Poll: Do you think using macro on mouse is cheated ?
Of course is cheated !! (691)
58%
I don't care, this stuff is for noobs (250)
21%
No that's fine (241)
20%
1182 total votes
Your vote: Do you think using macro on mouse is cheated ?
(Vote): Of course is cheated !! (Vote): No that's fine (Vote): I don't care, this stuff is for noobs
Hello, everyone,
A few days ago, i bought a new mouse, i wanted a comfortable and precise mouse. I opted (quite randomly) for the Logitech Gaming Mouse G500 :
What i discovered when coming home was bluffing... This mouse has 8 recordable buttons allowing very advanced macro. I was curious to see if it would work on starcraft 2, so i tried some little macros (I'm zerg player)
So; in 1 click i do : 5 (my hatchery) s d d d d d 5 s v 5 s z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z z 5 s t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t
With this mouse you can also do some macros with recordable delays an exemple : F5 (center screen on hatch1) 6 (select your queens) v (larva infect) (click on your hatch) wait 600 ms F6 (center screen hatch 2) v (click on your hatch) wait 600 ms F7 v (click on your hatch)
So : Mouse macro also allows easy non-human timed micro controle
Actually with this mouse, you can macro your whole base in the late game by just pressing 1 button to realise tons of actions. The thing is : The macro is recorded in HD inside the mouse, anybody pluging that mouse on a computer will have access to his macros.
What is your opinion on that ?
I, for having tried this a couple of time on ladder can guarantee that having THIS mouse makes you REALLY better.
The main thing is that those actions that takes time ingame takes 0 seconds, you instantly select all your hatchs, then all your larvas, then they all transmute into mutas. Doing it manually, even if you're good, it takes time and focus. With this mouse nothing at all...
I honestly think that it's unfair, and a solution should exist to block those kind of Macros on ladder. When I used this mouse i really felt like cheating.
[EDIT : corrected spelling, added a poll To make it clear again : I'm not some sort of abuser, I tried this by curiousity and wanted to inform you that such things are easily doable and should not be allowed. I'm not using this macro shit anymore
I was also thinking of a Macro that does : 2 (select marauders) right click (you move you marauders) wait xxx ms (where xxx is reload shot time of marauder) H wait YYY ms (where YYY is the animation time of a shot) right click (you move you marauders) repeat x3
there you have a macro for PERFECT marauder kiting controle]
Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
probably wont be allowed at lans, and lans are the only thing that matter
late edit: lans tournaments are tournaments played in a lan setting obviously, not just the connection. wow has lan tournaments despite connecting to a server outside still. seriously though guys?
i dont think this is allowed in tournaments, but the 2 side buttons would be sweet to add to gameplay for example 1 tied to ur queen and another to overlords or something.
SC2 May not have "LAN" in the classic sense but obviously what people are referring to are tournaments where all players are playing in the same building/area. Then again you already knew that and you decided to troll anyways.
The main thing is that those actions that takes time ingame takes 0 seconds, you instantly select all your hatchs, then all your larvas, then they all transmute into mutas. Doing it manually, even if you're good, it takes time and focus. With this mouse nothing at all...
On May 22 2010 21:03 makopluxx wrote: SC2 May not have "LAN" in the classic sense but obviously what people are referring to are tournaments where all players are playing in the same building/area. Then again you already knew that and you decided to troll anyways.
That wouldn't be a lan, that would just be people playing in the same building still connected to battle.net with the same lag as if they were on opposite sides of the continent.
On May 22 2010 20:56 Rodiel wrote: Better control, not better play it can help some players, but if you have already good control this will not help a lot i think.
>
This will help any player who's willing to get used to it. Being able to macro that quickly is going to allow them to spend a LOT more time controlling their units and not staring at their base.
On May 22 2010 20:58 Kashll wrote: Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
98% of people who play starcraft aren't at that level.
its a good idea , the mouse to get rid of anoying mechanics like zerg queen larva spawning and in pro games pro things like micro and counter stratagy to your opponent are just too random to all be set out on a mouse.
On May 22 2010 21:03 makopluxx wrote: SC2 May not have "LAN" in the classic sense but obviously what people are referring to are tournaments where all players are playing in the same building/area. Then again you already knew that and you decided to troll anyways.
That wouldn't be a lan, that would just be people playing in the same building still connected to battle.net with the same lag as if they were on opposite sides of the continent.
Are you really going to be that technical?
First of all it's highly likely that all the computers WOULD be connected to a LAN. Whether Battle.net2.0 supports playing games over said LAN is another story. So what you'd have is a bunch of computers connected via LAN however games are still played through Battle.net2.0.
Secondly I'm going to assume that you understand the term LAN is being used, in this context, to describe a "localized" tournament. Yet still you continue to nitpick (read: troll).
It's as bad as a maphack in my opinion. Worse even, because there's a more tangible reward for little investment. It also allows players to bypass much of the learning curve, which from a casual standpoint is perfectly fine, but this is Starcraft. These sorts of products just make everyone that took the effort to learn how to macro manually feel extremely cheated and the game becomes that much shallower.
lol, i reallly want to see how far someone with a macro mouse can go competitively, will they get stomped by people who learned their macro/mechanics the hard way?
Or will the lack of extensive macro techniques (apm) unleash the latent strategic potential in their brains? Less reptitive tasks to cater to, more time can be devoted to devising a strategy to defeating your opponent.
if anyone's watched the movie "gamer" with gerald butler- where video games are played on giant hd screens, and the actions are controlled by a persons brain/hands/arms instead of just his fingers, its sort of like virtual reality. If in the future we will immerse ourselves fully in video games where our brain controls all without physical limitations (fingers/apm) then it will be truly be a contest of brains/strategy. Since we're headed that way, would a macro mouse catch on in the sc world? allowing for more intuitive/strategic play unhindered by physical limitations?
video games will then become like chess, and pure intelligence/acquire dknowledge (build orders) batles. video games will still be fun at lower levels, but competitively it will be a totally difference scene.
thoughts on macro mice becoming part of the competitive scene and unlocking more strategic potential?
Why use a mouse for this? SC2 is a keyboard heavy game and there are numerous "gaming keyboards" out there with the same amount of (or more) macro features. Logitech G11, G15, G19 anyone?
Personally I don`t like game automization at all, but its very hard to track this. You can ban mice and keyboards like this on a LAN, but it will be used on Bnet and Blizz won`t be able to do much about it, because you cannot prove if the player actually hit those keys or if he used a macro.
Actually i want to point that i'm not that noob and my mechanics were good BEFORE getting the mouse. Nobody can be as fast as this mouse. How many milli seconds does it take to build 12 mutas ? (either you press 5st (and you let your finger on t to spam it) = 1sec ( press 5sttttttttttttt as fast as you can) = more than a sec with this mouse : 0 sec
you can build macro large amount of larve while micro kiting units easily and with more efficiency than with regular keyboard macro
On May 22 2010 21:21 shalafiend wrote: lol, i reallly want to see how far someone with a macro mouse can go competitively, will they get stomped by people who learned their macro/mechanics the hard way?
Or will the lack of extensive macro techniques (apm) unleash the latent strategic potential in their brains? Less reptitive tasks to cater to, more time can be devoted to devising a strategy to defeating your opponent.
if anyone's watched the movie "gamer" with gerald butler- where video games are played on giant hd screens, and the actions are controlled by a persons brain/hands/arms instead of just his fingers, its sort of like virtual reality. If in the future we will immerse ourselves fully in video games where our brain controls all without physical limitations (fingers/apm) then it will be truly be a contest of brains/strategy. Since we're headed that way, would a macro mouse catch on in the sc world? allowing for more intuitive/strategic play unhindered by physical limitations?
video games will then become like chess, and pure intelligence/acquire dknowledge (build orders) batles. video games will still be fun at lower levels, but competitively it will be a totally difference scene.
thoughts on macro mice becoming part of the competitive scene and unlocking more strategic potential?
This is like asking if sports will someday overcome the fatigue and physical limits associated with running and moving around physically in favor of pure tactics and strategy.
Starcraft has always been all about both the mental game AND the physical game. Both are essential to the game, and each should be as important as the other. Starcraft 2 already cuts back a lot of the physical aspect of the game, and a mouse like this would completely destroy it.
Seemingly, this mouse removes instead of doing something 5 times, with 1 click, if I havent missunderstood anything, a bit cheating yea, but even with that mouse I think it doesn't matter when the shit hits the fan and you go against somebody good etc, thats just my 2 cents
EDIT:still isn't this game about mind/physical war ? If you arent fast enough with your head to hadn cordination and fast swapping to something else your worse then your opponent ?
On May 22 2010 21:23 MasterOfChaos wrote: IMO any 1 to 1 remapping of keys is ok, any 1 to n (n>1) remapping is cheating.
Or n:1-mapping in this case.
Macros are obviously not fine. StarCraft had always been known for its pure gameplay with all players competing on equal grounds. Just install it on any PC and it's the same. What they do in HoN I do not care, but I think this is a healthy stance for SC.
The logitech keyboards already do this...and by now most people are used to the keyboard...the added things are better left on the keyboard than on the mouse..
It's quite a tough issue if these macro enabled input devices cannot be detected.
It does provide a noticable advantage, especially in the late stages of the game, when instead of pressing 5 s r r r r r r r r r r r r, all you need to do is press one button. No matter how "skilled" you are at mashing keys quickly, producing 10 or more roaches is going to cost you at least a second (2s are more likely). Not only is this simply time you can't spend on other things, you're also likely to lose it at a moment where every second matters: a big fight! So while your opponent only needs to push 1 or 2 buttons on his mouse to resupply his army, you need to "waste" a second or two clicking. And that's time not spent on microing.
So where is this heading? Let's face it, only the very best of players are going to play in front of an audience, the vast majority will sit at home alone. So even if these devices aren't allowed on big events, 99.999% of players will still be able to use them. It might not be an issue for KeSPA, but it certainly is one for the top percent of the European/American players.
If you're a competitive amateur, you might be very tempted to get one.
(I think we can all agree this is a bad thing as it unnecessarily eases decision making. While the user of an ordinary mouse is forced to decide in the aforementioned big fight wether he wants to produce or micro, the macro mouse user can simply do both.)
Blizz has specifically stated in the past that if you create macros that push more then one button then they will ban your account for it. It has happened to countless people in wow and its not even very useful for anything there. I guarantee that this won't be an issue as warden is very good at detecting anything of this sort, even random intervals (if the mouse is even capable of that) are fairly easy to detect because of the input methods they use.
On May 22 2010 21:50 JohnQPublic wrote: Blizz has specifically stated in the past that if you create macros that push more then one button then they will ban your account for it. It has happened to countless people in wow and its not even very useful for anything there. I guarantee that this won't be an issue as warden is very good at detecting anything of this sort, even random intervals (if the mouse is even capable of that) are fairly easy to detect because of the input methods they use.
On May 22 2010 21:50 JohnQPublic wrote: Blizz has specifically stated in the past that if you create macros that push more then one button then they will ban your account for it. It has happened to countless people in wow and its not even very useful for anything there. I guarantee that this won't be an issue as warden is very good at detecting anything of this sort, even random intervals (if the mouse is even capable of that) are fairly easy to detect because of the input methods they use.
It's not cheating because there's no real way to be faster with macros then just executing it manually. The problem is not that the macro can't be faster it's just that it's not adaptable enough. When you start macroing more than 2 actions in a row it becomes so specific that you'll only use it once in a while or maybe not at all.
The best one I came up with was a spammable spawn larva macro that did everything I just had to mash on it and center my mouse cursor while mashing. Unfortunately I soon realized that it wasn't very effective because when I spawned larva manually I often did a number of other things near my hatcheries before moving my focus elsewhere.
Basically being adaptable was better than being fast.
On May 22 2010 21:56 ManiacTheZealot wrote: It's not cheating because there's no real way to be faster with macros then just executing it manually. Basically being adaptable was better than being fast.
Yes it is, stuff happens simultaneously (or if you prefere with 1ms of delay) you take at least 100 ms to do 5sd
You cannot macro all game long wiith this mouse but it'll benefit you in some numerous situations. Where if you had to do it manually, it'll take some time, some battle focus, some hand-on-keyboard positioning and you might mis-micro something.
Having 8 additional buttons give you choice. a choice that other player won't have
On May 22 2010 21:50 JohnQPublic wrote: Blizz has specifically stated in the past that if you create macros that push more then one button then they will ban your account for it. It has happened to countless people in wow and its not even very useful for anything there. I guarantee that this won't be an issue as warden is very good at detecting anything of this sort, even random intervals (if the mouse is even capable of that) are fairly easy to detect because of the input methods they use.
I myself got a temp ban for using a macro on my nostromo just for logging in automatically, and I'm sure the rules will be even stricter in sc2.
I played wow for like 3 years using a G15 to execute really long macros that pressed all kinds of buttons and never got banned or emailed about it. I even used mouse clicking software to sit afk in AV. I highly doubt that you got banned for logging on with a macro. I have my passwords macroed too its very convenient.
I'm about to roundhouse half of this thread right out the window. Brace yourselves. If you have multiple larvae selected and you hold down a production hotkey (for example Z for zergling) it will rapidly create units. No macro or special keyboard/mouse needed. Go try it. So any macro that you think is creating units faster, isn't.
Now another issue which might actually be a debate is the larvae injection macro the the OP claims to have made quoted here:
With this mouse you can also do some macros with recordable delays an exemple : F5 (center screen on hatch1) 6 (select your queens) v (larva infect) (click on your hatch) wait 600 ms F6 (center screen hatch 2) v (click on your hatch) wait 600 ms F7 v (click on your hatch)
Now correct me if I'm wrong but you either have to make this macro ahead of time, in which case you'd have to make multiple macros because the number of hatcheries you have changes during the game OR... you have to make this macro in game while playing and update it every time you gain/lose a hatchery. Honestly that seems like more work than its worth. Then even if you look at the time included in the macro (600ms per hatch) you'll realize that it really doesn't take much longer if at all to do it yourself. I find it pretty easy to hit my queen hot key, then V, and click on the mini map above each hatchery. I'm confident I can hit 3 hatcheries in 1.8 seconds and I just started playing.
Then there's the non-macro issue of mapping and binding. First of all, upon release blizzard will be allowing custom binds via the game interface or text file. So if you want to bind "select all idle workers" to the question mark key instead of the incredibly cumbersome ctrl+F1 that it is now, you can. And then if you want to map the question mark key to one of the side mouse buttons to make it easier to reach, you can. Hell, if you want to mod a Nintendo Power Pad as an input device and map attack to 6, you can. Now it may turn out that tournaments will disallow advanced drivers that allow you to remap your mouse or keyboard, but that's up to the hosts to decide. Just realize that binding and mapping single keypresses/actions is a separate issue than macros that combine multiple actions
On May 22 2010 21:56 ManiacTheZealot wrote: It's not cheating because there's no real way to be faster with macros then just executing it manually. Basically being adaptable was better than being fast.
Yes it is, stuff happens simultaneously (or if you prefere with 1ms of delay) you take at least 100 ms to do 5sd
You cannot macro all game long wiith this mouse but it'll benefit you in some numerous situations. Where if you had to do it manually, it'll take some time, some battle focus, some hand-on-keyboard positioning and you might mis-micro something.
Having 8 additional buttons give you choice. a choice that other player won't have
Show me a macro that does more than press 2 or 3 buttons that I would be better off using than just doing it manually.
I agree this macro is kinda useless but it was an exemple. and i've set 600ms but i could say 200... More seriously if you want to turn all your laravae into drones it'll take you a seconde i'm sure while pressing the button will do i INSTANTLY (really, it's like all at once but in the right order)
Do people actually use macros like these anymore? I remember that they were very widespread during the launch of FFXI, but their usage was limited as the games life went on. Same with WoW, but WoW never allowed for advanced macro usage because it was very easily confusable with botting. Other than in an MMO where you use them for mundane tasks like targeting or quickly changing gear, why would you ever need them..
it might have it uses, but in reality none ? in early game this is only good if you have to spamm to reach your fake 300 apm, by doing nothing.., in midgame, it might be decent if you go for one thing completely
in late game its probably terrible , cuz you will need like 20 macros, and imagine miss clicking one..
it takes no time to select all hatcheries.. its the reason you keybind them all 1>s >ttttttttt takes 2s instead of 1s with you.. i wont loose cuz of that..
things like this were discussed 5 years ago, and been forgotten.. its not game breaking, it was more gamebreaking in wow than it will ever be in any rts.. and even in wow where you would queue 5 things at a time, it was forgotten,
Another link of blizzards stance on this in wow. It is not very hard to detect and quite clearly breaks the game a lot more then it does in wow. If they were to allow this it would be no different then some sort of hack that macros for you or a hack that allows easy cloning.
If we have any faith at all in blizzard then this will not be allowed. To me its the same thing as asking "Will blizzard allow maphacking?" of course they want an even field as possible and as its a lot easier to detect then maphacks. Someone could ask on the b.net forums but I'm 99% sure of the answer.
I have the exact same mouse a the OP and I just tried creating 10 drones using both the macro method and the hold production key method and the difference was negligible. They create just as fast, I'm telling you go try it.
I've dealt with concerns like this in other games. People get so worked up about "automation" that they never stop to figure out if it actually provides an advantage. Think about how easy it is to use the hold production key method that I posted, and then think about how many macros you would have to make to use the macro method. You'd need another macro (and another button) for every single unit that you would want to mass produce. At this point you're actually making it more difficult than using the default. So by doing this, you're only giving the advantage to your opponent.
does this mean somebody with a brand new high precision gaming mouse has an unfair advantage to someone using a ball mouse and therefore shouldn't use it? I don't understand how its cheating if he went out and buy a more advanced mouse...
On May 22 2010 22:45 Pengu1n wrote: does this mean somebody with a brand new high precision gaming mouse has an unfair advantage to someone using a ball mouse and therefore shouldn't use it? I don't understand how its cheating if he went out and buy a more advanced mouse...
If that brand new high precision gaming mouse allowed you to build drones off of every hatchery with a single key press then yes, it is probably an unfair advantage.
On May 22 2010 22:45 Pengu1n wrote: does this mean somebody with a brand new high precision gaming mouse has an unfair advantage to someone using a ball mouse and therefore shouldn't use it? I don't understand how its cheating if he went out and buy a more advanced mouse...
If that brand new high precision gaming mouse allowed you to build drones off of every hatchery with a single key press then yes, it is probably an unfair advantage.
You're out of date. read a few posts up where I showed that you can already do that, just as fast, without any special hardware or macro.
BTW just to be clear i'm not using macros anymore, i tried by curiousity and i wanted to make public the fact that it allows easy macro-play. And this type of mouse should be watched in tournaments because the HD is in the mouse. I haven't tried many things but if you want i can try to find the most abusives macros to make my point more obvious. You can always say "yes but you cannot do it during the early, mid and late game". But successfully using a well built macro only once in crucial situation can be game changing. Like someone previously said : 1<1 button macro is ok 1<multiple actions is wrong
On May 22 2010 22:45 Pengu1n wrote: does this mean somebody with a brand new high precision gaming mouse has an unfair advantage to someone using a ball mouse and therefore shouldn't use it? I don't understand how its cheating if he went out and buy a more advanced mouse...
If that brand new high precision gaming mouse allowed you to build drones off of every hatchery with a single key press then yes, it is probably an unfair advantage.
You're out of date. read a few posts up where I showed that you can already do that, just as fast, without any special hardware or macro.
It's not just the technical aspect of macroing, there is also the issue of principle.
They investigate reports of automated play - yes. But they can`t prove it. Warden may be able to detect the Logitech software but then what? This software it totally legit. And concerning the game itself, the game cannot differ between you pressing a button or the keyboard triggering one. The input method of a mouse? Its the same wether I press a key or my mouse triggers a macro. And with a Steelseries Xai your able to save macros to the hardware itself. Theres no driver involved anymore so Warden cannot detect crap.
On May 22 2010 23:24 nyshak wrote: They investigate reports of automated play - yes. But they can`t prove it. Warden may be able to detect the Logitech software but then what? This software it totally legit. And concerning the game itself, the game cannot differ between you pressing a button or the keyboard triggering one. The input method of a mouse? Its the same wether I press a key or my mouse triggers a macro. And with a Steelseries Xai your able to save macros to the hardware itself. Theres no driver involved anymore so Warden cannot detect crap.
the commands get saved into the replays, yes? so they all get logged and if you get more than 1 replay from someone and he does all of his macro pressing key combinations with the exact same delay everytime then it's proven.
On May 22 2010 23:24 nyshak wrote: They investigate reports of automated play - yes. But they can`t prove it. Warden may be able to detect the Logitech software but then what? This software it totally legit. And concerning the game itself, the game cannot differ between you pressing a button or the keyboard triggering one. The input method of a mouse? Its the same wether I press a key or my mouse triggers a macro. And with a Steelseries Xai your able to save macros to the hardware itself. Theres no driver involved anymore so Warden cannot detect crap.
the commands get saved into the replays, yes? so they all get logged and if you get more than 1 replay from someone and he does all of his macro pressing key combinations with the exact same delay everytime then it's proven.
All I would have to do is create multiple macro profiles with different delays - something those keyboards are perfectly capable of. Next up is dynamic delay in a macro where I can put in thresholds. Delay between 0.01s-0.03s. And your going to detect what? Nothing. I'm just a very good and consistent player to you.
This is seriously a big cheat and it's hard to do anything about it. But then again there are many people out there with maphacks or whatever, also undetected.
These people are never gonna get into top competitive gaming but I don't think they care.
I myself only use one mouse button for 'O' in BW, I just can't stand that hotkey for siege tanks...
I don't see how this is cheating. Pressing a button on your mouse and pressing a button on your keyboard, the time difference between the two shouldn't really be any different.
I don't see how using that mouse is much different from a logitech keyboard. They have easy to use macros, too. Mine has 54 possible macro keys (18 with a button to switch between 3 modes). Fact is this is becoming common in keyboards over the years. However, many old games (specifically: MUDs) did ban anyone caught using macros... so it's not like it would be unprecedented. Just difficult to monitor.
On May 23 2010 00:35 SichuanPanda wrote: I don't see how this is cheating. Pressing a button on your mouse and pressing a button on your keyboard, the time difference between the two shouldn't really be any different.
The difference is when I can be mid battle, and say click Mouse 1 which in less than a second does: - F4 (select all my hatches since I bind them to F4) - S - h h h h h h h h h h h
So, mid battle, I click a button and in a second, I made hydras to come to bolster my ranks
Then click a button and: - Selects queen - v - Clicks hatch
So, that in two button presses my whole macro is done and I never had to leave my army once, and my hatches are injected, i have hydras coming, and only took me 1 second to do it, while i was microing my other units, just clicked two buttons.
In stead of clicking - F4 - S - h 14 times - F4 - F4 - Select queen - v - click hatch - f5 - select queen click hatch - f6...
so with 1 button i do over 24 actions in a single click...
Um this isnt new stuff, I have a keyboard that could macro stuff too. Not shocking a mouse can do it too. With the advance technology nowdays, whats so bad about using them? Of course, unless its a competition then it needs to be regulated. However, if your gaming for fun its no big deal.
On May 23 2010 00:35 SichuanPanda wrote: I don't see how this is cheating. Pressing a button on your mouse and pressing a button on your keyboard, the time difference between the two shouldn't really be any different.
The difference is when I can be mid battle, and say click Mouse 1 which in less than a second does: - F4 (select all my hatches since I bind them to F4) - S - h h h h h h h h h h h
So, mid battle, I click a button and in a second, I made hydras to come to bolster my ranks
Then click a button and: - Selects queen - v - Clicks hatch
So, that in two button presses my whole macro is done and I never had to leave my army once, and my hatches are injected, i have hydras coming, and only took me 1 second to do it, while i was microing my other units, just clicked two buttons.
In stead of clicking - F4 - S - h 14 times - F4 - F4 - Select queen - v - click hatch - f5 - select queen click hatch - f6...
so with 1 button i do over 24 actions in a single click...
I think I'm going to have to repeat 100 times that you can hold down a production hotkey as zerg and rapidly create units just as fast as a macro using a normal keyboard and mouse. You do not have to hit H 14 times.
On May 23 2010 00:55 Licmyobelisk wrote: Wow, thanks to this thread there might be noobs who doesn't enjoy the benefits of hardwork trying to macro their shit with one click of a button..
(I think they might have no idea how to do this but since you've given the idea they'll be buying a shit ton of this mouse)
Yeah I was scared something like this would happen... But i'm posting here because i trust and i want to inform the TL community that such things exist. This kind of abuse can be spotted on replays. Feel free to report abusers now that this macro shit is stated as an abusive play
Nutshell don't you understand than keep the button hold cost time, nearly a full second for long production, the mouse macro do it INSTANTLY. Write that inside your head please
Anytime you have something that plays the game for you is similar to a bot. If you had a script running that managed your base macro for you, would that be fair? A script and this mouse you program, the only difference is you click a button when you want the magic to happen. Definitely a grey area, but typically whenever something else is playing the game for you, its generally an unfair advantage. Extra buttons are fine, as long as you have to click them one at a time.
This kind of stuff could potentially be annoying but, truthfully, you should just focus on yourself and bettering your own play. You will never know if someone is just better then you or playing with this kind of equipment anyway.
EDIT: but if there is a way to get around this mouse (or whatever else) macros I'm all for it ^^
On May 22 2010 20:58 Kashll wrote: Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
have to disagree. Yes amazing macro players like idrA can already do stuff at insane speed, but if you throw them gear like macro mouses & keyboards they can improve other aspects of their game (like microing their armies even better) while keeping their macros at same level.
Yes I agree any cheating tools would improve bad players more than they would improve tier 1 players, but I think its silly to say that tier 1 players are so good that it wouldn't matter at all if 1 of them was cheating (Yes I agree with Blizzard that multiple keys involving macro keyboard and mouses equal cheating) by using macros while other one wasn't.
@ op - Yes I do think it is cheating, just like modded controllers on fps games (autofiring with semi automatic single shot guns) are.
Regardless of how useful someone finds the extra seconds saved by these macros mechanics. It should still be classified as cheating, it's quite simple.
Nutshell don't you understand than keep the button hold cost time, nearly a full second for long production, the mouse macro do it INSTANTLY. Write that inside your head please
1. The time difference is negligible. I beg everyone to just go try it. Create a custom game without an opponent and just go nuts. The only time you would see a significant difference in the time it takes would be if you had a very large number of larvae selected. Now if this was the case you would probably want control over the number of specific units. Sometimes you would want 40 roaches, sometimes you would want 20 roaches, 20 hydras. Sometimes you would want 20 roaches, 16 hydras and 4 infestors.
2. You'd have to create 9 macros to cover every zerg unit which you would then have to bind to additional keys. So you would need 9 keys for one at a time production, and 9 keys for macro spam production. So now you've more keys to memorize and less space for those keys and you have to juggle which method you're going to use on the spot. Sounds to me like its more work and a disadvantage.
people here are underestimating how much this can help at a high level when the skills are very similar, especially as the game progresses. I don't really care if this is a cheat or not, that's up for the individual leagues/tournies to decide, but why not use it for the advantage when you can? I'd imagine for any LAN tournies they would be able to easily enforce this, so depending on how serious you are planning to be it may or may not be a good idea to use it. For the lower levels, it can certainly help, but if someone there is smart enough to get a great meta gaming advantage from using superior hardware, that's his prerogative. edit: and for the people decrying this as cheating, jesus, get a life. I hope you don't follow any professional sports.
Getting an advantage while you can just makes you scum. In the spirit of competition you should want to play on a level playing field. This is just as bad as maphacking unless declared allowed by the terms of service which apparently it does not.
On May 23 2010 01:16 cbkenned2009 wrote: Anytime you have something that plays the game for you is similar to a bot. If you had a script running that managed your base macro for you, would that be fair? A script and this mouse you program, the only difference is you click a button when you want the magic to happen. Definitely a grey area, but typically whenever something else is playing the game for you, its generally an unfair advantage. Extra buttons are fine, as long as you have to click them one at a time.
I'd consider if you could write a script to do that for you, you deserve to be able to use it. That's part of meta-gaming, just like using a superior off-season training regimen and access to better trainers and facilities can help one athlete over another. The cheating aspect depends on a couple of things: what the ToS/Blizzard considers cheating, what the tournies consider cheating, what your personal ethics dictate, and what you can get away with safely.
On May 23 2010 01:37 GiveMeFace wrote: Getting an advantage while you can just makes you scum. In the spirit of competition you should want to play on a level playing field. This is just as bad as maphacking unless declared allowed by the terms of service which apparently it does not.
Spirit of competition is something losers talk about to make themselves feel better about not being winners. :shrug:
Isn't it brutally obvious if you watch the replay of someone using this in starcraft 2, because you can see what he is doing with the mouse right? Thus is should be relatively simple to make a program to detect this.
Well the fact anyone can go out and buy these devices hardly makes it something a loser would say. Its one thing to be a loser but to advocate cheating is pure scum.
Firmly of the opinion that macros are fine and that spamming T to build mutas or using larva on 4 queens every 40 seconds is stupid and has nothing to do with skill. The entire skill of it is remembering to do things and stay on top of your macro, not spamming 20 hotkeys in 2 seconds.
It's a poor discussion with this community because everyone has been stuck playing a 1998 game with shitty UI so apparently skill in SC has to have nothing to do with strategy but mostly with sim city skills.
Edit: lol. Just read through the whole thread. You guys sound like senior citizens. Whaa! A bot is playing for you! whaa!. Get over yourselves. According to the TL community, RTS stands for:
Real Time Simcity Real Time Spam Real Time Shitty ui that needs to stay bad so that over comming it is skill!
You know... In the HDH, I was much more impressed by Idra's harass of the new expo with lings while dropping the main with hydras and then switching in mutas and catching the colossus alone and not his gosu skills at keeping a queen's energy low by spamming spawn larva.
Of course this is cheating, weather it affects top players or not. If Blizzard allow this there's no distinct line what's ok or not. All should compete with the same type of equipment. Otherwise I really can't call it competetive. A regular keybord and a mouse with 2 buttons and mousewheel, no macrobuttons.
Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
The macro action is so quick that to spot it in a replay, you need to spot the invisible. "How did he make all that units spawning at the same time while he was microing that fight ? I didn't see him making any production while in his first person view"
if a program can spot the action that happens too quickly (at non-human speed) then this should be easily spottable.
And yes they can record a longer delay, but then using the macro would be useless
On May 23 2010 01:50 Majk wrote: Of course this is cheating, weather it affects top players or not. If Blizzard allow this there's no distinct line what's ok or not. All should compete with the same type of equipment. Otherwise I really can't call it competetive. A regular keybord and a mouse with 2 buttons and mousewheel, no macrobuttons.
I agree a macro mouse is a little overboard, but what about people that use ergo gaming keyboards like the Logitech G13? Would you guys consider using one of those as "cheating" or as a training tool to become faster at all-around game play?
You can macro bind all you want, but I'm a straight up vanilla player in both FPSs and RTSs. You'll get the win, the points, the advancement in the tourney, but you won't get my respect unless you're good enough that the mouse doesn't matter. Mouse as crutch = loser, mouse as convenience = pretty lame. If it doesn't make such a big difference then why don't we play straight up vanilla?
Anyway there's been programs that do this with regular buttons and keys since before the dawn of time. And this is pretty on the light side compared to the differences in vanilla FPS clients and competitive/modified ones. So I don't care, I'd prefer vanilla but whatever.
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
O I was just wondering because everyone is so strongly opposed to people that use macro gaming mice. I use my stock Dell keyboard and mouse and it has yet to do me wrong lol.
I have a X7 Oscar anda G11 keyboard, but I don't use their features in gaming. I think that a gaming mouse or keyboard are btter suited for other uses than gaming
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
What if you have multiple idle SCV's? What if one of those SCV's is not near the position you want the supply depot in? What if you don't have ANY idle SCV's? Did you know that when you select an idle SCV the camera centers on it? What if you don't want to build the supply depot somewhere other than where the SCV is? You can't even use a mouse click in a macro like this because it doesn't let you decide where to place the supply depot on the fly. It's actually easier just to do it the default way. If you get one working and it significantly improves your skill let me know.
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
What if you have multiple idle SCV's? What if one of those SCV's is not near the position you want the supply depot in? What if you don't have ANY idle SCV's? Did you know that when you select an idle SCV the camera centers on it? What if you don't want to build the supply depot somewhere other than where the SCV is? You can't even use a mouse click in a macro like this because it doesn't let you decide where to place the supply depot on the fly. It's actually easier just to do it the default way. If you get one working and it significantly improves your skill let me know.
Could also be used, to train a shitload of units during a battle by pressing a button while the other has to do it manually.
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
What if you have multiple idle SCV's? What if one of those SCV's is not near the position you want the supply depot in? What if you don't have ANY idle SCV's? Did you know that when you select an idle SCV the camera centers on it? What if you don't want to build the supply depot somewhere other than where the SCV is? You can't even use a mouse click in a macro like this because it doesn't let you decide where to place the supply depot on the fly. It's actually easier just to do it the default way. If you get one working and it significantly improves your skill let me know.
Could also be used, to train a shitload of units during a battle by pressing a button while the other has to do it manually.
if thats not cheating then idk what is
Read the entire thread please. You can already train a "shitload of units during battle" by just holding down the hotkey in vanilla SC2 without any special keyboard, mouse or macro.
On May 23 2010 03:15 Zavior wrote: How can you argue that having automation to do things for you faster than your opponent is not an unfair advantage?
Because there haven't been any macros presented that actually provide a significant advantage. In most cases they actually makes things more difficult.
ive attempted to use these sort of things just for the novelty value of them across various games and ive yet to play a game where it's actually a realistic benefit to use these things (of course i dont play any mmos, so they might help there)
they're all far too situationally specific to actually get any long term use out of, you're gonna become frustrated with it pretty soon. Either that or its a negligible difference, some guy used building a depot as an argument, i can do that in under half a second anyway, those extra few ms don't make a difference.
It absolutely is cheating and anyone wasting time on trying to find gimmicks and tricks in order to gain an advantage like this would do better for themselves just learning to play the game well like everyone else is trying to do.
so instead of moving your hand a bit to control groups on your keyboard you are moving your hand a bit on a mouse?
the person still has to remember to do it, not that it can't be an advantage, but someone doing 100+ actions a minute can already handle the keyboard in a few seconds
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
What if you have multiple idle SCV's? What if one of those SCV's is not near the position you want the supply depot in? What if you don't have ANY idle SCV's? Did you know that when you select an idle SCV the camera centers on it? What if you don't want to build the supply depot somewhere other than where the SCV is? You can't even use a mouse click in a macro like this because it doesn't let you decide where to place the supply depot on the fly. It's actually easier just to do it the default way. If you get one working and it significantly improves your skill let me know.
Could also be used, to train a shitload of units during a battle by pressing a button while the other has to do it manually.
if thats not cheating then idk what is
Read the entire thread please. You can already train a "shitload of units during battle" by just holding down the hotkey in vanilla SC2 without any special keyboard, mouse or macro.
You are correct but you're still missing the point. Of course you can produce shitloads of units in SC2 without macros, but the point is it takes much more time doing it than pressing a single button. Basically in every battle which requires you to micro (MMM with drops and stim is a very common example of that) how often would you stop controlling your army and start building units from your barracks/starports? Come on man it's not realistic, and holding down hotkeys to build units with Terran is way too imprecise when you got barracks with different add-ons and you don't want to overproduce Medivacs since you want to keep the cost as low as possible.
In the middle of ANY fight, you can just press one button and you'll produce a shitload of units. Not even Idra could do that when dropping and using spells at the same time with overseers/infestors while getting harassed at expansions. He could, but it would take at least one second and that could actually decide the battle.
Oh and btw selecting idle SCV:s never center when I do it, so my macro would in fact work and would place the depot where the mouse is located. It would also just select ONE idle SCV, so it wouldn't matter how many were idle.
For Starcraft, macros are pretty useless IMO. The only problem for sc2 is morphing 10+ larvas or corruptor/zergling/overlords, which might be necessary to use a macro for.
Also, it's just a technical detail but FYI, the mouse wouldn't have a hard drive in it, just a small piece of flash memory like the kind in USB storage sticks.
Having access to better hardware makes you more efficient. If you use a ball mouse, with mouse acceleration turned on, you will be extremely inaccurate, and will probably spend a few more seconds and a few extra clicks performing the exact same action as someone who is using a mouse that allows for good accuracy. So is having a mouse with good accuracy cheating? It does give you a huge advantage over someone else who uses a shitty mouse.
If you are using something better than this, then you have an advantage over other players because of your better hardware. Cheaters!
Lets take a look at another sport, since starcraft is supposed to be an "esport" Do you think that using skis like this: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/3547617515_dff736a138_o.jpg Or those: http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v184/247/0/603343578/n603343578_321216_2291.jpg Are more likely to help you win a competition? Would the person using the second set be cheating? They would clearly be gaining an advantage due to equipment over the person using the wood ones. At what point does using better equipment than your opponent stop giving you an advantage, and starts giving you an "unfair advanatage"? Usually, the line is drawn by what equipment I have access to, and can afford. Anything I have, is fair game, but anything I cant get, is an unfair advantage.
On May 23 2010 04:39 morimacil wrote: Having access to better hardware makes you more efficient. If you use a ball mouse, with mouse acceleration turned on, you will be extremely inaccurate, and will probably spend a few more seconds and a few extra clicks performing the exact same action as someone who is using a mouse that allows for good accuracy. So is having a mouse with good accuracy cheating? It does give you a huge advantage over someone else who uses a shitty mouse.
If you are using something better than this, then you have an advantage over other players because of your better hardware. Cheaters!
Lets take a look at another sport, since starcraft is supposed to be an "esport" Do you think that using skis like this: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/3547617515_dff736a138_o.jpg Or those: http://photos-a.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sctm/v184/247/0/603343578/n603343578_321216_2291.jpg Are more likely to help you win a competition? Would the person using the second set be cheating? They would clearly be gaining an advantage due to equipment over the person using the wood ones. At what point does using better equipment than your opponent stop giving you an advantage, and starts giving you an "unfair advanatage"? Usually, the line is drawn by what equipment I have access to, and can afford. Anything I have, is fair game, but anything I cant get, is an unfair advantage.
There is a fine line between efficiency and outright automatically doing shit for you. Those skis you show don't automatically navigate your course for you while you sleep and don't have hidden missile turrets that shoot down competing skiiers for you.
Macro functionalities have come a long way since their first primitive conceptions in early gaming mice.
morimacil that's the worst analogy I've seen lol. What does different mice have to do with this? It's a personal preference, nothing says optical is better than ball mouse, I actually played better with ball mouse until it broke. Also, many people say laser > optical but that's not true for a lot of people...
Anyway this kind of stuff already appeared on keyboards as have been pointed out, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff like letting the keyboard beep on events or using a timer on the inbuilt LED.
In after 391 pages of discussion, but the same can be said for my keyboard, the Logitech G5.
The programmable buttons on the left can be macro'd to any sequence of commands, and I have EIGHTEEN of them. It honestly didn't even occur to me that they could be used for doing macro heavy stuff in StarCraft, but obviously it's possible.
Like MasterOfChaos said, 1 to 1 remapping is fine. Setting up longer macros isn't.
It does pose an interesting problem for online ladder, though.
It wouldn't be very difficult to detect that someone is using a macro so long as the macro always does the same thing (i.e. the macro isn't complex enough to include randomness).
An algorithm would have no problem picking up that that the timing on key stroke is too consistant to be human as there would be patterns where the key press timings of a sequence would be exactly the same.
If you are really paranoid about someone that you played against using a macro you could even see such patterns without the aid of a program by looking at the game replay and if you see a build sequence with the exact same time spacing more than 3 times chances are the person used a macro.
The poll is ridiculous. This is no worse than mbs(multiple building selection). This is an in game function anticipated by blizzard. Technology is here to make life easier. Technology won't give you better game intuition micro or better macro. Maybe easier but no better. Allowing 60 qpm players who have the brains to play pro level is not the same as giving bronze level players the ability to get into platinum. This isn't a maphack and everyone can get it. Why not label widescreen monitors as cheating too since you can see more field of view?
If you think all it takes to get good is macroing your mouse or that it's some sort of advantage then you have a long way to go to go pro. Trust me. Macroing your mouse is the least of your worries when you get good enough.
This is here to stay regardless of what your antiquated opinions are. This is sc2 in 2010 not 8-bit Starcraft on a commodore 64. If you think macro is cheating. Macro your own keyboard or mouse and see if you get into diamond league instead of silver. Or if you are already diamond. See if you win the next cash prize tournament since it's so "imba". Get real.
Have fun complaining about this and making 20 million polls on why this has no skill (you won't get your way anyway ) but it wasn't skill to select hatch and produce drones to begin with. The real skill lies in meta game and game sense. Yes. Meta game does exist. Not on ladder though and not on your macroed mouse.
Also for all those complaining about everyone should use 2 button mouse and a standard keyboard from 1992, its called get a job and buy a new keyboard and mouse. At this day and age it might not even be expected to have a scroll wheel.
As per my previous post.. is having a bigger monitor cheating? No? Is having a better keyboard cheating then? Whats that? keyboard cheaper than monitor...
Wow, this poster really duped a lot of you tools. Using macros like that is stupid and not even beneficial. I have this mouse and the biggest benefit is just putting each button to a number so you can hotkey more easily without having to go past 4-5 and move your hand.
Putting macros on the buttons is a huge waste of effort and time and doesn't help your macro at all. These poll results are embarassing.
Well, its an unfair advantage which is pretty much the definition of cheating, and completely unrelated to anything that can be considered game skill/talent/creativity. (don't play word games, you know what I mean )
Yea its cheating, but only slightly if your already good.
On May 23 2010 05:52 Paramore wrote: Also for all those complaining about everyone should use 2 button mouse and a standard keyboard from 1992, its called get a job and buy a new keyboard and mouse. At this day and age it might not even be expected to have a scroll wheel.
As per my previous post.. is having a bigger monitor cheating? No? Is having a better keyboard cheating then? Whats that? keyboard cheaper than monitor...
This whole issue arises because hardware components can be equipped with quite alot of software these days. You must realize that there's a difference between hardware and software no matter if your software is on your hard drive or in your mouse/keyboard. If a bot(macro) playing for you from outside the construct of the game, well, then you have an unfair advantage, which we call cheating.
"Is having a better keyboard cheating then?" define "a better keyboard" please... "is having a bigger monitor cheating?" No, but having a really small/really big monitor can be quite a disadvantage - Just like having a mile long keyboard can be quite a disadvantage. As long as the hardware doesn't have complex software properties I don't see it as cheating.
On May 23 2010 05:25 Freezard wrote: morimacil that's the worst analogy I've seen lol. What does different mice have to do with this? It's a personal preference, nothing says optical is better than ball mouse, I actually played better with ball mouse until it broke. Also, many people say laser > optical but that's not true for a lot of people...
Some mice are better than others. Just like some keyboards are better than others. Lower response speed, more accuracy, more buttons, there are lots of things that improve it.
Well, its an unfair advantage which is pretty much the definition of cheating,
Yeah, but whats the definition of unfair? If it doesnt let you do anything which you otherwise couldnt do, it just lets you do the same thing more efficiently, and everyone can have access to it, how is that cheating?
its kind of like saying if you have a faster comp, a larger monitor, or a better internet connection then you'll have an advantage over someone with a slower comp, tiny monitor or slower internet connection; you can't exactly enforce uniformity concerning these kinds of things, it's just an unfortunate inequality that will always be with us
I dunno if this has been said, but Blizzard, in all of their games, has said one mouse click/button press/keystroke = one action. In this you're doing more than one action, thus, as defined by Blizzard, you are cheating. Additionally, this may not be a big thing, but it affects the game. It is far too close to botting/automation of the game for anyone to think fair, in my opinion. I'd be surprised if Blizzard didn't stop this by launch, or shortly thereafter. Edit: Someone said it right before me. >.>
The biggest problem with macros is if you allow them (consider them not cheating) you run the slippery slope of how long does a macro need to be to before it becomes an AI script.
It is certainly possible that if a mouse/keyboard can store a macro that it could be made to run a sequence of key stokes to play out a simple AI (e.g. making a script for 6 pool ling rush wouldn't be very hard for a specific map). Obviously when taken to this extreme it should be considered cheating.
My most immediate thought is that it's not going to matter much on the very top level, and if people want to gimp themselves by being dependent on gear and macros, then it's their loss.
On May 23 2010 06:42 Paramore wrote: you can run AI scripts all you want against me.. i dont remember the last time i lost to the computer on insane mode... gl hf...
You won't be able to use it if you ever get to play anything that really matters (Lan for $$$), and if you don't end up doing that what are you gaining?(If you think maphacking is a good idea this is like that x 0.000001), a tad more e-respect from some random people against the knowledge that you're not really playing entirely fair.
I consider it cheat if you reduce the ammount of work you need to do to preform a task. So if you can do multiple things with one click I think that is cheating.
Moving buttons from your keyboard to your mouse I wouldnt consider cheat at all as it doesnt reduce the number of tasks you have to preform but simply moves the buttons around.
Ive actually made the button left of 1 on my keyboard work as 0. And CAPSLOCK work as CONTROL. And I do not think this is cheating.
So I think you can move buttons like 5 6 7 8 9 0 A etc to your mouse and noone will complain about that.
On May 23 2010 06:54 Grebliv wrote: You won't be able to use it if you ever get to play anything that really matters (Lan for $$$), and if you don't end up doing that what are you gaining?(If you think maphacking is a good idea this is like that x 0.000001), a tad more e-respect from some random people against the knowledge that you're not really playing entirely fair.
So a 20k+ TSL didn't really matter because it was an online tournament? :D
Some of you seem to seriously consider banning people for using native functionality of widely used hardware. I highly doubt using a G500 (I have one) this way, which allows you to pick a few tasks in the game and do them better, would ever make a serious impact on the game. Maybe all professional players would need such a mouse, but if they're serious, why not get a gaming mouse anyway?
I would use it just for the f5 f6 f7 f8 buttons. It's RETARDED how they put it on the those keys instead of f2 f3 f4 like it was in bw, I used to macro completely with these keys, now I just aborted the whole "save screen" idea.
Anything more complicated than that is probably too much on the "cheating" side
On May 23 2010 07:00 Mothxal wrote: Some of you seem to seriously consider banning people for using native functionality of widely used hardware. I highly doubt using a G500 (I have one) this way, which allows you to pick a few tasks in the game and do them better, would ever make a serious impact on the game. Maybe all professional players would need such a mouse, but if they're serious, why not get a gaming mouse anyway?
The funny thing is that macros actually make the game harder.
Sometimes I just dont know what to think, cuz to be honest I love the game but looking at this stuff makes me sad and confuses me a lot. I mean, we are getting really close to the point where SC2 will be a game "no skills-required". Autosplit, MBS,endless waypoints, multiple tasks, auto army spread and stuff, Smart Casting, big numbers of units (armies) on ONE hotkey, no need to be that accurate when grabbing units when building/using spells an such, and now a Macro Mouse??? Geez
What about Speech Recognition/Voice Commands?, seriously if we get there I just wont play the game.
Actually i just think that a Macro that does : 2 (select marauders) right click (you move you marauders) wait xxx ms (where xxx is reload shot time of marauder) H wait YYY ms (where YYY is the animation time of a shot) right click (you move you marauders) and so on
there you have a macro for PERFECT marauder kiting controle
So : Mouse macro also allows easy non-human timed micro controle
On May 23 2010 07:00 Mothxal wrote: Some of you seem to seriously consider banning people for using native functionality of widely used hardware. I highly doubt using a G500 (I have one) this way, which allows you to pick a few tasks in the game and do them better, would ever make a serious impact on the game. Maybe all professional players would need such a mouse, but if they're serious, why not get a gaming mouse anyway?
No problem bind any key you want to ONE action (ie pressing 4 or pressing D)
But do not use this buttons for pressing more than one key (4ddd) for example.
People have been banned for this in other blizzard games can you can imagine this can happen here.
On May 23 2010 07:05 danbel1005 wrote: Sometimes I just dont know what to think, cuz to be honest I love the game but looking at this stuff makes me sad and confuses me a lot. I mean, we are getting really close to the point where SC2 will be a game "no skills-required". Autosplit, MBS,endless waypoints, multiple tasks, auto army spread and stuff, Smart Casting, big numbers of units (armies) on ONE hotkey, no need to be that accurate when grabbing units when building/using spells an such, and now a Macro Mouse??? Geez
What about Speech Recognition/Voice Commands?, seriously if we get there I just wont play the game.
To elaborate on what I said, previously, the problem isn't the mouse, it's the macro. Every mouse can move a cursor, and do any number of single action clicks. The issue is going beyond this, and doing multiple actions, thus automating a large part of the game. Additionally, Blizzard introduced the macro-mechanics like the Queen and the MULE to make you go back to your base. They were designed to make macro more important, and using this macro seems to make it amazingly unimportant. It effectively takes away responsibility, and the need for real focus in the game. It may not make a big difference in the pro scene, but it will make some, just like not having any delay in supply makes a difference. Additionally, in the lower leagues (which I remind you, are still competitive) it will likely destroy anything it's up against.
gonna quote a decent post from earlier in this thread (bold emphasis added):
ive attempted to use these sort of things just for the novelty value of them across various games and ive yet to play a game where it's actually a realistic benefit to use these things (of course i dont play any mmos, so they might help there)
they're all far too situationally specific to actually get any long term use out of, you're gonna become frustrated with it pretty soon. Either that or its a negligible difference, some guy used building a depot as an argument, i can do that in under half a second anyway, those extra few ms don't make a difference.
Everyone is so focused on whether or not it's cheating to realize that these macros just don't do anything special. You're better off just doing it without macros. They don't need to ban tying your shoelaces together in professional baseball because nobody is dumb enough to think it helps you play better.
On May 22 2010 21:50 JohnQPublic wrote: Blizz has specifically stated in the past that if you create macros that push more then one button then they will ban your account for it. It has happened to countless people in wow and its not even very useful for anything there. I guarantee that this won't be an issue as warden is very good at detecting anything of this sort, even random intervals (if the mouse is even capable of that) are fairly easy to detect because of the input methods they use.
I myself got a temp ban for using a macro on my nostromo just for logging in automatically, and I'm sure the rules will be even stricter in sc2.
Yeah, Im pretty sure it will be stricter. However, I wouldn't have guessed they were able to detect and ban this sort of behaviour in wow. Is blizzard doing the same thing on Wc3?
funny... hope u all know that the mice that razor is selling with starcraft 2's (blizzard's) name on it are all macro capable ... just thought you'd like to know that...
its safe to assume anyone remotely competent wont have 10 larva sitting around so this saves you 1 button press to select larva and a couple of the same button presses to build a unit. if that makes a difference, you have far more serious problems to worry about
On May 23 2010 07:35 collegeBored wrote: its safe to assume anyone remotely competent wont have 10 larva sitting around so this saves you 1 button press to select larva and a couple of the same button presses to build a unit. if that makes a difference, you have far more serious problems to worry about
Not to mention you don't even need a macro to rapidly create units even if you did suck at keeping your larvae count low.
Selecing idle SCV + building supply depot = 0.5 seconds Selecting larvas from 3 hatcheries and holding d to build all drones = 1 second Building MMM from 6 barracks and 1 starport = 3 seconds
Using macro to do anything = 0.1 seconds
There, I just proved that using macros is advantageous and you can make them a lot more complicated than this (add SCV production to the above).
Macros are already forbidden in tournaments, the ones played in a lan (connected to bnet 2.0 of course) where you have to physically be there to take part in the event. I don't think it's that much of an issue, i considered the possibility of making macros, but i don't think the advantage is real and the potential to mess you up is huge (what if you want to build 3 mutas and with the other 3 larvas zerglings ? are you going to make 100 macros for each case ?).
On May 23 2010 08:40 Freezard wrote: Selecing idle SCV + building supply depot = 0.5 seconds Selecting larvas from 3 hatcheries and holding d to build all drones = 1 second Building MMM from 6 barracks and 1 starport = 3 seconds
Using macro to do anything = 0.1 seconds
There, I just proved that using macros is advantageous and you can make them a lot more complicated than this (add SCV production to the above).
Macroing the first example you would shave off (using your arbitrary numbers) .4 seconds. Uh oh look out diamond league, here I come! In your second example, you would need need to macro 9 additional production buttons on top of the 9 you still need for one at a time production. Your third example is just ridiculous. The number of marines, marauders and medivacs you need will vary greatly depending on your current army, your opponents army, and your available resources.
On May 23 2010 08:40 Freezard wrote: Selecing idle SCV + building supply depot = 0.5 seconds Selecting larvas from 3 hatcheries and holding d to build all drones = 1 second Building MMM from 6 barracks and 1 starport = 3 seconds
Using macro to do anything = 0.1 seconds
There, I just proved that using macros is advantageous and you can make them a lot more complicated than this (add SCV production to the above).
Macroing the first example you would shave off (using your arbitrary numbers) .4 seconds. Uh oh look out diamond league, here I come! In your second example, you would need need to macro 9 additional production buttons on top of the 9 you still need for one at a time production. Your third example is just ridiculous. The number of marines, marauders and medivacs you need will vary greatly depending on your current army, your opponents army, and your available resources.
It's not just arbitrary numbers I did tests as you can see on example 3 video... and that's just an example right. Actually 2-3 barracks + reactor starport works wonders in almost any 2v2 game, so if you use the same build a lot then why not use macros.
And nope you don't need 9 additional macros, if you want 4 drones then build 4 drones? If you want pure drones from every hatchery, press the macro button. You have yet to prove anything which goes faster doing manually than using macro. This:
On May 22 2010 20:58 Kashll wrote: Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
They cant macro INSTANTLY tho and this severly lowers the amount of mechanical skill it would need at high levels to play.,
Actually 2-3 barracks + reactor starport works wonders in almost any 2v2 game, so if you use the same build a lot then why not use macros.
How often will you need exactly X marines, Y marauders and Z medivacs plus have enough resources for all of them? Your needs change with the game. Are you gonna make 700 macros for every situation? You'll need a macro for 10 marines, a macro for 6 marines and 3 marauders, A macro for 0 marines 6 marauders and 3 medivacs, so on and so forth. OR you could just do it the easy default way which is more flexible.
Same goes for zerg. Yeah you can make a macro that spams drones, another that spams roaches, another that spams zerglings, another that spams overlords, etc. and then learn all those extra binds in addition to the one-by-one production keys you'll still need, OR you could just use the hold key method, which is virtually just as quick and easy, but vastly more flexible.
Making all these situational macros is just more work for you with no concrete benefit. It sounds great on paper, but it's largely impractical. If there were a macro that somehow bugged the game out to allow zerglings to hop up cliffs, or something that helped you retain full resources when canceling a building, then there would be an issue requiring attention. But none of these macros are doing anything like that
On May 23 2010 02:43 Freezard wrote: Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
No one has posted a macro that is game changing yet. And lol at building supply depots with a macro. Sooooo hard to execute! How about one that reminds you to build one before you get supply blocked? Then you might be on to something.
On May 23 2010 02:43 Freezard wrote: Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
No one has posted a macro that is game changing yet. And lol at building supply depots with a macro. Sooooo hard to execute! How about one that reminds you to build one before you get supply blocked? Then you might be on to something.
Someone posted a micro marauder macro. You could do that with every unit. Perfect micro sounds pretty game changing to me. Anyway, the possibilities are infinite. I'm not going to think about every possibility because I'm not the one who's using them.
On May 23 2010 02:43 Freezard wrote: Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
No one has posted a macro that is game changing yet. And lol at building supply depots with a macro. Sooooo hard to execute! How about one that reminds you to build one before you get supply blocked? Then you might be on to something.
That's also not right
if you had one selected idle scv and build supply depot all as one command it would build instantly where ever your mouse is which is not ideal as you can't place it too well.
Realistically the macro would be just selected idle scv bs, and you have to click
2 but in reality why would you want a macro just for idle scv you would want one for all scvs so it would just be bs
meaning 3 clicks vs 4
People think a macro = a bot lol but frankly they can only be applied in special situations and you give up a certain amount of control to use it.
So it might be a bit faster then just learning how to do it on the keyboard but otherwise pointless to include macros for a rts game, unless the macro acts more like a bot something that is not available normally from a logitech mouse or keyboard, where it has timings or position.
My personal conclusion on How cheated is a gaming mouse with macro?: Potentially devastatingly so, especially in the lower tiers. However, it won't be noticeable in the upper tiers which makes it all the more sinister and all the more cheat-friendly.
On May 23 2010 08:40 Freezard wrote: Selecing idle SCV + building supply depot = 0.5 seconds Selecting larvas from 3 hatcheries and holding d to build all drones = 1 second Building MMM from 6 barracks and 1 starport = 3 seconds
Using macro to do anything = 0.1 seconds
There, I just proved that using macros is advantageous and you can make them a lot more complicated than this (add SCV production to the above).
Disagree. How many buttons you have on your mouse? How many fingers? Why should it take you 3 seconds to press the same button a bunch of times (with potentially tab in between). Why would any of that require you to go back to your base? He did the mbs in .2 seconds. Then he waited another second to build something from a starport. That probably took a total of .5 seconds.
Using a macro might help in some situations but not by much...
Edit: Oops, double post but this one is on a different topic than my previous so please don't rape me
One thing I would like to be part of the ui is for me to be able to hold control and click one of the units to build. Essentially this would be a "build until error" command, which would spam the build button for that unit until one of the following conditions is met: 1.) No idle production facilities capable of building selected unit. 2.) No more minerals/gas. 3.) No supply. I miss that element of BW (at least with zerg) where I make 6 zerglings pop instantly on 4-pool, or more practically 9 mutas popping on 3-hatch spire. I thought that part of the broodwar UI was awesome, and was sorely disappointed in the SC2 UI for this particular reason. I don't think this is particularly unfair simply because the amount of time it takes to, say, press m 9 times is very small, but I don't want carpal tunnel if I can avoid it ;P
On May 23 2010 11:11 love1another wrote: Edit: Oops, double post but this one is on a different topic than my previous so please don't rape me
One thing I would like to be part of the ui is for me to be able to hold control and click one of the units to build. Essentially this would be a "build until error" command, which would spam the build button for that unit until one of the following conditions is met: 1.) No idle production facilities capable of building selected unit. 2.) No more minerals/gas. 3.) No supply. I miss that element of BW (at least with zerg) where I make 6 zerglings pop instantly on 4-pool, or more practically 9 mutas popping on 3-hatch spire. I thought that part of the broodwar UI was awesome, and was sorely disappointed in the SC2 UI for this particular reason. I don't think this is particularly unfair simply because the amount of time it takes to, say, press m 9 times is very small, but I don't want carpal tunnel if I can avoid it ;P
Broken record here, but you can do that in SC2. Just hold down the hotkey and it spams the units instantly.
On May 23 2010 02:43 Freezard wrote: Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
No one has posted a macro that is game changing yet. And lol at building supply depots with a macro. Sooooo hard to execute! How about one that reminds you to build one before you get supply blocked? Then you might be on to something.
Someone posted a micro marauder macro. You could do that with every unit. Perfect micro sounds pretty game changing to me. Anyway, the possibilities are infinite. I'm not going to think about every possibility because I'm not the one who's using them.
You have no idea what the hell you're talking about, man. Have you ever even owned one of these mice? I have one and you can not do that, at all.
Taking the macro idea to an extreme, let say that I have part of my army always in group 1, my pylon where I and reenforcing from in screen store f5, and I build a macro.
The macro does the following in combat, selects warp gates, flips screen to pylon, builds full set of units, lets say I make in interface-able so that when I start the marco holding a certain key tells it how many warp gates I have. Now when it is done, which with no lag should take about a second it, selects group 1, and pops me back into the fight allowing me to keep microing.
The reason why macros are considered cheating across competitive game play is because it allows a player to gain an advantage not through his play skill but through a program. Any play which can't be done if you are sitting on a brand new computer is something you should avoid if you want to play competitive especially at any kind of LAN type tourny.
The arguments about macros not being adaptable really don't apply as shown through out history programmers can write code to do just about anything, and the current advancement in automated tech.
I don't see a problem with resetting hotkeys to it, but at the point where you can have it play the game for you i think it ruins the game for everyone else who plays you, and for you.
Well you can probably do that actually. (the marauder micro thing)
click-delay-h-click-delay, and so on. Problem is: Its still not very useful Lets say you macro it to do it 10 times in a row. Then, you start kiting with your marauders, and they die, cose your opponent had speedlings, or whatever. Now, for the next 20 seconds, at regular intervals, you will be clicking randomly on the screen, and pressing h. Sounds fun doesnt it? But doesnt sound like a huge advantage. Ok, So you do it a few less times. Now your kiting around with your marauders, get dropped. Tell your SCVs to move out of the way, but it presses H, and then selects a random building for you. Huge advantage there. So lets say that instead, you macro it to do it only once. Click-delay-h-click Now in order to do it perfectly, you would need to time your second macro press perfectly after the delay. So in essence, you still need to be looking at your marauders, and to have perfect timing. So again, where is the huge advantage.
About the whole botting idea: In game like WoW, botting is banned. But its not banned because of the semi compatitive stuff like raid, or pvp, but mostly cose it can be used to farm gold. No one in their right mind would want to use a bot in PvP Same thing in SC. True, in copper league, maybe executing a 6 pool perfectly would be good. But then after that, you still need to micro your zerglings, and if your opponent scouts, you, you die. Having a set in stone build that you cannot possibly deviate from, is not really an advantage, no matter what way you look at it.
I would say the line between cheating and playing, comes into play when a programm allows you to do something in the game that would otherwise not be possible. Making your units faster, making them do more damage, giving you access to information that you normally would not have, all that kind of stuff. On the other hand, taking something that is possible in the game, and doing it more efficiently, that seems perfectly good. A hotkey is an example of that. You would normally want to select a building. By using a hotkey, you are able to select that building faster, and more efficiently, with less keypresses. A macro, if you can actually find one that actually makes you do something more efficiently, would also fall in that category. I think most ppl who have a problem with that kind of stuff think like this guuy here:
Sometimes I just dont know what to think, cuz to be honest I love the game but looking at this stuff makes me sad and confuses me a lot. I mean, we are getting really close to the point where SC2 will be a game "no skills-required". Autosplit, MBS,endless waypoints, multiple tasks, auto army spread and stuff, Smart Casting, big numbers of units (armies) on ONE hotkey, no need to be that accurate when grabbing units when building/using spells an such, and now a Macro Mouse??? Geez
See, the thing is how you define "skill". Is your skill defined by how fast you can press a button sequence? Or do you think there might be more to it? We are moving more and more towards a system where the actual decisions that you make in the game, matter more than fighting against the UI and the commands, to have the game actually carry out your decisions.
Would you rather have a game where deciding on what upgrade when, what units you build, or when and where to do a drop are the key components? Or maybe you would rather have something, where executing a perfect worker split is the main focus? Both of them can be considered "skill". The first one would revolve around strategy, and the other one, involves 2 players wanting to do exactly the same thing, but one of them being a little better at executing it, due to the speed of his fingers. Should your strategy (and intelligence) be the main focus, along with defeating your opponent? Creativity? Or would you rather have APM, precision, and repetitive tasks executed as perfectly as possible be the main focus?
Gz to you if you can execute a perfect worker split. But personally, if I am going to devote time and effort in a game, I would much rather focus on finding good strategies, counters, playing the metagame, being creative, and so on, rather than executing a worker split a million times in a row until I can do it perfectly, and then moving on to doing a few thousand hours of repetitive unit micro training until I can do it perfectly.
If I have to chose, I would rather have my mind competing against my opponent's, instead of having my fingerspeed competing against his.
Or would you rather have APM, precision, and repetitive tasks executed as perfectly as possible be the main focus?
While APM does show how fast you can click, typically it is used to show how well people multitask. I get get 400 APM by spamming 1,2 but that isn't going to do any good as we all know.
Yes there should be a separation between the people who actually spend time practicing execution and those who don't. I can try and pull Nony's Pheonix build as much as I want but he is going to execute it better, for two reason, he has practiced more, and is a much higher skilled player. Closing off leaks in your play should be a goal, which isn't achieved by getting someone else to write code to do the task which you can't perfect.
And to be honest a perfect worker split isn't really that hard to do 90% of the time, but why should I be able to write a piece of code to do it 100% of the time with a single button press, or how about you have it start when the screen pixel changes from the load into the start, that wouldn't be that hard either.
The issue with macros is they remove the physical skill required to preform at top levels. We aren't playing chess where only your decision making matters.
I totally agree with everything morimacil said. And in addition to that these macro keyboards/mice have been around for a long time and have never been an issue before so I doubt they will become one now. Nobody has found any significant advantage in them and not for lack of trying.
Totally these mice and even the keyboards are an advantage.... , Shouldnt be allowed in any sort of play, are you guys really that bad and dumb that you can't play the game normally?
Having that mouse that will execute multiple actions in just 1 click IS Cheating. Macro's in a RTS ?? are you serious? You WoW players need to stay away from this game, not everything revolves around WoW.
Everyone commenting and saying "omg its so unfair" does not own these keyboards/mice and has never tested this stuff. I've dicked around versus the computer with tons of different macros in brood war and I haven't come up with a single one that is significantly easier enough that its worth the lack of control you have with a macro. The problem with these things is that they are static and require perfect conditions. You can't use them to replace actual skills, this game isn't an mmo where you're casting 7 different spells in a row repeatedly. If you want any kind of accuracy you have to keep them small, and eventually it reaches a point where there's almost no benefit over using a keyboard and hitting some awkward key or mouse button and restricting yourself isn't even worth the learning curve.
People arguing against this are literally saying it's cheating because you can build a depot a quarter of a second faster. No one is going to go to the effort of making a macro to do this, especially if they're already in the habit of building depots normally. I've had a keyboard with macro keys since 2005, and since then I've never seen one instance of people using them for an RTS and it being a big scandal or anything. If you're using keys to automate things you're bad, period. Good players don't do this shit. It's not like a maphack where you all of a sudden gain a massive advantage.
Using a macro that does more than 1 keystroke is not allowed and cheating. Using a headset to communicate in a 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 is allowed even though it can give you significant advantage on your opponents.
On May 23 2010 14:02 Tropics wrote: Everyone commenting and saying "omg its so unfair" does not own these keyboards/mice and has never tested this stuff. I've dicked around versus the computer with tons of different macros in brood war and I haven't come up with a single one that is significantly easier enough that its worth the lack of control you have with a macro. The problem with these things is that they are static and require perfect conditions.
If you feel like that, you just downright suck at scripting. If I constantly replaced my building queue with using a custom hotkey (making that 4s thing not even take 0.5) I'd gain a lot of momentum, period.
seriously, wake the fuck up, this aint SC1, who cares about a mouse with few side buttons.
If you whine about that you should aswell whine about people with a better connection then you have since they will ALWAYS BE 1 MILISECOND FASTER! so...
Yea who cares is just QQing too much and should prac more and be inventive.
Btw, if you use more then 1 keystroke u just nerf urself anyways since you don't have control of ur actions
On May 23 2010 19:47 Vise wrote: A lot of lulzy stuff, followed by: Btw, if you use more then 1 keystroke u just nerf urself anyways since you don't have control of ur actions
You're an idiot, seriously. There's really no other way to describe someone that actually believes that using one key instead of six makes you lose control.
On May 23 2010 18:17 ProoM wrote: "woops, missclick! accidently turned all my larvas into drones, while I'm being counterattacked, too bad."
...
You do realise the same thing can occour even without 3rd party software, making the statement void.
On May 23 2010 19:47 Vise wrote: seriously, wake the fuck up, this aint SC1, who cares about a mouse with few side buttons.
If you whine about that you should aswell whine about people with a better connection then you have since they will ALWAYS BE 1 MILISECOND FASTER! so...
Yea who cares is just QQing too much and should prac more and be inventive.
Btw, if you use more then 1 keystroke u just nerf urself anyways since you don't have control of ur actions
Someone explain how the internet works to this kid.
On May 23 2010 01:56 Nutshell wrote: Could someone please come up with an example of a macro that can do something significantly easier than using a non-macro method? None of the ones provided so far have proved to be abusive or advantageous.
Select idle SCV, build supply depot 1 click
Select idle SCV B S Click 4 clicks
There you go, want any more examples just tell me
Sounds good on paper till you get into a game and then realise there will be times when you will have idle scvs at different parts of the map (scouting, maybe on a xel'naga tower. Or your idle scv has been killed all of a sudden you cant use your crutch which only saved you microseconds or even worse you are thrown off completely by it and supply block yourself. Also constantly keeping an idle scv early game just so you can build quick supply depots will hurt you more than slower macro.
The OPs looping queen larvae one would be ridiculously annoying if I ever used it since it switches screen focus.
Oh my. This will help both noobs and pros. Pros can now pay attention to the battle or make expansions and stuff without losing any macro at all. also noobs get a huge advantage when learning how to play.
Seriously, macro allowing perfect Micro controle is just too much to bypass in my opinion. Macro such as this one proof this :
2 (select unit group) right click (you move your unit group) wait xxx ms (where xxx is reload shot time of the unit) H wait YYY ms (where YYY is the animation time of a shot) right click (you move you unit group again) then loop x3
I may record a video showing how abusive this is.
there you have a macro for PERFECT marauder kiting controle]
On May 23 2010 21:20 Diks wrote: Seriously, macro allowing perfect Micro controle is just too much to bypass in my opinion. Macro such as this one proof this :
2 (select unit group) right click (you move your unit group) wait xxx ms (where xxx is reload shot time of the unit) H wait YYY ms (where YYY is the animation time of a shot) right click (you move you unit group again) then loop x3
I may record a video showing how abusive this is.
there you have a macro for PERFECT marauder kiting controle]
Thats awesome for every situation in which you know you will need exactly 3 rounds of kiting... and completely worthless for every other situation. Did you read morimacil's post near the bottom of page 9 that explains why marauder kiting macro's are stupid? What if you need to do something else in the middle of the macro?
All in all, what it boils down to, I think, is this: The "giant unfair advantage" that ppl QQ about, is simply not there. Because when you use a giant macro, half the time you gimp yourself more than what you gain. Where it could be useful, is to make a very select few actions a tiny bit more efficient. For example, you could have your queen keybound to 9, and then have the macro press 9v so you can spawn larva more efficiently in the early game. That, is not a giant unfair advantage, no matter what way you look at it. That is also not "breaking the game", or "removing all skill", because seriously, there is hardly any skill involved in pressing v right after selecting your queen.
On May 23 2010 21:20 Diks wrote: Seriously, macro allowing perfect Micro controle is just too much to bypass in my opinion. Macro such as this one proof this :
2 (select unit group) right click (you move your unit group) wait xxx ms (where xxx is reload shot time of the unit) H wait YYY ms (where YYY is the animation time of a shot) right click (you move you unit group again) then loop x3
I may record a video showing how abusive this is.
there you have a macro for PERFECT marauder kiting controle]
Make one where you hold the button instead, and it won't stop microing until you release it. And it shouldn't select the unit group, doesn't need to.
Marauders are good and all but I think perfect Reaper/Hellion micro would be more devastating.
On May 23 2010 11:11 love1another wrote: Edit: Oops, double post but this one is on a different topic than my previous so please don't rape me
One thing I would like to be part of the ui is for me to be able to hold control and click one of the units to build. Essentially this would be a "build until error" command, which would spam the build button for that unit until one of the following conditions is met: 1.) No idle production facilities capable of building selected unit. 2.) No more minerals/gas. 3.) No supply. I miss that element of BW (at least with zerg) where I make 6 zerglings pop instantly on 4-pool, or more practically 9 mutas popping on 3-hatch spire. I thought that part of the broodwar UI was awesome, and was sorely disappointed in the SC2 UI for this particular reason. I don't think this is particularly unfair simply because the amount of time it takes to, say, press m 9 times is very small, but I don't want carpal tunnel if I can avoid it ;P
Broken record here, but you can do that in SC2. Just hold down the hotkey and it spams the units instantly.
Yup! But there's that built-in delay before the single press turns into multiple presses. I'd rather just have a hotkey I could press like control to make it so I could hit and forget :D
On May 23 2010 11:11 love1another wrote: Edit: Oops, double post but this one is on a different topic than my previous so please don't rape me
One thing I would like to be part of the ui is for me to be able to hold control and click one of the units to build. Essentially this would be a "build until error" command, which would spam the build button for that unit until one of the following conditions is met: 1.) No idle production facilities capable of building selected unit. 2.) No more minerals/gas. 3.) No supply. I miss that element of BW (at least with zerg) where I make 6 zerglings pop instantly on 4-pool, or more practically 9 mutas popping on 3-hatch spire. I thought that part of the broodwar UI was awesome, and was sorely disappointed in the SC2 UI for this particular reason. I don't think this is particularly unfair simply because the amount of time it takes to, say, press m 9 times is very small, but I don't want carpal tunnel if I can avoid it ;P
Broken record here, but you can do that in SC2. Just hold down the hotkey and it spams the units instantly.
Yup! But there's that built-in delay before the single press turns into multiple presses. I'd rather just have a hotkey I could press like control to make it so I could hit and forget :D
It's incredibly quick, now you are just nitpicking heh.
Has anyone actually gotten a g500 macro to record a mouse click? I've tried even with the "record mouse" option checked and it will still not record mouse events.
Have a keyboard (G15) which can do the same. Thought it was pretty awesome at first, but after a while I found it more of a hassle to use than just playing normal. It can execute simple sequences of keystrokes but it is downright impossible to make it do anything advanced (using wait times) without actually obstructing the user at the same time... and seriously I wouldn't give away control in sc2 for even half a second...
It does have a display also which could probably do a countdown every time a queen injected larvae if you had the knowledge to make it, don't know about that though.
Cheating, no question. It's more or less scripting. I could just write a computer program to get 10k APM (that muta micro script for BW1 comes to mind). Would that be allowed? How about a program that spends all my money for me so I'm the best macro'er ever?
On June 01 2010 04:40 pyr0ma5ta wrote: Cheating, no question. It's more or less scripting. I could just write a computer program to get 10k APM (that muta micro script for BW1 comes to mind). Would that be allowed? How about a program that spends all my money for me so I'm the best macro'er ever?
Yeah. Cheating.
How would a macro that gives you 10k APM be useful? Why would you want a program to spend all your money for you?
How the hell would you make a macro that spends all of your money for you? How would it know how many buildings you had selected to a control group? How would it know what tech you have?
This would be so bloated and complicated that you'd never make a macro do anything useful. But yea, simple ones like 5s with mouse5 could do something useful. It's hardly a big deal though. How much time are you saving over actually hitting 5 and s?
Best one is to set your number keys to input each number twice for each time you click hehe. Don't worry I don't do that. But come on, what happened to all the complaints about SC2 being too easy?
i think anyone that tries saying it wouldn't be cheating doesn't believe it themselves but just wants to cheat using this having that unfair advantage.
obviously, if blizzard gave everyone a macro mouse like this when they buy sc2, and told them, use the macro features on the mouse, it's good, cuz everyone has a mouse, now...then i suppose it would be fair, eh? but i doubt that's going to happen...
I don't think that it's cheating. But whether it's good to be dependent on these tools would depend on tournament regulations. For competitive players, if you can't use it in a competitive environment, being dependent on these would put the player in a bad position if he were to be limited to regular equipments in a in-person tournament.
For people never intending to play competitively, they can do whatever they want and it won't matter.
I think of it in this way, the good players will improve while the poor players will use this but if they ever decide to do something outside of ladder they already screwed themselves over by using this damn mouse for over a year so they suck with manual control *~*
On June 01 2010 07:25 dcttr66 wrote: i think anyone that tries saying it wouldn't be cheating doesn't believe it themselves but just wants to cheat using this having that unfair advantage.
obviously, if blizzard gave everyone a macro mouse like this when they buy sc2, and told them, use the macro features on the mouse, it's good, cuz everyone has a mouse, now...then i suppose it would be fair, eh? but i doubt that's going to happen...
Someone has a better mousepad than me. Its cheating!
Someone has bigger hands than me so they can reach more keys than me. Its cheating!
I have this mouse and I've messed with it quite a bit to see what options I have. I personally don't think it's cheating because I feel this game is too much about APM anyways (they even got rid of wireframe casting AND there should be fully customizable keys) AND there aren't many macro functions that will help much. Someone with a high APM will be more efficient/constructive than a pre-set macro..
I can only see two reasonable uses for macro functions, because it is too dependent on where your mouse is pointed at or what is currently selected:
1)Preset unit builds: But pushing a number key and the shortcut for what you want to build will be almost as fast and you will have more control over what you build. 2)Spawn larva for queens: You can use backspace to make sure a hatch is centered in screen. So all you need to do is have your mouse pointed at the center of the screen. Then you push the macro button and all your queens will spit on hatches and then take you back to your main army, all in a second.
Really, the only good use I can think of for all the races is number 2. And I'm ok with that as I consider spawning larva every 40sec to be a complete waste of time. It is a tedious mechanic that shouldn't even be there.
In the end, I'm playing T now and I use my mouse's 8 buttons for the following: 7,8,9,0,shift,ctrl,backspace,esc.
preset macros have no place in a rts like sc or sc2, sure you can use it but in the long run it will impede your ability to play the game and macro in variable situations.
implementing the macros would take so much trial and error, even when its said and done...you'd lose if you relied soley on it
LOL I have this mouse but I did not realize it had this feature, I guess I should have assumed it Never used this mouse feature, never will but i really hope this mouse doesn't get banned I bought it to replace my wireless mouse and this mouse is much more consistent w/ better response time (obviously) But i also like that the cord is not made of rubber so it does not hinder any sort of mouse movements for more precise mouse selecting I also really like that you can use weights to customize the weight of your mouse This was my #1 fear when ditching my other mouse so I always put off getting a wired mouse
With the right macro you can get completely rid of the queen spawn larvae mechanic: Spawn larvae in 1-8 hatches and get back to your army in <1sec ? No problem, all it takes is 1 (one!) mouseclick. Others than that i couldn't find any use for macros in SC2.
I use the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 which doesn't come with any fancy macro support but it does allow rebinding of the side buttons. Currently I have them bound to F5 and F6 but I think I'm going to change that to Backspace and F5... then I can get to all my bases with one button and back to the battle with the other (Ctrl-F5 on the fly to wherever my micro location is).
On June 03 2010 00:58 Perkins1752 wrote: With the right macro you can get completely rid of the queen spawn larvae mechanic: Spawn larvae in 1-8 hatches and get back to your army in <1sec ? No problem, all it takes is 1 (one!) mouseclick. Others than that i couldn't find any use for macros in SC2.
Try to program it, it doesnt work because of battle.net, if you click too fast it just goes retarded and refuses
On June 03 2010 00:58 Perkins1752 wrote: With the right macro you can get completely rid of the queen spawn larvae mechanic: Spawn larvae in 1-8 hatches and get back to your army in <1sec ? No problem, all it takes is 1 (one!) mouseclick. Others than that i couldn't find any use for macros in SC2.
Try to program it, it doesnt work because of battle.net, if you click too fast it just goes retarded and refuses
I did it. Its very easy. 50ms delay is way enough. Only difficulty: position your mouse in the center of the screen before pressing the macrobutton. GG!
On May 22 2010 21:06 Diks wrote: The main thing is that those actions that takes time ingame takes 0 seconds, you instantly select all your hatchs, then all your larvas, then they all transmute into mutas. Doing it manually, even if you're good, it takes time and focus. With this mouse nothing at all...
Yes, it takes all of 1 second or so to hit your hatchery control group number and then spam the letters corresponding to the mutations you want.
For me, this is cheat. But I guess this is the future. Since every every gamers mouse/keyboard will have this thing on the future, how do you want to ban sponsors' stuff from LAN?
Anyway, it's not a big advantage. If I had this mouse, i think I would be to lazy to try this.
On May 22 2010 21:03 makopluxx wrote: SC2 May not have "LAN" in the classic sense but obviously what people are referring to are tournaments where all players are playing in the same building/area. Then again you already knew that and you decided to troll anyways.
That wouldn't be a lan, that would just be people playing in the same building still connected to battle.net with the same lag as if they were on opposite sides of the continent.
You realize theres a tournament edition for TOs that has LAN, it just has to verify with their account on battle.net first
On May 22 2010 20:58 Kashll wrote: Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
98% of people who haven't played starcraft BW aren't at that level.
Fixed for you.
Macros might make spamming z for zerglings or a for marines slighly faster, but otherwise it's really just a way to give newer, inexperienced players a slight advantage. That being said, macros should still definitely be banned, because you yourself aren't playing the game then.
Maybe I see it wrong, but doesn't work the same as Ctrl hotkeys?? And I think it wont be that the mouse will be made illegal, but that everybody should buy a mouse like this to be a competitive SC2 gamer.
Wow, all I did with my mouse is bind the Shift key to my mouse4 button and Attack to my wheel button click. Those macros are taking it to an extreme imo.
On May 22 2010 20:58 Kashll wrote: Lol come on. I mean of course for terrible people it matters, but it won't matter at all at high levels of play since people can macro competently anyways.
98% of people who haven't played starcraft BW aren't at that level.
Fixed for you.
Macros might make spamming z for zerglings or a for marines slighly faster, but otherwise it's really just a way to give newer, inexperienced players a slight advantage. That being said, macros should still definitely be banned, because you yourself aren't playing the game then.
I definitely agree. However, I personally would not mind facing someone with macro buttons. If my opponent doesn't have the skill and willpower to macro properly, then I'd bet he doesn't have the skill or willpower to play properly when it really matters. If you don't have the skill or willpower to hit a couple of keys (1sdddd or the like), then do you have the skill or willpower to compete? You're playing the same game I am, but you are just cutting a couple of corners, and in the end that is hurting you not me. I'm not knocking on you macro users, as I have nothing but love for the StarCraft 2 community.
macro keys on mouse doesn't bother me. it's a nice touch but if my opponent doesn't have the discipline to learn to macro efficiently then i won't have any problem smashing him into a pulp.
I don't see this as game-breaking in fact I think it could actually make you a worse player.
When I play SC I do better when I found a groove so to speak. Its about speed and the frantic factor for me pressing 5 different buttons to spawn larva extremely fast gets my head where it should be. This just sounds lazy, and you don't win in SC by being lazy period. This just breeds laziness IMO, and could therefore make you a worse player. Sure you can spawn larva easily with one button, but can you scout? Hotkey your army correctly? Gain positional advantage? etc...
If I get myself into a lazy mindset in SC I lose period.
It's perfectly legal to do online, but bring your skills to a lan where it counts and you're fucked. If you all the sudden are only doing well online and never go to a LAN then people suspect the worse. Good luck with that
“What about using the map hack in StarCraft, or a packet interceptor, or a macro to cast your spells faster, or just a swift kick to the shins of your opponent?”
One of the great things about playing to win is that it’s a path of self-improvement that can be measured. In playing to win, we have the cold, hard results of winning and losing to guide us along that path. I think it’s only useful to consider winning and losing in the context of formal competition such as tournaments. Kicking your opponents in the shins is outside the scope of the game, and is not legal in any reasonable tournament.
Likewise, any third party program obtained from an illegal warez site and installed as a hack into your game is also not going to be legal in any reasonable tournament. These things, though technically useful to those trying to win, are outside the path of continuous self-improvement that I’m talking about since they are outside of the rules of tournaments. You should use any tournament legal means to win. If you participate in some strange tournament where all players are allowed to use a map hack, then go for it. You’re playing a rather weird, nonstandard version of the game, though, which defeats the whole purpose of shedding extra rules so as to play the same game as everyone else. Any reasonable person would consider “no cheating from outside the game” to be part of the default rule set of any game.
The question becomes: will tournaments allow a macro-mouse that Blizzard sponsors? If Blizzard holds the tournament, then yes (as in the case of macro controllers allowed on X-Box Live). However, Blizzard doesn't host most tournaments, and it's a good bet they won't let you use a macro-mouse.
Macro's should not be allowed however rebinding keys should be, as stated by blizz developers the only reasons why they haven't done it themselves is due to mapping restrictions. They however never intended to put macro mechanics in SC2
i got a razer naga with 17+ buttons, but im not really using it (bought it for mmos) i prefer using the keyboard for starcraft. but someone who is used to play with a naga most have a little advantage.
in my opinion,unless you are planing to be a pro and duke out in SC2 tournaments ( you can attend online ones ! ) ,you can use any equipment you would like to make your game easier.
On May 22 2010 21:23 MasterOfChaos wrote: IMO any 1 to 1 remapping of keys is ok, any 1 to n (n>1) remapping is cheating.
this
any 1 to 1 mappings imo are fair, because it is simply moving the hotkey to a more easily reachable position and once you reach a competitive level such things are superficial
I think people really don't understand how limited macros really are. I have both a keyboard and mouse capable of creating macros however I only create 1:1 macros (macro keys that simply emulate another key on the keyboard) because complex macros really don't give you an advantage, and I'll explain why.
Macros are not scripts. They emulate a set of keystrokes in an iterative checklist when the button is pressed. There is no logic behind them. The can't build supply depots to prevent being supply blocked, they can't automatically macro an army when you lose units because the user still has to know when to pump up his army. They also aren't nearly as flexible as simply learning to press the buttons yourself. You might be able to set up a macro for a certain build your doing, but what if the situation changes? You're stuck with that same macro.
The big reason why macros aren't a problem is that the biggest part of good macro is simply remembering when to do stuff, and to not get distracted or to lose focus. Players with bad macro are so because they forget to build up production, they forget to put workers in gas, they forget to keep training units during a fight, etc. Do any of you honestly believe that a bronze player will have silver or gold level macro because he's combining keystrokes into one key? Or that because a player doesn't have to press a button down for 300 extra ms he suddenly will take on idrA or TLO?
Or what about the player who's playing at 60+ frames per second at 1920x1200 resoultion fighting against someone playing at 20 frames per second at 1024x748 resolution because he doesn't have the money for a better computer? Is that person with the good computer a cheater because he spent the time and money to put together a fast computer? No. That's because we know having a good computer does not equate to being a good player, and that advantage isn't consider cheating.
This is so much like the Widescreen vs Standard 4:3 aspect ratio debate back when widescreen aspect ratios started to make their way into gaming. Just the same with that debate, that a player with a widescreen doesn't make them a good shot, a player who uses macros does not make them pros. The slight advantage doesn't even come close to being cheating (though I do get a good chuckle when people here compare using a programmable mouse the same as map hacking).
I was thinking.. what can you even put as a macro for SC2?? The only one I could really come up with.. is like a one click build SCV.. basically, you have a side button on your mouse that you tap once and it goes thru (hotkey of production building) + (hotkey of worker) .. That may make things simple, so periodically thruout the game u just tap that and then it is instantly doing it without you having to think about it (tap it subconsciously every 20 seconds)..
Or maybe a one tap for scan.. instead of 2 taps (finding CC then scan).. But really, I cant see much better things to do other than those for SC2..
Macros for SC2 could be such that the player only has to hit one button to build three marauders four marines and two tanks from all of his production buildings in about 1 millisecond. Meanwhile, he can be microing units in a battle and so never has to lose focus on what he is doing other then to subconsciously tap that button.
This gives them an edge over the other player because they have it done instantaneously while the other player has to do it manually, taking a couple seconds away from the fight to accomplish the same task.
On July 15 2010 02:53 Waphlez wrote: I think people really don't understand how limited macros really are. I have both a keyboard and mouse capable of creating macros however I only create 1:1 macros (macro keys that simply emulate another key on the keyboard) because complex macros really don't give you an advantage, and I'll explain why.
Macros are not scripts. They emulate a set of keystrokes in an iterative checklist when the button is pressed. There is no logic behind them. The can't build supply depots to prevent being supply blocked, they can't automatically macro an army when you lose units because the user still has to know when to pump up his army. They also aren't nearly as flexible as simply learning to press the buttons yourself. You might be able to set up a macro for a certain build your doing, but what if the situation changes? You're stuck with that same macro.
The big reason why macros aren't a problem is that the biggest part of good macro is simply remembering when to do stuff, and to not get distracted or to lose focus. Players with bad macro are so because they forget to build up production, they forget to put workers in gas, they forget to keep training units during a fight, etc. Do any of you honestly believe that a bronze player will have silver or gold level macro because he's combining keystrokes into one key? Or that because a player doesn't have to press a button down for 300 extra ms he suddenly will take on idrA or TLO?
Or what about the player who's playing at 60+ frames per second at 1920x1200 resoultion fighting against someone playing at 20 frames per second at 1024x748 resolution because he doesn't have the money for a better computer? Is that person with the good computer a cheater because he spent the time and money to put together a fast computer? No. That's because we know having a good computer does not equate to being a good player, and that advantage isn't consider cheating.
This is so much like the Widescreen vs Standard 4:3 aspect ratio debate back when widescreen aspect ratios started to make their way into gaming. Just the same with that debate, that a player with a widescreen doesn't make them a good shot, a player who uses macros does not make them pros. The slight advantage doesn't even come close to being cheating (though I do get a good chuckle when people here compare using a programmable mouse the same as map hacking).
So you're saying being able to build units faster than everyone else is not cheating? Macros can send keystrokes and move the mouse much faster than a human can. A human will have to press 5szzzzzzzzz when with macros, you press a button on your mouse and all those keystrokes are sent almost instantly. When you see a pro play, you will see their screen constantly moving around, constantly pressing buttons, constantly watching their army. But with macros, anyone can replicate that with one button to macro, one button for larva/chronoboost/mule, and all they'll have to do is watch their army.
And if someone else is playing at 20 fps, the whole game will experience a bit of that lag. There's no distinct advantage/disadvantage there.
iirc, iCCup blocks this by blocking input from non-standard buttons, such as extra mouse buttons, media controls on the keyboard, etc.
On July 15 2010 02:53 Waphlez wrote: I think people really don't understand how limited macros really are. I have both a keyboard and mouse capable of creating macros however I only create 1:1 macros (macro keys that simply emulate another key on the keyboard) because complex macros really don't give you an advantage, and I'll explain why.
Macros are not scripts. They emulate a set of keystrokes in an iterative checklist when the button is pressed. There is no logic behind them. The can't build supply depots to prevent being supply blocked, they can't automatically macro an army when you lose units because the user still has to know when to pump up his army. They also aren't nearly as flexible as simply learning to press the buttons yourself. You might be able to set up a macro for a certain build your doing, but what if the situation changes? You're stuck with that same macro.
The big reason why macros aren't a problem is that the biggest part of good macro is simply remembering when to do stuff, and to not get distracted or to lose focus. Players with bad macro are so because they forget to build up production, they forget to put workers in gas, they forget to keep training units during a fight, etc. Do any of you honestly believe that a bronze player will have silver or gold level macro because he's combining keystrokes into one key? Or that because a player doesn't have to press a button down for 300 extra ms he suddenly will take on idrA or TLO?
Or what about the player who's playing at 60+ frames per second at 1920x1200 resoultion fighting against someone playing at 20 frames per second at 1024x748 resolution because he doesn't have the money for a better computer? Is that person with the good computer a cheater because he spent the time and money to put together a fast computer? No. That's because we know having a good computer does not equate to being a good player, and that advantage isn't consider cheating.
This is so much like the Widescreen vs Standard 4:3 aspect ratio debate back when widescreen aspect ratios started to make their way into gaming. Just the same with that debate, that a player with a widescreen doesn't make them a good shot, a player who uses macros does not make them pros. The slight advantage doesn't even come close to being cheating (though I do get a good chuckle when people here compare using a programmable mouse the same as map hacking).
Heres an example that would make every zerg player better. 1 mouse button press set to [hold shift] + v + backspace + leftclick + backspace + left click backspace + leftclick + backspace + left clickbackspace + leftclick + backspace + left click [release shift]
that macro would allow any zerg player to simply press his hotkey for queens and have his mouse in the middle of the screen and instantly injects all his larva.
I´d actually like these kinds of scripts to be a big presence. Blizzard would have to reevaluate their UI and Gamedesign if predetermined macros are a significant factor in competitive games. I mean if the above example is valid Blizzard would have to consider making Inject larvae autocast.
On July 15 2010 19:27 Unentschieden wrote: I´d actually like these kinds of scripts to be a big presence. Blizzard would have to reevaluate their UI and Gamedesign if predetermined macros are a significant factor in competitive games. I mean if the above example is valid Blizzard would have to consider making Inject larvae autocast.
Blizzard should reevaluate their UI/game design because of a form of doping? Ridiculous. I guess physical sports should do the same with doping/illegal equipment, right?
On July 15 2010 19:27 Unentschieden wrote: I´d actually like these kinds of scripts to be a big presence. Blizzard would have to reevaluate their UI and Gamedesign if predetermined macros are a significant factor in competitive games. I mean if the above example is valid Blizzard would have to consider making Inject larvae autocast.
Things like that can be done, although you'd have to insert a small delay between key strokes to account for latency. Idk about iCCup blocking non standard keys and if that will eliminate the problem.
For an experienced player, doing Mouse macros is simply worse than keyboard macros, since the letter is simply what they're used to. I dont consider this cheating what so ever.
I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
I would beg to differ. Just because some of the macro is taken away, by no means does it imply perfect micro. The skill ceiling and amount of apm needed for very good micro is very high, but you don't see it as much even in pro games(even though there is a lot more of it) because the value of your apm is better spent macroing.
Fact of the matter is the less attention you have to devote to macro the better your micro will become. Thats what I said. I did not say that micro will be perfected then, I said it will be easier. And "easier" is not good for a competitive game where you need a skill ceiling that allows people to get better and better almost indefinetly. SC2 needs less macro work than SCBW already, we must not have macros to dumb it down further.
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
I would beg to differ. Just because some of the macro is taken away, by no means does it imply perfect micro. The skill ceiling and amount of apm needed for very good micro is very high, but you don't see it as much even in pro games(even though there is a lot more of it) because the value of your apm is better spent macroing.
On July 15 2010 21:01 nyshak wrote: Fact of the matter is the less attention you have to devote to macro the better your micro will become. Thats what I said. I did not say that micro will be perfected then, I said it will be easier. And "easier" is not good for a competitive game where you need a skill ceiling that allows people to get better and better almost indefinetly. SC2 needs less macro work than SCBW already, we must not have macros to dumb it down further.
But you said the game would take less skill, and I was pointing out that the skill ceiling would still be very high. You even said it would go to infinity. So given limited APM, would you rather micro troops or macro buildings? I personally prefer micro my units. Macroing feels like I'm playing some dance dance revolution spin off, when i have to spam 4s5s6s7s(just an example) repeatedly.
"almost indefinetly" is what I wrote. Please read, then write.
As to your question: I think micro and macro are both fun. Zergs macro mechanic seems a bit more tedious than that of the other races but that is due people overlooking creep tumors. When to chronoboost, what to chronoboost, or the decision between a mule, a scan or some extra supply is interesting and fun to me. Its a part of the game that must not be automated.
Dude its just like macros on G15 - G18 it doesnt work well online since the server has to register 10 key buttons in less than sec and it often results in a short lag.
it's called botting. and these scripted events are not allowed by blizzard.. there are also blueposts as far as i know.
go and get detected by blizzard and bye bye account... and all your friends will see that Noobpwnr.653 will not come again online for a while due to cheating. it is obviously cheating.. if you want accept it or not.
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
I would beg to differ. Just because some of the macro is taken away, by no means does it imply perfect micro. The skill ceiling and amount of apm needed for very good micro is very high, but you don't see it as much even in pro games(even though there is a lot more of it) because the value of your apm is better spent macroing.
On July 15 2010 21:01 nyshak wrote: Fact of the matter is the less attention you have to devote to macro the better your micro will become. Thats what I said. I did not say that micro will be perfected then, I said it will be easier. And "easier" is not good for a competitive game where you need a skill ceiling that allows people to get better and better almost indefinetly. SC2 needs less macro work than SCBW already, we must not have macros to dumb it down further.
But you said the game would take less skill, and I was pointing out that the skill ceiling would still be very high. You even said it would go to infinity. So given limited APM, would you rather micro troops or macro buildings? I personally prefer micro my units. Macroing feels like I'm playing some dance dance revolution spin off, when i have to spam 4s5s6s7s(just an example) repeatedly.
On July 15 2010 21:19 nyshak wrote: "almost indefinetly" is what I wrote. Please read, then write.
As to your question: I think micro and macro are both fun. Zergs macro mechanic seems a bit more tedious than that of the other races but that is due people overlooking creep tumors. When to chronoboost, what to chronoboost, or the decision between a mule, a scan or some extra supply is interesting and fun to me. Its a part of the game that must not be automated.
Come on now..."almost indefinitely", "infinitely", splitting hairs? ok sorry, I was meaning to say you said "almost indefinitely".
And to respond, I would agree that the new macro mechanics like creep tumors, chronoboosting, and the orbital command center add new flavor to macroing, and I can address what I think about those in a sec. However, the topic at hand is macro, specifically what the opening post said, 1 click to = "5 s zzzzzzz" or "4 s zzzzzzzzz", not any of the new mechanics. I'm totally for taking as much of that out of macroing as possible. Arthritis...carpel tunnel syndrome...I can see myself with it in the future...
With regard to the new mechanics, I think it would be great if we could tell the creep tumor to place another creep tumor at position x after the 30 second cooldown(still requires the same apm), and just because you can automate the chronoboost to constantly use on probes or stalkers doesn't mean there's no decision making process involved. Maybe you don't want to constantly use it on one thing, you can change from building to building or choose to save up energy and use it on multiple buildings/tech.
I think blizzard will promote Macro's. Look at the special Steel series SC2 Keyboard. It has 9 buttons for Macro's with integrated Terran, Protoss and Zerg macro's. Dont believe me? the link!!
At some point everyone will get one of those... either keybord or mouse.... giving no one real advantage.
I'm not for it, but i'm not against it either. I'd just like to see the best possible games.... and if we can save X AMP by using programmed macros... so be it!
It is clearly hacking if you are using more hotkeys than the game offers.
PS: These mice are all garbage. They are just trying to cash in in children with rich parents. Furthermore, nobody is stopping them because they are endorsed by the sell-out pro-gamers. I hope that I get good enough to be popular, in which case my "thing" would be that I own people who use a $400 mouse with a $10 mouse. Win tournaments whos prize purse is worth less than the contestants keyboards/mouse set up, lol.
yes DeckTech that is what you think, but not blizzard. If you are allowed to use third-party app's then maphack is legal.. so what?
these macro's are not intended for the gameplay in starcraft.. if they were, you could modify your macros ingame and click this and that to cause producing zerglings with one click on all hatcheries or whatever... this isn't the case yet afaik? or is it?
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
I would beg to differ. Just because some of the macro is taken away, by no means does it imply perfect micro. The skill ceiling and amount of apm needed for very good micro is very high, but you don't see it as much even in pro games(even though there is a lot more of it) because the value of your apm is better spent macroing.
On July 15 2010 21:01 nyshak wrote: Fact of the matter is the less attention you have to devote to macro the better your micro will become. Thats what I said. I did not say that micro will be perfected then, I said it will be easier. And "easier" is not good for a competitive game where you need a skill ceiling that allows people to get better and better almost indefinetly. SC2 needs less macro work than SCBW already, we must not have macros to dumb it down further.
But you said the game would take less skill, and I was pointing out that the skill ceiling would still be very high. You even said it would go to infinity. So given limited APM, would you rather micro troops or macro buildings? I personally prefer micro my units. Macroing feels like I'm playing some dance dance revolution spin off, when i have to spam 4s5s6s7s(just an example) repeatedly.
On July 15 2010 21:19 nyshak wrote: "almost indefinetly" is what I wrote. Please read, then write.
As to your question: I think micro and macro are both fun. Zergs macro mechanic seems a bit more tedious than that of the other races but that is due people overlooking creep tumors. When to chronoboost, what to chronoboost, or the decision between a mule, a scan or some extra supply is interesting and fun to me. Its a part of the game that must not be automated.
Come on now..."almost indefinitely", "infinitely", splitting hairs? ok sorry, I was meaning to say you said "almost indefinitely".
And to respond, I would agree that the new macro mechanics like creep tumors, chronoboosting, and the orbital command center add new flavor to macroing, and I can address what I think about those in a sec. However, the topic at hand is macro, specifically what the opening post said, 1 click to = "5 s zzzzzzz" or "4 s zzzzzzzzz", not any of the new mechanics. I'm totally for taking as much of that out of macroing as possible. Arthritis...carpel tunnel syndrome...I can see myself with it in the future...
With regard to the new mechanics, I think it would be great if we could tell the creep tumor to place another creep tumor at position x after the 30 second cooldown(still requires the same apm), and just because you can automate the chronoboost to constantly use on probes or stalkers doesn't mean there's no decision making process involved. Maybe you don't want to constantly use it on one thing, you can change from building to building or choose to save up energy and use it on multiple buildings/tech.
Creep tumors can spawn additional tumors. Surely you know that? Spreading creep still is a macro part of zerg gameplay that every player should have to attend to manually. After all creep provides a substantial advantage to zerg.
I also believe that unless you take it to extrem levels, like some pros have to, and play for 12h a day you won't have much trouble with carpal tunnel. If you are afraid of that maybe you should play less?
The thing is that if you can use a macro for boring tasks like "5 s zzzzzzzzzzzz" (note: I don't think its boring, as unit production is an integral part of the game) you cannot argue that macros can be abused much much more. As a poster before me outlined: it would be possible to bind queen hatchery vomiting to one key for such a high number of queens/hatcheries that this mechanic would no longer require any skill. Remember the skill is not being able to do "55 v click 66 v click", the skill is in remembering to do so while fighting your opponent.
Interesting thread and defenitely a cheat if used properly. Afaik people got banned in WoW, is that right, as Blizzard will not tolerate 3rd party apps and such things this would be good. because this kind of play is not part of the mechanics, if they were, your maphack is also a part of it (and if they really were, you would find ingame settings just like in WoW). So enjoy cheating with your keyboard utilites. (btw. you don't even need a special keyboard or a mouse with such features, your very old Cherry from last millenium is still good enough for some crazy stuff)
@Defeat how do you know? So you must using them... aren't you? :>
It only depends on how well the user creates and uses them... probably there will come some more or less complex pre-made macro-scripts for everyone, who knows, but this does not help you if they don't fit to your 'work-flow'. You can do pretty nice stuff with macros, I am working with them in everyday use. I do not want to debauch you to use macros, at least not in Starcraft or other games, as I clearly stated, this is _pure cheating_ in games which benefit from them.
but it's your opinion...
@OPSavioR this is simply not true with the lag caused by excessive using of 'simple' macros... I don't know what lousy connection you are using... then probably you are right. Some kind of a 14.4kbit/s modem I guess?
--- a little joke, I wanted to check video compresion settings anyway: Babaaam! Go click a single EMERGENCY BUTTON for mass ZERGLINGS and create dozens of Zerglings out of 4 Hatcheries with just one keystroke.. nothing easier than that...
hehe. this is only as simple and as stupid as an example can be... (this is not even useful anyway, nothing compared to what is possible)
These sort of features wont be acceptable in tournaments (at least ours). I can't imagine that you will see a single top foreigner using these functions. That being said, they are pretty cool for casual joe blow .
The same thing can be done with autohotkey and other macroing programs. The only difference is that its on a mouse and it stores all the scripts within the mouse so it can be used anywhere.
Its as much cheating as using bunnyhop script in an FPS.
On July 16 2010 07:32 Kennigit wrote: These sort of features wont be acceptable in tournaments (at least ours). I can't imagine that you will see a single top foreigner using these functions. That being said, they are even pretty coolbad for casual joe blownoob .
Don't worry, I fixed it.
They are pretty bad for anyone. An advantage by hardware wont make you any more skilled. At a LAN people will LOL at you.. I've seen countless noobs saying "The razer naga is good for SC"..blows my mind T_T
On July 16 2010 07:44 [RB]Black wrote: blizz just needs to put graphs for apm. that way when you see an insane spike it gives you pretty good evidence.
Who has this mouse? and who actually likes it? I have it and i am going to get rid of it. I am deciding between a Xai and a Salmosa
Go with the Salmosa, the Xai is to expensive and with SC2 you won't take advantage of most of its features. Unless you plan to use macros of course
This thread is not about one mouse in particular by the way, there are numerous mice and keyboards with macros out there.
On July 16 2010 00:36 DeckTech wrote: I think blizzard will promote Macro's. Look at the special Steel series SC2 Keyboard. It has 9 buttons for Macro's with integrated Terran, Protoss and Zerg macro's. Dont believe me? the link!!
On July 15 2010 20:35 themeDusk wrote: I've always wanted more macro options from blizzard. Like the ability to auto build at a production facility. For example, when activated will always produce a certain unit if Ive got the supply and money. Come to think of it, I've never tried to left click a unit in the buildings, but I doubt it exists. All the cool stuff is in the micro and strategies. I'm always thinking, there's so much more I can do with my units, but I have to spend time and apm building/teching/upgrading/expanding(part of the game of course). Out of the game macro options might bring the game to a higher level.
If you take out the need to properly devote time and actions to macro everyone will micro better. The game will be worse because it will take less skill.
I would beg to differ. Just because some of the macro is taken away, by no means does it imply perfect micro. The skill ceiling and amount of apm needed for very good micro is very high, but you don't see it as much even in pro games(even though there is a lot more of it) because the value of your apm is better spent macroing.
On July 15 2010 21:01 nyshak wrote: Fact of the matter is the less attention you have to devote to macro the better your micro will become. Thats what I said. I did not say that micro will be perfected then, I said it will be easier. And "easier" is not good for a competitive game where you need a skill ceiling that allows people to get better and better almost indefinetly. SC2 needs less macro work than SCBW already, we must not have macros to dumb it down further.
But you said the game would take less skill, and I was pointing out that the skill ceiling would still be very high. You even said it would go to infinity. So given limited APM, would you rather micro troops or macro buildings? I personally prefer micro my units. Macroing feels like I'm playing some dance dance revolution spin off, when i have to spam 4s5s6s7s(just an example) repeatedly.
On July 15 2010 21:19 nyshak wrote: "almost indefinetly" is what I wrote. Please read, then write.
As to your question: I think micro and macro are both fun. Zergs macro mechanic seems a bit more tedious than that of the other races but that is due people overlooking creep tumors. When to chronoboost, what to chronoboost, or the decision between a mule, a scan or some extra supply is interesting and fun to me. Its a part of the game that must not be automated.
Come on now..."almost indefinitely", "infinitely", splitting hairs? ok sorry, I was meaning to say you said "almost indefinitely".
And to respond, I would agree that the new macro mechanics like creep tumors, chronoboosting, and the orbital command center add new flavor to macroing, and I can address what I think about those in a sec. However, the topic at hand is macro, specifically what the opening post said, 1 click to = "5 s zzzzzzz" or "4 s zzzzzzzzz", not any of the new mechanics. I'm totally for taking as much of that out of macroing as possible. Arthritis...carpel tunnel syndrome...I can see myself with it in the future...
With regard to the new mechanics, I think it would be great if we could tell the creep tumor to place another creep tumor at position x after the 30 second cooldown(still requires the same apm), and just because you can automate the chronoboost to constantly use on probes or stalkers doesn't mean there's no decision making process involved. Maybe you don't want to constantly use it on one thing, you can change from building to building or choose to save up energy and use it on multiple buildings/tech.
Creep tumors can spawn additional tumors. Surely you know that? Spreading creep still is a macro part of zerg gameplay that every player should have to attend to manually. After all creep provides a substantial advantage to zerg.
I also believe that unless you take it to extrem levels, like some pros have to, and play for 12h a day you won't have much trouble with carpal tunnel. If you are afraid of that maybe you should play less?
The thing is that if you can use a macro for boring tasks like "5 s zzzzzzzzzzzz" (note: I don't think its boring, as unit production is an integral part of the game) you cannot argue that macros can be abused much much more. As a poster before me outlined: it would be possible to bind queen hatchery vomiting to one key for such a high number of queens/hatcheries that this mechanic would no longer require any skill. Remember the skill is not being able to do "55 v click 66 v click", the skill is in remembering to do so while fighting your opponent.
Yes, I know creep tumors can spread another tumor. I was trying to say how it can be more automated.
That's what I'm trying to address. The game at the higher levels of play. The thing is, in order to "remember" to do it while in battle, pro gamers spam the living hell out of their keyboards(although I don't think having to remember to build stuff is too related to the skill of this game, that's more like how not distracted you can be. In fact, I'd even argue that it's more skill related to do the "55 v click 66 v click" without looking at their keyboard and as fast as they do since they've practiced it in order to obtain the skill). Have you seen them play? Starcraft 2 was designed to be at the cornerstone of pro gaming, and I think it can be a great strategy game without totally ruining the hands of pro gamers. Don't you care about the pro gamers? Using all of these 3rd party macro help will assist with keeping the hands of pro gamers healthier and increase the amount of microing. I'm all for doing the queen hatchery vomiting in one click. I love SC2 the way it is; I just like micro more than macro, especially when spectating games. During battles, I definitely watch the fight, not the base. And I oooh over units being pulled out of battle and sent back in with little health, when units are picked up/dropped off in shuttles/dropships to prevent taking damage while dealing damage, when 4 unit surrounds occur(intentionally), the manual spread out of units to reduce splash dmg, when multiple battles/drops are taking place all over the map, the sweet maneuvering of air units, and so much more. I don't go oooh look he built tanks or marines at his base during a battle(i know it's part of the game). Same goes when I play the game. I take pride in the micro I do, not the macro(since I have no troubles being focused at macroing during a battle).
I think the problem is not that, oh you can do it insanely faster than him, but that you can do it insanely faster than him, while he can never do it as fast unless he wants to spend that money as well. There is no way he can even approach that speed, even with years of practice unless he spends that money. This is a skill game, not a money game. Sure you should get returns from your money, but not from a strategy game like Starcraft.
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