Random Achaea Thoughts

Kuy

I'm really disliking this notion that you have to script your offense to succeed. It's not true. Saying it is does nothing but discourage those who are entering combat in a similar way as spewing biased vitriol over an org pushes newbies away from joining it.

Orzaansyn

Caladbolg said:

Orzaansyn said:

If your character does anything without you writing the command, it's automated. 

That is why it is called "manual". You need to use your hands.

The entire point of what everyone is talking about is still "manual" you still have to hit an alias for the attack to go through however.. The system picks the afflictions from a list that you have pre-setup to choose the best one.

If "the system" does anything, it's automated. I do not see where there is an ambiguity with it.

Santar

Aff tracking for offenses is pretty prevalent among alot of the top fighters. Especially Shamans and Occultists. DWC knights and bards use it some too.

I don't use any measure of aff tracker whatsoever though.


Also, despite any sort of analysis you could do, pretty sure there's no way you're going to be able to find out if someone is aff tracking behind the scenes.

Caladbolg

Santar said:

Aff tracking for offenses is pretty prevalent among alot of the top fighters. Especially Shamans and Occultists. DWC knights and bards use it some too.

I don't use any measure of aff tracker whatsoever though.


Also, despite any sort of analysis you could do, pretty sure there's no way you're going to be able to find out if someone is aff tracking behind the scenes.

This. Remember the Jagex line and how they sued the people who made bots for the game? Yeah remember how fun Runescape was till everyone started getting banned for real world trading when they had never done it? Yeah who actually still plays runescape?

Rom

- 2015/04/01 00:31:44 - 1 says, "Wait why wouldn't you script offense?"
- 2015/04/01 00:31:59 - 2 says, "I dunno because you're Ayoxele."
- 2015/04/01 00:32:06 - 2 says, "That seems to work."
- 2015/04/01 00:32:17 - 2 says, "Otherwise because you don't know how or are lazy."
- 2015/04/01 00:32:20 - Rom says, "I liked it better when people were ashamed to automate their
offense."
- 2015/04/01 00:32:31 - 2 says, "Haha."
(^In regards to an automated logic-based offense)

People wondered how affliction classes were going to perform in the new age of curing, this is not the solution I was hoping for them to come to. Classleads have melded every aff class into a playable manual position, but automated afflicting has still blown up. I've tried it myself, and I don't see the appeal whatsoever. It steps on the spirit of the combat that has kept me coming back to this game for almost half of my life. Why not stop at the affliction tracking if you're wanting an easier time?

Aelios

Sarapis said:

Jovolo said:

Banning automation is a ballsy movie, but I cam't think of many other options to solve the issues you describe. It'd be an interesting experiment at the least. Any ideas on how you would even enforce that?

Well, we already ban automation in gold generation, kind of, so it's not as if there isn't a precedent there. Enforcing it is the only reason combat automation isn't banned. The occasional high-profile perma-shrubbing would certainly put a damper on peoples' willingness to do things like try to automate group affliction tracking though. We'd never get rid of it entirely, just like PC FPS games can't get rid of aimbots permanently, but they can certainly ban people when they catch them using them. In fact, aimbot developers actually make their aimbots sub-optimal so as to make being caught less likely for the user - if you just got headshots every time someone was in view, you'd be caught too easily.

And of course, we could also legally go after people distributing combat systems for money (not much we could do about people giving them away) if using them was against our rules. See this victorious suit by Jagex (Runescape's developer) against bot developers, winning on all counts. http://mmofallout.com/jagex-wins-lawsuit-against-bot-makers/
Or this one by Blizzard, who won a $7 million judgment against bot makers for WoW. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-wins-7-million-in-bot-company-lawsuit/1100-6415695/

I'd like to play devils advocate here, but...

Every 'combat system' sale that I, personally, know of was based in Credits, and if I recall : IRE's terms of service state pretty candidly that credits have no 'investment' value, despite the fact you can indeed 'buy' them on the website.

"The User hereby agrees that the purchase of credits from the Company does not constitute an investment of any kind. The User acknowledges and hereby agrees that the perceived or real value of anything purchased from Achaea now or in the past may change over time. The User acknowledges that the Company does not provide refunds under any circumstance."

I'd gamble that it'd be hard to argue without changing the ToS of Achaea. 

Sarapis

Aelios said:

I'm curious to where this train of thought leads, @Sarapis -- I ask with candid curiosity,

What is the definition of 'Automated'?

Is it mashing one button over and over to kill someone?

Is it pre-envenoming in a specific order?

Is it choosing which venoms to add to your weapons based off of a pre-generated list that you've made?

I'm 100% curious at where the line is drawn, as most everyone at a mid-tier and above have aliases/macros that do a number of things at once.

Hell, my lunge macro does: 

send("clearqueue all")

send("queue add eqbal stand")

send("queue add eqbal lunge " ..target)

send("queue add eq engage " ..target)

I'm just curious as to where the line is drawn between the two, because the reality of it today is pretty candid: Understanding what to do is the first step. Scripting it to do exactly what you want it to is the second.

Well, to me the line is simple: Aliases and macros that execute a command right now are fine, and I don't have an issue with highlighting either. I don't care how many commands are on a macro or alias, as we didn't spend any effort on making classes have commands of the same length or have to execute the same number of commands, but when the client is timing things for you, that's where a big part of the problem comes in. I also object to having the client supplant your need to think quickly about what's going on. Affliction tracking, etc. (I'm not sure if 'big data' style analysis would even be able to catch you affliction tracking automatically and then manually executing based on that info, or at least I'm not sure our team would have the expertise to pull that off.)

That lunge macro is automation as it's automating a future action rather than you needing to time it properly. 

Realistically, barring the kind of statistical analysis I talked about, there's no way for us to catch that. What would be easier to stop or at least put a damper on is the kind of coordinated affliction tracking though, as we could throttle your communication in combat so that you can't just automate group combat so trivially. Of course, there's a workaround there too, which is making bots that communicate with each other outside of Achaea (and then there's shit we could do about it).

It's all a very tough problem. Achaea's core combat system was never designed for automation as major (or any for most people) automation just wasn't a thing in MUDs back then. The absurdity is highlighted by having to implement server-side curing so that people aren't just completely out-classed immediately by any schmuck with a curing system.

Anyway, this discussion has happened elsewhere on the forums previously. The TL;DR is that I think excessive offensive automation, particularly coordinating entire groups, is a problem and it may be one we can do something about. We can't just "stop automation" but if we could put a damper on it, it'd be a win. If we can and have the resources to do it, we probably will, but neither of those seems all that likely I have to admit.

Santar

That lunge macro isn't automation whatsoever.

It's just a macro that sends stand/lunge/engage.

Orzaansyn

It's automation, of course, because you don't have to type every command by hand.

Aelios

What is the point of queuing then? Or of server-side curing? I'm lost, I thought it was to offset players who don't have the lightning connection speeds others do in relation to the server to achieve the same result?

Deladan

I'd like for everyone to step back a moment. Has anyone ever thought about the impact that Achaea has had on people over the years. When I first started playing I was running a system within a week. This was over a decade ago. Now, a decade later, the coding that I picked up as a hobby, for a game, has got me a college degree, yeah it's an Associates in Applied Science in Information Technology. (I know the semester isn't over yet, but my overall avg for the semester is a 93, just need to get another copy of my transcript from high school and I'm good.) 

And honestly I can't be the only one that just playing Achaea has made that an easier route for. 

Sarapis

@Santar I could well be mistaken since I literally use nothing more than simple macros and aliases, but isn't it telling his character to lunge when he gets balance and eq back? If so, that's automation. If not, I don't understand the references in there to eqbal and bal. Explain?

Santar

Yeah, Sarapis is wrong on that one.

And automation is honestly a very small thing in Achaea. There's very few things that are actually worth automating.

Affliction tracking is the main offender. A lot of people are using aff trackers now. 

Ent balance for occultists is another one. Because instill/ents come at different rates. And you have to manage a ton of afflictions. It's really hard to manage both balances optimally without automating the ent balance and aff tracking your instills.

Most other forms of automation, including generic dumbfire triggers that people use to do basic things, auto-razers, or whatever else, aren't a big deal.

Aff-tracking is becoming somewhat of an issue. Occultist needs to be revamped to not require full auto systems somehow. Etc.

Santar

Sarapis said:

@Santar I could well be mistaken since I literally use nothing more than simple macros and aliases, but isn't it telling his character to lunge when he gets balance and eq back? If so, that's automation. If not, I don't understand the references in there to eqbal and bal. Explain?

Lunge/engage happen at the same time. If Aelios puts in Stand/Lunge Santar/Engage Santar, that all happens at the exact same time. Engage is done off balance from the lunge. The two abilities are basically made to be paired together like that. 

Aelios is even using a version of lunge/engage that isn't even optimal. Sending it like that is the dumbest way you can do it because you run the risk of randomly engaging someone that is already in your room. It's much more smart to trigger your engage to happen when your lunge hits.


Edit: To elucidate the first part a bit more in reference to the queuing - You don't even need to use queuing for this. Stand/Lunge/engage will work just fine if you just press an alias/macros with that. He's using serverside queuing for its intended purpose - Chasing balance

Jarrod

The eqbal references in those sends work with the in-game queueing system.

Sarapis

Aelios said:

Sarapis said:

Jovolo said:

Banning automation is a ballsy movie, but I cam't think of many other options to solve the issues you describe. It'd be an interesting experiment at the least. Any ideas on how you would even enforce that?

Well, we already ban automation in gold generation, kind of, so it's not as if there isn't a precedent there. Enforcing it is the only reason combat automation isn't banned. The occasional high-profile perma-shrubbing would certainly put a damper on peoples' willingness to do things like try to automate group affliction tracking though. We'd never get rid of it entirely, just like PC FPS games can't get rid of aimbots permanently, but they can certainly ban people when they catch them using them. In fact, aimbot developers actually make their aimbots sub-optimal so as to make being caught less likely for the user - if you just got headshots every time someone was in view, you'd be caught too easily.

And of course, we could also legally go after people distributing combat systems for money (not much we could do about people giving them away) if using them was against our rules. See this victorious suit by Jagex (Runescape's developer) against bot developers, winning on all counts. http://mmofallout.com/jagex-wins-lawsuit-against-bot-makers/
Or this one by Blizzard, who won a $7 million judgment against bot makers for WoW. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-wins-7-million-in-bot-company-lawsuit/1100-6415695/

I'd like to play devils advocate here, but...

Every 'combat system' sale that I, personally, know of was based in Credits, and if I recall : IRE's terms of service state pretty candidly that credits have no 'investment' value, despite the fact you can indeed 'buy' them on the website.

"The User hereby agrees that the purchase of credits from the Company does not constitute an investment of any kind. The User acknowledges and hereby agrees that the perceived or real value of anything purchased from Achaea now or in the past may change over time. The User acknowledges that the Company does not provide refunds under any circumstance."

I'd gamble that it'd be hard to argue without changing the ToS of Achaea. 

We can change the ToS at will. The first thing we'd do if we banned certain forms of automation would be make not using or trading in those systems part of the ToS.

Kez

I am curious about the group affliction tracking. I don't understand what's being condemned here. It seems perfectly natural for a group's members to tell the others what afflictions they are delivering, and change their attacks to adapt to that. If there's some level of automation going on with that that I just don't understand, what is it? Sorry, just confused by that point.

As for my position in this, my first character was a combatant in the sense that so was everybody at the time that I started playing. As far as I was aware, everyone was manual except for Tranquility and people who coughed up the... 2500? 1500? I forget... credits to buy his system.

Kez as a character has never participated in anything resembling combat simply because when I came back from Lusternia, I found out that is was common to have a fully automated system and that you couldn't compete without it, so I decided I just wouldn't bother. Over time, it only seems to have gotten worse, to the point that the systems are dictating what is suitable for achaea rather than the other way around.

I've never found any appeal in having my computer play achaea for me, and also none in playing against someone else's computer. I never even used a sipping script before achaea produced an in-game curing system. I enjoy having control over what I'm doing, so I resisted even using that for a while. Once I used the features that achaea was releasing, I found that my own ability to do those things diminished greatly. Even just using MAP is addictive, and while I used to be able to tell you directions of a hundred steps from one place to another off the top of my head, I can no longer do that even over short distances.

I have a newer character that is a combatant, but I'm having trouble staying interested because, once again, the large class changes are setting those with systems far above those who develop habits and actual reflexes (not triggers). I know several people who either built or bought systems to fight as and against new knights before they were even released. Where does that leave the rest? But that is the point of doing it, right?

I'm not condemning the class changes. They are loads of fun. But that systems surrounding them were bought and sold before they were even released is disappointing to someone who is not a fan of automation. I feel like I never got the chance to go through the discovery period because from the first day it's just wham-bam-what-hit-me.

Aelios

Sarapis said:

@Santar I could well be mistaken since I literally use nothing more than simple macros and aliases, but isn't it telling his character to lunge when he gets balance and eq back? If so, that's automation. If not, I don't understand the references in there to eqbal and bal. Explain?

That's literally the exact thing that 'server side queuing' was designed for.

You're gonna have to get on @Tecton and @Makarios for that one.

I mean this with all due respect, but... you know that this is hard coded in game, like, FROM Achaea, right?

Sarapis

Aelios said:

What is the point of queuing then? Or of server-side curing? I'm lost, I thought it was to offset players who don't have the lightning connection speeds others do in relation to the server to achieve the same result?

Both of those went in solely because client-side automation had become so prevalent and we wanted to narrow the gap between people using, say, SVO, and people who aren't. I'd rip those out in a heartbeat if we could stop client-side automation.

Orzaansyn

Aelios said:

Sarapis said:

@Santar I could well be mistaken since I literally use nothing more than simple macros and aliases, but isn't it telling his character to lunge when he gets balance and eq back? If so, that's automation. If not, I don't understand the references in there to eqbal and bal. Explain?

That's literally the exact thing that 'server side queuing' was designed for.

You're gonna have to get on @Tecton and @Makarios for that one.

I mean this with all due respect, but... you know that this is hard coded in game, like, FROM Achaea, right?

The fact that server side queuing (and curing) are designed for that does not mean they are not automation. They absolutely are automation.

Kuy

Looks like this has taken its run. I'll go ahead and say that if Achaea goes the route of banning scripting to help PK, I'd check out on that day. It's what gives me my jollies and what brings me back. It would be pretty alienating to people who enjoy the game in a similar way, but there's always FFXIV

Sarapis

Santar said:

Yeah, Sarapis is wrong on that one.

And automation is honestly a very small thing in Achaea. There's very few things that are actually worth automating.

Automation is huge. How many good combatants don't have some kind of automated curing going on for instance, whether via server-side or client-side curing? 

Sarapis

Aelios said:

Sarapis said:

@Santar I could well be mistaken since I literally use nothing more than simple macros and aliases, but isn't it telling his character to lunge when he gets balance and eq back? If so, that's automation. If not, I don't understand the references in there to eqbal and bal. Explain?

That's literally the exact thing that 'server side queuing' was designed for.

You're gonna have to get on @Tecton and @Makarios for that one.

I mean this with all due respect, but... you know that this is hard coded in game, like, FROM Achaea, right?

I think you're kind of missing the point: We were -not- happy to implement those (and I was part of the decision process for both, fwiw). They were a surrender, intended entirely to narrow the gap between people using substantial client-side automation and those who aren't. We'd take them out again in a heartbeat if that need wasn't there.

Tesha

I think Herenicus' point about the exclusivity of PK is a really good one. Fresh blood is necessary for the sustainability of the game, and not only fresh blood from Lusternia etc., because that will eventually run out too.

Maybe it would be possible if Achaea forces connection through a client that only allows aliases. I don't even know if that in itself is possible. I'd love to play a manual-offense-only Achaea if one ever came to existence. Manual healing would be great too, but that would require a lot more rebalancing than manual offense would (for example, bard would be an absolute nightmare to fight manually).

Deladan

Tesha said:

I think Herenicus' point about the exclusivity of PK is a really good one. Fresh blood is necessary for the sustainability of the game, and not only fresh blood from Lusternia etc., because that will eventually run out too.

Maybe it would be possible if Achaea forces connection through a client that only allows aliases. I don't even know if that in itself is possible. I'd love to play a manual-offense-only Achaea if one ever came to existence. Manual defense would be okay too, but that would require a lot more rebalancing than manual offense would.

In theory what you're saying is possible.

Aereidhna

If automated curing weren't a thing, I would not hunt or even try to get into combat at all. Just not worth the time or investment to die to recklessness every time I walk through Qurnok, and bashing is a big part of why I play. As it is, while edging towards maybe giving group combat a try, I have found this discussion a bit reassuring because scripting for combat just...is way over my head, aside from basic aliases and key bindings. To me there's a big difference between offensive automation - like literally automating your attacks or combat strategy - and a curing system.

Deladan

Deladan said:

Tesha said:

I think Herenicus' point about the exclusivity of PK is a really good one. Fresh blood is necessary for the sustainability of the game, and not only fresh blood from Lusternia etc., because that will eventually run out too.

Maybe it would be possible if Achaea forces connection through a client that only allows aliases. I don't even know if that in itself is possible. I'd love to play a manual-offense-only Achaea if one ever came to existence. Manual defense would be okay too, but that would require a lot more rebalancing than manual offense would.

In theory what you're saying is possible.

Even in practice as far as I know. 

Tesha

Aereidhna said:

If automated curing weren't a thing, I would not hunt or even try to get into combat at all. Just not worth the time or investment to die to recklessness every time I walk through Qurnok, and bashing is a big part of why I play.

You would adjust, I am 100% sure. You would learn to suspect recklessness whenever you get attacked but don't lose life. 

Jacen

Could force everyone to use Achaea's own client by embedding some kind of encrypted handshake method in the communication. Then you could easily control what tools the player's have to use.

The real question is whether that version of Achaea is more sustainable or profitable than the current one.

Sarapis

@Tesha I too would love that but it's not really practical for a variety of reasons. It's probably doable but I don't think it'd be a net win for Achaea to require people to play via a specific client. It'd be nice to have the capability though, I'll grant, so that for things like combat tournaments or the Year 600, etc tournaments we could ensure people are on the same level in terms of automated help.