99 replies to this topic

[SpiralRazor]

mekabuser, on 07 January 2013 - 07:05 AM, said:

all i can do is lmfao is you think the macro isnt cheating. WHat you are doing is essentially writing a piece of code to circumnavigate a mechanic of the game. One that gives you a DISTINCT advantage.
THat is the very definition of cheating.

Just because you CAN do it, doesnt make it any less cheating.
You are altering the mechanics of the game bypassing the intended function of the weapon.
Just because you spent time figuring it out also doesnt make it any less cheating.

I wish devs would get their heads out of their ***** and realize that any and all exploits need to be squashed. b4 it hits us... Isnt that the whole freakin idea of in house testing.

sounds like youre crying because people have spent money/time on equipment...you could do the same sir.

My UACs fire at the same rate as everyone elses.... Mine just never jam unless i use another button.

Fail.

[AdamBaines]

Mackman, on 07 January 2013 - 10:12 AM, said:

Why is it cheating? Why is anyone comparing this to an aimbot?

I agree that it is not the same as an aimbot........

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Let's go "in-universe" for a second... wouldn't all the smart pilots control their UAC's in such a fashion? Playing a game is all about finding the optimum firing style, and he's found it.

I disagree here. There is no mention of any devices like this "in-universe". There is some fire control but those come in the form of slave units like C3 that coordinate fire between units equipped with c3. Which I do believe will be coming to this game.

Also, if your going to "compare" this to "Real" in universe, you cant because how software reacts to hardware under stress can be very bad a very inconsistent. In this game, software is talking to software under zero stress and will always do as programmed. I could go on about this but ill leave it there.

And optimum style? This is not style or form or just about a cool build. Builds are within the given frame work. I hate K2 Gausapults, but its in the framework of the game. Its the way in which he is leveraging it. More about that below.....

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Is it a terrible system? Yes, obviously. But given the system, is he cheating? No, of course not.

Again I disagree, although not with as much venom as many people do here. When you cheat, you do things to circumvent a system and set of rules that are there to govern a process. You bend or break the rules to get a desired effect that will benefit you. You gain an advantage that not everyone else has. its a deception of true skill or prowess.

PGI has designed this game to play a certain way (weather you agree with how well you think they have done this is not part of this discussion) so that it is fun for everyone to play and to some degree realistic. They have created certain game mechanics that the OP has decided he cannot work with if he wants to win. So he devised a very clever way of doing so. Now as mentioned before, I dont think there was any malice on the part of the OP as he felt he was doing other a service by showing them the light.....which is cool. But it still does not change the effect of what he is doing: He is creating an advantage for himself outside of the structured rules and mechanics of the game, and in a way that most people here cannot recreate because they do not have the access to things like a Razor mouse that you can program. It is now an un-level playing field. If I were to square off against him in the exact same mech, I would automatically be at a disadvantage, but not because of skill.

But then again.....anyone playing as the IS in the next year will be feeling that pain once the munchie clans come.....so hey....may this will help IS players get used to getting whooped by the clans :-)

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As for the "you're making it easier, so you're cheating" crowd... how far do you want to take that? Should we all go back to the little ball mice, since laser mice are more precise and thus "easier"? Should we enforce joystick usage, since using a mouse at all is "easier"? Your argument, as it is, is practically non-existent: it can be applied to any aspect of playing this game optimally, and is therefore invalid.

Valid argument but bad comparisons. First off many people feel joysticks are better then mice if you understand them and know how to use them. Second, I dont know how many actual "ball" mice are out there any more. Most new systems come with laser mice now, even the el-cheapos at Best Buy and Walmart.

But I agree with you that It is a slippery slope when we talk about methods of playing the game and what is perceived as "easier". I think a good rule of thumb is: Is what your doing creating a competitive advantage, outside of the given rules and framework? Is this something anyone else can do given the same basic resources.

Look, if this was real life were life and death was at issue, I would not argue the fact that you gotta do what ya gotta do to get the competitive advantage. But this is a game where its about having fun. Aimbots and things that people use to give them an advantage that most people can get and is outside of the rules or given framework just make it less fun weather Im winning or losing. They ruin the gaming landscape for everyone else, and then people don't want to play and then the game goes away.

Maybe its just me, but I dont have any fun if I have to resort to backdoors and "cheats" in order to win. Id rather get whooped and have fun with my friends and play within the frame work. Can it be frustrating? yea, but then again...its just a game. if I find I'm stressing over this game, them I'm playing it for the wrong reasons.

[Von Claussen]

I don't see why you would cycle your auto cannons to be constantly firing. I guess if you want to keep your opponent's screen shaking it may be a good strategy, but it also causes a lot of your shots to end up scattering damage across the mech. I'd rather just fire them all together in bursts and do 15 points of damage to a single part.

[warner2]

SpiralRazor, on 10 December 2012 - 12:46 PM, said:

The implementation needs to change to a "Barrel Heat" Level system and then you wouldnt need a macro...indeed, having a macro wouldnt net you anything since you can monitor the jam percentage yourself.

I applaud your efforts at a game design that could avoid the macro issue entirely, I'm not sure it does though. A pilot firing UAC5s could still be inefficient when monitoring their heat, either too cautious, not firing enough, or too aggressive, and pushing themselves just over the limit and jamming. Hence a macro would still be useful, find that optimal fire rate that keeps you riding just below that "barrel heat" limit.

Similarly a macro would allow you to continuously chain fire lasers at the optimal rate such that you are always riding but not quite breaching your heat limit.

[HurlockHolmes]

Well damn, I have run out of popcorn.

[Metharoth]

The UAC5 has a 1.5 secs recycle time if I am correct. He shoots 6 bullets in this time, so he should use the second shot on every cannon. So why does he not jam as often with his macro than with just holding the key? Is this intention?
Guess the code is a little off. It should have a fixed jam ratio and then this macro does not do this much anymore.
They should look into their random generator for jamming and fix this ASAP.

edit: Plus: you are not allowed to use macros in competetive play. Period.

Edited by Metharoth, 10 January 2013 - 01:48 AM.

[FrupertApricot]

How is this not cheating? in a competitive game using a mechanical aid your opponents dont have access to in order to optimize a process that was supposed to rely on "skill".

[AimRobot]

Yes Razer naga is easy to setup to do everything for you, BUT it is still a horrible aiming mouse.
I have tryed so many games with the naga and so far the only use is MMORPG games where you just use mouse to look around and not point at anything.

[Kmieciu]

MourningZero, on 07 January 2013 - 11:12 AM, said:

I played around with manually cycling the UAC5 and would often run into the dreaded first shot jam when just jabbing the button and immediately releasing. I suspected then that physically pushing the button holds it down for too long and tells the game "this guy wants to use the Ultra double shot, roll for jam!", and a macro to just click and release immediately would be the way to go.

Really PGI could just clean up UACs a lot by making click and hold firing never trigger the ultra double shot. Double shot could then be triggered by clicking again while the weapon is on cooldown, and that could trigger a jam. In the same patch, please buff the AC5 to the non-ultra rate of the UAC5. There's absolutely no reason that the UAC5 should have a much higher fire rate without the doubleshot.

I could not have said it better. PGI admitted that there is a problem with high cycle autocannons and network latency. If you press a button too quickly, the UAC will not fire. If you press it too slowly, it will fire 2 bullets and will probably jam. A macro is the only way to reliably use UAC right now. It`s bad game design.
EVERYONE should be able to fire UAC in normal mode, without jams. Not only people using macros.
Hold the trigger = normal mode
Tap the trigger quickly = ultra mode
Is this so hard to implement?

[DogmeatX]

Unfortunately macros like this aren't illegal/bannable in the game AFAIK.

It's basically like Tribes Ascend macros which allow firing of automatic weapons far faster than humanly possible.

It DOES, however, lead to uneven playing field because a macro user has obvious advantages compared to someone (most people) who don't macro.

The only real way to make it a level playing field is to have this kind of firing available to all, ingame. So basically the macro becomes part of the game somehow and thus no out of game tools will give such an advantage.

[Jungle Rhino]

The issue here isn't macros, the issue is that the UAC is currently stupidly OP, capable of silly DPS out to tremendous range BEFORE you even look at the double shot. Simply grouping them all to a single trigger pull and shooting every 1.1s and not jamming (not that hard to get into a rhythm) is all that is necessary to use them effectively.

Boating 3 of them is obviously going to result in a truck load of DPS.

Devs simply need to redesign the weapon as per MourningZero's suggestion so that macros don't offer any benefit.

[Draxtier]

Under ideal conditions, holding the trigger down on a UAC5 and allowing it to jam will deliver seven shots for every jam. That's 35 damage over a period of ~8.85 seconds (~3.85 seconds firing and 5 seconds clearing the jam). That's 0.55 seconds per shot when firing without jamming, giving ~3.95 dps. Firing it this way gives better burst damage, irrespective of jamming, since you are firing faster, and that's a very big advantage to the weapon. It's often pretty easy to step out of cover and fire until you jam, then duck back behind cover. The advantage of a better burst fire characteristic is difficult to measure empirically though, so I'll stick to mostly talking about dps. Network latency isn't a significant issue when firing this way.

Under ideal conditions, using a macro or other means to fire a UAC5 once every 1.1 seconds precisely, so as to avoid jamming entirely, delivers ~4.54 dps. This, however, is impossible to achieve under real conditions, since you are dealing with fluctuations in latency which will always cause roughly half of your fire commands to be received with a shorter delay than that and half of them to be received with a longer delay between fire commands, which gives you a jam rate of 1/16 instead of 1/8. Factor in the 5 seconds spent unjamming it on every 16th shot and you get ~3.54 dps.

The solution to this is to pad the delay a bit and try to fire your UAC5 every 1.2 seconds or so, which lowers the dps to ~4.16. You can lower the amount of padding you put on each fire command to less than 0.1 seconds, but network latency and other issues are terribly inconsistent, so there are real world limits on just how much you can optimize the timing to get the best dps. I would guess that 0.1 seconds would work for most people, but I really don't know. If you have to pad the delay by 0.17 seconds or more, the dps drops below the ~3.95 you can achieve with manual fire. My own experiments give the best results with 0.05 seconds of padding, giving 4.35 dps in real world conditions. But it's worth adding that I'm in Canada, have very few hops between my PC and the MWO servers, and very low and consistent latency, so a much better connection to the game than +90% of other players.

So that's 3.95 dps, and the best possible burst fire characteristic from manually firing and not worrying about jams, or somewhere around ~4.16 to ~4.35 dps from using a macro to regulate the firing timing, with a worse burst fire characteristic.

At best, that's a 10% improvement in dps, and that's only possible under very good conditions, and assumes there are never any lag spikes which are going to cause jams. So, frankly, while a macro does help, it doesn't make nearly as much difference as most people seem to think.

[pcunite]

A guy buys a mouse from a company PGI endorses, follows the user manual supplied with the product, and then posts his findings. What is wrong with you people? The negativity in this thread should be changed into constructive suggestions and directed towards PGI. I like the idea of a visual indictor for the weapon, stay under % and it won't jam.

[VXJaeger]

If nothing is done to those constant jammings (whose can be rounded by macroing) even when chainfiring, then it's back to AC2s then. At least they don't spend 50% of battletime clearing jammings.
Same dps and UAC5's are scrap metal.

While were at it, and equal dps is everything, why don't kick all other weapons except small lazors from game and make only one mech for everybody? Then everybody would be equal and nothing's OP.

Edited by VXJaeger, 10 January 2013 - 07:49 AM.

[Sh4dow78]

Using a macro to get ADVANTAGE over other ppl is obviously a cheating LOL. I know its not same as aimbot or wallhack but still u get ADVANTAGE over other ppl. Imagine a 1v1 arena where u have 2 exact same mechs like urs and u use macro and ur opponent dont who will win ? ofcourse u will win bcoz ur enemy most of time wil have his weapon jammed and his DPS is reduced and there is nothing about true SKILL.

Its same think in battlefield3 u can setup macro for ur m16 (or any other weapon but m16 is one of best in game) and u get no bullet spread and no recoil for ur weapon its also not cheating ? its a UNFAIR advantage.

They implement jam system for some reason and if u dont accept it just dont use this weapon. If UAC5 is not jamming like in ur macro this weapon become OP bcoz of firerate+dmg.

[Loc Nar]

Am I the only one who's UAC5s work just fine with regular chainfire? Just point and shoot, it's the easiest mech to manage the weapons systems, just hold down the trigger. Don't take pot shots, make mechs crumble with sustained, continuous, uninterrupted fire. Don't shoot till you can sustain it, and don't stop shooting till it's dead. Like any mech, don't attack fatties head on and don't get caught alone. People are making the Kilya harder to drive than it is...

[Rannos]

3UAC5s on chainfire shouldn't ever jam without scripts, macro or management. Lag does tend to **** this up though sometimes.