CLOSURE on the use of Mouse Wheel to drop Meso's

TLDR:

Spoiler

An Admin needs to give an official yes or no answer on whether or not assigning 'left click' to the 'mouse wheel' is within the T&C. Otherwise they are just going to get more repeat threads on whether or not this is legal (just like this thread )

So I have had some users PM me and ask me in-game about whether or not a user is allowed to use a 3rd Party program to remap their 'mouse wheel' to a 'left click' action (a 1:1 remapping). The benefit of using the mouse wheel over manual clicking is that it is by far a superior method in helping you drop meso's faster. It is more convenient, and it doesn't compromise the health of your hand at the expense of just blowing up some meso's (more of this later).

It has been stated before that remapping buttons on a 1:1 ratio is legal in the game. For example, AutoHotKey lets to remap any button you want to another, and is considered a 3rd Party program. Even hardware these days such as gaming keyboards and mouses let you remap within their own software. However, there is conflict when it comes to the discussion of remapping a mouse wheel to left click. On one side, people say its fine because the mouse wheel is essentially a single component, as is a keyboard key (although it functions differently). On the other side, people argue that this isn't fair because the mouse wheel when scrolled fully, can output a single action extremely quickly, and multiple times.

My personal take on using the mouse wheel for dropping meso's is this:
Clicking manually without the use of mouse wheel is absolute cancer. Too often do I hear from Chief Bandits or Shadowers that their hands are sore or in pain after a prolonged session of using Meso Explosion. Dropping meso's is not user friendly at all, and is an extremely clunky system. Some people might say that this is just part of the experience when playing this class. To be honest, unless you have experienced this MapleStory class first hand (especially at bosses), then I find peoples argument against the use of mouse wheel kind of irrelevant. As someone who loves to play Shadowers, when I go to a boss run, I want to maximise my DPS as much as possible. The amount of damage that you can output with Meso Explosion is dependant on several factors:

1. The amount per meso sack 10 - 50,000 mesos
2. The quantity of meso sacks being blown up (20 max)
3. The duration of which you can maintain the casting of Meso explosion back-to-back (using Meso Explosion back to back blows up less sacks but still does full damage)

People say that Meso Explosion is the best bossing skill out there, and this is true... if it is used optimally. But I have seen videos of people soloing bosses, or just in party boss runs in general, and honestly, it is quite painful to see how poor their DPS output is because of the limitation that is manual clicking. In theory, even if you gave them 50k sacks instead of 5k, other classes would be able to out DPS them with ease with a good attack pot.

I can go on, but I will end on this note... Put yourself in the shoes of a Shadower. Imagine trying to do daily Krex and Zakum runs using manual clicking. By the end of those sessions your hands would be absolutely fried. Trying to click fast is like trying to do a 100m sprint (but for a whole boss run). Physical fatigue and lactic acid build up are not fun, especially when you are playing such a casual game. Now imagine trying to do these daily bosses every single day... it just isn't sustainable at all. I think there is a reason why a lot of people quit Chief Bandits/Shadowers early on, and why you don't see many of them reach high levels, let alone 200. I would say a large chunk of that is due to the meso dropping mechanics.

To the individuals that purposely choose to go down the manual route, or simply prefer to boss without the Meso Explosion skill — I truly respect your decision, and you should play the class the way you enjoy it the most. However, there are players like myself, who want to play the class as optimally as we can in order to do the class justice.

So, to end this rant, an Admin needs to give an official response on this matter. People have been asking this question for years, and there is no solid source that actually gives the answer to this question. Some GM's have said it is OK, while others have said it is not. It has always been a grey area, and it's pretty obvious that Staff themselves don't even know the true answer to this question. I am sure GM's have their own personal opinions on whether this should be allowed or not, but regardless, your individual opinions on this matter are not relevant since it is just an opinion and not a fact. An Admin needs to clarify this once and for all, so people can move on with their lives.

So please, rather than ignoring another thread on this issue, please can an Admin respond to this thread?
@Matt @Tim

 

Well done Vend. Your opinion is exactly the same as mine. I would like to add the fact that in order to outdamage most people, you really have to put in some effort. You have to drop your mesos in the right place while bosses hit you, moving bosses are a pain to lure to the place you've dropped mesos (i've tried guardian once, never again) and sometimes you can't do damage with ME cuz the boss is too far away (like for arms in zak and ht).

At least the scroll wheel lets you drop fast so you can do some damage and the things you CAN hit. Imagine doing zak with normal clicking. Besides never doing it cuz of health reasons, it'll be too hard to place 20 bags in same(ish) spot. The dps without ME is just too low, lower than pallies. So imo, which is the same as Vend's opinion, the scroll wheel drop is the only thing that's making the shadower class playable.

Again thanks Vend, cuz it's been really unclear lately if it's allowed or not, and thank you in advance GM's for clarifying.

 

i recomend: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/change-method-for-meso-explosion.123715/

it is good atlernative for mouse click. just have one key for meso actions (drop meso, set meso amount, bomb meso)

mouse click is painful sometime. and very easy to make mistake. i drop 10 meso many time

 

Shadowers are inherently a flawed class due to its poor design as it is the only job able to directly exploit a factor of user input (how fast you drop) to manipulate your dps output. The fact that meso explosion doesn't rely on your character's range and that, under certain conditions (immovable/pinned bosses or 50k bags, can dish out the best DPS in the game using a fruit knife doesn't help its case.

Having only played shadower my entire stay in royals, I definitely understand your frustrations with manual clicking and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't worry about Arthritis development in my hands after every boss run. However, I believe it is important to tread carefully when discussing both software and hardware accessories to the game as they both lead down slippery slopes towards abuse.

The problem with using 3rd party programs is that it is borderline impossible to discriminate between a 1:1 action vs a 1:2. Currently the only software change allowed as stated in Marty's Shadower guide is by configuring windows mousekeys in order to click with the numpad "5" to speed up dropping; what the guide doesn't mention however, is that the keypress "+" actually double clicks using this exact method and is obviously not a 1:1 action. How can someone tell if someone rapidly spamming "5" or simply press "+"? Furthermore, this hasn't even accounted for the case where illegal 3rd party macro programs can simply be used with a delay to simulate these mousekey drop speeds without the player doing anything.

As for the topic at hand involving using mouse wheel as a proxy left click to drop mesos, the same loopholes apply. If someone is dropping absurdly fast, can you differentiate between a macro vs someone who is scrolling relentlessly? To take this example to the extreme, there exists cheap and easily accessible hardware out there such as the following, where simply scrolling the wheel gently will cause it to spin for tens of seconds equating to tens of bags dropped.



The line between what is allowed and what constitutes a ban has always been and continues to be a foggy screen of smoke (pun intended). A compromising solution that I can see would be to standardize the maximum drop rate to a speed believed to be feasible using non-macroing methods (such as single clicking mousekeys) but not as extreme as tediously manually dropping. This cuts down on potential exploitation while improving the quality of life for your average Shadower player as well as alleviating the constant fear of ban from those who have high apm.

For all its faults, I still love this class and couldn't imagine myself playing anything else. Plus look on the bright side, at least we can Bstep off ledges now....

 

As quoted from Sof, guess that answers that

You're free to rebind keys in that manner.

Only when one action registers multiple outputs will there be a violation of the T&Cs; for example, one scroll of the mouse wheel registering multiple clicks. This would grant players an unfair advantage since it is no longer a 1:1 action.
↑

1. Game Hacking - The act of using or benefiting from any third-party program, macro program or otherwise defacing or modifying any part of the game software to gain any sort of advantage over other players, or otherwise selling, advertising, distributing or posting information related to the act.Punishment: Permanent ban.

 

@iCookies The client supposedly caps the the drop rate to 6 bags per second I believe, but as I am sure you are aware, it is very easy to bypass that speed if your click speed is fast enough. I completely understand your points you brought up, but who in the end really cares if someone drops fast? I have never seen anyone complain about it, except a handful of individuals that choose to go down the manual path and get salty at those who use mouse wheel. To me the only exploit that is concerning for Shadowers is the individuals that do bosses with crazy high sack amounts with the intention of abusing the meso explosion glitch.

As I said before, GM responses have been mixed. I want to hear a statement from one of the Admin's. Also, if it is considered a permanent ban, then a large majority of the high level Shadowers need to be permanently banned (myself included).

 

Imo it's not an unfair advantage. If it's not allowed, shadowers will more likely have an unfair disadvantage. To drop fast and have high dps, almost on par with NL (who basically stand there and attack), you will have to put in some effort. You can't drop with infinite speed cuz you'll drop too many coins in between. You'll have to keep scrolling and controlling the speed, keep focussing on the boss and where you stand, and you're not able to hit everything like I've said. If it's gonna be normal click only, you'll have to be very good to outdamage even a pally (without ele weakness for boss).

I don't really know how the macro thingy works, but isn't that very noticable? The drops are never totally at the same speed so I don't really think that'll be an issue, right?

 

Something else: other jobs have gray areas too. You can lock a BM to just keep attacking without even pressing the button, cuz hurricane doesn't stop like other skills. Mages can telecast, what I think is a 1:2 action too (teleport + cast). Mages can teleport and walk and if you keep pressing those buttons, you basically press 2 buttons to have multiple outcomes (this one was from another thread, he explains the example better). So I really don't see the problem with shadowers using the scrollwheel, especially concidering the fact that this job is already unpopular and if this turns out not to be allowed, shadowers need the most effort to attack with the lowest dps. What do you guys think about this?

 

Thanks Tim. The answer is what we're looking for but not what we were hoping for . There's one thing I would like to ask about your comment though. I do unstand it gives an advantage over shadowers not using scrollwheel, but every player with a mouse is able to do it right? That's why I compaired it to other jobs. You just have to know what to do in order to make it work. But that would be the same for mages who can't tc compaired to those who can.

So could you further explain what you mean with 'not every player has access to this hard- and software benefit' and why for example telecasting is allowed, although that also gives an advantage over other mages (cuz some just can't figure it out and some keyboards don't allow for it i've heard people say)?

 

Thanks for an official reponse.

I need clarification on a couple issues:

1) So the use of a hyper-scroll mouse wheel in order to drop mesos is not allowed? If so, remapping the mouse wheel of a normal mouse to left click is allowed, since you guys would consider that a 1:1 action, right?

2) Mentioning that "not every player has access to this hard- and software benefit" is an inherently flawed statement. That's the same as saying someone playing with the bare minimum requirement in specs to play this game is at a disadvantage to someone playing with a GTX 1080 Ti, 32 GB RAM, and an Intel i7 4.7 Ghz+ processor because the guy with the better specs can open 5+ clients as opposed to the 1 client that the other guy can open because they "don't have access to that hardware benefit." While that is true, the staff doesn't seem to mind that kind of unfair advantage. The same stance should be taken for this issue as well.

 

I might be nitpicking, but I feel like if the only way to play a class optimally is to rekeys to a mouse wheel, then there's something inherently wrong with where the level for "optimal" is.

It hits the same place for me as the people who could only raid on WoW with extensive add-ons and customized UI's, as the problem is when changing the core game was argued to be the only way to hit okay levels or "optimal" levels which results in playing the game normally is seen as a handicap (in this case going from manually clicking to a wheel for maple). It's a slippery slope. Like Tim said, not everyone has the ability to rekey in such a way, and in that sense it is unfair IMO. This isn't a "skill ceiling" issue anymore, because lets be honest, it's not impressive to have a wheel do it for you, shadowers should shine and take pride in being able to drop in between other skills to maximise their DPS. Might be an artifact of the times, but I don't think Nexon envisioned people rekeying their keys to wheels when the game, and CB skills were designed.

Also, I don't think the multiple client thing is a fair comparison. Multiple clients just means you can avoid bringing other people as you can manually buff yourself with mules. It doesn't alter how the character itself is played.

 

"It's not impressive to have a wheel do it for you, shadowers shouldshine and take pride in being able to drop in between other skills to maximisetheir DPS."

There isnt be any "pride" in being able to manual drop mesos fast since there's no skill at all involved in this, its literally holding down copy paste and clicking as fast as humanly possible, which leads to a lot of pain in your hands after a while.

One time I actually hurt my hand and couldn't boss for 2 weeks because of the pain. I think allowing anything that minimizes injury to the player is something that should be reconsidered.

 

The problem stems from ME. If ME wasn't so overpowered, then issues like this wouldn't even come up. But as it stands right now, ME > Bstep+Assassinate30 until 8-9k+ range. I'm all for addressing that issue if the admins decided to go that route.

Honestly, it's not that impressive to be dropping meso + using other skills at the same time either. All you have to do is put a macro (Bstep, DS, and Assassinate) on V and you're good, but that's not really the point of this whole issue. The fact is, if there is a legal/allowed way to play that gives players the ability to have more damage output, whether it being an in-game equipment upgrade, or even a hardware (eg: mouse or keyboard) upgrade, then there will be people who will utilize that advantage to the full extent. In this case, remapping left click to the mouse wheel gives that advantage, and it gives that advantage in a way that is still a 1:1 action. So yes, because the way Nexon originally designed CBs/Shads is the reason why there is an issue at all. Playing the way CBs were originally intended is a handicap because there is a more efficient way to drop meso. There are many things in this game that people do that weren't originally intended (leech, multi-client, hp washing, and telecasting.) Remapping keys just happened to be a consequence of Nexon's poorly thought out decisions, and players shouldn't be punished for taking advantage of it.

Multi-clienting is a fair comparison. It gives the person being able to multi-client the ability to solo boss, solo leech, and setup multiple shops (without a hired merchant.) So yes, it allows for a potential huge advantage over others who can't afford better hardware. Tim said that having a better mouse/keyboard = pay to win, then you can't leave out a better computer either because that gives just as much advantage too. Same goes for telecasting, as previously mentioned, since not every keyboard allows you to do it.

Tim's wording regarding using the mouse wheel suggests that utilizing the mouse wheel to help drop mesos is allowed, as long as you don't use something like a hyper-scroll mouse (1 wheel spin can result in multiple drops.) For most mice, scrolling once with the mouse wheel results in 1 action (eg: 1 left click). I still, however, would like clarification on that issue.

 

Thanks for replying @Tim.

Every person has access to the software required to remap a mouse wheel, and it is an extremely easy process that simply requires a small amount of a persons time. Your decision caters to the minority of individuals, and again, Staff seems to have made a decision against what the majority feel. However, at least I can somewhat sympathise with you since I know you played a Shadower as an Ironman character.

You could argue that no class takes skill to play in this game, since it is MapleStory after all. However, in my own bias opinion, I think that Shadowers have the highest skill ceiling out of all the classes. Fyi, I always use macro attack when dropping meso's. Now to you, maybe that is not impressive, although I wonder if you have ever even bossed with a comprehensive Shadower, let alone bossed at all. A lot of people who I have bossed with have been impressed with my efficiency at playing Shadower's, and I too have been impressed by other fellow Shadower's myself. While it may look easy from a different point of view, again, unless you have played Shadower yourself, then you can't really comment. I guarantee that a lot of people will struggle to drop meso's and attack, whilst managing HP pots, All Curing, and using SmokeScreen at optimal times +more. It just isn't easy.

My final point is this:
People have talked openly about using mouse wheel in-game for a long time. It is pretty common knowledge shared amongst Shadowers. Not only that, but I have even run with GM's or ex-GM's at bosses where I myself used mouse wheel. I'm pretty positive they knew I was using it, and not only that, they probably know other Shadower's that use it too. Why wasn't I banned then, and why aren't other Shadower's banned for it too? If GM's were turning a blind eye to this, then surely this is considered GM abuse? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if someone is using a mouse wheel or not, because it isn't humanly possible to maintain a fast and consistent clicking speed for 2 - 3 minutes.

Since the so called abuse of using a mouse wheel warrants a permanent ban, I hope that Staff crack down on all these Shadower's using it, and ban them from the server permanently. I am quite surprised that is has taken 5 years to get closure on this, even though there have been plenty of threads on this before. Surely if such actions result in a permanent ban, then these topics should have been replied to because of how serious of a rule break it is?

As the OP of this thread, I have nothing more to say on this matter, and this thread may be closed. Heck, I should not even have the right to even comment on this thread anymore since I am a Game Hacking scumbag.

To other Shadower's reading this — I hope your poor hands don't fall off! ... and have fun with assassinate 20


Peace o/

 

Done.