What would it take for us to get a proper macro system?

[AnaviAnael]

I'm sorry to ask such a stupid question, but what was the macro system like in WoW? (I never played for more than a few months.)

[Edewen]

Do macros add delay when it only queues one action, it's only when there are multiple skills one after the other right? I've never really fiddled with them besides making my little UI controller for gear sets and stuff.

Yes.

For example.
If you hit a button for say heavy shot .2 seconds before the gcd is up. It queues the ability to happen AS SOON AS the gcd is up.
If you hit a button for a heavy shot macro, regardless of if it has the offgcds built into the macro, that queing will not happen and you will lose time for each action as the human input can never hit to button exactly when the gcd is up. you will lose tenths of a second every time.

[Shougun]

I'm sorry to ask such a stupid question, but what was the macro system like in WoW? (I never played for more than a few months.)

Just nabbed some examples of the wikia, but the tl;dr is quite powerful:

Swap Current Dual-Spec

/run if( GetActiveTalentGroup() == 1 ) then DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Spec1...");SetActiveTalentGroup(2) else DEFAULT_CHAT_FRAME:AddMessage("Spec2...");SetActiveTalentGroup(1) end
/in 6 /equipset [spec:2]Eq1;Eq2

Tank Check Avoid/ Dist to def-cap

/run local b,d,p,r,a=GetBlockChance(),GetDodgeChance(),GetParryChance(),GetCombatRating(CR_DEFENSE_SKILL) a=1/(.0625+.956/(r/122.9625)) ChatFrame1:AddMessage(format("Unhittable: %.2f%% Avoidance: %.2f%% Defense %+.0f rating",b+d+p+5+a,d+p+5+a,r-689))

Print Money and Currencies to Chat Frame

/script local cu = GetMoney(); print(GetCoinTextureString(cu,"12"))
/stopmacro [btn:1]
/script yy = GetNumWatchedTokens(); for xx = 1, yy,1 do aa, bb, cc, dd, ee = GetBackpackCurrencyInfo(xx); print(bb, aa) end

Destroy All Grey Items (useless items/gil items)

/run local i,n=0;for b=0,4 do for s=1,GetContainerNumSlots(b) do ClearCursor();i={GetContainerItemInfo(b,s)};n=i[7];if n and string.find(n,"9d9d9d") then PickupContainerItem(b,s); DeleteCursorItem() end end end

And two videos cause why not; link1 , link2

imo pretty cool but obviously crazy powerful and pretty much basic level programming.

Yes.

For example.
If you hit a button for say heavy shot .2 seconds before the gcd is up. It queues the ability to happen AS SOON AS the gcd is up.
If you hit a button for a heavy shot macro, regardless of if it has the offgcds built into the macro, that queing will not happen and you will lose time for each action as the human input can never hit to button exactly when the gcd is up. you will lose tenths of a second every time.

Sort of. When selecting actions manually, you can actually hit the button the moment just before a skill comes off cooldown and the system will queue it up to begin immediately when available. That doesn't happen with skills triggered from a macro. With a macro, the skill will happen (or attempt to) when you press the button (so if you press it a moment early, when the skill ins't available quite yet, it will fail).

It's the waiting to press the macro button until after you see the skill come off cooldown that can create a delay (though only by the amount of time it takes you to notice that and hit the button).

Oh okay, yeah I've always tried to queue all my stuff without developing some carpal tunnel issue (I don't pound the paint off my buttons lol) - and I guess I won't be trying any battle macros anytime soon still. As I like that I can just sort of hit it in advance actually gives me more time to think about other stuff.

I can see that slowly turning into a noticeable issue for content that needs your 100%, because you need all the accidental mistake room you can get. Not purposeful ones lol. Like I said I just use them to make the UI for jobs and stuff, hate going to the menus to change something and I don't like all the bars to be on at all times XD.

Thanks

[Niwashi]

Do macros add delay when it only queues one action, it's only when there are multiple skills one after the other right? I've never really fiddled with them besides making my little UI controller for gear sets and stuff.

Sort of. When selecting actions manually, you can actually hit the button the moment just before a skill comes off cooldown and the system will queue it up to begin immediately when available. That doesn't happen with skills triggered from a macro. With a macro, the skill will happen (or attempt to) when you press the button (so if you press it a moment early, when the skill ins't available quite yet, it will fail).

It's the waiting to press the macro button until after you see the skill come off cooldown that can create a delay (though only by the amount of time it takes you to notice that and hit the button).


EDIT: Ah, guess I was a bit too slow on this answer.

[AnaviAnael]

The macro system definitely sounds like it could be beneficial.

[ErikMynhier]

The macro system definitely sounds like it could be beneficial.

I won't lie, I use them in my rotations and wish it was better. To people who say "what's so hard pushing 3 buttons", its petty hard when one of your hands don't work correctly. Sometimes its not a matter of "lazy playerbase".

[Yukiko]

In 1.x they worked fine, but since 2.0 they are not reliable enough to use.

[Canadane]

Yes.

For example.
If you hit a button for say heavy shot .2 seconds before the gcd is up. It queues the ability to happen AS SOON AS the gcd is up.
If you hit a button for a heavy shot macro, regardless of if it has the offgcds built into the macro, that queing will not happen and you will lose time for each action as the human input can never hit to button exactly when the gcd is up. you will lose tenths of a second every time.

A better way to describe this is that it cannot use the skill queue. It's not so much an added delay, but a lack of skill queue support.

[Xandos]

There are so many reasons I used macros in WoW. One was for easy rotations for classes that had them, the pally 69696 rotation was one of them.

The biggest reason for me though was cleaning up buttons on the bars. My warrior had a macro that read what stance i was in(battle, berserk, defensive) and also read if I had a shield equipped. This single macro then was able to hit the appropriate tank or dps cooldown based on all of these factors. Instead of having two or three buttons on my bars all of the time for me to manually click I was able to shave that down to 1 button AND make sure that I didn't accidentally hit the wrong cooldown.

Another reason I used macros was to have multi use buttons for a single spell. I'm a clicker by nature(don't hate me!), so I made left click cast a spell on my target, right click cast on my focus target, and utilizing the already built in feature pressing Alt and left click casted the spell on me regardless of targets. Again all of this was able to be done with a single hotbar space.

The WoW macro system used the Lua scripting language and was extremely flexible. It allowed people that could utilize it to focus more on their positioning and mechanics than staring at their UI or fingers. You need to have solid knowledge about your class to properly design these macros though. I think a better macro system in FFXIV could increase the skill ceiling for some players while not increasing the skill floor for all players.

[Gumbercules]

Guess i do kinda feel the OP. In wow I was a total macro whore, literally macros for my macro's macros. I wanna say the reason macros here delay so much is cuz the game has to check every action with the servers and wow does most of it client side. That said I rather stick to a play style that doesn't require the need of overly complex macros though and the game atm delivers on that. I mean it was annoying to not have macros, specially for double oGCD stuff, but once i got used to it i enjoyed my interaction with the game more...after I stopped cursing having no macros :P Will say wows macros system is probably the best I have seen in a game though, some of the stuff you can set up with it is borderline addon lvls on complex lol