Using socials instead of rebinds- sue me

Discussion in 'Melee' started by ryokoryu, Mar 29, 2021.

  1. ryokoryu Journeyman

    so everywhere I ask for help setting up socials like I had before for my zerker people just tell me rebind everything to the 1 key and spam that then experiment with putting stuff in different orders. I don't like that playstyle first of all and second of all I main toons where rebinding it all to 1 will cause a drop in performance so I would rather set up the socials like i had 2 years ago. This seems to insult people who the just tell me I am not playing right so they won't help me set up my rotation thereafter. why the hell is this community so judgmental over using socials instead of rebinding it all to 1? I had to quit EQ for financial reasons and had to re-ionstall twice since then (once because my EQ userdata folder became corrupt) when I picked it backup so I lost my socials and couldn't remember the rotation I had. all I want is help getting back to where I was, not to revamp my playstyle.
  2. Cadira Augur

    Using socials to fire spam abilities is slower, less responsive, and more likely to miss buttons along the way than binding them all to one key. Since binding it all to one key fires all abilities instantly they don't need a "rotation" or any kind of priority now for spam abilities and probably have forgot the order they used to use.

    Unsure why you're getting a performance drop, hopefully you can figure that out and use the bind to one key method without issues.

    Choosing between socials and binding for your spam abilities is like choosing between a moped and a Harley though so is figure out that performance drop asap and use binding.

    As far as berserkers go I'd guess put your volley first to activate synergy, and then sapping strikes for constant end regen. Probably want dicho close to the beginning too?
    Thunderkiks and code-zero like this.
  3. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    You may want to take a peek here https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/macros-question.274093/

    We get into the weeds of how to calculate /pause in a macro.

    While I'm sure Cadira is mainly right, certainly if you're raiding. You didn't mention a guild, but rather 'the community'.

    I will say, if you are just wanting to have fun with it, in the old school way. Crafting macros properly is so much more satisfying to 'whack a mole' just the right thing for the moment, than spamming a single key.

    I too have lost so many macros over the years that were perfectly timed and smooth as silk, perfectly consistent and never failed.

    And there are absolutely ways to write macros that function flawlessly to max your dps or whatever, because it can click exactly when it's ready, with no reaction time like a human.

    Achieving that, is quite tricky, and your usage is going to be very situational. As opposed to hitting a single button as fast as you can. Pretty easy to teach that, so it works great for raiders to just tell everyone "do this".

    It makes perfect sense as a 'writ large' strategy (to put it all on one button and mash away). If you really want to craft some macros, it's time to embrace 'the EQ voodoo'.
    Stormblight likes this.
  4. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    The main issues IMO are that, #1 the mash key lets you see what is up so you know when you need to mash, and #2 that not all abilities take the same amount of time to refresh so the mash key ensures you always use everything you have when it's available.

    With that said, you can do it with socials, but you may need /timer at the outset, and /pause in between. You will need to combine things that work well together and have similar refreshes, which may not give you the best DPS. Making effective macros is like a game within a game. I enjoy it, but I also use a mash key for modern content.

    Also, the mash key is helpful for troubleshooting what can follow what. You get a visual indication of what should be firing and what does fire. You may want to test combinations with the mash key and then make socials with the ones that work best.
    code-zero and Cadira like this.
  5. ryokoryu Journeyman

    I get a drop because necro don't play that a way good. I don't main zerker I just play one on the side and rebinding my stuff every time I switch back and forth gets annoying real fast.
  6. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    That's one thing I run into, where I almost need separate installations of the game for the different key configs I use. For modern content, I have mash keys all over my hotbars, for TLP content I don't need that. I guess I could just use different hotbars for the assignments, but then I can't share keys like NUMPAD 0 and 1 between those configs. For the purposes of muscle memory, I like to reuse keys for common abilities between classes. Otherwise when I want to assist and end up hitting auto-follow, it's really annoying.
    Sissruukk and MasterMagnus like this.
  7. Metanis Bad Company

    Socials absolutely cannot deal with the vastly increased lag we play under today as opposed to two years ago. Key binding automatically compensates for the lag so it's the preferred way to do things now.

    Socials don't deal well with varying cooldown and lockout timers so even if you attempt to build a social button with no pauses (as if it's a key bind), you'll find that some abilities will never fire in that social. But they will in a key bind the 2nd or 3rd time you mash the key.

    Nobody is trying to insult you, people are trying to help you understand the game is different now.
    code-zero and Sancus like this.
  8. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    Whereas I have all my characters with the same set up. 8 and 9 key are two macros that run back to back. And programmable mouse to assign a wait and repeat cycle.

    You fine tune the 8 and 9 key macros, and have a key (on the mouse) for the specific repeat cycle based on class of each character.
  9. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    And I am trying to say, you can still totally use macros and compensate for varying server lag, in certain situational settings.

    You need to be behind the keyboard and tweaking your macro on the fly. Not just mashing a button.

    But it is absolutely true, the better overall solution, for the vast majority of players today is a simple keybind.

    It totally depends upon what your usage is going to be.
  10. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    The one thing we do have is a lot of hot bars. So you can setup a mash key on a hot bar you don't normally use, and populate it with the things your social should be activating. Then you can see if they are activating when you hit the social, it just uses more screen space to do so. Additionally, if something doesn't fire when it should, you just hit the mash key once to kick it off and try to adjust the social later to fix it.

    Basically you get the best of both worlds in that scenario. On Agnarr I use a social to fire Taunt, Bash, and Disarm for training purposes, because I don't need a mash key on a PoP/LDoN locked server. I still keep Taunt on 2 for when I really need it, and the Bash and Disarm buttons on a spare hotbar so I can see when they are up. It works well enough for what I need there.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  11. Laronk Augur

    Like Niskin, I use a particular hotbar for my keymashing and different characters drop different abilitties into the different slots. I think every class can benefit from this type of key mashing.

    The problems with macros is even with no pauses it doesn't instantly do all the commands in that macro. And I'm pretty sure if you press macro spam key 1 and decide to switch to macro spam key 2 you have to wait for key 1 to finish before key 2 activates.

    Now if you want to use a mash macro thats fine too

    line 1 /doability 2 (this would do the ability in slot 2 on the abilities page
    line 2 /cast 5 (casts spell five)
    line 3 /disc discipline name
    etc

    You can also /autoskill kick (or other ability here) to make it so things like kick just happen when attack is on

    here's a resource that is a bit old made by sancus https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QBScmmFIB6FJxvlW7C0G4d9JQfoPsa02lNr_MZSAfeE/edit

    That might help you with your class's "rotation"

    Here's a resource for macros https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Macros
    Here's a resource for classes compiled by Sancus it might be a bit old, the berserker one is from EOK but yeah: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QBScmmFIB6FJxvlW7C0G4d9JQfoPsa02lNr_MZSAfeE/edit
  12. Laronk Augur

    You can stop a macro sequence by right clicking the macro I guess
  13. Chorus Augur

    serious question here, even if it sounds flippant... Wouldn't this pretty much mean abilities are being setup for a key repeater to fire off constantly, and the user just toggles between melee and ranged attacks and moves around? Not dissing on the concept, there are far too many keys to hit these days for all classes and it's way past ridiculous stage now.
  14. Tucoh Augur

    You'll be hearing from my lawyer.
  15. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Me neither, repeatedly smashing 1 key like an automated Chimpanzee is about as appealing as a lobotomy using a rebar, there's nothing "fun" about it unless your idea of fun is also eating crayons.

    Now I am not saying players are dumb here, I am saying that the gameplay is dumb when reduced to that level of idiocy, players are trying to get the most out of a terrible design.

    But seeing "performance" has boiled down to playing two games, one of spell or discing strategy paired with a mini-game of "one-finger-death-punch" with no strategy, no timing and no rhythm is just plain freaking sad, I am sure most who have slowly acclimatized to this playstyle will defend it but you shouldn't, it's bad gameplay and you deserve better.

    Either that mash-key gameplay needs a radical overhaul or the devs should just slap it all onto an auto-skill system & be done with it, it's dumber than a bag of rocks.

    I know EQ has an old engine but something better than this surely can be made, even if it was a reaction mechanic so each keypress of your current mashkey line-up started a chain of reactions and you needed some degree of timing a close time will get you a good result a spot on timed click will get you the best result and if you can chain a bunch of them together in a sequence you can get a neat "finisher" on the end of the chain.

    Different key to start begins different sequences, different timings for each & different finishers, has to be better than just key hammering, and it does make me wonder if the shift to a key hammering playstyle has contributed to the lag the game has, maybe slowing that spammy crap down & making it more impactful is a move away from a lag-inducing playstyle.
    Stormblight and MasterMagnus like this.
  16. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    Dare I say it?

    ding ding ding
    Stormblight likes this.
  17. Niskin Clockwork Arguer


    I agree in general, until the end when you get into timings and different finishers. That's how DAoC does it, and while it has some appeal, it would get really convoluted with the amount of abilities EQ has. In the end I think that's the problem, there aren't a lot of good ways to deal with having a large number of manually triggerable abilities. Auto-Fire would be good on that, but then why have so many if they are auto anyway?

    In the interest of avoiding carpal tunnel, and much like how /melody made bard's lives easier, maybe the mash key should be an assigned key in the client that works differently than other keys. As in, you could hold it down to do repeating fire. So rather than mashing the key, you just press and hold until everything has fired, then do it again when stuff pops back up. Sure you'd still hit it a lot, but less than now. It's not a fix per say, but a potential improvement. In the end I think they have to look at ability overkill as something that has to be managed going forward. It's one thing if I have abilities I will use situationally, it's another if I'm always going to use most of them and have to do so constantly.
  18. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh

    Wouldn't it be cool if they had a, sort of, scripting language, right in the game, that everyone could use?

    And that would make it so people's requests to the server only came in at 2-5 second intervals or so, and occasionally faster when needing to adapt to something.

    But never whole swaths of people holding down a key repeater.

    Yeah, that would be cool. Oh wait.
  19. Niskin Clockwork Arguer

    I would think the client itself is eating all the key spam and only passing on the actions to the server, so it wouldn't matter if it was a spam key or a macro that fired them off. Still, less actions would theoretically be less load on the server, but I think they know that already. Once they get done with the proc stuff, there will likely be other things they look at to reduce the lag which involve reducing server requests.
    MasterMagnus likes this.
  20. MasterMagnus The Oracle of AllHigh


    What are your thoughts vis a vis exploiting in the context of letting the client be in charge of that?