Unban of IridescentMoon

[Pearlescent_Moon]

Minecraft Name: IridescentMoon

Hello! Supposedly, I got banned for using an autoclicker and not responding back to a staff member when they messaged me, so I’ll clear things up here along with providing a bit of proof that I am not using an autoclicker.

So, I’ll start with reiterating the situation (or at least how I understand it). I was grinding axes in a zombified piglin farm during a zoom class. I stacked my windows such that half of the mc window was visible with the piglins so I knew when to click. Occasionally, I went back to chat a bit and check in to make sure there weren’t any magma cubes that got into the place where I stood. At some point, a staff checked in and sent me a few messages (which I missed and did not respond to), and then issued a ban. I was in the middle of class working on a question, so I did not get to respond until a few minutes later.

That recaps the time of events, and now I will present my case. I’ve been sent a GIF as the evidence against me, and I’ve linked it below.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/830896708534927380/861295910272892958/proof.gif(image larger than 4 MB)

(I don’t bother to eat anymore while farming as regen should cancel out hunger damage. That’s kind of just a lazy thing I do at this point.)

(The important takeaway form this is that there wasn’t any clicking when there wasn’t a pigman. Keep note of that while reading the rest of this post. Also, the baby pigman aren’t able to be hit when they’re jumping around or at the bottom. Well, maybe not at the bottom, but it’s just too hard to time it right to hit them while they’re jumping.)

I’m sure my word by itself likely isn’t enough, so I’ll discuss the behaviors of autoclickers and other possible macros that I’m aware of as well.

Case #1: Autoclickers
For those who don’t know, an autoclicker simulates clicking a key. Depending on the autoclicker, it can be configured to hit on specific intervals. From the autoclickers I’ve seen others use in the past, generally I note that it will always hit that key, regardless of what Minecraft is doing. The autoclicker that would make the most sense in this scenario is one that left clicks. However, as seen in the video, I would have been standing within the breaking range of the purpur block behind the piglin. If I were using an autoclicker, there would be attempts to start breaking the purpur, although the attempts would not finish as autoclickers send one click through and don’t hold it down.

Case #2: “F11”
There’s also a few bugs that can be used to make Minecraft think that you are holding down a key when you’re really not. One of the most notable uses the F11 key. I’ve been using a Macbook for the past few months, so I don’t have any way of using that. However, that still brings up the question of what if a key was simply held down, whether by using a Minecraft bug or program. I would take a guess that would either hit a piglin once and stop doing anything, or alternatively, hit the piglin and then break any blocks when there isn’t a piglin to hit. Neither of those behaviors were demonstrated by me, so that cannot be the case either.

In addition to this, there is the issue of the window focusing and coming over my zoom window that should be addressed. To sum it up quickly, I’ve done a few shenanigans on the Macbook to allow my mouse3/mouse4 key (those are the side keys that certain mice have) to send an input without focusing the window. This shouldn’t be considered macroing or autoclicking, as each click that Minecraft receives still corresponding to a physical click on my mouse, just on a different key.

Assume that any other mod features not listed above are forbidden, though if you are ever unsure, feel free to ask a staff member. Note that mods also include anything that interacts with the minecraft client for you (i.e. autoclickers, placing a brick on your keyboard and AFKing).

(I have also been messaging the staff member through discord, and I was originally under the impression that there was constant clicking, which I attributed to the Macbook’s downtime function. The downtime was on for a part of the minute while I went to get more time. I thought that would act like a F11 or tab out and continue the clicking. However, upon seeing the GIF a bit later, I realized this was not the case and that may be disregarded.)

I hope that clears things up, as it should rule out the possibility of using an autoclicker or another program to hold down a key.

(It’s also worth noting that I’ve manually fished up to fishing 1000, which has anti-AFK features. I’m fairly sure I can survive a bit of axes if I am willing to tank through that much fishing. Many of my other maxed skills can’t be autoclicked either, such as mining or excavation.)

[Pearlescent_Moon]

Also, just an idea, but for future tests with an autoclicker, wouldn’t it be possible to stand in front of the person clicking and see if they stop or react or change their aim? An autoclicker with someone AFK wouldn’t care, and should continue clicking.

(Chat is a bit harder to pay attention to than a staff member dying right in front of you after all :p.)

[BobsYourUncle]

If you’ve seen auto clickers in the past, then you know most of them are more sophisticated than what’s described here. Conditions, sequences, randomized timing and duration, etc. I’ve used these tools in the past where allowed. And am bothered by this seemingly purposeful oversimplification from someone claiming to have ‘seen’ how they work.

Not saying you were using one today, just that your statement comes off as disingenuous.

[Pearlescent_Moon]

That’s fair, except the ones I’ve seen are indeed very simple. I’m sure there’s more complex autoclickers, and if anyone has experience and wants to contribute, then I’ll be glad to hear it out and respond. Though I still have a hard time being able to see an autoclicker integrate with Minecraft to tell when there is a pigmen or not (a mod could possibly do that, but I am not aware of any such mods for fabric).

[StarField_9]

Your ban: Tallcraft Players

As a staff team we are still gathering evidence and discussing this ban dispute, but what is the program/script/macro/driver that you use for the clicking without focusing the window?

[Pearlescent_Moon]

Great! I think there’s a bit too little evidence right now as well, so getting more evidence is good. There are a few more things I can mention, which include addressing how to click without focusing the window. I should have maybe have used some different terminology, but what’s really happening is that the window is focused, but it’s still below the other windows. I can use control + option + click to do that, then the rest is just using the side keys on my mouse. I’m not sure if it can be done by default, or if there’s a little bit of configuration that is needed to allow the shortcut to work.

It’s also been brought to my attention that there do exist mods that can detect when there are mobs and hit. This makes things a bit more complicated for my appeal of course, but I don’t want to be withholding anything, so I don’t have much evidence for this next point, but I will go by the GIF.

Case 3: A mod integrated inside MC that clicks upon seeing a pigman
The idea is simple, a mod or some program that gets information from MC when there is a pigman that can be hit, and then a left click is executed. I would expect such a program would be perfect and would click at a pigmen at every possible opportunity. There were definitely times I missed at the pigmen though, and there were a few baby pigmen jumping around in the GIF to demonsrate it.

It could be potentially be argued that such a program could be set up to make mistakes and such, but at that point, there’s no concrete way I can disprove that.

[emodog]

apologies for the late reply.

after talking with the other staff members, i was informed that this had happened before; however they actually had tped you away (about half a metre), and you did not move/attack until a mob had shown up in front of you. two staff members saw this happening.

we have come to think that maybe, if you were able to provide a video with your methodology, we will consider unbanning you; if not, you shall stay banned.

[Pearlescent_Moon]

Can you elaborate on what you would like to see in the video? I’m not sure what you mean by methodology.

[emodog]

(a video and explanation of the player staying tabbed out while hitting each time a mob appears in front of them has been shown via discord)

staff has decided that you will remain banned. reasoning are 2 videos/gif that show proof of you remaining perfectly still, in one of them you move slightly after replying to me. when you showed us video proof of how you explain you fight mobs while being tabbed out of minecraft, you move your head around while in the videos/gifs i took, you do not (until you replied in chat)

as well as staff members having watched you do this before, and when you were tp’d away half a block (half a meter-ish) you would be still until a mob appeared either way. 2 staff members were watching this at the time.

[StarField_9]

For those of you watching this ban dispute, I’d like to sum up the thought path of the staff team in regards to this ban:

Evidence:
#1: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/264443684391485440/855206711409639454/HM.gif. A gif showing IridescentMoon only attacking pigmen when they get to the killing chamber, but responds after prompted in chat.
#2: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/264443684391485440/861293400303992862/proof.gif. A gif showing IridescentMoon only attacking pigment when they get to the killing chamber.
#3: For privacy reasons, I will not post this, but basically a video provided by IridescentMoon that shows them changing the keybind of click to another mouse button and then using that to swing with minecraft half hidden behind a window of another program.
#4: No video, but Ravadosh/ThatOneLuke at some point teleported to you and noticed that you were swinging like the other gifs, and decided as a test to teleport you just a little to put you out of reach of the entities, and the swinging stopped immediately.

#1 was from an incident in June, #2 occurred in early July and is what prompted the ban.

Evidence #4 on its own is already very incriminating, and combined with the behavior of the recorded gifs 1 and 2, this already appears to be some sort of autoclicker hacked client, as that behavior is very indicative of this. Note that in #1, the player’s head is perfectly still and only after saying a message in chat and probably coming back, the head moves slightly between attacks. #3 supports the theory that it was only manual clicking as while in the video the motion is less pronounced, it still has a little bit of movement every few clicks.

Given this information and the story you originally gave us in this ban dispute, we have decided that unless we are missing something major that does not consist of a change in story, the ban will remain.

Ban dispute denied.

[MikeInAChinaShop]

I have to be honest, I don’t understand the point of even trying to cheat your way to grind a skill. The point of a skill in MCMMO is to show what you do mostly in MC, how long you have played, and how much experience you have. Also, AFK farming like this is banned on the server.

[Pearlescent_Moon]

It’s been a few days since the last update to this ban appeal, and it seems that there’s been a lot of contributions from the staff’s side. I’ve been a bit busy over the past few days (weeks now, it’s taken much longer to put everything together than I initially expected), so I haven’t been able to write anything up until now. There’s a lot that I have to say, along with many things to clarify, so I think I’ll begin from the start from my perspective. I would also like to clarify that all the details I mentioned here are either details I’ve already stated, details I would like to clarify, or new details I would like to present that should not conflict with old details. I stand by my original story in this forum thread, and I haven’t changed it.

This will contain a lot of details and be a bit lengthy as well. I hope that anyone who is interested in this appeal is willing to take a little bit of time to read over everything and make sure that they understand it. I also hope anyone reading this can consider what I’m saying with an open mind, as I hope that everything should be addressed. In the event I miss anything or there are conflicting details, let me know in a comment and I’ll sort it out. It’s a long post, and there’s a good chance I might mistype something or make a mistake.

I’ll try to keep this organized, and I think starting from the beginning and working to the current time will make the most sense. Going back to July 4th, I was grinding axes at one of my pigman farms. A staff member had teleported to me and sent a message, which I did not respond to. Then after a few minutes of waiting, they banned me for autoclicking. I was sent a recording of a portion of that time as a GIF file. I’ll link it again. (I’ll refer to this as GIF #2 from here on out.)

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/830896708534927380/861295910272892958/proof.gif(image larger than 4096KB)

• Here’s my defense for this. For starters, it might have been noticed I was taking damage while farming the pigman. This was hunger damage, as I had not eaten. I stopped eating while farming a month or two ago, as I found out that a regeneration beacon would cancel out the damage of hunger. I figured that since good food (like steak or pork) is tedious to obtain, I would just stop eating and let hunger damage me. I understand that this could have definitely caused suspicion, but I don’t think that it’s enough of a reason to suspect autoclicking.
• Let’s move onto the main point, why I wasn’t able to respond to the chat message. I stated that I was farming while in a zoom meeting for a class, and that the zoom window had covered up part of my minecraft window. However, the default behavior when focusing in on a window (which is necessary to send a input into the window, such as the keybind for attacking), is that the window is brought up in front of all the other windows, so it wouldn’t make sense that my minecraft chat is covered while the window is focused. But I’ve found a shortcut that is able to focus in on a window while not bringing it in front of all of the other windows. To use it, you would just have to hold control + option and then do a single left click into the window to focus in. (Note that this will only work for MacOS, which is the OS I have on my Macbook). I showcased this to the staff in what Starfield cited as Evidence #3. Originally, I planned to record my entire screen, and I sent a message to one of the staff members that I wanted to privately share the video in case my name or any other personal details were shown. However, I was able to find a way to only record the part of the screen which is relevant, so I’ll share the video here. (I’ll refer to this video as the shortcut demonstration video from here on out.)
  https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/771179949162889237/868622728343748618/8mb.video-nKB-vYzP9SWT.mp4
• Now as for why I use this shortcut, I typically grind mcMMO skills while doing something on the side, such as watching a youtube video or being in an online class (which is what it was in this case). I am personally a bit bothered when part of the thing I’m focusing on is covered by the minecraft window, and I figured that what’s going on in the left half of the minecraft window up to the crosshair shouldn’t matter much (I was not aware that the chat was one of the methods that staff used to check if you were really there, the same staff member had messaged me before, where I responded, but I didn’t know that this had the potential to be used for a ban yet.).

On July 7th, there was a post on the forums stating that I would remain banned, unless I was able to send in a video of my methodology.

I was a little confused as to what methodology meant, so I private messaged the staff member who made the post, and they clarified that it should demonstrate the shortcut that I use to focus in on a window without raising it above the other windows. I quickly recorded the video and sent it over, this is the shortcut demonstration video.

After this, the staff focused on my head movements. It was noted that my head moved in the shortcut demonstration video I sent as well as the time I had responded in chat, but my head had not moved while grinding the pigman.

• I was actually willing to provide more details to staff on this (I’ll elaborate more on this later). I think the main support for this point is that the head movement in the shortcut demonstration video I sent didn’t match up with the movement observed while I was on Tallcraft using the pigman farms. More specifically, my head moved a bit in the shortcut demonstration video, but stayed still on Tallcraft. However, I originally noted to the staff member I sent the shortcut demonstration video to that I could rebind left click to any keyboard key / mouse key, as long as it isn’t mouse key #1 or #2 (the ones binded to left/right click by default in minecraft). In the shortcut demonstration video, I binded to one of the side keys of my mouse, and since my hand isn’t perfectly still while holding onto the mouse, there’s bound to be a bit of head movement. However, if I bind to a keyboard key like I do part of the time while on Tallcraft using the pigman farm, then the head movement would be gone. When I bind left click to a keyboard key, I can simply let go of my mouse and there won’t be any head movement until I put my hand back on it.
  • Another thing I’ll address would be the question of why I didn’t bind to the keyboard key when initially sending the video to staff. I was told that I just had to demonstrate the shortcut I used to focus in another window without raising it above the other windows, and I didn’t replicate all of the possible configurations I could have used (such as binding to a keyboard key) to keep the video short.
  • Here’s the elaboration to the first sentence. Originally after I saw the post on the forums from the staff about the inconsistent head movements, I went to the staff member who I sent the shortcut demonstration video to and told them about how I could rebind to a keyboard key, and referenced an earlier message in which I stated that using the side mouse key was just one of many keys I could rebind to, as long as it wasn’t the mouse #1 or #2 keys. I got the response that they forwarded what I said about rebinding to a keyboard key instead to not have any head movements, like how I was seen in GIF #2, to the rest of the staff. After that, I mentioned I could retake the video with left click binded to a keyboard key instead as another demonstration, but I received the response that it wouldn’t be necessary or beneficial.

Later, Starfield makes a post on the forums detailing the staff’s path of thought during this ban appeal. I’ll put a screenshot of the post below.

• I’ll start with a few clarifications, and then move onto my thoughts. Firstly, what Starfield stated as evidence #3 is the shortcut demonstration video. Additionally, I want to mention that I mainly use two pigman farms to grind mcMMO. One of them is the one that is the one shown in evidence #1 and #2, made of smooth stone slabs as walls. I built this farm with Ayozelion, so I’ll refer to this farm as Ayoze’s pigman farm. The other farm that I use is made of blackstone, and I built that farm with Xcel. I’ll refer to that as Xcel’s pigman farm.
  • I’ll address the evidence now. For evidence #1, it seems that the staff’s takeaway is that my head moved when I responded to City in the chat, while it didn’t move while I was grinding pigman. I’ve addressed part of this already, I typically use the pigman farms while doing another activity. If I rebind my attack to a keyboard key, I can attack without moving my head. However, in order to see the full chat and type in a message without misspelling it badly (I like to look over my chat messages before sending them), I have to bring the minecraft window above the other windows. This would involve putting my hand on the mouse to use the mouse #1 button, which is bound to create some movements as the staff observed when I binded attack to another key in the shortcut demonstration video.
    • Another point to address is how I would have seen City’s message in the first place if my minecraft chat was blocked. I want to reiterate that for the other window I have on top of the minecraft window, it could really be anything. It could be a youtube video, or I could also have discord up. I’ve been trying to buy a graphics card for the past few months, and with the GPU shortage, I’ve joined some of those stock notification discord servers to have more luck on timing it right. My discord notifications are broken (and I’m usually on do not disturb anyway), so I can’t really just wait to hear a ping from those servers. As a result, I sometimes just have discord pulled up so I can watch the chat on one server, while paying attention to the server sidebar if I get any stock notifications. In this case, that server I was watching the chat in was the Tallcraft survival chat, and I was able to see City messaging my name, so I went ahead and fully focused into the minecraft window to respond (it’s easier to fully focus into the minecraft window than it is for discord. I have to esc then move my mouse over to discord, whereas I can just hit mouse #1 to fully focus in the minecraft window).
  • For evidence #2, it seems the staff’s takeaway was that I didn’t respond to the chat. This GIF demonstrates the staff member’s points of view before banning me, and I’ve already addressed this earlier. I was in an online class, and I stacked the two windows such that I wasn’t able to see the minecraft chat.
  • For evidence #3, the staff’s takeaway seems to be that the head movements I had in the shortcut demonstration video were not the same as the head movements I had when the staff was watching me grind pigman. I’ve addressed this already as well, sometimes I bind to my side mouse key, but most of the time I bind to a keyboard key instead. If I bind to a keyboard key, I can let go of my mouse and I won’t have any head movements until I put my hand back on my mouse. As proof of this statement that binding to a keyboard key won’t have the head movements shown when I binded to one of the keys on my mouse in the shortcut demonstration video, I’ve recorded another video to demonstrate it.
    • https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/771179949162889237/868622519614197781/8mb.video-B0i-KmbOOr2Y.mp4
  • From what Starfield says, it seems evidence #4 is the main driver for the suspicion of me autoclicking. However, there seems to be a few issues with this piece of evidence. I’ve asked the two staff members who were there to witness this evidence for clarifications, but I didn’t receive a response from either. I then messaged another staff member to ask the staff members to take a look at my messages, and I got the response that one of the two staff members had told them that what Star said was what they did. I’ll move onto the issues I find with this piece of evidence.

    • Firstly, it isn’t possible to teleport me out of reach for either of the two pigman farms that I use for mcMMO grinding. I was told that the two staff members had collected this piece of evidence at Ayoze’s pigman farm, so I’ll focus on that for now. If I’m standing at the very back against the ladders, that’s still within reach of the pigman.

      • [I’m working on obtaining a world download for Ayoze’s pigman farm to share, but my friends who have access to the farm have been busy and haven’t been able to send over a schematic to me yet.]

      • There is a possibility that this could have taken place at Xcel’s pigman farm. However, the player cage is very similarly designed, and the maximum possible distance the player could stand away from the pigman is still the same. I’ve got a few screenshots that demonstrate this.

      • 

      • 

      • 

    • Second, in Ayoze’s pigman farm, if I stand at the back half of the farm, the pigman don’t go for the pigman trap with the soul sand floor but rather go behind the ladders and group up there. We have to remember that the goal of the pigman is to get as close to the player as possible (usually), and when the player is standing in the back half of that farm, the pigman can get closer to the player by standing behind the ladders rather than going into the trap area. This doesn’t make sense with the earlier statement from City in the forums that “as well as staff members having watched you do this before, and when you were tp’d away half a block (half a meter-ish) you would be still until a mob appeared either way.” That implies that the pigman somehow went into the cage, when the pigman should be hoarding the back, and then I was able to attack the pigman, whereas Starfield stated that I shouldn’t have been able to reach the pigman. It’s impossible for all of these statements to be true at once, and it’s also impossible to be out of reach even if I’m against the back wall on the ladders in Ayoze’s pigman farm.

      • This would be different for Xcel’s pigman farm. Because Xcel’s pigman farm has a layer of anvils and then the back wall, there would be two blocks if the player is teleported as far back as possible (against the anvils). Combined with the fact that the player cage and the pigman trap is lower, the pigman would still be able to get closer to the player by going into the cage rather than clustering around the back. However, being out of reach would still be impossible as the most the player could be is 3 blocks away from the pigman when standing against the anvils.

I’ll end off with a bit of a retrospective on this situation. I’ll take a guess that I’m one of the first to be caught up in a situation like this in a while, grinding mcMMO like this is a newer thing among me and a few other players, and I’ll admit I have pretty much pushed every aspect of grinding to its limits to lighten off the load. I’ve experimented to find regeneration can outweigh hunger damage, so I stopped eating food, and I’ve taken advantage of shortcuts to be able to do other tasks while grinding. These are not behaviors that are against the rules, and I wouldn’t have thought that they would be able to cause events (such as not responding to the chat) that would be enough to create a basis in the staff’s minds for a ban. As a result, I hope that a better and more standardized process for testing for autoclicking can be created in agreement with the community. It may be worth giving up a few liberties and putting in a bit more effort to avoid having to spend multiple weeks on a ban dispute. But there isn’t a list of what would be definite behavior that would be concrete evidence someone isn’t autoclicking as of right now, which I hope can be changed.

[Tallcraft]

Thanks for the thorough write-up! I’ll discuss this with the rest of the team and we’ll get back to you here.

[Pearlescent_Moon]

Cool! I do have to note I don’t think I will be able to link a world download or schematic of Ayoze’s pigman farm since I’m on vacation right now (and I don’t have the laptop I usually use with me), apologies for that. I hope the GIFs are able to provide enough insight (as well as the screenshots of Xcel’s pigman farm) to get an idea of the design of the player cage of Ayoze’s farm as well as show that the pigman should be in range even when standing against the back wall (as seen in the third screenshot I put to detail Xcel’s pigman farm).

[Tallcraft]

I’ve had a discussion with the staff team. Overall we’re not fully convinced that you were not cheating. However, we are willing to give you another chance given that you have been banned for a while already and you have shown a lot of dedication in this dispute.
When farming, we ask you to read the chat and react when staff asks for your attention. Auto-clickers and other mods which automate farming or bypass the AFK kick are not allowed.
I’ll also give the other team members the opportunity to comment here.

[Pearlescent_Moon]

That’s alright! I’ve stated earlier that I can see how some of my behaviors might lead to suspicious of autoclicking/cheating, so I understand, but I’ll try to watch over the chat with more attention in the future.

I also want to pass the suggestion that it may be a good idea to copy over what behaviors we as players should do (such as watching over the chat) while farming over to the rules to bring it to the attention of more people, as I’m fairly certain that there will be some people who don’t read over ban appeals or pay attention to the forums.