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On December 30 2010 06:02 troynt wrote:
@Bitters Please provide a sample of a macro, that doesn't make use of time delays, that would take focus away from either. I think you are confusing micro and macro actions with bad user experience.
A) Pressing f1 to builds a drone. <= Macro action
B) Pressing 5, s, d builds a drone. <= Macro Action ( bad user experience, too many clicks )
They are both macro actions, they both require the same mental abilities.
B takes 2 more keypresses. Will those 2 keypresses change the outcome of the game?
Answer: It should not. If it does, we should to re-evaluate the game, as it shouldn't be about spamming drones.
yeah if you have all the time in the world in doesn't matter for the outcome
but when you're in an intense game and every ms counts, and you have to be at multiple places at the same time, it obviously does matter if you just press some preprogrammed buttons. it's a clear advantage, it's cheating.
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On December 30 2010 09:04 chessiecat wrote:
One single post from Blizzard that says you can't bind two actions to one hotkey. I'll eat my hat. I have a hat I can eat and it's a nice one. I beg you! Just post something to make all of this end and I will kiss your toes and chew on this lovely leather head-piece.
ANYwhere in the Terms of Service or any Blizzard post by any Blizzard employee where this is laid out in explicit terms.
Alright chessie, I've been nice and respectful in explaining how and why it's considered botting. You are botting if you are doing that. You have proof of blizzard saying you can't bot. Now I've looked up your multiple posts on the b.net forums, and here and all I can decided is either you're trolling or are way too naive and close minded to accept anything other than blizzard directly saying "you cannot use your macros to automate actions on your razer keyboard." Nothing any of us say will change your mind, so why even talk to us about it? Take it up with blizzard instead of wasting all our time.
I'm all for thoughtful discussion and you're welcome to your opinion, but when your only argument is "prove it" when we have countless times and you've done nothing to refute our claims then you are wasting all of our time. How bout instead of us proving over and over again how Blizz doesn't allow it (and we have) you tell us how we are wrong. Find me any definition of botting that convinces you that you are not botting by automating your actions with an external program. Binding more than one action to a hotkey is botting, period. You may not get banned for it, but it doesnt mean that they cant or wont in the future nor does it mean that you are not breaking their ToS.
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On December 30 2010 07:26 roadrunner343 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 05:52 holynorth wrote:On December 29 2010 14:30 roadrunner343 wrote:
For about the fourth time this thread: Licensing a freaking name doesn't make it a "Blizzard" product.
The Razer Marauder is no more a Blizzard product than the Razer Lycosa... or the Logitech G15 for that matter. All three of them are third party products. Licensing a name doesn't mean it's a Blizzard product.
I suppose Blizzard makes "official" mouse pads too, not steel series... right? Somebody shoot me now, the stupidity is overwhelming. I'd expect to have to explain it once, but I've done it what... 3, 4 times now? And I've seen other people explain the same thing. And for everyone of our replies, there's another 3-4 idiots saying the same, incorrect horse crap about the Marauder being an "Official Blizzard Product."
I fell in love with the TL forums because this kind of stupidity didn't exist... could you return the the battlenet forums please?
EDIT: ROFL... advertising something on your website makes it YOUR product? Google owns about 90% of the internet... hell, I saw this gear advertised on amazon... it must be an OFFICIAL (Caps for you Chessicat) Amazon product then. Well, for the Xth time, yes it does. Once upon a time Google ads had a bunch of Buy WoW Gold on the Official WoW forums. Of course it was quickly taken and down and it was changed to something else. However, any users that were banned for buying gold shortly after that, could simply say they clicked the link on the WoW forum. Guess what happened? Blizzard unbanned them. Any person with a brain could argue that they were endorsing it, despite what it says in the ToS. (This same person could argue that 1% of all users even read the ToS, and therefore the person assumed buying gold would be ok). The same applies with the Spectre/Marauder. Blizzard cannot and will not ban you for this. They will more than likely make a public statement claiming they will, but it will only be a threat. They fucked up by endorsing the razer products and supporting them on their own page. Besides, you won't get caught if the products work like the Black WIdow anyways. This is such a horrendously stupid post (Poster?) it's hilarious. Nothing in your post was remotely related to mine. You went on a tangent about nothing, and are still too stupid to realize: It's a Razer product, not a blizzard one. They licensed the name and artwork. That's it.
Did you read my post? Can you read my post? The definition of "endorse:" back: be behind; approve of. Blizzard does endorse these products. Because Blizzard endorsed these products they cannot and will not ban you for them. This has been seen in the past with Blizzard.
But you would rather spend your time flaming users than contribute anything useful.
And also, as mentioned in the original post and several times throughout the thread, but we have determined you do not like to read other posts, Blizzard worked with Razer to create the software needed. Sounds a lot like endorsement to me. And the only thing that matters in the court of law is endorsement.
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I'm curous about your Terran macros, OP, would you mind elaborating on them?
Also, just stop responding to people saying its illegal. This thread is not the place for this. Lets keep this thread on track, and talk about the macros we use for SC!  If you don't want to use them then don't. If you want to argue about them being illegal, make another thread or something. I for one would like to find some helpful macros.
I've also found a way to make sniping easier. I've bound r+click onto forward and back on the mouse wheel. So by placing the cursor over enemy units and scrolling forward and back it auto-snipes. It's not much better then just r-clicking, but it's something. I often end up selecting the enemy units, however, even when many ghosts still have energy. If anyone has an idea to make it better, please post. 
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On December 30 2010 09:37 AScenT wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 09:04 chessiecat wrote:
One single post from Blizzard that says you can't bind two actions to one hotkey. I'll eat my hat. I have a hat I can eat and it's a nice one. I beg you! Just post something to make all of this end and I will kiss your toes and chew on this lovely leather head-piece.
ANYwhere in the Terms of Service or any Blizzard post by any Blizzard employee where this is laid out in explicit terms. Alright chessie, I've been nice and respectful in explaining how and why it's considered botting. You are botting if you are doing that. You have proof of blizzard saying you can't bot. Now I've looked up your multiple posts on the b.net forums, and here and all I can decided is either you're trolling or are way too naive and close minded to accept anything other than blizzard directly saying "you cannot use your macros to automate actions on your razer keyboard." Nothing any of us say will change your mind, so why even talk to us about it? Take it up with blizzard instead of wasting all our time. I'm all for thoughtful discussion and you're welcome to your opinion, but when your only argument is "prove it" when we have countless times and you've done nothing to refute our claims then you are wasting all of our time. How bout instead of us proving over and over again how Blizz doesn't allow it (and we have) you tell us how we are wrong. Find me any definition of botting that convinces you that you are not botting by automating your actions with an external program. Binding more than one action to a hotkey is botting, period. You may not get banned for it, but it doesnt mean that they cant or wont in the future nor does it mean that you are not breaking their ToS.
You're being incredibly dense here. All chessie asked for was a source for this oft-stated supposed fact that anything other than a 1:1 keypress to action ratio is considered botting. Either provide proof (statement by blizzard) saying so or leave the thread please.
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 30 2010 15:20 thesmoosh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 09:37 AScenT wrote:On December 30 2010 09:04 chessiecat wrote:
One single post from Blizzard that says you can't bind two actions to one hotkey. I'll eat my hat. I have a hat I can eat and it's a nice one. I beg you! Just post something to make all of this end and I will kiss your toes and chew on this lovely leather head-piece.
ANYwhere in the Terms of Service or any Blizzard post by any Blizzard employee where this is laid out in explicit terms. Alright chessie, I've been nice and respectful in explaining how and why it's considered botting. You are botting if you are doing that. You have proof of blizzard saying you can't bot. Now I've looked up your multiple posts on the b.net forums, and here and all I can decided is either you're trolling or are way too naive and close minded to accept anything other than blizzard directly saying "you cannot use your macros to automate actions on your razer keyboard." Nothing any of us say will change your mind, so why even talk to us about it? Take it up with blizzard instead of wasting all our time. I'm all for thoughtful discussion and you're welcome to your opinion, but when your only argument is "prove it" when we have countless times and you've done nothing to refute our claims then you are wasting all of our time. How bout instead of us proving over and over again how Blizz doesn't allow it (and we have) you tell us how we are wrong. Find me any definition of botting that convinces you that you are not botting by automating your actions with an external program. Binding more than one action to a hotkey is botting, period. You may not get banned for it, but it doesnt mean that they cant or wont in the future nor does it mean that you are not breaking their ToS. You're being incredibly dense here. All chessie asked for was a source for this oft-stated supposed fact that anything other than a 1:1 keypress to action ratio is considered botting. Either provide proof (statement by blizzard) saying so or leave the thread please.
Just don't respond, this thread is still salvageable.
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To be fair there was a TLer a while back that was banned by blizz for having a macro keyboard but not using macros and blizzard flat out told him that because it was a macro keyboard that wasn't a blizzard licensed producted it was not allowed. at the time alot of us TLers got mad and said blizz was being dumb for that specific wording and allusion.
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All I want is to change my hotkeys on any keyboard through SC2 so I don`t need crazy stretch fingers
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i have a blackwidow, and i have F5-F7 bound to my macro keys. it can't be detected since it just sends the same signal to the computer as the actual keys, and i'm only using those until the customizable hotkeys come around so i can rebind those to F2-F4
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On December 30 2010 15:20 thesmoosh wrote:Show nested quote +On December 30 2010 09:37 AScenT wrote:On December 30 2010 09:04 chessiecat wrote:
One single post from Blizzard that says you can't bind two actions to one hotkey. I'll eat my hat. I have a hat I can eat and it's a nice one. I beg you! Just post something to make all of this end and I will kiss your toes and chew on this lovely leather head-piece.
ANYwhere in the Terms of Service or any Blizzard post by any Blizzard employee where this is laid out in explicit terms. Alright chessie, I've been nice and respectful in explaining how and why it's considered botting. You are botting if you are doing that. You have proof of blizzard saying you can't bot. Now I've looked up your multiple posts on the b.net forums, and here and all I can decided is either you're trolling or are way too naive and close minded to accept anything other than blizzard directly saying "you cannot use your macros to automate actions on your razer keyboard." Nothing any of us say will change your mind, so why even talk to us about it? Take it up with blizzard instead of wasting all our time. I'm all for thoughtful discussion and you're welcome to your opinion, but when your only argument is "prove it" when we have countless times and you've done nothing to refute our claims then you are wasting all of our time. How bout instead of us proving over and over again how Blizz doesn't allow it (and we have) you tell us how we are wrong. Find me any definition of botting that convinces you that you are not botting by automating your actions with an external program. Binding more than one action to a hotkey is botting, period. You may not get banned for it, but it doesnt mean that they cant or wont in the future nor does it mean that you are not breaking their ToS. You're being incredibly dense here. All chessie asked for was a source for this oft-stated supposed fact that anything other than a 1:1 keypress to action ratio is considered botting. Either provide proof (statement by blizzard) saying so or leave the thread please.
I think you haven't read the whole thread. I've stated numerous times on how doing it is botting. All he can say is "please give me a post by blizzard" which he knows doesn't exist (or does if you include BOTH emails from blizzard in this thread, one posted by himself). Botting isn't a term invented by Blizzard, they just use it. It's an accepted and established term in the game industry. If Blizzard uses the term botting, its the same as EA or Ubi or any other Dev/publisher. Therefore if they say he cannot bot, and I tell him how what he is doing is botting, he should not be able to do it. And if you read everything you'd see I and many others explained how he is botting and he still wont accept it, which is why I declared that he shouldn't carry on a discussion if he can't refute any arguments and just demands more "proof".
Perhaps instead of jumping into other people's discussion and calling one of the people "dense" you should take some time to understand and read the discussion. And if you have then I'm sorry we disagree about chessie's attitude, but like I stated, he's posted numerous times in both the b.net forums and here and has by himself continued this argument, and I merely stated if all that will convince him is an exact statement from blizzard then he should get that instead of arguing with others about it when he knows nothing will convince him.
And to reiterate, the German email did specifically state that "Any automation of the game procedures" is not allowed. Anything more than 1:1 on a macro is "automation of the game procedures" a.k.a botting.
Edited for typos.
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Hmm... I'm curious about something. Would a self written program that changes, say, your middle mouse button to backspace be considered a macro? By definition, a macro has to perform an action, and be multiple steps. But then, the rule doesn't only just apply to macros, but botting and "unattended play" (more in reference to WoW; speaking of which, very related to this thread, check this post: http://www.infernix.net/wowban/). Any thoughts on this?
As far as my opinion of this thread so far... it's kind of unfair for Blizzard to advertise products like this (http://www2.razerzone.com/sc2/marauder.php) INSIDE of Starcraft 2, with paragraphs like "On-The-Fly Macro Recording allows for Effortless Configuration
Record unlimited macros on-the-fly without having to take your eye off the game and immediately change between up to 10 profiles without the hassle of going into complex driver menus" on their webpage then turn around and ban people, calling it botting. I'm pretty sure that's all the OPer is trying to illustrate. It's also understandable for him to be so frustrated and unbelieving of anyone here, seeing as he laid down 200$ for the thing.
I'd post my own set up, but I'm pretty sure I'd just be included in the flame war then, and I'm not wearing my fire retardant underwear.
But for the record, Autohotkey has been around in Blizzard games for many years, and Blizzard has never once banned a person for using it. When I almost lost one of my arms, I remapped my entire keyboard to be left-hand friendly -- I could do everything with one hand, almost as well as I did with 2 -- using Autohotkey. Autohotkey allows one to write incredibly comprehensive macros well within the realms of cheating, if one wanted. No one ever has, because people aren't looking to make a bot to play the game for them. They just want want to reach to the other side of the keyboard to hit a button that could easily be located somewhere more convenient.
I think it's a good thing Blizzard is considering this point of view. It doesn't enhance the game even a little bit making keys unaccessible. Blizzard acknowledges this by eventually releasing a CustomKeys.txt file for each of their games that people can modify. It doesn't give control over certain core concepts, but each game gets more and more flexible. When the community will accept this view, is a whole different story, however.
These things are tools; hammers if you will. You can build a house or you can kill your neighbor, it's your choice. Using them.. not bad. Abusing them... very bad. The OPer admits this when saying "potential for bullshit" is high. The infested Terran spam, etc. BTW Chessie, you can do the exact same thing if you use shift + click. I'm sure there are differences, but it's pretty nasty, too.
Chessie, if you want to discuss this in private, hit me up. Like I said, I'm avoiding the public flame war.
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On December 28 2010 11:21 Shikyo wrote:That's like using maphack on Broodwar and talking openly about it. People were getting permabanned for it on teamliquid even if they didn't attend tournaments. It's cheating and nothing else. Show nested quote +On December 28 2010 11:17 locopuyo wrote:
After a couple games of using my macros it boosted my APM by about 15. I was averaging around 50 and went up to around 65. Obviously, since you only press one key and it counts as multiple ones. Hey, let's bind 44324143243241242142343443321423413412434123423432142342343241242 onto one key and spam that to have over 4000 apm, that makes us more skilled.
I lol'd.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
Ahhh this reminds me of back in beta when i didn't know you weren't allowed to use macros so i happily set up (5+v+shift+backspace+left click) sequence to spawn larvae all my hatch in milliseconds. Good times.
But yeah, you can't use macro other than 1:1 remapping.
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I would agree with Telcontar that that is probably the intention behind the Marauder keyboard.
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Using macros as far as I'm concerned is cheating. If the game has such a bad interface that you can't stand playing without using macros then just go play another RTS. Using macros to do more things with less effort is just blatant cheating imo. It doesn't matter how small an advantage it is because it is still an advantage in a game where every little thing can add up over time.
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Well one email says its okay and another says it isn't. So I'm going with the one that says it is, considering Blizzard themselves are backing a product which directly advertises macros. I think it's unfair to say so otherwise, considering anyone can pull the argument that they endorse it because their name is on it. They didn't just approve the artwork, these keyboards have been built specifically for Sc2. To say so otherwise requires some burden of proof (considering its an official Blizzard product), along with the claim that it's cheating to use these Blizzard products which they directly promote.
Ignoring the argument, how do they even work? I've never seen someone use Macros, do you have to manually set up everything? What are common uses of these Macros if you use them? I personally can't wait for Blizzard to release new hot key set ups. I feel the current hotkeys are too spread apart for my causal gaming.
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So... where does it end?
Is a macro to select all your SCVs, split them into groups of 2 like a pro, and start mining acceptable? Don't say it's not possible, i've seen it done on the G15 forums. Trust me, Macros, if you put in the time and effort, can be EXTREMELY complex.
So if we've determined that was ok, is it okay to include into that same macro to pull an SCV @ 10 Supply + 100 minerals to build a supply depot? After all, it's just more clicks. Strategy is what matter, so if you already knew to build a supply depot, it should be okay to automate that action.
Since the above two actions are simply mindless clicking, it should also be okay to add that an scv should throw down a barracks @ 12 supply + 150 minerals. Everyone does that, no need for more needless clicking.
@ 15 supply + 150 minerals, I always get my orbital, might as well throw that into my script. It doesn't require any thought or strategy to do this after all, lets make it automatic... and before you know if, you have people writing scripts to play basically every aspect of the game for them.
Foxer style marine splitting? No problem, press a hotkey and have them scatter all over the place. After all, knowing what you should do is far more important than all of those excessive clicks. You know to split your marines, never mind the fact that it is humanly impossible for you to do so, so why not just have a script do it for you?
This is my last post here. I'm not one for flaming, unless you really are completely retarded, and unfortunately there's a few of you like that here. I don't care if you agree with me, but goodness some of you have terrible reasoning. Like someone else before me said, this thread is nothing more than a mindless waste of time at this point. I'll save my breath for topics that are actually worthy of being posted on TL from here on out.
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Hi!
Honestly, it is a GIANT grey area. If it gets to the point your barely playing the game, you probably gone too far. Use your judgement. If it goes too far you'll know.
Sincerely,
Judah H.
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
<https:blizzard.com/support>
-----Original Message-----
From:
To:
Sent: 12/29/2010 11:55:51 AM
Subject: RE: [en]StarCraft II -- Miscellaneous Game Information
Can I set a macro which will condense the button presses required to cast High Templar Psi Storm into a single button press and then bind that to the Spectre mouse, so when I have my High Templar selected it only requires me to position the mouse over the location I want stormed and click the button? This would apply to Fungal Growth and EMP.
I've gotten a ton of flack from a lot of people on this issue and it's been so controversial that I need something to show people from Blizzard. This could fundamentally change the current views on the use of macro's throughout the community which are currently viewed as a total anathema. There have been wild claims made about Blizzard policy from total banhammering for the use of macro's of ANY kind to claims that macro's can only be used to re-map keys on the keyboard.
This software and it's attendant peripherals are supported and licensed by Blizzard and the software includes the ability to simplify game-play in big ways. I have a particular macro which, when I have a group of High Templar and Sentries selected, will quickly switch to the Sentries and cast Guardian Shield then switch back to the High Templar. This makes it VERY convenient to quickly cast Guardian shield without several extra key presses (tab, g, shift+tab). I haven't made use of any of this on the ladder. I'm waiting for a response from Blizzard.
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Well I think that pretty much clears it. I'm sure there are built-in limiters -- like the technicality of marine splitting; a program isn't going to be able to detect whether an area is safe or not without direct functionality to SC's engine itself -- that will keep gameplay fair. As it is, anyone can use Autohotkey to do any kind of 1:1 reprogramming.
Because, while we're on the topic of macroing and keyboards, one must ask: Some older AZERTY keyboards have backspace positioned on the left hand side of the keyboard. That would inherently give Zerg players an advantage (backspace is critical to good inject timings). So by some people's argument, "It doesn't matter how small an advantage it is because it is still an advantage in a game where every little thing can add up over time" and that is cheating.
Welcome to the world of computers. There is no standardization and we're all going to live with it just fine. That's the beauty of customization -- the playing field is leveled. Now, we leave it in the hands of the administrators -- and, ultimately, ourselves -- to decide what's going too far.
I also feel a lot more comfortable posting my own macros now. I use Autohotkey, as I stated. I keep all my hatcheries bound to 8, and all of my Queens to 7. ` is reprogrammed to send a "7 command", and F1 to send an "8 command". F2 selects all idle workers. A little reference as far as the macro goes, ^ = ctrl+, + = shift+, ! = alt+.
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Origin code by Malcolm Heath, aka ;;
;; Pie.Cr3w and Shaft. Maintained by ;;
;; ChildLikEmperor. Please edit to ;;
;; your preference while maintaining ;;
;; the integrity of these credits. ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
#SingleInstance force ;force a single instance
#HotkeyInterval 0 ;disable the warning dialog if a key is held down
#InstallKeybdHook ;Forces the unconditional installation of the keyboard hook
#UseHook On ;might increase responsiveness of hotkeys
#MaxThreads 20 ;use 20 (the max) instead of 10 threads
SetBatchLines, -1 ;makes the script run at max speed
SetKeyDelay , -1, 0 ;faster response (might be better with -1, 0)
SetDefaultMouseSpeed, 0 ;move the mouse faster for mouse moving commands
SetMouseDelay, -1
#NoEnv
SendMode Play
;; Make the icon the TFT icon
regread, war, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III, ProgramX
menu, tray, Icon, %War%, 1, 1
;; Variables
InChatRoomOn := False
HealthBarOn := True
FollowOn := False
AttackOn := True
NumMod := True
#ifWinActive, StarCraft II
*`::
Suspend, Permit
send 8
return
+`::
Suspend, Permit
send +8
return
^`::
Suspend, Permit
send ^8
return
*MButton::
Suspend, Permit
send {BS}
return
*F1::
Suspend, Permit
Send 7
return
+F1::
Suspend, Permit
Send +7
return
^F1::
Suspend, Permit
Send ^7
return
*F2::
Suspend, Permit
Send ^{F1}
return
*F3::
Suspend, Permit
Send {F1}
return
return
In function, this allows my Mouse button to work as backspace while I can easily access keys half way across my keyboard with my pinkie. It's pretty nifty, and I know I don't cross any lines. F3 will select a single idle worker, F2 does that as well if there's only 1
Also, if anyone wants to emulate the Infestor functionality of the Marauder keyboard, you can use a simple script (Z applies for Grid mode; change it to whatever hotkey use):
#ifWinActive, StarCraft II
*WheelUp::send::
+z
LButton Down
LButton Up
return
return
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To answer the OP, here is how I use my macros. I have not yet utilized them for spellcasting, but I just use them to help me build units.
I have a Belkin n52 that I sit next to my keyboard. I use the keyboard to actually play, and leave the Belkin just for the macros.
When I want to macro up units, I slide my hand over to the Belkin. There are alot of buttons there, so I have them configured to build various quantities of units quickly, and I use different buttons for whether it is early game or mid/late. The nice thing is with the Belkin, you can program a delay in ms, so you can make it seem like you are actually pressing the keys (if you want to put in a 50ms delay, you can!)
I have the following macros:
0 (orbital command), s, tab, s - this is to select my orbital command/cc group and queue up 2 SCVs
7 (barracks) a, a - select barracks and queue up 2 marines
7 (barracks) a, a, a, a, d, d - select barracks and queue up 4 marines and 2 marauders. This is useful when you have say, 4 barracks with 2 labs and 2 reactors, which happens often in my game.
I will not go into further details, as you get the idea, but I have similar various setups for my factories and starports. I even have one super duper macro key for building SCVs, marines/marauders, tanks, and vikings and medivacs all in one key. So that is like 20 keystrokes on one key. I use that in late game if I let my money get too high.
I think macros are nice in that they let low APM people like me have a chance against really high APM players. I used to be stuck in silver, but now have advanced through gold into platinum, and I have to say I really like using macros as they help me level the playing field against faster players.
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EPT
