Bio says no to macros at Guild Summit.

[Frostvein]

Hate to say it, but if you are demanding the same system as WoW, why not just go play WoW?

 

People have already called this game a WoW clone. Now you want to make it even more like WoW by enabling a gimp feature like macros?

 

Blizzard still has plenty of servers up. Go macro your way to greatness there.

 

Me? I choose decision making, switching targets, manual rotations - where I KEEP THE TICKING CLOCK IN MY HEAD.

 

vs.

 

Bright Flashing lights - with big bold print warning me of danger. 2 or 3 button spam fests.

Custom UI's which make it virtually IMPOSSIBLE for me to mis-time my DoT rotations, virtually IMPOSSIBLE for me to miss a detrimental effect that can be dispelled off of a teammate.

 

I choose a game that leaves more room for human error, vs a game that allows you to macro most of the human error element out.

 

Already people using macros.

[Urkanan]

Hate to say it, but if you are demanding the same system as WoW, why not just go play WoW?

 

[...]

 

I choose a game that leaves more room for human error, vs a game that allows you to macro most of the human error element out.

 

Hmmmm cause I don't want to? I want to play this game, and think it could benefit from the macro system. Generally telling people to go away is just, well, RIDICULOUS.

 

Macros (the ones most wanters would like in the game) only leave human error out when your game design is so poor that most of your mechanics can be bypassed by said macros (aka spell rotations)

 

I find it kinda ironic that all the suposed skill that macros will wipe out, according to posts like yours, consists of having enough brain-hand coordination to push the right buttons. GASP.

 

I understand that this may be a big enough challenge for some, so they never really get to see what happens when THE GAME'S UI is simply too constraining to let you do what you can do, and don't know the frustration of seeing how precious tenths of seconds go by while you try to make out whether a buff is on or not BECAUSE OF LAME FRAME/NAMEPLATE DESIGN, or how the game SWAPS my focus with my target (lol?), when all I want to do is change my Focus to my current target for later use, so instead I have to go through a whole series of needless actions to achieve simple goals that are constrained by mechanics, not by design.

 

I also understand that someone who considers being able to perform 8 keystrokes without mistake a matter of skill may be content with fighting their keyboard, and thus don't really want macros to burst their bubble. It is surely a happier life.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Urkanan

[dupela]

Bioware doesn't like to work.

 

no maybe they like the player to actually do something other than macro spam ?

[RadricTycho]

Please refer to the post I wrote right above yours (which probably was posted when you were still writing this). But the summary is this: people do not want that type of capability. In WoW, a macro can only determine what spell is used based on who you are targeting, what buttons you are holding, and your mouse state.

 

In WoW's macro system, you *cannot* do the following;

 

1) Determine your spell based on the class of your target

2) Determine your spell based on the health or state of your target

3) Determine your spell based on your own health or state

4) Determine your spell based on your energy, mana, rage, etc.

 

Additionally, castsequence macros will completely break in all but the most trivial situations: they will do nothing if any of the spells in the castsequence are on cooldown or unusable.

 

So, to conclude: all of your fears are alleviated if SWTOR uses a macro system inspired by WOW.

 

I have used plenty of castsequence macros in WoW to good effect. No they aren't a panacea but they do help in many situations where all you want to do is generate threat or rotate through your trinkets, or create macros to swap stances and use a skill, etc. And you are completely wrong about item 3 in your list. There are plenty of conditionals which are based on your "stance" or "shapeshift".

 

Here is the issue, and I know this already from trial. SWTOR can be a completely prioritized system for some classes. The way skill activation works a person can hit 5 skills in sequence as fast as possible and the first one which was not on CD, had enough resources and whose caster/opponent state was met will be activated. This means that a person can send to the game something like the string:

 

123456

 

and if the skill activated by the 1 key was not available because the opponent was not stunned, and skill activated by the 2 key was not available because you didn't have enough rage, but the skill mapped by the 3 key was available then it would be activated and the rest of the skills for 4, 5 and 6 would be ignored. This makes it possible to spam 123456 in this game and activate the best possible skill available at any given moment. Sure a player cannot spam this macro all the time. But there are many cases where a good sequence would totally optimize skill activation for the player.

 

The reason for this is because the game does not trigger the GCD when a skill was attempted but was not available. This is unlike WoW where that would happen. WoW did this for the very reason that it trivializes skill selection. Unfortunately SWTOR developers learned NOTHING from WoW about this.

 

 

Back to my point. Certain classes like Sith Warrior would definitely have a big advantage if they use macros of this sort. In fact many probably already are.

 

Finally and more importantly, you assumed that I was "fearing" something. I am not. My concern is only that BW fix their skill activation flaws and when they do, implement a FAIR macro system that does not benefit classes with specific resource mechanics. If you haven't played a BH I suggest you try it so that you understand why it is not just priority that determines what skill to hit next.

[Nippon]

Get a mic.

 

LOL

 

This...

 

Seriously, who does any kind of hard group content (that would require commands) without one these days..!!

[Urkanan]

Here is the issue, and I know this already from trial. SWTOR can be a completely prioritized system for some classes. The way skill activation works a person can hit 5 skills in sequence as fast as possible and the first one which was not on CD, had enough resources and whose caster/opponent state was met will be activated. This means that a person can send to the game something like the string:

 

123456

 

and if the skill activated by the 1 key was not available because the opponent was not stunned, and skill activated by the 2 key was not available because you didn't have enough rage, but the skill mapped by the 3 key was available then it would be activated and the rest of the skills for 4, 5 and 6 would be ignored.

 

[...]

 

The reason for this is because the game does not trigger the GCD when a skill was attempted but was not available. This is unlike WoW where that would happen.

 

 

I am sorry but you are wrong, WoW doesn't trigger the GCD if the attempted ability is unavailable (that would be lol). The way they handle it has nothing to do with the GCD:

 

The macro you are proposing is highly dangerous and the problem is most people seem to think that is what we are demanding.

 

Luckily what you propose is easily prevented the way WoW does: by not letting the macro to "keep on reading" if it attempted an ability that failed for whatever reason, plain and simple, and nothing to do with GCD.

[RadricTycho]

You are talking macros and I am talking skill activation.

 

Imagine you have 6 skills mapped to 123456

 

Try spamming the string 123456 in WoW. If a skill could not be cast, it does not let any other skill in that sequence get cast either. This is not true in SWTOR, it will cast any of the 6 skills, whichever is available first.

[Urkanan]

You are talking macros and I am talking skill activation.

 

Imagine you have 6 skills mapped to 123456

 

Try spamming the string 123456 in WoW. If a skill could not be cast, it does not let any other skill in that sequence get cast either. This is not true in SWTOR, it will cast any of the 6 skills, whichever is available first.

 

Fair enough. can't say yes or no to that as I would have to reinstall wow and test, lol. Not willing to.

 

EDIT: I don't know if they'd activate or not due to the error you get, but I am most sure the GCD isn't triggered until something "fires". At least not "for real", even if the visual animation of GCD does go off in your bars. this visual trigger may also be due to the use of any bar addons if that is the case)

 

I still stand strong in favor of WoW macros being brought over and shamelessly ripped off.

Edited March 11, 2012 by Urkanan

[RadricTycho]

Fair enough. can't say yes or no to that as I would have to reinstall wow and test, lol. Not willing to. EDIT: I don't know if they'd activate or not due to the error you get, but I am most sure the GCD isn't triggered until something "fires"

 

I still stand strong in favor of WoW macros being brought over and shamelessly ripped off.

 

Well I would be for it too I suppose, but I would really like to see this skill activation issue fixed too. Right now I stopped playing my warrior because I realized that I'd have to cheat to be able to activate many of my skills optimally. Instead I play classes like Sorc or Merc whose skill bloat isn't nearly as bad as warrior.

 

By the way if you hear people complaining about the "red text" error message spam. These are people using 3rd party macros. And if they say they are not, they are just liars too. I find it hilarious to hear them complain and then claim that they just mash the same skill over and over waiting for the cooldown. Yeah... right.

[Anathar]

so now that me and the devs are in agreement about one thing

 

2 - cross server warzone ques in the next patch.

 

3 - remove some of the cc and redundant abilities that either have the same or different cooldowns.

 

4 - legacy system that allows me to send items back and fourth between my toons on different factions so i dont have to relvl the same profession more than once.

 

5 - more than one crafting profession along with all their gathering skills.

[Urkanan]

 

5 - more than one crafting profession along with all their gathering skills.

 

I missed this. any1 care to elaborate?

[Litefire]

If you're invoking the Guild Summit, let's be a bit more precise about what we've said:

 

A) Macros are a possibility in the future. We don't hate them.

 

B) I am opposed to macros that automate combat (shouldn't be a surprise). I'd rather take tedious things (such as sprint turning off after death) and modify the design than to rely on people to create macros to deal with these things - which creates unnecessary barriers of entry in my opinion.

 

C) We don't consider interface improvements and quality of life features (e.g. mouse over healing) to be macros (so 2 does not apply)

 

D) Macros for social behaviors, etc are definitely a possibility too.

 

Glad to hear you have a reasonable point of view on macros, there was another game where i had 65 different macros to make a character playable to it's full potential because the interface was so terrible and the mechanics were convoluted behind shifting forms.

 

In terms of automating combat i would agree chain ability macros are bad for the game period.

 

Would you consider tedious things like having 2 key-binds for 1 type of ability that is the same just with 1 target being friendly and 1 being enemy. Those are the type of macros i prefer to use in other games. For example macroing force charge and intervene on the same button would be nice. I know when I press the button i will leap to whoever i have targeted friend or foe.

[Urko]

Macros are for lamers.

[tegororn]

Macros are for lamers.

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> +1

[Maltra]

For the love of god what what do they have against macros.

 

Taking a wild guess i'd say trying to macro something with the way the game engine works with its animations/skills limitations would be a ridiculous abomination and it would be hard to get loads of things to work, so they'd rather say "we don't want/like macros *trollface*"

[Baconmonster]

I guess this means that my dream to make macros for abilities so I can shout something when using them is off the table? Why give me so many cool looking abilities as a BH and not allow me to yell stuff like WHERE ARE YOU GOING with my grapple hook, or Don't taze me bro with my electro dart.

[CulannHS]

LOL

 

This...

 

Seriously, who does any kind of hard group content (that would require commands) without one these days..!!

 

Who does hard group content without a mic or voicechat these days?

 

Completely deaf guilds. And yes, they exist. There was one in Rift, also one in WoW.

Edited March 11, 2012 by CulannHS

[Chewpaco]

I guess this means that my dream to make macros for abilities so I can shout something when using them is off the table? Why give me so many cool looking abilities as a BH and not allow me to yell stuff like WHERE ARE YOU GOING with my grapple hook, or Don't taze me bro with my electro dart.

 

That wouldn't be off the table. That would be considered a social macro, not a combat macro.

 

It is only 1 combat move - you are just tying in a prescripted, social, /chat command.

 

Which is what the extent of what macro's should be.

 

Tanks macroing an assist call to 1 ability.

CCers macroing a /chat command to Force Lift, or Splice.

Healers macroing a /chat command to let someone know a heal is incoming -

 

These macro's do not dumb down or automate the combat system. They just communicate actions to your teammates.

[THEdocBucey]

Glad to hear you have a reasonable point of view on macros, there was another game where i had 65 different macros to make a character playable to it's full potential because the interface was so terrible and the mechanics were convoluted behind shifting forms.

 

In terms of automating combat i would agree chain ability macros are bad for the game period.

 

Would you consider tedious things like having 2 key-binds for 1 type of ability that is the same just with 1 target being friendly and 1 being enemy. Those are the type of macros i prefer to use in other games. For example macroing force charge and intervene on the same button would be nice. I know when I press the button i will leap to whoever i have targeted friend or foe.

 

if the dev team is opposed to combat macros then it needs to get rid of all but 2 or three combat macros per class the game becomes to hard to handle on combat characters when macros or at least micros(small combo Fire offs) can not be used or put in the Terms of Service No use of Macros or Micros for ANYONE!!!! all or nothing or its not fair.

[Nicain]

Text marcos would be nice, combat not so much.

 

When I give my 15% dmg buff for 6 seconds I'd like to tie a chat macro to it to let my party / ops members know.

Edited May 4, 2012 by Sireene
use of retarded - due to age of post, no action

[defiantlegacy]

they said no combat macros, not "no macros". i imagine we'll eventually see macros for emotes, readycheck, /say, etc... eventually

 

Which is absolutely pointless

[defiantlegacy]

Who does hard group content without a mic or voicechat these days?

 

Completely deaf guilds. And yes, they exist. There was one in Rift, also one in WoW.

 

Obviously in the MASSIVE minority.

[Ozlock]

As to why Bioware isn't adding macros. My guess would be they have some sorta deal with Razor. Since Razon markets the SWTOR keyboard and hypes up its ability to use macros. You might think this decision is about gaming, but I think it's probably about money.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Republic-Gaming-Keyboard/dp/B00635MTPA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331577648&sr=8-1

 

That's my opinion. Doesn't really matter either way. If people use macros they probably already have a gaming keyboard... and if they don't. Bio and Razor want to sell you the SWTOR macro keyboard.

[Chewpaco]

Which is absolutely pointless

 

Why is is so hard for you to accept that every single combat action, decision, BioWare wants the player to make a decsion correctly, then execute that action accurately?

 

Is it wrong for a gaming company to want to maintain the integrity of thier combat system by ensuring its' playerbase doesn't use prescripted combat conditions and actions, combined in 1 key, to eliminate the chance of player error?

[Darnu]

As to why Bioware isn't adding macros. My guess would be they have some sorta deal with Razor. Since Razon markets the SWTOR keyboard and hypes up its ability to use macros. You might think this decision is about gaming, but I think it's probably about money.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Republic-Gaming-Keyboard/dp/B00635MTPA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331577648&sr=8-1

 

That's my opinion. Doesn't really matter either way. If people use macros they probably already have a gaming keyboard... and if they don't. Bio and Razor want to sell you the SWTOR macro keyboard.

 

This. This this and this.

 

Honestly, they should be included in the game as part of a package you buy. Like they bought a whole load of them at bargain basement prices and as a gift for buying the game you get the complete package you need to make the game closer to being complete instead of them actually doing the work to include them in the game like a sort of deal where Razer is a sub-contractor. Like a "OK so we won't include them in the game itself but here's something you'll like better - we hope. A brand new SWTOR mouse and keyboard". And as a standard feature and not a promotion.