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The Edge of Nowhere
Return of the Jedi
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Snarg
Retired Mod
Joined: 30 Jul 2002
My Posts
Location: 127.0.0.1
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 Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 7:26 pm Post subject: [Program] Aura-Flash v004 |
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Download.
Original thread.
| worthless wrote: | Hi all,
I have written a possibly nice utility for paladin players. It's an autoit3 script, uploaded as a forum attachment to this posting.
It automatizes what is commonly called "aura flashing". This provides some protection from RSI :)
It sends the according function keys to the selected D2 window. These are F5-F7. The F-keys have to be used to avoid problems while standing in channels or when entering chat in the ingame chat window.
It also regularly refreshes the holy shield by sending F8 to the D2 window and then a mousedown/mouseup event.
I have tested it with concentration, fanaticism, conviction and salvation auras. Some auras like vigor seem to be problematic to flash. You have to test and check what works well and what not. Maybe it's just the timing.
The script is flashing 2 auras by default to make two auras overlap almost all of the time. It can be used to flash three auras but I didn't find out a satisfying flashing timing yet, so the aura overlapping is less satisfying then.
If you use D2Loader you will need to use the “-title” command line option to make sure that the script sends its messages to the correct D2 window. (see $D2WindowName in the script)
You will notice that the script is of version 0.04 currently.
This is because there are some things to be optimized yet for a "perfect" final release.
Why?
So I do a listing of my ToDo's and my wishlist for improving:
-Better timing (for perfect aura overlapping, especially with 3 auras)
Note: It may be necessary to use different timings for other auras than those I used the script for (fana, conc, conv and salv)
-Cursor positioning and repositioning to safe areas for shield casting.
(Explanation: When holy shield is being casted, the script simply sends a mouse right click to the D2 window. This has the intrinsic problem that this right click can do unwanted things depending where the mouse pointer is over. For example, if it is over a potion in belt or inven, the potion qill be quaffed instead casting the holy shield. Or, when in shop over an item, it will buy that item.)
The script is freeware (BSD license applies - you can do with it what you want as long you do not remove the copyright notice).
Hope it is of use for the community. Hope the community helps to perfect the script. Anyone who helps in improving the script can add himself to the copyright as contributor.
So we possibly can release a final version 1.0 soon :)
Any feedback is welcome :)
Greetings from worthless |
| worthless wrote: | Hi Smorg, hi all,
thank you for your welcoming.
I feel it's necessary to explain the aura flashing thing.
Until 1.09 it was easily possible to have two and more auras active by the technique called "flashing", even if few people knew of it and used it.
Background:
When an aura was activated it was active for about one second. When you turned on one aura and then "flashed" over to a second one, the first selected aura remained active for about one second. Thus it was quite easy to have multiple auras active, though I knew only one paladin player that knew of that little-known technique. Most people didn't know about that technique, so it is no shame at all to not know about it.
With 1.09 this was somewhat "fixed", so that it does no longer work for some auras (especially vigor), as these are being turned off immediately when another aura is being activated.
However, the "fix" was not perfect, as it is still possible to flash some auras (including fanacticism, concentration, conviction and salvation) when a very close "flashing" timing is kept. This timing and correct sequence of aura switchiing is very critical and it took me some time to get it right. This also is the reason why my script works quite well with two auras, but less well with three auras, as I did not yet have the time to check out a better flashing timing.
Doing this manually is 1.) very difficult due the critical timing (tenths of seconds!) and 2.) is an easy way to get RSI quickly.
Thiis was the reason for me to automate that with a script.
Because this is a very old technique, little known even in the pre-1.09 times, and somewhat "fixed" with 1.09 it is very hard to find articles in the web mentioning/explaining it. Very few paladin guide writers knew about it, so you won't find anything about it in most old paladin guides.
So my hope is that my script gets approved for publication in the script development forum so it can get perfected in a collaborative effort.
When it gets approved I'll immediately add a post with even more detailed background than in this post here, so that people really know what it is about.
I believe it's safe to use, I used it for weeks without getting c/i or even an rd.
Some links mentioning this flashing technique: (there are more old pages about it, just didn't have time to google for them):
(Just call up these pages and search for "flash" and read on there...)
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=510
http://www.diabloii.net/columnists/flux06.shtml
http://strategy.diabloii.net/news.php?id=501
BTW, the first version (0.01) I PMed to Smorg had still not a quite bad timing, the fourth version (0.04) that I posted in the development thread has quite well working timing (at least when using 2 and not 3 auras simultaneously) and can be readily used after compiling the source. I and some friends have tested it for some time and we are quite satisfied with it.
Again, I hope you can approve it for making it commonly available, so that the timing etc can be even more perfected in a cooperative+collaborative effort by interested community members.
Maybe the script even has the potential to be added into MMbot through multithreading, enhancing paladin bot runners?
Thanks and greetings
Stefan
edit: typo corrected |
| Smorg wrote: | Are you sure it actually works on battlenet? It could be a client-side fluke that creates the illusion of it actually working due to the latency of the time it takes for your data to take a round trip to the servers and back.
This would be very difficult to test... unless there is a way to log on with a second player and somehow use a hack to view your stats on the other end, to see if the stat bonuses are really simultaneous, or just switching back and fourth rapidly. |
| worthless wrote: | Hi Smorg,
yes, I asked myself the same question. Is this just a false illusion due to client side delays, especially on the paladin side? Is this just because of the network delay? Or similiar things?
I first tested this out with 2 PCs, one with the "flashing" paladin, the 2nd one with another partied char with its status window opened also.
Result: Concentration and fana seem to be simultaneously active, same with fana/salvation and conc/salvation.
The same seems to apply with conviction, the monsters are almost continuously underlaid with the green aura while the other aura is active simultaneously (visible through the aura under the chars and through the status window).
To verify that more, I tested that with friends. They report the same observations. When testing that during actual playing (i.e. killing monsters) the sorc's increased kill speed makes the impression that the conviction aura actually is active and not only a false impression (i.e. underlaid green but not actually "convicted").
However, as I indicated, it is difficult to find out an optimal flashing timing, as one of both auras sometimes still goes off for a fraction of a second. So this "aura overlapping" is not 100% perfect yet, only 95-98%. 100% perfection would be very desirable, especially when using the salvation (resistance) aura.
So my hope is that with more people doing fine-tuning efforts, it might be achievable to get 100% perfectness. So my intention to publish the source code of that script to have more people in our community working at it.
Ah, BTW I do not play SP or open BNet or such. I and my friends only play closed BNet HC (classic and LOD) and did the testing there. So I cannot say anything about the effectivity of that script in the other modes.
Greetings
Stefan
edit:
P.S.: Dear Smorg, please make sure to do your own testing with the version 0.04 I posted in the (still not approved) thread in the development subforum and not with the version 0.01 that I PMed you. Version 0.01 switches the auras way too fast and has very poor efficiency, thus v.0.01 is almost useless. Additionally it lacks any self-explanation that I added to 0.04.
I mention this just to make sure that you do not unintentionally test the first and still little useful version.
And I want to thank you for asking these important questions that need to be answered before publishing the script. This is good because it is just that what I hoped to find in this forum - cooperation and collaboration - this leads to better ideas and solutions...
I now ask myself if it would be a better idea to let us discard the old, still unapproved, thread and make a new one, adding the thoughts and documentation we have exchanged here in the introductory text of the new thread.
And even the title should be different, like such: "Paladin aura flashing - is it still functional or is it fully fixed by Blizzard? (see script, included as source)"
What do you think about this? |
Last edited by Snarg on Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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