According to the above posted rules, macros are not allowed. However enforcing that may not be possible as macros are an integral part of Windows operating system itself and on top of that nearly all new hardware (mice, keyboards, controllers, joysticks, etc.) come with macro functions all built into them.
So to actually truly enforce that they would have to disable parts of the main used operating system + parts of the drivers for peoples devices, which just isn’t going to happen.
Macros in themselves in this game aren’t that useful anyways, as all that allows you to do is basically execute a sequence of commands on a single button which you would normally use 2-3 buttons to execute with the in-game given options. However, the manual options are just plainly better because you can alter that sequence or vary its timing etc. which you can’t do if you use a macro.
So all-in-all I don’t feel that macros are any big deal whatsoever. They make make it easier to perform PVE activities, but will actually be detrimental in PVP.
Bots on the other hand are a plague and are seperate issue. Main reasons for the plague of bots in this game are as follows:
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Game can be entirely played from spreadsheets with graphics disabled - This makes it super easy to collect even combat data and write bots using that. If CCP did what a lot of games are doing now, which is users have to actually properly respond to what they see on the screen instead of just such data, then a lot of the bots would die out. Sure there would be some more skilled hackers standing up to the challenge, but there would not be such a plague of them.
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Ceirtain elements of the game are so incredibly boring that many players are unable to stand them and either quit them or automate. This is a game design issue, its bad coupled with the above. As an example of this, just look at how many players actually use their mains for mining, how many actually sit there and actually mine vs. how many use alts, multibox with those alts etc.
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A lot of botters / hackers that get perma banned in other games end up here due to “friendly” game mechanics. This is again a game design issue from the ground up. Starting from multiboxing (perma bannable almost everywhere else), to the way plexing toons works, to the “scamming and hacking because its a sandbox” arguments, all the way up to combat mechanics. So this game has an unusually high percentage of these rejects that has accumulated over the years. Its just too friendly and supportive for them.
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Situation gone out of hand. CCP just can’t keep up with them anymore, maybe they gave up ? They would seriously need to hire additional personnel and rework a lot of stuff from the ground up, offending a lot of the sandbox purists and cutting into their own bottom line financially if they did go after bots and hackers.