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I wrote this little (read long) write up in hope it helps someone who is just starting to use MQ2Eskay. It was a little daunting at first even though theres videos and tons of information and I died more than I care to admit, but a lot of it isn't condensed down to what should be known first. So here it is. I hope it helps.
My Experience with MQ2Eskay Week 1
Right out of the box(zip file) this plugin works with VERY LITTLE setup. After using the RedGuides Launcher to install the Plugin after purchasing it (you'll likely not have to load the plugin in game once you log in since it should automatically load. In case it doesn't load enter /plugin mq2eskay load in eq) the only things you need to do is have a healer(maybe), find a camp location/go to it, and enter this command(without quotes): "/shd mode 7"
When you press enter your map will have a red circle around where you are standing. This is your camp. Go pull something and run back into it. You'll see that once the mob enters it, your SK automatically beats anything inside it down.
In this mode 7, Sic Mode, it will let you pull and run around your camp, but when a monster enters it, the plugin will take control and run to the mob and do the button presses for you. It will basically just protect your camp, and beat down any mob without you having to initiate an attack. It will even forcefully bring you back to camp if a mob enters it while you are out pulling.
12:30 of Sic's MQ2eskay Video briefly explains more on these modes and even more
The modes are probably the heart and soul of this plugin from my week 1 perspective. They are detailed below, but this is the TL;DR of what I did: As a new user, I basically switched between mode 0 and 7. I got the feel for Mode 7, and then experimented with Mode 5. This is where PullRadius and PullArc come into play. See more below the mode list.
For least complex to most complex, read Mode 0, then 7, then 5.
Modes:
Any time I switched between 5 and 7, I always went to Mode 0 first. You never know. It's a good idea to get into the habit of going back to Manual mode as a first step.
Pulling:
Before we begin on pulling, make sure you have the mesh for your zones up to date. Find more information HERE. It's easy, you basically just run an updater.
As a rule of thumb, before you start your camp, it's a good idea to set your pull radius to 10 before you switch into mode 5 or 6.
Why?
Your pullRadius shows on your map, and only will physically show you on the map once you've entered that mode. This also means you'll start pulling immediately too. If you're in a new, dense area, and your pull radius is large it could get ugly.
If you set up camp in a dungeon, and lets say your pullRadius is 50 and the pullArc is 360 (360 is a full circle around you). If there are mobs 15 feet behind you on the other side of a wall, you'll pull them first because they're the closest physically to you. The plugin doesn't know you'll potentially run past other aggressive mobs to get to the ones in your pull radius on the other side of the wall around 8 or 9 corners and you'll have 20 mobs in your extended target window. You'll soon see: LOADING. Please Wait...
If you set it to 10, you can adjust your pullarc using /shd pullarc ## and get the shape and direction you want. From there you can slowly increase your pull radius in the already set direction of your pulls.
Until you get the hang of it or have hotkeys set up with the camp specifics for radius and arc, it may save you a death or two to start the radiuses small in the beginning and work your way up.
When pulling, one thing to consider is your zRadius. If you're in a single floor type zone, this is effecitvely useless, but if you're in Tower of Rot say, You may want to pull from a floor above, or you may not want to. /shd zRadius will set how far above or below you will pull. Generally stick to single floor camp in the beginning to get the hang of it and then move on.
Also while pulling in tight areas with faction monsters (like GMM), you might not want to pull all monsters within your radius. To counteract this, you can quickly press "/shd ignore" while the undesired target is selected to add it to a pullignores.ini file in your release folder. This will skip this mob in the pull routine, and it will move on to the next mob. If you change your mind later, /shd unignore undoes that. There's also /shd showIgnore
One final important thing about pulling is /shd levelmin and /shd levelmax. Obviously if you're pulling mobs, you don't want to pull a mob 20 levels higher than you. You can set a cap to the level of mobs you want to pull with levelMax. Similarly levelMin allows you to skip mobs that are undesirably low. You might want to just set your level max to 4 or 5 level above you so you don't pull a guard as well
IMPORTANT: One thing I didn't realize until almost a week later is in the eskay settings (/shd show) under the Settings tab, Make sure AutoStandOnFeign is unchecked. I think it's defaulted to checked for some reason and couldn't figure out why I could never stay FD'ed. That was why.
More information can be found at https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/mq2eskay.1153/field?field=commands which goes into more fine tuning details and https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/mq2eskay.1153/field?field=faq for more FAQs.
For 90% of all your SK grouping needs as far as I can tell, the above pretty much covers it as far as getting started goes. Please let me know if there is anything above that is glaringly incorrect or that I could do better.
My Experience with MQ2Eskay Week 1
Right out of the box(zip file) this plugin works with VERY LITTLE setup. After using the RedGuides Launcher to install the Plugin after purchasing it (you'll likely not have to load the plugin in game once you log in since it should automatically load. In case it doesn't load enter /plugin mq2eskay load in eq) the only things you need to do is have a healer(maybe), find a camp location/go to it, and enter this command(without quotes): "/shd mode 7"
When you press enter your map will have a red circle around where you are standing. This is your camp. Go pull something and run back into it. You'll see that once the mob enters it, your SK automatically beats anything inside it down.
In this mode 7, Sic Mode, it will let you pull and run around your camp, but when a monster enters it, the plugin will take control and run to the mob and do the button presses for you. It will basically just protect your camp, and beat down any mob without you having to initiate an attack. It will even forcefully bring you back to camp if a mob enters it while you are out pulling.
12:30 of Sic's MQ2eskay Video briefly explains more on these modes and even more
The modes are probably the heart and soul of this plugin from my week 1 perspective. They are detailed below, but this is the TL;DR of what I did: As a new user, I basically switched between mode 0 and 7. I got the feel for Mode 7, and then experimented with Mode 5. This is where PullRadius and PullArc come into play. See more below the mode list.
For least complex to most complex, read Mode 0, then 7, then 5.
Modes:
- Mode 0(Manual): This doesn't have a camp and won't attack anything. But it will do the rotations once you press auto attack.
- Mode 1(assist): If you're playing SK, and you're in this mode, you're not pulling, or tanking. You're effectively DPS. You'll select a MA then enter the command for this mode (/shd mode 1) and youll make your camp where you stand, and wait for a MA to start beating down mobs.
- Mode 2(chase): This would essentially be used if you wanted your sk to be a DPSer and your MA, say MQ2War was in huntertank mode. Your SK would follow around your huntertanking war and keep up with him.
- Mode 3(vorpal): When in this mode, the only thing you are bound to is the MA. If the MA is attacking something, you will too, eventually. You won't return anywhere though and you won't chase the MA. There's no camp, and you won't chase anyone. You will run across the zone if the MA does start attacking something though.
- Mode 4(Tank): is basically mode 7, like I described above, except you can't move if you wanted to, like you can in Mode 7.
- Mode 5(Pullertank): This is basically the hands off mode. This will go pull mobs in your designated pull area(more on this later), bring them back to camp, and tank them down, repeat. It will automatically rest for you if you need health or mana, then resume pulling.
- Mode 6(pullerassist): This mode is when you aren't tanking, but you are pulling back to your designated camp. You'll sit in your camp, highlight who you'd be assisting, and then enter the command for this. As far as priorities go, you will dps first, and manage aggro second. Pull areas are a big component of this.
- Mode 7(Sic Tank): This is the Tank and spank mode if you wanted freedom to run in and around your camp. You could use this mode if you wanted to manually pull, bring the mob back to your red circle camp, and then let the plugin damage the mob down to 0. In this mode, if a mob enters camp while you're away, you'll automatically run back to camp to grab it.
- Mode 8(Huntertank): This is like pullertank, except you have no camp and don't pull back to anywhere. You just run around and aggressively attack any mob you find. No camp with this mode.
Any time I switched between 5 and 7, I always went to Mode 0 first. You never know. It's a good idea to get into the habit of going back to Manual mode as a first step.
Pulling:
Before we begin on pulling, make sure you have the mesh for your zones up to date. Find more information HERE. It's easy, you basically just run an updater.
As a rule of thumb, before you start your camp, it's a good idea to set your pull radius to 10 before you switch into mode 5 or 6.
Why?
Your pullRadius shows on your map, and only will physically show you on the map once you've entered that mode. This also means you'll start pulling immediately too. If you're in a new, dense area, and your pull radius is large it could get ugly.
If you set up camp in a dungeon, and lets say your pullRadius is 50 and the pullArc is 360 (360 is a full circle around you). If there are mobs 15 feet behind you on the other side of a wall, you'll pull them first because they're the closest physically to you. The plugin doesn't know you'll potentially run past other aggressive mobs to get to the ones in your pull radius on the other side of the wall around 8 or 9 corners and you'll have 20 mobs in your extended target window. You'll soon see: LOADING. Please Wait...
If you set it to 10, you can adjust your pullarc using /shd pullarc ## and get the shape and direction you want. From there you can slowly increase your pull radius in the already set direction of your pulls.
Until you get the hang of it or have hotkeys set up with the camp specifics for radius and arc, it may save you a death or two to start the radiuses small in the beginning and work your way up.
When pulling, one thing to consider is your zRadius. If you're in a single floor type zone, this is effecitvely useless, but if you're in Tower of Rot say, You may want to pull from a floor above, or you may not want to. /shd zRadius will set how far above or below you will pull. Generally stick to single floor camp in the beginning to get the hang of it and then move on.
Also while pulling in tight areas with faction monsters (like GMM), you might not want to pull all monsters within your radius. To counteract this, you can quickly press "/shd ignore" while the undesired target is selected to add it to a pullignores.ini file in your release folder. This will skip this mob in the pull routine, and it will move on to the next mob. If you change your mind later, /shd unignore undoes that. There's also /shd showIgnore
One final important thing about pulling is /shd levelmin and /shd levelmax. Obviously if you're pulling mobs, you don't want to pull a mob 20 levels higher than you. You can set a cap to the level of mobs you want to pull with levelMax. Similarly levelMin allows you to skip mobs that are undesirably low. You might want to just set your level max to 4 or 5 level above you so you don't pull a guard as well
IMPORTANT: One thing I didn't realize until almost a week later is in the eskay settings (/shd show) under the Settings tab, Make sure AutoStandOnFeign is unchecked. I think it's defaulted to checked for some reason and couldn't figure out why I could never stay FD'ed. That was why.
More information can be found at https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/mq2eskay.1153/field?field=commands which goes into more fine tuning details and https://www.redguides.com/community/resources/mq2eskay.1153/field?field=faq for more FAQs.
For 90% of all your SK grouping needs as far as I can tell, the above pretty much covers it as far as getting started goes. Please let me know if there is anything above that is glaringly incorrect or that I could do better.
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