Key Binding - Wild Attack

[Razot]

Hello all

As you might now, Wild Attack generates a +5% crit buff on a critical hit. Therefore I tried to auto equip a duel wield weapon (2 at the same time) when I press the skill "Wild Attack" - so I get a +50% chance to receive the buff. But unfortuantly I couldn't find any posts that could really solve my problem. I would really appreciate it if someone could explain to me how I can manage to do so. Thx in advance

Raz

[Yula_the_Mighty]

There isn't any way to do what you are asking in the base UI. What you would have to do is put your 2-handed weapon, both one handed weapons and Wild attack in quick slots. Lets say:

1) Key '1' is assigned to main hand one handed weapon
2) Key '2'' is assigned to off hand one handed weapon
3) Key '3' is assigned to Wild Attack
4) Key '4' is assigned to 2-handed weapon.

You have to press 123 to do your Wild attack. Press 4 to switch back to your 2-handed weapon. If you have programmable keyboard that can send multiple key strokes you can then program something like F20 to send 123 to the game when you press F20.

There may be some Lua plugins that can support this kind of functionality. Look for a gear changer plugin.

Notes:

a) Some people consider changing gear in combat an exploit. There are requests that Turbine put in a delay timer when attempting to swap items in combat.

b) Sending 123 via a keyboard does not always work. The server and client is performing poorly due to heavy load, lost packets or other issues. Your 123 could easily turn into 13 or 23 or 12. Which result in a Wild Attack with a one handed weapon and a waving around a fist for inferior damage. Or your character standing around dual wielding. Now what boss?

[Dwarendele]

Bad advice bunny - mapping a key that would trigger more than one combat skills at a time is auto-firing and can be interpreted as an un-attended combat macro which is a no-no in this game.

When dealing with combat skills the best rule to remember is one key stroke = 1 combat action.

Assigning multiple actions to a single key with your game keyboard macros to do something like: push one button to un-mount, harvest a node and re-mount may be (barely) legal - but IMO it's a slippery slope and is better avoided than encouraged.

Map your key so that you can spam one key and on each consecutive press of the spam key it advances to the next step in your rotation.

[TinDragon]

Bad advice bunny - mapping a key that would trigger more than one combat skills at a time is auto-firing and can be interpreted as an un-attended combat macro which is a no-no in this game.

I don't see how it could be considered un-attended if you're the one hitting the buttons, even if the buttons you're hitting do more than what Turbine gives you functionality for in-game. Un-attended would be having a program run the game for you without you even there.

It is a bit of a gray area, so be wary that Turbine may be unhappy with you (read: ban you) if they catch you doing macros, but if you're actually there hitting buttons there's no way for anyone else to tell the difference if your one button press does one or three things. I'd recommend going with Yula's first suggestion, and just hit every key manually.

[Dwarendele]

You will know - if you are ok with that - knock yourself out.

But if you ask me (and by posting on a forum you are asking me by default) I will tell you dont do it.

Pressing one button and then not having to press again while 3, 4 or 20 attacks happen is auto-firing and automation - it doesnt matter if its for 3 secs or half the day.

A simple solution is to map a spam key that will advance each step - that way you REALLY are pressing the buttons as you say - pressing a button once and waiting for multiple attacks to occur is unattended combat - its not a grey area.

If you are not pushing a button - nothing should happen - black and white.

I too recommend you go with Yula's original advice and just press the keys manually - but if you do take it to the next step to not take his suggestion to map an auto-fire key, but to instead map a spam key that advances the next step in the rotation upon consecutive presses.

[TinDragon]

Pressing one button and then not having to press again while 3, 4 or 20 attacks happen is auto-firing and automation - it doesnt matter if its for 3 secs or half the day.

True, but unless you're counting gear swapping as an attack, the suggestion was only one attack.

Honestly, having the game do a chain of attacks for you seems counterproductive here. Unlike other games with built-in macros (FFXI, for example) LotRO doesn't really have set rotations. Healers have to focus on whoever's taking damage, champs and hunters are controlled by their fervour/focus generation, etc, so while people may have a rough rotation, it's going to change from battle to battle.

Still against people doing that (my line is drawn between macros for gear swaps and macros for multiple attacks) but just wanted to point out how I'd find it more silly than irritating if I found out someone else was botting their way through combat.

[Dwarendele]

We are getting nit picky here while managing to basically agree - but I guess I would say if you are in combat mode - any action you take is a combat action - even gear swapping.

But I'll leave it there...

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Bad advice bunny - mapping a key that would trigger more than one combat skills at a time is auto-firing and can be interpreted as an un-attended combat macro which is a no-no in this game.

According to official Turbine posts what I have described is legal. Turbine employees routinely play the game this way both at work and at home for fun. Many games (I believe WoW is one) support the creation of macros in the base UI.

According to Turbine policy in all their games, Turbine forbids true automation where the computer is playing your character while you are eating, sleeping or a work. In some cases like crafting and landscape stable routes automation is built into the game. You can order 50 ingots made. Fold clothes for 20 minutes while your computer orders your character to make the ingots. Same issue with long stable routes. You buy the ticket. You wash dishes while the stable horse moves.

You can multibox without being bothered by Turbine. You have six accounts. Six clients up. Six Hunters in the world as members of your Hunter Killer fellowship. Use a single keyboard and a splitter to send each key stroke to all six computers and clients. That way you are playing all six Hunters while using a single mouse and keyboard.

True automation is a pain in the tail because the base UI does not support timing, conditionals and branches. The Lua API does not provide enough functionality either.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Pressing one button and then not having to press again while 3, 4 or 20 attacks happen is auto-firing and automation - it doesnt matter if its for 3 secs or half the day.

The base UI does not allow 20 attacks because of the combat timing. If you set up a key to do 20 attacks. You would get attack 1 underway, attack 2 queued, attack 2 cancelled, attack 3 queued, attack 3 cancelled ... attack 20 queued. You might get one in the middle to go off because the amount time it takes to process all the key strokes. There is no way to predict which if any of 2-19 were accepted by the server and performed.

For me, the big issue with trying to do multiple commands with a single key press on your PC is the inability to get a consistent result. You never know what is going to happen.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

In order to get what the person is asking done. You need to be able to assign the following macro to a key:

1) Order main hand weapon equipped
2) Start 100 millesecond timer on timeout go to 1
3) Wait for confirmation of main hand weapon equipped
3) Cancel timer
4) Order off hand weapon equipped
5) Start 100 millisecond timer on timeout go to 4
6) Wait for confirmation of off hand weapon equipped
7) Cancel timer
8) Order Wild Attack
9) Start 100 millisecond timer on timeout got to 8
10) Wait for confirmation of Wild Attack executing
11) Cancel timer

We do not have the functionality to write something like this. Currently you would press key 1. Wait to see what happens. Press 1 or 2 as required.

[Dwarendele]

Or... you could just:

Assign main hand weapon to Qslot Shift+1
Assign off hand weapon to Qslot Shift+2
Assign Wild attack skill to Qslot 1
Assign 2-hand weapon to Qslot shift+3

Now assign a keyboard or other macro with 4 steps to key "G" for "Gear-swap"

Rotation:

step 1: upon press of key "G" trigger Shift+1 (equip main hand)
Step 2: upon repress of key "G" trigger Shift+2 (equip off hand) do not advance for cool-down time of wild attack.
Step 3: upon repress of key "G" trigger 1 (skill; wild attack)
step 4: upon repress of key "G" trigger Shift+3 (equip 2-hand weapon) do not advance for cool-down time of first step.

Now when you are moving your toon with the A,W,S,D movement keys with your left hand, simply stretch out your index finger and spam the "G" key watching the action between the key press to confirm the action and when to repress (or not)

you could even take it a step further and make a "reset key" that will restart your macro to step 1 to avoid starting your rotation in the middle of the sequence, add the 2-hand attack that you are hoping to crit and/or add some additional timings to not advance through inductions and cool-downs in case you are over-zealous with your spam-finger.

Its all key-bindings - not automation, not un-attended combat and no action will occur with out some one pressing a button for each action.

(the Qslots and mapped keys I used is just an example - you could slot them any way you please)

[Razot]

Thx for all the good ideas and inputs, but it seems less effective/quick then I thought it would be. In the time i am spamming the "g" key as suggested I would be able to hit with the 2-hand weapon way more damage, to the fact that 50% of the time of the whole gear change I got only one of two weapons equiped.. Thx anyways, the forum has proven itself worthy once again

Raz

[Dwarendele]

Thx for all the good ideas and inputs, but it seems less effective/quick then I thought it would be. In the time i am spamming the "g" key as suggested I would be able to hit with the 2-hand weapon way more damage, to the fact that 50% of the time of the whole gear change I got only one of two weapons equiped.. Thx anyways, the forum has proven itself worthy once again

Raz

yeah - it really didn't sound like the type of thing that would be too effective, and i prolly wouldn't have bothered. But my point was these things can be attempted without resorting to un-authorized scripting - reading game states - auto-fire or unattended combat.

one question: did you try to not advance step 1 for the induction time of step 1? if you are not getting both weapons slotted it may be that you are advancing step 2 before step 1 is finished with its induction.

ps: also for something like this a reset key is prolly a must - i use the "~" key to reset all my mappings and out of habit I hit it first before i attempt any of my bindings.

[Razot]

I just found an awesome video of a champ that is doing exactly what I am trying to accomplish in sence of gear swopping.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNahtFGBJf4&feature=plcp

I dont know how he exactly does it, but I wrote him a message so I will post what he tells me he did.

Raz

[Vandervahn]

It pretty much looks like the player is using a macro tool, either a software like autohotkey or, more likely, some programmable input device like a gamer keyboard. Nothing special actually.

It is of course possible to do all this "bare-handed" if you´re quick, but its a real hassle.

One thing to note is that this type of playing is very hard to do effectively unless your game runs very smooth. In my own testing, I have problems with it simply because my ping is too high due to being half a world away from the physical servers in Massachusetts.