Unhinged use of MACROS at Cyrodiil

Scaletho

Today, few hours ago, a group of EP players had begun to siege certain Keep walls, defended by DC. The small EP group (roughly 5 players) was using MACROS. They were unbeatable, "god mode", basically "Bot-players", and want just farm other players. They destroyed the wall, beated a lot of players and leave.

I'm not here to name names, blame this or that Alliance, or give report details. I'm just here to denounce the absurd disparity between PvP players who want to fight in a fair way and just have fun in a balanced scenario and people who somehow and constantly find backdoors and borderline cheating ways to turn the game always in their favor.

I understand that some players -- usually the endgame veteran players -- don't see problem in such behavior. After all, they are usually able to (at least) survive such encounters.

To fix such problems is not easy, I know. But I hope ZoS understand that the situation is going to a impossible position.

The disparity between PvP players (even the experienced ones) is not between very good players X Good or average players; the gap is becoming wider and wider, and now we see a disparity between "God Mode" Trolls X the rest. The cheaters are the extreme point of all this mess.

Well, that's it.

tmbrinks

So, players have a pre-programmed set of controls, and that beat some people in cyrodiil, where the whole name of the game is about quick reactions and adapting on the fly?

You realize that even with a macro, you can't get past the 1 second global cooldown in this game...

And that even with 100% accurate light attack weaving, it means the most actions you can have per second is 2.

That's 2 total keystrokes per second (other than movement).... that's slow.

Most likely, this was just a coordinated group of players that was just better than the others going against them.

(Now, if they were using a CHEAT ENGINE, to modify and change skills to do more damage, etc... that's a whole different story but you explicitly said MACRO)

Aside: The only macro that even makes a shred of sense to run anywhere in this game would be one that just automatically does a light attack after you cast a skill... but if you're dying to a group simply because they have a 100% LA ratio... you're bad. Considering the top tier DPS get that level of efficiency pretty regularly.

Sanctum74

Macros do not give you god mode and are actually a disadvantage when playing in a laggy environment where you need to be able to react quickly. Sounds like you just lost, it happens.

The_Old_Goat

Where is the body of evidence that proves they were using macros?

Ackwalan

Macros are difficult to prove from an observers point of view. More then likely what you saw was a group of players that used OP sets that would overlap each other to the point of exploiting. Neither scenario is healthy for the game.

mairwen85

Unhinged?

And while we're at it, why is it

Scaletho wrote: »

usually the endgame veteran players

who get backhanded in these threads lately? Thing is, they were in the same boat once upon a time, but they worked at getting better instead of bemoaning every defeat and "denouncing" the community.

Moonsorrow

Scaletho wrote: »

Today, few hours ago, a group of EP players had begun to siege certain Keep walls, defended by DC. The small EP group (roughly 5 players) was using MACROS. They were unbeatable, "god mode", basically "Bot-players", and want just farm other players. They destroyed the wall, beated a lot of players and leave.

I'm not here to name names, blame this or that Alliance, or give report details. I'm just here to denounce the absurd disparity between PvP players who want to fight in a fair way and just have fun in a balanced scenario and people who somehow and constantly find backdoors and borderline cheating ways to turn the game always in their favor.

I understand that some players -- usually the endgame veteran players -- don't see problem in such behavior. After all, they are usually able to (at least) survive such encounters.

Solve such problems is not easy, I know. But I hope ZoS understand that the situation is going to a impossible position.

The disparity between PvP players (even the experienced ones) is not between very good players X Good or average players; the gap is becoming wider and wider, and now we see a disparity between "God Mode" Trolls X the rest. The cheaters are the extreme point of all this mess.

Well, that's it.

Umm.. small groups like that are usually experienced and geared up for such encounters and the whole sieging a keep to lure people to attack them is something thats been done for years.

There is no "god mode" in it, just that your allies go in with poor damage and end up nothing but feeding them heals via Crimson and getting farmed.

I mean seriously, why do people think day after day that they can go attack them with bunch of randoms without coordinated CC/ultidump and burst? They have cross-healing and occasionally a full healbot standing like 15 meters behind them, that i see people not even focus (a sorc healer often) down first but all just go tunnel vision and attack the most tanky 50k hp warden of them first, then spawn back at the keep and run back to repeat the same.

I often observe these kind of situations, standing on a rock nearby, shaking my head. When entertained enough, i cloak to enemy homekeeps to get my own fun.

Gotta go check when people on zone chat shout about cheaters/macros, then all that see is people with tunnel vision (or not so experienced ones) getting farmed by legit playing.

People are feeding themselves to procsets there, not to macros. Maybe someday more people can read combat logs and see what actually happened mechanically in fights.

VaranisArano

I assume you've also reported them to ZOS, who can actually check the data to see if these players were, in fact, cheating?

Beyond that, the forums can't really offer much more than peanut gallery judgments of people who weren't there and didn't see what you saw. Unless you have combat logs or video, its pretty hard for us to diagnose "Yes, this is sure and certain cheating" from a description alone.

kargen27

When a small group is farming kills don't play their game. When they breach the wall or door get away from the breach so they have to come inside. If you die go somewhere else for a while. They don't want the keep so they are not going to wait around to defend it.
Once they are inside a player or two might want to jump outside and try to find a camp to burn.

As others have said macros are not effective in Cyrodiil. A friend was using a light attack macro because he has arthritis in his hands. Using the macro his skills not firing at all was worse than when not using a macro so he decided to give up using light attacks in the rotation. Of course that is only one persons experience, others might have had better luck. Still it wouldn't make much difference.

zaria

Use more buffs.

Alchemy work.
Our guild has an standard rule, do not engage tower trolls farming resources. Anybody dying in an tower will be kicked from group.
But then some named enemy shows up and Banzai for reasons.

dinokstrunz

You obviously came across a group of well organised veteran players who knew what they were doing. There is no macro or cheats. There will no doubt be exploits occasionally since there's an abundance of bug/glitches in this game. It's not really that rare to encounter good organised small scalers or small groups.

hafgood

I like the way endgame veteran players get lumped together and basically accused of using macros with no evidence provided.

In actuality they were a guild group, probably with coordinated and complementary gear, and with someone calling their ulti dumps.

You lost. Accept it. Better still accept it with good grace and learn from the experience

Lephrel

Empires rise and fall, oceans run dry and mountains are ground to dust by the passing of time.
But somehow "macro", "shieldbot" and "godmode cheater" threads are eternal.

Eedat

Macros are actually a hinderance outside maybe a oneshot from stealth combo and the global cooldown timer makes it so performing a full combo is easily done by anyone who wants to spend any time practicing. PvP is about reacting and using game knowledge to pick what to combo on the fly. Not about spamming one rotation in every scenario. Plus all the desyncs actually cause macros to not work to begin with.

But this comes down to something not specific to this game. This happens in every game. It's the good old "anyone who is better than me is cheating" garbage. Experience is not the end all of skill. Some people do things poorly for years on end and never work on improving. Just because they have experience doesn't mean they aren't bad still. Thats how it works in the real world too. You'll meet people who have done a job or have been working in a field for over 20 years and still be complete garbage at their job.

Kwoung

Macro's will not allow you to take a keep, UNLESS it is completely undefended. While yes, I believe macro's are used in Cyro to a great extent, your example is not macro related at all. If the attacking players were using macro's and the keep was defended, all those macro players would have died to counter siege. If even one of those players side stepped a meatbag, he was not using a macro, which would mean none of the group was, as it wasn't a bot group.

I agree with the above comments that said they were most likely just decent players... <against a bunch that weren't>.

aetherial_heavenn

I am afraid you encountered an AP farming group using all the cheesiest combos. I think I saw them farming at Bleaks the same day, using seige to drag players outside. They were pretty good. They wiped the 3 of us, once, as we ran out the doors and chased a decoy squirrel We adjusted, got a squishy one down and chased them off the porch a couple of times. They killed one of us each time fought them. But they were clearly going to keep leading players up a hill out of sight of healers (if grouped), make the DPS soloers and PuGs squirrel after the tank, and then watch them kill themselves on his reflects as Crimson healed and ults were built. Meanwhile their NB ganked or sniped from the back. Then they ult dumped. Their movement was excellent and they obviously played together a lot, if it was the same group. They used strategy and tactics and skill combos as well as cheese. (edited to add: we had 2 on their 5 stars, my newb character, and another ranked player, soloing near us. We've all played for a long time.)

Groups like this are great to practice against: you can learn counters to some stuff. And how to choose target. Particularly if they are farming a porch or open field* near a keep where you can rez and retu7rn. And you can learn when it's just not worth feeding them.

(*I rarely fight rock humpers or tower runners unless it's for an objective. Wrong build. Too boring.)

Edited to add: I am levelling a new class/build/role and playstyle atm. I have been playing a healplar for quite a while so I get focused a bit based on account name. I die to "WTFWASTHAT!!! a lot. Sometimes it's lag and several skills appear to hit you at once. Sometimes it's a new meta that you aren't set up to counter. Sometimes it's a ganker or a bomber. Sometimes it's...I haven't a clue and no one in the group does either. But if you die to a LA macro or a 4 key combo there are ways not to. Or better still to get your avenge/revenge. Got my first with the build I had for 4 hours yesterday. It felt very nice. Worth the 'mostly dead' of the rest of the learning experience. Just have fun and it will get easier.

Bucky_13

This sounds like a LTP issue, have you considered joining a pvp guild that utilizes voice chat? As that's pretty much what they're doing.

I usually play duo in Cyro, but with headset. The amount of times we've ended up winning fights because of our communication is too many to count.

Just accept that they're better than you and instead of accusing them of cheating, learn what makes them better, them adapt and improve yourself to the point where you can beat them.

zaria

Now one thing macros would be nice for in Cyrodil is repairing walls

huntgod_ESO

If you spend any time in Cyrodil you will quickly realize that macro's are a hindrance there.

The only place a macro has any use is on cheesey bomb builds, since the whole thing is based on timing a set of skills to go off simultaneously...of course those are also typically suicide attacks as the bomber is typically killed by the people that he missed.

Even macroing in a LA on your attacks actually kicks you in the ass most of the time as it lags and you end up with no attacks firing because of server lag.

If guys want to really cheese it up, you can make some truly obnoxious small groups that will roll anyone who isn't paying attention or skilled.

If you are chasing folks in a tower, you are doing it wrong.

laksikus

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

If you spend any time in Cyrodil you will quickly realize that macro's are a hindrance there.

The only place a macro has any use is on cheesey bomb builds, since the whole thing is based on timing a set of skills to go off simultaneously...of course those are also typically suicide attacks as the bomber is typically killed by the people that he missed.

Even macroing in a LA on your attacks actually kicks you in the ass most of the time as it lags and you end up with no attacks firing because of server lag.

If guys want to really cheese it up, you can make some truly obnoxious small groups that will roll anyone who isn't paying attention or skilled.

If you are chasing folks in a tower, you are doing it wrong.

The "only" place for macros are bomb builds? No good bomber will use macro for skills. If someone is too dumb to see his proxy timer, no macro will help him.

There are builds far more relying on timing. (stamden for example), or a snipe ganker with silvershard.

But macros wont help any of those builds with lag, and only kill them.

Curious_Death

Scaletho wrote: »

Today, few hours ago, a group of EP players had begun to siege certain Keep walls, defended by DC. The small EP group (roughly 5 players) was using MACROS. They were unbeatable, "god mode", basically "Bot-players", and want just farm other players. They destroyed the wall, beated a lot of players and leave.

I'm not here to name names, blame this or that Alliance, or give report details. I'm just here to denounce the absurd disparity between PvP players who want to fight in a fair way and just have fun in a balanced scenario and people who somehow and constantly find backdoors and borderline cheating ways to turn the game always in their favor.

I understand that some players -- usually the endgame veteran players -- don't see problem in such behavior. After all, they are usually able to (at least) survive such encounters.

Solve such problems is not easy, I know. But I hope ZoS understand that the situation is going to a impossible position.

The disparity between PvP players (even the experienced ones) is not between very good players X Good or average players; the gap is becoming wider and wider, and now we see a disparity between "God Mode" Trolls X the rest. The cheaters are the extreme point of all this mess.

Well, that's it.

The problem of ESO lays in the speed of combat and lack of level difference that is seeing with "naked eye" here experienced 40 lvl with boosted GOLD equipment can kick ass of 810 gold geared PVP beginner. On the other side is lack of knowledge about traits gear and combination. OP talks probably about discord group of players with DEDICATED builds, example:
HARMONY x3 traits allows you to score 10k dmg from synergy having only 3k wp/sp, or heal up ~7k from undaunted ball synergy. Probably they use alessia or any other passive regen armor like beekeeper that heals u overtime without needs of vigor / healing pool skills, also this allows you to "skip" delay gap coz this armor heals u all the time constantly - u cant lower its passive healing due to DEDICATED healer that purge theirs butts

ESO is all about skill and knowledge - its like u rly needs to feel ur avatar feel ur gear and playstyle to rock in laggy cyrodiil, and dont blame ppl that polish theirs builds, gameplay - there will be always some1 better than u.

alainjbrennanb16_ESO

Scaletho wrote: »

Today, few hours ago, a group of EP players had begun to siege certain Keep walls, defended by DC. The small EP group (roughly 5 players) was using MACROS. They were unbeatable, "god mode", basically "Bot-players", and want just farm other players. They destroyed the wall, beated a lot of players and leave.

I'm not here to name names, blame this or that Alliance, or give report details. I'm just here to denounce the absurd disparity between PvP players who want to fight in a fair way and just have fun in a balanced scenario and people who somehow and constantly find backdoors and borderline cheating ways to turn the game always in their favor.

I understand that some players -- usually the endgame veteran players -- don't see problem in such behavior. After all, they are usually able to (at least) survive such encounters.

Solve such problems is not easy, I know. But I hope ZoS understand that the situation is going to a impossible position.

The disparity between PvP players (even the experienced ones) is not between very good players X Good or average players; the gap is becoming wider and wider, and now we see a disparity between "God Mode" Trolls X the rest. The cheaters are the extreme point of all this mess.

Well, that's it.

yes macros and other things are used in pvp, but it does not help, just re-adjust your build and dont go alone, go with a group when a group is about, they where probs using the unspoken meta of, all of them on 1 person, just re-adjust and dont become fodder for them

ZOS_ConnorG

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You are welcome to review the Community Rules here.

BXR_Lonestar

I don't know if its macro usage or something else, but I've definitely had times in Cyrodil where, even when the ping/lag was decent, I go to fight a guy and in the time it takes for him to do just one attack, I've been hit by at least 5 different attacks (according to the death screen) and basically get insta-killed within 1 second. I would ordinarily chalk this up to lag except for the fact that I was able to successfully engage and defeat other opponents in roughly the same geographic region, but one player in particular just kept wiping me and mini-group with the same M-O.

If its not lag or a macro, then I don't know what it is, but it definitely seemed like something was fishy.

It doesn't happen often, but it does, on rare occasions, happen and I'm not sure how to explain it.

mairwen85

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know if its macro usage or something else, but I've definitely had times in Cyrodil where, even when the ping/lag was decent, I go to fight a guy and in the time it takes for him to do just one attack, I've been hit by at least 5 different attacks (according to the death screen) and basically get insta-killed within 1 second. I would ordinarily chalk this up to lag except for the fact that I was able to successfully engage and defeat other opponents in roughly the same geographic region, but one player in particular just kept wiping me and mini-group with the same M-O.

If its not lag or a macro, then I don't know what it is, but it definitely seemed like something was fishy.

It doesn't happen often, but it does, on rare occasions, happen and I'm not sure how to explain it.

It can't be a macro, because macros are just a sequence of pre programmed key presses. This means that a macro is bound by the same rules as a regular player, it cannot bypass, and therefor must respect the GCD. If a player is somehow bypassing that fundamental part of combat, then they are doing something beyond the capability of a simple macro. It's a hack, or other code injection method they are using, and such things will leave a distinct signature. It's hard for ZOS to discern between player with/without macro, because a macro is just an automation of key presses, it looks on the server just like a regular player. The other thing I described will not look like the rest, it will leave anomalies and be far more recognisable as doing something beyond the limitations of a regular user.

This is what people are saying, so if you have suspicions, report it for ZOS to investigate.

sarahthes

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know if its macro usage or something else, but I've definitely had times in Cyrodil where, even when the ping/lag was decent, I go to fight a guy and in the time it takes for him to do just one attack, I've been hit by at least 5 different attacks (according to the death screen) and basically get insta-killed within 1 second. I would ordinarily chalk this up to lag except for the fact that I was able to successfully engage and defeat other opponents in roughly the same geographic region, but one player in particular just kept wiping me and mini-group with the same M-O.

If its not lag or a macro, then I don't know what it is, but it definitely seemed like something was fishy.

It doesn't happen often, but it does, on rare occasions, happen and I'm not sure how to explain it.

Certain skills have a reputation for causing desyncs. I don't know how true this is, having not tested it myself, but the reputation is bad enough the skills are banned from dueling tournaments. One example would be Overload. If there's any merit to the claims it's possible that's what happened to you.

molecule

I'm an experienced PVP veteran player in Cyro, with 2 characters at Grand Overlord level, but i can still get my behind handed to me on a plate by better players.

Just because someone is better than you, it doesn't mean they are cheating.

tmbrinks

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know if its macro usage or something else, but I've definitely had times in Cyrodil where, even when the ping/lag was decent, I go to fight a guy and in the time it takes for him to do just one attack, I've been hit by at least 5 different attacks (according to the death screen) and basically get insta-killed within 1 second. I would ordinarily chalk this up to lag except for the fact that I was able to successfully engage and defeat other opponents in roughly the same geographic region, but one player in particular just kept wiping me and mini-group with the same M-O.

If its not lag or a macro, then I don't know what it is, but it definitely seemed like something was fishy.

It doesn't happen often, but it does, on rare occasions, happen and I'm not sure how to explain it.

Some skills also have time delays from when they are cast to when they actually cause their damage. Skilled pvp players use this to have it be so that you get hit by multiple damaging attacks in a 1 second time frame (think warden shalks and the time delay before they hit)

Roztlin45

Yes, there are some cheaters and they use a trainer(won't name it) but limited to extremely very few players. There is also a light attack script macro and auto buff macro anyone can set up. Not really the advantage unless it comes down to timing.
Some are just good players and some just exploit the system and play dirty so to speak, but still not cheating.

ForzaRammer

Op does not understand the difference between a macro user and a full on scripter.

Macro is just a just a pre determine sequential key input. It’s good for combo, can be used in pve to improve light attack ratio. Macro does not overcome gear disadvantage all that much.

Script on the other hand provides automated input based on conditions. The difficulty of writing it and script performance highly depends on the encryption of data from server to client.

For people who don’t believe in scripts, just google aim bot or league of legend script. On top of that, even with perfect encryption, dota2 openai bots are better than human.

It’s also very easy to tell the obvious scripters. It’s basically consistent insane reaction on breakfree and roll dodge. They are rare though. Personal I am only 100% certain on 3 people.

Playnice

Wouldn't macros make pvp harder, not easier? You have to cast your skills based on what is going on around you, not just a preset recorded "macro" lol