Why Macros belong in TOR.

Yea I wasnt gonan raise that for fear of getting jackhammered due to using advantages they cant but...

There are a million miles of programs out there for keyboard and mouse binds, not to mention gaming keyboards and mice usually already have these features.

The reason I didnt bring them up is because the people here probably cant afford them and believe that without macros they have more skill.

Focus target is lazy. Do it over vent. Deal with clicking or tab targetting to your focused target that is called by whoever is leading your group - you can do that outside of the game don't be lazy and make a focus-train. That is unrewarding to everyone involved and if you seriously consider that a part of competitive PVP you're a sooky carebear who doesn't wanna make the effort to click their target, or hit tab 3 or so times. Are you rationing "minimum effort" cause it's not that demanding.

Takes more skill to make the effort to find the character you've been told to attack then just press a button and smash the crap out of your keybinds.

Macros can have their place sometimes but again it can be argued that it takes more skill and understanding of your class and the ability to use your keyboard to sort out all the necessary stuff you wanna do.

I'm all for no macros and no focus target option. you lazy kids have been spoon fed too much by other games. if you're any good at PvP you should be able to acquire your target manually instead of hitting a button so you can have a bukkake party all over them and not care that you can't focus target with one button.

Wholeheartedly agree with the OP.

I'm dying for macro support. Here's to hoping they implement it within a patch or two.

Just ignore the trolls, they are abundant on these forums.

People continue to post in ignorance. Macros are not addons. I am not advocating for castsequence macros - merely focus macros, which essentially allow a team lacking healers facing a team with healers to have a reasonable chance, and Mouseover macros, which make healing large groups feasible and much, much less clunky.

Ignorant people will continue to make baseless, unsubstantiated statements, as they always will.

@Highfive - Further argument is purposeless, we have conflicting opinions at a fundamental level, and there is nothing wrong with that.

However, I believe I've provided more coherent examples and scenarios, a list of benefits, and more information in general.

People are ultimately free to formulate their individual opinions, and come to their own conclusions. All I ask is that people try to refrain from making broad statements in ignorance - gather information on a subject before making an absolute statement.

I appreciate the constructive discourse, both those in support of macros and those in opposition.

That this thread has not yet devolved into flaming is a great victory, I think.

In the end, the purpose of this thread was to raise awareness and to facilitate discussion.

Bed time for me, thank you all for your contributions to the discussion, and please, keep it civil.

Would you beat two EQUALLY SKILLED enemy players 2v1, or would you be stun-locked for the duration of your life draining 100 - 0? The answer is the second one buddy, your example of "random (probably made up on the spot) pvp scenario" has no backing, and is therefor irrelevant.

Wow. It's making my brain hurt a little with all the people in this thread that adamantly don't want macros but don't even know what they do. Allow me to explain and hopefully shed some light on the issue for the confused....

Some things you should know

1) Macros do not play the game for you

2) Macros are not cheating

3) Macros don't let you do things you couldn't normally do. They just let you combine multiple effects into one keypress.

4) A focus target is not a "calling out a kill target" over vent. A focus target is someone you have set as a kind of "Secondary" target. It defaults to the F key I believe.

Some examples of macros

1) A macro that uses your debuff remover on your focus target without having to focus that player manually

2) A macro that lets you use an ability on whatever target your mouse is hovering over instead of having to target them

3) Using an expertise pot+a DPS buff ability at the same time, instead of having to press two keys at the same time (virtually the same thing, just saves a keybind or two)

4) A macro that casts a CC at your focus target so you don't have to switch targets to use your CC/stun on them.

This is just a short list of examples. None of them are cheating, they all raise the skill cap, and they don't require you to go off and download a large number of addons or do a large amount of research.

Macros just make doing things less annoying. That's all. It allows you to do, what you want to do, more efficiently and with less keystrokes. Let's not force the UI to flatten the skill cap for everyone so everyone is equally bad simply because there's not much way to distinguish yourself as a more skilled player by using your abilities more efficiently.

QFT

I was thinking about macros in pvp.
Auto target your damage dealing buddy wherever he may be near to you, even if he is not in front of your monitor, but actually at the back of you.
Heal him while you have him in target.
One button in sequence to heal, remove any nasty effects, buff him up, heal and whatever..
Just keep spamming that one button, and he'll be alright.

Now put that function in war zone like huttball, you have a force to be reckoned with.

To me, that's not competitive.

That's like driving a manual compared to driving auto, like a guy has mentioned before in this thread.

I was stunned during the fight and then I used my cc breaker and ward lol.

It wasn't made up at all, it happened on Tatooine and both guys were on the same level as me and had companions.

Sounds like you on the other hand would have just stood there and got beat up on, maybe you should stop relying on macros.

You can already do that by clicking their frame in the UI and it AUTO targets them wherever they are. You don't need to know direction distance or placement to heal, buff, or dispel a target, you only need to able to target him.

Your complaint that it allows people to auto-target someone (which it doesn't, unless it's your focus target your setup before hand in preparation of them taking heavy beatings....which is called skill) is just.....silly.

Macros don't let you auto-target anyone, they just let you target them faster without always having to lose your primary target and try to click through a spam of red healthbars to target the correct guy again.

Excellent post OP, agree with everything.