flask Macros legality, a constructive thread to clarify the answer

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naturefury1 wrote:

EITHER have an answer to help EVERYONE understand why is this illegal or wrong or don't. and if you have suggestions or you want to point out why do u think it's wrong in your personal opinion that's also fine.

thank you

You're clearly not going to accept any answer outside of "All macros should be allowed there's no reason for them not to be!"...but I'll try anyways.

One-button > multiple-action macros, i.e. an all-flasks macro, or a "once every ten seconds" macro, or anything else, are considered game automation. 'Game automation' is another term for botting. Commands such as the ones you're speaking of are the basic building blocks of a bot program.

Even if one is not botting, however, game automation is against GGG's vision for the game. Notice how careful they are with trigger gems? Trigger gems are also game automation, if of a variety that is inherently permissible because they're actively built into the game and can thus also be balanced and accounted for by Grinding Gear. External third-party macros such as flask automation are not integrated into the game and cannot be balanced or accounted for by GGG because no - not everybody on the game would use macros if they were allowed. I hate macros. I hate setting them up, I hate maintaining them, and I hate the fact that so many people don't realize that the definition of 'Macro' and the definition of 'Cheating' are both pretty much the same - "a third-party tool which augments the game in a way which cannot be easily or consistently matched by the player or executes commands independently of the player's own actions."

External macros are difficult to police because they're often baked into gaming hardware, so many companies don't bother with macro rules. Grinding Gear has. Whether or not they can effectively police macro use, they have stated unequivocably that any macro which breaks the one input > one output rule is against ToS and is a punishable offense. This is because any macro other than a keyboard shortcut for an existing game command is unintended game automation that Grinding Gear cannot balance around or account for, and thus runs the risk of breaking the game.

If a game automation macro becomes required to play a given popular, high-output build in the future, or so key to said build that playing the build is hardly worthwhile without said macro, then that third-party tool not available to everyone becomes a requirement, the same way poe.trade is a soft requirement for the game even though it god damned shouldn't be (you hear me, GGG?! GET YOUR MARKET IN THE GAME CLIENT ALREADY!). Nevertheless, Grinding Gear cannot balance an overpowered macro, should such ever become an issue in the future. They have no control over it and cannot fix it if it becomes a problem.

As such, game automation macros are disallowed. For the sake of balance, and because sufficiently advanced macros blur the line between playing and botting. Simple macros that do nothing but allow a player to shorten an existing in-game command - i.e. hitting Macro Button 5 for Enter > /remaining, or a Whisper Last functionality for quickly replying to trades, or other such time-savers are permitted because they do nothing the player is incapable of doing themselves. They just save a few keystrokes.

Game automation is a different story. It's also against the rules. It should be against the rules because it has the potential to severely screw a game up. So stop trying to get the game screwed up.

TL/DR it's not allowed and is bannable because GGG says so, that's all there is to it.

Since most devs write up eula and tos in such way that they can basically ban you just because chris cut him self while shaving and had generally a bad day, topics like these are pointless. Nobody, especially they don't have to explain jack as to why something is against the rules.

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1453R wrote:

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naturefury1 wrote:

EITHER have an answer to help EVERYONE understand why is this illegal or wrong or don't. and if you have suggestions or you want to point out why do u think it's wrong in your personal opinion that's also fine.

thank you

You're clearly not going to accept any answer outside of "All macros should be allowed there's no reason for them not to be!"...but I'll try anyways.

learn from other people who can at least try to be constructive rather than turn it into some childish argument.

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Abdiel_Kavash wrote:

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naturefury1 wrote:

EITHER have an answer to help EVERYONE understand why is this illegal or wrong or don't.

It is illegal because GGG said so (many times). It's their game, they make the rules. You can either play the game by the rules the game maker set up, or risk getting banned. That's how every online game works.

As to why specifically the macro rule is in place, we can only speculate. I can offer my insight, and again this is purely a speculation.

GGG doesn't want players to automate the gameplay. This is true for most gaming companies for various reasons. But what exactly is "automation"? There needs to be a clear distinction between what's allowed and what isn't. Especially with what you can do nowadays with programs like AutoHotkey, and with how much players (and especially PoE players) like to dance on the edge of the rules - there needs to be a hard line somewhere. And the "1 input = 1 server-side action" is a good place to draw the line: it is simple to communicate, bans all the malicious forms of automation, while still permits the intended use of macros (/hideout, logout, etc.). So that's just where GGG draws the line between legal macros and automation.

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and if you have suggestions or you want to point out why do u think it's wrong in your personal opinion that's also fine.

I don't think there is anything morally wrong with using macros. But the game rules say you can't, so I don't. If you want to, I won't think of you as being wrong - just do it at your own risk.

ty for being the first who's actually capable of giving your honest opinion. at least you understand that it is the rule i am trying to discuss lol i am not trynig to hear it being repeated all over again and again.

i only know one thing, depends on their actual reason things could change. i couldn't careless about a macro to open my own townportal or a macro that can destroy my the boss in a single key " which would be a hack not a macro i know " i am looking into FLASKS only because when it comes to flasks it could be even added to the game as like using the " ` KEY TO USE all flasks at the same time. but i needed to know people opinoin about the MACRO not their "hey rules are rules because they are rules " crap.

so again thank you for at least adding some speculation :p

there i clarified my intentions in the post so stop repeating the rules about Macros and such. i couldn't careless about anything else but the 5 flasks.

i am one of the people who likes to play with 7 active skills and when there is 5 other flasks to click on every little normal pack of monsters it is ANNOYING and not fun.

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naturefury1 wrote:

there i clarified my intentions in the post so stop repeating the rules about Macros and such. i couldn't careless about anything else but the 5 flasks.

i am one of the people who likes to play with 7 active skills and when there is 5 other flasks to click on every little normal pack of monsters it is ANNOYING and not fun.

Then you might want to rephrase your request away from "I want to break ToS and use flask macros!" to "can we have a new "Chug All Flasks" function added to the game?"

Because discussing whether or not flask macros are legal will get you a lot of "they're not, now move on" answers. It'll get you answers like the one I gave you, and which you ignored, beneath the bit of mine you quoted. And it'll get you folks who're interested in quashing/supporting macros, not folks who want a Chug All Potions button.

Frankly, if you want to use 7 active skills but hate chugging potions I'm not sure what to say. Maybe swap some active skills for auras and treat the flasks like mini Vaal skills? Maybe don't use builds that need to hammer all their flasks at once for every pack? Maybe acquire a different physical set-up? I've got a Razer Naga I wouldn't trade for all the tea in China (unless I could sell that tea and buy a new Naga with it), and while that's not an option fr everyone I do heartily recommend that people willing to sink money into their gaming hobby invest in more comfortable gear to use doing it. I much prefer to game with a keypad/Naga combination than I do with standard mouse/keyboard.

No extra controls or functionality, just moves the buttons everybody else already has around, but having those buttons where I want them is super nice and helps with skill and flask management in PoE, and a lot of other stuff in many other games.

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1453R wrote:

Your stance is "Flask macros don't offer any advantages at all and are actually a severe hindrance! We should be allowed to use them if we want to!"

...why would you want to, if they're a severe hindrance to gameplay?

Nevertheless. As Abdiel and Viper said, GGG's stance on this one is clear and unambiguous - one button press, one server-side action. A flask activation is a server-side activation. One button press for five flask activations is clearly, inarguably against the macro rulings laid down by GGG. Therefor, flask macros are against ToS and punishable.

For once in the history of gaming, macros are being called out as the low-level cheating they are for the majority of the playerbase. I'm certain that players with actual physical disabilities can get ahold of GGG's support services, go "I'm missing most of the fingers off my gaming hand. Can we talk about ways to help me sort this out?", they'll work with that guy. GGG's support team seems cool like that.

But outside of physical disabilities? Play the game the same as everyone else does. You want all the flasks up, press five buttons. And be glad you're not on the Xbone where you only get four flasks instead.

This deserves an exception though imo. The problem I have is that when I press all my flask buttons they don't all activate because I have a crappy keyboard that can't handle 5 buttons pressed simultaneously. Most cheap (USB) keyboards are like this. A simple macro would fix this problem for me (and for a lot of other people).

Also suggesting to not play builds that spam flasks is really annoying advice when every good build spams flasks.

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Sisaroth wrote:

This deserves an exception though imo. The problem I have is that when I press all my flask buttons they don't all activate because I have a crappy keyboard that can't handle 5 buttons pressed simultaneously. Most cheap (USB) keyboards are like this. A simple macro would fix this problem for me (and for a lot of other people).

Also suggesting to not play builds that spam flasks is really annoying advice when every good build spams flasks.

How do you play the game if your keyboard can't handle multiple simultaneous inputs? How do you play any game without simultaneous key tracking, for that matter? Normal WASD movement standard to half the games ever made should be impossible for people whose keyboards can't handle multiple simultaneous actions.

Actual question here - the default controls for PoE require lots of quick simultaneous keypresses for skill activation and other functions. How does the game function if you have to press all your buttons in slow one-at-a-time sequence?

Bots are bad.
Using bot script and calling it "macros" doesn't make bots better.
Bots are bad.

The game has in the past allowed certain scripts for specific reasons. The use of /oos was a huge issue in the game's early design. That need was remedied in later versions of the game and is no longer needed at all, as far as I know. The /itemlevel macro was convenient and usefull in earlier versions of the game. /itemlevel is no longer needed because of a patch.

The community agreed those macros were useful and GGG agreed they were acceptable.

Your question about automating flask usage is something that GGG has said they won't allow. The community agrees (outliers like yourself always exist) that they should not be allowed.

At the end of the day, we all have to live by certain rules. Breaking rules has consequences. If some rules exists that should be changed, it requires enough people willing and wanting to change it. Even then the system may work against the suggested change.

Personally, I agree with GGG's stance. You don't. It's ok for you to disagree. If you choose to take action to disagree through action, you should fully expect the consequence for such action to be your removal.

Everything what make some actions instead of player, or make a few using one key is a cheat.

i only have 5 finger on my left arm. 5 flask and several cast skills. i need more fingers