Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Comments
Going by recent threads, a fair few people have a pretty high degree of automation (either scripts they made or got from others). People very much shy from/take offense to the word "automation" but that does seem to be what a lot of them are doing (and it's legal, provided they remain semi-aware of what their char is doing and can react appropriately to admin/other players).
Really, a lot of people even consider automation the gold standard of how people should be bashing. There was a whole recent discussion that basically carried the message "if you're not autobashing, you're a n00b", and of course, people even have scripts on their phones so they can bash at work. Those *really* seem like they require some automation, since you only have a tiny screen and are by definition, distracted.
I think that attitude is actually a lot of why this thread was so hot button, as I've mentioned. It's not the gold, it's the insistence that the line of acceptable behavior be pushed even more in favor of accommodating bot bashing.
Just putting this out there, although I assume you're fully aware...
If you "fully banned" automation of any kind (using triggers of any kind), you wouldn't have a playerbase. You'd also have somewhere close to zero people interested in combat, and would thus lose about 95% of your credit purchases as well. Thus, automation is the reason the game exists, and I think you and a lot of the players in this and other threads would be well off being a little less negative about it.
It's also somewhat ironic that you just implemented several massive serverside automation systems, considering your stance on automation. (although it does show that you do understand that it is a cornerstone of your game)
I heart you Sena, but I didn't see it that way. It was more like, once the word "automation" came up in that conversation people very much took exception to the term itself, even with careful caveats (again, very sensitive to even the use of the term), and were anxious to emphasize the know-how of when things repop/when/where to hunt in set "circuits" as what matters most (and I'm sure it does, because for one, you need that information to make a good script I'm sure). Admittedly, even if you are manual, that information is going to help. But keeping track of precise times in multiple areas in a more manual way seems difficult, and even if you could keep track of all the times and when you needed to be where, it seems like you'd be much more likely to fall behind schedule as a more manual basher (like me).
Towards the beginning of the conversation people were emphasizing things like not wasting *any* balance recovery whatsoever and just generally being hyperefficient, which to me points very strongly towards some serious automation (although I suppose it's possible to some degree without).
In short, it seems really clear to me from various recent conversations here and even in game (where people tend to be more frank about this topic, at least to some extent) that a lot of people have fairly sophisticated bashing scripts (I mean well beyond taking care of your curing/svo - because wow, that really would be painful not to have that), and this thread only drives that home further - because if it's difficult for me to come back and return your gold, and I didn't immediately realize I was in a room with someone else and grabbed their gold, it seems to strongly hint that I might be doing a lot automatically, and I say that because I've never in all my years had an issue with accidentally grabbing someone else's stuff!
You can bash without wasting any balance using nothing more than a few simple in-game aliases.
SETALIAS j stand/dsl &tar
SETALIAS h j/queue add eqbal j/queue add eqbal j/queue add eqbal j/queue add eqbal j/queue add eqbal j
covers you for 6 attacks at a time (with zero loss to latency), which is more hits than most require at level 90+. That's a 17% increase in bashing DPS for someone with a 1.5 second bashing attack and a 250ms latency, compared to a balance chasing trigger like SVO's do-repeat function (and a MASSIVE increase for people attacking manually on every balance).
SETALIAS r stand/clearqueue all/rsl &tar/get gold
can be used if they shield
queuing get gold and movement while off balance after killing something can easily allow you to queue up your attack on the next denizen without losing time to latency/movement, and is particularly easy in areas where the target name (undead, ogre, gnoll, etc) does not change.
Combined with an efficient bashing route, most people would probably double their bashing speed using this alone.
If you were spending 3 seconds between NPCs, and it takes you 5 hits on average to kill something, that's a 40% increase in DPS over the course of your route.
Better selection of bashing areas, respawn timing, and taking advantage of things like runes, lucky elixir, better stat selection, and so on can easily add another 25-50% gold/exp per time.
Nothing mentioned here requires (or even benefits from) a single trigger or other form of 'automation'.
Triggering: clearqueue all/get gold
when you kill things just makes life a little easier, and there's absolutely no reason not to do this, particularly since it only fires when you kill something yourself. There's also no reason not to trigger the swap to whatever command you use to handle shielding. This leaves you with the task of target selection and preparing your move to the next room while your alias handles killing things (gives you 5-10 seconds to enter "e; target knight; h").
Now that you can WALK TO NPCs by ID name, this gets even easier, considering that they never change, and most of us bashers have killed the same NPCs literally hundreds, if not thousands of times. All this requires is a list of NPC names for your route, and you can simply use another single-letter alias to target and walk to your next target. I actually advised IRE not to allow WALK TO <denizenID> specifically to prevent autobashing, but as-so-far, it is still permitted (and therefore, encouraged).
Killing 5 denizens using this method (with zero triggers involved), would require the following input from a player (which can of course be set to hotkeys for convenience):
[ in this example, 'v' just selects the next target in your route, and WALKS TO it. ]
This is 100% legal, 0% automated, and 100% efficient (and typically about 2-3 times faster than what the average basher achieves, with well-planned routes).
A lot of people see my gold or exp per hour and make accusations, but this is all I do, and in all reality, I probably bash faster than most auto-bashers.
Sure, but I'm pretty sure that people (probably a fair number of people) are using coded bashers that go far, far beyond what you're talking about. It is what it is. Sarapis is a smart guy and already knows (and has pretty much said that he knows).
My issue with it is that it seems to be coloring people's attitudes towards a whole slew of things. In this instance, it means they want behavior norms to be more friendly to the guy who somehow (while totally not being bot-like, at all) accidentally grabbed stuff in a room someone else was in, didn't notice it himself, was probably several rooms away by the time he got a tell about it, and had much the same attitude you seem to have about it when he did get the tell, which was "don't mess up my totally not automated hyperefficient bashing". In the same vein, they'd like the prevailing attitude to be not so sympathetic to the guy who found all of that pretty annoying.
I don't understand where you're coming from. I wouldn't be "afraid" to tell my ISP that if they dropped me to 100kB/s I'd cancel my service with them, nor would I hesitate to do so if they did.
I certainly wasn't being disrespectful either, I am quite certain that @Sarapis knows that PVP is what makes this game profitable (and therefore, able to exist for everyone else). Without automation (curing systems, harvesting triggers, speed-walking, etc), Achaea would not only not be fun, but it would be unplayable.
If you suspect that someone is autobashing, then report them (or do what I do, and put an icewall in their route, and watch as they stand their for 20 minutes, and then also report them).
Sleep well knowing that you've negatively impacted someone else's life, at almost zero benefit to you or anyone else. (not to jump to auto-basher's defense, just pointing out that someone "auto-bashing" doesn't actually impact you any more than someone who is manually bashing the same thing at the same time).
I make way too much money to be humble on video game forums. I know I'd be more popular if I was, but I simply don't care.
Just do what I'm guessing Santar does, and what I do, although for different reasons than you two (i.e. study human behavior and copy it as if you were an alien). Do you make too much money to not be a jerk? Or even to pretend not to be a jerk? This can be situationally useful at work too. Being a jerk can be useful too (I need to work on more effective employment here, despite being capable enough of being a jerk).
I dunno man, the complexity is what makes me play the game. Can't speak for everyone else, but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of MMO options out there, and the draw of Achaea for me is the depth of combat theory (still learning things after a decade of playing) and coding challenges (many of which are simply for convenience, not actual improvements to combat potential).
IRE's working their tails off to keep things simple for new players while keeping the core theory just as complex and interesting, at the same time. It's really hard to please both new players and veterans at the same time, but I think their current direction is just fine.
Going in the direction you're suggesting (dramatic simplification) would make the game far less interesting and challenging, and therefore, less fun. In all likelihood, I'd probably just go play League or do something useful like learn Korean (been on my back burner for like a year now).
I was kinda annoyed both times admins popped in to check on me while bashing (although in their defense, I usually bash like 8 hours at a time, and near-continously), because I wasn't auto-bashing, but at that exact same time, at least two people had been auto-forging (literally told me so in tells) for 4-5 hours, and specifically added rune triggers for me so that they could keep me runed 24/7 without having to look at their computer.
At the end of the day, it really doesn't hurt anyone. As far as I can tell, the rules are just there so that the serious offenders can be regulated. I know the official stance is "zero tolerance", but either there's some pretty obvious leniency on this, be it intentional, or a lack of manpower.
And oh god, having to type 'sip health' every time I get hurt? Nooooo. The power of christ compels thee!
I like participating
also, @Herenicus that is called Midkemia Online.