would cut down on the info you as a player have to process and would give an advantage. And trust me they can be effective at high level pvp. They were practically mandatory in high lvl pvp in WoW and Rift. Like you said player skill still matters as it did in those games still too. But The combat in ESO is actually more conducive to these kinds of macros cause there are no skill Cool Downs and the way Block, Dodge, and Break-free work. Although instead of the script checking to see if a skill is off CD it could check resource levels maybe.

They would be better for survival than lining up burst. Which I think is the problem with the community cheater accusers. Is they get blown away from some NB or Magsorc and think that is the worst macros/scripting can do. Like many have said it is easy to replicate those sequences manually. What isn't easy to consistently due is track all your resources and self buffs in real time while being jumped 1vX and activating the skill or action that will give you the best chance of survival every time. A prioritization script with conditionals can do that. And if you can stay alive till say, 7th legion procs with an ult up you can counter punish hard and seem godlike. Now I know certain builds and players can do this fairly consistently without them, but it is actually fairly easy to tell the difference. One usually has to do with build design that facilitates the survival while the other has inhuman block, dodge, break-free sequences. Like some have said low regen builds or the like pulling off things cause they have a script optimizing resource use.

Rungar

just make jumping in combat consume stam and most of the perceived problems are solved.

Mario brothers pvp is the worst.

Biro123

NuarBlack wrote: »

Thogard wrote: »

I see what you’re saying now. The action is initiated by the player, but which action gets initiated is determined by your macro’s decision tree based on data fed by the API.

I wouldn’t consider that to be a macro in the most common sense of the word, but the semantics is pretty irrelevant.

I can’t imagine how complex that program would have to be to play well. The biggest hurdle it’d have is that the API doesn’t read enemy buffs or debuffs, so if you go against anyone with a purify or purge or vanish then it’d be useless because it would mistime the burst window. It would also have a very very hard time reacting to kiting and LoS issues - the program would have to involve all kinds of checks to make sure it actually lands the required effects when the right player is both targeted and in range, the latter of which is a server side check and not available from the API.

In short I could see it working in monotonous PvE, but not high level PvE. And certainly not high level PvP - there are just too many variables that are not available to addons and have to be visually approximated.

Yes realistically a one button macro like that would probably be difficult to perform well and still would require some player skill to know when to use for it to be effective. But 2-3 different ones would cut down on the info you as a player have to process and would give an advantage. And trust me they can be effective at high level pvp. They were practically mandatory in high lvl pvp in WoW and Rift. Like you said player skill still matters as it did in those games still too. But The combat in ESO is actually more conducive to these kinds of macros cause there are no skill Cool Downs and the way Block, Dodge, and Break-free work. Although instead of the script checking to see if a skill is off CD it could check resource levels maybe.

They would be better for survival than lining up burst. Which I think is the problem with the community cheater accusers. Is they get blown away from some NB or Magsorc and think that is the worst macros/scripting can do. Like many have said it is easy to replicate those sequences manually. What isn't easy to consistently due is track all your resources and self buffs in real time while being jumped 1vX and activating the skill or action that will give you the best chance of survival every time. A prioritization script with conditionals can do that. And if you can stay alive till say, 7th legion procs with an ult up you can counter punish hard and seem godlike. Now I know certain builds and players can do this fairly consistently without them, but it is actually fairly easy to tell the difference. One usually has to do with build design that facilitates the survival while the other has inhuman block, dodge, break-free sequences. Like some have said low regen builds or the like pulling off things cause they have a script optimizing resource use.

You keep comparing to wow and rift... now I never played wow but I did PvP in rift, and did become quite adept at its in-game macro system. Yes, they were practically mandatory, but that is a very different game to eso. It is a game with lots of abilities on lots of bars.. (I remember having 3 bars of 10 on the bottom of my screen and a buff bar on the side). And a lot of cooldowns and a lot of ranged abilities that did not work in melee. They worked by sending a sequence of keypresses.. so, for example, your main spammable macro may have a few dots with cooldowns first in the list, then a melee attack with rebuff and a cool down then maybe your spammable melee, then ranged stuff with cooldowns then a spammable ranged.
You hit the key and it sent all those to the game which auctioned the first one that it could... so if a skill was on cool down, it tried to cast, failed and so instantly tried the next.. enemy out of range? Try the next, until one is cast successfully and then all remaining abilities in the macro are ignored because of the global cool down from a skill firing.
This is known as one keywords, one action and is legal in some games.

But. For flexibility and skilled play, I would often have 5 to 8 macros set up, and skilled play was using the right one at the right time.. some for anytime, some for cc, some for mobility, some as panic buttons etc...

ESO? It has no cooldowns. Most ranged abilities can be used in melee range, ant there are only 12 abilities slotted as opposed to 40...
Honestly, the number of macros I used in rift, meant roughly the same amount of keys bound for them as abilities we have in eso....
I really don't see the benefit.

But if you are talking about them making decisions based on API input or detecting colours at certain points on screen etc. Then that is something more than a macro and getting into the realms of automation which is against the tos.

NuarBlack

Biro123 wrote: »

You keep comparing to wow and rift... now I never played wow but I did PvP in rift, and did become quite adept at its in-game macro system. Yes, they were practically mandatory, but that is a very different game to eso. It is a game with lots of abilities on lots of bars.. (I remember having 3 bars of 10 on the bottom of my screen and a buff bar on the side). And a lot of cooldowns and a lot of ranged abilities that did not work in melee. They worked by sending a sequence of keypresses.. so, for example, your main spammable macro may have a few dots with cooldowns first in the list, then a melee attack with rebuff and a cool down then maybe your spammable melee, then ranged stuff with cooldowns then a spammable ranged.
You hit the key and it sent all those to the game which auctioned the first one that it could... so if a skill was on cool down, it tried to cast, failed and so instantly tried the next.. enemy out of range? Try the next, until one is cast successfully and then all remaining abilities in the macro are ignored because of the global cool down from a skill firing.
This is known as one keywords, one action and is legal in some games.

But. For flexibility and skilled play, I would often have 5 to 8 macros set up, and skilled play was using the right one at the right time.. some for anytime, some for cc, some for mobility, some as panic buttons etc...

ESO? It has no cooldowns. Most ranged abilities can be used in melee range, ant there are only 12 abilities slotted as opposed to 40...
Honestly, the number of macros I used in rift, meant roughly the same amount of keys bound for them as abilities we have in eso....
I really don't see the benefit.

But if you are talking about them making decisions based on API input or detecting colours at certain points on screen etc. Then that is something more than a macro and getting into the realms of automation which is against the tos.

My point is that most people here seem to think macros are only useful for scripting to have several skills fire off from one button press when they can do a lot more. And yes all stuff I described is fairly basic maco stuff. that most macro programs or hardware firmware macro programs can perform. Especially in games that feed info from the API to addons and such. There were ways to script even more complicated than the way you described even. You could run mouse-over macros, enemy vs alley macros, and tons of stuff in those games because they fed the same info to addons that ESO does. CD's don't change that, neither do range restrictions. Resource thresholds and other conditionals can be used. But really the biggest benefit for macros has always been activating stuff off the GCD. That was the biggest boone in Rift in particular cause their were lots of procs off the GCD. And guess what Shield block, Dodge roll, and Break-free are all off the GCD in ESO. And in a weird way light attack is as well but as some have mentioned a macro to weave light attacks wouldn't be anything special. I'm not even saying that anyone or even most people who run macros in ESO are running macros like I have described. AS it is fairly obvious most don't even realize how powerful macros can be. But sit there and deny that there are not ways to gain an unfair advantage still in the game is just plain ignorance of what is out there. if It wasn't an issue recent PTS notes wouldn't say they are adjusting info that is fed to addons.

"Addons
Addons will now only know about attacks that target you after they hit you in PvP areas.
Developer Comments:
Spoilerhide
Addons will no longer receive BEGIN combat events in PvP areas if they target the player, and come from a hostile source."

NuarBlack

You do realize that every other popular MMO has an addon like Miat's right? And it isn't game breaking. That is cause combat is different in ESO and those games don't have on demand off GCD damage and CC mitigation like ESO does. So the macro's I am describing would actually be more beneficial in ESO than in those other games. Probably why ZOS took so long to address it. Other games ran and balanced fine with that info freely available to addons cause their mitigation skills have CD'sand other restrictions making it far less appealing to macro them as I have described. But I know people still do in those games even thought the benefit would be less. So I would seriously be surprised if people are not doing it in ESO.

But like you I did take ESO at face value when evaluating the merits of macros thinking you only have 12 skills available to you, 18 if you count potion, dodge, block, break-free, light attack, and bash. But still far simpler than other games. What I didn't account for was ESO adds other complexities that macros would have been beneficial for. Which ZOS has said flatly that macros are against the TOS as that was linked earlier in the thread. ZOS just needs to get serious about enforcing it now.