??? For force pop NMs

I'm not sure if anyone else has come across this issue, but it seems that even with trade macros for items, there are players that literally can pop NMs before the ??? can even appear on your screen. I'm not sure if this is a delay between other countries that it may appear faster to some then others. Either way it's very annoying that I can have 6+ people pressing F8 to target the ??? right when it pops to use a trade macro, and literally some players pop an NM and nobody even seen the ???. Anyone else have this happen to them?

If you're using F8 to target in order to use the trade macro, you're already a step behind those who have a proper trade macro. This has nothing to do with anything else.

I shall elucidate the claiming mechanismo of the hibbity jibbity. First, you make-a macro thata looks like this:
/item "Item Name" <stnpc>

thena you target a monster that's on one side. Or on the Other side! of the ???. Holda left or right, so when the ??? spawns, your cursor goesa whizzbang and default to it right quick. Hit entra.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

I shall elucidate the claiming mechanismo of the hibbity jibbity. First, you make-a macro thata looks like this:
/item "Item Name" <stnpc>

thena you target a monster that's on one side. Or on the Other side! of the ???. Holda left or right, so when the ??? spawns, your cursor goesa whizzbang and default to it right quick. Hit entra.

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^

Made my day lol.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

I shall elucidate the claiming mechanismo of the hibbity jibbity. First, you make-a macro thata looks like this:
/item "Item Name" <stnpc>

thena you target a monster that's on one side. Or on the Other side! of the ???. Holda left or right, so when the ??? spawns, your cursor goesa whizzbang and default to it right quick. Hit entra.

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Close but not precisely the fastest way people do this.

I'd been doing the F8 thing and was beaten every time. I swapped to a different macro and have won the majority of my attempted pops. In the spirit of fairness (and now that I am done popping abyssean mobs over and over) this is the "secret."

Your macro is two lines:
1: /targetnpc
2: /item "[item here]" <t>

Your requirements for getting this macro to work are:

1: No monster may be within your visual range or you'll target the monster and not the ???
2: You need to be within trading range of the ??? and facing it

Mash the macro repeatedly and you'll get a ton of error messages but as soon as the ??? pops (before other people have to realize it's actually there) your computer will have already sent the trade input in.

And there's the "hack" everyone uses. Enjoy.

Thanks for the info, least you don't sound like a uneducated retard trying to explain it like the previous poster.

Though you may want to block targeting pets otherwise you'll target them instead, though if you want the pop having a pet out is a good way to stop macros for most people just put the pet on top of the ???.

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Originally Posted by Lasareth

Close but not precisely the fastest way people do this.

I'd been doing the F8 thing and was beaten every time. I swapped to a different macro and have won the majority of my attempted pops. In the spirit of fairness (and now that I am done popping abyssean mobs over and over) this is the "secret."

Your macro is two lines:
1: /targetnpc
2: /item "[item here]" <t>

Your requirements for getting this macro to work are:

1: No monster may be within your visual range or you'll target the monster and not the ???
2: You need to be within trading range of the ??? and facing it

Mash the macro repeatedly and you'll get a ton of error messages but as soon as the ??? pops (before other people have to realize it's actually there) your computer will have already sent the trade input in.

And there's the "hack" everyone uses. Enjoy.

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You forgot rule #1 of fight club, and you told them about fight club. BAD MOVE, now everyone is gonna know and you's about to get outpopped more!

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Originally Posted by Lasareth

Close but not precisely the fastest way people do this.

I'd been doing the F8 thing and was beaten every time. I swapped to a different macro and have won the majority of my attempted pops. In the spirit of fairness (and now that I am done popping abyssean mobs over and over) this is the "secret."

Your macro is two lines:
1: /targetnpc
2: /item "[item here]" <t>

Your requirements for getting this macro to work are:

1: No monster may be within your visual range or you'll target the monster and not the ???
2: You need to be within trading range of the ??? and facing it

Mash the macro repeatedly and you'll get a ton of error messages but as soon as the ??? pops (before other people have to realize it's actually there) your computer will have already sent the trade input in.

And there's the "hack" everyone uses. Enjoy.

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Well I tried it and still, these JPs are popping before the macro can even target. They either have some kind of tool they are using or it is like I said the ??? appears for them .5 seconds faster then NA. Its not like I have a slow connection either. I'm on a cable modem and its pretty damn fast.

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Originally Posted by Unleashhell

Well I tried it and still, these JPs are popping before the macro can even target. They either have some kind of tool they are using or it is like I said the ??? appears for them .5 seconds faster then NA. Its not like I have a slow connection either. I'm on a cable modem and its pretty damn fast.

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Servers located in japan, it has less to go through to get to them compared to you, it's called latency.

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Originally Posted by wish12oz

Servers located in japan, it has less to go through to get to them compared to you, it's called latency.

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Latency is a cold hearted b*tch.



They probably bot the servers to cause latency!!

Trace the path of a Japanese commercial server delivering data to a Japanese client. Do you really think it never hits an international hub? That argument has never really held water.

The answer is that you picked the wrong claiming method. You don't see the ??? spawn because you're sitting there spamming your macro like a retard instead of auto-defaulting to the ???. Then, even when it does spawn, you've used an in-game macro prompt that takes a fraction of a second between executing lines.

PS. Pick a name next time that doesn't hark back to your years of teenage angst.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

Trace the path of a Japanese commercial server delivering data to a Japanese client. Do you really think it never hits an international hub? That argument has never really held water.

The answer is that you picked the wrong claiming method. You don't see the ??? spawn because you're sitting there spamming your macro like a retard instead of auto-defaulting to the ???. Then, even when it does spawn, you've used an in-game macro prompt that takes a fraction of a second between executing lines.

PS. Pick a name next time that doesn't hark back to your years of teenage angst.

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You, in North America, probably go through more hubs to get to a Japanese server than a Japanese player in Japan goes through. It is still slower and it only takes a millisecond when you use /targetnpc, which you certainly should use over <stnpc> as I have recently learnt myself.

As for Server-Client differences between JPs and NAs, JPs may have a slight advantage on average, but the latency between your computer receiving the information and displaying it is large enough that it doesn't matter as much as you might think. By and large, I've always felt this is just a crutch NAs lean on when they're outclaimed. JPs use the same excuse.

When you use the <stnpc> "macro", the cursor is already out before the ??? spawns and will default to the ??? when it spawns if you do it right. It's really just a matter of how quickly you detect the change and hit X/Enter, or your reflex time. I very very rarely get outclaimed using this method. /targetnpc would literally have to target it before it spawned to be better than this.

People do cheat. They use a program to see things that are dead or not visible (used to be able to see VNM) and they target the ??? before it is up. While this is targeted, its client side only. Nobody else can see it except the player and nobody can see the player targeting it. When they have the ??? targeted they spam a bot that repeats a line over and over, which would be /item "" <t>.

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Originally Posted by Byrth

When you use the <stnpc> "macro", the cursor is already out before the ??? spawns and will default to the ??? when it spawns if you do it right. It's really just a matter of how quickly you detect the change and hit X/Enter, or your reflex time. I very very rarely get outclaimed using this method. /targetnpc would literally have to target it before it spawned to be better than this.

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While it's probably down to each person's own ability to react, I would argue that mashing a /targetnpc macro (absolute output, no reaction time involved) does acquire the target as fast as if not faster than the time it takes to visually recognize then react to the appearance of the ??? (input, reaction, output). However the difference is probably minimal between two people who are used to each respective macro/way of claiming. I think the problem in this particular case lies in the user and not the method.

As I've said the macro I posted has worked great for me and requires no thinking or sharp reflexes. (autopilot works better in some people's cases) I still believe it is a very valid method to pop with fair reliability.

Just throwing in a similar fishy observation from when we were fishing for seals from Nightshade a week or so back. There was a THF in another small group, probably a dual/tri-box watching how they acted, that when they had pops, would ALWAYS out-pop us despite having 6 people with /targetnpc and trade macros spamming a few seconds before it'd come up. The suspicious thing was that even in the brief instant the ??? would appear, you'd never see his head bob like it normally should when targeting.

Of course, even if there is some kind of tool floating around, adding more ???s for all popped NMs will lessen, if not outright negate such an advantage.