Macros for pvp, respecing, grabbing huttballs. Legal?

[JackNader]

Look guys, this has been stated many times now by multiple Bioware employees.

 

setting up a macro that binds multiple keys to one button is perfectly acceptable.

 

eg.

pressing button 1 spams 123456789.

 

 

Setting up a macro to automate rotations is not..

 

eg.

 

You press a button on your mouse and the software implements

Press key 1 -> delay 1.5 seconds -> press key 2 -> delay 1.5 seconds -press key 3 - etc, etc

 

A LOT of players already do bind many keys to 1 button. The only issue is that your screen fills up with red text which is extremely annoying. You also have no control over what ability fires when. Generally this is ok because a lot of Swtor's button mashing is mindless anyway and it doesn't matter what fires when. Sometimes it does matter and in these cases it is always best to bind the ability to a single button.

Edited June 21, 2013 by JackNader

[Anzel]

Why do u think they show you the terms before you do anything with the game. Legally they already told u and waived responsibility

 

Oooooh "legally". I'm sitting in an office (a big one), not a court room. When grown ups spend more than $100 on a silly toy they don't expect to get banned for using it. EA/BW screwed up on this one. Period.

[Maelael]

Based on things people have said in forums, I'm pretty sure there are people using both respec macros and huttball grabbing macros. If you are not catching and disciplining them I have to wonder at the value of the rules.

 

The guild the OP is referring to is a prime example of such. They're reported on a regular basis in regs. We still see them every week. Its even in their streams.

[warstory]

For all u fighting it good luck, l2p or take your chances

[Astarica]

Beyond the difficulty of catching macros, this situation is never as clearcut as people want you to believe. Nobody wants to be the first gaming company to lose a lawsuit and end up having to pay a few million dollars to a bunch of exploiters. Right now Bioware could just ban everyone and take your money and ran, and in theory that's perfectly fine because I'm sure somewhere in the EULA it says they can terminate your account for any reason, including no reason. But if they actually pulled something like that they'll probably lose in a court of law very badly. You can make a legitmate case that since Bioware is promoting people to use programmed mouse with in game incentives that other scripts/macros are fair game too, or is the point that only guys who paid money to Bioware to promote their macros gets an okay?

[CounterfeitBubba]

Even if people reported players for what they think are quicker huttball pickups f.e. how would bioware even be able to detect or enforce this rule ? Seems impossible on their end.

 

What I typically see is a player casting the pub equivalent of force shroud at the ball in mid while its surrounded by 3-4 of my team-mates and can pick it up from 2-3 player lengths away from the ball spawn. While we are spam clicking to grab the ball these players can grab it quicker if that makes sence. Even if we aren't cced or grenaded (both teams typically use grenades or other cc's to control the ball spawn area with 1-2 snipers also ).

 

Is this what others are referring too when players seem to get the ball quicker in this thread ? Just asking.

[Astarica]

Even if people reported players for what they think are quicker huttball pickups f.e. how would bioware even be able to detect or enforce this rule ? Seems impossible on their end.

 

What I typically see is a player casting the pub equivalent of force shroud at the ball in mid while its surrounded by 3-4 of my team-mates and can pick it up from 2-3 player lengths away from the ball spawn. While we are spam clicking to grab the ball these players can grab it quicker if that makes sence. Even if we aren't cced or grenaded (both teams typically use grenades or other cc's to control the ball spawn area with 1-2 snipers also ).

 

Is this what others are referring too when players seem to get the ball quicker in this thread ? Just asking.

 

Assuming spyware is out (e.g. WoW Warden), the ability to detect cheating generally depends on extensive logging. For example when you respec, the server clearly has to know when it happened. If you kept track of how long it took, you can say 'soandso respeced today in a span of 5 seconds, that seems pretty impossible' and make a note of it, and if it happens multiple times it might warrant investigating. Likewise, I assume a huttball grabbing macro is just spam clicking the middle. Obviously the server has to know that you're trying to click on the middle, so again if your logging is extensive you can say, "Soandso attempted to click on a certain spot for 100 times in the span of 3 seconds, that does not seem humanely possible". Again it takes more than one such example to make a case of someone is cheating, but if you routinely see someone clicking 100 times in 3 seconds it's probably sufficient.

 

Of course I have no idea how extensive logging is in SWTOR. While these are events the server certainly should know about, there's no way to know if the server is making a log of these events or not.

Edited June 20, 2013 by Astarica

[TUXs]

Seems pretty obvious to me what Phillip meant. I thought he was as clear as could be.

[Elear]

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

 

Text macros. Neither click nor ability. Leaving out /stuck because it's supposed to get fixed 'soon', so single click, resulting in single /hug or /dance or /nerfherder. Yes/No?

[funkiestj]

1 key press for 1 ability. What is so hard to understand about that? 1 key-press sending 1, 2 and 3 is illegal.

 

Want to bet 1,000,000 in game credits on your understanding of this issue? I'm on the Bastion and I will give you action.

 

There is absolutely no point in having a macro if it never sends more than 1 keycode in response to a single key press. It would be simpler to say "no macros of any sort are allowed".

Edited June 21, 2013 by funkiestj

[funkiestj]

Text macros. Neither click nor ability. Leaving out /stuck because it's supposed to get fixed 'soon', so single click, resulting in single /hug or /dance or /nerfherder. Yes/No?

 

A very relevant example to go into our macro case law list of precedents.

 

Even more relevant is having a macro to send "<enter>incoming west<enter>" and similar. I want both an "incoming west" and "!@#*-storm at west, HELP!!!!!!!" macros.

 

Of course BW could make it cut and dried by :

1. providing macros in game and saying all out of game macros are prohibited (easy to interpret). Everything possible with in game macros is, by definition, allowed.
   
2. shrinking the benefit provided by using external macros (make respec take a minimum of 20 seconds, or alternatively, provide dual spec as an in game feature)
   
3. have our game clients report suspicious behavior (100 clicks per second to grab the huttball) to BW for further investigation. ( more efficient enforcement)
   

 

I'll call #3 the Tour de France principle. Sure, TdF had a rule against PEDs but in retrospect we see that they were a joke. I doubt any of the winners of TdF in the last 20 years have not cheated WRT PEDs so anyone who didn't use them was handicapping themselves.

 

#1 requires development resources. Given that WZ bolster will take for ever to fix, not to mention season 1 RWZ, match scheduling, fixing the RWZ disconnect problem, they should never have a chance to get around to this.

 

#2 also requires development resource but is a much smaller undertaking (at least putting a floor on respec time is a small undertaking).

 

---

 

TANGENT: regarding the grab huttball macro being discussed ... consider the following hypothetical:

 

I have 25ms latency reported by the SWTOR client. You have a latency of 300ms. We are both using a grab huttball macro that clicks 30 times / second for 2 seconds. Assuming we both start our macro so that we are rapid clicking when the ball appears, will the latency above matter?

 

Does my client send my 30 clicks / second to the SWTOR server who then takes the first click after the ball reappears as the winner or does the client wait until the server tells him the ball is present and then the client sends 1 click event to the server. In the latter case it would seem that lag would have a hug impact on winning huttball jump balls.

[Feztonio]

On the Bastion all the pub bragging guilds use macros. It's pretty obvious when in HB they grab the ball from a light year away and they trow it in the most impossible situations. Plus speed hack, plus Premade vs PUG and than they post on the forum how awesome SWTOR PvP is.

 

you forgot they come on forums and post how it's a L2P issue and that premades and macros don't give anyone an advantage; that it's the PUGS fault and they should merely stop sucking

[Feztonio]

I'll call #3 the Tour de France principle. Sure, TdF had a rule against PEDs but in retrospect we see that they were a joke. I doubt any of the winners of TdF in the last 20 years have not cheated WRT PEDs so anyone who didn't use them was handicapping themselves..

 

I think I read somewhere that if they were to look to give Lance Armstrong's titles to the first guy who never failed a PED's drug test it would've went to the guy who came in 27th one year lol; as in Lance at no. 1 through the 26th place finisher had all been suspected of or failed a PED test in their professional career

[Obirayy]

So is it even possible for bioware to identify an auto clicker for hutball?

 

The only way I can see it being possible is if bioware actually monitors the right click for camera rotation and not just the character being rotated

[Macroeconomics]

Yeesh folks, seriously? He made it very clear.

 

He made clear what is in the ToS. He did not make clear what they are going to do about violations of that ToS. There is video proof of the violations of the ToS. What is BW going to do about it?

 

Nobody wants to be the first gaming company to lose a lawsuit and end up having to pay a few million dollars to a bunch of exploiters. Right now Bioware could just ban everyone and take your money and ran, and in theory that's perfectly fine because I'm sure somewhere in the EULA it says they can terminate your account for any reason, including no reason. But if they actually pulled something like that they'll probably lose in a court of law very badly.

 

Nah. First off, your little band of exploiters will need pony up money to get lawyers. Not gonna happen. Lawyers could on their own assemble if they sniffed any possibility of a class action lawsuit. But since the population size of macro exploiters, much less the population size of macro exploiters who get banned is small, that is unlikely. Adding to the difficulty in getting any class action suit going is the lack of damages. The macro exploiters who get banned (if any) probably get a one week time out. That's not going to equate to a very large monetary damage figure. Meanwhile EA has plenty of on-staff legal personnel who will simply awake from their doughnut and coffee breakfast lethargy to inundate any plaintiff with legal activity. Can you even imagine the deposition of the allegedly injured macro exploiter? Lulz.

 

_________________________________________________________

 

Ultimately this thread did establish what is legal and illegal macroing in SWtoR. But like speed hacks and other cheating methods, 99% of those engaging in the behavior will go unpunished. For now, I suppose...

[TheronFett]

What about the software that comes with the SWTOR Razer Mouse. That is specifically build for Macroing. I think this is a bit confusing for folks who forked over $100 for the hardware and software based on this exact feature set.

 

Now you're saying that it's illegal to use the features of a product, which is specifically co-branded with SWTOR, that you marketed for this purpose?????

 

This is a very valid point and needs to be answered.

[warstory]

Bioware I have a question for you. Why should I play your game? Your bolster system is flawed and exploitable, you do not and can not punish people who use macros because I can't see a way in how you detect it. I play legit but at every turn I have to play against people who don't. So why should I play your game?

[funkiestj]

Nah. First off, your little band of exploiters will need pony up money to get lawyers. Not gonna happen. Lawyers could on their own assemble if they sniffed any possibility of a class action lawsuit. But since the population size of macro exploiters, much less the population size of macro exploiters who get banned is small, that is unlikely. Adding to the difficulty in getting any class action suit going is the lack of damages. The macro exploiters who get banned (if any) probably get a one week time out. That's not going to equate to a very large monetary damage figure. Meanwhile EA has plenty of on-staff legal personnel who will simply awake from their doughnut and coffee breakfast lethargy to inundate any plaintiff with legal activity. Can you even imagine the deposition of the allegedly injured macro exploiter? Lulz.

.

 

TRUTH! Also, I've occassionally received US mailings saying how, as a verizon customer between years x-y, I'm entitled to $2.73 as part of a class action settlement. I just throw those in the trash.

[funkiestj]

1 key press for 1 ability. What is so hard to understand about that? 1 key-press sending 1, 2 and 3 is illegal.

 

Look guys, this has been stated many times now by multiple Bioware employees.

setting up a macro that binds multiple keys to one button is perfectly acceptable.

 

e.g. pressing button 1 spams 123456789.

 

Setting up a macro to automate rotations is not..

 

I do not think either of you are stupid but clearly one of you is wrong. I too, like Jack, recall seeing BW representatives saying this is OK.

 

The problem here is english, especially how it has been used to specify the ToS on macros, is imprecise. A rule like "no 3rd party macros ever" is easy to interpret. The BW rules (before given examples by Phillip) are not.

 

Some players want to cheat, so they will cheat. Precise understanding of the rules is not important to them since they ignore the rules.

 

Others (me) want to get every advantage and convenience in game that they can that does not cross the line to cheating. This group can not go up to the edge of the line unless the line is clearly defined.

 

Thanks to Phillip_BW's recent post we have clear ruling on:

• respec macro (forbidden)
  
• huttball grabbing macro (forbidden)
  

I thought we had a clear ruling from prior posts on the "I press '1', naga sends '123'" but given the two quotes above it is obvious that we need to build up case law of examples. No doubt Phillip_BW will soon make good on his offer to answer yes/no questions.

 

Presumably we will get a plain statement on chat related macros (e.g. all chat macros like "<enter> incoming west<enter> are allowed" (or disallowed, if that is the case).

[idnewton]

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

 

Thanks, please keep it that way. People with real skill appreciate not falling behind because they don't use cheat programs.

[CounterfeitBubba]

I seriously doubt they can monitor the macros used in wz's. If they could then we wouldn't even be having this convo as we wouldn't see it as regulary as we do.

 

Game over man.

[Jayblazen]

What it sounds like is BW is afraid that a inanimate object can program their game better than they can.

[idnewton]

Congratulations on opening that can of worms.

 

Ready the popcorn!

 

Just drop a pyro grenade in there, then ready the popcorn.

[Moriganno]

Hi there Philip. Just wanna let u know. Talk is CHEAP.

 

 

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

[Glzmo]

Chiming in....

 

I'll be as clear as I can be.

 

Automation of the game in any way is against the ToS. This includes macro'ing in order to respec during Warzone matches.

 

Remapping keys on a keyboard (or Nostromo or Logitech) device so that one key press == one click or ability cast within the game is fine. Using a programmable keyboard or software macro so that one key press == multiple clicks or ability casts in the game is not.

 

Hopefully that doesn't leave room for 'interpretation'. If it does, ask a binary question and I'll give a yes/no

Does that also mean if I make a macro on my keyboard that types /greet, /flourish, /backflip, etc. into the chat window so you don't have to type it every single time when roleplaying?

Would it be possible to add all emotes, moods, hide headslot, show darkside corruption etc. to the keybinds preferences so we can bind them directly to keys on the keyboard?