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A little news from Forgotten Halls... (1 Viewer)

codecaster

codecaster

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
RedCents
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The run speed of the rats has been increased significantly.

My bard has been getting the shit kicked out of him lately and I couldn't figure out why. I was sitting on my alt inside the instance watching him kite, when I noticed something...

I used to think it was pretty funny how I used to be able to send in my alt's pet and watch him spin in circles in one spot to whack the rats as the bard was kiting them. His X and Y never changed, he just spun around in circles because the rat couldn't run fast enough to make any larger of a circle so as to go outside of melee range for the pet. Tonight, I noticed that my pet now has to run in very large circles to stay in range of the rats. The only logical explanation: the rats are running a hell of a lot faster now. I ran some log file parses, and I show that my bard requires 30% more healing time now than he did before the last patch, hence, he is getting whacked more, and my macro has not changed one bit.

Just a little FYI...

-CodeCaster
 
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easy fix with this. it might take a little away from your DPS, but twist snare in.
 
codecaster said:
The run speed of the rats has been increased significantly.

My bard has been getting the shit kicked out of him lately and I couldn't figure out why. I was sitting on my alt inside the instance watching him kite, when I noticed something...

I used to think it was pretty funny how I used to be able to send in my alt's pet and watch him spin in circles in one spot to whack the rats as the bard was kiting them. His X and Y never changed, he just spun around in circles because the rat couldn't run fast enough to make any larger of a circle so as to go outside of melee range for the pet. Tonight, I noticed that my pet now has to run in very large circles to stay in range of the rats. The only logical explanation: the rats are running a hell of a lot faster now. I ran some log file parses, and I show that my bard requires 30% more healing time now than he did before the last patch, hence, he is getting whacked more, and my macro has not changed one bit.

Just a little FYI...

-CodeCaster
Click to expand...


As SS44 mentioned, snare works pretty well.

Just make selos your top song then snare your next. works out okay.

btw, FH is still probably a little bit of a hot spot. I would avoid afk macroing there, Sir.
 
it's funny, because I have an account with a bard who has run non stop for three months, aside from down times due to a patch. He is almost maxed with AA, and I warp like mad. I have never used the shared bank transfer on that account, so I guess it boils down to.

Real men didn't use shared banking and retained their accounts.
Warp had little to do with it, unless you were seen and reported.
 
i used shared banking like mad, and warped on occaision. I never got banned, nor my other accounts. I think really it boils down to being quiet about it and not being stupid
 
eclipsed said:
i used shared banking like mad, and warped on occaision. I never got banned, nor my other accounts. I think really it boils down to being quiet about it and not being stupid
Click to expand...


I Think you used shared bank before nerf and red flagging.
 
eclipsed said:
i used shared banking like mad, and warped on occaision. I never got banned, nor my other accounts. I think really it boils down to being quiet about it and not being stupid
Click to expand...


this is not accurate at all. shared is tracked. don't do it unless you want to get banned. it is that simple.

1. you are either lucky and didn't do it anytime in the recent past.

2. you will be banned eventually if you aren't already.
 
I'm pretty sure he was talking about past use.......................................................................
he did after all say "used"
 
Believe me, you "real men" are just lucky. I had my account suspended last night specificly for afk macroing in Forgotten Halls. The email I got from the GM who banned me named that as the reason. As for me not being quiet about it, believe me when I say, I was! No one knew, not friends, guild members, no one saw me zoning in or out. It was a simple fact of the GM zoned in to Forgotten Halls, watched me killing the rats, sent me repeated tells, and got no answer. That coupled with the "perfect circles" clinched it for that account.

So, "Real Men", its not really a question of "if" you get will caught, but most definitely "when". So, my advice? Quit afk macroing in instanced zones, at least for a while till Sony lets up on this and other issues. You will get caught. You have been warned.
 
2 months before mass bans hit I got a hello there type tell. then a please answer me tell. Then a respond now tell from a GM I actually got lucky as hell and passed by the screen right then. I responded hey whats up as I got pummeled to bind and did a who zone and found a friend with me uninivited type. I do think this has been watched/violated (ie they have been going into instances for a while). I can only speak from my personal experience.
 
as i have posted in some other threads, my dad was macroing his bard in PoNightmare since no one was there. He was just sitting at his computer watching TV while doing it, because no one is stupid enough to afk in a non instanced zone. when the GM sent the tell, it was something like 'nice perfect circles you are running' then my dad /q'd. 2 hours later he logged in and rez'd the dead bard. that was a couple weeks ago, nothing heard from since. account still active. it doesnt really help on how to 'avoid being banned' but just one example of gm contact related to 'perfect circles'. also, the GM was not visible in the zone, and there was no one in the zone to report it.
 
Do these Gm's have nothing better to do? Honestly, I hope one of them reads this forum, cause quite honestly;

We ALL hate you GM's of Everquest.

And I'D personally like you all to contract the bird flu.

Now go do something useful, like fixing content, and leave the macroers the fuck alone.
 
ss44 said:
as i have posted in some other threads, my dad was macroing his bard in PoNightmare since no one was there. He was just sitting at his computer watching TV while doing it, because no one is stupid enough to afk in a non instanced zone. when the GM sent the tell, it was something like 'nice perfect circles you are running' then my dad /q'd. 2 hours later he logged in and rez'd the dead bard. that was a couple weeks ago, nothing heard from since. account still active. it doesnt really help on how to 'avoid being banned' but just one example of gm contact related to 'perfect circles'. also, the GM was not visible in the zone, and there was no one in the zone to report it.
Click to expand...
I would have replied "I practice a lot." What would they have said back? "NUH UH, YOU COULDNT BE THAT PERFECT ZOMGZOMG"
 
Believe me, you "real men" are just lucky. I had my account suspended last night specificly for afk macroing in Forgotten Halls. The email I got from the GM who banned me named that as the reason. As for me not being quiet about it, believe me when I say, I was! No one knew, not friends, guild members, no one saw me zoning in or out. It was a simple fact of the GM zoned in to Forgotten Halls, watched me killing the rats, sent me repeated tells, and got no answer. That coupled with the "perfect circles" clinched it for that account.

So, "Real Men", its not really a question of "if" you get will caught, but most definitely "when". So, my advice? Quit afk macroing in instanced zones, at least for a while till Sony lets up on this and other issues. You will get caught. You have been warned.
Click to expand...

I am very surprised in this day and time with everything that is going on, that people would even contemplate running an afk macro let alone the bard afk. We all have known for months that the GM's are cracking down on FH. Anyone even taking a bard into FH right now is just asking for a visit from a GM. To each his own I guess. You got balls to do it right now or simply don't care about your accounts LOL.




as i have posted in some other threads, my dad was macroing his bard in PoNightmare since no one was there. He was just sitting at his computer watching TV while doing it, because no one is stupid enough to afk in a non instanced zone. when the GM sent the tell, it was something like 'nice perfect circles you are running' then my dad /q'd. 2 hours later he logged in and rez'd the dead bard. that was a couple weeks ago, nothing heard from since. account still active. it doesnt really help on how to 'avoid being banned' but just one example of gm contact related to 'perfect circles'. also, the GM was not visible in the zone, and there was no one in the zone to report it.
Click to expand...

This one though, I am sorry to say it, but I hold no remorse if you father gets the ban stick. Running an afk macro right now = dangerous. Running an afk macro in a non instanced zone = unwanted attention that we are already getting too much of to begin with. It has been said for longer than I can even remember.......Do NOT run afk macro's in non instanced zones. Doing so just makes it even worse for all the rest of us mq2 users.

I honestly would not be surprised right now if GM's are specifically doing /who all Bard
many times a day just to check on the bards in game to see what they are doing. Bards are by far the most exploited class in the game. MQ2 would have ALOT less uses if bards did not exist LOL. Example: I do not even run mq2 anymore since the expansion came out. I know I will again, but for now I choose to lay low till I am confident that this has hopefully blown over. With that said, I was on my bard last night running solo in a non instanced zone. NO mq at all. I did a GM check out of curiousity and noticed 2 on and in cshome. Within 10 minutes of my soloing this zone (which was relatively easy to do since most all lb's), I did another GM check and low and behold, one of them was in my zone. I ran around some looking around. He was not too far away from me watching me. I ran up to him and started talking to him. Took him about 15 seconds and he suddenly left. Bards are being watched more than any other class right now.
 
shadowman33 said:
This one though, I am sorry to say it, but I hold no remorse if you father gets the ban stick. Running an afk macro right now = dangerous. Running an afk macro in a non instanced zone = unwanted attention that we are already getting too much of to begin with. It has been said for longer than I can even remember.......Do NOT run afk macro's in non instanced zones. Doing so just makes it even worse for all the rest of us mq2 users.
Click to expand...

what I gathered while reading that post you qouted, is that he said his dad ~~>was at the computer<~~ and watching a movie, while keeping an eye on the bard kiting in a non instanced zone.
 
Dad probably messed up.

/q'ing out because of a GM tell as much as admitting you are macro'ing.

He would have been better off saying something like

"Hey, thanks for noticing!". and continued on with any conversation from there. At least that way he would KNOW you were afk ... as it is now, the GM most likely thought the macro was written to automatically /q upon receiving a tell.
 
friend I knew a while back (he was a mq2 user) went afk in PoK overnight while singing his Shadowstep song for kicks and grins.

When he woke up the next morning he had literally a hundred tells from people that they had seen him warping as well as 2 different GM's who both came to investigate. Long story short ... he was popping all around and the gms were about to ban him until they noticed he had an active song going. They did their gm magic to cut off all active abilities/songs/spells/commands and he immediately stopped. He kept the logs just for fun, but the GM's apologised and shit. It was funny as hell though because appaently his afk shinannigans had PoK in an uproar for almost 2 or 3 hours prior to the GM arrival.

Yeah you're flirting with disaster doing so, but if you want to give them more to do/investigate just go afk in a very public place with your SS song continuously snapping you around every tick.

SS looks just like a "warp" client side, and can only be differentiated through close examination serverside.

That was a long time ago though. In this day and age the GM would probably ban you immediately and never think twice about it.
 
True on that, I should have clarified better. The simple fact that he was running a bard circle macro in a non instanced zone was just begging for trouble. He might not have been afk, but was still running the macro in the wrong place. I'm not flaming him for doing it. That is his choice to make. I do wish that people would stop drawing unwanted attention to mq in game. I see these things on a daily basis and it never stops amazing me how blatent people can be without regard. I do not mean his father since he did at least state that he made sure no one else was in the zone. Still, right now bard circle macro = ban stick coming out LOL.
I personally don't believe the bans came from /warp or /zone. If that were the case, the people I see use it every single day right in front of me would have long been booted. No matter where you are or what you are going to do with mq, just stop and think about it before you do.
 
To answer letmein's question, yes, I do still run this macro 24x7.

Here are some keys to my success:

1. - The macro sets a flag to beep every pass thru the main loop if a tell has been detected, and only stops beeping when I "/echo SHUT UP" to acknowledge the tell. This even wakes me up in the middle of the night, which was the purpose to begin with. Didn't want to get banned in my sleep...

2. - My bard runs about 4-5 different random paths to the dude on the dock to get new missions.

3. - The toons I have assisting the bard randomly change positions from time to time, as if to shuffle around in boredom.

4. - My cleric logic is pretty damn impressive, if I do say so myself... In fact, she even summons food and water for the other toons, tells the bard to hold pulls, and walks up to everyone and passes it out and returns to an area outside the kite circle. She also rebuffs and chooses heals based on the speed at which the target PC is losing HP.

Basically, even if they wanted to look at my group chat and tells, they would see all the same text they would see in a normally-functioning group. I even have the bard screw up his kite once in a while and get beat down pretty good, before having the cleric save the day...

At this point in my EQ career, I dislike playing the game, but I absolutely LOVE programming. Thus, instead of spending 8 hours a day playing EQ, I spend 8 hours a day adding things to macros that already work just fine, and these are the kinds of things I come up with. These macros have been a work in progress for over 6 months now, and I'm very pleased with the results. As a matter of fact, I have *NEVER* even had a conversation with a GM with any regard to these characters. Am I lucky? Probably, but I must say that given the statistics, a little bit of skill may have had something to do with it. ;)

-CodeCaster
 
Some more news on this...

After much hair-pulling and keyboard-head-pounding, I have determined a few things that may help all of you fix your bard macros while I put the finishing touches on the one I plan to release within the next couple months. (I know "a couple months" is a long time, but I don't release scripts... I release reliable software applications. :D )

First, for all of you that are using /circle 26 (which used to be the old max circle size) the new anti-warp code is causing you to get stuck on the corners a lot now. Reducing the circle size to 18-20 fixes this AND it has a wonderful side-effect.

Now that the rats run so much faster, the larger circles were also triggering the rats to backtrack on their static path and essentially wait for you on the other end of your circle fairly often, which gives them a much grater chance of landing a hit on you. However, the smaller circles keep the rats from ever touching the static paths outside the center of the room, thus keeping them running in smoother circles. In fact, after parsing my log files, my cleric heals my bard a full 80% less than she used to before the change.

The moral of the story: Change your circle size to 18 if you have all bard running AA's (fleet of foot) and 20 if you don't. It'll fix you right up.

-CodeCaster
 
yessiree, i figgured out the circle at 18 a month or so ago, it is quite the relief in my death rate :D. Not to mention, if your bard is a large race (Vah Shir), it keeps you from clipping that corner :).
 
Haha... this is funny. I had my roommate completly shut down his bard macroing with all the Ban stick happy mother f**kers going on the past couple months. I've completly redone my macros with my zerker and shammy to only do instanced or places normal people without mq2 warping can't get to. I make sure everything I do afk macro wise is unique. I average about 1.85 % AA per minute. not to shabby just under an AA an hour. On top of that I change my zone every 2 weeks. Found 2 perfect spots with awesome exp and noone goes. I recommend if you are going to afk macro... get off your lazy ass think up something unique and code it yourself. If you used recycled macros off any of the forums you run a high risk of bad things happening, or you gotta be very cautionous like codecaster... I like that beep idea. I might even use steal that idea from ya.
 
Bleh... I just make very comprehensive macros in instanced zones so that I don't bother anyone and let them run for 6 months straight. I only die when the power goes out. :p

-CodeCaster
 
LOL

I Used to be like that. I'd like the GM's to go back to wanking off so I get my toons some much needed aa's
 
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