Guild Wars 2

Greetings all,

I have noticed in several sPvP matches that I sometimes get into combat with people who are obviously using macros and/or keyboard/mouse programs. As I just have an ordinary keyboard and mouse, I was wondering if there was any way (within the Terms of Service) to somehow level the playing field against such players?

I know I have room to improve on my muscle memory, especially since I just re-arranged my keys to help my playing a bit. But even with that I do not think I would be able to compete with someone who can unload all of their skills on me from a program or programmed device. Am I just doomed to be on the losing side of such technology?

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

how do u know they are using macros?

yeah how do u know im using a macro ??

Well it’s supposed to be against the ToS to use macros. I believe the GM’s have stated that they consider macroing the same as botting, so you can report them if you want. But it’s not likely that they will get banned imo.

Practicing combos with a few really good hotkeys (eg side mouse buttons) really helps you improve.

You’ll also be slightly more flexible and pulling it off makes you feel better

I would love to know how you figured out that they’re using a macro. Have you considered that they might just be better than you?

Besides that double shatter combo which was fixed months ago I can’t think of anything that would gain much from a macro. Lots of skills have casts times in gw(many are short). Do you have an example of people doing something too quick to be actual key presses?

Wow, so many more responses than I expected. Let’s see…

@Deimos Tel Arin and the rest who want to know how I know some people are using macros, I would have to reply that I don’t actually know people are using macros. I am making an educated guess, but I have been playing MMORPGs long enough to know the difference between “human” reflexes and actions, and “machine” reflexes and actions. I have played PvP in almost every MMORPG that I have played and stayed with Dark Age of Camelot the longest simply because of its PvP game. When playing that game, I never actually knew when people were using mapping programs to determine my position, but I could easily make an educated guess when I could break line of sight and loose my opponent only to have him/her zone in on exactly where I was moments later with nothing visual to guide them. Sure, I guess they could have just gotten lucky or gotten a hunch. But when it keeps happening time and time again, you begin to suspect something.

We used to have a saying in the Navy, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.”

By that standard, when an opponent can consistently unload multiple skills on you in mere fractions of a second, he/she can either be part cyborg, or they are using some sort of assistance. Whether that be a macro, or some programmed button or programmable keyboard/mouse, I do not know. I am not after their secrets, just after some means to actually make the playing field a bit less askew.

@Zodian, I have thought about reporting them, but with the advancements in gaming keyboards and mice, any programmable key or macroed key would be indistinguishable on the server side from a user actually pressing the keys manually, with the possible exception of looking at the time it takes. Even then, the player could just make the claim that they are just “that good” and can actually press keys and mouse buttons with the same speed and rapidity that a program or macro can. Heck, I own an Razer Anansi gaming keyboard that is quite capable of having its buttons programmed, so I know the technology is out there.

@Rallad, yeah I definitely will need more practice, there is no doubt about that. I recently moved several of my keybinds to make them more accessible and am struggling with old muscle memory of where they used to be. I will keep trying, but I know that no matter how good I get, I will never be able to actually pull off combos as fast as a program or macro can. I am only human after all.

Thanks again for all the responses!

what specific situation happened that made you think there was a macro involved

edit: it’s completely likely that some players use macros, but it strikes me that “activating buttons quickly” is not a sign of it. anyone can activate their skills at the maximum speed the game allows with skill queueing, it’s only a matter of muscle memory and experience. did you expect players to spend several seconds considering every action?

milo.6942:

what specific situation happened that made you think there was a macro involved

edit: it’s completely likely that some players use macros, but it strikes me that “activating buttons quickly” is not a sign of it. anyone can activate their skills at the maximum speed the game allows with skill queueing, it’s only a matter of muscle memory and experience. did you expect players to spend several seconds considering every action?

Mesmers still macro.

It’s easy to set a macro for diversion+mind wrack and it’s easy to be shattered for 3.5k+ per shatter.

You can easily see it since you’ll usually be followed by 6 clones ( LOL).

Altough, i think it’s totally legit, diversion is kinda like one of the best ways to stop thieves from crushing you: the trade off is fair.

i thought i read patch month or 3 ago that fixed that bug

milo.6942:

i thought i read patch month or 3 ago that fixed that bug

Global cd won’t fix this issue.

They simply made it HARDER so you need to be at a little range before shattering, in order to wait for the GCD to expire , than shatter again after using decoy+mirror image or dodge+ mirror image.

Your shattering illusions won’t be canceled by the newly casted ones and you’ll have 6 shattering clones ( diversion+mind wrack) chasing you.

It’s used to mind wrack with 25 stacks of vulnerability, in order to do max damage.

I think it’s totally legit since the system allows it.

Fair ? that’s another story, personally i have no problems against mesmers.

Without any doubt some thieves and mesmers use these macros, this is something that happen rarely and only with very high rank players ( r40+).

Arheundel.6451:

Without any doubt some thieves and mesmers use these macros, this is something that happen rarely and only with very high rank players ( r40+).

Thieves don’t need to macro, D/P burst combo is extremely easy to do even without macroing.

Macroing is such a rarity in this game that I don’t know if this even warrants discussion. Even the double shatter isn’t that hard to execute with a little practice, so I don’t see it as an issue.

Is it technically cheating? I suppose. Are they really gaining an unreasonable advantage from it? I don’t think so. It is just kinda sad.

I think I may have a hint on why some people think that others use macros, or hacks. Mainly it is because of the instant skills, those that do not interrupt the casting time of other skills.

For example, a dual dagger thief can press 5 (the attack that makes it invisible after hitting) from a long distance, and then press F1 to teleport to the target. Since F1 is an instant skill, it will not interrupt the skill 5 from the daggers, so it will teleport, and inmediatly finish the attack and become stealthed.

This may look like the thief was using something to speed up his attack, but it is simply that the attack started way before the thief was even close to you.

Also, rather than positive, macroing should have a negative impact in sPvP, since you need to adapt and change all the time. And even if you have a combo that you can convert into a macro, you still need to wait for each skill to finish, before using a new one, and this can be one perfectly fine with your own hands.

The only thing that I can think off that may be seen as a macro, is those thiefs that go 2222222222 in circles around the map. You can even watch a film while doing that LOL

i only macro skill 1.

KK, thanks again for all the replies

I have recently discovered from doing some reading and discussing this issue with others that the macros and programs are not the issue I thought they were. While I am convinced it still goes on, it has come to my attention that the biggest issue I am facing is that I play from New Zealand. I was unaware that our latency would have such an effect on the game as Arenanet had stated several times that the reason they had limited interrupts in Guild Wars 2 (as compared to the prevalence of them in Guild Wars) was that they wanted to make PvP combat viable for people with higher latencies and the interrupt system in Guild Wars favored those with very low latencies.

From what I have read and experienced though, this is not the case and the issues I am seeing most likely stem from my network latency. Many players I have spoken with from New Zealand and Australia have commented that they often get “insta-gibbed” or near-“insta-gibbed” as by the time the server acknowledges their input, the fight is over. For melee characters, I was told this will make most of PvP an uphill fight at best.

So, while macros are out there, they are not the issue that I thought they were. The primary issues are twitch combat mechanics and an inevitable network delay due to my physical location from the servers. I knew I had a higher latency, but had thought Arenanet was going to take that into consideration when programming the game from what I had read of their design philosophy. I was wrong.

My bad. Thanks again for all the replies though. I appreciate everyone’s input.

Thanks.

Welcome to Australia side of the world. I live in Aus, and sometimes, I see my teammates down for no reason. Like this, there are two teammates in front of you, the sight is clear and the sky is nice, the weather is akittens best, then ..5s later both of my teammates down in front of my eyes….boom, 1s later, I am the next victim…

If you’re used to a class let’s say thief or mesmer (The ones who usually go for macros) you can definately presume if someone is macroing or not…not everytime for sure but i can say a good 70% of the times…many good players play “as on macros” but you usually know them if you live in pvp…but a r20 bursting faster and better than a r50 playing that for ages? Don’t think so…i would say maybe, but more often it’s just a macro, and you can say that also looking at their combo…sometimes ppl with macros spam unuseful skills for that situation just because they put those into the chain and can’t cancel them…a mesmer with an awesome burst already wasted his shatter combo vs invulnerability and still goes bf? That smells of macro to me….just an example…just add a macro report option and it’s up to anet looking at time between skills, if it’s always the same with the same combo…well, it’s pretty clear what’s going on..and then ban for botting like there’s no tomorrow, because no matter what ppl say…macros are bots, 1 key 1 action…when your pc plays for you, unless you’re a ranger lol, it’s called botting…and deserves a ban..sure you can’t be 100% sure…sometimes i thought someone was macroing and after some time, looking better at him, i realized he definately wasn’t…aswell as many ppl sometimes ask me if i’m using macros on mesmer, but at the end of the day after a delay calculation on server side if’s you’re clean you’ve nothing to fear…if not…say goodbye to your account cause you totally deserved it..anyway for now, keep reporting suspected (You’ve to be pretty sure btw) macros for botting…better than nothing…

Archaon.6245:

If you’re used to a class let’s say thief or mesmer (The ones who usually go for macros) you can definately presume if someone is macroing or not…not everytime for sure but i can say a good 70% of the times…many good players play “as on macros” but you usually know them if you live in pvp…but a r20 bursting faster and better than a r50 playing that for ages? Don’t think so…i would say maybe, but more often it’s just a macro, and you can say that also looking at their combo…sometimes ppl with macros spam unuseful skills for that situation just because they put those into the chain and can’t cancel them…a mesmer with an awesome burst already wasted his shatter combo vs invulnerability and still goes bf? That smells of macro to me….just an example…just add a macro report option and it’s up to anet looking at time between skills, if it’s always the same with the same combo…well, it’s pretty clear what’s going on..and then ban for botting like there’s no tomorrow, because no matter what ppl say…macros are bots, 1 key 1 action…when your pc plays for you, unless you’re a ranger lol, it’s called botting…and deserves a ban..sure you can’t be 100% sure…sometimes i thought someone was macroing and after some time, looking better at him, i realized he definately wasn’t…aswell as many ppl sometimes ask me if i’m using macros on mesmer, but at the end of the day after a delay calculation on server side if’s you’re clean you’ve nothing to fear…if not…say goodbye to your account cause you totally deserved it..anyway for now, keep reporting suspected (You’ve to be pretty sure btw) macros for botting…better than nothing…

ok,
maybe it’s me that’s not understanding. do you click your skills with your mouse? is that the problem? did you know that macros can’t make you activate skills any faster than a person could? if you queue a skill after another it will activate directly after, at “maximum speed”. i imagine if you mouse click your skills then your perception of how “fast” skills should activate one after another might be very distorted. or maybe i’m just really out of the loop here.

milo.6942:

Archaon.6245:

If you’re used to a class let’s say thief or mesmer (The ones who usually go for macros) you can definately presume if someone is macroing or not…not everytime for sure but i can say a good 70% of the times…many good players play “as on macros” but you usually know them if you live in pvp…but a r20 bursting faster and better than a r50 playing that for ages? Don’t think so…i would say maybe, but more often it’s just a macro, and you can say that also looking at their combo…sometimes ppl with macros spam unuseful skills for that situation just because they put those into the chain and can’t cancel them…a mesmer with an awesome burst already wasted his shatter combo vs invulnerability and still goes bf? That smells of macro to me….just an example…just add a macro report option and it’s up to anet looking at time between skills, if it’s always the same with the same combo…well, it’s pretty clear what’s going on..and then ban for botting like there’s no tomorrow, because no matter what ppl say…macros are bots, 1 key 1 action…when your pc plays for you, unless you’re a ranger lol, it’s called botting…and deserves a ban..sure you can’t be 100% sure…sometimes i thought someone was macroing and after some time, looking better at him, i realized he definately wasn’t…aswell as many ppl sometimes ask me if i’m using macros on mesmer, but at the end of the day after a delay calculation on server side if’s you’re clean you’ve nothing to fear…if not…say goodbye to your account cause you totally deserved it..anyway for now, keep reporting suspected (You’ve to be pretty sure btw) macros for botting…better than nothing…

ok,
maybe it’s me that’s not understanding. do you click your skills with your mouse? is that the problem? did you know that macros can’t make you activate skills any faster than a person could? if you queue a skill after another it will activate directly after, at “maximum speed”. i imagine if you mouse click your skills then your perception of how “fast” skills should activate one after another might be very distorted. or maybe i’m just really out of the loop here.

There’s nothing about perception…looking at delay time between skills is the most accurate way to go, no chance you can activate all your skills during combos with the same time between keys (Talking about millisecs) EVERY time, and you can easily log this time on server side…you can’t que up more than one and it won’t fool keypress delay log anyway….someone spamming combos pressing keys always with the same delay between each other is using macros, you can be as fast as you want…as precise as you want…but not in a milliseconds order, only a bot can…and then…game over. And btw i use a gxt 25 (Cheap and really nice imo) with 7 keys so yes…e definately click many skills with mouse…lol

• press skill 1
• press skill 2 before skill 1 is done — skill 2 is queued
• skill 2 comes out of queue & activates,
• press skill 3 before skill 2 is done

there u have 3 skills that take .5 seconds activation time working at “max” speed that any normal person familiar with the skill chain could do. where’s the macro?

well, here are your 2 problems then:

Archaon.6245:

you can’t que up more than one

yes you can. you can activate 1 skill and activate a 2nd that will queue and activate right after the 1st, and you can chain this so you always queue a skill as the previous one is activating.

Archaon.6245:

yes…e definately click many skills with mouse…lol

try with keyboard man, srsly

There’s a current popular Mesmer burst combo where several skills all happen within a split second.

With a clone and Phantasmal Warden already up then something like~
Temporal Curtain > Into the Void > Mind Wrack > Cry of Frustration > Illusionary Leap > Swap > Blurred Frenzy. Possibly Mirror Images too.

All of those skills happening together whether you are the victim or spectating, massive AoE damage that pulls in several targets and all hits together.

Either a macro or just several hotkeys together on the side of the mouse that all get squashed at the same time with a big thumb.

It does seem like far too much happens at the same time really.

@Ezrael
the only thing that looks strange is mind wrack + cry of frustration. i don’t know enough about it since i don’t play mesmer, but that is the only section of the chain that is questionable. the rest is easy to see that a person with a week of practice could do it.
i’m really getting the strong impression that people who mouse click their skills are the only ones that think macros are everywhere. i used to do a more complicated combo in gw1 regularly (thou it took long time to master it, was a/p dagger + spear attacks). use keyboard ppl, 4 srs.

lol do you realy need macros in a game with 10\15 skills to the fullest? \facepalm

milo.6942:

• press skill 1
• press skill 2 before skill 1 is done — skill 2 is queued
• skill 2 comes out of queue & activates,
• press skill 3 before skill 2 is done

there u have 3 skills that take .5 seconds activation time working at “max” speed that any normal person familiar with the skill chain could do. where’s the macro?

And again…you can log key presses not actual skill activation…and you’re not going to press you keys at the same millisecond everytime unless you’re using a bot aka macro…should i repeat this for the third time? Try to read and understand stuff before commenting maybe…

milo.6942:

well, here are your 2 problems then:

Archaon.6245:

you can’t que up more than one

yes you can. you can activate 1 skill and activate a 2nd that will queue and activate right after the 1st, and you can chain this so you always queue a skill as the previous one is activating.

Archaon.6245:

yes…e definately click many skills with mouse…lol

try with keyboard man, srsly

Basing on your rank/stats i’ll stick to my usual binds…but thank you anyway lol

Kolly.9872:

lol do you realy need macros in a game with 10\15 skills to the fullest? \facepalm

Well apparently someone actually does…bads for sure, but there are many around..

Archaon.6245:

milo.6942:

• press skill 1
• press skill 2 before skill 1 is done — skill 2 is queued
• skill 2 comes out of queue & activates,
• press skill 3 before skill 2 is done

there u have 3 skills that take .5 seconds activation time working at “max” speed that any normal person familiar with the skill chain could do. where’s the macro?

And again…you can log key presses not actual skill activation…and you’re not going to press you keys at the same millisecond everytime unless you’re using a bot aka macro…should i repeat this for the third time?

this is a great solution. im glad u r pro r50 that think things through. there is no way any1 could ever make macro that activates at random millisecond. anet hire this pro r50.

milo.6942:

Archaon.6245:

milo.6942:

• press skill 1
• press skill 2 before skill 1 is done — skill 2 is queued
• skill 2 comes out of queue & activates,
• press skill 3 before skill 2 is done

there u have 3 skills that take .5 seconds activation time working at “max” speed that any normal person familiar with the skill chain could do. where’s the macro?

And again…you can log key presses not actual skill activation…and you’re not going to press you keys at the same millisecond everytime unless you’re using a bot aka macro…should i repeat this for the third time?

this is a great solution. im glad u r pro r50 that think things through. there is no way any1 could ever make macro that activates at random millisecond. anet hire this pro r50.

Not pro for sure, but probably don’t need your advice on how to press keys too xD Btw 90% of the ppl use normal hadware programs for macro (The stuff you get with your mouse/keyboard) and they’re not able to implement a random activation range, so it would be a nice start…sorry if you want to believe macros (And maybe yours too? Am i wrong?) are undetectable…no…they aren’t, actual problem is that anet gives a kitten about pvp but with just a bit of brains it can be easily done..chinese morpg’s game guard already scans for third party programs/scripts running outside client, if chinese low cost games can do that i don’t see any problem with gw2..

it’s only a war of escalation, and for what? any macro they could reliably detect would be braindead mouse ones like you use that don’t really give any advantage. as if activating skill quickly in sequence was really something devs should spend time to protect against. get real kid. the longer the chain, the more it seems as if macro was good idea, but in reality the less control you have.

milo.6942:

it’s only a war of escalation, and for what? any macro they could reliably detect would be braindead mouse ones like you use that don’t really give any advantage. as if activating skill quickly in sequence was really something devs should spend time to protect against. get real kid. the longer the chain, the more it seems as if macro was good idea, but in reality the less control you have.

As i said start permabanning for botting those who use simple programs to achieve that, just to give an example (And many tryhards would stop just after that)…then keep improving detection system, as every single game does to deal with cheaters…we don’t even have a “cheating” option in the report menu atm lol and everyone knows there are many who run orbs or just roam with speedhacks and stuff…the only one not giving a kitten is anet i think, and someone (Like you) already try to defend those too…esports? My kitten …so yeah keep talking….kid…and really don’t give a kitten if you have less control, just permaban them…just to be sure and fair with ppl who play clean and don’t let their pc play for them..if macros, as you’re saying, are not so good then after some account terminations would be not such a good deal to mess around with them anymore…

It seems like a lot of people like to defend macros. Others mmos (WoW, Rift, etc) have a built in scripting engine so you can code your own macros and can create casting sequences of a large number of skills. Those games are balanced around the macro system.

In GW2 no such thing exists, so yes, lots of folks defend hardware macros that are available on mice/keyboards since they are so used to having them in other mmos. GW2 is NOT balanced around having macros, and the devs have said that in pro tournaments down the line, all of the hardware will be standardized and there will be no macros.

Also, to clarify: With a low-end gaming mouse and keyboard (e.g. Coolermaster budget stuff) you can:

1) Make automated macros of any sequence of button presses that can be activated with a single button press (e.g. shatter combo)

2) Insert custom delay between macro’d button presses (to deal with any global cooldown on skills)

3)Insert a small randomized delay between skill activations to simulate “human-like behaviour”. This makes the macro use almost impossible to distinguish from skilled human behaviour.

Regarding how to combat macros, the solution is simple: Crowd control/stun or stealth. Anyone that has ever used macros knows that a well-placed interrupt will break macro’d skill chain and ruin the combos.

If you interrupt the macro mid-way, it won’t reset until the chain is finished and will throw the player off balance, allowing you to murder them if they are so unskilled that they need macros to win.

let’s recap

• some people use macros
• this shouldn’t happen
• however, macros are difficult to detect
  • players can’t really tell if another player is using them
    • anyone can queue skills fast enough with practice
    • if you click your skills, you are handicapping yourself
  • anet can’t really detect macros
    • they could probably detect simple ones, and it’s up to them if they want to
    • they cannot reasonably detect any macro system that uses random activation time
• macros don’t give any significant advantage that any normal player couldn’t duplicate with some practice.
• i want to repeat: macros are for nubs, and they shouldn’t be allowed.

milo.6942:

• macros don’t give any significant advantage that any normal player couldn’t duplicate with some practice.

They actually give an advantage…letting noobs to perform good combos (If they hit) that they probably wouldn’t be able to put out without messing up…that’s why most macro users are low ranks…1 key instead of 5-6 (Talkin’ about mesmer) is indeed a huge advantage..expec with istant cast skills where how fast you are makes the difference, and i bet many out there would be really slower without macros..and i mean…MANY…