Re: the entire idea of nerfing classes due to dps

[swpz]

Isn't it more realistic to simply ban scripts which allow people to repeatedly execute entire combos with perfect timing just by pressing one button?

 

It's rather counter productive for an action game that markets itself as a test of player reaction/responses (hence action) to allow for macros that allow for executions far beyond human capabilities no? Even with perfect latency, no one's going to be able to repeat a combo with the exact same timing as the last one down to the millisecond. 

 

Remove scripts, watch the DPS of everyone fall into line, especially for the ranged classes. It's really absurd when macros allow someone with inferior gear to out damage someone with superior gear because 5ms response times due to a bot vs normal human reaction times of 250ms+. 

 

Just a thought. 

[Baby Vivie]

ping is ping, scripts do not alter ping.  that being said, this game is all ping related for dps.  i have seen whaled up FMs with half the gems being guilded, aransu 6, and very well rolled VT ss do much less dps then raven 9 FMs with hept gems.  and i knew both parties personally.  it was not better DPS on the lower geared FM due to scripts, he had better dps due to having half the ping and a good rotation that the higher whaled FM was still getting a handle on.  50ms can = 50k+ dps differences in some situations.

 

also cases where someone thought they had great gear, but they had 0 acc on any ss, so they really didnt have great numbers cause of that, specially in the higher dungeons.  again, sucked because they had no idea what was what, not cause of someone scripting.  

 

there are lots of videos out there of people showing rotation and hand work as they do it showing its not scripts.  its PING PING PING PING, and FPS that is 60+ and steady helps a great deal also.  there is a gunner that plays from Australia, better gear then me, yet i do way more dps cause they have 400ms constantly and im under half that.  

 

now, if you read all the UA and CoC and such for those who are going into tournaments, or going esport events as part of NCsoft events, like battle brawl, they enforce no macro/no script rules.  you have to use the equipment they provide.  and you can watch those live and see how fast they can do the skills and reactions, they have next to 0 ping at those things.  

 

now if you want to complain on something, complain on people who seem to have 2+ unloads go off at once in 6v6, now thats not scripts, but something fishy is going on with that.

[MantisxD]

Just wait a bit macros gona be oficialy allowed in some time. Kr already released in game macro function. You progr your rmb to do rotation its just a matter of time till we get it here as well.

[Nivalias]

25 minutes ago, MantisxD said:

Just wait a bit macros gona be oficialy allowed in some time. Kr already released in game macro function. You progr your rmb to do rotation its just a matter of time till we get it here as well.

Except that you don't, from what I've read so far. You get one predefined macro and can't do anything other than that. It's really a poor excuse for a macro.

[amokk]

Combos for most classes are braindead in the end, to the point where it doesnt really matter if its macro'd or not - which is why NC will introduce some kinda ingame macro themselves too. 

 

What you can't macro is the mechanic of bosses. You need to dodge, block, iframe them. This is where your "reaction/responses" comes from, not combos. 

[caioc2]

Most of macros, if not all of them, are exclusive for attacking, like pressing RMB LMB, 2RF, TF etc etc. I see no point of they putting those crazy fast anicancel in skills that you reapeat like thousand times in a fight, it is no sign of skill or superior ability, it's braindead, hence most of player use macros for that.

 

The true player skill is:

Can one block in the right time? (cant be made with macro)
Can one iframe in the right time? (cant be made with macro)
Can one do mech right? (cant be done with macro)
Can one position yourself right in the battle? (cant be done with macro)

So, until they change this non-sense style of fast-millisecond smash button brainded attack pattern  I dont see macros going away as they are not what defines a skilled player.

[Thicc Stoccpot]

In PVE, skill is whether you know how to dodge bosses' attacks, know how to do mechanics, know how to position yourself - basically like caioc2 said above me. As for dps and doing your damage rotation, surely there's skills and practice involve but with time and a bit of care, even a half serious player can do those

 

(Half serious means you actually care about the game a bit, watching and reading guides and all, or don't even watch guide, just play the game, feel for yourself and try to improve; not one of those Hm12-14 summoners you see in F8 with baleful gears that are clearly gold farmers - who are too busy farming gold to sell for real life cash to care about learning rotations or mechanics. They use baleful because all their resources have been sold already. Nothing left for them to upgrade)

 

I use macro because spamming buttons hurts my fingers. Wear and tear happens to everyone, to every part of our bodies, accumulated little by little over time through daily use. And with the intensity of the button spamming of this game, if you don't use macro, you are doomed to ruin your fingers for life REALLY QUICK - which I and of course, many people don't want. I don't want my time with Blade and Soul causing me pain and medical bills later. If using macro to protect my fingers' health and consequently my health is considered 'normies, or noob, or amateur" then yup, I'm gladly to be one. I want to be able to hold a pen at 70 years old without having to take supplement like glucosamine (to recreate cartilage - the soft tissue in and between the joints that allow the bones to move smoothly) and junk...

 

Of course I play many other games and you can say I use my fingers there too. Correct. But listen, none of those games have the intensity of spamming like BnS. Most other games I play are offline games, which mean they have no delay, so I just need to press a button once to execute a command. But here in BnS, due to ping, oh boi do I have to smash them keys. Now if you have low ping, your control will be more responsive and thus you can ease up a bit compared to me, but my point still stands.

 

P/S: I actually hurt my fingers playing this game. That moment scared the hell out of me. I'd never in my life scared of playing video game until that point. I was playing FM and I was spamming rmb lmb 2 for hours each day thousands of times upon thousands of time... Does that sound healthy to your fingers? I think not.

[Racingwind]

The title is kind of misleading on what you are trying to say.

 

That aside and not even going into all the other points that people have already pointed out about mechanics and positioning, how well you can dps does not rely on how well you can macro. It relies on how well you can manage your CDs, which you can't macro because of resets. Before there wasn't any resets and you COULD macro everything and have maximum dps by just holding one button. But now you have resets from weapons and resets from AC and soul burn resets. Macros no longer gives you maximum dps, but has kind of transformed into a quality of life improvement by doing all the mindless key presses for you. NC recognised this and is therefore introducing their own in game macro.

 

Another thing about banning macros is, there is no way to definitively prove that someone is using a mouse macro. Latency changes, in built delay variations, the fact that you can't say someone who has done the same thing day-in and day-out hasn't built up muscle memory all meant that this isn't enforceable. And if NC did start banning people on claims, then what's to stop some tard from claiming everyone else is macro-ing?

[swpz]

Over the years various videos have appeared showing people the differences between macro vs no macro. A certain "how to autohot key for destroyer" comes to mind with the sheer mind-blowing speeds possible.

 

It doesn't matter if you have 0 latency, it is beyond the realm of human reaction to be able to hit that many buttons in that short a time perfectly without mishits. It's similar to typing, you can type 100 words per minute but you will make a lot of mistakes, even if you know what to hit. Macros don't make mistakes and time things perfectly, that itself means it allows for actions beyond the realm of possibility far as human action is concerned. Animation cancelling by definition is a test of hand-eye coordination, you see a certain part of the animation, you hit a button accordingly to cancel it. It would be impossible to get it right every, single, time.

 

Ranged classes are logically the greatest abusers of macros as they can usually stand still without danger. Melee classes on the other hand cannot afford to stand still half the time and as such are not benefited nearly as much. There's probably a reason why ranged class DPS is off the charts compared to melee if equal comparisons are made. Gunners are especially prominent given their very fast base speeds (I'd actually argue that gunners aren't actually performing as intended, they're performing way over due to the fact that scripts can do what humans cannot).

 

Just me but I'd wager that without these scripts, most classes would fall into line. As in Aion, the so called fast attacking classes didn't exactly out-DPS slower attacking but higher damage classes as human reaction times are constant, even if you can in theory hit twice as fast, the human behind the screen can't input commands that much faster. Those that do end up scripting and or flat out hacking and scripting; there are guides all over the internet.

 

Xigncode could probably detect macro scripts easily, that most macros are set to loop while holding one button would be enough. Looking at damage logs would also suffice, that's how the community used to catch Aion hackers; the sheer number of hits in a specific amount of time that would be beyond reasonably possible. Last but not least, a minimum server time on skills would also work. In Aion, for example if you are auto attacking, there is a minimum 0.8 second delay in-between auto attacks that even animation hacks can't override. In essence, if you are playing legit, your absolute minimum weave (animation cancel) will be .8 seconds thus allowing a maximum possible of 2.5 attacks per second (including skill); doesn't matter how many buttons you press, this doesn't change. However, this is for auto attacks only, unfortunately, this system wasn't implemented for skills and as such animation hacking works by reducing skill times to 0 (thus allowing X skills to instantly be executed).

 

Pressing so many buttons repeatedly is probably not good for your hand, that much I agree. However, ever occur that you don't need to press so many buttons or spam so hard?

 

--

 

I think people are misunderstanding my post.

 

My entire point is that ranged classes are fine as a class, it's the scripts that make them perform at levels beyond reason. Removing the usage of these scripts would likely bring the damage down to par of other classes that cannot abuse said scripts. But I guess at the same time this would remove the ability of people to breeze through certain dungeons as their DPS would take a massive hit.

 

@Baby Vivie

 

That is an interesting claim, but unfortunately, my 6 years playing Aion would utterly disprove it. In Aion, I main an assassin with 180ms ping, when DPS testing against an equal geared assassin with 30ms ping over a span of 5 minutes; I lose roughly 50 hits out of 600 total. That is an approximately 12% difference on hits. Do you know why I only miss 50 hits? Because human reactions times are capped. I'm pressing buttons just as fast as the guy I'm testing with, we're both inputting commands as fast as we can, because he has better ping his commands execute slightly faster and slightly better (I probably also have packet loss). The difference is still going to be minimal as simply because he has 150ms better ping doesn't mean he's going to input commands 5x faster. Our animation times are also the same, we're both looking at the same animations, better ping doesn't magically make his animation times shorter.

 

50k extra DPS is a lot of extra hits. Even more considering you are comparing Raven 9 to Aransu 3+ which is another order of magnitude in buffs.

 

 

 

 

[Racingwind]

The methods you have mentioned can all be circumvented. The biggest arsenal in the methods you have listed is the predictability of macros, variable delay makes that moot. Having an agent like xigncode certainly greatly improves the ability to detect macros but what criteria do you use? The fact that they have razor gaming software installed? That razor gaming software is issuing commands? What about mouses / keyboards that has the ability to store macros directly on the hardware itself?

 

I don't think people are misunderstanding you, we are merely talking about different things. You are saying macros increase dps and therefore should be banned. People are saying dps doesn't make or break the game, it's mechanics and macros don't help with that, therefore it doesn't need to be banned, as it makes people's lives easier. I am saying that if you do try to ban them, you open up a can of worms, and the detection methods wouldn't be very effective against people who are determined to macro.

[swpz]

Just now, Racingwind said:

The methods you have mentioned can all be circumvented. The biggest arsenal in the methods you have listed is the predictability of macros, variable delay makes that moot. Having an agent like xigncode certainly greatly improves the ability to detect macros but what criteria do you use? The fact that they have razor gaming software installed? That razor gaming software is issuing commands? What about mouses / keyboards that has the ability to store macros directly on the hardware itself?

 

I don't think people are misunderstanding you, we are merely talking about different things. You are saying macros increase dps and therefore should be banned. People are saying dps doesn't make or break the game, it's mechanics and macros don't help with that, therefore it doesn't need to be banned, as it makes people's lives easier. I am saying that if you do try to ban them, you open up a can of worms, and the detection methods wouldn't be very effective against people who are determined to macro.

 

All except for one, server side timers.

 

Server side timers would negate everything. Macros would still exist, but would be unable to gain any tangible advantage over someone not using them.

 

DPS certainly makes or breaks a game. Tell me how it's not game breaking for a gunner to fire off 6 skills in a single second and thus wipe an entire group in PVP? It's not humanly possible to input that many commands in that short of a time. Scripts allow for massive damage that breaks the game as that is not what the game was even intended to function as (unless I'm wrong and NC's developers all imagined their game being played by bots inputting commands and not humans). Tell me how it's not game breaking for a macro using group to net significantly more DPS and thus can skip mechanics in boss fights simply by powering through them? It makes people's lives easier and at the same time it gives theses people a massive advantage over non users; in other games we would call this cheating.

 

Macros work in PVP as well, take FM as a case in point who can spam endless LMB/RMB with macros (this is an example as I'm aware FM combos aren't lik e that). Contrast this to the speeds FMs in the official tournaments can fire off their skills at? One looks like an endless stream, the other looks reasonable. But then again, the difference is, in the tournaments you sure as hell can't be scripting or relying on anything but your reaction times and hand eye coordination.

 

 

 

 

 

[Racingwind]

1 hour ago, swpz said:

All except for one, server side timers.

Server side timers would negate everything. Macros would still exist, but would be unable to gain any tangible advantage over someone not using them.

DPS certainly makes or breaks a game. Tell me how it's not game breaking for a gunner to fire off 6 skills in a single second and thus wipe an entire group in PVP? It's not humanly possible to input that many commands in that short of a time. Scripts allow for massive damage that breaks the game as that is not what the game was even intended to function as (unless I'm wrong and NC's developers all imagined their game being played by bots inputting commands and not humans). Tell me how it's not game breaking for a macro using group to net significantly more DPS and thus can skip mechanics in boss fights simply by powering through them? It makes people's lives easier and at the same time it gives theses people a massive advantage over non users; in other games we would call this cheating.

Macros work in PVP as well, take FM as a case in point who can spam endless LMB/RMB with macros (this is an example as I'm aware FM combos aren't lik e that). Contrast this to the speeds FMs in the official tournaments can fire off their skills at? One looks like an endless stream, the other looks reasonable. But then again, the difference is, in the tournaments you sure as hell can't be scripting or relying on anything but your reaction times and hand eye coordination.

- I believe the term for "Server side timer" is GCD. Doesn't have to be server side, it can be client side, as soon as someone breaks this GCD limit, you know they are hacking. Which is why macros would be adjusted to compensate for that GCD. And GCD is a passive detection, not an active one. But fair enough, it IS still a detection method.

- You can certainly implement GCD, and that would help in reducing macro advantage but what should the GCD be? 1 second? 0.5 second? 0.2? Implementing GCD has a large impact in game play, especially pvp. You would be amazed at how fast someone can press buttons (i'm not one of them), and they rely on being fast like that to gain an edge over their opponent in pvp. Not to say you shouldn't implement GCD, but one needs to be aware of the huge change to game play it means. How long should a GCD be to prevent macro advantage? How short should a GCD be to keep the game still feeling like action combat? (Cuz WoW GCD was 0.5, and that certainly didn't feel action combaty, even pvp)

- I don't know which gunner can do 6 skills in 1 second. But I assume you are talking about the V > Tab > LMB > F, bullet storm combo. That's 4 keys, and I can do that manually, very reliably. Now that it has changed so that you need to use 4 first, I haven't tried it so I don't know, but most likely I can't anymore. I'm not even very fast so I know there are lots of people out there faster than me, and can probably still do it.

- How significantly more DPS are we talking about here? 5k? 10k? Did it actually make a difference? Alot of BnS mechanics are hard mechanics, it means you can't just throw a bunch of DPS at it and call it a day, it will trigger, it will fail, and it will kill you and it comes before you can throw enough DPS to kill the boss. Certainly macros gives you an advantage over none users as less things to worry about generally means better performances elsewhere, barring muscle memory, like managing CDs. But cheating is defined to be breaking the rules to attain better results. Say the rule exists, but is not enforced, is it still a rule, or has it become a guide line? If no reprimands are handed out, is there any deterrence? You can't rely on everyone to be good little boys and girls (sadly), otherwise there wouldn't need to be referees for sports. Therefore we need to enforce the rule, but aside from the GCD, there isn't any effective way of doing it, and we are back to square one. And let's not forget about the fact that BnS devs themselves have showcased their own in game macro. Now is "you can't use a macro" even a rule anymore? If not, then no one is breaking anything, no one is cheating.

- FM example isn't very good, there is GCD already in LMB and RMB, unless it was removed. They actually separated their GCD from other skills (namely 2) so they can spam it faster.

 

You could argue your case and me / others could argue their case, all based on gaining DPS advantage or not. Some people say it does, some people say it doesn't, and some say it doesn't matter because mechanics. What is needed is hard evidence, and "good god just think about it it's obvious" won't cut it, because the other side can just as well respond with the same thing. Though I'm sure BnS devs have thought about this before they started to go down this road.

 

*Also BnS isn't Aion. Ping does play a huge role in here due to being able to anicancle (little to no GCD).

[swpz]

5 hours ago, Racingwind said:

- I believe the term for "Server side timer" is GCD. Doesn't have to be server side, it can be client side, as soon as someone breaks this GCD limit, you know they are hacking. Which is why macros would be adjusted to compensate for that GCD. And GCD is a passive detection, not an active one. But fair enough, it IS still a detection method.

- You can certainly implement GCD, and that would help in reducing macro advantage but what should the GCD be? 1 second? 0.5 second? 0.2? Implementing GCD has a large impact in game play, especially pvp. You would be amazed at how fast someone can press buttons (i'm not one of them), and they rely on being fast like that to gain an edge over their opponent in pvp. Not to say you shouldn't implement GCD, but one needs to be aware of the huge change to game play it means. How long should a GCD be to prevent macro advantage? How short should a GCD be to keep the game still feeling like action combat? (Cuz WoW GCD was 0.5, and that certainly didn't feel action combaty, even pvp)

- I don't know which gunner can do 6 skills in 1 second. But I assume you are talking about the V > Tab > LMB > F, bullet storm combo. That's 4 keys, and I can do that manually, very reliably. Now that it has changed so that you need to use 4 first, I haven't tried it so I don't know, but most likely I can't anymore. I'm not even very fast so I know there are lots of people out there faster than me, and can probably still do it.

- How significantly more DPS are we talking about here? 5k? 10k? Did it actually make a difference? Alot of BnS mechanics are hard mechanics, it means you can't just throw a bunch of DPS at it and call it a day, it will trigger, it will fail, and it will kill you and it comes before you can throw enough DPS to kill the boss. Certainly macros gives you an advantage over none users as less things to worry about generally means better performances elsewhere, barring muscle memory, like managing CDs. But cheating is defined to be breaking the rules to attain better results. Say the rule exists, but is not enforced, is it still a rule, or has it become a guide line? If no reprimands are handed out, is there any deterrence? You can't rely on everyone to be good little boys and girls (sadly), otherwise there wouldn't need to be referees for sports. Therefore we need to enforce the rule, but aside from the GCD, there isn't any effective way of doing it, and we are back to square one. And let's not forget about the fact that BnS devs themselves have showcased their own in game macro. Now is "you can't use a macro" even a rule anymore? If not, then no one is breaking anything, no one is cheating.

- FM example isn't very good, there is GCD already in LMB and RMB, unless it was removed. They actually separated their GCD from other skills (namely 2) so they can spam it faster.

 

You could argue your case and me / others could argue their case, all based on gaining DPS advantage or not. Some people say it does, some people say it doesn't, and some say it doesn't matter because mechanics. What is needed is hard evidence, and "good god just think about it it's obvious" won't cut it, because the other side can just as well respond with the same thing. Though I'm sure BnS devs have thought about this before they started to go down this road.

 

*Also BnS isn't Aion. Ping does play a huge role in here due to being able to anicancle (little to no GCD).

 

• That would work.

 

• Generally speaking human response times are in the range of .25 to .5 seconds, so a median figure of .35 seems to be good enough. However, the point of removing macros is to put human error back into the picture as macros completely remove it. Without macros, for example, if you're CC'd in PVP it's not an automatic death as the opposing player could hit a wrong button and thus allow you to escape. With macros it's a guaranteed death, the human element of error can be seen again and again in those PVP tournaments where mistakes made in combos allow an otherwise locked down target to escape. Where as if you play BG normally, you'll notice that a lot of players go into a 'frenzy' the moment they have disabled their target, it's as if they suddenly went on steroids (obvious macro usage). This is supposed to be an action PVPVE game where reaction times and ability to execute combos properly is what makes or breaks a player. As such, humans should be the ones pressing the combos, not a script. If it's a script, might as well allow botting; it's about the same.

 

• Gunner isn't exclusive, pretty much every class (my BM main included) can spam 6+ skills in a second with a macro, this is something that isn't humanly possible and thus shouldn't even happen, but it does. Again I reference the PVP tournaments where you see some of the best players in the world in action; these players don't instantly gib their target the moment they have them in a 1 second stunlock. The times it takes for them to press their skills makes sense, it's reasonable. It's not "what just hit me" and 'refers to combat log' "wth?!" sort of deal. Like in Aion, they will likely create an ingame macro system that has heavy delays and makes it impossible to spam endlessly. In Aion, macros are used to change gear, that's about it. You can't macro skills without hacking and animation cancelling. I imagine BNS ingame macros will be similar in function, they will allow for certain usage, but no where near the absurdity there is today. As for the DPS figure, I believe someone above quoted a 50k DPS figure of Raven script user vs Aransu non script user. This is an absolutely huge difference considering the relative power of the two weapons. Higher DPS means less mechanics that have to be repeated and thus less likelihood of a failure in one of those sequences. If you have to repeat mechanics 5 times it's simply more probable that someone will fail where as it's a much lower chance if you only had to repeat them once; or not at all.

 

• Maybe it's just me then, because FMs I face in arenas shoot way faster than any FM I've seen on the tournaments (I'm using these as a ballpark of what is actually humanly possible). This seems suspect.

 

• Well, I'm sure BNS developers intended for a Raven user to be able to dominate an Aransu user if the Raven user used scripts and the Aransu played normally. Doesn't seem likely, but something tells me that in Korea it's less of an occurrence.

 

• Not everything can be animation cancelled and as I said, animation cancelling relies usually on user reaction to visual cues. As a BM for example, to cancel a flicker into a honed slash I watch for the exact moment of the swing to hit the other skill in order to cancel. At best, I can achieve what the guides show, which is an animation cancel, but it's nothing compared to what the scripts can do which is a blur of indecipherable movement (you can see them waving their arms around like it's going out of style though). Also note that hitting the skill at the wrong time doesn't cancel and actually has it play out. Timing is crucial, human error. My Aion example was to illustrate that no matter what the latency, it is only humanly possible to press that many buttons that fast. You could have a latency of 0 and it wouldn't change this. No one is going to be able to, for example, hit 2+ keys in sequence, within 10 ms of each other nonstop. Personally think it's more suitable to call it skill sequencing with a script than animation cancelling. Due to a nearly nonexistent GCD, you can literally execute skills immediately with nearly no delay.

    
         

 

 

 

[MrBubbles]

3 hours ago, swpz said:

-snip wall of text-
         

 

 

 

I should correct your figures on the human response time. The AVERAGE human response time for visual stimulus indeed is 250ms but for audio it is 170ms. I stress the point that it is the average, the figures are a lot lower when you have practiced extensively to react to that exact stimulus. You'd be surprised at how quickly and reliably humans can press buttons with enough practice. Take for example speedrunning of games where many tricks require chaining of multiple frame perfect inputs together, often based on visual or auditory stimulus. People can do it, consistently. That is pressing buttons 1/60th of a second (16.67ms) apart. The fastest typers can type 200+ words per minute (~1000 characters), that is chaining inputs 60ms apart for a minute straight. Not only that, but they're typing out randomized words so they're also reacting to what they read.

 

In BnS it's even easier as your inputs get buffered, so your timing doesn't even have to be that crisp for most cases. Barring performance limitations (ping and framerate) humans are perfectly capable of doing pvp combos to perfection consistently and anicanceling to output near theoretical maximum dps. Sure, most of people cannot do it and some of them resort to macros to make up for their lack of dexterity and muscle memory, but I do not think it's a legitimate reason to punish the players who CAN do it without macroing. As far as I know, all the anicancel skills are already hardcapped by the gcd (as in, there's a timer already in place for consecutive hits) and the exploit of editing the gcd has been fixed so there is no reason for further restrictions. If you end up hindering the gameplay experience of legitimate players because of a few cheaters, you're on a wrong path.

[Racingwind]

9 hours ago, swpz said:

• Generally speaking human response times are in the range of .25 to .5 seconds, so a median figure of .35 seems to be good enough.
• etc~~~

- As pointed out already, that is without training. With training, you can push that down to something like 0.1 to 0.15. Yes mistakes can be made, but have you seen those pros when they don't make a mistake? They basically are what you describe, the moment their opponent is CC'ed, they go into beast mode and destroys their opponent. You can say that they go into a frenzy, that they looked like they are on steroids, but you can't say that's "obviously macro", because there is no proof. It definitely raises the possibility that they are, but every point you've made is humanly possible. pressing 6 buttons in 1 second without error can be done. It's like those FPS players in CS that can snipe someone with a AWP without a scope, while jumping, when their target is half way across the map and is falling. Their reaction time and coordination is off the charts. You can't say "obviously aim bot" because it's humanly possible. Do these pros make mistakes? yes they don't hit every time, but man 90% of the time it just looks like aim bot to me. But I know it's not, because I'm standing right beside them booting up the computer, then the game and there aren't any extra programs ran. I do agree that macros results in inescapable deaths, but again it goes back to having hard evidence, which is extremely hard to provide. A simple "they went nuts the moment I was CCed and blew me up, obvious macro" isn't going to cut it.

- One big difference about botting and macro is that botting have decision blocks and macros don't. This implies that a bot script can make decisions in place of the human, thus the human does not have to be present and the script can run indefinitely. Macros, however, does not have decision blocks and cannot be triggered automatically, a human has be to present. Just making this distinction, they aren't "about the same".

- Don't know what's the deal with keep trying to compare BnS to Aion, but BnS is not Aion. And yes, while I see that they don't instantly blow up someone in CC, but I've also seen where they execute combos like crazy. Also alot of the times they are watching out for escape skill usage and whatnot. I've seen pro players blowing each other up with amazing impunity when the opponent have blown all their escape skills. For the 50k DPS, the guy is talking about a raven 9 having 50ms ping while the aransu has like over 100ms. And he explicitly said that it's not due to script usage, but ping / frame rate issue.

- I've seen bronze FM (me included) that just spam skills like crazy without regard to opponent's block / counter / parry / escape skills. I can fire off like a machine gun too. Pros don't do that because they are watching for block / counter / parry / escape skills, they are also trying to bait their opponent into using them.

- Where is your evidence for raven user dominating aransu user because of macros? Evidence is key, and even after the production of such evidence, the credibility of such evidence is also a question.

- Animation cancelling does not need to rely on visual cues, it can be done with rhythm. Which can be practiced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XcWbwF9R-U&t=3193s at 38:12, that des went nuts after the warlock got CCed. At 38:30, after the flicker stun and the BM closed in, see how he went nuts with the dragontongue + q + block > HM block, at 39:46 that FM started slow, and then at 39:50 he started machine gunning the BM.

 

All in all, I think you are underestimating what humans are capable of, and perhaps illusioned that (as I often am) 1 second is longer than what it seems like so you feel as if they are using all those skills all within one second.

[Statler]

vor 20 Stunden schrieb swpz:

Server side timers would negate everything. Macros would still exist, but would be unable to gain any tangible advantage over someone not using them.

Well you know these kind of already exist?

Lets take FM for example.

Flame Palm (LMB), Frost Plam (RMB), Dragonchar / Blazing Beam (2) the main dmg skills all have instant casting and no cooldown. Even when you use a macro that will simulate pressing a a key or mousebotton with a delay of 50ms for example, you should cast your skill 20 times in a second, even with a 200ms ping you should be able to cast your skill 5times in a second, but thats impossible due to a hardcoded delay. You can use Blazing Beam at max. 1-2 times in a second, regardless how fast you press your buttons.

 

So in a fight i can cast my blazing beam 1-2 times in a second with a perfect rotation and a macro wont increase it due to the hardcoded delay.

You can notice this delay by using Frost Palm. as i mentioned Frost palm have instant cast time and no cooldown. How many times i can cast this skill depends on the selected skill ( action 1 or 2) when i choose action 1 i have a larger delay between 2 casts then when i select action 2 (1 inflicts chill, 2 increases projectile speed)

So a macro cant cast any skill more often then a skilled player (at least for the FM)

 

vor 20 Stunden schrieb swpz:

Tell me how it's not game breaking for a gunner to fire off 6 skills in a single second and thus wipe an entire group in PVP? It's not humanly possible to input that many commands in that short of a time.

Where is the problem? Befor the patch Tab -F -R after patch 4 Tab F R still takes less then a second to hit 4 instead of 3 keys. 

After Pressing Tab you only need to hold down F and it will fire the 5 or 6 round in less than a second. all you need to do is press r or LMB to reload when your out of ammo whil still holding down F 

 

Macros will easy your life and save your fingers like Thicc Stoccpot said:

Am 26.3.2018 um 19:09 schrieb Thicc Stoccpot:

I use macro because spamming buttons hurts my fingers.

but they wont give you much andvantage in DPS unless you are very slow in pressing some buttons.

 

Oh and BTW @Thicc Stoccpot did you ever played a wind sum in BT? After the raid i need a break from spamming lmb/rmb like hell cause my fingers hurts like hell :/

 

[MrBubbles]

Oh, and the story about aransu 6 FM having 50k less dps than a raven9 FM... There is no other explanation for that but that the aransu 6 FM had no idea of basic FM rotations or had +300ms ping. Each and every one of fm skill timings is hardcapped, you cannot fire them off with a macro any faster than an average human can. In fact, I've never heard that any fm has gotten better dps out of a macro than by doing manual rotations. The reason for that simply lies in cooldown-, buff- and weapon reset management. There is no way to make a macro that will fire skills off optimally for a prolonged period of time and having to constantly interrupt a basic rotation macro by manual skills loses inputs instead of gaining them.

 

And macroing pvp is simply ridiculous and suboptimal on top of it. Do you have a different macro set up to combo every class and different macros depending on what escapes they have on cooldown? And different macros based on what YOU have on cooldown? You need to set up all of that and memorize how to use all of it in order to match reactionary manual inputs, and to me that sounds like a lot more work than actually learning how to play.

[swpz]

On 3/29/2018 at 2:40 AM, Racingwind said:

- As pointed out already, that is without training. With training, you can push that down to something like 0.1 to 0.15. Yes mistakes can be made, but have you seen those pros when they don't make a mistake? They basically are what you describe, the moment their opponent is CC'ed, they go into beast mode and destroys their opponent. You can say that they go into a frenzy, that they looked like they are on steroids, but you can't say that's "obviously macro", because there is no proof. It definitely raises the possibility that they are, but every point you've made is humanly possible. pressing 6 buttons in 1 second without error can be done. It's like those FPS players in CS that can snipe someone with a AWP without a scope, while jumping, when their target is half way across the map and is falling. Their reaction time and coordination is off the charts. You can't say "obviously aim bot" because it's humanly possible. Do these pros make mistakes? yes they don't hit every time, but man 90% of the time it just looks like aim bot to me. But I know it's not, because I'm standing right beside them booting up the computer, then the game and there aren't any extra programs ran. I do agree that macros results in inescapable deaths, but again it goes back to having hard evidence, which is extremely hard to provide. A simple "they went nuts the moment I was CCed and blew me up, obvious macro" isn't going to cut it.

- One big difference about botting and macro is that botting have decision blocks and macros don't. This implies that a bot script can make decisions in place of the human, thus the human does not have to be present and the script can run indefinitely. Macros, however, does not have decision blocks and cannot be triggered automatically, a human has be to present. Just making this distinction, they aren't "about the same".

- Don't know what's the deal with keep trying to compare BnS to Aion, but BnS is not Aion. And yes, while I see that they don't instantly blow up someone in CC, but I've also seen where they execute combos like crazy. Also alot of the times they are watching out for escape skill usage and whatnot. I've seen pro players blowing each other up with amazing impunity when the opponent have blown all their escape skills. For the 50k DPS, the guy is talking about a raven 9 having 50ms ping while the aransu has like over 100ms. And he explicitly said that it's not due to script usage, but ping / frame rate issue.

- I've seen bronze FM (me included) that just spam skills like crazy without regard to opponent's block / counter / parry / escape skills. I can fire off like a machine gun too. Pros don't do that because they are watching for block / counter / parry / escape skills, they are also trying to bait their opponent into using them.

- Where is your evidence for raven user dominating aransu user because of macros? Evidence is key, and even after the production of such evidence, the credibility of such evidence is also a question.

- Animation cancelling does not need to rely on visual cues, it can be done with rhythm. Which can be practiced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XcWbwF9R-U&t=3193s at 38:12, that des went nuts after the warlock got CCed. At 38:30, after the flicker stun and the BM closed in, see how he went nuts with the dragontongue + q + block > HM block, at 39:46 that FM started slow, and then at 39:50 he started machine gunning the BM.

 

All in all, I think you are underestimating what humans are capable of, and perhaps illusioned that (as I often am) 1 second is longer than what it seems like so you feel as if they are using all those skills all within one second.

• It's a general rule of thumb that it takes a quarter second to perceive an action, another quarter second to react to the action. In essence, by the time you are acting, it's half a second. If you are animation cancelling and watching for an animation; you aren't going to be getting much faster than half a second without scripts. If humans had .1 second response times they could potentially dodge lower velocity gunfire. Try dodging a BB gun with a muzzle velocity of 200 m/s, you won't, you can see the pellet coming right at you, but you simply because you can't react that fast. A biological limit isn't something you can surmount with "training". To argue otherwise is just silly.
• You can argue macro simply because the speed ups exponentially from their basic rotation once they have a stationary target. With multiple buttons all one has to do is set a combo on one key; then hit that key once the target is stationary. If they act normally then suddenly have huge spurts of speed, that says macro more than anything else could. Also note that PVP is dynamic where as PVE is basically static, I'm not sure how many people are going to be in a perfectly calm state of mind where they can go "okay now I hit 1+2+3+4 in this sequence". PVP is a cluster❤ ❤ ❤ ❤. Unless you are ranged; in that case, just script it and blast everyone away before they can do a thing.
• I will always reference tournament players for reaction times as I know for certain, that is 100%, that they are not using macros of any sort, have perfect ping and possess some of the best reaction times there are among st gamers. If they can't do it, I find it hard to believe it can be done.
• You know once upon a time, botting used to also mean pressing 1 button for multiple actions. But I guess I'm really oldschool.
• He can say whatever he wants, unless the example is as ridiculous as the Aransu guy having 5 FPS and the other guy 120 FPS and 300 ms vs 30ms, it's not believable. Aransu is leagues beyond Raven, there's no contest in the least, for the Raven to pull ahead, the Aransu would have to literally be doing nothing. I wouldn't have evidence, it's not me who made that claim. However, I can state that in my own experience, lower Raven players who macro can easily double my DPS despite my being more geared, it's quite absurd.
• Rythem of .1 second intervals over and over? Replace "human" with "machine" and you'd be correct.

 

I work in a profession where physical abilities could mean life or death, I am not, underestimating what humans can do. I'm fully aware what they can do, and what they cannot. Having such low reaction times are not physically possible. My example of being shot at by a BB gun and watching the pellet approach but being unable to react comes from actual experience. You see the pellet coming at you, you think "move!" but you don't; by the time you move, you've been hit already. That's simply how it is. Go play some paintball to see what I mean (mind you paintballs are usually fired at much lower velocities).

 

On 3/29/2018 at 6:26 AM, Statler said:

Well you know these kind of already exist?

Lets take FM for example.

Flame Palm (LMB), Frost Plam (RMB), Dragonchar / Blazing Beam (2) the main dmg skills all have instant casting and no cooldown. Even when you use a macro that will simulate pressing a a key or mousebotton with a delay of 50ms for example, you should cast your skill 20 times in a second, even with a 200ms ping you should be able to cast your skill 5times in a second, but thats impossible due to a hardcoded delay. You can use Blazing Beam at max. 1-2 times in a second, regardless how fast you press your buttons.

 

So in a fight i can cast my blazing beam 1-2 times in a second with a perfect rotation and a macro wont increase it due to the hardcoded delay.

You can notice this delay by using Frost Palm. as i mentioned Frost palm have instant cast time and no cooldown. How many times i can cast this skill depends on the selected skill ( action 1 or 2) when i choose action 1 i have a larger delay between 2 casts then when i select action 2 (1 inflicts chill, 2 increases projectile speed)

So a macro cant cast any skill more often then a skilled player (at least for the FM)

 

Where is the problem? Befor the patch Tab -F -R after patch 4 Tab F R still takes less then a second to hit 4 instead of 3 keys. 

After Pressing Tab you only need to hold down F and it will fire the 5 or 6 round in less than a second. all you need to do is press r or LMB to reload when your out of ammo whil still holding down F 

 

Macros will easy your life and save your fingers like Thicc Stoccpot said:

but they wont give you much andvantage in DPS unless you are very slow in pressing some buttons.

 

Oh and BTW @Thicc Stoccpot did you ever played a wind sum in BT? After the raid i need a break from spamming lmb/rmb like hell cause my fingers hurts like hell :/

 

And that would be reasonable, 2 key presses within a second is fine. More than 3 is where it starts to become questionably, especially if it's different keys.

 

The problem is using scripts to play the game beyond what human limitations can do. Are you playing the game or are bots playing the game for you?

 

Holding onto F doesn't guarantee that many hits, there is a delay in holding the button down; case in point, I can hold RMB down for 5 seconds and get about 6 DTs, or I can click 10 times and get 10.

 

Will allow you to cheat in all but name basically as you wouldn't be able to do the same without them.

 

Probably shouldn't be spamming so hard if your fingers are being damaged. I don't see any parts of my hand hurt after gaming. But then again I'm not mashing buttons so hard that that my neighbor can hear it.

 

 

[swpz]

On 3/28/2018 at 8:12 PM, MrBubbles said:

I should correct your figures on the human response time. The AVERAGE human response time for visual stimulus indeed is 250ms but for audio it is 170ms. I stress the point that it is the average, the figures are a lot lower when you have practiced extensively to react to that exact stimulus. You'd be surprised at how quickly and reliably humans can press buttons with enough practice. Take for example speedrunning of games where many tricks require chaining of multiple frame perfect inputs together, often based on visual or auditory stimulus. People can do it, consistently. That is pressing buttons 1/60th of a second (16.67ms) apart. The fastest typers can type 200+ words per minute (~1000 characters), that is chaining inputs 60ms apart for a minute straight. Not only that, but they're typing out randomized words so they're also reacting to what they read.

 

In BnS it's even easier as your inputs get buffered, so your timing doesn't even have to be that crisp for most cases. Barring performance limitations (ping and framerate) humans are perfectly capable of doing pvp combos to perfection consistently and anicanceling to output near theoretical maximum dps. Sure, most of people cannot do it and some of them resort to macros to make up for their lack of dexterity and muscle memory, but I do not think it's a legitimate reason to punish the players who CAN do it without macroing. As far as I know, all the anicancel skills are already hardcapped by the gcd (as in, there's a timer already in place for consecutive hits) and the exploit of editing the gcd has been fixed so there is no reason for further restrictions. If you end up hindering the gameplay experience of legitimate players because of a few cheaters, you're on a wrong path.

The point is you need a cue, and in order to respond to that cue, the base response time which is the cue becomes the minimum response time.

 

The fastest typer in the world peaked 212 wpm, averaged 170 wpm, one person out of 7+ billion; not really an example of your average sample of humanity. If you look at the case in question, there were many, many, short words; I would pay a bit more attention to the details of the case before using it as an argument that "humans are capable of such".

 

The game speed runs, would have to see them in action, including the setup of their computers to be sure they weren't scripting as well. You're fully aware that pretty much everything runs with scripts these days, keyboards have built in, mouses have built in, etc. Reason? Because games don't have the most ergonomic layouts for key presses. For example, to cover all BNS keys your hand is all over the place, from 1 to 7 which is already an awkward reach to z-x-c-v which is on the bottom of 1-4. At the same time you are still using WASD to control movement so at least 1 finger is perpetually locked because there is no auto follow target.  Some games get even worse with the absurd numbers of skills. Aion for example we not only used 1-8, we used ctrl+1-4, alt+1-4, even the F1-5 keys. Without knowing the exact game, I cannot further comment on the runs.

 

This layout makes it exponentially harder to hit keys fast as opposed to having 2 hands properly positioned for typing. They asdf jkl; setup is optimized for two hand typing where all fingers can cover the entire keyboard, no jumps are required nor will the fingers get tangled with each other due to having to reach things under while holding onto certain other buttons. Comparing typing to game key press speed isn't applicable.
 

If players can do it without macroing, go for it; but I'd think a ban on macros is in order. Just make Xigncode detect single key presses for multiple inputs. I'll just comment that most players are legit, but you often times see that 1 random guy who throws skills so fast the animations don't even play fully. That guy, is almost always a ranged class - hence this topic. Unfortunately, that guy also gets a lot of coverage as he usually tops the DPS charts and makes people go "wtf".

 

---

 

I'm of the opinion that the developers decide on whether or a class or classes need nerfs by analyzing the bulk percentage of damage they do relative to other classes. They also balance content based on the average damage numbers. A ranged macro user will usually output twice the damage of a melee; in essence, the macro unrealistically inflates the damage numbers far beyond reason leading to nerfs. But without the macros, the class would actually be fine. Another side effect is that due to these higher numbers, content is also made more difficult - much to the detriment of casual players who suddenly have to deal with much higher boss HP numbers with more complex mechanics. If players are clearing top dungeons too soon, too fast because of inflated damage, the natural reaction of the developers is to increase the difficulty of the content via inflating the numbers. But this is only a select group of players where as normal players would suddenly be hit with a higher difficulty cap that wouldn't otherwise be there.

 

I found it strange as hell for example, back when everyone had about 500 AP, bosses already had nearly 80 million HP; what on earth was going on? How could a 500 AP player be expected to output enough damage to even get the bosses to start the mechanics without enrage? Notice that many couldn't do those dungeons until nearly 200 AP higher in most cases. I guess the answer was 'instead of hit once, hit 10 times and that wet noodle isn't so much of a wet noodle anymore'.

 

This is just a theory of course, I have no way to prove whether or not NC is actually doing this, but it's possible.

 

 

[BlueBeard]

@swpz
Now, i'm not exactly a pro BNS player or anything, but as far as i know more than 3 key presses a second is totally a viable thing. I mean, just look at all the ani-cancelling in games like League of Legends, and the insane BPMs of games like Osu.
And i'm not trying to say that macro'ing doesn't boost DPS but, honestly i don't really think that they provide THAT much of a DPS boost for what they do. Yes, they do allow for multiple accurate key presses in quick succession repeatedly, but as far as I know, it isn't actually so far away from human standards. Like most people I know get like a 10-20% DPS boost at most, and that's without considering that macros can screw up your rotations quite a fair bit later on in the game where rotations get increasingly complex. In fact, I do know someone (A Shadow Gunner BTW, so you can't claim that he's not playing a ranged class) who loses 10-20k when he leaves it to macro, and isn't manually ani-cancelling, because the timings of skill presses can quite easily go out of sync.
And honestly speaking, some parts of the game are quite tiring to play without macros. I mean, just look at Wind Summoner, Ice Force Master and Earth Destros in PVE. Their main rotation basically consists of them spamming LMB/RMB. Is it easy to macro it? Yes. But it's not exactly hard to just spam your mouse to get the same effect either. Just that it tends to end in cramps when it comes to raids like BT/VT where you're spamming it over hundreds of times, or over a long duration of play. 
 

[MrBubbles]

15 hours ago, swpz said:

-snip wall of text-

 

 

We're using keyboard and mouse, so our hands ARE properly positioned for maximum efficiency. We also have the option to rebind keys to fit our rotations.

 

Here's some proof that humans are capable of doing all those actions per second that you only deem possible by macros:

 

FM DPS parse on Moyun with recorded APM.

 

In general, I seem to be averaging 380 APM when just afk dps'ing. That is 6.6 buttons per second. Further, I could easily push that APM up to 500+ by moving and jumping constantly since FM is a pretty relaxed class and I have a lot of idle fingers. As for actual skills cast, I do 2.89 per second, could be pushed up by a tiny bit if my ping was more stable... so most of that APM actually goes to waste; I hit lb/rb/2 multiple times just to ensure that the skill goes off to compensate for ping spikes and since I have the time to do it (as mentioned, all FM skills are hardcapped by the GCD). If I was playing a faster class like lightning sin, the APM would translate directly into skill usage, so hitting 6 skills per second accurately is by no means impossible when even an average gamer like me can do it.

 

Should also be mentioned that anicancelling in this game is all about learning the rhythm for it. Light sin/wind kfm/whathaveyou are all based on constant timing rather than having to react to animations. When you learn the timing, you can rely purely on just hitting buttons on the right times even with your eyes closed and sound turned off, so it has very little do with reaction and much more with muscle memory.

[swpz]

10 hours ago, BlueBeard said:

@swpz
Now, i'm not exactly a pro BNS player or anything, but as far as i know more than 3 key presses a second is totally a viable thing. I mean, just look at all the ani-cancelling in games like League of Legends, and the insane BPMs of games like Osu.
And i'm not trying to say that macro'ing doesn't boost DPS but, honestly i don't really think that they provide THAT much of a DPS boost for what they do. Yes, they do allow for multiple accurate key presses in quick succession repeatedly, but as far as I know, it isn't actually so far away from human standards. Like most people I know get like a 10-20% DPS boost at most, and that's without considering that macros can screw up your rotations quite a fair bit later on in the game where rotations get increasingly complex. In fact, I do know someone (A Shadow Gunner BTW, so you can't claim that he's not playing a ranged class) who loses 10-20k when he leaves it to macro, and isn't manually ani-cancelling, because the timings of skill presses can quite easily go out of sync.
And honestly speaking, some parts of the game are quite tiring to play without macros. I mean, just look at Wind Summoner, Ice Force Master and Earth Destros in PVE. Their main rotation basically consists of them spamming LMB/RMB. Is it easy to macro it? Yes. But it's not exactly hard to just spam your mouse to get the same effect either. Just that it tends to end in cramps when it comes to raids like BT/VT where you're spamming it over hundreds of times, or over a long duration of play. 
 

3 key presses per second is okay, that's 333ms, fully within human capabilities. I'm talking about sub 50ms presses which is what macros achieve.

 

They do as if you have 0 ping you can also have 0 delay, human biological max is about 250ms speed, macros can speed this to as fast as your ping allows, if your ping is 30, you can go at 30, if it's 1, you can go at 1. With that macros taht is.

 

Sure I can see the health related issues but that doesn't make using scripts right; considering they aren't mainstream, they aren't something everyone has access to and it severely benefits low ping players. If BNS decided to give ingame macros, instead of pressing LMB-RMB, say pressing RMB automatically executes a combo for you, then everyone would be in equal ground. As it stands, macro users have a significant advantage over non macros users.

 

1 hour ago, MrBubbles said:

We're using keyboard and mouse, so our hands ARE properly positioned for maximum efficiency. We also have the option to rebind keys to fit our rotations.

 

Here's some proof that humans are capable of doing all those actions per second that you only deem possible by macros:

 

FM DPS parse on Moyun with recorded APM.

 

In general, I seem to be averaging 380 APM when just afk dps'ing. That is 6.6 buttons per second. Further, I could easily push that APM up to 500+ by moving and jumping constantly since FM is a pretty relaxed class and I have a lot of idle fingers. As for actual skills cast, I do 2.89 per second, could be pushed up by a tiny bit if my ping was more stable... so most of that APM actually goes to waste; I hit lb/rb/2 multiple times just to ensure that the skill goes off to compensate for ping spikes and since I have the time to do it (as mentioned, all FM skills are hardcapped by the GCD). If I was playing a faster class like lightning sin, the APM would translate directly into skill usage, so hitting 6 skills per second accurately is by no means impossible when even an average gamer like me can do it.

 

Should also be mentioned that anicancelling in this game is all about learning the rhythm for it. Light sin/wind kfm/whathaveyou are all based on constant timing rather than having to react to animations. When you learn the timing, you can rely purely on just hitting buttons on the right times even with your eyes closed and sound turned off, so it has very little do with reaction and much more with muscle memory.

No, they aren't as I explained clearly. Using 1-4, WASD and zxcv is already awkward, fingers cross, tangle and the hand has to move far more than if typing in the standard layout. Mouse is another story but there's only 2 buttons generally.

 

Your screenshot shows ~5-6 average actions per second, that's about 150-200ms delay. I'm not seeing the sub 50ms intervals claimed to be possible. Are you agreeing with me?

 

I'm quite curious about the exact times inbetween key presses. Don't know FM combos but for example, from 1-5, how much time inbetween?

 

Redundant check, but you do not script yes?

 

By the way your DPS is not that of an "average gamer", not a chance. 400k is actually very high when compared to the average player.

 

 

 

[MrBubbles]

4 hours ago, swpz said:

3 key presses per second is okay, that's 333ms, fully within human capabilities. I'm talking about sub 50ms presses which is what macros achieve.

 

They do as if you have 0 ping you can also have 0 delay, human biological max is about 250ms speed, macros can speed this to as fast as your ping allows, if your ping is 30, you can go at 30, if it's 1, you can go at 1. With that macros taht is.

 

Sure I can see the health related issues but that doesn't make using scripts right; considering they aren't mainstream, they aren't something everyone has access to and it severely benefits low ping players. If BNS decided to give ingame macros, instead of pressing LMB-RMB, say pressing RMB automatically executes a combo for you, then everyone would be in equal ground. As it stands, macro users have a significant advantage over non macros users.

 

No, they aren't as I explained clearly. Using 1-4, WASD and zxcv is already awkward, fingers cross, tangle and the hand has to move far more than if typing in the standard layout. Mouse is another story but there's only 2 buttons generally.

 

Your screenshot shows ~5-6 average actions per second, that's about 150-200ms delay. I'm not seeing the sub 50ms intervals claimed to be possible. Are you agreeing with me?

 

I'm quite curious about the exact times inbetween key presses. Don't know FM combos but for example, from 1-5, how much time inbetween?

 

Redundant check, but you do not script yes?

 

By the way your DPS is not that of an "average gamer", not a chance. 400k is actually very high when compared to the average player.

 

 

 

And as I mentioned, we have the ability to rebind keys to fit our rotation (you can have 2 separate binds for one skill for example, which makes it a lot easier to spam, or bind extra mouse buttons for skills that are hard to reach). Not only that, but there is no class that requires all the skills for anicanceling; all anicancels are 3 buttons max, or in the case of fastest attack speed classes, just holding a one button with occasional buff applying inbetween. And yes, you can do 10+ actions per second (I'm just hitting all inputs multiple times in a row with 2 binds per skill). Stupidly unnecessary spamming just makes me hit wrong skills and not pay attention to cooldowns though as I have zero practice doing that; I'm sure I could hit the same dps with 700apm as with regular rotation if I just got used to the spam). I wish I had a geared sin to actually show that hitting those insane skill amounts per second is actually doable by mere mortals. And yeah, redundant answer to a redundant question, I don't script. I don't even have any skills bound on mouse apart from RB/LB.

 

KR has ingame macros enabled and from what I gather, they are far worse than manual rotations for most classes for the reasons I mentioned (managing cooldowns, buffs and weapon resets optimally cannot be done with macros).

 

FM has a global cooldown of 1 second on most skills, LB/RB are on separate 0.5 second cooldowns and can be anicanceled with each other. Animation swingbacks on the 1 second gcd skills make it impossible to hit more than 3 skills per second though. That's why I said the example of aransu fm dealing 50k less dps than raven one has to be the aransu one not having any clue of his rotations rather than macros.

 

Sub 50ms skill interval is impossible to achieve as the minimum server-side gcd is 100ms from what I gather (someone tech savvy can correct me on this if I'm wrong). That means that no skills (even the ones that basically have no cooldown at all) can be activated more than 10 times per second. You used to be able to edit the game's xml files to set that cooldown manually to increase attack speed, but that has been patched and is ran on server side now. The only thing you can do to potentially increase your gameplay experience (if you're on very low ping) is to disable the automatic GCD bias that sets your GCD to correspond to your ping every 10 hits, it's proven to use too high values for low ping players. For me, for example, who is on 90-110ms ingame with some spiking, disabling the auto-gcd only makes the game not register some of my inputs. There is also a mouse input interval delay (keyboard inputs do not have that delay), which can be circumvented by rebinding your mouse skills to your keyboard and rebinding the keyboard keys back to your mouse. As stupid as it sounds, it works. These two options *should* be in the ingame options, but aren't. 

 

400k for my gear is by no means exceptional (even I could improve on that by a good 30k with enough of tries). Any equally geared fm with decent ping and class knowledge will do the same because of the global cooldowns. Like with all classes, our dps is hardcapped on server side.

 

By the way, I'm not saying macros aren't lame, they are. But I'm just arguing that they have way less impact than you imply, and that in cases you may suspect a macro, the chances are the player is just good at the game and restricting the amount of inputs you can do even further is going to hurt the legitimate players a lot more than macroers. Besides, we'll get the KR macros to EU/NA at some point probably anyway. 

[swpz]

2 hours ago, MrBubbles said:

And as I mentioned, we have the ability to rebind keys to fit our rotation (you can have 2 separate binds for one skill for example, which makes it a lot easier to spam, or bind extra mouse buttons for skills that are hard to reach). Not only that, but there is no class that requires all the skills for anicanceling; all anicancels are 3 buttons max, or in the case of fastest attack speed classes, just holding a one button with occasional buff applying inbetween. And yes, you can do 10+ actions per second (I'm just hitting all inputs multiple times in a row with 2 binds per skill). Stupidly unnecessary spamming just makes me hit wrong skills and not pay attention to cooldowns though as I have zero practice doing that; I'm sure I could hit the same dps with 700apm as with regular rotation if I just got used to the spam). I wish I had a geared sin to actually show that hitting those insane skill amounts per second is actually doable by mere mortals. And yeah, redundant answer to a redundant question, I don't script. I don't even have any skills bound on mouse apart from RB/LB.

 

KR has ingame macros enabled and from what I gather, they are far worse than manual rotations for most classes for the reasons I mentioned (managing cooldowns, buffs and weapon resets optimally cannot be done with macros).

 

FM has a global cooldown of 1 second on most skills, LB/RB are on separate 0.5 second cooldowns and can be anicanceled with each other. Animation swingbacks on the 1 second gcd skills make it impossible to hit more than 3 skills per second though. That's why I said the example of aransu fm dealing 50k less dps than raven one has to be the aransu one not having any clue of his rotations rather than macros.

 

Sub 50ms skill interval is impossible to achieve as the minimum server-side gcd is 100ms from what I gather (someone tech savvy can correct me on this if I'm wrong). That means that no skills (even the ones that basically have no cooldown at all) can be activated more than 10 times per second. You used to be able to edit the game's xml files to set that cooldown manually to increase attack speed, but that has been patched and is ran on server side now. The only thing you can do to potentially increase your gameplay experience (if you're on very low ping) is to disable the automatic GCD bias that sets your GCD to correspond to your ping every 10 hits, it's proven to use too high values for low ping players. For me, for example, who is on 90-110ms ingame with some spiking, disabling the auto-gcd only makes the game not register some of my inputs. There is also a mouse input interval delay (keyboard inputs do not have that delay), which can be circumvented by rebinding your mouse skills to your keyboard and rebinding the keyboard keys back to your mouse. As stupid as it sounds, it works. These two options *should* be in the ingame options, but aren't. 

 

400k for my gear is by no means exceptional (even I could improve on that by a good 30k with enough of tries). Any equally geared fm with decent ping and class knowledge will do the same because of the global cooldowns. Like with all classes, our dps is hardcapped on server side.

 

By the way, I'm not saying macros aren't lame, they are. But I'm just arguing that they have way less impact than you imply, and that in cases you may suspect a macro, the chances are the player is just good at the game and restricting the amount of inputs you can do even further is going to hurt the legitimate players a lot more than macroers. Besides, we'll get the KR macros to EU/NA at some point probably anyway. 

Rebinding doesn't change the fact that you are using one hand and there are a limited number of actions said 5 fingers can input at any given time.

 

I think things are becoming confused. When I say "skills executed" that has little bearing on actions per minute. Actions per minute are actions per minute, anything done is an action but it does not necessarily translate into a "skill". There are mechanical and software factors, keys don't always hit, they don't always register, keys ghost, etc. That's why I use "skills" as that bypasses any of these. If you're hitting skills that fast, there is a problem. I don't deny that it's humanly possible to hit multiple identical keys very quickly - key word here is identical. I will maintain, however, that it is impossible for one to hit 10 keys in a row in a second if they keys aren't nearly identical as that requires movement, positioning and judgement.

 

Macros bypass everything, no mechanic issues are ever involved and no human errors or reaction times are involved either as I had been saying ever since.

 

I have a number of geared assassins in my clan, sufficed to say, none of them are able to repeat the absurdity that scripts are able to produce.

 

Macros generally should be worse than manual input, if it is then that's the trade off for using automation. However, as it stands, it's far better than manual input; this is a problem. The macros in NC games have always sucked.

 

It would really be one of those once in a blue moon cases for an Aransu user to not know their class (bought account maybe), but that aside; it seems unbelievable. I'm not the guy who made that claim, so I'd be curious to see a DPS breakdown of the two.

 

Once upon a time GCD was in an configuration file that could be edited at will. I recall an experiment with autohotkey where despite my 150ms ping, I was able to attack as fast as someone with 30ms ping simply by writing my combo into autohotkey (50ms delay inbetween send) and lowering the GCD to 100. It was disgusting, let's say I have never once again done such. But I digress, those options should be there, it actually helps higher ping players considerably but there shouldd be a set in stone minimum to prevent animation negation nonsense (hacks).

 

Higher than most sufficed to say.

 

They certainly have an impact; someone scripting can at the very least attack at 100% efficiency as allowed by the game. Someone not scripting will likely only be able to achieve 60-80%; that 20-40% extra is a huge advantage and for zero effort is simply lame.

 

I'd also theorize that they have quite an impact on the overall situation, after all, the people most likely to abuse macros are also the people running the top tier dungeons. Who are likely the ones who cause NC to either buff or nerf the dungeons because "they got cleared too easily", and or design new content that is exponentially more difficult in response. My theory that NC balances and designs things based on an overall damage sheet to rate difficulty has basis, it's similar to what some other companies do. The artificial inflation of damage and the ability due to said increased damage to clear things easier leads to detrimental trickle down effects for much of the playerbase. Content is made harder, these effects can be seen on content that is years old - like BT for example.

[MrBubbles]

1 hour ago, swpz said:

Rebinding doesn't change the fact that you are using one hand and there are a limited number of actions said 5 fingers can input at any given time.

 

I think things are becoming confused. When I say "skills executed" that has little bearing on actions per minute. Actions per minute are actions per minute, anything done is an action but it does not necessarily translate into a "skill". There are mechanical and software factors, keys don't always hit, they don't always register, keys ghost, etc. That's why I use "skills" as that bypasses any of these. If you're hitting skills that fast, there is a problem. I don't deny that it's humanly possible to hit multiple identical keys very quickly - key word here is identical. I will maintain, however, that it is impossible for one to hit 10 keys in a row in a second if they keys aren't nearly identical as that requires movement, positioning and judgement.

 

Macros bypass everything, no mechanic issues are ever involved and no human errors or reaction times are involved either as I had been saying ever since.

 

I have a number of geared assassins in my clan, sufficed to say, none of them are able to repeat the absurdity that scripts are able to produce.

 

Macros generally should be worse than manual input, if it is then that's the trade off for using automation. However, as it stands, it's far better than manual input; this is a problem. The macros in NC games have always sucked.

 

It would really be one of those once in a blue moon cases for an Aransu user to not know their class (bought account maybe), but that aside; it seems unbelievable. I'm not the guy who made that claim, so I'd be curious to see a DPS breakdown of the two.

 

Once upon a time GCD was in an configuration file that could be edited at will. I recall an experiment with autohotkey where despite my 150ms ping, I was able to attack as fast as someone with 30ms ping simply by writing my combo into autohotkey (50ms delay inbetween send) and lowering the GCD to 100. It was disgusting, let's say I have never once again done such. But I digress, those options should be there, it actually helps higher ping players considerably but there shouldd be a set in stone minimum to prevent animation negation nonsense (hacks).

 

Higher than most sufficed to say.

 

They certainly have an impact; someone scripting can at the very least attack at 100% efficiency as allowed by the game. Someone not scripting will likely only be able to achieve 60-80%; that 20-40% extra is a huge advantage and for zero effort is simply lame.

 

I'd also theorize that they have quite an impact on the overall situation, after all, the people most likely to abuse macros are also the people running the top tier dungeons. Who are likely the ones who cause NC to either buff or nerf the dungeons because "they got cleared too easily", and or design new content that is exponentially more difficult in response. My theory that NC balances and designs things based on an overall damage sheet to rate difficulty has basis, it's similar to what some other companies do. The artificial inflation of damage and the ability due to said increased damage to clear things easier leads to detrimental trickle down effects for much of the playerbase. Content is made harder, these effects can be seen on content that is years old - like BT for example.

Again, we're using 2 hands, not 1. We have a mouse. We can rebind keys to anywhere we want them, including that mouse. And as said, at most any anicancels in this game require a maximum of 3 keys that are repeated in a sequence, that sequence is only broken by reapplying buffs/debuffs every once in a while. I can hit 3 keys in a sequence at 700 apm without mistakes or timing fluctuation when there's even a one key bound to mouse and so can almost anyone with some practice. That translates to this "skills per minute" you're talking about, directly. We're not talking about any awkward finger movement across the whole keyboard, it's just a few taps repeated in a rhythmical sequence on keys that can be rebound to suit your preference.

 

Macros also suffer from ping and framerate fluctuation (macros are prone to drop skills if there's a performance drop as a script doesn't adjust for that ever - humans do by inputting the skill again on reaction when it doesn't go off). I want to see proof of macros producing better results for players who have the knowledge, skill and dexterity to pull off optimal rotations of their class; I'm 100% certain a vast majority of those players suffer a dps LOSS from using macros over manual inputs. The reason why you see good players still use macros in pve is just pure laziness, not that they get bazillions of extra damage out of it. The reason why I single out pve is that good players would NEVER macro pvp because that is just silly and detrimental.

 

And, I did tell you. There already is a minimum server side GCD in place that cannot be bypassed. And it's at a level that is perfectly reachable by humans. That means a macro cannot surpass humanly achievable dps. What more could you want? Unless you really want to hinder the gameplay of legitimately good players just to force them to the same line with average players.

 

And no, dungeons seem to be balanced based on the average dps of the community. Everything in the game currently can be cleared with a party average of one sixth of the damage of high-geared and skilled players. People like me have the damage to solo all dungeons in normal mode (barring mechanics that prevent us from doing so). We'd like harder content, but we're not getting it because that would exclude a majority of the playerbase, which isn't good for the game. The "damage inflation" you're talking about simply comes from gear as the dps gap between average and end game gear is growing larger and larger every patch. Macro users have no impact on that. And Ransacked Treasury is a step in the right direction, it requires no damage, but has fairly punishing mechanics. That is what the game used to be about and it's about time we get more content that require more brain and less mindless dps. That also hurts the macro users, if it makes you happy.