??? For force pop NMs

[HFX7686]

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

Latency is a cold hearted b*tch.



They probably bot the servers to cause latency!!

[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.

[HFX7686]

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.

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.

[Byrth]

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.

[Draylo]

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>.

[Lasareth]

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.

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.

[Seriha]

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.