What Happened To You Today?

Skye

I gave up on combat after coming back dormant (multiple times) and found that things just progressed far and beyond what I could manage. Frankly between my lousy connection, the generally frustrating nature of the PK/factional conflict scene (it was toxic when I was involved, and still pretty damn murky as a spectator), and the steep learning curve, I'm not even sorry that I gave it up completely.

Combat these days *is* faster, it's because coded combat has made it faster. Human reflexes and decision was part of what ensured it was at a reasonable pace. Honestly you could slow everything down by one to half a second to encourage people to dip their toes in manually, but at the end of the day, if the option to automate is there, they'll prefer that.

I get that pro-scripted peeps are going to say that there's just as much hard work being put into a system. And I have to acknowledge that. But a script that's broken or gone buggy isn't really the same as a person who goes into it realising they can't win it all because of any number of external and internal factors.

Nicola

For a Garden perspective, we don't like automation, at all. But we don't have rules against it for combat because it's not realistically something we can police. Having rules that you cannot police or enforce isn't a good use of anyone's time.

We do have blanket automation rules, and if someone is found to be abusing these (combat counts too) then we will step in.

Klendathu

Nicola said:

We do have blanket automation rules...

But I like my blanket automation - up when cold, down when hot

Atalkez

Yeah I mean the conversation is all well and good, but at the end of the day that ship has sailed. Not much that can be done to police what or how a decision is made on the player end.

I agree with Ellodin and Iakimen. At some point automation devalues the skill and time investment that others have made. Then again arguments could be made that things like the curing thread also do that, so I see why people say it’s a slippery slope. Either way, while I’m glad that the barrier of entry is lower, it’s also frustrating to fight people that can carry on full conversations mid fight. Seeing people use says while continuing to attack is annoying to me.

Farrah

Kiet said:

Cyr said:

Kiet said:

eventually we'll be fighting auto tumblers and auto chasers

Not gonna weigh in on the rest of this but what makes you think that people don't already do this? By and large the logic for it would in general be far easier than many things I've seen coded for IRE muds. 

We already have auto chasers but that I've seen most people don't have an automatic toggle to stop offense and tumble predicting something.

Pyori said:

Kiet said:

Something being against ToS or not is irrelevant, just like legality doesn't imply morality in other areas in life.

And yeah by 'only rely on auto' I mean they just have a script to do their offense and little knowledge beyond that. You can always automate further though, and eventually we'll be fighting auto tumblers and auto chasers and the pk will be pointless except to a couple of nerds who outnerd the average nerd.

It's not, though? You're saying why should they be allowed to, my reply was akin to: Why shouldn't they be able to, if coding is something they're good at? There's many more factors to consider than just "git gud" when it comes to "not being able to" you know.

I think the only way PK devolves into that, is if Achaea gets dumbed down to be like Aetolia where you can see everything that someone cures. As well as knowing precisely how much limb damage you're doing to a target, and precise times of when it's getting cured by salves etc. What's unfun for you, might be a lot of fun for someone else, though. Iakimen does pretty well vs people who're "full auto" and afaik he doesn't do that. Just like there's people in Aetolia who manual vs the "full auto" crowd, and still do very well for themselves.

Yeah some people find it fun to watch paint dry but you don't see that as a mainstream  hobby. There's a reason most games don't allow automation to overtake player skill, it's uninteresting except to a very small % of people who, if they really wanted a coding challenge, could just visit a few dozen sites that have actually complex coding problems for you to solve.

Lots of manual people do well vs full auto, but a lot of them hate full auto just the same (I know Iaki does)

I mostly manual (anything I automate tends to be minor, not aff/attack selection), and I don't mind automation in general. I like it when people challenge me, and automation makes more people do that.

I do think it's more bothersome in group combat, but I'm also not sure it makes as much of a difference in practice as people think it does. It's also funny to watch every group claim the other is more automated, which is often not even correct. The issue with group combat in general though is sometimes a bunch of top fighters group together in one city, and it's not really fun or healthy for the game if no one can fight against them, so automation might be a good thing all in all if it helps balance the playing field.

Exelethril

An experienced manual player that starts losing to auto players, might eventually get annoyed and fight fire with fire. This probably should've been addressed back in 2013/2014 when it was pretty rampant in a certain faction before the others caught on to fight them on more even levels. Initially, I had my apprehensions and was pretty vocal against automation but realized the admins weren't going to curb it so adopted it into my playstyle to keep pace with trending auto-momentum players(hi occie). I felt bad when I would regularly kill pro manual aff class players like Alrena's apostate and Iakimen's infernal so I uninstalled Mudlet, deleted system32, became a vegetarian, learned Zen meditation, studied numerous religious texts and donated all my money to the "Save the Children" organization in Africa.

Rackham

On the topic of automation in combat.

Combat is fast, and I understand automating parts. As DW, I automate reaping, and then manual the choices behind that. But it's frustrating to learn from people who have been so automated that they can't explain what theyre doing. I tried getting help with certain afflictions from a serpent, and some of the afflictions I wanted, they couldn't give me without 'going through their stack' which included voyria and the like. Equally frustrating is when I ask a question about aff stacking/curing and get ''well you really need an aff tracker...."

If automation is so bad that you can't just dstab me once, with curing off, to test things, then how are people like me, with no intention of coding an offense (outside of aliases and simple triggers) supposed to learn theory and such? I'm slowly understanding how things work, but when any learning I try to do is gated behind people hitting their win button, it gets frustrating.

Pyori

Rackham said:

Sounds like you're trying to get help from the wrong people, tbqh. Anyone who even remotely knows how to fight, won't need to "show you how it's done" in order to explain it.

Rackham

Pyori said:

Rackham said:

Sounds like you're trying to get help from the wrong people, tbqh. Anyone who even remotely knows how to fight, won't need to "show you how it's done" in order to explain it.

I'm pretty dumb. And sometimes I need to see things happen to understand what's going on. In another thread I mentioned taking an hour to understand limb damage. 

Turning curing off and going through step by step helps when I barely understand common, general combat mechanics/practices 

Kiet

Israyhl said:

So while I prefer to stick away from automation, I am going to play devil's advocate for a moment on a few things in regards to automation. 

Combat, in general, has sped up tremendously. With full kill routes taking sub 20 seconds (in some cases less than 15), with new afflictions sneaking in that require split-second decisions for curing, and a drive for faster balance times, it is beyond hard to keep up with everything in combat, even for the trained eye. I still reel and just how fast information is coming in, my brain continuously asking me, "Was it all really this fast back when we pked more in the early 2000s?" The argument against an automated offense is starting to sound like the same argument I used to hear against the games having built-in curing systems: "Coding yourself taught you how to heal yourself." "No one is learning how to defend themselves or how cures work together if you just hand them a curing system." "It lowers the bar for combat entry and makes the work of those who had to start from scratch less valuable." All of those arguments were seen as asinine, and all of IRE instituted SOME level of serverside curing, rather than relying on a third-party system. And even AFTER the serverside went in, many of us STILL rely on assistance with priorities and switching and parrying because it is a LOT of information to track.  

With those who choose to build their own automation, I don't see them entering into the combat scene as less knowdegable about their class. They had to know which affs/attacks followed ones better, how to use the logic properly, and how to set up the system in a way to apply effective logic to the problem of getting from kill route start to kill route end. The argument of speed is less of an argument these days, too, as queueing used properly is as fast as a system sending a command at balance return. The only difference is the thought time that goes into making a proper decision, which does often translate less into 'human error' in the middle of combat, such as hitting a wrong key, typing the wrong alias, smashing the buttons, all of those things. But honestly, the only time I find human error 'fun' or a true victory is when they didn't use their class effectively, and if they weren't using their class effectively manually, they won't be using it effectively autonomously either. 

Last, on being given someone else's offense. I've fought people plenty of times who were given an offensive. They have one route, usually, and they don't know how it works or why it works and after a few rounds, any combatant worth their salt will find a linch pin and pull it. Sure, it does give that individual an ability to rise to mid-tier, but that's a big pool. I know I have -learned- from being given someone else's offensive to look through and play with in the past. I couldn't figure out a class, someone shared their code, and it started to piece together as I couldn't make heads or tails of the logic. Or, as the case may be, someone can't code in lua worth shit or at all! And then we return to the argument of, "Should coding ability be a requirement to engage in the game." 

I honestly think what would be more effective for the game would not be removing automation or attempting to remove it, but slowing down combat overall. Stop thinking in 1.5s or 2.0s or 1.9s terms, and pull it back a bit. Not a snail's pace, but not so fast that I can go full to dead in 10 seconds and be wondering what happened because the text just scrolled too fast and I haven't coloured/echoed/subbed everything. 

TL;DR: Automation is not bad, the argument against automated anything is a slippery slope into coder vs non-coder, let's consider slowing shit down overall so we're not trying to fit an entire duel in 30 seconds. 

Okay, but lots of people out there are manualing <2s balances, it's not something that's needed. If it's difficult for people, good! Difficulty is a good thing to have in a game, but even then I'd say that yeah we could slow the game. The point is that it doesn't justify automation.

If someone 'learned their class' by coding an offence for it, you've still not addressed the bulk of Ellodin's post. Knowledge is generally only a fraction of what it takes to do well at a sport/game, and people who automate like to pretend it's the entire whole. You can know every single hero in dota, but it doesn't help if you can't last hit, you can know every gun in cs and their details but it doesn't help if you can't aim. Automation in achaea is installing an aim-bot and then justifying it because you learned the gun details so that's all you should be required to have.

Pyori

Rackham said:

Pyori said:

Rackham said:

Sounds like you're trying to get help from the wrong people, tbqh. Anyone who even remotely knows how to fight, won't need to "show you how it's done" in order to explain it.

I'm pretty dumb. And sometimes I need to see things happen to understand what's going on. In another thread I mentioned taking an hour to understand limb damage. 

Turning curing off and going through step by step helps when I barely understand common, general combat mechanics/practices 

Again, it sounds like you're talking to people who're just generally bad at explaining things. I've spoken to you a bunch, and I've spoken to people who (at first) knew next to nothing about combat, barring what each affliction did. (back during Sentinel house days, when they had mandatory, progressively-harder, combat tests!)

You shouldn't need to hit someone, in order to explain how things work.

Torinn

The difference between those that have been pking for years so know it in and out and know strengths and weaknesses by heart, and those who have not is huge.  Like vastly huge.  Without coding some to even the playing field those people wouldn't even be a threat.  They'd get stomped every. Single. Time.  
I for instance take a long time to learn the ins and outs of my classes.  To make sure i undersfand it even if im going to code a lot.  The code augments that because I have long ago come to terms that I am not capable of making decisions and remembering lots of aliases mid combat when I already have to deal with movement, parrying, targeting limbs, flying, tentacling, room hinder, etc.  If I couldn't use software to intelligently follow the flow of combat and help me make decisions, I would never ever be competitive even a little bit.  Frankly I would have quit playing a long time ago. It is because of the ability to code and make up for my shortcomings that I am still here.

Kiet

You say that but Iakimen is relatively new to the game and has been beating top tier people for a long time. Same with Atalkez.

People with worse skills should be getting stomped. If they want to stop getting stomped, they can get good like the aforementioned. You're just making excuses because you don't want to lose, at this point.

Aegoth

Sounds like a lot of people lauding automation are acting really entitled. No, you do not deserve a level playing field, and you do not deserve to win. You need to earn those things by actually playing, or just accept your lot. Would love to see all automation get trashed

Pyori

This convo didn't take half as long as it usually does, for it to turn unnecessarily aggressive.

Aegoth

If the truth is aggressive, there's the door, snowflake

Minifie

I automate, I jump the target, curing heals me for a while, then I auto pray.

@Aegoth This is the automater that is a house leader!

Cooper

I'd like to see you play an aff class without automating, Aegoth. You should try! 

Minifie

Cooper said:

I'd like to see you play an aff class without automating, Aegoth. You should try! 

I do! I'm awful but I do! 

Pyori

Aegoth said:

If the truth is aggressive, there's the door, snowflake

I'm sorry, who was the one that was practically begging me to modify and make their stormhammer scripts better? So that you could just spam the alias willy-nilly and kill people in raids? Oh, that was you wasn't it?

Strange how you're all against automation, if it doesn't help you specifically.

By the way you can do it yourself. I'm far too entitled to help.

Aegoth

Asking once and paying credits isn't begging, interestingly enough. And while I do have one auto script (which doesn't work half the time anyway bc of gmcp souls), I am against its wholesale use for the reasons that Kiet, Iakimen, and Rom clearly stated. If you need automation to kill people, you're just bad, and should probably not play combat at all. That's the heart of it

Aegoth

Cooper said:

I'd like to see you play an aff class without automating, Aegoth. You should try! 

I already kick your ass with manual magi. No need

Pyori

Aegoth said:

Asking once and paying credits isn't begging, interestingly enough. And while I do have one auto script (which doesn't work half the time anyway bc of gmcp souls), I am against its wholesale use for the reasons that Kiet, Iakimen, and Rom clearly stated. If you need automation to kill people, you're just bad, and should probably not play combat at all. That's the heart of it

Correct. Not paying credits, and asking multiple times over the span of a couple of weeks is though.

Also if you were against it, you wouldn't have given it out. And I wouldn't have seen people talking about it on Discord, and how it works.

Also it does detect souls. Or are you forgetting the part about where that got fixed? Or are you forgetting the part where I'm the one who wrote it for you in the first place? Lols.

Aegoth

Good thing I never did any of those things, then. Well, except for give my magi system to people. But semantics..

Cooper

Aegoth said:

Cooper said:

I'd like to see you play an aff class without automating, Aegoth. You should try! 

I already kick your ass with manual magi. No need

Magi isn't an aff class, and someone being able to beat me is pretty meaningless.

I'd truly like to see you compete as a class that isn't prep, especially with your comment "If you need automation to kill people, you're just bad, and should probably not play combat at all."

You do great as Magi, but pretty much 0 real thought goes into those attacks. Try Apostate, Bard, Shaman, etc. If you're as good as you lead people to believe it should be simple for you! 

Makarios

Just to chip in here, I agree with a lot of the anti automation arguments. The loss (or at least, severe degradation) of the psychological component of one v one is a big thing that concerns me, but there is not really a way to enforce this. We could quite easily slow the game down (I could likely do this in an afternoon for all relevant cases), but it wouldn't actually change anything for the better: the people who automate still would, and the people who don't would likely find it harder to seal kills to a point as rapid pace is a big factor in that regard.

I do appreciate (better than most I suspect!) that personal situations necessitate a fundamental shift of how you approach the game, and that definitely might involve automation in some edge cases. However, I have never really made it a secret that I dislike the degree to which people have started automating their offenses in the last few years. Its not really a problem I have a solution for - as has been stated, we don't make rules we can't enforce. I'm all ears if someone has a reasonable solution, but I suspect there isn't one. For a long time I leant towards it simply being certain classes being much harder to manually use (swiftcurse shaman, juggle jester, sp bard etc), but it isn't really a substantiated claim: other classes are just as major culprets.

Aegoth

If you think 0 thought goes into prep classes, idk what to say. Sure, aff classes are complex, but to say that prep is ezmode is very misleading.


well, except dragon

Pyori

Magi is no harder than Dragon.

Aegoth said:

Good thing I never did any of those things, then.

Definitely not done any of those things.

Aegoth

Oh shit, when did polite requests become pestering? Sign of the times. And creative use of cherrypicking comments

Pyori

Pester: To repeatedly ask and request things, to the point that it may (or may not) become annoying to the person. Check.

Also it's not really cherry-picking. It's just showing the exact things you said you didn't do. Cherry-picking requires taking a select few (often out of context) comments, whereas all of these were the very first- or within the first 60 seconds of the first- things you said to me on those days.

Cherry-picking would be you taking that 'pestering' word from all others, and basing your entire reply around that instead.