Evidence that Macros Do NOT Cause GCD Delay or Lost Casts

[GrizzlyTank]

... Yeah, no. Again the issue is still that non-macros queue and macros dont.

All you've done is add some extra button spam. It doesn't fix the gap in cast time from ability 1 to ability 2.

[Venks]

Whoops, I got so caught up in the pushback that it distracted me from your post!

I just want to say that I really appreciate your taking the time to leave positive feedback like this; it fills me with warmth to hear that you were inspired to give these techniques a try, and I hope they work out for you! And if you ever want to talk shop to fine-tune anything or try to solve pain points that arise, I'd be more than happy to!

I've been trying it out a bit and it is super cool how much space it can save on my hotbars. It's going to take some time to rebuild my muscle memory. I realize that when I'm dodging mechanics I have a bad habit of mashing my button instead of timing my presses accurately. But so far when I am focused entirely on my rotation, I don't ever clip the GCD. The timing is tighter than what I'm used to, but is super doable. I'm really glad you made this thread, because so many people have very confidently told me incorrect information, I had no idea this was possible and it's super cool!

[LilimoLimomo]

... Yeah, no. Again the issue is still that non-macros queue and macros dont.

All you've done is add some extra button spam. It doesn't fix the gap in cast time from ability 1 to ability 2.

Are you talking about how there being a single frame between attempts of <t> vs attempts of <tt>? For that specific macro, there's going to statistically be a delay there (50% of the time there will be a 1-frame delay).

But importantly, that delay isn't innate to macros. There are plenty of useful macros that won't have that delay; you just macro one type of action instead of two.

But yeah, you can also choose to write a macro that does have some delay in it. In those situations, you have to decide whether that delay is worth the upsides of having that single macro. If sometimes having a 1-frame delay wasn't to your liking, you could instead make 2 different macros, one that does <t> and another that does <tt>. Then you could have both without delay.

The choice is yours, and that's the power of macros.

[LilimoLimomo]

I've been trying it out a bit and it is super cool how much space it can save on my hotbars. It's going to take some time to rebuild my muscle memory. I realize that when I'm dodging mechanics I have a bad habit of mashing my button instead of timing my presses accurately. But so far when I am focused entirely on my rotation, I don't ever clip the GCD. The timing is tighter than what I'm used to, but is super doable. I'm really glad you made this thread, because so many people have very confidently told me incorrect information, I had no idea this was possible and it's super cool!

Hearing this truly makes my day! ^^

[PommesFrites]

I am very appreciative of this thread @Lilimo! Especially considering Japanese players have no aversion to macros, I was surprised to learn how anti-macro NA appears to be, and how little knowledge about them exists in the English-speaking corners of the web aside from "bad, do not use". I also suffer severe hand health issues from decades of being a software developer and general computer junkie, so I am always on the lookout for ways to make the play experience more comfortable for me. I had a suspicion macros might be able to help, and I'm glad to see someone else of like mind take the charge! Digging through the thread and using some of the knowledge shared I've already found a way to make an Umbral Soul/Transpose macro that seems to work just peachy. I wanted to ask specifically what BLM macros you make frequent use of to save hotbar space? I am a controller user and I use the XHB in toggle mode; the WXHB is a secret hand-killer, so I wouldn't use it even if I could, and since I use the XHB in toggle mode I can't use the extended XHB, either. I would really love to be able to fit all of my job actions on a single "main" XHB (even if it uses magic like in the Dragoon example to switch them around behind the scenes) so I don't need to fuss around with switching them myself, and I would only have to tap L or R at any point to access my whole kit.

[Akonyl]

This was a super fun read and I'm glad I saw this thread. I've been noticing more Japanese players using macros recently which was super confusing to me given what I've heard from the Balance, but I see now that you can actually use macros without clipping. I'm excited to try this out.

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. Heck, there was a bug in p12s that likely only made it through QA because they didn't have to worry about ping, as the bug was afaik experienced primarily by NA/EU raiders.

If you don't play at a high level, or if you play a job that never has to double-weave, you might not notice it, or you might not care. But not noticing it, and it not being a thing, aren't the same. I personally have a few macros I use (on bard I use a mouseover macro for warden's paean), but I have to intentionally only use them at points where I'm not going to be trying to double-weave anything around it or else the GCD clips. Maybe you live somewhere with very nice ping, but the majority of NA/EU players don't.

[Rin_Sato]

As the following is somewhat related to why macros aren't so great, please do the following for more insight.
Test a macro with the first 14 lines being '/macroerror off' followed by 1 line with '/echo test 1 <se.6>'.
Compare this to a macro with just '/echo test 2 <se.4>'.
Now mash each alternatingly and compare how many of each you get in chat (you will get no instances of test 1 unless you slow down to less than 2 presses a second or so).

[Banriikku]

Use ACT and track youre keystrokes, do a runs with and without macro and track dps. Thats the argument based an facts not on "i think" or "i feel" but on numbers. Also can you stop with the ideology here? You can do whatever you want its youre hot body but damn stop spreeding missinformation. I never met a player with the so called "macro aversion" you speak of here or even heard of it. So making a problem out of it seems again like tool "look how opressed we macro user are, *sob*".
Macros have their uses but not as the rotation. If you want use them despite that, do it but do not expect people beeing cool with it in Extreme or Savage and even below that. Its an MMO not singleplayer. We play together and that means we respect each others values but comming around and saying "do what i want" or "accept what i want because xyz" is bs.

Sorry if i come across as salty and angry but this is a problem on this board - just because people - singular or many - do not agree with you, does not mean you are hero or fighting oppression or a victim. It means you have a opinion and some folks do not share said opinion.

[LilimoLimomo]

Use ACT and track youre keystrokes, do a runs with and without macro and track dps. Thats the argument based an facts not on "i think" or "i feel" but on numbers. Also can you stop with the ideology here? You can do whatever you want its youre hot body but damn stop spreeding missinformation. I never met a player with the so called "macro aversion" you speak of here or even heard of it. So making a problem out of it seems again like tool "look how opressed we macro user are, *sob*".
Macros have their uses but not as the rotation. If you want use them despite that, do it but do not expect people beeing cool with it in Extreme or Savage and even below that. Its an MMO not singleplayer. We play together and that means we respect each others values but comming around and saying "do what i want" or "accept what i want because xyz" is bs.

Sorry if i come across as salty and angry but this is a problem on this board - just because people - singular or many - do not agree with you, does not mean you are hero or fighting oppression or a victim. It means you have a opinion and some folks do not share said opinion.

With respect, you've written an entire post arguing against things I've never said. So I'm not sure what to do with that.

I'm not presenting an opinion, I'm sharing data and encouraging people to make informed decisions based on that data. If you have something to say about the actual data I've presented, I'd love to hear it.

[LilimoLimomo]

And no, the 30 second clip in the op doesn't count, even though I can see very clear and obvious clipping in it.

Hmmm, it's odd that in all the time this thread has been up, with all the pushback this thread has received, nobody has ever mentioned this "clear and obvious clipping" in my updated test video. Which is strange, because you'd think that if someone wanted to call my evidence into question, this would be the easiest and most effective way to do it! But perhaps no one else has your keen eyes?

Though, it's odd that you would make a post focusing on a request for new tests if you had already invalidated my old tests. You could have simply pointed out the clipping, been specific about when it was happening and how you could tell so that any reader (myself included) could verify your claim of the test's fault, and that alone would have removed the foundation of my arguments. It certainly is odd that instead of simply doing that you only mentioned this "clipping" as a vague footnote.

And alongside the above, it does feel a bit odd that you'd mention a "30 second clip" when that's an order of magnitude shorter than my actual test video. Are you certain you watched the right video?

All of which is to say: sus.

But just because it's sus doesn't mean you're necessarily wrong. So could you provide more details about this clipping that would allow others to verify it? The more information you provide, the better we'll be able to see eye-to-eye.

Op, all you do is ask people to "try it and see." You provide data, but have no demonstration to back up said data.

The test is a demonstration of the data. It answers the question "do macros innately cause action loss".

That said, I understand what you're getting at. You're more or less asking a different but related question: "Yes, you have data that demonstrates that macros don't innately cause action loss, but can a person really use macros in a way that doesn't cost them some amount of action loss?" It's a valid question.

There's a reason I haven't focused on that question, and that's because it's trivially easy to answer: it depends on context, ergo yes.

Because even if macros did cause significant action loss, there are plenty of FF14 players who would still benefit from macros. For example, it's not uncommon for players to have trouble remembering where 30 different actions are on their controller, and when you have trouble finding an action it can end up taking precious seconds to find and use it. Some players will be able to improve and readily access every action in their arsenal, but others will hit a wall. If the use of macros can make actions easier to find for this kind of player, such that they can press the action they want with less delay, then even if the macro loses some frames upon press, the result can be that the players action per minute improves.

However, there can also be the exact opposite result. A player could find macros confusing, could forget which 2 actions are bound to the same button, and thus macros could actually make their play worse, even if macros don't innately have any action loss.

Which is to say, for some people macros will improve play, for others it will hinder it.

What I've learned over and over again throughout the course of my life is that people have different capabilities. Each of us have different strengths and different weaknesses in a variety of areas, and because of that we have different experiences and different challenges. That's why instead of being prescriptive, I instead encourage everyone to give macros a try and see what the impact is. Then depending on their individual results, they can each decide to what degree — if any — they want to keep using macros.