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Patch Notes 28/05/2021

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sundey
Posts: 22

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#371 » Mon May 31, 2021 5:31 pm

Spoiler:
wargrimnir wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 8:18 pm
sundey wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 7:29 pm "Acceptable for the past decade" is debatable. AoR ignored blatant cheating for years until it died, so I wouldn't look to them for what's acceptable; several RoR devs/team-members voiced their opposition towards NB and a desire to get rid of it from the start but were limited by client control - nothing to do with 'acceptability'. I acknowledge the point though that its not being disabled/banned would imply that it was considered acceptable, and for a lot of players without background knowledge of the huge controversy around the addon (which goes back to AoR), this might seem like an arbitrary, out-of-the-blue change.

2nd paragraph starts with a nice strawman - I know it's hard for some people to believe, but some of us aren't against NB because we need a scapegoat to rely on when we can't confront how terrible we are at this game (that's obviously just one of my reasons).

I also think you're misrepresenting NB here, both its capabilities and the types of players (and their skill levels) who use it and get the most out of it. But we're probably not going to agree on either, and the latter point in particular can't really be resolved without stats.

I guess it ultimately comes down to each person's views on addons with conditional decision-making capabilities - whether you accept them in principle and, if not, whether you oppose them vehemently enough to consider the risk to population from disabling them worth it. Considering some of the actions (and inactions) taken on RoR, and the general ethos of "there's the door" from certain staff and for much of its time, appealing to population seems to me a little ironic. But in the end, a stance on pvp automation has to be taken and I guess the devs/team have done so.
They certainly did not ignore blatant cheating, along with a whole lot of lesser offenses. Since you mentioned a strawman, that's a pretty big one. There was absolutely an active GM team on live, and they did what they could with a limited staff covering dozens of servers. They weren't properly staffed to support a live service towards the end by any means, but that doesn't mean they simply allowed cheating to happen while turning a blind eye.

It was a bit of a strawman, but it was based largely on the reactions in this thread. There's plenty of reasons to have used NB in the past. The majority of people are casual players who would use it to perform a little better or make some simple rotations to alleviate the stress on their hands. That's not to dismiss that people would certainly use any advantage they can find at a high level. My argument was more that NB doesn't provide the sort of advantages that people commonly attribute to it when it's more likely people already know how to make those decisions themselves.

Using NB for the sort of myths it's portrayed as causes a lot more skills to be burned in situations that you don't necessarily want them to be. You have to keep your conditional reactive abilities outside of NB, it just doesn't manage them well enough. If you're playing with CC/interrupts/detaunts in your (this doesn't exist) one-key-to-rule-them-all NB script, you're not winning anything aside from maybe specific 1v1 matches that specific sequence is tailored for. There's certainly more than enough more impactful conditions outside of pure button pushing skill that impacts fighting in all different formats. Kiting, picking targets, group support, morale drops, pivoting to new targets, clearing tanks or staggering healers, slowing down to regen AP for your next burst rotation. NB doesn't teach you to do any of these things, you can't program this stuff, but you absolutely need it to be successful in organized PvP.

Reading through the past several hundred posts there has been a hostile and aggressive tone towards the players who relied on NB to provide them a pleasant game experience. Ostracizing the limited community en-masse is damaging to the health of the server. Yes, we do make some changes that we tell people to deal with, particularly when it comes to balance. That's part of the MMO experience, classes change over time. Meta shifts. Whether people like it or not is part of the agreement you have here, change keeps the game fresh. This is something a little different. Banning and openly being discriminatory/dismissive towards a large class of players who have been around as long as anyone else is not beneficial, only damaging. There is only one net change in population, and it's negative. You're not changing the duration on a cooldown, or moving CC from one spec to another. You're telling people they're cheaters, scumbags, they deserved it, good riddance, etc. It's disrespectful to players affected both in the response they received for speaking out about it, and for enforcing it in the first place when it's become, despite the flawed arguments, a controversial but otherwise popular addon.

It's a slippery slope as well. There are lots of addons that provide loads of beneficial information that strongly dictate how to play the game. Automation is absolutely present for anyone that uses miraclegrow for apothecary. Swiftassist allows you to press a single button and your entire warband can focus fire on the same target. Buffhead specifically has a list and guide of high impact abilities that it notifies you are present so you can immediately cleanse/sever/shatter/taunt (maybe that's where it's from). Enemy is a far better version of the default UI, and customizable to perfectly fit your aesthetic or information needs, not to mention the ability to track morale pips and AP of other party members. Healgrid allows click casting (I didn't know that worked, but so I've heard).

Addons are designed specifically to enhance your gameplay. They ALL provide some benefit, and the best ones provide significantly more benefit than others. Throwing NB to the curb opens the door to question what other addons should be removed. If it's automation that's a problem, that excludes MiracleGrow. If it's conditionals, Buffhead would be performing at a very high level for providing that information that's otherwise significantly obfuscated by the UI. I've long opposed opening this can of worms because it asks a whole lot of questions about what should be allowed, not to mention attempting to block something only pushes things into the shadows. The benefit that everyone could enjoy, despite being controversial, will now likely only be available to people in specific discords where they're fairly certain no one will leak information. It pushes basic ability sequencing to people that have physical macro keyboards and mice available, which isn't something we can detect anyway. It doesn't remove the problem, it just makes it less obvious and more likely that people will go looking for something shady instead of using a freely available addon that gives them the experience they're looking for.
I feel kind of bad that I don't have the time to properly respond to a well-written post, but I'll try to address your main points.

Re cheating on AoR
Maybe 'ignored' wasn't the most accurate word (I've got no desire to denigrate the efforts of live GMs), or maybe my experience (on KN) just differed from yours - I think a lot of people will remember how it was essentially just accepted that certain players could 'teleport' etc. But my point was simply that I don't think there's any value in looking to AoR and whether they considered NB acceptable or not.

Re value of NB
Agreed that the impact of those other factors is at least as great (and much more so, imo) as that of NB; this in itself seems to have no bearing at all though on whether or not NB is acceptable. You say that "there's certainly more than enough more impactful conditions...", but don't finish the sentence -- more than enough for what? To negate the issue of NB? I don't think that follows.

No one reasonable is saying that there's some perfect, godly script which can replace all player autonomy -- if that were the case, I imagine there'd be pretty much unanimous opposition to the addon. But the much less absurd reasons people have actually given (including in this thread) for opposing it still remain.

Re hostility/aggression/discrimination:
I wouldn't call it 'discrimination', but yep agreed that hostility/aggression and calling people who use NB bad, or cheaters (which is just false since it was never blocked/banned), is obviously unhelpful to say the least. It does seem that the negative impact on players caused by the shock/suddenness of the change could've been reduced by warning about the change in advance; whether the team had a good reason not to do that or just didn't really think, I don't know. Regardless, that's an issue of implementation (that the team will learn from, I guess, if they feel they need to), rather than the quality and value of the change itself.

Re slippery slope:
I'm not seeing any slippery slope myself. I used the phrase 'pvp automation' at the end of my post but maybe should've made it clear throughout - I think most would agree (and would've assumed) that it's automation affecting PvP that people have a problem with, so not, for example, MiracleGrow. I realise you could then argue about automation in PvE (say, dungeons), but I think that'd be clutching at straws and a little disingenuous -- the 'PvP automation' issue really doesn't seem that nuanced or difficult to understand. So far, from what I've seen, no one has actually comprehensively addressed that fundamental issue, which is telling in itself since it seems to be the primary basis on which people oppose NB. BuffHead, like all other supposedly similar examples given in this thread, fails on this basic question of automated decision-making. If there are other addons that provide similar functionality, I'm genuinely curious to know, but I get the impression that this (apparently erroneous) argument is just being thrown up as a smokescreen.

Re pushing it into the shadows:
I don't feel I know enough about this to have a meaningful discussion, but I'd say it sounds like a valid concern, and if the basic intention behind the disabling of NB can't be implemented in a solid, robust way, then it would probably be better (imo) to revert the change until it can.

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Brakh
Posts: 97

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#372 » Mon May 31, 2021 5:49 pm

I do not need NB conditions/checks/things considered as cheats, I just used that as sequencer, simply out of convenience. As an older casual player which takes no entertainment from PC keyboard-piano play.
So in a act of solidarity with all these older chaps or disabled folks for whom NB was catch up tool with all these l33t guys I will quit this project as well.

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Akalukz
Posts: 1587

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#373 » Mon May 31, 2021 6:01 pm

The last thing I will say is that if there is a "private" working NB addon going around that provides the same functionality of NB to those that have it, then you should probably just make NB available to all. As that would create an even bigger issue, as it used to be available to anyone that wanted, but a new "private" version would be super restrictive and be a bigger issue as to the haves and have nots
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borc1
Posts: 5

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#374 » Mon May 31, 2021 6:42 pm

so instead of backing off they decided to double down on the nb ban, breaking enemy in the process. good job devs, couldnt think myself of a better way to kill this project while advertising it as good change.

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Kragg
Posts: 1769

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#375 » Mon May 31, 2021 6:51 pm

Brakh wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 5:49 pm I do not need NB conditions/checks/things considered as cheats, I just used that as sequencer, simply out of convenience. As an older casual player which takes no entertainment from PC keyboard-piano play.
So in a act of solidarity with all these older chaps or disabled folks for whom NB was catch up tool with all these l33t guys I will quit this project as well.
No, you're not :lol:
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Magusar
Posts: 73

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#376 » Mon May 31, 2021 6:57 pm

wargrimnir wrote: Sun May 30, 2021 8:23 pm
now its ok to be used...
It's not, it will be blocked again, that's the direction we're heading lacking any significant constructive reasonable feedback

I dnot use it, but i know how it works
You may have a good idea how it works. In practice it's quite a bit different and more limited than most detractors give it credit for.

doing your correct spell rotation as a bright wizard or sorc its part of playing decently,
This isn't going away, it's just being moved somewhere else. Rotations will still be sequenced outside of our ability to impact it.

using your positional attacks as a melee dps to pump out more damage
Several positionals do worse damage unless you're accurately behind someone. NB fixes that by only actually being usable when the client knows you're behind someone. It's not a skill thing to have the client/server desync and make your potentially good ability worse than your spammable attacks.

casting an interupt at the right time, or shattering/severing buffs
NB isn't used for this reliably by anyone playing at a reasonably high tier. It's more likely to be Buffhead providing this information.

how can you say you are a good pvper when an addon
Pretty sure most people that use NB don't consider themselves good, it's been well criticized over the years

watching certain players using it in ranked, shattering/severing buffs automatic
This disregards that Ranked is the most competitive tier of play where you would expect a very high level of awareness and reaction time
Although I do not belong to ill-wishers, I will put my 2 cents here. A little exp for last 3 days.
Since NB was blocking, no one ever interrupted my channeling in first half second/second of it. No one ever shattered my rampage on slayer in first half of second/second when i used it.No one ever shattered my repel on wh in first half of second/second when i used it. Not in rvr, not in standarat scs, not on ranked. No one. Before it happens (NB block) it was the usual thing. The importance of such things cannot be underestimated.
My opinion is a block of some conditions, such as a check of abilities and channels. A partial block of some of the addon's features, not the whole addon, would look much better and softer. The battle of automatons looks bad too.
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roadkillrobin
Posts: 2773

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#377 » Mon May 31, 2021 7:02 pm

Natherul wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 7:07 am Ive been very hesitant to post on this but with all the noise I felt like I should throw my 2c in here.

Any automation (in where decision making is done for the player) is botting and should not be done.
This is really a philosophical question and not as clear cut. An active decision is still being made in making of the sequence based on your own predictions and experience with the game. It's not like an AI that figures out the best situation from your array of 30+ skills, then react to the environment. What it does is reducing margins of physical performance errors by the player based on the set up. This would make a much more convincing case then botting, as it could be tested to gather empirical data. Track the amount of performance errors on individuals players of different skills, with and without NB, and you get a statistic to which it enhances performance. The case for/against automation or botting, is kinda on a subjective basis, leaning heavy on semantics.
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ChicagoJoe
Posts: 254

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#378 » Mon May 31, 2021 7:20 pm

When someone says they are happy NB is gone I haven't really seen a good explanation accurate or informed reason why. In this thread the post is usually something unhelpful like, good to see it go or best patch ever...

There is an admission that NB isn't botting or true automation, so i am ignoring that line of discussion, because it is irrelevant. So for the others...

Is it because they feel it offers unfair advantages to those who use it? I'll admit it offers advantages but probably not like they think it does. There are a bunch of add ons that offer advantages.

Still, if something offers such an advantage and was ok to use why weren't they using it if available to everyone?

Also. if you have used it before but don't really care if you use it or not why even post on it? Isn't your lack of using an indication that it isn't some necessary code or a cheat code.

I think there have been a ton of good points made here and a bunch of misinformation or lack of experience. Please have some experience with the classes or add ons impacted before you comment.

Nerfed buttons isn't the reason why certain people win or lose, so don't make it the boogyman. Losing it as a sequencer will negatively impact population and classes played despite some flexing from people who say they don't use or need it. The reality is that it is buggy and imperfect and not to be solely relied on but it makes things easier whether for casuals or those learning or on alts.

This is the first real change that has impacted many peoples continued interest because this isn't just a class issue, though certain classes are impacted more so than others.
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scatterthewinds
Posts: 181
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Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#379 » Mon May 31, 2021 7:53 pm

I absolutely can't wait to see the peeps who have been moaning and blaming it on NB for years continue to get smoked.

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Skullgrin
Posts: 837

Re: Patch Notes 28/05/2021

Post#380 » Mon May 31, 2021 8:17 pm

Magusar wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 6:57 pm Although I do not belong to ill-wishers, I will put my 2 cents here. A little exp for last 3 days.
Since NB was blocking, no one ever interrupted my channeling in first half second/second of it. No one ever shattered my rampage on slayer in first half of second/second when i used it.No one ever shattered my repel on wh in first half of second/second when i used it. Not in rvr, not in standarat scs, not on ranked. No one. Before it happens (NB block) it was the usual thing. The importance of such things cannot be underestimated.
My opinion is a block of some conditions, such as a check of abilities and channels. A partial block of some of the addon's features, not the whole addon, would look much better and softer. The battle of automatons looks bad too.

Yep, I've noticed something similar when using the M3 ability Raze. After Nerfedbuttons was blocked I'm not having Raze almost instantly countered all the time. For all the talk about how using conditionals in it won't make you a better player, it sure seems that they were having the effect of diminishing NB users opponents ability to play at their best.
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