My coding/time, your gold/credits, whatever you'd like.

Urnhlug

So, currently between jobs and have plenty of time to dork around writing code. I figured since I've been playing so much Achaea I could offer up my spare time to people who have pipedreams for scripts they want but can't make themselves.

I'm not trying to charge people seriously necessarily, just hoping for fair reimbursement of some kind depending on the effort required from me.

I'm mostly used to Mudlet/SVOF, and anything written to work with those will be far easier, but I can work with anything.

If you have anything you can imagine you'd want made for you, hit me up either here or in game and we can work something out.

Use your imagination!

Stefana

I need an affliction tracker for Nexus sooooo bad. I have harassed @Keorin about it but she has a lot on her plate and wasn’t sure when she’d be able to get started on it or how long it would take SO if you are willing to work your way around that and get me out of her hair, I would be greatly appreciative!

To answer your follow-up questions about the specifics of what I need: I have no idea.

I don’t know anything about combat or coding. All I know is when I’ve tried to dip my toe in the water combat-wise I am told that I need a working affliction tracker before I can really do anything more, and unfortunately unlike Mudlet, Nexus doesn’t seem to have any publicly-shared ones.

Maybe @Tasus can chime in on exactly what I need to get up and running, since he’s the one I will be bugging to help me figure my shit out once I have something to work with?

[Deleted User]

You don't need a working affliction tracker before you get started - plenty of people go without, including a lot of the high tier folks. I would actually personally advise against relying on one until you figure out what you're doing and why you're doing it. Bard is probably one of the more difficult classes to manual, since there's different balances and lots of moving parts, but it's absolutely possible and would at the very least be a good way to get a better idea of what you need in a tracker.

Kiet

If anyone ever tells you you need an affliction tracker to fight, thank them for their time, move on, and never ask them for combat advice again. People fought before affliction trackers even existed, they're only 'necessary' if you never learned to fight on your own--most likely because someone else gave you an offense you don't particularly understand.

So, basically, Issam's right.

Stefana

Okay, it may have been disingenuous to say I was told I absolutely needed an affliction tracker. A more accurate account would be that I have been told for my combat and coding ability level (i.e. 0) the easiest way for me to get to the point of being able to meaningfully assist in group combat and participate in arena games, etc. quickly and without a huge time & labour investment, is to start with an affliction tracker.

It’s therefore been highly recommended to me that I switch to Mudlet where there are more “plug n’ play” scripts available for affliction tracking and other things like that, but I would rather not do that for a variety of reasons.

I do understand it’s not absolutely imperative that I have an affliction tracker, but based on what I’ve learned from trying to sort out other basic reflexes and talking to people about getting started with combat basics, it is the route I would like to take to give me a jumping off point. Thank you both for your input though!

Urnhlug

I'm not trying to market here, so I don't want you to think that with my response

But I would say an affliction tracker is something that I personally don't know how I'd live without. Even if people fought before affliction trackers, I'm sure plenty of people used rudimentary systems to at least roughly track afflictions, even if it was just big bold messages when your opponents eat, or something.

That being said, @Stefana, a full blown affliction tracking system for Nexus that's able to handle all of bard's capabilities (which, afaik, includes limb tracking and all venoms, so, pretty much everything) is an ENORMOUS undertaking.

A couple of people have already messaged me about simpler things, so I'll finish those first. If no one else comes around I could consider starting on something for you that at least tracks just afflictions.

[Deleted User]

Stefana said:

Okay, it may have been disingenuous to say I was told I absolutely needed an affliction tracker. A more accurate account would be that I have been told for my combat and coding ability level (i.e. 0) the easiest way for me to get to the point of being able to meaningfully assist in group combat and participate in arena games, etc. quickly and without a huge time & labour investment, is to start with an affliction tracker.

It’s therefore been highly recommended to me that I switch to Mudlet where there are more “plug n’ play” scripts available for affliction tracking and other things like that, but I would rather not do that for a variety of reasons.

I do understand it’s not absolutely imperative that I have an affliction tracker, but based on what I’ve learned from trying to sort out other basic reflexes and talking to people about getting started with combat basics, it is the route I would like to take to give me a jumping off point. Thank you both for your input though!

If your primary interest is in group combat, I can say with total confidence that you don't need an affliction tracker to make a huge contribution. You basically need a handful of aliases that do specific things your group wants (curare or epic because you always want paralysis uptime, kalmia because asthma can be punished very easily, etc.) and then everything else comes from tactical awareness, which is generally something where experience is massively more important than any sort of affliction automation. The more important thing coding-wise is being able to convey useful information to your group, such as your target and location, and then potentially calling your afflictions so people recognize what you're doing and can act accordingly. Also, being able to turn this on and off so that you're not swapping targets when you don't want to be, or calling things out unnecessarily when things get spammy.

(Sorry to de-rail the purpose of the thread, I just want to make sure it's clear that coding is totally secondary to just getting involved and jumping into the deep end.)

Urnhlug

Issam said:

The more important thing coding-wise is being able to convey useful information to your group, such as your target and location, and then potentially calling your afflictions so people recognize what you're doing and can act accordingly. Also, being able to turn this on and off so that you're not swapping targets when you don't want to be, or calling things out unnecessarily when things get spammy.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Again, I just made the post to help people who are looking for coding help of ANY kind. Stefana shouldn't think she needs an affliction tracker before learning some combat, but I also think it's totally fair to be in search of an affliction tracker for your client if it lacks one.

Stefana

Thanks for all the help and suggestions, all of you! I do have some aliases set up for a couple of basic venom/voicecraft combos which I basically just spam and hope for the best in raid situations, I’m looking to take a step or two forward from that which is why I am thinking an affliction tracker is in order.

That being said, I am well aware that it is a big project and I am more than happy with a timeline and price that is commensurate with that. But if you already have a lot on your plate with simpler commissions then no worries! Like I said I did already approach Keorin about this, but I kind of sprung it on her so wanted to take this opportunity to ask someone who was actually offering to do things like this.

Would you mind letting me know if/when you have some time where you might be able to get started on something for me, and if Keorin hasn’t been able to get going by then, I will take you up on it?

Kiet

Afflictions are basically irrelevant in groups the sizes of Cyrene raids, so don't stress too much about getting the perfect aff in, either way.

Urnhlug

@Stefana Yeah of course, once I finish the easier things if no one else has approached me for anything I'll message you and see if you still need it and we can talk about what you need in more specific and I can start down that long, winding path. Hehe.

Cooper

Issam said:

If your primary interest is in group combat, I can say with total confidence that you don't need an affliction tracker to make a huge contribution. You basically need a handful of aliases that do specific things your group wants (curare or epic because you always want paralysis uptime, kalmia because asthma can be punished very easily, etc.) and then everything else comes from tactical awareness, which is generally something where experience is massively more important than any sort of affliction automation. The more important thing coding-wise is being able to convey useful information to your group, such as your target and location, and then potentially calling your afflictions so people recognize what you're doing and can act accordingly. Also, being able to turn this on and off so that you're not swapping targets when you don't want to be, or calling things out unnecessarily when things get spammy.

(Sorry to de-rail the purpose of the thread, I just want to make sure it's clear that coding is totally secondary to just getting involved and jumping into the deep end.)

This whole post is pretty spot on.

Most people actually need aff tracking in 1v1 now. With the lack of pride on being "manual" like there used to be, many more afflictions and attacks to remember, and all the different kill paths - it a lot more difficult to 1v1 than it used to be. It's just not viable for some people to be top tier fighters without 1v1 aff tracking. You can definitely do it, but it will be much more difficult without the aff tracking.

You do not need any sort of affliction tracking to do well in groups, this is definitely right. I tell people in Mhaldor this all the time, but - most classes have just a couple of basic abilities or attacks you can use and have a big impact in every fight.

And the big impact things aren't complicated, here are some examples for Runewarden - have a totem and know how to keep it propped and handle enemy lists, dsl curare/kalmia on loop, impale the target if you see they are prone and disembowel if you can.

Bard - have harmonics up and your party allied and enemies enemied, tunesmith martellato or pesante, then jab curare/sing limerick on repeat

Newbie - touch web on the target, or use KILL command

Lenn

I manual, but I also play depthswalker which is easy to do with just highlights on eating herbs and reaching capstones.

I made the herbs colour-coded.

Kiet

There are still top tier manual players, so you don't 'need' it even for that, though I understand the point here is more that not everyone has the ability to manual at the top tier. I'm not sure I fully 100% agree but even disregarding that, most people are never going to compete at the top tier regardless. It requires a lot more time/dedication than most people have for it, and it's not particularly difficult to pvp manually at a more average level with good success in comparison. Unless achaean pvp is like your main reason to play the game, stressing about what the top tier do or don't do isn't all that useful imo.

Atalkez

Cooper said:

Most people actually need aff tracking in 1v1 now. With the lack of pride on being "manual" like there used to be, many more afflictions and attacks to remember, and all the different kill paths - it a lot more difficult to 1v1 than it used to be. It's just not viable for some people to be top tier fighters without 1v1 aff tracking. You can definitely do it, but it will be much more difficult without the aff tracking.

I disagree with this so hard I wish I could flag the post. No one needs aff tracking, all it does is allow you to be much more lazy about your fighting. You don’t have to watch their curing at all because your on board Jarvis will handle that for you. The kill paths are simply something you need to learn. Once you learn them, it’s not difficult at all to play defense at the right times (not guaranteed to work bc balance ofc). Same thing with new afflictions. Spend an hour or two learning and you won’t have to do it again outside of classlead changes. 

The only reason 1v1 is much harder than it used to be is because of this plug and play mentality. People are pushing 90% effective offenses with no idea how the mechanics even work. They hardly have to do any homework on a class anymore. Nothing has changed game wise in that aspect, everything has been on our side. People don’t want to spend the time learning and fixing their aliaes, losing and learning to win - instead just install X script and you’re able to pressure anyone in the game. That’s also on the current player base being mostly this plug and play, and in turn telling new people do install the same script and do the same thing.

Its not a bad thing to learn on your own and figure out what works for you. Downloading a script makes you very efficient, but also very linear and predictable - leaving you nearly no room for creativity.

Armali

Is that the case with Targossas?

Atalkez

Every faction has people that do it, not sure what you’re asking there. It’s also something that isn’t going to change.

Armali

People are pushing 90% effective offenses with no idea how the mechanics even work. They hardly have to do any homework on a class anymore. Nothing has changed game wise in that aspect, everything has been on our side. People don’t want to spend the time learning and fixing their aliaes, losing and learning to win - instead just install X script and you’re able to pressure anyone in the game. That’s also on the current player base being mostly this plug and play, and in turn telling new people do install the same script and do the same thing.

You're talking in very general language. 'People'. 'Current player base'. You're implying that everybody is doing this, unless 'people' and 'current player base' mean very different things to you than it does to me.

So my question is, do you see this happening in Targossas? Do people over clans and parties and Discord(?) share offenses? Are their helpfiles with links in them to offensive (not targeting listening, calling, or reporting) scripts?

Kiet

Why are you trying to be contrarian? I don't 1v1 nearly as much as atalkez but even I notice how many copy-paste autobots there are out there, lol. When someone's truelocking people but can't even explain what a truelock is, what else are you going to assume?

[Deleted User]

It's been awhile since Targ has had an org-wide script (the last post about one predates my character). Even when we did, it was pretty basic group affliction tracking and nobody was encouraged to rely on it. We've actually had to ask people to not use some of the scripts that were posted because they had components that would actually make people fight worse (example: auto target swapping that failed if the caller wasn't in the room - but this didn't account for hidden people). Some people post their individual projects but mostly as a way of trying to garner interest and critique. Coding advice is freely offered and I think people try to help as much as they can, though.

I have personally shared my offenses with a couple of people when they've requested it, but that's largely because making and tweaking these scripts is something I really enjoy. It also gives me a great reason to berate them when the offense doesn't work and they're told to fix it themselves.

Atalkez

Issam beat me to it, but that’s the gist of it.

I mean if you disagree then by all means elaborate, but I stand by my post. 

Armali

Kiet said:

Why are you trying to be contrarian? I don't 1v1 nearly as much as atalkez but even I notice how many copy-paste autobots there are out there, lol. When someone's truelocking people but can't even explain what a truelock is, what else are you going to assume?

Because I think both you and Atalkez are exaggerating issues that they see in specific areas and situations and just assuming that they apply to the bulk of the game.

Kiet

Armali said:

Kiet said:

Why are you trying to be contrarian? I don't 1v1 nearly as much as atalkez but even I notice how many copy-paste autobots there are out there, lol. When someone's truelocking people but can't even explain what a truelock is, what else are you going to assume?

Because I think both you and Atalkez are exaggerating issues that they see in specific areas and situations and just assuming that they apply to the bulk of the game.

What am I exaggerating? There's a lot of people that automate their 1v1, and a decent amount that automate group stuff. I've personally witnessed it or disrupted their automation in the past. It's a fact that automation is fairly common in Achaea, regardless of faction.

Stefana

Cooper said:

Bard - have harmonics up and your party allied and enemies enemied, tunesmith martellato or pesante, then jab curare/sing limerick on repeat

That plus dirge is basically the extent of my combat alias list. Is that really all there is to it? I guess I am closer to being ready to move on to 1v1 than I thought.

Atalkez said:
Its not a bad thing to learn on your own and figure out what works for you. Downloading a script makes you very efficient, but also very linear and predictable - leaving you nearly no room for creativity.

I appreciate that, but I am not really at a point where "creativity" is a concern of mine in the context of pvp, I spend a good chunk of every fight just basically not knowing what is going on at all. I can wrap my head around the theory of what I am trying to do in a fight and what my obstacles might be, but I really feel like an affliction tracker will help me have a clearer perception of what's working and what isn't, and just get more out of practical experience. I am not looking to automate everything I do, but I just don't have any motivation to undertake the tedium of sorting it out with the simplified scripting. I would rather invest my credits in someone else's time, who can actually code and does not rely on drop-down lists to make reflexes.

Armali

Common, yes. The majority? The predominance? Atalkez is making very bold claims about how a lot of 'people' (who? Mhaldorians? Ashtani? Cyrenese? Eleusians? Hashani? Targossians? Garden?) are automating their offenses, and also have no idea how their class offenses work. Is there a cabal of people out there who share plug and play offensive scripts? I don't know about them in Hashan and I've been here for 3 years, but who knows, maybe they exist? Is it more plausible in my city that people write their own code and hence need to know their own classes so they can write in the first place? Well, I've seen maybe one or two of the former (share and have no idea) and like a dozen of the latter so I'm more willing to lend credence to the latter interpretation.

So that's my perspective on Hashan. How is it in Targossass? Mhaldor? Ashtan? Issam already said that he doesn't see it much. If it turns out in Cyrene or somewhere that that's the case, well okay, but you can hardly imply in that case that 'people', in the sense of 'everyone', is doing it.

Kiet

Armali said:

Common, yes. The majority? The predominance? Atalkez is making very bold claims about how a lot of 'people' (who? Mhaldorians? Ashtani? Cyrenese? Eleusians? Hashani? Targossians? Garden?) are automating their offenses, and also have no idea how their class offenses work. Is there a cabal of people out there who share plug and play offensive scripts? I don't know about them in Hashan and I've been here for 3 years, but who knows, maybe they exist? Is it more plausible in my city that people write their own code and hence need to know their own classes so they can write in the first place? Well, I've seen maybe one or two of the former (share and have no idea) and like a dozen of the latter so I'm more willing to lend credence to the latter interpretation.

So that's my perspective on Hashan. How is it in Targossass? Mhaldor? Ashtan? Issam already said that he doesn't see it much. If it turns out in Cyrene or somewhere that that's the case, well okay, but you can hardly imply in that case that 'people', in the sense of 'everyone', is doing it.

I've literally had to explain to people what a truelock is after they just played through a truelock with me or someone else they were practicing on, lol. I've had people go from not knowing how serpent works one day to locking people the next day in the exact same way that someone else that is known for giving out scripts does. No one's saying these extremes are the norm, but they're common enough to be ridiculous, and after this extreme there's the rather large amount of people that are told 'go dl AK, then set up an alias that does affs in this order.' These people would likely still satisfy Atalkez's classification, in that their knowledge level is extremely low compared to the effectiveness of their alias/button.

In groups, it's extremely common for people with almost no awareness of their surroundings to be suddenly switching targets with miliseconds of a designated target caller logging on, too. This, too, is automation, let's not forget.

Dragonknight

You guys are kinda derailing this guys thread. Maybe you should make your own thread.

Atalkez

Stefana said:

I appreciate that, but I am not really at a point where "creativity" is a concern of mine in the context of pvp, I spend a good chunk of every fight just basically not knowing what is going on at all. I can wrap my head around the theory of what I am trying to do in a fight and what my obstacles might be, but I really feel like an affliction tracker will help me have a clearer perception of what's working and what isn't, and just get more out of practical experience. I am not looking to automate everything I do, but I just don't have any motivation to undertake the tedium of sorting it out with the simplified scripting. I would rather invest my credits in someone else's time, who can actually code and does not rely on drop-down lists to make reflexes.

Sure, and that's your prerogative. I'm not trying to paint you as a bad guy by any means. What I find fun/challenging others won't and that's perfectly okay.

Armali said:

Common, yes. The majority? The predominance? Atalkez is making very bold claims about how a lot of 'people' (who? Mhaldorians? Ashtani? Cyrenese? Eleusians? Hashani? Targossians? Garden?) are automating their offenses, and also have no idea how their class offenses work. Is there a cabal of people out there who share plug and play offensive scripts? I don't know about them in Hashan and I've been here for 3 years, but who knows, maybe they exist? Is it more plausible in my city that people write their own code and hence need to know their own classes so they can write in the first place? Well, I've seen maybe one or two of the former (share and have no idea) and like a dozen of the latter so I'm more willing to lend credence to the latter interpretation.

So that's my perspective on Hashan. How is it in Targossass? Mhaldor? Ashtan? Issam already said that he doesn't see it much. If it turns out in Cyrene or somewhere that that's the case, well okay, but you can hardly imply in that case that 'people', in the sense of 'everyone', is doing it.

It's not a faction related thing. It's a playerbase thing, and largely happens on the forums/privately. Many things are automated, we see requests constantly for X to be automated. Whether that is extracting or gathering, city highlighting or combat scripts. I've absolutely seen people who can lock just fine, struggle to explain how they did it. I've seen people win duels with an instantkill and didn't even realize the person had died. I've seen people go from not being able to do anything with afflictions, to being amazingly efficient in aff selection, with no noticeable change in their understanding of the concept. What do you want me to do, name people specifically so it's not a general thing? I would say more people automate than not when it comes to combat. If you want to split hairs over the percentage that understand the base mechanics, okay, but that's not the point of my post and never was.

AK exists, and more often than not when I see someone new to the game or new to a class ask questions, they get "oh if you download...". This happens, and we all know that it does. People used to complain about this very same scenario regarding curing when svo was released. Now, I'd say over 80% of the playerbase is running SVO/WunderSys/Custom stuff. 

Anyway, this topic is not what this thread was for. I'm happy to continue the discussion on another thread that's themed for it. Maybe Armali can make a poll of who automates and who doesn't to varying degrees.

Armali

It is, but you're extending the goalposts. Atalkez's original comment doesn't apply to anything you said in the second half of your post and that's what I'm addressing, not automation in general. No one's arguing that a lot of people use auto target swapping of one form or another, or have aff selection in their aliases. Nor is it, which you fail to understand, the existence of people who download offenses that they have no clue how they work and using them to fight. Neither of these facts are in dispute.

His post, and my rebuttal, is about the notion that most of the current playerbase is 'plug and play', and use scripts and offenses whose purpose they have no idea beyond 'kills them dead'. If you, Kiet, see this only happening in one or two people in Mhaldor, and I, Armali, only see this happening in one or two people in Hashan and Issam only sees it in one or two people in Targossas, then you can hardly say that his supposition is correct.

Lenn

I don't even realise when people die if they starburst. I had to highlight the "You have slain..." line and even then I can still miss it in a sea of text.

Archaeon

reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee