Except we have now seen evidence that macros are being used for galaxy events in addition to skirmish events. They could have stopped skirmish events until they fixed the issue, but unless they want to only run faction events they're really stuck right now.
Either way, this is past the point of the DB silent treatment. I can't imagine why anyone should continue spending on this game going up against bots until DB addresses the problem.
Maybe I missed that discussion, but I don't remember seeing evidence of macros being used in Galaxy events.
The YouTube link shows a macro being used for this event.
Except we have now seen evidence that macros are being used for galaxy events in addition to skirmish events. They could have stopped skirmish events until they fixed the issue, but unless they want to only run faction events they're really stuck right now.
Either way, this is past the point of the DB silent treatment. I can't imagine why anyone should continue spending on this game going up against bots until DB addresses the problem.
Maybe I missed that discussion, but I don't remember seeing evidence of macros being used in Galaxy events.
The YouTube link shows a macro being used for this event.
Okay, I just watched that, and a few things stand out. One, the guy is moving his mouse while the macro is running. I've used browser macro programs like this to automate web tasks, and looking at the macro code on the left, it stipulates a specific screen location (based on the X/Y location), so the mouse should go directly to those locations, but most of the time it doesn't, it meanders. Thus, I'm guessing this macro was "helped" by human interaction. Two, using that macro on a Galaxy event assumes several things: first, that you will always have a crew available at the top of the selection screen, and most importantly, that you won't need to farm for any items. That last one is a big consideration. I've done Galaxies where I've prefarmed for weeks ahead of time, and at some point, before too long, you're going to run out of an item and will need to farm it in order to build the recipe. There are way too many things that will cause the macro to error out. And when it does, it will halt and wait for user interaction. So using a macro on a Galaxy event (at least that kind of macro which records mouse movements and clicks) is possible to a certain extent, but it's wholly impractical.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing. ~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
The macro has CLEARLY got the mouse moves programmed into it. It may not be the most elegant way to macro a Galaxy, but it sure as hell works. And as for farming and having crew available at the top? If you think those rather simple things make macroing a galaxy event "wholly impractical"...well, you have my pity. Please stand aside while those among us who are less computer-illiterate try to force DB to acknowledge the issue here.
The macro has CLEARLY got the mouse moves programmed into it. It may not be the most elegant way to macro a Galaxy, but it sure as hell works. And as for farming and having crew available at the top? If you think those rather simple things make macroing a galaxy event "wholly impractical"...well, you have my pity. Please stand aside while those among us who are less computer-illiterate try to force DB to acknowledge the issue here.
Let's just be careful. Whether folks are right or wrong on this stuff, lets avois giving DB reason to close this thread.
The macro has CLEARLY got the mouse moves programmed into it.
Direct mouse moves, yes. Meandering mouse moves, no. Look at how the mouse is moving, then look at the macro instructions. The macro instructs the cursor to move to very specific locations (i.e., X=1510,Y=369). So the cursor should go in a straight line to the next location, but it doesn't. It moves around quite a bit outside of those exact screen locations. This tells me the human is "helping" it. Not that it matters, because as I've said already, this isn't something that will really even work.
And as for farming and having crew available at the top? If you think those rather simple things make macroing a galaxy event "wholly impractical"...well, you have my pity. Please stand aside while those among us who are less computer-illiterate try to force DB to acknowledge the issue here.
Wow, touchy, aren't we? The crew at the top thing isn't really an issue, I admit, since someone could just not have any of their roster on Voyages or shuttles at the time. But I will stand by my statement that farming items while using this type of macro just would not work, without putting a whole lot more work into it than it'd possibly be worth. Another type of macro, maybe. But one that records mouse movements and clicks, like the one in the video? No way. That video isn't showing anything that DB wasn't already aware is possible, I guarantee you. And every single gaming company that has games playable on the web knows that these types of macros exist. They have for well over 10 years. Being concerned about macroing Galaxy events (especially in this manner) is overreaching.
Let's just be careful. Whether folks are right or wrong on this stuff, lets avoid giving DB reason to close this thread.
Agreed. I merely wanted to bring the conversation back to the event type where we know there is an issue, and I couldn't do that without going into some detail. If that gets snipped, then so be it.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing. ~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Mouse recording is not practical for Galaxy, even on skirmish events you need to supervise it. Things like lag, in-game battle RNG make the macro unreliable. I'm saying this again, there's no real way of stopping mouse recording or tap recording that would not severely hinder human gameplay. Aka with popups or moving buttons. Let's all agree that, that would make the game less appealing to everyone. The whole idea is to make the game less grindy and make people tap less thus making automatization a longer and more tedious task then actually playing. This has already been done with the hand in items on Galaxy events not having to tap 30 mins prior an event end to hand in all items and resulting in massive server loads. The cost /payout of skirmish events needs to be increased. On Galaxy its not an issue unless you are shooting for top 10 or better. Thus I see no reason to do anything about it, it whould just diminish the achievement.
We now have incontrovertible evidence that macroing is happening in skirmish events and galaxy events. People who have ticketed the issues are getting some canned reply about "thanks for the the report, we're investigating."
This is a very real issue that impacts everyone - not the least of whom those at the top of the leaderboard who are playing their hearts out against mouse recorders and macros. But if someone can set it and forget it Monday morning... how many times have we heard from folks who are trying to push for rank on Mondays and start treading water against rare turn-ins, and now mouse recorder programs. Is it everyone? Of course not! But now we know it's someone.
DB absolutely needs to address this publicly and to be open about how -- or if -- they plan to redesign events to prevent this kind of thing from being possible. And if they remain silent, it's pretty darn telling... may the best macro win?
Mouse recording is not practical for Galaxy, even on skirmish events you need to supervise it. Things like lag, in-game battle RNG make the macro unreliable. I'm saying this again, there's no real way of stopping mouse recording or tap recording that would not severely hinder human gameplay. Aka with popups or moving buttons. Let's all agree that, that would make the game less appealing to everyone. The whole idea is to make the game less grindy and make people tap less thus making automatization a longer and more tedious task then actually playing. This has already been done with the hand in items on Galaxy events not having to tap 30 mins prior an event end to hand in all items and resulting in massive server loads. The cost /payout of skirmish events needs to be increased. On Galaxy its not an issue unless you are shooting for top 10 or better. Thus I see no reason to do anything about it, it whould just diminish the achievement.
It's not the cost/payout that needs to be fixed for skirmish, it's the skirmish design. The events should require human thought and then you can't macro the events without building an AI for the game. Skirmish and galaxy events are mindless clicking. That's why they're easy to macro.
I have 100-200 minimum of every item in the galaxy event. Sure it would run out at some point, but letting a macro run for however many hours before I run out of something makes it easier to then spend time farming. My galaxy play has hit the point where time is my limiting factor, not resources.
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Direct mouse moves, yes. Meandering mouse moves, no. Look at how the mouse is moving, then look at the macro instructions. The macro instructs the cursor to move to very specific locations (i.e., X=1510,Y=369). So the cursor should go in a straight line to the next location, but it doesn't. It moves around quite a bit outside of those exact screen locations. This tells me the human is "helping" it. Not that it matters, because as I've said already, this isn't something that will really even work.
I mean, It's called Mouse *Recorder* so I'm not really sure what you're expecting there, but it's all good, man, all good. Comment moderated. ˜Shan
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
Shouldn't be up to us to do so.
Enough data has been presented that that sort of football should be shovel passed to development and product owners.
The way I see it, someone using macros for galaxy events would only need to use them at key points in the event to get an advantage. For example, at the very beginning, assuming they've farmed items for weeks/months to prepare, they could use the macro to build up their super rare items (at least until they run out of items). Then go farm for a few hours and start the macro again. The second part is when you're turning in those super rare items. We all know that to win or rank in any Galaxy event, one has to hold on to those items until the very end and then turn them all in. If someone had a macro to do that consistently, they can farm/build until the very last minute possible and then start a macro to turn those super rare items in much faster than they could do manually.
The way I see it, someone using macros for galaxy events would only need to use them at key points in the event to get an advantage. For example, at the very beginning, assuming they've farmed items for weeks/months to prepare, they could use the macro to build up their super rare items (at least until they run out of items). Then go farm for a few hours and start the macro again. The second part is when you're turning in those super rare items. We all know that to win or rank in any Galaxy event, one has to hold on to those items until the very end and then turn them all in. If someone had a macro to do that consistently, they can farm/build until the very last minute possible and then start a macro to turn those super rare items in much faster than they could do manually.
Not sure I agree with the second one - the constraint is the speed at which DB servers respond to turn-ins. It generally takes a few seconds, often longer at the end when everyone going for rank is making an attempt. So the greater speed you may potentially get from a macro is nullified.
Unless the macro is very well done (identifying color change or something to make sure that the click follows immediately after the last turn-in is complete), it might even be slower. This is because there will have to be a sufficiently long gap between each clicks (if it is purely time based) to allow for server lags.
Again, I don't see the galaxy macro as such a big problem as there is cost in terms of chrons. The problem with skirmishes is that the primary constraint is time/grind. I still think an easy fix to minimize unfair advantage from a macro is to reduce the grind and increase intel cost/make fights more challenging/randomize opponents etc.
I think its a fools errant on DBs part to try and police macro usage on an individual basis. As some folks in our fleet chat pointed out, the people got caught because they were sloppy/greedy with their macro. Its not that difficult to include some rng in the macro so that its usage is not so obvious.
Right now, what should be done at minimum is a statement from Erin: "We are aware of reports of players using bots to play for them. We remind all our players that using bots is a violation of the TOS and will not be tolerated. We are actively investigating the allegations and are working to prevent bots from being used going forward."
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
That sounds like a question DB’s software engineers have to answer. But the simple version is that they need to do what we did - look at consistency of scoring over time and flag anything that is improbable due to biology.
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
That sounds like a question DB’s software engineers have to answer. But the simple version is that they need to do what we did - look at consistency of scoring over time and flag anything that is improbable due to biology.
In the interim, just saying something about the players who have openly admitted to running bots, including the one who shared directions for writing a bot program and the YouTube user who uploaded a six minute video showing one in use during the Galaxy phase of the event that ended today, would be a start.
yo i am curious what DB is doing about this?? this thred about the macro was last week and nothings happening. i also seen the youtube with macro of this event!!!
why is DB doing nothing???? <snipped YouTube link>
What do you expect to happen so soon? If they decide to investigate, which I hope they will, it will no doubt take a crazy amount of man-hours and effort to even prove cheating (i.e., macro use during the event) was even done by any particular person. They can't just accuse someone on even strong suspicion, because if they plan on taking action (such as deleting their account — which, again, I hope is the plan for anyone violating the TOS in this manner), they would legally require proof. Acquiring, and validating, that proof will take time. It may take months. I wouldn't expect any statement to be made until and unless such proof is obtained.
And as far as taking steps to prevent future transgressions of that nature, the best they could do for now would be to postpone plans for any Skirmish events until they can address that. Which, again, would take a lot of time — changing the coding for an event is not just something you can wave a magic wand over and sprinkle faery dust on and call it fixed.
So I hope that anyone who feels that something needs to be done immediately, would severely lower their expectations about that, and trust that DB cares about the integrity of their game as much as any reasonable person would expect them to. In other words, if it happens, it'll happen when it happens.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
That sounds like a question DB’s software engineers have to answer. But the simple version is that they need to do what we did - look at consistency of scoring over time and flag anything that is improbable due to biology.
In the interim, just saying something about the players who have openly admitted to running bots, including the one who shared directions for writing a bot program and the YouTube user who uploaded a six minute video showing one in use during the Galaxy phase of the event that ended today, would be a start.
While I think this is a problem they should address with changes to events to make this more difficult and through monitoring of results, I would not want them proactively sending such a communication as it may have the opposite impact and give more people the idea.
The important thing in all this, at least from my perspective, is to restore player confidence that this is a game with a level playing field. It's hard to feel committed to a competitive game if the terms of service aren't enforced, because while you may spend time and money and follow the rules all that effort and those resources can be trumped by a less scrupulous player running a script.
The macro has CLEARLY got the mouse moves programmed into it.
Direct mouse moves, yes. Meandering mouse moves, no. Look at how the mouse is moving, then look at the macro instructions. The macro instructs the cursor to move to very specific locations (i.e., X=1510,Y=369). So the cursor should go in a straight line to the next location, but it doesn't. It moves around quite a bit outside of those exact screen locations. This tells me the human is "helping" it. Not that it matters, because as I've said already, this isn't something that will really even work.
And as for farming and having crew available at the top? If you think those rather simple things make macroing a galaxy event "wholly impractical"...well, you have my pity. Please stand aside while those among us who are less computer-illiterate try to force DB to acknowledge the issue here.
Wow, touchy, aren't we? The crew at the top thing isn't really an issue, I admit, since someone could just not have any of their roster on Voyages or shuttles at the time. But I will stand by my statement that farming items while using this type of macro just would not work, without putting a whole lot more work into it than it'd possibly be worth. Another type of macro, maybe. But one that records mouse movements and clicks, like the one in the video? No way. That video isn't showing anything that DB wasn't already aware is possible, I guarantee you. And every single gaming company that has games playable on the web knows that these types of macros exist. They have for well over 10 years. Being concerned about macroing Galaxy events (especially in this manner) is overreaching.
Let's just be careful. Whether folks are right or wrong on this stuff, lets avoid giving DB reason to close this thread.
Agreed. I merely wanted to bring the conversation back to the event type where we know there is an issue, and I couldn't do that without going into some detail. If that gets snipped, then so be it.
Re: meandering mouse movements. If you look up at the top of the macro window, where you set the number of repeats, it says "Mouse path:" and then has options. The selected one is "As recorded", so I would assume that means the macro is using the same mouse path as the human did originally.
Re: running out of inventory. The idea with a macro like this seems to be to set it to run a few hundred times, making sure you have at least a few hundred of each item, then farming everything for half an hour, then setting the macro up again.
Re: crew. If you know who pops up at the top for every recipe, you just have to keep them out of voyages and shuttles. Chances are it's not very many crew.
So- here's the thing.
Macros aren't usually there to do everything for you. But they're there to do the repetitive tasks, that involve a lot of clicks. I have one I use at work, that sets up all of the printer settings and then hits print on a number of individual documents. So it's one keyboard shortcut (in this instance) instead of 18 different clicks. I use it a few dozen times a day, on average. It won't do the part where I have to think and adapt to the circumstances, but it will do the repetitive motions that stay the same every time.
/shrug Just my two cents, as someone who has used macros.
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Oh stop it with the claims about Galaxies being easy to run macros on. They're just not. Unless you pre-farm more than 99.99% of people have the ability to do, or have the knowledge to code a very sophisticated macro that can do farming for you, they are simply not a threat in Galaxy events.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing. ~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Pre-farming is all it takes, I've zero doubt it's been done already
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And with the just-announced Skirmish event as part of next month's mega, get ready for another wave of angry posts about macros, everybody! Wheeeeee.
I hope so. Not because I like angry posts, but because the issue should be addressed before the next Skirmish event in week three. If anything - and maybe I'm being too optimistic here - this makes me hopeful that DB has identified a solution.
The original post talked about a macro detecting colors, it probably wouldn't be that hard to write the macro to detect when something is out, go to the first mission on the list, and warp 10 it, then return and check the color again. Continue looping if there are still none.
You would need to have the chrons sitting there ready to be used, but for people who sit with over 10k chrons going into the event I could see it being used.
Oh stop it with the claims about Galaxies being easy to run macros on. They're just not. Unless you pre-farm more than 99.99% of people have the ability to do, or have the knowledge to code a very sophisticated macro that can do farming for you, they are simply not a threat in Galaxy events.
When I start galaxy events, I pull a supply kit and go in. Then I run a bunch of missions (craft items) seeing what is required. If I don't have an item, I warp 10 til I have 20, 50, 100. Whatever I think I'll need. And I do this for all items. Avoiding, of course, the two builds that require the most expensive to farm items. Why? Because I'm a tight **tsk tsk** and I want to play all weekend and not pull another supply kit til maybe the last day. And it takes less time than hopping out and warp 10ing missions every time I run out. So running a macro after that (if I knew how to do it) is probably the easiest part of the whole shebang. An hour into the event and you can go on holiday for the weekend, should you have a solid electrical and internet connection and a machine that isn't likely to turn itself off or do some random stuff that might break the macro.
As has been proven on YouTube, more than once, macros are indeed relatively easy to set up for galaxy and skirmish events. With a mega event coming up featuring both these event types I'm feeling very meh about sinking time and effort into them beyond maybe thresholds. And still the silence from DB remains deafening. It's as if the developers really don't care about the game they've created and which funds their pay cheques. Bizarre. 🤷♀️
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The YouTube link shows a macro being used for this event.
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Okay, I just watched that, and a few things stand out. One, the guy is moving his mouse while the macro is running. I've used browser macro programs like this to automate web tasks, and looking at the macro code on the left, it stipulates a specific screen location (based on the X/Y location), so the mouse should go directly to those locations, but most of the time it doesn't, it meanders. Thus, I'm guessing this macro was "helped" by human interaction. Two, using that macro on a Galaxy event assumes several things: first, that you will always have a crew available at the top of the selection screen, and most importantly, that you won't need to farm for any items. That last one is a big consideration. I've done Galaxies where I've prefarmed for weeks ahead of time, and at some point, before too long, you're going to run out of an item and will need to farm it in order to build the recipe. There are way too many things that will cause the macro to error out. And when it does, it will halt and wait for user interaction. So using a macro on a Galaxy event (at least that kind of macro which records mouse movements and clicks) is possible to a certain extent, but it's wholly impractical.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
Let's just be careful. Whether folks are right or wrong on this stuff, lets avois giving DB reason to close this thread.
Direct mouse moves, yes. Meandering mouse moves, no. Look at how the mouse is moving, then look at the macro instructions. The macro instructs the cursor to move to very specific locations (i.e., X=1510,Y=369). So the cursor should go in a straight line to the next location, but it doesn't. It moves around quite a bit outside of those exact screen locations. This tells me the human is "helping" it. Not that it matters, because as I've said already, this isn't something that will really even work.
Wow, touchy, aren't we? The crew at the top thing isn't really an issue, I admit, since someone could just not have any of their roster on Voyages or shuttles at the time. But I will stand by my statement that farming items while using this type of macro just would not work, without putting a whole lot more work into it than it'd possibly be worth. Another type of macro, maybe. But one that records mouse movements and clicks, like the one in the video? No way. That video isn't showing anything that DB wasn't already aware is possible, I guarantee you. And every single gaming company that has games playable on the web knows that these types of macros exist. They have for well over 10 years. Being concerned about macroing Galaxy events (especially in this manner) is overreaching.
Agreed. I merely wanted to bring the conversation back to the event type where we know there is an issue, and I couldn't do that without going into some detail. If that gets snipped, then so be it.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
We now have incontrovertible evidence that macroing is happening in skirmish events and galaxy events. People who have ticketed the issues are getting some canned reply about "thanks for the the report, we're investigating."
This is a very real issue that impacts everyone - not the least of whom those at the top of the leaderboard who are playing their hearts out against mouse recorders and macros. But if someone can set it and forget it Monday morning... how many times have we heard from folks who are trying to push for rank on Mondays and start treading water against rare turn-ins, and now mouse recorder programs. Is it everyone? Of course not! But now we know it's someone.
DB absolutely needs to address this publicly and to be open about how -- or if -- they plan to redesign events to prevent this kind of thing from being possible. And if they remain silent, it's pretty darn telling... may the best macro win?
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Retired 12-14-20. So long, and thanks for all the cat pics!
It's not the cost/payout that needs to be fixed for skirmish, it's the skirmish design. The events should require human thought and then you can't macro the events without building an AI for the game. Skirmish and galaxy events are mindless clicking. That's why they're easy to macro.
I have 100-200 minimum of every item in the galaxy event. Sure it would run out at some point, but letting a macro run for however many hours before I run out of something makes it easier to then spend time farming. My galaxy play has hit the point where time is my limiting factor, not resources.
Though I agree from an Engineering standpoint, I disagree from a Public Relations standpoint.
It appears the DB is starting to value stealth patches over transparency if we think they might have fixed the shuttle issue.
Though I do not expect an engineering fix soon, if I was the product owner, I'd want to get ahead of this thing before it gets too much more steam at least assuring people that it was a priority. (And not just a Shan stating she notified the team)
Otherwise we might think that its going to be a year of putting up data making it more and more and more precise over time until in 2019 they fix something behind the scenes and never speak to the issue.
I mean, It's called Mouse *Recorder* so I'm not really sure what you're expecting there, but it's all good, man, all good. Comment moderated. ˜Shan
Sorry, Data, but he’s right: there needs to be an announcement from someone above Shan’s level reminding people of the ToS and what punishments will be levied against violators. Whatever the coding or game design fixes end up being (which will of course take a while for a small team to work on), something needs to be said by DB soon.
And how are you going to prove that people are cheating or not?
Let's keep it that way
Please know that this has the team's attention.
Shouldn't be up to us to do so.
Enough data has been presented that that sort of football should be shovel passed to development and product owners.
Not sure I agree with the second one - the constraint is the speed at which DB servers respond to turn-ins. It generally takes a few seconds, often longer at the end when everyone going for rank is making an attempt. So the greater speed you may potentially get from a macro is nullified.
Unless the macro is very well done (identifying color change or something to make sure that the click follows immediately after the last turn-in is complete), it might even be slower. This is because there will have to be a sufficiently long gap between each clicks (if it is purely time based) to allow for server lags.
Again, I don't see the galaxy macro as such a big problem as there is cost in terms of chrons. The problem with skirmishes is that the primary constraint is time/grind. I still think an easy fix to minimize unfair advantage from a macro is to reduce the grind and increase intel cost/make fights more challenging/randomize opponents etc.
I think its a fools errant on DBs part to try and police macro usage on an individual basis. As some folks in our fleet chat pointed out, the people got caught because they were sloppy/greedy with their macro. Its not that difficult to include some rng in the macro so that its usage is not so obvious.
That sounds like a question DB’s software engineers have to answer. But the simple version is that they need to do what we did - look at consistency of scoring over time and flag anything that is improbable due to biology.
In the interim, just saying something about the players who have openly admitted to running bots, including the one who shared directions for writing a bot program and the YouTube user who uploaded a six minute video showing one in use during the Galaxy phase of the event that ended today, would be a start.
While I think this is a problem they should address with changes to events to make this more difficult and through monitoring of results, I would not want them proactively sending such a communication as it may have the opposite impact and give more people the idea.
Re: meandering mouse movements. If you look up at the top of the macro window, where you set the number of repeats, it says "Mouse path:" and then has options. The selected one is "As recorded", so I would assume that means the macro is using the same mouse path as the human did originally.
Re: running out of inventory. The idea with a macro like this seems to be to set it to run a few hundred times, making sure you have at least a few hundred of each item, then farming everything for half an hour, then setting the macro up again.
Re: crew. If you know who pops up at the top for every recipe, you just have to keep them out of voyages and shuttles. Chances are it's not very many crew.
So- here's the thing.
Macros aren't usually there to do everything for you. But they're there to do the repetitive tasks, that involve a lot of clicks. I have one I use at work, that sets up all of the printer settings and then hits print on a number of individual documents. So it's one keyboard shortcut (in this instance) instead of 18 different clicks. I use it a few dozen times a day, on average. It won't do the part where I have to think and adapt to the circumstances, but it will do the repetitive motions that stay the same every time.
/shrug Just my two cents, as someone who has used macros.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/5023/qh-the-oldest-fleet-in-timelines-l91-starbase-daily-targets-met
Oh stop it with the claims about Galaxies being easy to run macros on. They're just not. Unless you pre-farm more than 99.99% of people have the ability to do, or have the knowledge to code a very sophisticated macro that can do farming for you, they are simply not a threat in Galaxy events.
Could you please continue the petty bickering? I find it most intriguing.
~ Data, ST:TNG "Haven"
https://forum.disruptorbeam.com/stt/discussion/5023/qh-the-oldest-fleet-in-timelines-l91-starbase-daily-targets-met
I hope so. Not because I like angry posts, but because the issue should be addressed before the next Skirmish event in week three. If anything - and maybe I'm being too optimistic here - this makes me hopeful that DB has identified a solution.
You would need to have the chrons sitting there ready to be used, but for people who sit with over 10k chrons going into the event I could see it being used.
When I start galaxy events, I pull a supply kit and go in. Then I run a bunch of missions (craft items) seeing what is required. If I don't have an item, I warp 10 til I have 20, 50, 100. Whatever I think I'll need. And I do this for all items. Avoiding, of course, the two builds that require the most expensive to farm items. Why? Because I'm a tight **tsk tsk** and I want to play all weekend and not pull another supply kit til maybe the last day. And it takes less time than hopping out and warp 10ing missions every time I run out. So running a macro after that (if I knew how to do it) is probably the easiest part of the whole shebang. An hour into the event and you can go on holiday for the weekend, should you have a solid electrical and internet connection and a machine that isn't likely to turn itself off or do some random stuff that might break the macro.
Check out our website to find out more:
https://wiki.tenforwardloungers.com/