Macros/Keybinds/Autoclickers Survey Community Discussion

So now we are discussing 'afk'?
Or did Slvr not read ShelLuser's edit, or Tom's last paragraph?...
Well, I'm sorry if I'm not supposed too, but I'll reply to ShelLuser now...

How about if you leave the window in focus? You can still use WASD and chat that way, whenever you want. But you might not be paying attention to the game, as long as you don't get notified by something.

I do like 'away', actually. It could still be unclear at first, but at least it's vague.

Posts were edited after I made mine. I do admit I should have known it wasn't to be continued, I just thought it related to the topic at hand (macro usage does eventually touch on afk interaction). That said, did not see posts talking about they were to be discontinued (this is a very long thread. lol. I'm not reading all of it). Sorry.

EDIT: To keep it on topic though! I've already said my peace on macros. At the end of the day, I think the current rules are okay and don't provide macro/autoclicker/mod users with a massive advantage over regular players. I personally think it's difficult for new players to get into the market simply because there are soooo many players gathering the same item, whether they farm it, gather it by hand, or not. With hundreds of players active every week.... The market can easily become oversaturated, especially when it comes to prismarine, stone, and other common items. That isn't to say there aren't any problems, but under the current rules, it seems fair...

(Also just a note, that I may have that green staffy name but at the end of the day I am here to inspire fun and to be a regular player. What I say is not law here, as this is a community discussion and discussing is all I'm here to do. Just giving input like everyone else.)

Macros and autoclickers have been, are being, and always will be used by rich players to get richer. Its a purely economic ploy and not in the real spirit of minecraft.

Hm. I hope that reading some of the posts in this thread would change your view on that. If you don't want to read through it in its entirety but would like to see, I might select some for you later.

This "real spirt of minecraft" theory then in your theory includes absolutely no mods and no other resource maps... You realize in that case that just about no experienced players play completely vanilla, right? It gets boring afterwards, so yes relief is nice. Plus you only get rich by first working hard.. at least that's how it worked for me.

I use schematica for help of building. Not the print mode, but for building. Does that mean that I am not in the spirit of Minecraft because I have a modded client? I say no. Minecraft was always moddable from the begining. Sure it was harder at first, but the actual creators made it easier to mod. It may not be your spirt of Minecraft but that varies from person to person.

I will put my original response to the survey here:

I think macro building is lots of fun and a useful skill for people to develop. It's basically coding, which is one of the most highly demanded skills in the world. I think that effort should be made so that the macro building tools are made more available, so that it's more fair for all players. Allowing macros is one of the key advantages of EMC over other servers, and should absolutely be maintained.

Macro speeds should be based on the speed at which actions can be performed by a human player, so that normal human players are not at a disadvantage. If need be, define the speeds for each action. ie crafting, trading, mining, etc... Maybe use real server data to establish the reasonable speeds. Maybe put the macro speeds to about half of the fastest human users. Enforcement can be done based on a kick/tempban which doubles in time, each time a certain speed is achieved, which would naturally be a reasonable leeway over the defined rules. You can use some averaging to accommodate things like lag, so the speed needs to be maintained for maybe 30 seconds.

For example, the first kick might be 1 minute, then 2, 4, 8, etc... People who occasionally use macros would only get a minor inconvenience if they accidentally clicked too fast, however those who repeatedly abuse macros would eventually find themselves temp banned for quite a long time, which would be a strong deterrent not to try to test the rules/limits and instead just set the macro to the reasonable speed as defined. There should be a way for people to report if they got falsely temp banned for macro use, and then you can study those reports to improve the algorithm.

The fundamental issues that I see with the 1-1 rule as I understand it are as follows:

• It can create confusion with exactly how many clicks are needed for multi-step processes, or exactly when the clicks must happen relative to the macro running. When there's confusion, there's opportunity for people to break the rules unintentionally or lose out if they end up overclicking.
• It still gives players who use macros a significant speed advantage over those who don't, because they're able to craft, build, trade, etc... much faster than normal (as fast as they can click). This isn't fair to normal human players, who can't compete without building macros.
• It can make macro building more complicated, because the macro has to also process the human input rather than a simple loop. Which means that it takes longer to build the macros and requires more knowledge so less people can participate (higher barrier to entry).
• It's impossible to actually know if the end user is physically clicking. You might be able to detect if someone is "clicking" in a regular pattern, however timing is easy to randomize so that it looks the same. Therefore, I can't see how this is actually enforced. In other words, it's basically the honour system as to whether or not players are actually following the rules, which is a system that has the potential to allow and reward rule breakers, at the expense of those who follow the rules.

Having a speed limit on each action has the following benefits:

• It's clear for players on how long each action/event should take. If you're doing X, you just look up the speed constant in a table.
• It removes the speed advantage for the macros by setting the maximum speed for a macro. You can even make a speed disadvantage, so that macros are limited to be slower than the fastest human users.
• It's easy to set up/modify macros for compliance - just add the appropriate delay. No dealing with input processing.
• Easy to enforce - just look at how quickly actions are happening over time. The enforcement could even be fully automated.

Therefore, it seems like a better option in my opinion.

I can personally say that there are still tons of opportunities for new players. At the end of the day, I don't think that macros impact anyone establishing a base, building a farm, making friends, or joining outposts.

However I do feel pretty strongly that macros should not give a speed advantage, because they do bring down prices of lots of readily producible items, and that does create conditions where new/non-macro players cannot compete effectively in the market. In my honest opinion, macros should probably be made to operate a bit slower than the faster human users, to even give a speed advantage to actually playing without them.

Sounds like a really good idea for those types of macros. When Kryssy said something like: We don't want to give people who are able to code an advantage over those who can't, I didn't really think about it, but I do indeed think we need to think about if that is true. I mean: Macros' programming is very easy to learn. I learned it in less than two hours: from nothing to crafting dispensers from cobble, redstone blocks, wood logs and string (without having that much of a background with coding - I only kinda knew Python and Java (was able to read it-ish)), so other people should also be able to quickly learn it.
Knowing coding indeed very much is something usefull. Not only if you actually awnt to code: When you don't know how to operate a program in a certain circumstance or such and you can't find a proper manual, it can also be very usefull to reverse-engeneer the coding by just checkiong how things work, to find out how to do something by just understanding how the algorithm works (I did this with Exel multiple times alredey)

I haven't read this post, but knowing you I trust that it is helpful, so I gave it a like anyway.

I say if you're not at the computer actually playing, you shouldn't be allowed to reap all these huge benefits. Plain regular AFK should be allowed as it is now, but i think it should be stated that the vast majority of players do not use anything aside from their own hands on the keyboard and mouse.

I will add that the natural maximum click rate for the average human hand is 5 clicks per second. I don't advise testing this on a prolonged basis, as it will cause adverse issues to muscles and tendons in your hand and arm.

- Andy

On what interval? Even with my 'bad' hand, I easily get 6 just clicking instead of mashing. 5 seems rather low for when you're trying to click hard.

Macros are not challenging to learn at all for many people, and those who can't could just copy or install a macro someone else wrote. The issue is that people who don't want to use macros, who just want to play Minecraft as Minecraft (play their own way, not install or modify their client, code, etc...) deserve to be able to compete in the market on the same playing field. ie time that someone spends out mining in the wild should be worth at least as much as time someone who coded a macro spends at their PC watching it run/clicking repeatedly.

Absolutely! I don't think anyone is advocating for AFK macros. I think that the person should need to be watching the computer, and it's reasonably easy to enforce by randomly messaging players.

If they register as "away" then a kick? How would that be handled?

- Andy

My point is that computer mice ad not designed to be rapidly clicked for long periods of time. Ergonomically they are designed for maybe 1 click per second without adverse physiological effects. 6 per second will induce tendonitis eventually, and will also lead to muscles cramping, knotting, and straining. Fine motor muscles are not meant for prolonged heavy use.

- Andy

So this is a great use for autoclickers while not distracted or away from your keyboard.

If staff have reason to suspect someone is running a script AFK, then they attempt to contact the person. If they can confirm that the player is moving/interacting and doesn't answer within 5 minutes, then that would be dealt with. A kick is a great place to start, though if that was the only consequence I don't think it would deter anyone. I imagine that repeat offenders should receive temporary bans for increasing lengths of time.

Clever bot/macro creators might have them respond to any private messages. Therefore, staff should probably have an actual conversation with the player. If they are found to be doing something like this, of course that would be much more serious. I doubt anyone is clever enough to put a full AI in their bot, and even the most advanced AIs can be fooled fairly easily (enjoy it while it lasts).

Hey! Nice Idea having a clever bot script. I'll make myself one and call it Wanda. Wanda is going to reply with the same message That I'm out right now but if you send me a message I'll get back to you. http://pm.emc.gs/MajorHaze I think the staff would gets some kicks out of that.

If you macro with that bot, I'm sure you will get more than a few kicks too.

This is what I was trying to convey in my original posts, and after doing some experiments with mods and trying to complete work that is most useful with macros, I can understand the appeal of wanting to alter your client in some ways.

But I do stand by azoundria's point that this is how the limitations should go.

I'm not sure if the AFK argument has been put to rest, but I will say this: If someone joined the server and started using macros right away and were always physically present at their computer but in another window (and so they didn't consider if AFK), I would want the staff to not have to debate the phrasing of the rule. And so, for those of the community who see AFK as too literal, and those who would try to find a loophole, I would vote to just change the phrase to "away" as far as writing rules go. Yes, it is a little knit-picky (in a good way), but I foresee it prevents a lot of confusion and bad intentions.

As I understand it, the AFK rules do mean away from keyboard, and that operating in another window would not be a violation. So, you could split up your screen and do two things at once, provided you aren't simultaneously on two accounts. However, you also need to be responsive to staff at all times. If that other activity took up the whole screen such that you couldn't watch EMC or took up your full attention for a reasonable period of time, then that would be a violation, and it would be discovered when/if staff messaged you and you were unable to answer.

At first glance, this might not seem fair. However, I will point out a few reasons I think it is:

1. The non-macro user can also do other things at the same time. For example, chat with a friend, listen to music, or watch a video. Very few would say that should be restricted.
2. Nothing prevents the non-macro user from playing for the same amount of time to get the same results as the macro user. There is inherently no advantage in the game itself.
3. It would actually be nearly impossible to enforce a rule about what people could do outside of the game while playing, both in terms of overreaching and also practically.

Although you do have an advantage over non-macro users in that you could accomplish certain other thing at the same time, you don't have an advantage as far as the game itself is concerned. The real world is inherently unfair in a wide variety of ways and it's not the responsibility of Empire Minecraft staff to resolve that. The intent of the rules is to enforce fairness with respect to the game.