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Comments
Could probably get the timing down against certain offenses with extensive macros set up. Clever serpents would probably ruin you though.
You never have to do that in Chess. You have to be aware of multiple things at once, or learn how to abstract the board, or whatever else people who're good at chess do. I hear there's a lot of rote moves at higher levels of play. But you never have to do anything on your turn other than move a single piece to a single square.
But in Achaea, you literally have to simultaneously attack and cure. Even if it's just sipping health, but especially against affliction types.
Most people can't compete at the highest level in any skill-based competition. I can't compete in Starcraft so should it be ok for me to use automated help (no idea if such software exists but if it doesn't now it will in the nearish future)? The answer is pretty obviously no and the only reason we're forced to accept it here is because there's no way to reliably catch people substituting automation for skill.
I'm not really saying it's a terrible thing, since part of why I enjoy combat is the scripting side of things - it gives me some output for hobby programming. I'm just saying that the game's been balanced to the point where you'd have to be ludicrously good at manualing to even come close to competing with automation.
To be fair, a lot of the scripts I make are not intended to do things that people can't do (in fact, that'd be impossible).
They're just designed to make things easier, and are specifically designed to help people overcome skill gaps that would (and often do) prevent them from enjoying their class to even a shred of its potential.
For instance, everyone is capable of counting to 10. Having a hit counter that keeps track for them just makes that "easier", so they can focus on their affliction selection instead of trying to juggle 6 different "counts" in their head, while doing 8 other things at the same time.
I see this as a great benefit to new players who'd like to learn more about combat theory, but are faced with overcoming basic, but required concepts, like limb achieving reliable limb breaks.
For more skilled players, it's more of a convenience thing. It's not like I (personally) am not capable of hitting my "curare/kalmia" alias, but if every fight I participate in starts with this, then "automating" this isn't doing anything I could easily do manually, it is simply making my life easier.
There's also the fact that in order to write, or even use, any kind of automation scripting, you have to actually know how to do everything you're scripting your system to do for you.
You can't write a Chess AI that beats everyone unless you know how to beat everyone.
To write, yes, you need to know things in and out.
To use, no, a lot of people install SVO without even knowing basic curing theory.
That's true, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate that SVO has had a net negative effect on the game. I'd go so far to say that it (and its predecessors) have been a significant reason Achaea has been as successful as it has.
Barrier to entry = higher as a result.
Knowing and doing are completely different things. There's a reason Pete Carroll (coach of the winning losing team in the Superbowl this year) wasn't out on the field playing. He knows. He can't do.
Knowing what the cure to an affliction is is completely different from being able to keep up with curing in practice. I can see why someone would think that, but it's simply not true. There's no human in the world that can beat the best chess programs, all of which were written by people. I suppose it's true that the programmers have to know how to program a chess AI to beat everyone, but none of those programmers (not one) has ever, to my knowledge, been a human world champion, and none of them know how to beat the software they themselves wrote or beat the software themselves. The software is a far better chess player than any of the programmers who wrote it is.
Humans beating computers at chess is no longer a thing and hasn't been for nearly a decade (an eternity in software/hardware development).
For instance in 2005 Michael Adams (at one point #4 human in the world) got absolutely crushed 5.5 to .5 (meaning they drew one game and the computer won the others) by the chess computer Hydra. Then in 2006, world champion Vladimir Kramnik lost 4-2 to Deep Fritz despite Kramnik getting a bunch of advantages he'd not have against a human opponent. (Kramnik got a copy of the program to test with ahead of time, the program wasn't allowed to be altered once the tournament started, the computer was artificially limited to using only 5 piece endgame tablebases, etc). And automated chess programs have gotten better in the intervening 10 years at a far faster rate than humans have.
The best humans will never again beat the best chess programs in an even match of multiple games, and eventually, the best humans won't be able to beat computers at anything that requires strategy, barring games with a luck component, which will ensure that the inferior player still wins sometimes (think poker, for instance). It'll take a lot longer with a certain class of game that is all about free-form communication with other players (think politics in Achaea or the board game Diplomacy) as we likely need at least true Turing-capable AI, but I suspect it'll happen. Maybe not for a number of decades though.
Anyway, this is all academic. I would have banned automation in combat from the start if we could, just like chess and poker sites would love to ban automation if they could. They can't, and we can't, and so it is what it is.
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
Noak gets some gold sovereigns from a wyrmskin pack.
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4413 (93%) 16677w, 20359e 23% x|cdb- 17:23:27.145
Aspirant Noak (male Human).
He is 161 years old, having been born on the 4th of Aeguary, 516 years after the fall of the
Seleucarian Empire.
He is ranked 375th in Achaea.
He is an extremely credible character.
He is not known for acts of infamy.
He is a Sentry in Targossas.
He is considered to be approximately 85% of your might.
He is a mentor and able to take on proteges.
His warcry: 'Scream, the demons are coming.'
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4413 (93%) 16677w, 20359e 23% x|cdb- 17:23:27.400
Noak's eyes gleam with generosity.
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4413 (93%) 16677w, 20359e 23% x|cdb- 17:23:27.892
You have recovered equilibrium. (4.94s)
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4413 (93%) 16677w, 20359e 23% ex|cdb- 17:23:28.912
Noak gives 117 gold sovereigns to you.
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4338 (91%) 16659w, 20365e 23% ex|cdb- 17:23:31.883(-75m, 1.6%) raise
You raise an eyebrow questioningly.
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4338 (91%) 16671w, 20395e 23% ex|cdb- 17:23:33.951
Aspirant Noak says, "Sorry."
H: 4299 (100%), M: 4188 (88%) 16641w, 20365e 23% ex|cdb- 17:23:36.900(-150m, 3.2%)
Aspirant Noak says, "I couldn't resist."
Hahah, that was worth a good laugh. Well played @Noak
I "tried" to rob @Kasa the other month, (total failure), after which he told me he was going to hunt me down and slice off my face...(which he did...so nice.) We sparred afterwards and I gave him 30k for the lesson in fractures.
Tranquility's system came out, it wasn't banned, and that set the precedent that combat automation is okay. That was the chance right there to crack down on automation and ban it, if it wasn't going to be seen as something beneficial to the game. That system was also hella expensive and really boosted people into another level of combat, separating those who had it and those who don't - something I don't agree with, so I made affordable systems instead. I believed more people should have a chance at being good, and being good meant having a good system as a base and then starting to evolve your skills from there. I think that has worked well given anecdotal evidence, more people have a fighting chance now. The administration caught up to this idea many years later, but the amount of time it went on for suggests there were no problems seen with this approach of combat automation.
Bashing, same thing, dor is where I drew the line. You've gotta target and walk manually. These days auto-targetters are fashionable and accepted, so that's cool.
I think automation is part of what made the game today, because there are so many mind-numbing activities, it's ridiculous. I don't think anyone can argue that people would've loved to do old-style forging manually for hours on end by pressing a button. Getting Dragon is even worse, and in fact I see Achaea expanding above levels 100+ as a reward for the good amount of automation you've done (because how many sane people will be manually bashing, walking, targeting for years on end?).
That's what it comes down to, nobody wants to be doing the boring, mind-numbing stuff. The enchanting dances might be pretty cool, but I've seen a lotta Magi who are way more keen to just press a button after they do it by hand a hundred times. Nobody is automating rituals, player interaction, big & unique quests, and that's where the fun of interacting with the game is - not in the boring stuff that coincidentally lends itself to automation, but in the fun and interesting things that coincidentally isn't automatable.
Svof
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Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."