Guild Wars 2

today in wvw , a theif rush me once , and 80% of my 20k Health are gone ,
then I check my combat log , I notice muti skills are being use
so people with macro keyboard or mouse can just push 1 key and spam skills ?

Multi action macro is not allowed. We need more details on the attack to give an opinion on what happened though.

i guess we found a skill clicker that cannot imagine how you can use more than 1 skill per second.
l2 keybind and you can do this magic too.

Pay for the expansion and it will play the game for you. No need to counter or cast anything enemies just fall at your feet.

Macros are allowed if they only do one thing, like a keybind, which in itself means macros are not allowed, but they are. Get it?

Short answer: No. With keybinds or a multi button mouse that player can hit so many buttons it just seems like a macro.

I’ll bet that this thief dodged in, hit you with a dagger, and bam, you got hit with whatever their dodge procs at the end, some condis from skills and traits, and some other bits and pieces, putting lots of different skill damage records on you, because each one is unique in the combat log.

…or something very similar to that. You definitely don’t need to have more than 1APS to deliver way more than 1 source of damage. Not that, y’know, it hurts (the thief) to hit moar buttonz.

this probably what happend he drop black powder > he threw impairing dagger at you > hit dodge > hit steal give him mug + intrup for more dmg if traited > bound hit from dodge > backstab.

so really he push 3 buttens but you got hit 3 from impair dagger > 1 from dodge > 2 from steal 1 from backstab 9 hit looks instant.

The combat log is about as trustworthy as a rich politician. Far more likely the attacker was just fast. I type just over 120 words per minute with decent accuracy and about 80 wpm being careful which translates into a lot of input per second on an MMO.

Straegen.2938:

The combat log is about as trustworthy as a rich politician. Far more likely the attacker was just fast. I type just over 120 words per minute with decent accuracy and about 80 wpm being careful which translates into a lot of input per second on an MMO.

The one benefit from being in school when they used to cover your hands so you couldnt look down and smack you with a ruler if you tried to peek. I learned to play games better because of that typing crap.

Olli.9028:

i guess we found a skill clicker that cannot imagine how you can use more than 1 skill per second.
l2 keybind and you can do this magic too.

nope after he rush me i dodge out , roll back into tower , notice 20k health , down to 8k theif skill 2 5 5 2 2 7 9 all at once was hit on me after 2 landed on me i roll back into the tower
and check the combat log , 7 skills was spam onto me with 1 rush

Keviin Snow.5760:

Olli.9028:

i guess we found a skill clicker that cannot imagine how you can use more than 1 skill per second.
l2 keybind and you can do this magic too.

nope after he rush me i dodge out , roll back into tower , notice 20k health , down to 8k theif skill 2 5 5 2 2 7 9 all at once was hit on me after 2 landed on me i roll back into the tower
and check the combat log , 7 skills was spam onto me with 1 rush

I think we’d believe you more if you had a screenshot of it.

Some people do use macros, but without a screenshot, you have no proof. We just have your word to go off of it. And considering how bad the majority of people in this game are, and their terrible reaction speed, its not really believable without proof anyway. I’ve had people rage whisper me after i’ve bursted them down saying I use macros, which I don’t. You can do multiple actions in a split second if you’re fast and have good keybinds.

Could be a difference in latency as well. I play with a min of 250 ping, but more commonly 350. If an experienced thief with 50-100 ping jumps me, then yeah it could look to me as if i just got bursted like crazy in no time at all.

Nikkinella.8254:

Some people do use macros, but without a screenshot, you have no proof. We just have your word to go off of it. And considering how bad the majority of people in this game are, and their terrible reaction speed, its not really believable without proof anyway. I’ve had people rage whisper me after i’ve bursted them down saying I use macros, which I don’t. You can do multiple actions in a split second if you’re fast and have good keybinds.

Screen shots can be difficult because of the speed in which the situation happens.Best thing is if you have a video recording of the suspect using a capture like Shadow Play.But many people don’t have or know how to set up such programs.In most cases its best just report the situation immediately at the time its happening or as soon as possible and let ANet look at it.I’m sure they have logs of some sort they can look at or watch a person if enough reports are made from others.Regardless whether or not its a legitimate ,if it looks to perfect or suspicious ,just report it.
Unfortunately no one really knows how seriously these reports are taken because no data is revealed to the public. How many people are caught and banned? How serious are vulnerabilities to the game taken?What security measures are taken to block third party programs from gaining access to the client or dat file? What monitoring is being done?
Theirs no shame in admitting that something is wrong and that showing that action is being taken to correct the problems .But keeping quiet ,hiding and not proving that action is taken is shameful. Especially when people are seeing the same "cheats’ being used for the past 4 years.
I can understand we would all like to play a non policed game with a basis of trust in others to conduct themselves with maturity and “fair play”. But this just isn’t realistic. Some people don’t believe in “fair play”. They will use such excuses like “improving their gaming experience” to justify the use of macros/macro bots ,hacks ,exploits ,spying ,sabotage or other unscrupulous actions to bolster their own egos when in fact they are just really lousy players. I can imagine a psychoanalysis of these people in real real life would be very scary to even a hardened expert.

To give an official answer: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros/first#post1532762

Guild Wars 2 players are permitted to use macros as long as the macros are programmed with a 1 key for 1 function protocol.

This means that if you program a macro, it must require one keystroke per action. You may not program a single key to perform multiple functions.
For example, if you Press A and it results in the casting of a single skill, you’re ok. If you Press A and it casts multiple spells, you’re not ok.
You cannot program a macro to perform the same or multiple actions on more than one account at a time.
You cannot program an “auto-clicker” macro that, for instance, opens chests while you play elsewhere.
NOTE: We make an exception for music composition or performance macros. As long as they are used solely for the performance of in-game music, they may be used without the restrictions above.

So if you have like a mouse with a lot of buttons, it’s fine as long as each button only does 1 thing. If you push a single button and your character performs multiple actions at once, it’s not allowed.

As always, if you think someone is in violation of the rules, such as using macros to perform multiple actions with 1 key/button press, report them for botting.

I mean, I’m all for reporting people for using hacks and stuff, but anyone who is at least halfway decent at this game knows that a macro can only make you play worse. If I actually encountered people that used macros I’d be overjoyed!

NO macros are NOT ALLOWED. A.Net’s policy is one skill one button.

Even if he had macros, it really wouldn’t make much difference. Macro doesn’t allow you to use together skills that couldn’t be used together by regular button-pressing at the same time.
It just reduces number of buttons you gotta press at the same time. And for a skilled player pressing 3-4 buttons at the same time or in fast sequence really isn’t problem.

I have a logitech G13 keyboard and G602 mouse. I can tell you by my personal experience this game isn’t macro friendly and gives no advantage beside siege the upper hand in battle. The only thing that gives people the upper hand in battle is by buying gaming hardware and having forethought that gives more buttons closer to all of your finger tip needs. And that my friends is allowed. I don’t need macros but that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried and tried I have on every class in the game and found no I mean NO benefit in doing so. I would like to point out that I have all ascended gear for all classes for the purpose of WVW competitive play. I eat sleep and make brown goo with strategic thinking obsessive compulsively. for sixteen years. and I have a extensive background of mmorpg competitive WVW play or what we used to all call it RVR realm vs realm in DAoC and other games. I was the top scout on the leaderboards in the biggest server of DAoC for years. So I hope I’ve convinced you that my word has a bet more weight behind it then most of what you read here.

Now the real problem at hand that needs to be addressed is multiboxing. This is a problem because this is where macro’s really come in to play for an unfair advantage. Let me elaborate. Say you have a person that is running two accounts in WVW. What commonly acres is that one of the accounts is situated in a fortification in relative safety ether for observation purposes or left macro’ed to siege attacking another fortification. While the primary account is off associating itself in death and destruction in short plain fun. Their are more problematic macro abuse with multiboxing then individual advantage. I say again what I first said in the beginning of my post “This game isn’t macro friendly”. What I mean by that is Anet has done a really good job at designing the individual combat system to not work well with macro-ling. If you disagree…. I ask you to explain in detail what skills that are being macro’ed together that is giving this unfair advantage. So I may debunk the excuses why you lose you’re fights.

I usually click report those (enemy) guys who spam Emoticon 10-20 times in 0.5 sec

if u dont get cought its legal, :} alot of of players use it, still if u get cough and reported wont happen nothing to u.

I used to punish with ratalition on macro users (those dd eles macroers) still Anet reduced the low rataliation value to a very low damage…. and now i cant counter them GG.

Your only real issue is the fact thiefs can spam 3-6 skills in a micro second without any casting delay or cast time (because of ‘initiative’, a terrible idea) so it looks like they are using a macro (they could be, but there is no real way to tell).

With practice you can train a monkey to spam skills that fast. There’s no real skill in pressing pre set keys where there is no delay and little chance of being interupted due to root.

Is it good game design? No.

Is it easy to set up on a keyboard? Very.

It’s easiest on thiefs due to no cast delays/cast time on a lot of skills and the fact they can spam a set of skills almost instantly.

DemonSeed.3528:

Multi action macro is not allowed. We need more details on the attack to give an opinion on what happened though.

While technically it is not allowed, it can not be stopped either.

Vast majority of driver suites for mice and keyboards come with macro and hot key functionality.

Also, even if yours is so incredibly outdated that it doesnt have these functions, you can still do it via Windows input set up, character map, etc.

Guild Wars 2 is a Windows platform game, and in order for macros to be completely eliminated, A-Net would have to ban and force people to uninstall their input device drivers and parts of the operating system on which the game runs. Neither of these will happen.

Can you imagine how many players there would be left in GW2 if they banned people that have windows functions installed ? I’m willing to bet that even you do, but you just are not aware of it because its not something you use, but it is there ready for you to be used if or when you so desire.

Tongku.5326:

DemonSeed.3528:

Multi action macro is not allowed. We need more details on the attack to give an opinion on what happened though.

While technically it is not allowed, it can not be stopped either.

Vast majority of driver suites for mice and keyboards come with macro and hot key functionality.

Also, even if yours is so incredibly outdated that it doesnt have these functions, you can still do it via Windows input set up, character map, etc.

Guild Wars 2 is a Windows platform game, and in order for macros to be completely eliminated, A-Net would have to ban and force people to uninstall their input device drivers and parts of the operating system on which the game runs. Neither of these will happen.

Can you imagine how many players there would be left in GW2 if they banned people that have windows functions installed ? I’m willing to bet that even you do, but you just are not aware of it because its not something you use, but it is there ready for you to be used if or when you so desire.

I was only stating that multi action macros weren’t allowed. I am aware of all manner of ways macros can be achieved, even back in the day when you could control serial ports using the most simplest of things like qbasic or going out of the way coding it in asm. These days it’s even easier. Let’s not even go into injection into the packet stream or mem. Not sure what triggered your post – I was only stating what has been said before with regards to macros but thank you for the info!

Because of initiative mechanic, thieves are probably only class that would benefit using macros…making it funny, since they also have best dps, best defense and best mobility

Nikola.3841:

Because of initiative mechanic, thieves are probably only class that would benefit using macros…making it funny, since they also have best dps, best defense and best mobility

But actually not. They…don’t have the best dps? They…don’t have the best defense? They do have the best mobility though.

Aside from that however, the initiative mechanic doesn’t make thieves benefit more from macros in any way. In fact if anything it makes them more likely to screw things up with a macro if their enemy actually responds to the scripted attack sequence at all.

Fay.2357:

Nikola.3841:

Because of initiative mechanic, thieves are probably only class that would benefit using macros…making it funny, since they also have best dps, best defense and best mobility

But actually not. They…don’t have the best dps? They…don’t have the best defense? They do have the best mobility though.

Aside from that however, the initiative mechanic doesn’t make thieves benefit more from macros in any way. In fact if anything it makes them more likely to screw things up with a macro if their enemy actually responds to the scripted attack sequence at all.

What class can allow been pure zerker, and still have enough survivability do disengage if things go wrong? And how is not dodging 90% time, plus stealth plus easily running away not best defense? Of course I didn’t mean lots of vitality and toughness as “best defense”. I see thieves in wvw trolling 20+ people without been killed, how is that not definition of best defense?

Nikola.3841:

What class can allow been pure zerker, and still have enough survivability do disengage if things go wrong?

Thief, Mesmer, Engineer, Warrior, Ranger, Revenant.

Nikola.3841:

And how is not dodging 90% time, plus stealth plus easily running away not best defense?

Warrior has far higher sustain, Mesmer has much better active defense that doesn’t rely on stealth, Scrapper has higher overall uptime on active defense. Additionally, stealth doesn’t help too much if you’re fighting a class that can apply reveal or someone drops a stealth trap.

Nikola.3841:

Of course I didn’t mean lots of vitality and toughness as “best defense”. I see thieves in wvw trolling 20+ people without been killed, how is that not definition of best defense?

That’s not a definition of “best defense”, that’s a definition of “20+ people too stupid to press 1 in the general direction of the thief.”

Fay.2357:

That’s not a definition of “best defense”, that’s a definition of “20+ people too stupid to press 1 in the general direction of the thief.”

Actually they do it, until someone shouts “hey look, he’s 2700 units away, how he did that?”

After that happens 10 times in a row, noone bothers anymore, ask those 2 thieves, 1 from XOXO and another from TIME, I think they play on Maguuma

Nikola.3841:

Fay.2357:

That’s not a definition of “best defense”, that’s a definition of “20+ people too stupid to press 1 in the general direction of the thief.”

Actually they do it, until someone shouts “hey look, he’s 2700 units away, how he did that?”

After that happens 10 times in a row, noone bothers anymore, ask those 2 thieves, 1 from XOXO and another from TIME, I think they play on Maguuma

Uh yeah, I’m thinking what you’re seeing is a PEBKAC issue and not so much a “thieves are op” issue.

Fay.2357:

Nikola.3841:

Fay.2357:

That’s not a definition of “best defense”, that’s a definition of “20+ people too stupid to press 1 in the general direction of the thief.”

Actually they do it, until someone shouts “hey look, he’s 2700 units away, how he did that?”

After that happens 10 times in a row, noone bothers anymore, ask those 2 thieves, 1 from XOXO and another from TIME, I think they play on Maguuma

Uh yeah, I’m thinking what you’re seeing is a PEBKAC issue and not so much a “thieves are op” issue.

Well of course…I didn’t say ALL thieves can do that, but it seems its not that hard…how hard is to hit stealth and fire shortbow 5 three times?

Nikkinella.8254:

The one benefit from being in school when they used to cover your hands so you couldnt look down and smack you with a ruler if you tried to peek. I learned to play games better because of that typing crap.

Lol! I learned to type in high school on an IBM Selectric and had to take a turn on a manual. I even had to learn to code on punch cards… wowsa. Definitely showing my age.

Macros are alowed in non competitive gameplay no one cant stop players from using it yet game developers usually find a way to discourage players form usign it, even on competitive gameplay the macros that are alowed are macros that change your keybinding settings (moslty….saldy ive met people who have some pre macros rotations -.-).
my keyboard has Mkeys like the Fkeys stiull Mkeys are only to change binding on skills deppendinly form the class i play, macros to press/use rotation are usually punished.

Problem with macros is it is difficult to gauge intent. This puts game companies in a tough spot. They want players to enjoy the game and even create 3rd party utilities that make the game more enjoyable but don’t want players to effectively cheat. It is easier to ban them in the ToS and turn a blind eye on anything outside of blatant cheating. However that policy can change on a whim and since it is in the ToS any macroing no matter how benign can put an account in jeopardy.

A macro that remaps a key isn’t disallowed. It gets murky with the quality of life macros such as those that auto-double click to open boxes. Macros such as the Combat Mode are definitely in a very gray area as they do have keys that do multiple things but don’t really give a combat advantage. Macros that do rotations or farm, definitely wrong.

Use any macro at your own risk is what it boils down to.

If abilities are on timer, what can macro do for you that you cant do same (and very probably better because stuff could go wrong from start for you and your macro continues casting abilities that make no sense anymore) just manually using abilities?

Even consumables, sigil, runes effect get a line in combat log. also some attacks have only 1/4 second cast…

I don´t deny that the player could have used macro, but i have serious doubts about its efectiveness due to many times you have to change some sequences in order to avoid aegis, blocks and may need to interrupt the enemy.

It is way better a proper binding, fast fingers and knowing what to do in each moment.

macro only real ban if you find a way to do something that not possible in a game. like if you bind CnD + steal to 1 key anet just going to roll there eyes at you lol.

but only combo that hard to do for thief in term of macroing would be something like getting MAX value off vemons pre hit. not very hard to do if you good amount of time on it but as i posted befor you do not need one to burst people down lol.

like vemon rotation for Burst build is on d/d Baslisk vemon > Dancing dagger > Devourer vemon > mug > 1 auto first hit > Ice drake Vemon > second hit of first auto > Cloak and dagger > Backstab

Means in total of 5/8th of a second you hit your target 12 times. i mean i can do it every time with out macro but i also have 7000 hours on thief so meh lol