Use Of Numlock - Intended Or Not?

For me the use of numlock as a automatic recast of skills is new. I read about it here and there but did not recognize what it is and if it’s useful.

I use the numlock autocast actually on my FG for recasting RoS when it is out of cool down. This way it is like an Aura that is near to always on. I use it on my AoD Lich, too, for recasting Wandering Souls.

I have to admit this is kind of lazy. But for me it is a real improvement. I can concentrate on other things and playing feels less hectic.

My question is how the devs feel about this. This function was not possible I’d make a suggestion post about the ability to toggle autocast on and off for certain skills.

I don’t hope it is seen as cheating to use the numlock for autocast. It is similar to using keyboard scripts.

I assume the devs designed the skills this way to make the combat more active. But I’d prefer an autocast or always on mechanic for skills that are aura like instead of having to recast them manually.

I realy hope they get rid of it. The devs wanted skills to be a more active thing so autocasting is the total opposit of what they intended.

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Apart from when they did want auto-casting…

Surely it’s something they had to programe in unless it’s a standard windows functionality???

Whats the big deal? I use my mouse macro to activate certain skills that I always use instead of clicking them all the time myself.

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It is a mechanical thing. The only thing they can do is not let you assign numlock keys as commands. It’s not something they programmed in. You can do this in any game out there. But even if they block it, it won’t make any difference. I’m an automatist by profession. I ussually like to do bots just for fun, for the challenge (not released any of them of course). Automating a key press is like a 2 minute job :D. And yes some of them can be detected (the ones that do memory reading and stuff), but some are undetectable.

Here is how the one created by me looks like, it is extremely powerfull and undetectable.

I do not release this type of tools because they can be so dangerous. This is just for fun and practice. This tool can command any program on a local station. It can read anything on the screen and make decissions, store logs. Something like this can spy on you if the devs want to.
So I suggest not using any of them that are available online.

Here is the lazy build I’ve created for this game. You won’t push any arena lvl over 150, but you will be able to farm so easy wathever you want. Reached monolith 30+ with it.

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Boting is very dangerous for the economy of a game and creates a massive imbalance between botters and normal players. For this reason I understand that EHG may forbid some 3rd party programs. That might include keyboard and mousescripts as well. This is what happened in other games. Some anti cheat programs cannot differentiate if it’s a bit program or keyboard script.

I hope they won’t do that. It’s a quality of life thing for me. While Ring Of Shields is very easy to use without any automation Devouring Orb or Sigils of hope is a pain to use. The cool down and up times are relatively short and you have to keep track of the number of stacks. This breaks the flow and is not very comfortable.

So if it stays this way players will use the numlock as a “workaround” for auto casting skills. This is not what EHG has intended. So what will they do about this? Disabling numlock will possibly make people use other 3rd party programs.

Allowing it and keep it as it is also makes no sense for me. If it is ok to autocast there should be an ingame mechanic to allow this.

I would appreciate a checkbox on the hotbar to toggle autocast on an off for aura like skills. Another solution would be to change the skills into aura directly and add that a percentage of your max mana pool is reserved / blocked from use as long as the aura is up.

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You are taking things way too seriously for a game that is supposed to be played for fun. Note that LE is not an esport game. I play most ARPG’s and never heard of game banning use of gaming keyboards and mouse.

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That has nothing to do with esports. Farming bots are a real issue for every rpg with an online economy. EHG has already taken steps to prevent botting. They restrict items as uniques and legendaries as well as gold for trading. This makes item or gold farming less viable because the farmed items cannot be sold.

But there are also xp farming services in other games. D3 had a massive bot problem and Blizzard spent a lot of money an effort to prevent it.

And bots are just complex script programs. So when measures are taken the poor script user that only runs an autocast script could be considered cheating for mistake and be banned.

Why you keep talking about farming bots? I thought we were talking about assigning certain button on mouse or keyboard as a automatic recast of skill? No game ever blocked me for using my gaming mouse or keyboard functions. D3, POE and many MMO’s with anticheat scanners never gave me any problems since it is not cheating.

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I just want to know what I have to expect when I am using numlock (or macros). Are the devs aware of this? Do they care? If they care what are their plans regarding this? Will they block numpad or other macros?

And there are discussions about macros in about every game. The fact that you are not aware of it does not mean it isn’t there.

And I don’t want to convince you to not using macros or else. If you don’t care, no problem. I have the experience that people got banned in online games for using macros because macros can look like bots. And when EHG plans to install counter measures against bots this can happen here, too.

That’s the whole story.

I’m genuinely curious as to where the numlock functionality comes from. If it’s not something the devs explicitly added then that means it’s a windows thing & I’ve not seen Excel auto-repeat any of the number keys if they’re pressed with the Numlock, which means it has to be something the devs added, surely?

This has nothing to do with the game itself. Found this:

Pressing the key registers a key down event, and it will continue firing until a key up event is fired. Pressing num lock effectively changes the key code, so when you release the key, the key up event for the original key is never fired, so the game acts like you’re still holding it down.

When you hit numlock again, the keys are still “down,” until you press and release them again to trigger the key up command.

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Oh, that makes sense.

A good solution for this will also be to design the game such, that botting does not help. If the reward for play is the play experience in itself, no botting is necessary. As long as the developers stay away from the temptation to artificially prolong game play by making the game extra “grindy” there shouldn’t be a need for bots.

In POE i.e pretty much every streamer is using potion macro. I used it too through my mouse/kb. Never had any issues. Another reason is that Carpal Tunnel is a real thing and that’s why we have gaming kb/mouse. I haven’t heard of one game that will ban you for using functions in gaming gear.

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I don’t know what else I could tell you. Did you look at the link I posted? The flask macro is officially not allowed by GGG. Now this was a few years ago and this is LE not POE. But why do mind that I am asking about this?

Just google the words “macro+[gamename]” and you’ll find dozens of threads about people asking what’s allowed and what’s not.

So maybe it’s different here. Maybe not. Would be nice to have an official answer to that question. I’d rather ask before using something that could me get banned. Even if a stranger on the forum tells me I should not bother.

Yes. This should be the first step. Problem is that you possibly have to make hard restrictions to make bots less effective or meaningless.
I followed the Bazar Dev Blog here on this forum for a while. There are many people that don’t agree with these kind of restrictions. The thread is outdated now and I a very curious what to expect from the Bazar.

autocasting skills that are ment to be auto-casted manually; the health of individuals specially with carpel tunnel: ---- i’m in my 30’s and I’m experiencing this now, you trying to remove/restrict a non issue, that is only factored in by casting it yourself, it’s not a violation of anything legally, or game breaking, it’s a quality of life feature, that has no real op mechanic, and is actually bypassing a lot of these bugs from skills this patch that are auto-castable, like aura of decay.

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No way… i know when i ran Maelstrom+Tornado+Ice Thorns while having to manually use earthquake and my basic attack a real pain (Maelstrom, Tornado and Ice Thorns specced on insta-cast and max cd reduction + cd reduction helm). My hands went numb. (Well okay, the basic attack didn’t matter… that one was comfortable… but having to hold 3 buttons, while using a 4th from time to time really hurts… try it xD) So i do feel like some kind of auto-cast is needed. :x

I am absolutely with you. So instead of using a “trick” the best solution would be to change the skill mechanics, imho.