EQ2 Macro SUX!Follow

Man, the Macro function in EQ2 is a JOKE! Big Joke! Why the hell they made the macro with only 1 line of commands that can only do 2 functions!? Just looking at this...FFXI is way better.! ...

If that's the case they should take away the "Window Mode" too.

Maybe 2 line macros are there to actually make people to do something than hit attack, macro and sleep.

Simple reason for needing more than 2 lines of macros

/gsay Starting HO chain in 5 seconds - finish your current action
/pause 4
/gsay Starting HO now
/doability <heroic opportunity>

If they want us to do Heroic oportunities, then it would be most useful to have the ability to prepare the group for it - a macro would make it much easier.

If I learned anything from FFXI is that macro's help.

It could also be useful for other things:

/gsay RUN to Zone
/ooc Train to zone
/yell
/doability <sprint>



Edited, Sun Jan 2 14:46:15 2005 by Devilwind

Um, what's the difference between me hitting a macro and watching what happens and me hitting the actual skill and watching what happens?

/boggle

Macro's make it easier to communicate to your team whats going on. Macro's allow for you to tell your party your about to heal someone and then perform the heal for you, so as to avoid two clerics wasting mana on the same party member.

Yes, you can have a text macro that does that, and then have the button for the spell, but when combat gets hot and heavy from a bad pull or add - do you really want to try to remember to hit 7, alt+5, ctrl+4. And as you go up in levels you get more powers. Yes many are there to replace old ones, but then there's the racial powers and your slayer powers that could take up room... basically you don't want to have 5,000 macro bars. Especially if you have a smaller monitor or a lower end system where you already have to cut down on your visible screen.

In the end, macro's don't let you pay less attention to the game, in fact they make you pay more attention to is because you'll be receiving communication



The macro I'm describing has nothing to do once the window has popped up. I'm describing a macro to help a party know to finish off their current skill and wait so that a HO can be activated by the group.

If I'm in a pickup group, I only get HO to go off if I'm lucky. In FFXI and EQ - most pickup groups are more coordinated that this.

The problem is most everyone else is bashing the stupid keyboard doing whatever ability just became refreshed. This results in that they keep using an ability that causes the chain to break.

Perhaps if we had better macro capability then people may start to think more strategically.

I only gave two examples because HO is more than enough of a reason because as it is right now HO are basically a soloing tool or a completely random occurance rather than an edge used by most groups - with the exception of players who are coordinated enough to not button mash.

EQ1 had multi-line macros that did not hinder the game in anyway. Those who wanted to use it - could, while those that did not - didn't. The macro's that caused problems were actually 3rd party programs that did combines and things like that.

And lastly, if nothing else, it makes the game more ergonomically correct. Less keystrokes is better for your hands and wrists, and if I'm going to be playing for any legth of time, I'd much rather not develop carpal tunnel

Of course I realize that this isn't going to change your mind in anyways - if you couldn't see the benefit of macros before, you probably won't want to change your mind now





Edited, Sun Jan 2 20:10:02 2005 by Devilwind

Edited, Sun Jan 2 20:11:41 2005 by Devilwind

True, but I guess they figured it takes people about 10 mins to make a program that will do that for them, whereas the other cheats are more complex.

Not only that, but there are legit reasons for having windowed mode, such as running another chat program (MSN, AIM etc), having voice chat for a group (good for very aggressive, dangerous areas), looking up info on online etc. Speaking of the latter, I'm sure that SOE has the windowed mode tie into their resource databanks, the ones that charge you by the month for access to item, spell, quest lists etc. I would figure they would expect more sales from this service if the player does not have to log out and log back in just to check something on SOE's databanks.

Also, most new MMOs have code in the client to help lock-out commands from 3rd party programs. Running in full screen is kind of a poor attempt at locking out bots, as it can be changed in a matter of minutes. Older games that tried to have full screen mode be their #1 defense against botting failed horribly. However, with all preemptive strikes to botting and cheating, there are people who will debunk it, as is why there are bots out there for EQ2. Who can tell which ones are real, and which ones are key loggers, though. Hehehe...

Edited, Sun Jan 2 22:33:23 2005 by dacypher

Having not read the entirety of the thread...



Just put a : instead of an emote at the beginning if you don't want to have an emote. So instead of

/wave ; gsay healing %t ; doability Bloom

you could put

/: ; gsay healing %t ; doability Bloom

The ;'s separate lines.

Edited, Mon Jan 3 10:22:34 2005 by Sereline