What specific types of macros and remapping actions does Cipsoft consider illegal in Tibia, and are mouse wheel or button remaps allowed?

Question

DISCLAIMER: I've not been banned in recent banwave (or ever) for using 3rd party software in Tibia. This is not attempt to justify anything, but rather to ask for clarification. 
 

With the recent banwave I wanted to ask for some clarity. Has Cipsoft ever explicitly address what kind macros / botting is not allowed? The only thing I've found was here: https://www.tibia.com/support/?subtopic=tibiarules&rule=3b

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Using additional software to play the game:

Keep in mind that you are supposed to play the game yourself, not to have a tool or program play it for you. Doing so gives you an unfair advantage over players who invest time and effort to gain power. Using unofficial software such as a macro program or a so-called "tasker" or "bot" to automatically execute actions in Tibia for you may lead to a punishment. Thus, play fair.

Using additional software to play the game such as cheat programs is not only forbidden, but also poses a high hacking risk. These programs - especially if offered to you by other players - often contain a virus, trojan or some other sort of backdoor through which a hacker can access your computer and take over your account. It is highly recommended not to ever download and use such a cheat program.
 

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Generally everywhere I looked, whether its reddit, discords, streams or youtube, the same mantra is always being said by players which is something among "1 press key = 1 server side action" so something like:

```ahk

XButton1::F11

XButton2::F12

```
Where we remap mbutton5 to F11 and mbutton6 to F12 is fine (and that's what I used). 

But what about:

```ahk
WheelUp::F9
```
Technically still `1 press key = 1 server side action`, but now it's way more spammy and some people reported being banned using it. I never used that one, as scroll isn't pleasant to use for me. Is this legal or is it not?

The obvious ones that are not legal, are those which under one key send more than one input, e.g. F9 and F10 at once with whatever arbitrary sleep between, so that goes beyond that discussion.

TLDR:

1. Has Cipsoft ever explicitly address what kind macros / botting is not allowed? Please, provide source, as I couldn't find one.
2.  Are Mousewheel / MouseButtons remaps legal? Why are they not natively supported by tibia client then? 

Answer 1

According to the technical FAQ:

5e) Is it allowed to use the extra buttons on a gaming mouse/keyboard as hotkeys?

Yes, you can generally use the buttons of your gaming mouse or keyboard like hotkeys. However, please note that you may not bind more than one action to a button. For instance, it is acceptable to bind to a button the drinking of a mana potion. However, it would be illegal to assign to a button the drinking of a mana potion and then casting "exura". Thereby, it does not matter if the action is performed by pressing a combination of keys (e.g. CTRL+F1) or a single key (e.g. F1).

So technically, it is allowed to use the scroll wheel to perform a single action. I think it's unlikely that someone would get deleted just for "spamming" a hotkey.

And obviously, macros that do automated things are not allowed (auto-heal, auto-loot, auto-equip, etc.).

<Edited>

After reading Nightflyn's answer, I decided to contact customer support to ask specifically about binding a hotkey to the scroll wheel. Here's the answer:

Yes, using the mouse scroll wheel to bind hotkeys to scroll up or down is allowed, as long as each scroll action (up, down or click) triggers only one in-game action per movement. This falls under the same rule that applies to other mouse buttons, ensuring that no automation or macro-like functionalit​y is introduced.

If you need fhelp with anything else, feel free to ask!

Kind regards,

Manina

Tibia Customer Support

Comments

Wow! Great!! That is exactly what I was looking for! Thank you!

Answer 2

I wouldn't recommend remapping the scroll wheel as a hotkey. If you're set on doing it, go ahead, but it's at your own risk. Let me explain why.

The rule is clear: buttons on your gaming mouse or keyboard can generally be used as hotkeys. However, the mouse wheel or scroll mechanism is not a button. While some mice provide a middle-click feature (triggered by pressing the scroll wheel), this is technically distinct from the scroll action itself, which serves as a continuous or incremental input mechanism.

From a technical standpoint: there are significant differences in how scroll inputs and button inputs are processed at the hardware, driver and OS levels. Scrolling functions as a continuous input mechanism, producing incremental or continuous signals based on movement, whereas a button produces a discrete input, generating a single signal per press. The act of using the scroll wheel inherently results in multiple actions per movement, with each scroll tick treated as an individual signal.

And why this differs from holding a keyboard key?

When the scroll wheel is remapped to emulate a button, such as to type the letter "A" each scroll tick or motion produces a separate key-down and key-up pair. For instance, a single rotation of the scroll wheel, which results in multiple ticks, could produce an output like "AAAAAAAAAA". The high frequency of these events causes input overload because the scroll action bypasses the OS's (and the game client) keyboard delay and repeat rate logic.

This differs from holding a keyboard key because keyboard inputs follow a specific delay and repeat logic enforced by the operating system/game client. When a key is held, the system processes an initial key-down event, waits for a configurable delay, and then generates repeated keypress signals at a fixed, controlled rate. In contrast, the scroll wheel produces independent events for each tick or motion, bypasses the delay and repeat logic entirely, and treats each tick as a unique event.

Comments

I contacted customer support and they confirmed that it is allowed to bind a hotkey to the scroll wheel. I edited my post with the response I received.

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Great, thank you for clarifying that with them. That said, I wouldn't recommend it just yet. Since the signals don't follow any delay or repeat logic, the unnatural frequency from a scroll wheel could potentially be interpreted as automation or unnatural behavior by the anti-cheat system (likely to how Razer's gaming keyboards get flagged in CS2). As a result, even if theoretically safe/allowed, we still don't know if it could trigger a false positive in BattlEye's algorithm. Could you raise those points with them as well? Thanks again for following up on this.

For instance: scrolling up and immediately scrolling down could result in two hotkeys being triggered almost simultaneously and multiple times due to the nature of the scroll input. The anti-cheat algorithm could interpret this as unnatural behavior, as the rapid, simultaneous, and repetitive input deviates significantly from typical human actions.