Is PvP scripting still widespread?

Hi, this post is dedicated to people who do not cheat and who are able to spot cheaters. To the others, please look further.

So, I left the game a year ago and widespread PvP scripting was the main reason for that decision, especially since above a certain team rating I noticed the percentage of scripters to increase, and that's pretty frustrating if you don't use cheats. I used to report scripters with time-consuming videos showing distinctive and recurring proof, yet didn't really see a punishment being applied, back then. I've tried to put a few names in the armory and the characters are apparently still active.

But I'd like to ask you guys: has anything changed on this front?

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Originally Posted by theborg9

Hi, this post is dedicated to people who do not cheat and who are able to spot cheaters. To the others, please look further.

So, I left the game a year ago and widespread PvP scripting was the main reason for that decision, especially since above a certain team rating I noticed the percentage of scripters to increase, and that's pretty frustrating if you don't use cheats. I used to report scripters with time-consuming videos showing distinctive and recurring proof, yet didn't really see a punishment being applied, back then. I've tried to put a few names in the armory and the characters are apparently still active.

But I'd like to ask you guys: has anything changed on this front?

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Probably the only thing that has changed is that the so-called scripts are smarter and harder to be recognized by both players and sentinel
Different reaction time in x-x ms range for kicks, dispels, instant cc and similar so it's not that obvious but yeah they are and will always be around

I doubt there is way to properly report anyone and actually get him banned for using kick bot nowdays because unlike 10 years ago they act like:
interrupt between 60 to 85% casting, never repeat the same percent twice in row and the value is also always changed by different % than previous..for example
first kick will be at 73.7%, next will be at 81%, third will be at 64.12%

ofcourse if you are playing warlock for example, your partner has trinket, your pet have devour magic and there is no serious risk to get wiped out there will be some space the script will give for successful casts let's say cc on your partner then the same script will devour it after few ms. It's nasty, but truth

advanced stuff like this is being used mostly by top arena players so you won't see it on daily basis or at lower brackets..taking all factors like health pools, offensive/defensive cooldowns and PROCS, predictable spell healing/damage output based on calculations; current auras, procs + X player equipped gear (thank the warmane armory api for this part) etc

I wasn't sure I was going to get quality replies like yours so, first of all, thank you for the input.

Surely playing a caster class must be pretty hard against scripters, as randomized script interrupts are indeed both hard to recognize and thus also report.
Playing a hunter, I have often been bothered for example by divine sacrifice/sw:d/etc. on scatter shot, auto-feign death from hunters, auto ice block/divine shield on last hit (the one hit that would otherwise land a kill), disarm on aimed shot and other fun tricks.

I think these are easy to spot analysing the combat log so I'm not sure why this doesn't ensure a fair punishment to the scripter. Are you (or is anybody) aware of some controversy in using such method (combat log) to spot and punish scripters?
The question arises since my reports weren't very effective despite reporting based on this "detection" method, even if it happened more than one time. Once could be extreme luck, twice is cheating.
Honestly I could and can accept the waste of time of reporting scripters, but not if it leads to nothing.

as I said such advanced scripts have..close to human/player behavior
if they let X spell to be successfully casted it's because at that time it's better to just let it pass thru and use another spell to cleanse the effect afterwards in non-critical situation
it will be obvious if all your casts are being kicked and you can't juke any of them
same goes for cc, dispelling and all mechanisms
the scripts are made like this to make "mistakes" in your eyes, but in general that's the way they stealth and not being obvious but acting like player with top tier mindset (not reactions, but logically)
so at the end of day you are playing against AI reckful (may he rest in peace) and the combat log can't prove anything in such scenarios

I'll make a realistic example. Dalaran arena, teams fighting close to the boxes, hunter close to enemy healer, scatter shot ready.
With a random timing (e.g. I didn't cast it as soon as the cooldown ended), I suddenly cast scatter shot on focus with a macro (not even targeting). Healer is unaffected due to having casted shadow word: death an instant before scatter shot, as it's evident from combat log.

This in my opinion is already evidence of cheating. But statistically, there's something like a 0,01% chance or something that it was just extreme luck.
But if it happens a second time, then it's absolutely cheating.
There isn't (or shouldn't be) any excuse for this to not lead to a punishment/ban, isn't there?

It doesn't matter if you have him as target or no, your shot will drag his attention if he have no target at all at this time.
There is legit way (simple harm macro) you can make for swd being used once you have hostile unit as target (which is auto triggered upon someone attacking you if you currently have no target)
There is difference between scripters and people just getting advantage of weak mechanics with macros (which is legit)

No, no. Scatter shot would be the first shot; thus when he has acquired target through the attack it's already too late. What you're saying isn't possible to prevent being cc'ed

Scatter shot is spell (shot) with travel distance, not instant (applied) one and depending on the distance between the two units it's highly possible to be able to swd every single scatter with such macro.
If the priest is playing with binding trigger on both key up and key down (key press and key release) then the chance is being doubled to use it in such conditions
For example with default UI your spell is being triggered upon key release
With SnowfallKeyPress your spell is being triggered upon key push
With own addon you can make the spell being triggered upon both up/down which increases potential of such macros being spammed.
Also you are being flagged as attacker before the spell is being used (e.g. on cast start, not successful) which means you're becoming his target when your arrow start to fly, not when reach and cc him

There are situations of mechanics misunderstandings like this, either how your actual spell is working or how macros can be used, but in this situation this for me is not bot. It can be, I don't say it's not, but you can't prove it since there is legit way to do it like the one above.

Interesting, I didn't know that macro. Then if I started to attack the priest (like with auto attack) before the scatter shot, the macro shouldn't work, right? the priest should be baited to sw:d on auto attack when he gets the target instead of when scatter shot is cast.

Also I guess it doesn't apply to divine sacrifice, right? (since it's cast on friendly)

If your team have any sort of dots/pets or whatever damage on the paladin's partner then the scatter will break
the macro is as simple as
/use [nodead,harm]Divine Sacrifice
which will use the said spell only if you have target and the target is hostile to you
let me give you a bit advanced example

Let's say you are the hunter and you are arena1 to the paladin
/cleartarget [@arena2][@arenapet1][@arenapet2]
/use [@arena1,nodead,harm]Divine Sacrifice

with this macro the target will always be cleared out if it's arena2, arena pet 1, arena pet 2 and will remain if it's arena1 - you, then the divine sacrifice will be used

So yes..if the paladin/priest is not your primary damage target and you throw random shot to attract him as attacker while he's spamming this macro it's sure that the swd/dsac will be used

and no..you don't have to manually rewrite this macro on every new match
You can just write simple lua, checking classes of arena1/arena2/arena3 for being hunter and overwrite the macro
Completely legit, yet automatized.

I'm outta here, it's been an hour already.
PM me, or discord in case you have any other questions.

Oh, I think I first and then we both did a mistake, it's actually not divine sacrifice but hand of sacrifice that breaks CCs. Hand of sacrifice must be cast on party, so I don't think it's possible to condition its cast to the type of target (@arena1) like priests can do.

About priests and sw:d, anyway:

let's assume I stayed close enough (21 yd for scatter) to the priest for the entire match without giving him cues like going closer to him before the scatter shot etc.
Then he would have to spam the sw:d macro (and fast too!) the entire time of the match?
It doesn't look feasible without an auto clicker (not allowed) to click that macro independently from the rest of the heals/casts.

Different situation is if the hunter approaches the priest, giving him the cue for scatter shot cast. Then the priest briefly spams the macro and breaks the scatter. This is expected.
Point being: these are different situations that can be used to divide scripters from legit players.

By the way, for fun/curiosity I just did a few tests to take the time between the following phases:
1) scatter shot is cast on a player who isn't targeting anything
2) after a bit (not instantly) the attacked player automatically detects the attacker on scatter shot cast
3) after a bit scatter shot causes the CC effect

At 0 yards the transition from 2 to 3 takes ~0,066 seconds
At 5,25 yards up to 10,5 yards (and possibly a little more) it takes ~ 0,11 seconds, still very brief.

At 21 yards (thus the easiest situation in terms of reaction time) the whole transition from 1 to 3 takes just 0,36 seconds, but the target is picked up (2) after 0,0666 seconds. Thus the priest at 21 yards must cast the macro at least once in those 0,29 seconds.

I believe this is doable only if the hunter gives a cue that he's going to cast scatter shot. Moreover at shorter distances the time between the phases reduces dramatically as indicated above. Also GCD must be taken into account, so in a "no-cues situation" the timing must be so good that the macro must be cast right after the GCD triggered by the other skills and heals. This greatly reduces the windows of time for an effective sw:d.
And in my opinion, this kind of efficiency is what softwares (and not people) are good at.

With direct experience I can say... nothing has changed. Still a lot of rekless cheaters. Such a shame. I have an in game report open right now, let's see how it goes.

People will always find a way to cheat. What do people in general hate about playing games more than anything else? Losing. So, of course.
What really gets me are the people who will develop an ego due to beating people with their cheats.

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Originally Posted by Mercy

People will always find a way to cheat. What do people in general hate about playing games more than anything else? Losing. So, of course.
What really gets me are the people who will develop an ego due to beating people with their cheats.

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Cannot agree more. And I don't blame Warmane by the way; it's one of those times where people spoils the fun out of something that would be good, if only they could behave normally.

To the cheaters out there... just know you're choosing the easy mode while also damaging the PvP environment for the fair users. There is no honor and also no real learning (which is actually the fun part of PvP) in doing that.