Mods in ranked games.

So yeah no polls or anything but what mods do you think take modding a little too far than just UI mods and should these be allowed in ranked games.

For me the auto build one is a little too automatic. The one that will start your factories Automatically if you have the resources and they have no build order.

@burntcustard mentioned s quicker roll off time one. And he set up a macro for it. I'm not sure how it's done but macro keys are fine. I have 6 of them on the side of my keyboard

The in game mods I use are hotbuild2 and pastats when I have to.

Hotbuild2 could be considered controversial. But I don't like Ubers hotkey system. does anyone actually use the 2 key press system meta made?

Is there any other mods that I am unaware of that gives an upper hand to those using it?

Just for the record, the rolloff canceling macro doesn't work anymore, Uber "fixed" it

I agree, I use about 20 mods.. 14 or so of them are pure graphics enhancements (game must look pretty right) The others are stuff like Exodus mod and Pastats. The only mod I use for playing is Hotbuild2 because it's much more user friendly than the hotkey system of uber.

All the stuff like Smaller GUI, Second PIP, etc is all fine by me. You can only use it to a certain extent and wont directly influence your gameplay. If your bad you will still be bad even with the mods

Mods like auto factory or, what some people wanted to mod in, the auto kiting mod, are in my opinion a big no no. If you can't manage your **** than you are not experienced enough and need to practice more. This has nothing to do with someones APM (as I am 99% sure I have the lowest apm of the top 20) but managing eco and units is something that should, at all times, remain untouched.

So in a short list of no-go mods in ladder games, because we all love lists

- Unit managing mods,
- Building managing mods,
- Eco managing mods,

I don't particularly like the auto-factory one but i'm not sure how you'd police it?

I still don't know why hotbuild2 wasn't integrated into the default UI, I would imagine this mod is used by a significant percentage of the players out there.

There is NOTHING you can do to prevent mods from happening or being used.

So even though is it perfectly reasonable of some players would rather have everyone using the same client in competitive play, it's not going to happen. Automation of trivial tasks, UI improvements, enhanced hotkeys and even basic micro exploits are inevitable. There is nothing which could possibly done to prevent this, absolutely nothing. You can't verify if the client is stock, you can't test what a certain mod does, you can't do anything, except for ignoring invalid commands from the client, even though the server already does that and it never helps if the mod just mimics human behavior.

There is only one way out of this misery, and that is enhacing the stock client and default unit behavior so that automation of the remaining tasks becomes non-trivial or heuristic at best, so that the remaining higher level decisions can be measured for quality rather than just rewarding the number of clicks.

I really don't want PA to go and say like.. Allright the're maybe mods there that do this and that. let's make it standard into the game and see how it goes. I much rather prefer 1 or 2 people using it than everybody as it just downgrades gameplay immensly..

The way sorian was talking about it in the jables PTE post it sounded like there could be a way, or that they had thought about it. Need to re read.

Does it? It eliminates part of what you perceive as game play currently, but you are assuming that this is all there is about this game while you are probably just accommodated to micro being able to overcome most faults in high level decisions.

He only said that he understands the concerns, and so do I. But there just is no solution except for branding modders as cheaters in general, and that would kill this game for good.

I think all ui mods are fine. If you are bad at the game you'll still be bad with mods. I even think something like auto factory can even hamper yourself.

Yeah you know more about that stuff that me. I assumed it would be possible. Doesn't sound too far fetched to a computer noob like me.

More likely the other way around. I am by no means a micro king with my average og 55 - 65 apm.

See, I love mods like Auto Factory because it removes tedious play. Right now your Commander will spend almost all of a 1v1 pumping out factories, doing nothing but that. Without Auto Factory you need to drill into muscle memory the pressing of the idle factory hotkey, and this needs to occur once every twenty seconds or so (or using a camera anchor to return to base reguarly enough to capture factories as they're being built). It's about as exciting as the inject larva mechanic was in Starcraft 2 (which Blizzard later removed).

I suppose the line gets a little blurry, I mean, where does the automation end? To my mind in a macro focused game like this it's pretty much all fair game. Starcraft deliberately forces high micro, high APM play, it's what it's all about and it's why they crack down on macro stuff. I don't see PA as that kind of game.

It's client/server. If it's not allowed then make it the server's responsibility and block it. Job done.

@burntcustard @Quitch @rivii @proeleert @exterminans @mayhemster guys I have a partial answer here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/ranked-mods-idea-mock-ups.58227/

other than that my base rule is : anything UI : not cheat. I don't get it, it should be obvious. the distinction is already made for us by the architecture of the game and it's been that way forever (TA, supcom) : as long as it only changes the way the game is perceived (by yourself), not played, then it should matter only to you.

so as long as you're only editing things client side, there is no cheating concerned. And there couldn't possibly be.

All the result-altering material, such as stats, position, pathfinding, colition..... is on the server.

and you cannot alter it without getting the "modded" flag.

that's how we roll on FAF.

the UI mods get so popular that everyone uses them then we just make 'em stock.

they aid the noobs much more then they do the pros so we see them as a good thing all around.

personally I don't like autobuild. there are many times when I want to be pumping resources into something specific and I can't because auto fac JUST WON'T STOP (also it's a complete pain in the butt in team army games) so instead I use loop build default. which meets my needs much more.

I personally don't find that autofac gives any sort of advantage. and anyone who thinks it does is in their own fault for not using it themselves.

them not knowing about the mod cannot possibly be the modders fault. Evidently it is Uber's for keeping mods under the rug, for whatever god forsaken reason.

I've talked alot about this before : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/what-are-ubers-general-business-activities.65210/#post-1019681

I never even though the legitimacy of UI mods for ranked would be put up for debate, this is completely crazy to me.

I really tried to convert to Meta's 2-key system when it launched because it is a pain having hotbuild break all my keys everytime the game is updated. But I just couldn't do it. The 2-key system makes no sense and should be scrapped.

Especially considering how unresponsive the UI can be at times...

I think the command that you draw a line and your formation will be how you drew the line. Its way better then vanilla army control as far as i know.

i am for absolute NO mods in ranked games ..

For the last year I have wanted to be able to issue build orders to a factory as soon as it is queued up to be built (like if you drag-build a row of vehicle factories, you should be able to hold down shift, click on the ghost of the factory, and give it its build orders). I've been hankering for that for a while, but I don't think it is coming.

I agree that auto-build is probably a bit too much for ranked games. But I do think you should be able to do what I describe above - there is so much to juggle in this game that I think it is silly to have to queue factories to be built and then remembe to come back to them (arguably one by one to be efficient) to give them their build orders. But maybe that is just me.

As for HotBuild, that is frankly part of the game to me by now, I don't think I could ever go back! I'd like to think that Uber consider it part of their game too, means they have not had to waste development time on implementing a similar system themselves.

Yeah PA is unplayable for me without HotBuild.