The Achilles Heel of SWTOR: No Macros

[Lepew]

I played Star Wars Galaxies. That game would let you macro and automate. You could set up a macro, park your toon on a spawn, and come back the next day with a full inventory. They went too far overboard. The mistake was automation.

I played WoW. They put castsequences in play, but other than that, macroing was highly restricted to just one action per macro. They avoided the automation problem of SWG, but they still forced you as a user to stare at your interface to monitor cooldowns. They did let mods go into the game which would assist you with and monitor cooldowns so you could get by.

I played Rift. They let you put as many CD abilities as you wanted into a single macro. Coding worked such that it would go down a list and execute the first thing it could do, then quit until you pressed the key again. This avoided automation, and it let you as a user not focus on staring at the UI waiting for CDs. This was a true step forward from WoW, and let me focus on the tactical battlefield rather than staring at an array of buttons.

Now I am playing SWTOR, and we are in no macro land. I can create about 17 key binds with a keyboard and play reasonably well, hitting binds from my left hand and using mouse movement on the right. The problem is we can not macro anything, and there are too many skills on separate cooldowns. You have to load up the bottom bar, left bar, and right bar, and try to stare at all 3 bars at the same time to see what is off CD. This is HORRIBLE since my focus is on the screen's edge and not on all of the stuff happening in the game itself. It is doubly horrible in a game which seeks to provide an immersive RPG like feel, as I am really driven into mouse clicking stuff at the expense of seeing the beauty of the game or the intersting tactical battlefield.

I refuse to play as a mouse clicker guy, watching some toolbar all game long for CDs, so all I can do in this setup is junk about half the active abilities I get, and pick my best 3 single target, and my best 2 AE abilites and play only those on binds. It is frustrating, but this is what we are driven to.

Now I can understand that SWTOR must be really very sensitive to the automation and gameplay failure of SWG, but they have gone way overboard to the detriment of immersive play by banning all macros, and they could stand to learn a lot about gameplay from companies like Trion (Rift). Macros do not equal automation. There is nothing noble about being able to stare at a toolbar and click a button with your mouse a microsecond after it comes off of cooldown, nor is the nobility increased by managing this act while staying out of stuff on the battlefield.

For me a good player is tactically aware and makes the right decision at the right time, rather than a person who can micromanage cooldowns on a quickbar. Macros that let you pile up a bunch of CD abilties of a similar function (IE a heal macro, an interrupt macro, a ST dps macro, a ST stun macro) in a single macro let keybinders function and enjoy the full game. If you wish to experience the frustration I feel, and you are a mouse clicker, turn off all bars except a single 12 slot action bar. Now look at your skills list and decide what doesn't make it onto the bar. This is the process us keybinders go through when we can not macro.

What would be so very horrible about letting a simple macro like this work

cast sunder strike
cast strike

you hit the macro, it would try to use sunder strike if it was not on CD, and if it was on CD, it would strike. Either way you generate focus, the purpose of the macro. You would no longer have to sit there and stare at the button for sunder strike waiting for it to come up again. You could hammer the macro when you needed energy and just have fun playing the game. It is really very annoying to me that a game designer would consider the above macro to be abusive to the point of banning macros from the game.

Furthermore we can not move bars. Not only are we really strongly encouraged to ignore what is happening in the game and mouse click bars, but also we can not move them. There are so many redundant abilities that you need to fill up left, right and bottom bars. As a gamer your eye moves to the left edge, to the bottom, to the right edge, skippign what is going on in the middle. Why could you not just let those bars stack up in a single horizontal pile at the bottom to give a dashboard like feel? Why must the bars be anchored with rigidity to the left and right screen? There are no mods which give us flexibility (like WoW) nor do we have UI flexibility built into the game (like Rift), and we are stuck in no mans land.

I suppose if this truely were a save/reload RPG with a space bar to pause action, you could deal with this awkward bar placement by stopping the action and choosing your next ability. Is this what is the core of the problem here, that the gaming company is coming from a RPG background where you can pause/reload , and UI issues don't really matter?

The best thing you could do would be to steal a UI programmer from Trion, or at least take him out for a beer and learn how to do what they do.

I love this game. I love how it is bringing back the RPG elements that I used to get in games like Baldur's Gate. But this UI is horrible, and close to unplayable. MMOs have gone beyond this, and you guys should redress this problem in a patch.

[viith]

You're absolutely right, I need macros so I can queue up /burp and /nerfherder.

[sstumpff]

But there is overboard in the "rift model" too. Shaman in rift can click one button and show massive DPS. For most other classes, this isn't the case.

[Qmage]

Sounds like you don't want to look at your mirrors or your dash board while driving your car

Few things that may help while we all wait for macros.
- Right clicking your target actives the action in slot 1. It does not work for heals for a friendly target unfortunately. You could use this to regen your rage/focus
- You do get 2 bottom action bars (24 slots) and that where I keep all my abilities needed for battle. Agree it would be nice to have more or move them which is coming.
- Also under options there is the option to adjust your stacking time of your next ability before the GCD ends. Think the setting are from 1 sec to 0 secs in .25 sec increments. This will help with not feeling like you need to watch your GCD all the time. Try adjusting the times. Default is 0.5 sec.

As for the tactical view.....I play a ranged which is nice as it allows the tactical view where as a melee you have the additional task of staying on top of a moving target.

[Dithanial]

I agree, to a point. The U/I is absolutely horrible to my tastes, but not unplayable for me. I would love the dashboard set up I had in WoW. Everything except the minimap was in the bottom 25% of my screen, all very convenient and I had trained myself to use it. Now I've trained myself to use this U/I, but I would still prefer something more customizable. I've memorized all 36 of my keybinds and my rotation generally allows my CD's to expire, though I have to keep an eye on my "shock" to see if the CD ends early.

Fortunately, U/I customization is coming soon to a SWTOR near you!

I've already said my piece on macros in another thread, so I'll spare this one.

[Lepew]

<rant mode on>

Whack-a-mole is a carnival game in which you have a hammer. "Moles" pop up out of their holes, and you whack them with a hammer. The faster you are at whacking moles, the more points you get. If you miss a mole, you lose out on points. 2 year olds who love to smash things love Whack-A-Mole.

This is the game you play when you stare at buttons on a toolbar, waiting for them to come off cooldown. Think of "off cooldown" as mole popping up, and your mouse click is the hammer. This is the game you play when you can not keybind.

Clickers use W-A-S-D for movement on their left hands, and click buttons on their right hand with the mouse. I have a friend who plays WoW and arranges his his bars such that his main 4 skills are in a diamond pattern, and he just clicks them as they come off cooldown, and he has a visual click pattern he does in his box. Raiding for him is staring at that diamond clicking stuff. People on ventrilo have to tell him to quit standing in the green puke on the floor because he is busy staring at his diamond, clicking it as fast as he can. He plays Whack-a-mole, not WoW.


Keybinders remap keys to bar slots. In this game you do escape/preferences, keybindings and bind. I set these up for myself,

1=action bar 1, key 1
2=action bar 1, key 2
3=action bar 1, key 3
4=action bar 1, key 4
5=action bar 1, key 5
q=action bar 1, key 6
w=action bar 1, key 7
e=action bar 1, key 8
x=action bar 1, key 9
t=action bar 1, key 10
g=action bar 1, key 11
h=action bar 1, key 12

z=bottom action bar, key 1
n=bottom action bar, key 1
y=bottom action bar, key 1
j=bottom action bar, key 1
u=bottom action bar, key 1
i=bottom action bar, key 1

f=companion bar, key 1
tab= companion bar, key 2

Note all of these keys are reassigned for ease of reach with the left hand. You do not keep 6 as action bar 1, button 6 because hitting the 6 key with your left hand without looking is a long reach, and hard to pull off. The row above the rest position (qwertyui) has a lot of use. Odds are you still need (asd) to move with your mouse, IE circle strafe on mouse is hold down "a" as you right click and swivel mouse. Even with those, you still have f,g.h, j as viable on the rest row. The bottom row, (zxcvbn) is usable. I typically remap v to target next to avoid hitting caps lock instead of tab. I tend to leave b for bags, c for character, and I use f for pet attack. But if you look on the keyboard, a keybinder is pretty much restricted to not going past 5 in the number row, u on the qwerty row, j on the asdf row, and n on the zxcvb row. If you add them all up I get this

actions: 12345qwetyuighjzxn = 18 keys, i is hard to hit blind
f=pet attack
tab=petpassive
asd= strafe left, back strafe right
c=character
v=target next
b= bags

A keybinder then will watch the action, hit those keys blind to do stuff, and maneuver with the mouse. You occasionally look at bars to see what is up, but it is better to either have a macro to deal with CDs, or a mod that displays cooldowns (eg DoT timer mod, WoW).

But think about it. Those 18 keys (and i, u, j are hard to hit blind with your left hand) are the limit. That is 1.5 action bars usuable by a keybinder.

Now look at the game. If you have 4-5 single target attacks with different cooldowns, that fills up half a bar just for single target attacks. Then you add 2-3 aoe attacks, maybe 2-3 defensive cooldowns, maybe a medikit on a bar for emergencies, perhaps a cc break, maybe hotkey your mount, a taunt, a group taunt, a spell interrupt, an out of combat rest key, a stun or two...your 18 slot keybind bar is full long before you have everything in it.

Now clickers will say "hey wait a minute, we have a bar, bottom bar, a right bar, a left bar...thats 48 keys that should be plenty!". But a binder will say if you have more than 18 actions, I am going to have to become a clicker to do them.

I used to be a clicker, but then I played Duke Nukem and got fragged a whole lot more than mouse movers. This is because mouse movement and blind keybinds is MUCH faster than mouse clicking bars. I made the switch them, and have never gone back, and no MMO has forced me to go back to clicking until this one.

When I play this game, I want to play Star Wars, not Whack-A-Mole. As long as this game does not have macros or a UI for CDs that is worth a crap, I am essentially playing Whack-A-Mole, staring at those cooldown moles, and whacking them with my clicker mouse hammer. Whack whack whack. Flog that mole. Flog it some more.

<rant mode off>

[tjgoalie]

You are forgetting about modifies such as shift, control, etc. I use a gaming mouse and have my 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and 0 keys bound to it. I also have a bar where I have shift + 1,2,3, etc. I could keybind for alt and control but I find it unnecessary at this point.

Now, this obviously does not cover all of my skills, so that's when I go to the keyboard. I use WASD to move so those keys are off limits for binding. So that leaves me with Q,E,R,F,Z,X, and C which are right around where my left hand normally is.

So that brings me up to 27 bound keys. Like stated before, though, there are 48 slots. If I really need to bind the rest, I simply add shift to all of the keys surrounding WASD. And if that's still not enough I can make control and alt modifies both for the keyboard and my mouse buttons.

Anyway, though it may be tedious, it is no where near impossible to bind all 48 slots.

/end rant

[Lepew]

Yes I know the concern with Rift Shamen. You can put every single DPS skill into a 15 line macro and mash that button, and do DPS. I view this as more of a shortcoming of class design rather than a flaw in the macro system. Really, do we need 15 attack buttons for single targets? Really? Typically I have multiple macros, IE

charge macro
single target DPS macro
area of effect macro
self heal macro
in combat energy bar recovery macro
burst damage macro
root/slow macro
stun macro
interrupt macro
crowd control macro
taunt macro
mount macro
cleanse macro
the "oh hell save my bacon" macro
the self shield macro
a threat dump macro

If you look at the above, each one of those macros represents a separate game functionality. The reason why they are macros is because there are more than 1 action skill associated with that function. The gaming comes from deciding when to stun, or when to taunt, or when to threat dump, or when to burst, or when to crowd control. The gaming is not in my mind defined by the whack-a-mole process. A DPS shaman whose only job is mindless single target DPS would in Rift have a single button to push. But how many of these other functions I have generic macros for are lacking in that class design? A good game designer should try to add more functionality and less repetition, with functionality being things like interrupts, threat dumps, crowd control, taunts, leaps etc, and repetition being numbers of attacks falling within a single function.

So when you have a shaman with an 15 line macro, that is more of an issue with too much focus on mono-function (in this case single target DPS), and not enough of functionality.

Now as far as optimizing DPS in a raid environment goes, a true raider trying to squeek out the last bit of DPS would in the end become a Whack-a-mole-r and click buttons in a grid because of the mechanics of how the game queues non GCD abilities and energy usage. A 15 line macro would let a casual gamer do fairly decent DPS, but he would never equal a top of the line raiding, whack-a-moler who is micromanaging global cooldowns and energy consumption.

I would say however it is a better business model to come up with a game that a casual player can have fun with and not have to master grid whack-a-mole to contribute, and this is best achieved via macros. Also macros let older guys compete with the younger kids, since you use your brain to program priority rather than rely upon raw twitch to hit stuff faster than your old dad.

[Kayko]

1 button = 1 action.

I quit Rift primarily cause of macros. It was a simple loss in dps if you didn't make the dumb 1 button iwin button.

[Lepew]

Modifiers such as ctrl+1 or alt+1 do extend the keybinds. However if you just for a moment look at what you are doing. A regular keypress has 3 fingers at rest with one moving. A modifier keypress has 2 fingers resting with two moving, and usually those two are at a big spread. For instance ctrl-6 has a pinky on control and index on 6. Try doing that with keeping your ring and middle finger resting on the s and d keys. You can't. You have to pull your hand up, off the keyboard, make the stretch, then put it back down. When you pull your hand off the keyboard, and you blindly put it down, you can miss your rest positions and hit unintended keys. The way you compensate is by looking at your hand.

It is this looking at your hand that is the problem. Your eyes go out of the game window, and onto the keyboard, again diluting immersion (you are aware of peripherals rather than immersed in video action), and you need background lighting to see the keyboard.

I applaud your ability to blindly hit modifiers, but that is a skill that I have a lot of trouble with, and I think there are more who share my difficulties hitting modifiers, then who share your skill in hitting them. I have a friend who has palsy tremors and is physically unable to do stuff like that, so again we are in a situation where the gamer is being forced into keyboarding gymnastics rather than the game maker relenting and making a viable interface.

The other problem with blind modifiers is remembering where you put what. It is hard enough to remember 24 or so binds, but then to multiply that by 2 or 3 with the alt and control modifiers, umm, who can really remember all of that?

I think a lot of gaming companies have gone down this road. They come up with a class, they brainstorm attacks, and lo and behold they have a list with 15 single target attacks with slightly different side effects, all on separate cooldowns, and they pat themselves on the back for their ingenuity. The problem then becomes when they have to actually play the beast they created and key those attacks. I think a better gaming company views the battlefield with actions needed to succeed, and has classes with functions set up to accomplish those tasks, and focuses upon variety of function rather than variety within function.

Regarding the I Win Single Button

OK so you have your Rift Shaman with his 15 line one button macro. He is mashing it. You are not. But guess what, if he is stunned, he cant hit that macro. If he is line of sighted he is not hitting that macro. If he is flying back from knockback, he is not htting that macro. If he is crowd controlled, he is not hitting that macro. If he can't see you or you disappear, he is not hitting that macro. All of the things you use to foil that macro listed above are playing skill. DO not confuse playign skill with whack-a-mole. The one button wonder probably will not do well in PvP, because usually PvP involves somethign more than a simple queuing of single target DPS attacks. If you equate gaming skill with who the best mole-whacker is, well, I think you are missing the entire point I am making.

If everything can bet put on 1 button, then this points to a game design flaw. Did that macro have a mez with direct damage in it? No because the DD would break mez. IF all that guy is doing is hitting that one DPS button, you should be able to take him down easy. For instance if that macro has stuns in it high in the stack, and he blindly mashes the macro, and his target is stun immune, he just wasted a GCD doing nothing. You can not put everything in one macro. You can only put everything of one functionality in that macro. Would you put AOE dps moves in with a single target macro? No becasue usually AOE moves cost more energy and do less damage, and if you only have one target, you will do less.

Regarding Cars and Dashboards

When I am in a car, I expect it to look like a car. Cars have dashboards, control panels etc. When I walk out of the car, and onto a horse, I expect the horse to look like a horse and have reins. If that horse looks like a car dashboard, we lose immersion. The more I have to make a big cumbersome UI that looks like a car instrument panel to play the game, the less immsersive that game is because I have this big giant automobile panel on my horse. UI should be out of the way and not obscuring the action, and the entire idea of cooldown buttons that need to be monitored detracts from gameplay. If I keybind I can turn off the UI entirely and still function. I see the entire world and am immersed in it. This is the goal. Right now we are stuck with dashboards on horses and whack-a-mole.

[xeroph34r]

So, I am a keybinder. The problem is not the system, its you. I have 24 skills keybound and still use wasd to move around, 12 of these are bound to my mouse, and 12 to keys, and target switch is mouse wheel roll. And guess what, the only time I ever look for a cooldown is when I'm checking a big one, like 2mins or more, develop a rythym to your rotation and don't panic push and you won't have a need to watch cooldowns, they will come up by the time you get to them in a rotation. I am melee so I am constantly watching the enemy and I get along fine. Even in game that had macros I didn't use them, that's what rotations are, a rotation of abilities based on dps-cooldown-reaource, how to use your abilities without blowing your resource too fast and not need an ability before its off cooldown.
<rant over>

[tjgoalie]

Ok, so some modifiers don't work for you. That's ok, just don't use them.

There really is no "one size fits all" solution. You need to mess around and find what works best for you. The only person who can tell you how to play, is you. And I don't think the system is to blame for that.

[Garou]

BW has stated that at sompoint they will implement macros and I would guess they will find some way to hinder the one button combos similar to the way they did in WoW.

BW also has shown their UI update that will be coming soon.

Just be patient. Rome wasnt built in a day.

[Lepew]

Garou- hope you are right about the coming of macros. I really hope this is as you infer, an oversight in a rush to release rather than an intractable position against macros.

tjgoalie- the problem is with the system imo, since I have been able to function just fine in Rift, WoW, SWG...and that is going way back in time. The standard of macros has been in for MMOs for a bit. I think the last MMO I played with no macros was DAOC, and that was years and years ago. This game fell way short of the industry standard in the macro department.

xeroph34r- so you have that gaming mouse with the 12 or more buttons on it? I heard it has a steep learning curve. THe few times I have tried to take advantage of thumb buttons etc on my standard mouse, it has not worked. I think in WoW I tried runlock on thumb1, but it would not recognize it. I have a MX revolution mouse and I dont really have plans to outlay for a new $100 mouse yet, nor do I think the thumb reaches on it would work well.

Rotations work as long as there are no conditionals in it. For instance with Jedi Knight you have riposte, which is a non-gcd reactionary on a 6s cooldown. I have not been able to configure the scrolling combat text of this game to indicate reactionaries for Riposte, so there is that basic problem of hitting this ability involves staring at the icon to see when it lights up. Or take for instance a partial investment in momentum from Guardian (1 pt means force leap has a 33% chance to give you a free blade storm)...here we have a random factor entering into whether or not you can hit something out of rotation, and I am again reduced to staring at icons and playing whack-a-mole. Overall Jedi Knight is a headache of watching icons for reactionaries and cooldowns coupled with managing focus, and that headache could be easily remedied with a simple macro system in which it would proceed down a list checking if (a) you have enough focus to do it, and (b) the conditions of cooldown and reactionary have been met to enable it. With this macro system I could assign these things to one macro and dispense with staring with icons.

I think the true test of how immersive a game can be is this: Can you turn off the UI and still play your character at full functionality?

Macros would go a long way towards making that possible. There are some things that are unavoidable for the UI such as health and focus bars. Were you that Jedi, you would know how hurt you were without looking at a bar, or how much energy you had without looking at that bar, but the game can not easily convey these sensations to you other than through a bar. So health/mana bars will always be essential until game makers develop cheap touch feedback circuits that say apply increasing pressure on a glove to indicate low health, or some other non visual way.

But there is a world of difference from the necessity of having health/mana bars in a UI to having a cumbersome and complicated set of cooldowns and icon managment. I would think that a game company like Bioware that seeks immersive gaming as its point of distinction would be actively seeking to eliminate non-immersive distractions such as a cumbersome and icon-intensive UI.

[Dithanial]

Can you turn off the UI and still play your character at full functionality?

Yes.

I would think that a game company like Bioware that seeks immersive gaming as its point of distinction would be actively seeking to eliminate non-immersive distractions such as a cumbersome and icon-intensive UI.

They are working on it.