Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[Collin_Sky]

When scientists perform experiments, they do them in controlled settings that don't perfectly mirror the real world. I genuinely encourage you to think about why they do that, and perhaps to do some research on the topic. Not only is it pertinent to this specific issue, but to the field of science as a whole.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_experiment

Once you have established that something can be replicated in a controlled environment, the next step is to prove that it can be replicated in an uncontrolled one. Science doesn't just stop after lab testing.
I find it really insulting that you are quoting the scientific method and telling others to do their research without following a proper scientific process yourself. My dude, you just recorded yourself on a striking dummy and called it a day. There is nothing scientific about what you have done.
What you're going through right now is called the peer review process, and you are floundering. You are unwilling to take any criticism from your peers, and you are unwilling to produce further tests to prove your hypothesis when met with scepticism.

If you can't maintain the same consistency with macros in actual combat, you can't confidently claim that they are suitable for real combat scenarios.

[Themarvin]

You would not be getting many group invites for tougher stuff and when caught lacking behind seriously, you would get the boot.

You will get drift, its been proven before and over and over again that botting gameplay with macros is a no go.

Can see the point of having a Revive macro, but it is not important and rarely used.

[LilimoLimomo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_experiment

Once you have established that something can be replicated in a controlled environment, the next step is to prove that it can be replicated in an uncontrolled one. Science doesn't just stop after lab testing.

Of course, field experiments are definitely a thing. But if you can make it to the second sentence of the article you linked, it begins to describe the process of designing and implementing a field experiment. Give it a read and you'll realize that nobody in this entire thread has proposed a scientifically valid field experiment.

[Sotaris]

If Macros is so good, as OP is making an argument for, curious why we haven't seen a bigger adoption outside of some niche cases the past decade?

Not sure if I'm a normie and just use it for certain abilities/skills and for DoH/L.

[Mikoko_Miko]

So the macro I'm using is:

/micon "Fast Blade"
/ac "Fast Blade"
/hotbar copy PLD 1 GLA 1
/hotbar set "Fast Blade" 1 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar set "Riot Blade" 1 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar set "Royal Authority" 1 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar copy GLA 1 PLD 1

Thank you for your video and helpful comments. I'm pleased to see a macro works well in a real battle and read some practical advice.

I have some ideas for this macro.

/hotbar copy PLD 1 GLA 1

You may not need to run this line every time. It is required only after updating hotbar, so it can be removed.

When I used hotbar copying macros, there were corner cases that overwriting by the last line didn't work for some reasons; executing another macro, being wiped out, transferring to another area, etc. I recommend creating a backup macro and place it on another hotbar. For example macros for restarting combo from 2 or 3 can be used for this purpose. These can be placed in hard-to-access slots since they are rarely used.

/ac "Riot Blade"
/hotbar set "Riot Blade" 1 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar set "Royal Authority" 1 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar copy GLA 1 PLD 1
/micon "Riot Blade"

/ac "Royal Authority"
/hotbar set "Royal Authority" 1 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar copy GLA 1 PLD 1
/micon "Royal Authority"

[LilimoLimomo]

If Macros is so good, as OP is making an argument for, curious why we haven't seen a bigger adoption outside of some niche cases the past decade?

Not sure if I'm a normie and just use it for certain abilities/skills and for DoH/L.

According to the folks in this thread who are familiar with the Japanese scene, it sounds like macros see normal use over there. Which suggests to me that the difference in adoption isn't a technical one, but a social one.

That being the case, my best guess is that the difference maker is that prominent voices in the English-speaking community have long discouraged macro use, saying that it will result in lower APM. And people have trusted those sources and adjusted their behavior accordingly.

[LilimoLimomo]

So I'm still very new to macros and was trying one out in M1N.
https://youtu.be/ebS7LZc7cs4

So the macro I'm using is:

/micon "Fast Blade"
/ac "Fast Blade"
/hotbar copy PLD 1 GLA 1
/hotbar set "Fast Blade" 1 1 <wait.1>
/hotbar set "Riot Blade" 1 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar set "Royal Authority" 1 1 <wait.3>
/hotbar copy GLA 1 PLD 1

Essentially this cycles between all of my 1-2-3 combo actions and ends back on the 1st. I personally find it nice to be able to have all of that on one button, it's less to think about mid-fight and potentially could reduce the actions on my hotbar. Oh and it's worth noting the actions cycling around on my bar are technically not macros themselves, so I get a larger queue window compared to other macros.

There are two things to look out for when using a macro like this:
1) If the boss becomes untargetable it can potentially mess up the combo.

2) Simply with how PLD's combo structure works there will be times where higher priority actions should be pressed first, which will lead to the macro resetting to Fast Blade even though I haven't finished the 1-2-3 combo.

So how useful this type of macro is definitely depends on the type of content you're doing and what your job's rotation is like.

It was fun giving this a go. I made a few rotation mistakes and had some issues with clipping with my oGCDs, but those were all on normal actions, had nothing to do with the macro. And even with those mistakes I was still the highest performing person in the party by a large margin.

There is a lot of talk about optimization in this thread, but this fight is another reminder to me that the most important aspects to dealing high damage are:
1) Not dying (aka doing mechanics correctly)
2) Having good gear

Doesn't really matter how tight your rotation is if your gear is worse or you're dying throughout the fight cus you got snapshotted going for some uptime positional.

Edit: Oh! That also reminds me. Another issue is building the correct muscle memory. I'm so accustomed to my rotation being on particular keybinds that using macros to do something new does take time to adapt to and improve at. I'm likely gonna try out different macros in the future so it'll be a lot of learning as I go.

Wow, this post delights me; thank you so much for sharing this! It's cool to see that even though you're still getting accustomed to the muscle memory of your macro that you're able to perform well with it. ^^

And you even seem to have gone a step beyond with your macro and developed a new kind of 1-button combo macro (or at least one that I haven't seen before). I had been passively wondering whether a macro like that might work, but I never sat down to actually figure out what the timing of the /wait statements would have to be, or whether the integer waits wouldn't be enough to let it function well. But you've saved me the effort by breaking new ground yourself, and that excites me. ^^

One small suggestion for your macro that probably won't make a huge difference is to put the /micon on the last line; from what I've seen there's a tendency for macro writers to put /micon as the first line, but it actually functions just the same regardless of what line you put it on! With this specific macro, putting it at the bottom will make everything else in your macro run 1 frame sooner; in particular, you'll get that initial Fast Blade 1 frame sooner if you're pressing the macro from a stand-still.

And thanks for even going so far as to share a video of you doing the new raids! On your channel with 1.21k subscribers, no less! (congrats on that achievement, I can't imagine finding so many people who are interested in something I do!)

[Mikoko_Miko]

According to the folks in this thread who are familiar with the Japanese scene, it sounds like macros see normal use over there. Which suggests to me that the difference in adoption isn't a technical one, but a social one.

That being the case, my best guess is that the difference maker is that prominent voices in the English-speaking community have long discouraged macro use, saying that it will result in lower APM. And people have trusted those sources and adjusted their behavior accordingly.

There are opinions such as "don't using macros" also in JP community. But there are more counters than in EN community. I found another opinion in earlier post. It is likely that avoiding macro is believed to be capable of mitigating ping issues.

It's worth mentioning that JP players will naturally have less aversion to macros because JP ping is way lower than the average NA/EU player, and at lower pings the need for queueing up abilities as a way to mitigate ping issues is reduced. This isn't some secret JP knowledge that NA/EU players are just too dumb to realize, it's just that our play environments are very different ping-wise.

I tried DC traveling to Oceania and experienced ping issues. When I weave oGCD macros, surely it tend to cause a clipping. But I don't think the root of the problem is a macro. High ping affected both normal actions and macros. I found normal actions and pseudo-queueing macros almost equivalent except window size. The difference between actions and macros seems irrelevant to ping issues. Macrology text and threads on ping issues support my view.

Quoted from Macrology

Local Processing

Macro and text command instead player's operation. All these will change to a same form in system. All player's operation is local, so macro and text command are also local. They will be executed at once no matter how poor your network connection is.

You may feel disagree with this, for when network connection is poor, macro works not well. This is actually because macro is running as before, but connection with server is not as before. When you use a crafting macro, some actions missing if network connection is poor, this not because macro are influenced by network connection, but macro execute its commands as usual while character cannot receive commands due to poor network connection.

Animation lock is ping-dependent, as time spent before the server response is ignore
Total cast time of actions is affected by connection speed in an unintended way

[AmiableApkallu]

Doing a fight in a game is easy.

My friend on Hydaelyn… Remember that comment of mine where I called the title of this thread clickbait?

The moment you mention concepts like "do not cause GCD delay" and "lost casts," you've put yourself in the world of people who clear Savage raids when they're current — who clear them Week 1, even — and people who clear Ultimates. And that's because those claims I've put in quotes don't matter in Duty Finder content; that content is so "easy" that they don't matter, that you can instead focus on not giving yourself carpel tunnel or whatever.

So if you want to claim that "doing a fight in a game is easy," well, claiming Savages are Ultimates are "easy" puts you in rarefied company, and still further rarefied company if we consider only those folks for whom that content is actually easy. And at that point, a shady person in a dark alley should be able to corroborate everything, if you get my drift.

[LilimoLimomo]

My friend on Hydaelyn… Remember that comment of mine where I called the title of this thread clickbait?

The moment you mention concepts like "do not cause GCD delay" and "lost casts," you've put yourself in the world of people who clear Savage raids when they're current — who clear them Week 1, even — and people who clear Ultimates. And that's because those claims I've put in quotes don't matter in Duty Finder content; that content is so "easy" that they don't matter, that you can instead focus on not giving yourself carpel tunnel or whatever.

So if you want to claim that "doing a fight in a game is easy," well, claiming Savages are Ultimates are "easy" puts you in rarefied company, and still further rarefied company if we consider only those folks for whom that content is actually easy. And at that point, a shady person in a dark alley should be able to corroborate everything, if you get my drift.

You're misunderstanding me. I replied with those words in a specific context, and I'm in no way saying doing all fights are easy. The person I was replying to didn't request an Ultimate. They asked for "a fight". And the vast majority of players when asked to perform the non-specific task of "complete a fight", will be able to do so.