What exactly is Auto-Fire?Follow

What exactly is this Autofire, that Rangers say that they need?

I am just curious is all. Because if it is a single click option so the bow just autofires without you having to wait for the refresh on the ranged button, then I see that as a bit silly.



Edited, Tue Jul 13 20:21:22 2004 by StandsInShadow

It's when your car is like burning... and you know, theres like flames...

Seriously, it would be a function like auto-attack whereby a character would fire his ranged weapon everytime the end of the delay cycle was reached. This would mean that we didn't have to mash the ranged attack button to get off additional shots when doing a root and shoot or when attacking a mob from outside of melee range.

I, for one, think it would be nice but don't view it as a *must have* feature. At least not one that I'm gonna quit playing my ranger over not having!

So by the same token, is it inherently wrong that melee classes have an autoattack for melee weapons? Does that take the skill out of knowing when to swing and how to time your swing?

The spirit of the request has to be seen for what it is: removing pointless repetition that continues for a long enough period of time that it is simply tedious, mindless, and without any inherent player-added skill. Pulling with one arrow isn't, but standing for 10 minutes watching for a ranged attack key to refresh is.

The first thing that came to mind when I considered autoarchery was autobackstab. As a rogue, do you employ wit and skill to determine when to backstab or do you just mash the (backstab/evade) key when it pops up? When an activity requires no skill, automation is generally a positive addition, allowing you, the player behind the interface, to interact in more meaningful ways with the world and your companions. Mindless key mashing is mere drudgery and has no place in an interactive game we are here to enjoy.

Rytan of SOE has pretty much stated that using gamepad sequencing macros are not against the EULA when applied to bardsong twisting. Whether his comments were misspoken or not, he has opened the door to what is being called 'attended macroing' in all shapes and forms. There is obviously a huge grey area here that is ripe for exploitation and I hope that they (SOE) come to specific and exact terms in what is and should be allowed, and what shouldn't.

For my part, melee attack, ranged fire or backstab, if it is simply mindless key mashing, I'd rather see it automated. But agree with me or not, the critical issue here is SOE clearly defining exactly what is and is not acceptable, something they have yet to do.

Paladins, Shadowknights, Rogues, Warriors also can use bows. Should they also get Auto-attack or is this being viewed as a Ranger only ability? There are no Ranger bow attacks that require any sort of timing/placement? The headshot for instance does not require that you can see the critters head?

Just asking as I know little of the class never having played one past 14th lvl really. For a rogue the special attacks are placement/stealth dependant. To use Theives Vengance for example, I must be stealthed for a specific length of time and attack with a backstab attack from behind while stealthed. (which incidentally makes it about a one shot a fight as when you try to restealth and try again, you get the "You have not been hidden long enough" message).


So the Ranger bow attacks don't have something similar? It is just "acquire the target and fire"?


Edited, Tue Jul 13 21:22:40 2004 by StandsInShadow

Any one who wants can have autofire, (although it will bankrupt any non EQ enabled user who uses it for archery

All it is, is a key press utility, that turns the standard key press repeat utility that all windows OS have as standard, into a toggle.

i.e. With the standard utility you adjust the rate at which a key press is repeated when you hold down a key. Press and hold down Cap Lock and it will spam key presses to your OS at what ever repeat rate you have set.

With Autofire it becomes a toggle, press Cap Lock and take your finger away, and it will continue to spam your OS with key presses at the rate you have set, untill you press Cap Lock again.

So a Rogue could use it for backstab, just assign BS to your Cap Lock key (for example) and off you go. It would be a mighty disadvantage I would imagine as you would most likely waste the majority of your backstabs on thin air as the key press utility constantly hits and greys out at the wrong moment.

The only reason that it works for archery is the same reason that thrashing the crap out of your keyboard works, archery is not that dependant on accuracy and the delay + haste on the better bows allow you the luxury of missing the occasional refresh.

The whole issue about Rangers and autofire is a nonsense beatup. What makes Ranger Archery the power that it is is Endless Quiver.

Now start ******** about that and I will personally come around to visit you with my baseball bat in hand

The Autofire utility that everyone is carrying on about is a simple little routine that resides as part of your operating system and has no interaction or dependance on the EQ client, it is totally independant hence is not in violation of the ULA in any way.

Does it give an unfair advantage, well it does save on finger and keyboard wear and tear and probably allows a ranger to be more sustained in attack over a very long encounter, e.g. after the 765th key press your finger begins to lock up. But then I guess we could change hands?

But I fail to see how it can be considered unfair in any way at all.

Paladins and Warriors use it by all means, just don't come trying to beg a few arrows from me, I don't carry them around anymore

Rogues use it for backstab if you want to, just don't do it in my group please.

Could you use it to illegaly forage, nope, all you will do is fill your screen with the "you cant perform that action with something on your pointer" message.

Ditto fishing.

The only other thing that I can think of is that if you have suffered some unfortunate industrial accident and are shy a finger or two, it might be handy to use for spamming your Kick or Bash button. Assuming you have the "kick" or "bash" ability.


P.S... The finer point of the autofire debate that was put forward by the senior rangers was all to do with client/server synchronisation.

The informal fix we have (as I said above) is simply an OS routine that does not interact with the EQ progamming in any way, hence it is blind and dumb. The key is continually spammed whether you have a target or not, whether you are in range or not, whether you have ammo or not, doesn't even care if you have a bow equipped.

Obviously this leads to hundreds, nay thousands of wasted shots over time. It is a sledge hammer fix.

It would be much more elegant if SOE would provide an inteligent autofire, that did sense at least the basic things like server synchronisation, mob dead or alive, no target etc.

I guess the view is that the arrows are free we can't hit PCs so there is no biggy.

There is also there much larger way deeper problem of the basic archery mechanism in the game, is a bad mix of the non attendant auto melee mechanic and the fully player dependant spell damage mechanic. Very difficult to mess with this late into the game development.

Edited, Tue Jul 13 22:49:15 2004 by Iluien

SOE have already made a statement on this, it was as part of the discussion during the recent "summit". Go back and read some of the transcripts and you will find it.

In essence their view is that because we had found a workable solution ourselves, they did not see a need to allocate programmer time to it.

They don't believe it to be "un balancing" for the same reason that anyone using it regularly would say, we can achieve the same DPS without it, it just saves us from having crippled fingers in our old age.

last post besides yours was 2004....think they might of got a handle on it by now....lol..... And welcome to the 2013's it works on windows 7 and 8..... time warp?

Edited, May 7th 2013 8:54pm by Vinney

Fronglo,

Your experience seems very different than mine. While still slow, I would say I see a skillup when spam-casting at least once every minute to two minutes. Two in 30 minutes is WAY outside the bell curve for me (and I'm talking about 3 chars in the 80s, and three more 65+)

Tat

Why on earth aren't you using Minor Shielding? You can skill up to max with LVL1 stuff.

I wonder if bad lag/poor network connection could have anything to do with it? Or even zone considerations?

Whenever I had a lot of skillups to catch up on, I would go to the healing pool in the guild hall, so I was the only one in the zone. Just a thought.

Tat

PS to KEC - you mention no skillups most of the time. That's true. Even spamming a low level spell, and getting one skillup every 2-3 minutes is one skillup in about 20-30 casts of the spell. So it's true for all of us that you don't get a skillup most of the time.

By most of the time, I mean I almost never get a skill up. When I returned to the game late last year, all my casting chars were very far behind due to the increase in skill numbers. I cast low levels for four days on my Beastlord and received no skill ups at all. It was only when I switched to level appropriate spells that I saw skill ups. Meditate was also a joke skilling up. It is only now, 5+ months later that it has level capped. All of these skills had been level capped when I quit.

Edited, May 10th 2013 6:46pm by KEC