When were macros added into the game?

I am 99% sure they weren't in the game when I started. Friend said they were added in HW but I swear never heard anyone talk about them until shadowbringingers and never noticed the UI for them.

Macros were in game in ARR as well if I recall correctly, and I believe they were even in 1.0 - I just never bothered with them then.

In the game since launch.

Yeah, macros were in the game from the start. People were just not talking about them because they are useless for any combat class.

Macros were a big part of XI so it's safe to assume they were in 1.0. They 100% were in ARR launch though as I remember having one that would cycle through targets and mark them with numbers instantly, back when people thought you needed focus dps and CC in dungeons. Different times lol

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Originally Posted by Shialan

Yeah, macros were in the game from the start. People were just not talking about them because they are useless for any combat class.

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Pretty much this. Unless you were a crafter, they were fairly niche. Like waaaaaaay back when early dungeons had aggro issues and it was a group effort, a macro to mark your target that you hit with Shield Lob or Tomahawk with a 1 could be handy. The only thing I ever use them for is resetting my Mudra with a quick hide on/off macro and two little on/off /bfx macros. They're quite useless in combat in this game.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

Yeah, macros were in the game from the start. People were just not talking about them because they are useless for any combat class.

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With the minor caveat that using them to position ground-targeted markers around something automatically can still be faster than positioning them by hand, even with all the many, many flaws that the macro system has when used in combat (and the fact that you can kiss any GCD alignment goodbye). The only things I have combat macros for (now that DRK's Salted Earth has changed) are Asylum, Earthly Star, and Sacred Soil, because placing them by hand is still going to skew my GCD and is going to take longer than the macro would besides.

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Originally Posted by FrogDog

Macros were a big part of XI so it's safe to assume they were in 1.0. They 100% were in ARR launch though as I remember having one that would cycle through targets and mark them with numbers instantly, back when people thought you needed focus dps and CC in dungeons. Different times lol

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Former FFXI player here, big part is an understatement, in that game you lived or died by your macros.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

Yeah, macros were in the game from the start. People were just not talking about them because they are useless for any combat class.

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ah interesting so what did they change about them to make them more useful for combat?

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Originally Posted by Velaethia

ah interesting so what did they change about them to make them more useful for combat?

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they don't queue up like skills do so you always lose a little bit of gcd when you use macros. Pretty sure that's still not changed

They can still be useful for some stuff like /ac "Shirk" <2> is guaranteed to be the other tank in an 8 man group(unless you resort it differently) and it's ogc so it doesn't really affect much

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Originally Posted by Velaethia

ah interesting so what did they change about them to make them more useful for combat?

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Nothing. They are still pretty useless for combat classes.

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Originally Posted by Velaethia

ah interesting so what did they change about them to make them more useful for combat?

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The only changes that I'm aware of since 2.0:

• Late ARR (?) - "/wait #" no longer needs its own line, can be "<wait.#>" at the end of a line
• SB (?) - Added account-wide macros