Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[LilimoLimomo]

You know, I deleted my previous posts because reading this forum is like having a small child pinch you over and over, but the moment you correct them, they scream to their parents about the mean old man.

The reason you deleted your posts was because they provided transparent evidence that since your first post in this thread, you have been acting in bad faith. You argued at length against evidence despite never having looked at it, you have continually dismissed reasonable criticism of your ideas, and you didn't want others to see that so you hid your tracks as best you could.

[Themarvin]

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.

You are litterally punishing the team be it normal, hard, ex, savage, Ultimate content by using macros on everything, it is so noticeable when you are in it all and someone is not not doing the damage costing time and more for the team.

[AmiableApkallu]

After all, the players who are currently ignoring the video I already made have demonstrated how much value I'll get from making them a video.

If you're referring to the video in the original post: I took your macro exactly as-is, and I tried the same thing. I hit Blizzard over and over again against a striking dummy. And I hit the Macro over and over again against a striking dummy. Cast and recast of 2.26s.

Hitting Blizzard directly was fine and comfy. Every cast went off, exactly as expected.

Hitting the macro was a complete disaster. Only 50% of the casts went off. The other 50% of the time, nothing happened.

How could we have such different experiences?

I can hit Blizzard when the "dinner plate" is a mere 5/6th full and have it go off reliably. Doing the same with the macro is a 100% failure rate. This means that /ac doesn't queue actions the same way as hitting the action directly. Furthermore:

5 / 6 * 2.26s = 1.88s.

15 frames at 60fps = 0.25s.

1.88s + 0.25s = 2.13s < 2.26s.

Which means even the Swiftcast action didn't queue, despite being an oGCD in the common parlance, which normally can queue 1+ seconds in advance of actually being usable.

Thus, we can safely dispense with any practically useful claims about macros "queueing."

But the real point of contention is the following:

For the macro Blizzard test, I needed to press the button later because of the smaller queue window, so I pressed it at the time I am accustomed to pressing the button when playing a caster: a split-second before the cast bar fills (kind of like a rhythm game).

That latter point is a quirk of the few jobs and actions that feature actions with "cast time >= recast time." If you want to make a convincing point about macros and performance, you need to demonstrate the value for the more common case where "cast time < recast time."

[Mikoko_Miko]

I searched Chinese websites using "最终幻想14 宏学" (Final Fantasy 14 Macrology) as keywords. I could not find updated public documents.

Finally I found a further updated version of Macrology on Chinese BBS. I need to click "If it cannot jump automatically, please click this link" every time.
宏学(第三版)(Macrology the Third Edition)
I just machine-translated the index, but I found it intriguing.

Process guidance macro
Scroll macro
Using macros to achieve pseudo-randomness
Multi-level fallback macro
One macro, multiple functions and auxiliary hotbar are shared
Special macros for low frame rates
Macrology core general-purpose carrying framework
Other tips
Difficult problem to solve
Macro acrobatics
Thoughts on Macrology
My macro share
Afterwords
Friendly links

There are also lots of threads about macros including details of in-game macro minigames.
Audition
Snake Game

[LilimoLimomo]

If you're referring to the video in the original post: I took your macro exactly as-is, and I tried the same thing. I hit Blizzard over and over again against a striking dummy. And I hit the Macro over and over again against a striking dummy. Cast and recast of 2.26s.

Can you clarify whether by "over and over again" you mean once per cast, or mashing repeatedly?

Hitting Blizzard directly was fine and comfy. Every cast went off, exactly as expected.

Hitting the macro was a complete disaster. Only 50% of the casts went off. The other 50% of the time, nothing happened.

How could we have such different experiences?

I can hit Blizzard when the "dinner plate" is a mere 5/6th full and have it go off reliably. Doing the same with the macro is a 100% failure rate. This means that /ac doesn't queue actions the same way as hitting the action directly.

This is covered in my first post. When using programmatic queuing, macros will have a shorter queue window than normal actions. Because of this, the timing of when you press them is different. That needs to be taken into account when performing this experiment. Naturally if you press any button outside of the window it's capable of queuing in, you're not going to get the results you're after.

Furthermore:

5 / 6 * 2.26s = 1.88s.

15 frames at 60fps = 0.25s.

1.88s + 0.25s = 2.13s < 2.26s.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Can you perhaps add some labels to clarify?

Which means even the Swiftcast action didn't queue, despite being an oGCD in the common parlance, which normally can queue 1+ seconds in advance of actually being usable.

Earlier you stated that you took my macro "exactly as-is". If that's the case, then the macro wouldn't have tried to cast Swiftcast, because that action wasn't in the macro. Instead, it would have tried to cast Sharpcast, which is an action that is no longer in the game. That's why you're not getting an oGCD cast.

Hopefully these explanations can provide the guidance you need to give the test another go by performing it the way I did! If it helps, there's a visual effect that happens on the crosshotbar when a button is pressed, so you can watch my video to get a better idea of when I'm pressing the button.

But the real point of contention is the following:

That latter point is a quirk of the few jobs and actions that feature actions with "cast time >= recast time." If you want to make a convincing point about macros and performance, you need to demonstrate the value for the more common case where "cast time < recast time."

This is a genuinely good point; it's entirely possible that the whole "caster tax" thing might mean that such actions aren't impacted as meaningfully by macros as actions that more strictly depend on the GCD. That's well worth doing another round of tests for! Thank you for pointing this out.

[LilimoLimomo]

Finally I found a further updated version of Macrology on Chinese BBS. I need to click "If it cannot jump automatically, please click this link" every time.
宏学(第三版)(Macrology the Third Edition)
I just machine-translated the index, but I found it intriguing.

Process guidance macro
Scroll macro
Using macros to achieve pseudo-randomness
Multi-level fallback macro
One macro, multiple functions and auxiliary hotbar are shared
Special macros for low frame rates
Macrology core general-purpose carrying framework
Other tips
Difficult problem to solve
Macro acrobatics
Thoughts on Macrology
My macro share
Afterwords
Friendly links

There are also lots of threads about macros including details of in-game macro minigames.
Audition
Snake Game

I have to admit, I'm so curious about those additional sections... :3

[Venks]

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.

Thank you for the advice! I will edit my macro and add a backup like you've suggested!

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!)

I only started using macros thanks to this thread, I really appreciate all of the attention you've brought to FFXIV macros and what they can and can't be used for. It's opened my eyes to new possibilities.

[GrizzlyTank]

The real question is: why tf is mouseover still not a thing in 2024???

Can understand why years ago when there was no controller support and UI/Hotkeys were hardcoded and terrible... Now, yeah not so much.

[DeltaCyan]

All im simply asking for is evidence of macros being used in actual content.

(People don't pay 15$ a month just to whack striking dummies)

My mind is open to the possibility of macros being used, but I'd like to see them being used first. Even just in easy fights like the 93 trial or the first lv100 normal raid. Just to really see if "Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts"

You know the saying, "practice what you preach". I don't think I'm asking for a lot here, so it should be simple enough.

[Collin_Sky]

you have been acting in bad faith

Bro are you serious right now
You pick and choose what to respond to in each post
You refuse to provide any further evidence when requested
You dismiss criticism any made
You make up your own excuses of what other people see in order to justify your correctness

You are the one arguing in bad faith.