[PMC] AutoClickers on PvE

[TheRandomnatrix]

Making a forum post as per request.

 

Situation: It was brought up on Mumble when Wondrland was asking if autoclickers were allowed on P(presumably to exploit the new fishing mechanics introduced in 1.7 based on previous discussion with him), and was promptly shot down by tompreuss under the argument of "No use of hacked clients to change or modify gameplay that gives an unfair advantage." However, I feel this argument is ultimately unjust for 2 primary reasons.

 

The first being that it does not in fact change or modify gameplay, only sends a right/left click signal at a constant rate which could be achieved by a normal player without the client. If the rate of clicking were to reach a level higher than what a normal player could achieve then I feel it would be against the rules, however the rate would be so high that the effects would not be useful in survival mode and therefore not give a noticeable advantage.

 

The second being that if such a modification is not allowed, then why the use of say rei's minimap, which allow players information that gives them an advantage over other players by showing an overhead map. There is also a level of automation on Rei's in the deathpoint feature, in which it automatically saves coordinates of where you die at a speed no player could. Moreso, why is the client used most famously by the afk account brews_wane which relogs at grinders upon restarts which the PAdmins are well aware of, not banned for doing the automated task of relogging? Clearly they seem to lie within acceptable bounds, but not autoclickers, which in my opinion conform to the rules equally if not more than the two above examples.

 

 

[redwall_hp]

Situation: It was brought up on Mumble when Wondrland was asking if autoclickers were allowed on P(presumably to exploit the new fishing mechanics introduced in 1.7 based on previous discussion with him), and was promptly shot down by tompreuss under the argument of "No use of hacked clients to change or modify gameplay that gives an unfair advantage." However, I feel this argument is ultimately unjust for 2 primary reasons.

 

 

I was asked this question by another player (I can't remember who) much earlier in the rev. (I think they wanted to tape their mouse button now so they could mine while holding a drink.) I brought it up in /mb and it was okayed, either by a padmin or totemo or slide or someone adminny, despite my initial misgivings.

 

The first being that it does not in fact change or modify gameplay, only sends a right/left click signal at a constant rate which could be achieved by a normal player without the client.

 

True. Also, I believe some high-end mice have macro support. You could set one to repeatedly click at a certain speed. It's not a client modification, and there isn't really a practical way to detect it unless they go and tell someone about it.

[Cyotie911]

This should ultimately be a no.  Unless I'm mistaken the auto clicker will allow someone to literally walk away and have your client fish.  The reason that this shouldn't be allowed is that not everyone will have access for it, or not be smart enough to figure out how to get it to work.  Therefore it shouldn't be allowed for anyone.

[tompreuss]

Random, I think you're absolutely right, we do allow modifications that affect gameplay and the vague nature of that section of the universal rules makes it hard to both understand exactly what we mean and hard to enforce unilaterally to all players.

I feel making a list like S has that explicitly allows/disallows certain client modifications would be in our best interest. This will address all of your points (autoclickers, REI's, auto-rejoin clients) and other mods that we have seen in the past.

The padmins will discuss it and update the rules as soon as we are able.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

[Sapphric]

This should ultimately be a no.  Unless I'm mistaken the auto clicker will allow someone to literally walk away and have your client fish.

 

You can tape your mouse button down with duct tape and do the same thing.

 

 

The reason that this shouldn't be allowed is that not everyone will have access for it, or not be smart enough to figure out how to get it to work.  Therefore it shouldn't be allowed for anyone.

 

One could say the same about any client mod, including Optifine, Rei's, Macro mods, bUpload, etc. By your logic they shouldn't be allowed either because people "might" not be able to figure out how to get them.

[Mumberthrax]

One could say the same about any client mod, including Optifine, Rei's, Macro mods, bUpload, etc. By your logic they shouldn't be allowed either because people "might" not be able to figure out how to get them.

 

I have been playing minecraft since beta 1.8. I have never heard of bUpload until now. That is incredibly handy-sounding. I find it surprising I haven't heard of it before.

 

I'm not really sure what that implies. Does it mean that I'm not smart enough to have looked at all possible useful modifications or macros? Does it mean that there ought to be a public list of macros and mods which may assist players on nerd.nu, like optifine and reis, etc.? Am I at a disadvantage if i don't know about those mods/programs? Or only for some of them?

 

I really don't know what the best route here would be. I've used autohotkey scripts in the past to rapidly paste in texts into writable books, and when i asked mods back then it was okayed. Was this an advantage I had over others who might have wanted to create some kind of service that used lots of copies of written books? I recently shared my scripts with Redwall_HP, but unfortunately he was unable to run them because AHK code doesn't really work on Macs yet (not to mention i couldn't even get them working like they used to on my windows computer). Even using the script in windows took a little bit of tinkering because they aren't very user-friendly, and the average person wouldn't be able to get it to work without guidance. They didn't modify the client, just the keyboard and mouse inputs, but obviously they weren't accessible to everyone. There are plenty of other macro scripting languages and programs out there though.

 

This seems like an important issue to come to an understanding on. I hope that it ends up with a clear resolution.

[MasterCommaThe]

The topic of "quick clicking" mouse macros (changing your scroll wheel input to left clicks) has been visited on C before and so long as they didn't exceed the NoCheat limits, were allowed by admins at the time. This was particularly important to C miners before the advent of /mode. Now not so much. 

I personally think we need a cross server concurrence from head admins on whether we want to continue allowing this. I personally am in favor of allowing auto-clickers under the same justification as Rei's or previously the quick clicking macros. The justification would be the player has not altered the code of the game in any way and the advantage comes from their hardware, which naturally differs from player to player.

[WondrLand]

Revisiting this topic because of a particular game mechanic that will change in 1.8. Some of you may have heard that in the 1.8 snapshot, 14w03, iron golems will drop iron (and pigmen with gold) only if a player has had some sort of interaction with it. Although this might be jumping the gun a little bit, it should be something to keep in mind. Currently iron golem farms are very popular on the server, with most larger cities having their own version of one. Whenever the time will come that P updates to 1.8, iron farms will be just a little different than they are now. One method of bypassing this new mechanic and keeping iron grinders "afk-able" is to use an autoclicker to hit or throw items that will give the iron golems the player interaction they need to drop iron. Additionally, if a player wants to build a grinder in 1.8 without using the autoclicker method or taping down their mouse button, it would be very similar to regular zombie or skeleton grinders, where the mobs will pile up in a small area until the player kills them all at once. I am no expert on server stability, but I have a feeling that iron golems might cause more lag than other mobs when large numbers are in one condensed area.

 

Just to reiterate, I understand that this is a feature that is in a snapshot for something very far into the future for us, but I figured it was something that should be kept in mind on the topic of Autoclickers.

 

EDIT: New update keeps iron and gold farms as they are, no changes

[CROCKODUCK]

Bumping, I personally think banning a player for this is extreme. As sapphic said you can literally tape your mouse and do the same thing. Why are we banning for this suddenly? What changed?..

[buzzie71]

As far as I know P has always disallowed autoclickers.  The question was brought up recently before between me and the previous two Padmins, and after discussion, we concluded that autoclickers can be used to click inhumanly fast:  

 

(Link to video if it does not show up)

 

Our disallowing of autoclickers stems from that, though I'd agree that if a proper delay were configured in the script it would be more or less indistinguishable from taping a button down.

[TheAcademician]

To my knowledge, nobody has ever been banned for it, it's just been a rule. The difference between taping your mouse button down and using software to autoclick is speed. Does this really matter much in terms of afking at a grinder? Not really, at least as I've seen demonstrated. I'm personally not comfortable allowing gameplay automation tools out of principle, but I don't see any harm in this being unbanned unless it can be demonstrated that it gives a clear advantage over someone who simply tapes their mouse, etc.

[dizney07]

To my knowledge, nobody has ever been banned for it, it's just been a rule. The difference between taping your mouse button down and using software to autoclick is speed. Does this really matter much in terms of afking at a grinder? Not really, at least as I've seen demonstrated. I'm personally not comfortable allowing gameplay automation tools out of principle, but I don't see any harm in this being unbanned unless it can be demonstrated that it gives a clear advantage over someone who simply tapes their mouse, etc.

 

https://nerd.nu/forums/index.php?/topic/2557-chironxii-trooprm32/#entry19148

 

I'm guessing that ban appeal was the reason for the bump and revival of this thread. I don't play a lot on P, but I also don't see how it would affect other players negatively (which is what I normally think of for these kind of things).

[TheAcademician]

I stand corrected :]

[Mrloud15]

As far as I know P has always disallowed autoclickers.  The question was brought up recently before between me and the previous two Padmins, and after discussion, we concluded that autoclickers can be used to click inhumanly fast:  

 

(Link to video if it does not show up)

 

Our disallowing of autoclickers stems from that, though I'd agree that if a proper delay were configured in the script it would be more or less indistinguishable from taping a button down.

What is the difference between an auto clicker and something like inventory tweaks?

 

In regards to ChironXII's ban, the use of a macro mod is allowed on P and no where in the rules does it say you can only do X, Y, and Z with the mod and with the rule being very vague so it's extremely likely that he thought it was allowed. Would it be possible for the padmins to update the rules or create a list of allowed mods like S has so we can avoid issues like this in the future?

[buzzie71]

What is the difference between an auto clicker and something like inventory tweaks?

 

In regards to ChironXII's ban, the use of a macro mod is allowed on P and no where in the rules does it say you can only do X, Y, and Z with the mod and with the rule being very vague so it's extremely likely that he thought it was allowed. Would it be possible for the padmins to update the rules or create a list of allowed mods like S has so we can avoid issues like this in the future?

Some time during the last day that thought passed through my mind, and it begs the question of where the line for allowed client mods should be drawn.  That list for allowed client mods is starting to look more and more like something that needs to be hammered down; the Padmins will get back to everyone on this.

[redwall_hp]

Bumping, I personally think banning a player for this is extreme. As sapphic said you can literally tape your mouse and do the same thing. Why are we banning for this suddenly? What changed?..

 

For those who weren't there: the player in question was not doing something that could be achieved that way. When teleported away from the endermen, he continued to run back and forth, punching, in an obviously automated fashion for several minutes. It was 100% automated, not merely autoclicking.

[MasterCommaThe]

I'm really not understanding why we're discouraging automation. I don't think this hurts any other user's experience in any way, and the advantage is achievable by any player that can understand how to set up a macro without modifying the game client.

[Mrloud15]

Closing and moving to the archives.