Year 800 Championship games!

Shirszae

The key is to realize you don't owe anyone any explanations for what you do and to do what results in more fun for you. Whether you go full manual or full auto or a mix should be based on whether you find such approach fun or not, not on what anyone else might say. People will talk and accuse you of things regardless.

Also, I find keybindings to be  a better choice than aliases. Fumbled aliases have resulted in my death way to many times.

Minifie

The clarification is the same for everything in achaea: “everyone else is an illegitimate prick except for me and my faction!” Bonus points if you also irrationality hate one faction beyond the rest. 

Aka if you are playing specifically to seek approval from certain people, or by some list of unwritten rules, you should stop.

Aegoth

If you automate, you should uninstall achaea

Dominius

Thought that comment might spark a discussion. Should have left it out, all I wanted to say.. loved the XPevent, and yes, all of you are right, there is no right and everything we experience is sujective!

Farrah

Shub said:

I guess we need to clarify now. I don't have any offensive scripting in play, l abandoned bashing scripts around level 80 after killing myself with it far too often.

Most of my stuff is the ui bits, timers and labels and whatnot. Lots of convenience things like humgii race betting, mineral extraction, also did my own battlerage timers, a room info console that I'm pretty proud of. I always meant to chart out an offense but have been too consumed with bashing to put the time into it, maybe things will be different now with the dragon chase completed.

I have a hard time inputting commands quickly enough in real combat situations even with the 4 letter aliases. I panic and forget all of them, or just lose patience when nothing seems to go out because of my opponents effective hindering. We're probably looking at 2-3 ability usage decisions per second between the humour, equilibrium, homulculus, curing adjustments, movement, shielding, etc, so those things need to become muscle memory and the text flow just completely loses me. Before I can figure out what to do the information has passed me by, then I'm locked, or my opponent is gone, or I'm dead, its sad.

The answer seems to be log analysis but there are so many different situations you have to analyze and prepare for. I see why people turn to scripting, people could need months to build up all that muscle memory otherwise.

Some people might be different but I never use 4 letter aliases. I like 3 or less.

Even when manual fighting, you actually want to reduce the number of spur of the moment choices you have to make as much as possible.

Rather than thinking every second "What humour should I temper? What homunculus ability should I use?", plan ahead. I like to use toggles for humours so my alias letters only have to account for afflictions. That is, every alias just tempers humourvariable and I can toggle which humour that variable is set to. You just keep it on sanguine for a couple tempers usually then switch to another.

For affs, you just want to learn their curing and predict it for the most part. It's not that complicated for alchemist since you mostly care about the tempers. But you largely know ahead of time what you're doing rather than making split second decisions. You only have to make quick decisions for a few things like sudden shields, etc.

Lenn

The above post is why I hate paralysis/stun eating queueing so very, very much. I like to calmly plan ahead, not mash buttons.

Antonius

Lenn said:

The above post is why I hate paralysis/stun eating queueing so very, very much. I like to calmly plan ahead, not mash buttons.

What exactly are you having problems with? Spamming an alias/keybinding until the command actually works doesn't seem like it should impact on planning ahead; rather than "When I recover balance, I want to queue up my next attack which is paralysis and clumsiness." it's just "When my attack goes through, I want to start spamming my next attack which is paralysis and clumsiness."

I spam my attacks to get around paralysis/stun, and don't have problems planning my next attack, so hard to suggest solutions without knowing what exactly makes it difficult for you (though it may not be one thing you can actually point to).

Lenn

It's a few things. Keep in mind I usually play on a phone.

1) It spams my screen, making it much harder to watch enemy cures / attacks. My client is not great at gagging lines.

2) I like to start typing my next attack before my last one actually triggers, so when I do this and find I've been paralysed, it means I sometimes have to fumble about with retyping my last attack.

3) Some people mentioned just holding enter, but that does nothing for me, I have to retype it or up+enter every time. On mobile, this gets really unpleasant to do.

4) More subtle, if I'm focusing on when my attacks finally go through, that's less time spent focusing on what the enemy's curing, what they're doing, what my next attack should be, etc.

Atalkez

I could never attempt to do anything but chat on mobile. You’re a masochist.

Farrah

You should not play on phone.

Lenn

It's still unpleasant to deal with on a computer, just a bit more bearable.

Jinos

Some classes are easier to play with on mobile. Alchemist has temper and bleed tracking built into it already when combined with evaluate.

Most of the others need a fair bit of customization on a phone. 

Khel

Blowtorch and Mudlet both have an option to not clear your last sent input that I highly recommend turning on, for phone PK. Quicker to tap to edit a typo than retype everything, and you can spam an alias for pk easier. Also look into a bluetooth keyboard, it makes a world of difference.

Minifie

@Farrah you completed a contract or two while I was raid leading on my phone, sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches, and I don’t mind using phone, although 1v1 is painful .

Shub

I think the unwritten rules matter and that you need to actively maintain your character's brand, once you lose control of your impression the entire community thinks you're a moron metagaming cheater or whatever and nobody wants to play with you. Perception matters more than reality as they say. My fear is that I'll disappoint the wrong person, destroy my reputation, then get constantly piled onto and insulted every time I speak, like what happens to Asmodron here in the forums and news postings. That possibility becomes more real when high profile characters post their criticisms, in my opinion that requires a response. People around here appear eager to collect heads, I agree that some of that is just the nature of our roles as competitors. Holding respect as a good role player and community member is important to me, I'm doing my best.

I was under the impression that aliases that make decisions on the fly were one of those unwritten rules of automation, given the popular disdain for 'mashing a bash macro', having toggles between different strategies and then a few buttons that execute steps of those planned strategies felt like a similar macro mashing issue. If that sort of thing is acceptable then I'm happy to explore it. Hotkeys and shorter aliases aren't a bad idea either, thanks.

My scripting mostly serves to reproduce the nexus client conveniences, but in mudlet because lua makes more sense to me. Tab-target cycling, clicking on icons to probe, ability cooldowns lighting up buttons, basically anything I can do to help keep eyes on the screen instead of the scroll bar because the scroll speed is killing me. Its all about plucking the important bits from the noise. I suspect that even the most ardent manuallers employ a healthy amount of gags and text shortening, the flow just grows too unmanageable without it.

I'm more embarrassed by my artefact load than my scripting though. It feels like I'm a bodybuilder taking heavy steroids that is still fat and soft looking. I have a lot of gear, I ought to be a serious threat with it but I haven't put in enough work. I think I can crack dueling without much more scripting, (I might need to make a self limb counter to alert when I'm prepped if wundersys doesn't already do it). 

Events like these 800 games where open pk is involved aren't simple dueling affairs though, there is a daunting mountain of work to climb to be competitive in the games which is discouraging me from participating this year. You have to be a historian, combatant, leader, explorer and hunter, for now I'm in that middling stage where I'm not gifted in any of those things, but I'm catching up on the historian front. Holding that staff is a true feat, I hope to make a good showing in that competition some day.

Minifie

AFAIK the only “unwritten” rules you should follow with regards to PK is try your best, don’t be a sore winner or loser, and afford people the same respect you want. People are not going to farm you for pks if you do these things, even someone like me, who irks people IC and OOC seems to be offered a decent berth, not for being good, for accepting I suck and want to improve.

as to the rest: try and fail. Try and fail and try and fail. The same with everything in game: put your balls on the line and go for it! Being scared of failure only guarantees failure IMO.

Atalkez

Just have to stay consistent with your attempts to learn. I still have more deaths than PKs, mostly from my days of learning the game. I used to lose 12-10 times to get 1 win, but that win meant so much. I think the key is finding what works for you personally, then building on that. I dueled anyone and everyone, and sparred the same. Just consistent effort and actually taking the time to read logs to see what happened.

My first time as Blademaster, the setup I used was very inefficient and limited. Once I got better at coding and had more knowledge of the class/classes I’m fighting, I was able to adjust to become more efficient.

Generally speaking, I follow the same alias structure Farrah does. I use 2-3 letter aliases, and depending on class will have toggles for stuff. For instance my BM offense uses aliases for the attacks, then another alias for the infuse, and another alias for the strike.

So the infuse I set with like ‘ice’, the strike with ‘par’ or ‘ham’, then my ‘lsl’ attack uses those two variables. Stuff like that is how I operate every class that I have.

Khel

I'm a nobody when it comes to the 1v1 scene but I use short aliases that I can remember (lleg to hit left leg, etc) and then script as much as I don't feel like doing. For limb route I manually pick limbs usually. For aff routes I usually bot the whole route because I hate tracking eats on the fly and I'd rather try to watch the fight itself progress to adjust which alias I spam.

Lots have a strong opinion on the Right Way to play this game that they'll tell you that you have to follow, but they're all wrong- having fun (within the rules) is all that matters. If you code a bot that automates defense/offense and you just turn it on and watch it mow people down? Cool. If you snub automation and manually cure unlike all these autohealing cowards? Rock on. No matter what you pick you're gonna piss someone off, so may as well enjoy yourself!

Farrah

@Shub The vast majority of combatants these days are very automated so you're unlikely to get much flak for it from the community at large, only from select people.

I don't think anyone would consider what I was describing "automation" though. Automation implies triggers that help makes choices for you. I'm talking about aliases, which don't make choices for you. So if you have four macros (one for each humour) and tapping the macro sets your humour variable to X humour and all of your aliases temper that humour variable, that's not automation. That's like using weaponry targeting without inline (TARGET HEAD makes all your attacks hit head until you target something else, same concept here). You're not giving any choices to a computer.

Automation is when you have it do like if sanguine is less than 2 temper sanguine, else temper phlegmatic. Then it's tracking and making the choice for you.

I agree with what Shirszae said, though. Ultimately, you should do whatever you want to do. Most people won't care and people who do care will often find something else to rant about if you don't automate. Just clarifying how you can also make aliases in different ways without automating.

Lenn

I'm going to keep playing on a phone.

Cooper

Just because you can make a choice, does not make that choice good. Choices have consequences.

Lenn

I don't judge how you play, but I certainly could start, if you'd like.

Kiet

Asmodron's PK ability does not negatively impact his reputation.

Jiraishin

Shub said:

I think the unwritten rules matter and that you need to actively maintain your character's brand, once you lose control of your impression the entire community thinks you're a moron metagaming cheater or whatever and nobody wants to play with you. Perception matters more than reality as they say. My fear is that I'll disappoint the wrong person, destroy my reputation, then get constantly piled onto and insulted every time I speak, like what happens to Asmodron here in the forums and news postings. That possibility becomes more real when high profile characters post their criticisms, in my opinion that requires a response. People around here appear eager to collect heads, I agree that some of that is just the nature of our roles as competitors. Holding respect as a good role player and community member is important to me, I'm doing my best.

I was under the impression that aliases that make decisions on the fly were one of those unwritten rules of automation, given the popular disdain for 'mashing a bash macro', having toggles between different strategies and then a few buttons that execute steps of those planned strategies felt like a similar macro mashing issue. If that sort of thing is acceptable then I'm happy to explore it. Hotkeys and shorter aliases aren't a bad idea either, thanks.

My scripting mostly serves to reproduce the nexus client conveniences, but in mudlet because lua makes more sense to me. Tab-target cycling, clicking on icons to probe, ability cooldowns lighting up buttons, basically anything I can do to help keep eyes on the screen instead of the scroll bar because the scroll speed is killing me. Its all about plucking the important bits from the noise. I suspect that even the most ardent manuallers employ a healthy amount of gags and text shortening, the flow just grows too unmanageable without it.

I'm more embarrassed by my artefact load than my scripting though. It feels like I'm a bodybuilder taking heavy steroids that is still fat and soft looking. I have a lot of gear, I ought to be a serious threat with it but I haven't put in enough work. I think I can crack dueling without much more scripting, (I might need to make a self limb counter to alert when I'm prepped if wundersys doesn't already do it). 

Events like these 800 games where open pk is involved aren't simple dueling affairs though, there is a daunting mountain of work to climb to be competitive in the games which is discouraging me from participating this year. You have to be a historian, combatant, leader, explorer and hunter, for now I'm in that middling stage where I'm not gifted in any of those things, but I'm catching up on the historian front. Holding that staff is a true feat, I hope to make a good showing in that competition some day.

Shub, from reading this and other things you've written on the forums (about quest info, etc) I'd say you are way more anxious than you need to be about the idea of making a misstep. You are going to be fine. The world's not going to come crashing down because you say the wrong thing once. I'd give you a list of my own huge mistakes to make you feel better, but I'd rather everyone not be reminded of them-- the point is, I'm still here.

[Deleted User]

Kiet said:

Asmodron's PK ability does not negatively impact his reputation.

Only because it can't get any worse than it is.

Astarod

Shub said:

I guess we need to clarify now. I don't have any offensive scripting in play, l abandoned bashing scripts around level 80 after killing myself with it far too often.

Most of my stuff is the ui bits, timers and labels and whatnot. Lots of convenience things like humgii race betting, mineral extraction, also did my own battlerage timers, a room info console that I'm pretty proud of. I always meant to chart out an offense but have been too consumed with bashing to put the time into it, maybe things will be different now with the dragon chase completed.

I have a hard time inputting commands quickly enough in real combat situations even with the 4 letter aliases. I panic and forget all of them, or just lose patience when nothing seems to go out because of my opponents effective hindering. We're probably looking at 2-3 ability usage decisions per second between the humour, equilibrium, homulculus, curing adjustments, movement, shielding, etc, so those things need to become muscle memory and the text flow just completely loses me. Before I can figure out what to do the information has passed me by, then I'm locked, or my opponent is gone, or I'm dead, its sad.

The answer seems to be log analysis but there are so many different situations you have to analyze and prepare for. I see why people turn to scripting, people could need months to build up all that muscle memory otherwise.

Listen, I am by no means saying I’m good at combat or anything, but I seem to do alright with nexus aliases, couple of highlights, some persistence, and a few really good friends. 

What I’m saying is, maybe try manualling? I bet once you manual a few fights, you’d learn quite a bit- maybe enough to help you with automation. (Does not matter if you win or lose). Regardless, I’ve heard your name a couple of times, so keep up the good work and your chin up mate!


TLDR:

Also, I try l three letter aliases that make sense to me. Heaven knows the people on my server have heard me in voice chat saying “CDR, CDR,” etc

Example: CDR

[Curare] [Degenerative] [Reap]

Torinn

@Shub I enjoy scripting and know I'll never be good enough to make decisions myself in the thick of ckmbat so I automated heavily.  You do you broski.

Caelan

Torinn said:

@Shub I enjoy scripting and know I'll never be good enough to make decisions myself in the thick of ckmbat so I automated heavily.  You do you broski.

I have a jacked up left hand that makes me typo frequently (worse trying to type fast).  I don't automate heavily, but enough to offset it. Now I need to fix my curing and I should be ok

Vhaith

My combat knowledge consists of 'thrust <target> (don't be rude), and I still managed to get a kill in a defending party!

Jiraishin

I have nothing automated. My patron is the God of Killsteals.