Valve has moved quickly to outlaw automated keyboard features.
This is 100% justified.
These types of features have been regulated in fighting games for a long time. The ideal situation here would be for Razer to open source their firmware and establish a community-driven approved firmware design and let valve greenlight a specific configuration which can be parsed by the game’s executable (or, for tournaments, can be flashed for valid gameplay).
That’s my 2 cents at least.
Are you going to ban mice that are too light? How about super low latency peripherals? Are monitors next? Is there a limit for the specs on those?
I really can’t see how this makes sense for you.
It’s scripting to change your character movement. The super light mouse doesn’t move itself. How is that even comparable in your mind?
Imagine if you had a mouse that stopped moving when your crosshair passed over an enemy. Is that acceptable?
The super light mouse doesn’t move itself.
These keyboards also don’t move your character on their own. They simply allow you to react faster by not requiring you to fully depress the key before the other input is accepted. This is simillar to banning n-key rollover if something like 4-key rollover was the norm. It’s an improvement on movement and raises the skill ceiling.
To top it all off, this feature is not hardware restricted. Unlike wooting’s other things like setting the key depress distance, which you can do because they have optical switches.
Imagine if you had a mouse that stopped moving when your crosshair passed over an enemy. Is that acceptable?
No. But that example is also nothing like the feature being discussed here. Are you sure you understand what this does?
The game is coded to not allow you to strafe while pressing both side buttons. This software sidesteps that by changing how the keyboard functions with simultaneous key presses.
This is simillar to banning n-key rollover if something like 4-key rollover was the norm.
Rollover has nothing to do with how the game is coded to handle certain inputs.
It’s an improvement on movement and raises the skill ceiling.
Strafing is a difficult skill. Allowing hardware to change how a character behaves lowers the skill ceiling.
that example is also nothing like the feature being discussed here.
Still a closer analogy than “are they gonna ban low latency peripherals.” Genuinely baffling how you came to that conclusion.
The game is coded to not allow you to strafe while pressing both side buttons
The way this feature works has nothing to do with how the game is coded and no, cs does not explicitly try to prevent you from doing this. If it does, please show me your source.
If they actually wanted to do that, they could also add a minimum delay between the inputs and not ban anyone.
Allowing hardware to change how a character behaves lowers the skill ceiling.
Lowers the skill ceiling to strafe but strafing isn’t something that everyone does. Considering that it makes you harder to hit, and shooting IS something everyone does, it means that everyone has to improve their tracking skills.
Still a closer analogy than “are they gonna ban low latency peripherals.” Genuinely baffling how you came to that conclusion.
If that baffles you, it means you didn’t give it much thought. Lower latency benefits people with better reflexes. If you have a mouse that has a high latency and I a keyboard that has very low latency, that means I can avoid more of your shots.
they do in a way move the character on their own though, through emulating extra input events on behalf of the user.
without, these inputs are sent, one per human action: KEYDOWN=A, KEYDOWN=D with the same two keypresses: KEYDOWN=A, KEYDOWN=D+KEYUP=A
Games are defined by the limitation imposed by them.
You might arguably do all that if you are competing at extremely high skill levels tbh.
The problem is that these create input events on behalf of the user. forexample: When pressing A while still having D pressed, the keyboard sends a KEY_UP=D event even as the user is still pressing D.
As for your comparisom, lowering latency is something different, if anything it’s attempting to make the users actions registered more accurately.
Do note that without this kind of processing, the games already knows that D is still pressed while A is presses, and they decide how to act on it. Games handle this differently, a common one being both keys as “stand still”.
So we’re:
- creating new input eventson behalf of the user
- tricking the game to to avoid a state the devs have intended
- resulting in a huge advantage for the player.
In my opinion this should be implemeted on a OS level for all to use, but I don’t struggle one bit to see how this is disruptive and a no-go in competitive games.
You’re confusing changing the priority of the inputs with creating them. Not the same thing.
In my opinion this should be implemeted on a OS level for all to use
Tons of keyboard/mice features are applied per device. If you want to do this on yours, it’s free. Look it up.
There’s no barrier for entry and it makes the gameplay quicker. There are no downsides here, this feels like plain gatekeeping.
can I ask what level of experience/knowledge you have in this field? for fairness sake, I’m a sysadmin-ish role at work, having worked with remote terminal solutions, (optimizing remote desktop for use over satelitte and borderline dialup-speeds, if I ever again need to deep dive into the ICA-protocol it’ll be too soon, lol) have tinkered with building keyboards, hobby involves arduinos & going deep down linux confing rabbit holes. Also done some gamejams, without ever really finishing any prototyoes.
Also - I think the way I brought up the OS implementation bit was too poorly phrased and we’re too out of sync context wise for that to be a worth discussing at this point, but to answer your point, yes I am very versed in the subject, but I’m very curious ti see if there’s something I;ve missed:
If you have one of these keyboards, please hook it up to your favorite key-input listening tool, and share what you see. I’m especially curious to if the priority you mentioned is something you see sent along with the keypress-signals, or if it is handled by the firmware of the device.
And for the record, I really do likewhat these keyboards are doing, I think it’s about time we see some actuall progress in the field, and i sure as heck want those features in my next keyboard, but not seeing how this is unwelcome in competetive games at this point seems delusional to me. You’re very welcome to challenge me om that, but the only argument I can see having an impact now is if you got some raw techical proof that challenges the models I’ve mentioned.
I give it less than a week before someone has code for this exact feature in QMK. It won’t be as detectable as looking for “Is using Razer Keyboard”.
i’d imagine it’s pretty detectable anyway… if the point is pushing a or d without any break between them, that’s real easy to time in software: no human is going to be perfect every time
sure, then comes the arms race of circumventing by adding some delay, and some variance in the delay time, but no large hardware manufacturer will just include it at that point and it’ll be obvious it’s a hack rather than an acceptable feature
A comment I see nobody making is that this will negatively effect disabled gamers and prevent the use of accessibility tools.
I disagree on this change but I can see why it was made. Having keyboards with processors is a slippery slope.
I refuse to wrap my mind around “professional” video gamer.
So guess you can’t fathom professional chess players, professional race car drivers, professional footballers, professional boxers, or professional athletes of any sort for that matter?
They’re all games.
Chess is an athletic competition?
It was in the Olympics
I’ve commented elsewhere on the death of modern Olympics.
you realise the olympics used to include poetry and art, right?
“Used to”. And they also included architecture, chess, and dueling alongside other non-sport activities. They were dropped fairly early on.
I’m going to pretend that we’re not now trying to call button-mashing “athletic.” Such exertion!
Yep, because professional chess players are well known athletic masterpieces 🙄
Professional, maybe by the definition this thread seems to prefer. Athletes, no.
Captain clueless in the house!
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make?
What’s your criteria for sport? what’s Golf? Darts? Bowling? Curling? Archery?
Is it that you have to break a sweat? I guess talking to girls makes you an athlete then?
“Sport” is defined as athletic activity, and “athlete/athletic” refers to physical exercise, agility, stamina, and strength. So no, playing a video game doesn’t count.
If girls make you sweat, good for you. Sex could arguably be athletic, depending on what you get up to.
so we’re just going to skip past all of those examples got it
Except the person in question didn’t call gamers athletes but instead professional.
I would also count athlete a subset of professional as well.
I’m not the one who brought athletics into this. I’m just following the conversation. But no, “esports” do not meet the definition of “sport.”
No one in this chain called it a sport that I saw. The root comment was “”professional” gamer”
The term “professional” has nothing to do with athletics…
As long as you’re getting paid to do it you’re a professional something. Just means it’s your profession.
I get the common usage of the term. It just seems weird that society is so bored that it’s willing to pay people to play games. although It’s probably no different in the abstract than paying any other performer or service provider for entertainment. I guess it’s fun to watch?
I guess it’s fun to watch?
No shit, Captain Obvious
I agree that it’s a little weird but it’s no more weird than professional sports.
Agreed
Bread and games.
Entertainment is a huge market.Fair point.
You say this like professional sports haven’t existed for literally millenia
Not really, they haven’t. And videogames are hardly sports.
They existed in ancient Rome, which was… Over 2 thousand years ago
Why do you do anything that bring you pleasure when you could be working every waking moment?
No fun, more work!
People that play games, as you call them, like to see people play a high level of that same game, because they enjoy the said game.
It applies to pretty much everything in life. This is one way we learn.
And how do you make sure that people that are good at whatever game gets to the highest level possible? You pay them to professionally play the said game.
Pretty obvious. You don’t wear your nickname well.
So it’s about the amount of physical exertion, not about it being a game?
So you can’t wrap your head around the concept of professional chess players? Professional poker players? Darts? Curling?
Hell, in rally, you just literally sit in a car. Such physical exertion! (And I’m Finnish and have been in an actual rally car, before you’re going to try and make a point about how physically demanding you think it is.)
Hey hey, you leave curling out of this. You go sweep a rock until it barely crosses the hog line a few times and check your heart rate.
So now it’s about heartrate? Playing Mario Kart and Dark Souls can get your heartrate into the 120+ range. And that’s casual videogamers, playing simple games.
https://www.esportwissen.de/en/performance-in-esport/
During professional competitive play, heartrates go up to 180+ bpm. That’s on the level of racing car drivers. Way more than chess, archery, or shooting of any sort would ever have.
So guess the Turkish shooter doesn’t qualify for you either? Archers? Magnus Carlsen isn’t a chess professional, he’s just a really lucky dude with a lot of money for some random reason?
Curling is at least a legitimate sport.
actually professional motor sports are quite an exertion in a lot of professional contexts because they drive for hours with no rest and they’re doing a lot of movement of the wheel and pedals - it’s not just driving down an interstate for a couple of hours
… i did upvote you, so i mostly agree, but… yknow
Well yeah, they are. Some more exerting than others. They vary from drag races to endurance ones, and some go really fast.
My point is rather that in driving, the physical exertion mostly comes from having to keep up mental focus and a static position — much like when gaming.
Dude just shut up
Make me? <shrug>
Being a professional just means you get paid for it.
Professional gamers get paid to play games.
It’s mind boggling. That’s all
Professional Boggler here. You rang?
The future is now old man. What is your take on professional chess player?
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More like captain obvious troll. Find better bait, this shit is low quality
That’s cool granddad, you must be such an open minded and pleasant individual
Look up the prize pool for the esports world cup that is going on right now
Which one? There’s pretty much world cups on most esports back-to-back from now to November, lol.
Which one? Besides the one in saudi arabia right now what else is there?
My point is that late-summer to late fall is pretty much the seasons for worlds in most esports. I don’t follow literally all of them to know which one is going on currently, so my point is that mentioning which game would probably be helpful, as not everyone is as immersed in the esports scene to outright know which game has Worlds on which weeks.
I’m not talking about a global lan in any specific game. I was referring to the $60+ million esports world cup that has like 20 games going on
Oh. Well pardon my ignorance. I’m over thirty if that helps with my excuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Esports_World_Cup
You’re totally right, it’s just “Esports World Cup”
This makes me even more annoyed I didn’t get funding for an esports bar back like almost 10 years ago due to some bullshit credit thing that I had actually paid for. After that and my depression I kinda evaded the whole esports thing out of depression for a couple of years, for this exact reason. It’s one of the fastest growing industries and I couldn’t get a loan of a few thousand. Sorry for digressing.
Anyway, I apologise, you were 100% in the right. Thanks for informing me. And not even being a dick about it.
All good haha. I only follow 1 game and it happens to be at EWC so that’s why I knew about it.
I refuse to wrap my mind around “professional”
video gamersports athletemusiciandancersculptorpainterwriteretc.People are called to create content. The style of content has changed throughout history, but there have been people saying the same as you for as long as art has existed. The fact that creators have found ways to monetize that content is a net boon to society, because it means we’re truly in an age where art and entertainment can be consumed and appreciated, while the artists and creators are able to focus on their content creation full time.
A key defining factor of the renaissance era was that artists were actually properly funded and could focus on their art without being bogged down by a day job. And that’s a large part of why there is so much impactful art from that time period.
Not sure if you’re an artist yourself or if your handle is meant to poke society’s nose. :)
Either way, yes, I know what art is. I also know that it is very much in the eye of the beholder. I just don’t happen to agree that playing video games rises to either an art form or a profession. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
If playing a game pays the bills, why shouldn’t it be a profession?
Nice work if you can get it, I guess.
Man, you really pissed off a bunch of yahoos who scream “hax” while getting teabaged
I did seem to find a soft spot, didn’t I?
