Dealing with macros

[shockedfrog]

Macroing is happening, and we can safely assume that it will continue to happen. Even those who do it don't always agree with it, but they have to in order to keep up with others.

Possible solution 1: Encourage the acceptance of it, through giving macroing details on the forums/in the documentation. This will cause less problems between players, but what's the point in a game that nobody is actually playing?

Possible solution 2: Reduce the player's need to do tasks that they would rather set up macros for. This could be done by giving greater rewards for tasks which cannot be so easily macroed (or reducing/removing rewards for tasks that can), but this ends up punishing those who do those tasks themselves. Having the game automatically do certain tasks repeatedly on the player's behalf in the same way a macro would is another possible way of going about this, but again may lead to the situation where half of the players aren't actually playing.

Possible solution 3: Increase the player's need to actually be there, playing the game. I used to enjoy dealing with macroers in RPG World Online by giving them lit campfires that would burn them, before they disabled it. :/ While that particular example is kinda ridiculous, something along those lines that enables players to take advantage of those who aren't watching the game would be handy. However, it needs to be something which cannot be avoided through other macros, and also needs to be something which can't be used to hassle players who are playing the game properly. This could also be done by increasing the game's ability to surprise the player with things that cannot be easily macroed out of, some form of temporary malady which is cured through some method that is difficult to do via macros, but easy for a player who's there. Of course, that much is obvious, but finding a suitable example that would actually fit the game is another matter entirely.

I'm not sure which way the devs plan to go on this, if any, though I'm guessing that the 'happiness' meter might have something to do with it.

[sami1337]

What are macro's being used for? I can't think of a single thing i'd want to macro unless i feel incredibly cheap.

[Blaze]

Probably LP grinding.

[shockedfrog]

A few have been mentioned on the B12 forums, 2 being used for interface improvements, which are reasonable, but one post mentions a macro that gathers sticks, builds and destroys something, and even logs in and out occasionally to save the character's LP, which is unfortunate, though not unexpected, and I'm sure there's others doing similar things who haven't mentioned it.

[RaptorJedi]

One of my friends built one that has him constructing a dream catcher, destroying it when it has all the sticks, going to an apple tree and eating some, then gathering sticks and repeating the process. The first time he made it, it miss clicked after four cycles and sent his character walking off into the wild (which is populated by level 5 foxes), the second time we tried replacing the dream catcher with a basket to see if he would build that all the way, but we messed him up and he wandered off taking a few steps forward, then a few back. Somehow he managed to find a new apple tree and started over.


I do think there should be something done though, before people start using it to power level alts to go do theft and things while leaving their main character unpunished. (Edit: I'm not saying it's bad for people to make alts to do that, it's a valid strategy in my opinion, I just think they should have to level up the same way as everyone else)

[Sean_Mirrsen]

Continuous grinding with macro's isn't going to work because of stamina loss. If happiness loss begins to affect the speed of actions, it will also mess up macro's. Watchful players could see when a character is doing something in continuous loops, and attempt to stand in the way of his actions - if he's really there, he'll keep doing his thing. If he's not, the cycle will break. And if all else fails, there are always hostile monsters.

[Vattic]

Indeed, I made a macro myself, just makes it so if you alt-leftClick its like clicking there with both the left and middle mouse buttons simultaneously. I don't really see the problem with this kind of macro myself as it just means I don't have to press both mouse buttons at once all the time.

[shockedfrog]

Yeah, I mentioned that kind of macro as reasonable, I'm talking about those that turn the game into Progress Quest.

The 'stand in the way' technique only works to a limited extent, and just encourages macroers to hide away where they won't be interrupted. Same goes for hostile monsters, a prepared macroer is highly unlikely to encounter any. Stamina loss is only a big deal for certain actions, others can be repeated using very little stamina.

[Vattic]

Hehe frog I was just owning up to having made one of the reasonable macros you mentioned not disagreeing with you or being ignorant of your posts . I didn't address the major point you were making because I have little to say on the matter, I don't like people using macros to do things they really should be doing themselves but don't know how it can really be avoided in a game where you have to grind.

[theTrav]

I'd use a macro to harvest large fields if I could find one... That task is extremely painful.
I'd also use a macro to auto repeat the fish task and the pick apple->eat apple->drop apple loop.

I understand you disliking grinder macros but I think attempting to stop them seems likely to end up in an escalation that only harms legit players and the speed of feature addition.