My relationship with macros stretches back to Final Fantasy XI, where they were considered downright vital. Since the game had no form of hotbars and a rather clunky menu system, macros were considered a vital component of making your actions readily accessible in combat. It actually felt weird to me that World of Warcraft didn’t expect you to macro everything but instead had you just clicking on a hotbar (yes, clicking on, that muscle memory took a while to change).
This is fresh in my mind from the ongoing debate over macros in Final Fantasy XIV. There are a lot of bad uses of macros in the game, including adding text that plays when you do things (I don’t need to know who you’re raising, I can see the raise icon), using macros that actively make you worse at the game (don’t macro your Ninja abilities), or other pointless elements; there are also very useful macros that rely on action locks or conditional abilities. But they certainly aren’t necessary, which raises the question of how often you use the ability to make macros in your MMOs. Is it something you do on the regular, reserved for special circumstances, or do you just not bother with macros?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
