Would this be considered cheating?

[Mononaut]

I have a program for Mac called ControllerMate that I used to use to map keyboard bindings to an xbox controller to play WoW. It's an incredibly advanced control-mapping software, and can actually run automated scripts based on conditionals and stuff.

home page is here: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"

[Newcomplex]

Whether its considered "cheating" is irrelevant and subject to debate. Personally, I think it isn't, but some may disagree.

What isn't debatable is whether or not the game will count this as cheating. And that will depend entirely on how Warden is coded. I doubt it will, but who knows.

[Avk]

im wondering the same thing
personally im against it and do not use it. i am beginning to understand its effectiveness though and have been researching it. i think judgement will be needed if the new matching system does not account :)

i think it could easily be as big as the map hack and will solidly change pace of play.

similar thread FWIW
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=23710551074&postId=237083074819&sid=5000#7

[Mononaut]

What isn't debatable is whether or not the game will count this as cheating. And that will depend entirely on how Warden is coded. I doubt it will, but who knows.

That's really what I want to know, I'd love to get some sort of hard confirmation on this before I start using it.

[Metallic]

Yes, this is cheating. Doing more than a single action with a single button press gives you an unfair advantage, and is thusly cheating by automation.

[Uriel]

Without getting into why you'd ever want to play SC or WoW on an xbox controller...

As long as you still have to actively decide to build a drone, as opposed to hitting 50 minerals and having it done automatically, I don't see it being a problem. Afaik keyboard macros via G15 and others are allowed, and it's the same thing.

[Kat]

Shut up and learn the hotkeys. Seriously...

The vast majority of hotkeys in SC2 are on the left side of the keyboard now (which is why they moved pylon from P to E). You don't even have to move your fingers very far like you would have had to in SC1. How much more dumbed down and basic can it get?

I was thrown off by some of the hotkey changes during my first day or two of playing. But now after a few days it's natural to me. I don't think i have any special talent or super memory, so i'm pretty sure its well within your capabilities to memorize a few different hotkeys...

--

To answer your question though. I don't consider remapping hotkeys to be cheating, but it does uneven the playing field. You're using 3rd party software to give you a convenience advantage over your opponent. It's not game breaking like a maphack or anything, but it is still an advantage for you.

And i'm pretty sure when someone watches your replay and sees the unreal amount of APM that you have from basically making a 'turbo' button for spawning infested terran it will set off some mental alarms.

[Mononaut]

Without getting into why you'd ever want to play SC or WoW on an xbox controller...

never said anything about playing SC on an xbox controller. I witnessed SC64, I've seen the horror. I was just pointing out the powerful versatility of the program... I played WoW with an xbox controller because it's a whole lot more comfortable to kick back in a comfy chair with, instead of a keyboard and mouse.

[Mononaut]

Shut up and learn the hotkeys. Seriously...

The vast majority of hotkeys in SC2 are on the left side of the keyboard now (which is why they moved pylon from P to E). You don't even have to move your fingers very far like you would have had to in SC1. How much more dumbed down and basic can it get?

I was thrown off by some of the hotkey changes during my first day or two of playing. But now after a few days it's natural to me. I don't think i have any special talent or super memory, so i'm pretty sure its well within your capabilities to memorize a few different hotkeys...

I said nothing about not being able to learn the hotkeys, I know them all very well. I'd just like to be able to use them faster and more efficiently... have you ever tried to spawn more than one infested terran? It's slower than it needs to be, unless you can click ungodly fast. That **!% wears out my finger.

[Zaphrous]

IMO Its an interface change. Improving the interface for a game, while offering potentially an unfair advantage (such as WoW / MMO threat meters), i don't think is cheating.
However with SC2 they don't plan to allow you to change zoom (at least max zoom), or possibly not even allow custom keybind changes. So it may be considered cheating in SC2, at least in ladder play.

[Avk]

Shut up and learn the hotkeys. Seriously...

The vast majority of hotkeys in SC2 are on the left side of the keyboard now (which is why they moved pylon from P to E). You don't even have to move your fingers very far like you would have had to in SC1. How much more dumbed down and basic can it get?

I was thrown off by some of the hotkey changes during my first day or two of playing. But now after a few days it's natural to me. I don't think i have any special talent or super memory, so i'm pretty sure its well within your capabilities to memorize a few different hotkeys...

im left handed.

[Kat]

im left handed.



And so am I. But i use a normal mouse and keyboard like the rest of the world.

I said nothing about not being able to learn the hotkeys, I know them all very well. I'd just like to be able to use them faster and more efficiently... have you ever tried to spawn more than one infested terran? It's slower than it needs to be, unless you can click ungodly fast. That **!% wears out my finger.

Well then, doesn't that sound like a flaw in the game design that you should report in the feedback forum?

How could you possibly think that it would be fair for you to have an automated system for spawning infested terrrans extremely quickly and easily, when you opponent has to do it manually. Isn't doing it manually nearly the definition of micro? It is absolutely unfair for you to be able to program your computer to have 1 button press that automates a series of events, when your opponent can not.

Play the game the way it has been designed. If you don't like how it was designed (like how spawning infested terran works) then do your job as a beta tester and submit feedback. Use the power and infrastructure that is available to you as a beta tester to make the game play better for everyone, instead of using a 3rd party program to make it better for yourself.

That's just my opinion.

[Mononaut]

Another thing I'd use it for is assigning a dedicated button to CTRL+click. I use a keyboard with a 'Fn' key where the Ctrl should be, so it's harder than it needs to be to do multiple selections.. and I hate trying to double-click on moving units. I'd rather have a fourth mouse button dedicated to selecting all.

[Avk]

And so am I. But i use a normal mouse and keyboard like the rest of the world.

why, when this is available?

http://www.n52te.com/
just sayin'

[Kat]

Another thing I'd use it for is assigning a dedicated button to CTRL+click. I use a keyboard with a 'Fn' key where the Ctrl should be, so it's harder than it needs to be to do multiple selections.. and I hate trying to double-click on moving units. I'd rather have a fourth mouse button dedicated to selecting all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126013

Normal keyboard, 15 dollars.

Getting banned from SC2 for using automated scripts, Priceless.

xD

[Mononaut]

Getting banned from SC2 for using automated scripts, Priceless.

xD

Care to explain how an automated script that doesn't read or modify or in any way interact with SC2 has any way of significantly modifying gameplay, without the user already knowing what he's doing?

[Stratosspear]

I have a program for Mac called ControllerMate that I used to use to map keyboard bindings to an xbox controller to play WoW. It's an incredibly advanced control-mapping software, and can actually run automated scripts based on conditionals and stuff.

home page is here: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"

Yes, this would be considered cheating. You are doing something (in this case, making commands) that deliberately make the game easier outside of what the game UI gives you. It's no different than a Map Hack.

[Mononaut]

Yes, this would be considered cheating. You are doing something (in this case, making commands) that deliberately make the game easier outside of what the game UI gives you. It's no different than a Map Hack.

It's extremely different than maphack... it doesn't actually reveal the map to me, or interact with the game files in any way.

[Rizaun]

It's extremely different than maphack... it doesn't actually reveal the map to me, or interact with the game files in any way.

But it gives you an advantage over your opponent, it would be like using a turbol controller against a player with a regular.

[Poolatka]

a lot of keyboards, even gaming keyboards, have this feature built it... they're called macros, and most games don't care about em.

[Avk]

its an interesting queston of ethic
im all for not using it.. if there was a way to insure that my opponent wasnt .
it is a huge investment of time to get it working correctly and learn the maps, which likely means that the players that do, will use. thinking progressively why are we bound to the mouse and keyboard? isnt this game about competition? is the keyboard equivalent to the bat, the mouse the ball?

im looking for an official Blizzard response and also what is acceptable standard at a professional level

[Chedwick]

Seems like certain someones are just butthurt about the topic.

Anyways, if you are just looking to remap keys to something else then...

Would I consider it cheating? No (so long as things are not happening on their own)

Does it give you an advantage? Yes, but if you are willing to invest your time and money into improving your gameplay in a fair way I don't see a big deal.

Does Blizzard support/allow this? Well that remains to be seen for the time being.

And lastly...Why would you want to play on an xbox controller? Beats me.

[Fldsjflsdjfa]

Post a video comparing standard play versus it.

[Winge]

a lot of keyboards, even gaming keyboards, have this feature built it... they're called macros, and most games don't care about em.

This.

You should not be banned for using a keyboard with macro functionality (or the software behind said keyboard). The 'advantage' that macros could add is negligible. It's not in the same realm as a maphack or resource glitch.

[Avk]

Post a video comparing standard play versus it.

this.
personally ive never gotten it up and running but ive also never taken the time to learn hotkeys. im wondering what i should invest my time in since I am at a clear disadvantage continuing to point click with the mouse

[Labmonkey]

I don't think the people who consider this not cheating grasp how intense high level rts play is.

While this wouldn't make much of a difference in low level play, where the bottleneck for how many actions per minute you are achieving is usually your brain, at high level play this makes a huge difference. At high level play most players are slowed down not by their thinking speed since the game has pretty much become second nature. They are slowed down by the physical speed of their fingers. Macros can double, if not triple, your micro ability, and allow for much higher levels of multitasking. Not to mention its a slippery slope leading to auto-micro'ers and automated macro scripts.

That being said, if you are just playing for fun on ladder, it really wouldn't affect your opponent. You would simply end up playing people who were slightly higher skill then you. It wouldn't affect the games enjoyment for either party. But don't try to join any tournaments, as it would be very embarrassing for everyone to find out that your cheating.

[Kat]

a lot of keyboards, even gaming keyboards, have this feature built it... they're called macros, and most games don't care about em.

Just because you can't be caught doing something doesn't make it fair. Using macros of any sort to automate something that was not designed to be automated is giving yourself an unfair advantage. I can't see any way that anyone could intelligently argue against that.

Look at any other competitive game genre. In fighting game tournaments you are never allowed to use sticks with turbo buttons or macros. You might think its inconvenient to have to do D, DF, F, punch to throw a fireball, but that isn't a legitimate excuse to having a piece of software or hardware automate it for you. It may be more convenient for you to be able to throw out special attacks with single button presses, but that doesn't make it fair.

And for you to say "well its fair because i spent my money on it and other people can spend their money on it too if they want to" is a illegitimate argument. - That's like baseball players saying "oh well its fair for me to take steroids because i spent my money on it, and other people can buy them too..."

--

Once again i'll make my suggestion. If you don't like the way a certain aspect of the game controls, go make a thread in the feedback forum on how to make it control better.

You may not get caught for using macros or a programmable keyboard. However, just because you can't be caught doing something doesn't automatically make it fair. The fact is that you are using 3rd party software to alter the way the game works for you benefit. And in reality, the vast majority of your opponents will not have the same software/hardware to make the game easier for themselves. Therefor, you have used a third-party application to give you the benefit of an uneven playing field. Which is cheating, whether you get caught or not, its still unfair...

[Baked]

Just because you can't be caught doing something doesn't make it fair. Using macros of any sort to automate something that was not designed to be automated is giving yourself an unfair advantage. I can't see any way that anyone could intelligently argue against that.

Look at any other competitive game genre. In fighting game tournaments you are never allowed to use sticks with turbo buttons or macros. You might think its inconvenient to have to do D, DF, F, punch to throw a fireball, but that isn't a legitimate excuse to having a piece of software or hardware automate it for you. It may be more convenient for you to be able to throw out special attacks with single button presses, but that doesn't make it fair.

And for you to say "well its fair because i spent my money on it and other people can spend their money on it too if they want to" is a illegitimate argument. - That's like baseball players saying "oh well its fair for me to take steroids because i spent my money on it, and other people can buy them too..."

--

Once again i'll make my suggestion. If you don't like the way a certain aspect of the game controls, go make a thread in the feedback forum on how to make it control better.

You may not get caught for using macros or a programmable keyboard. However, just because you can't be caught doing something doesn't automatically make it fair. The fact is that you are using 3rd party software to alter the way the game works for you benefit. And in reality, the vast majority of your opponents will not have the same software/hardware to make the game easier for themselves. Therefor, you have used a third-party application to give you the benefit of an uneven playing field. Which is cheating, whether you get caught or not, its still unfair...

LAWL its a macro and everything in the game is macro, this just allows the player to macro with out looking at his base.... is this unfair, i would say there is many degrees of unfair.. for instance if every1 is aware of the possibility of being able to macro then clearly its not a disadvantage because certain players refuse to use such. Example.... Halo 2 Super Bounce.... it was a glitch in the game, but bungie didnt care because it was so popular that they plainly said that it took skill to do, and practice.... if you didnt know it, you didnt know it. People will cry advantage this, advantage that... but when it comes to strategy you want the advantage.... know i dont wanna say that taking higher ground with tanks is cheating because my marines couldnt get from lower to upper in time.... but i would say its similar in theory.

How ever when this marcro is used in fighting games like... Mortal Kombat, i would consider it cheating... because its not fair when you can push one button and do a 29 hit combo and pulling a flawless victory. This does not apply to Sc2 because its build armys and send them on there way. Sc2 already has micro ability's ctrl 1-0, and it was clear Blizzard wanted to make it semi easy to control what was going on in your base as you fight. Everyone that is good will hot key there barracks, hatch, gateway, or w/e the production building of your choose is and you will spam your hot key for units. Now if i had a macro i would hit one button and it would select the desired building and spam the key that i already wanted, but all i did was told a certain key to pushed these keys at these times.

There are many programs that do this "macro", keyboards with drivers that support this, and because every unit, and every spell has hot keys, it makes it fairly easy and accessible to everybody to use. So Clearly its no disadvantage because everyone has access to such tools. they choose to use them or not is up to them(IMO).


If you play a pro - they will tell you your macro cheating
you play a noob - you ling rush cuzz you scouted his base, you cheated

ideally pro and noob are no different they just focused in other areas.


Now im not gonna say there is no such thing as cheats, because map hack clearly is a cheat. Stacking buildings is obviously a cheat. Binding a key to hit 1 key and another keys rapidly... ingenuity to me...

[Frozen]

I have a program for Mac called ControllerMate that I used to use to map keyboard bindings to an xbox controller to play WoW. It's an incredibly advanced control-mapping software, and can actually run automated scripts based on conditionals and stuff.

home page is here: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"

One would assume blizzard takes the same stance on SC2 as it did WOW. as long as the program isn't making decisions for you, the imput is based on human interaction, you should be fine. Which is why KeyClone wasn't being banned.

[Avk]

I have a program for Mac called ControllerMate that I used to use to map keyboard bindings to an xbox controller to play WoW. It's an incredibly advanced control-mapping software, and can actually run automated scripts based on conditionals and stuff.

home page is here: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"

in an incredibly rapid time frame
as for accounting im wondering if Blizz would ever keylog a standards database to measure player key speed, basically if you are transacting above this speed, you are automating

[Azureflames]

One would assume blizzard takes the same stance on SC2 as it did WOW. as long as the program isn't making decisions for you, the imput is based on human interaction, you should be fine. Which is why KeyClone wasn't being banned.

It's different because they intentionally did not include a mass build option so that you had to hit Z 20 times if you wanted to spawn 20 sets of lings.

[Sonanko]

Pretty sure macros are something Blizzard is against; but who knows for sure. Only they can tell us.

[Avk]

One would assume blizzard takes the same stance on SC2 as it did WOW. as long as the program isn't making decisions for you, the imput is based on human interaction, you should be fine. Which is why KeyClone wasn't being banned.

so your saying that the major function of SC2 is operational/positional?

[Frozen]

It's different because they intentionally did not include a mass build option so that you had to hit Z 20 times if you wanted to spawn 20 sets of lings.

how is it different? they didn't include software that let you command multiple characters over multiple accounts over multiple instances of WOW running to do the same thing at the same time. Yet, that doesn't get banned. Your unlogical. XD

[Stratosspear]

how is it different? they didn't include software that let you command multiple characters over multiple accounts over multiple instances of WOW running to do the same thing at the same time. Yet, that doesn't get banned. Your unlogical. XD

Different because they're completely different games.

In a highly competitive environment (which SC2 aims to be), this is cheating and you're a complete moron (sorry for the harshness, but it's true) if you say otherwise. It reduces the required APM and makes things (as in mechanical demands) directly easier via something that was not implemented into the game by the makers. I don't care if Bungie let the super bounce stay, Blizzard let Muta stacking stay, those were bugs that were directly a part of the game and made for everyone. Macros are an outside influence that only you get from outside the game and something never implemented by the developers. There is no argument to this. It's cheating and anyone who knows anything about a seriously competitive E-sport environment should tell you the same.

I mean really, go to iCCup and try this stuff (or better yet, try to tell the Koreans it's not cheating). You'll get your ass banned so fast your head would spin.

[Hoticehunter]

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"

For what it's worth, in World of Warcraft, you are only "technically" allowed one action per key-press. Your examples are against the ToS for that game. I imagine Blizzard would keep similar rules so that G15s don't become mandatory for competitive play.

[Stratosspear]

For what it's worth, in World of Warcraft, you are only "technically" allowed one action per key-press. Your examples are against the ToS for that game. I imagine Blizzard would keep similar rules so that G15s don't become mandatory for competitive play.

That and WoW isn't competitive where Starcraft is. Allowing Macros would severely hurt the competitive scene because it would just make it easier. Far more people could compete with the top players and the pool would become very diluted. There wouldn't be extremely high level play because you could automate so much, making the skill ceiling significantly lower.

[Dronmor]

using these "macros" would it be possible to press 1 button, nad have several building build several types of units? if so wouldn't that be completely automating your production?
(i.e press 1 buton have robotics start a colossus(s) star gate start void rays and gateways start stalkers)
the above would take many button clicks but using that software you could do it in one? seem incredibly unfair, blizz, plz don't allow this

[Mononaut]

What about the UI advantage that Protoss get from having a dedicated hotkey for their warp gates? no control group necessary....

[Fohobogah]

Most gaming keyboard can do what the op says. Plus in War3, you can remap hot keys as you like, might be available in the release.

[magister]

I'm not sure how big of a deal this sort of thing is, but for what it's worth, an anecdote.

Arena.net was banning people for "botting" for a short time, in Guild Wars, for using G15 keyboard macros.

However, many of those bans were rescended later. Diff company and all that, I know. Just pointing out that some places do have a concern about it.

[Tagospo]

Yes, this would be considered cheating. You are doing something (in this case, making commands) that deliberately make the game easier outside of what the game UI gives you. It's no different than a Map Hack.

lol you almost had me there for a second.

Back to the topic at hand.

Apparently the community seems to frown upon it to some degree, but without an official statement I think its fair game. You are not actually automating play there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to do this unless blizzard makes some sort of statement about it.

[sharkbait]

I'd like a blizz response to this. If it's not cheating then I have to get on top of this ASAP.

[Krintar]

If Blizzard had intended it to be possible they would have included ingame functionality to accomplish it. As previously mentioned, they're strongly against such things in WoW - with SC2 being intended as a competitive e-sport, the only reasonable assumption is that they'd have an even stronger stance against it.

Essentially, you're using third-party software to give you an advantage over your opponent. I don't see how anyone could think that's okay.

[Dreyo]

I said nothing about not being able to learn the hotkeys, I know them all very well. I'd just like to be able to use them faster and more efficiently... have you ever tried to spawn more than one infested terran? It's slower than it needs to be, unless you can click ungodly fast. That **!% wears out my finger.

Press hotkey once, hold shift, click four times. Pop pop pop pop. Done.

[Azureflames]

how is it different? they didn't include software that let you command multiple characters over multiple accounts over multiple instances of WOW running to do the same thing at the same time. Yet, that doesn't get banned. Your unlogical. XD

Because they decided they did not want people to be able to mass build in SC2. It's not that they just didn't include it(like multi-boxing with WoW). One is a feature that they were against implementing in their game. The other is a feature that they chose not to include because so few people would utilize it. I gurantee you if a large portion of the WoW player base started multi-boxing they'd add in-game support for it.

[Mononaut]

Because they decided they did not want people to be able to mass build in SC2.

I don't think this is true. The smart casting system is great, and MBS wouldn't really be as useful if every building you had selected built a marine when you pressed A once... same with zerg larvae. The new system is much better. Although, sometimes I'd like to revert to the original system.

[Terra]

Yes, this is cheating. Doing more than a single action with a single button press gives you an unfair advantage, and is thusly cheating by automation.

Man, if you ever played WoW, macros would blow your mind.

[Lampanator]

For what it's worth, in World of Warcraft, you are only "technically" allowed one action per key-press. Your examples are against the ToS for that game. I imagine Blizzard would keep similar rules so that G15s don't become mandatory for competitive play.


are you kidding me?

I used to play wow at a competitive raiding and arena level.

if 99.999% of your keys were not macros that did > or = 2 things, you failed hard.

My nature swiftness macro activated 2 spells, 2 trinkets, and one of 3 spells.

that's alot of actions for my G key.

(i was a shaman)

in Burning Crusade i played a BM hunter. on illidan, i was sick and tired of mashing my Steady shot macro and built one for my G15 keyboard. toggled on once, it pressed my steady shot macro an equivilent of >79000 times in one illidan fight. it was pressing my 1 key every .00000002 seconds. (also giving me the highest damage/dps for the raid)


as long as you were the person to initiate the command sequence, you're fine in blizzards eyes. the problem is when you build AI that is too smart, such as the original decursive which found, targeted, and decursed people using a smart script AI. that's too far. as long as you're targeting the building and issuing commands, that's not a problem.

also, it's much harder to micro units at a competitive level using a controller. he is gimping himself for serious play. this is an improvement to his macro control abilities while suffering a great loss to his finetune micro ability.

[Avk]

using these "macros" would it be possible to press 1 button, nad have several building build several types of units? if so wouldn't that be completely automating your production?
(i.e press 1 buton have robotics start a colossus(s) star gate start void rays and gateways start stalkers)
the above would take many button clicks but using that software you could do it in one? seem incredibly unfair, blizz, plz don't allow this

i believe yes it is
you would have to first create a control group for the buildings for example:

barracks, factory, starport = 1
not sure yet if barracks, factory starport has a hotkey. someone says warpgate does

anyway depending on that.
you could macro key bind say a marine, a hellion and a transport
macro would look like this, requiring layered commands

(1) (control group -- bar(R)acks hot key --(B)uild -- (M)arine = (A)
(1)(control group -- (F)actory hot key -- (B)uild -- (H)ellion = (S)
(1)control group -- (S)tarport hot key -- (B)uild -- (T)ransport = (D)

so intuitively your computer would understand this:
(1+R+B+M) + (1+F+B+H) + (1+S+B+T) = ?

simplified
(A) + (S) + (D) = ?

assign function (A)+(S)+(D) = (P), press P to execute operation
there is a faster argument but it requires more memory

its called Logic if you didnt know, its extensively used by the military and in this case Navy to operationalize supply chain logistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic
http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/Business-stat/home.html

[Dronmor]

i believe yes it is
you would have to first create a control group for the buildings for example:

barracks, factory, starport = 1
not sure yet if barracks, factory starport has a hotkey. someone says warpgate does

anyway depending on that.
you could macro key bind say a marine, a hellion and a transport
macro would look like this, requiring layered commands

(1) (control group -- bar(R)acks hot key --(B)uild -- (M)arine = (A)
(1)(control group -- (F)actory hot key -- (B)uild -- (H)ellion = (S)
(1)control group -- (S)tarport hot key -- (B)uild -- (T)ransport = (D)

so intuitively your computer would understand this:
(1+R+B+M) + (1+F+B+H) + (1+S+B+T) = ?

simplified
(A) + (S) + (D) = ?

assign function (A)+(S)+(D) = (P), press P to execute operation
there is a faster argument but it requires more memory

its called Logic if you didnt know, its extensively used by the military and in this case Navy to operationalize supply chain logistics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic
http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/Business-stat/home.html

so you could automate your entire production while microing your army?

[Avk]

so you could automate your entire production while microing your army?

technically you can macro (meaning automate) a build order, yes
there would be point/click setup required each game.. creating/maintaining the associations within control groups

[Evolx]

no way is that cheating

[Avk]

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=115265

[Dronmor]

doing as they said on the teamliquid, lets say you wanted your 3 barracks to make 3 marines each, starport to make 3 banshees and a factory to make 2 tanks

this would take 17 clicks, 17 clicks that you reduce to 1, so, this means, that in a fight, you can micro your army AND macro your base so that you can focus completely on the battle WHILE pumping out units for no, NO, negatives, the other player can't be microing his base and army at the same time, this is an unfair advantage

[Avk]

doing as they said on the teamliquid, lets say you wanted your 3 barracks to make 3 marines each, starport to make 3 banshees and a factory to make 2 tanks

this would take 17 clicks, 17 clicks that you reduce to 1, so, this means, that in a fight, you can micro your army AND macro your base so that you can focus completely on the battle WHILE pumping out units for no, NO, negatives, the other player can't be microing his base and army at the same time, this is an unfair advantage

dont match pools address this imperfectly?
maybe the match pool should model a regionally competitive nodal network rather than a hierarchy?
medal means your level of process macro


who says platinum is the best metal?
if you want to try to do it all yourself..
copper is a very hardy metal
figure out a way to succeed using your intended methods and you would be a hero

[Dronmor]

dont match pools address this imperfectly?
maybe the match pool should model a regionally competitive nodal network rather than a hierarchy?
medal means your level of process macro


who says platinum is the best metal?
if you want to try to do it all yourself..
copper is a very hardy metal
figure out a way to succeed using your intended methods and you would be a hero

i don't understand what your saying....
at all.....

[Geryth]

I have a program for Mac called ControllerMate that I used to use to map keyboard bindings to an xbox controller to play WoW. It's an incredibly advanced control-mapping software, and can actually run automated scripts based on conditionals and stuff.

home page is here: http://www.orderedbytes.com/controllermate/

I was wondering if it'd be considered cheating if I set up custom hotkeys for things like building drones, where instead of hitting SDDD, I could hit a single key to do all three. Another possible example would be spawning infested terran, instead of holding shift and clicking 30 times, I could hold down a hotkey to rapidly click for me instead.

The program can re-map commands by intercepting commands from ANY controller before they are even "received" by the OS, so if I wanted to bind the 'R' key to building a few drones with the hatchery selected, I could make it so that the SC2 program never receives the 'R' key, but only sees the key sequence "S-D-D-D"


I believe it is cheating and here's my reasoning:

The definition of cheating to me is having a tool or an advantage that is not available to the other player that puts them at a disadvantage. This software is not from Starcraft and is therefore not available to other players, and has the ability to become tremendously powerful at reducing time and keystrokes that the opponent will not have.

I don't accept the argument that "Well it's free software and anyone can do it" because it's not part of the Starcraft UI and not intended for balanced play.

This is all regardless of whether Blizzard's anti-cheat software will register such a third party program as cheating which is probably very possible.

[Nezdragon]

are you kidding me?

I used to play wow at a competitive raiding and arena level.

if 99.999% of your keys were not macros that did > or = 2 things, you failed hard.



Minor problem with your argument. WoW had a built-in macro creator, as well as support for a whole host of mods. SCII, currently, does not.

Same company, different games, different rules.

[Avk]

dont match pools address this imperfectly?
maybe the match pool should model a regionally competitive nodal network rather than a hierarchy?
medal means your level of process macro


who says platinum is the best metal?
if you want to try to do it all yourself..
copper is a very hardy metal
figure out a way to succeed using your intended methods and you would be a hero

isnt the new matchmaking system of pooling going to place macro users in a different group than players who use point/click methods?

essentially wont players be playing people who are using similar methods to themselves?
so over time a copper 'leader' could form, gold, platinum, etc. these are players who have maximized their ability can cannot progress to the other medal

[Perq]

Wait, people seriously think creating an army of units with one button isn't cheating? Of course it's cheating how can you people even remotely think it isn't.

[Avk]

Minor problem with your argument. WoW had a built-in macro creator, as well as support for a whole host of mods. SCII, currently, does not.

Same company, different games, different rules.

starcraft had macros
chat macros
http://classic.battle.net/info/commands.shtml?rhtml=y

its built into the code by dir
welcome to the matrix

[Dronmor]

isnt the new matchmaking system of pooling going to place macro users in a different group than players who use point/click methods?

essentially wont players be playing people who are using similar methods to themselves?
so over time a copper 'leader' could form, gold, platinum, etc. these are players who have maximized their ability can cannot progress to the other medal

what your saying is you want point-and-clickers in their own league? would there be a seperate league for people who use 3rd party? or people who only use keyboard? how about people who fail at micro will there be a seperate one for them? what about people who macro a bit micro alot? jsut how many leagues will there be?

[Avk]

what your saying is you want point-and-clickers in their own league? would there be a seperate league for people who use 3rd party? or people who only use keyboard? how about people who fail at micro will there be a seperate one for them? what about people who macro a bit micro alot? jsut how many leagues will there be?

well we already know
Practice -> Copper -> Bronze -> Silver -> Gold -> Platinum -> Pro
my guess is it works itself out

point and click will survive in copper/bronze for life -- have its nuance and strategies
but there is a level where you are essentially writing code for blizzards next game
for free !

[Perq]

what your saying is you want point-and-clickers in their own league? would there be a seperate league for people who use 3rd party? or people who only use keyboard? how about people who fail at micro will there be a seperate one for them? what about people who macro a bit micro alot? jsut how many leagues will there be?

... You are saying people who point and click (new players) are the same as players who cheat there way to mass armies. No, if somehow Blizzard considers this not cheating, even though it has been considered just that in the past, there better be another league for it.

[Nezdragon]

starcraft had macros
chat macros
http://classic.battle.net/info/commands.shtml?rhtml=y

its built into the code by dir
welcome to the matrix

Those are chat commands. They are incapable of altering core gameplay. Typing /r will not allow me to queue five drones at the same time.

Good try, though.

[Dronmor]

... You are saying people who point and click (new players) are the same as players who cheat there way to mass armies. No, if somehow Blizzard considers this not cheating, even though it has been considered just that in the past, there better be another league for it.

no i was just pointing out its stupid to make different leagues depending on how you play

[Avk]

no i was just pointing out its stupid to make different leagues depending on how you play

im not passing judgement
im speculating how the metal pools could play out

[Perq]

no i was just pointing out its stupid to make different leagues depending on how you play

Cheaters should be in their own league, newbie players should not. (New league that is)

[Avk]

Cheaters should be in their own league, newbie players should not. (New league that is)

...and it happens to be platinum
dO yOu LiKe PlaTinuM?

[Newcomplex]

That's really what I want to know, I'd love to get some sort of hard confirmation on this before I start using it.

Well we won't know that until someone gets banned.

^_^

Want to test it out for us bud?

Honestly, debating whether its cheating or not is kind of mentally retarded. Stoppit. It doesn't even matter.

[Avk]

Well we won't know that until someone gets banned.

^_^

Want to test it out for us bud?

it is beta...
whose going to read the agreement and report back?

edit: who is going to post a link to the agreement article in this post?

[Zarquid]

The problem I see is using it to macro while microing an army.

For example, hatches are keybound to control group 6. With one press of my playstation controller, all my haturies use all larva available to build mutalisks. Within a split second, i'm back to microing my army.

X on playstation binds to - 6-s-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m--m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m

Some people have the APM to do this without a macro controller anyway. However some things are humanly impossible, and for that matter, too fast to matter in the long term.

Edit: To the guy speaking about WoW macros using "If" and "> = <" statements, this was removed going from classic to BC because gameplay was becoming too automated.

Also, WoW gaming mouse has it's own keybinding program that I can see being used for SC2 for exactly this purpose. Interesting that a blizzard approved mouse and program may be the biggest culprit.

[Avk]

The problem I see is using it to macro while microing an army.

For example, hatches are keybound to control group 6. With one press of my playstation controller, all my haturies use all larva available to build mutalisks. Within a split second, i'm back to microing my army.

X on playstation binds to - 6-s-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m--m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m

Some people have the APM to do this without a macro controller anyway. However some things are humanly impossible, and for that matter, too fast to matter in the long term.

its a game. a closed system inside an operating system with highly ambiguous boundaries imperfectly visible to each player. is it fair that i know to press barracks, build, marine while a newbee is still trying to figure out what an SCV is?

automating that process shows technical mastery and professionalism

[Dronmor]

"Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others,[1] Cheating implies the breaking of rules. The term "cheating" is less applicable to the breaking of laws, as illegal activities are referred to by specific legal terminology such as fraud or corruption. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less, often used when referring to marital infidelity. A person who is guilty of cheating is generally referred to as a cheat (British English), or a cheater"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheat

sounds like using third party software (like the one the OP talks about) fits the bill

[Avk]

"Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others,[1] Cheating implies the breaking of rules. The term "cheating" is less applicable to the breaking of laws, as illegal activities are referred to by specific legal terminology such as fraud or corruption. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less, often used when referring to marital infidelity. A person who is guilty of cheating is generally referred to as a cheat (British English), or a cheater"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheat

sounds like using third party software (like the one the OP talks about) fits the bill

not if you look at SC2 as operating under the Law of the OS, it might be more of a corruption
no one has brought back the agreement anyway, so we dont know blizzards stance

[Magpie]

People need to stop comparing SC2 to WoW.

WoW is a joke competitively, and they are 2 completely different games with 2 completely different "Esport" goals from Blizzard.

[Mcintosh]

In my opinion, it doesn't matter if it's technically considered "cheating" or not. Regardless, it's bad sportsmanship, and if you have to ask the question in the first place, you have a lot to learn about the purpose of competition.

[Wolfe]

"Unfair advantage"

[Frokusblakah]

Anything that lets you skip multiple clicks or buttons and rolls it into one click or button that is found outside of the games UI is cheating.

If you don't think so its because you're a tool.

/end

[Lghtningwolf]

how many high end players in SC1 / WC3 use macros? ALOT do, how many people in this beta in the platinum level probably have g15 keyboards? alot do. The fact is, you can say Macros are cheating, but in the end, your just talking to brick walls.

Is macroing cheating? who knows, keybindings will most likely be avalible for change in the official game.

do you people really think that there are those of us who dont use the hotkeys then sit there pressing the buttons over and over?

Also Macros cant control mouse clicks, only keyboard clicks, that being said the games not nearly as automated as you all keep trying to claim.

yes you can make a macro to fill your supply que. as a Zerg player I STILL need to go back, target my Queen, and have her use her spawn larvae on my HAtcherys, I still need to use my Mouse to chrono boost my buildings as Toss.

As soon as a mouse click comes into play, a macro cant be used for it.

Besides, im sure that if blizzard really wanted to remove Macroing, they could just build in a .2 - .5 cooldown into button presses, so NO ONE would have a speed advantage, even though 90% of the game does not rely on speed advantages.

The only race I could see a speed advantage useing Macro's over the others is Zerg, but that requires 4+ hatcherys to compensate for the fact your NOT useing your queen regularly to build up forces.

[Tagospo]

Also Macros cant control mouse clicks, only keyboard clicks, that being said the games not nearly as automated as you all keep trying to claim.


Pretty sure you could do this with AHK but I am not sure how practical that would be...

I still don't think its cheating though.

[Heffalump]

I hate the hotkey (L) for liftoff. Other than that the hotkeys are good for me.

[Zacd]

Hot keys need to be the same for every race.