Macros are driving me mad.

Seriously, which clown implemented the parsing system or naming convention in this product? It's just driven me absolutely barmmy.

/macro Me /target

This creates a nice little button called Me that when clicked, targets me.

/macro Heal /invoke RestoreHealth1Ability

This creates a nice little button called Heal that when clicked "casts" RSI 1.0 (See the match in names? No? Neither did I. Someone needs a serious course in Design Methods and Naming Conventions).

/macro HealMe /target /invoke RestoreHealth1Ability

This creates a nice little button that generates a "Invalid Target" message.

/macro HealMe /target /pause [anywhere from 1 to 100] /invoke RestoreHealth1Ability

This creates a nice little button that generates a "Invalid Target" message.

What the heck? Why is it that at every turn in this game it seems to go out of it's way to remove any sense of reward and just turn it into one big frustration?

To make this very clear and plain -

How do I make my healing abilities heal me?

I would really like to know if this is possible with one button please, as the target 'me' button is the only way I've seen that allows me to target me. I then have to create and use another hot button to cast the ability.

Currenty with a 60% miss chance for players and a less than 0.1% miss chance for NPCs I can hardly see how this could be unbalancing.

Although I can't see me sticking around too long unless something is made mildly conveniant as this game raises frustration without reward to a new level...

Garu wrote:

/macro HealMeh /targetself; /invoke RestoreHealth1Ability; /pause 30; /healmeh

That should work.

That's awesome. Why would I want a macro to call itself and go into an endless loop?

/targetself and many derivitives came up as "invalid target" or invalid command for me. Semi colons are great separators for many langauges but once again they have made zero difference for me.

Even trying to play with the 'lo' xml file hasn't helped a great deal other than to give me the very abstract ability names.

Edit: Sorry, I should be thankful that people have actually replied and some have tried to help. I probably should come back to it because I'm just ticked off beyond reason at the seriously bad way a lot of this stuff has been implemented and what I'm learning from all over the place rather than from the source.

The documentation is sad and empty to be positive about it...

*sigh*

I have no idea of what you are saying but the only way I could find to target myself, and thus heal myself, was to type /target InsertCharacterNameHere

Then I'd be able to use the heals I could squeeze into the whole 2 hot bars.

*sigh*

Once again I think I've just been spoiled with UIs that have xml config files and are costomisable to allow reasonable configurations of abilities.

Time to move on I guess, simply too frustrating. Seven days is enough, getting pretty typical of the SOE range. I can see why server population is so low in all games.

Constant Frustration != fun.

Rewards need to actually match the effort. No we are not in the 1990's and grinding really is not fun nor acceptable to anyone that isn't afflicted by OCD.

Well thankyou all for some good tips and info.

My main problems were -

a) Going off irrationally,

b) Not using separators,

c) Using the /invoke command instead of the /use command.

Thus

/macro HealMe /target myCharacterNameHere; /use 1 4;

where the skill on hotbar 4 slot 1 is the heal ability works fine.

Although like others have said, the 'U' key and just the skill works fine also. At that stage I wasn't aware that the 'U' key targeted me and I was trying with the 'F1' key with no success. As I downloaded the game through the Station Launcher I have no physical manual.

The /manual command works wonders for that though.

I didn't know about the lower case macro name working as a slash command though and that may come in handy later, I'm not sure but at least it's another option.

The worst thing about all my ranting is that in the end I've scrapped the need for most macros I was planning for the time being and only use them to save and load ability layouts....

Cheers,

Palathas.