Feedback: AFK checks

Eoghan · July 2015

This discussion was created from comments split from: I HATE.

Dicene · July 2015

I hate being neutered for a day by a disfavour that I got for missing inconspicuous afk checks that were on my screen for an average of less than a second before flying away in path-finding spam. I hope you guys settle on an afk check that is a little easier for not-afk people to see, because being punished for missing that when I was sitting here at my computer feels just a little disheartening.

For reference:

Khizan · July 2015

My biggest problem with it is that it is three lines long and dark red. If I had to design an AFK check for the specific purpose of getting it lost in bashing spam, I honestly don't think I could do it better. I can agree with making it more irregular and thus harder to trigger, because an easily triggerable AFK alert isn't really much protection, but making it so small and dark is kind of a **** move IMO.

Make it as irregular as you like to prevent triggers, but make it like.... white on a blue background and take up 12 lines or something. Big and bold. Make it something eyecatching so that it still 'pops' even if I'm focusing my attention on the chat window or something.

Rennyn · July 2015

Gonna jump on this train of thought too... Why the hell would you pull at AFK check in the middle of autowalking? Wouldn't it make more sense to do it when they're killing stuff, not moving between -areas-? Just got checked while running from Vorrak to Cinua, and I don't use the in-game path find, so I see room descs, map and everything... Just /barely/ freaking saw the thing. To make things worse, it was cyan colouring, not even red...

Eoghan · July 2015

We are experimenting with different ways to perform afk checks. Your feedback is being taken into account.

Regarding the actions around when checks occur: checks are repeated, so if you miss one it isn't the end of the world; you'd have to miss several for more than a minute.

Regarding color, dark colors will be avoided, and color will likely be random. What is the problem with cyan? It's a bright color that is more readily noticeable than the red being tested before.

(I should probably split this off to another thread, but I'm on mobile during a break at work. I won't be reliably responding for a few hours for the same reason.)

Jules · July 2015

Cyan is the says color right? Says are so hard to catch in caravan spam, for example, and they are one of the few things I don't channel capture, because any other time I do better with them in my main window. Cyan with the right background could work though. I think most people experiment with foreground background color combos with their own triggers because a good combo stands out better than a single color. And huuuuge, like Khizan mentioned. I am still glad there is a focus on this, because there have been times when I wonder if half the game is zombies, but even as someone who lacks a basher, the way it's happening scares me. If I am totally honest I would just say I am relieved I'm not in the position of doing lots and lots of bashing (in large part thanks to very good changes to the game that make it so I don't HAVE to spend a lot of my game time doing something that... It can be relaxing in very small doses sometimes). But if I were, this would freak me out (more).

Rennyn · July 2015

Eoghan said:

We are experimenting with different ways to perform afk checks. Your feedback is being taken into account. Regarding the actions around when checks occur: checks are repeated, so if you miss one it isn't the end of the world; you'd have to miss several for more than a minute. Regarding color, dark colors will be avoided, and color will likely be random. What is the problem with cyan? It's a bright color that is more readily noticeable than the red being tested before. (I should probably split this off to another thread, but I'm on mobile during a break at work. I won't be reliably responding for a few hours for the same reason.)

Bright colour? yes.
More readily noticeable? yes..
...Noticeable in areas with says, or during huge amounts of spam? Not really, when the message is so freaking small.

Khizan said:

My biggest problem with it is that it is three lines long and dark red. If I had to design an AFK check for the specific purpose of getting it lost in bashing spam, I honestly don't think I could do it better. I can agree with making it more irregular and thus harder to trigger, because an easily triggerable AFK alert isn't really much protection, but making it so small and dark is kind of a **** move IMO.

Pretty much this, really. I was paying complete attention earlier, and didn't even notice it until the third check popped up. (as cyan, not red)

Wysrias · July 2015

I'm also kind of getting irritated at these AFK checks. When they were big scrolling blocks of color, sure, great, that was easy enough.

Then stuff like this occurs (please ignore the abysmal prompt, I know it's horrible ok):

You point an imperious finger at an agitated kochlan.
An agitated kochlan's skin cracks and sizzles as flames spontaneously erupt all over his body.

124 [77.18%]
eq:2.32
<610/610h 632/640m 0B 70.24 (0)> <-b db> [T:kochlan|UNL|846|8816] []
eqbal+ Attack kochlan
<610/610h 632/640m 0B 70.24 (0)> <-b db> [T:kochlan|UNL|846|8816] []
([*%]*$>)$$.),>$.(&}#,,>*({]>#!..,.(^$.
([*%]*$>)$$.),>$.(&}#,,>*({]>#!..,.(^$.
<610/610h 632/640m 0B 70.24 (0)> <-b db> [T:kochlan|UNL|846|8816] []
With a howl of rage, an agitated kochlan turns its head to the side and rips a hole in your flesh with the tip of its horn.
H -41c [6.7%] [90]

How exactly am I supposed to respond to that, or even catch it? My command colors are cyan on black, this AFK check was cyan on black. Thankfully I just had started bashing, else it's very easy I wouldn't have caught that, or the ensuing request.

<610/610h 640/640m 0B 70.24 (0)> <eb db> [T:kochlan|UNL|930|9992] []
(>,[*@{!},..!$%@,<*[[)@#}{)#]})%>!{%$^,.
(>,[*@{!},..!$%@,<*[[)@#}{)#]})%>!{%$^,.
(>,[*@{!},..!$%@,<*[[)@#}{)#]})%>!{%$^,.
< DANCE to prove you're really there! >.
(>,[*@{!},..!$%@,<*[[)@#}{)#]})%>!{%$^,.
<610/610h 636/640m 0B 70.24 (0)> <eb db> [T:kochlan|UNL|930|9992] []
You sweep across the floor, leaping and twirling like a true master.

So ugly. There has to be a better solution than this.

(I hate being spot checked virtually every time I go bashing now.)

Ragnar · July 2015

What, did AFK bashing come back or something?

Last time I recall AFK bashing being a thing was when there was a ring of people going around doing it, but a bunch of them got shrubbed.

Ultrix · July 2015

Why can't we have the nice big red AFK checks that we had during the last bashing tournament for the ToA? Just change up the header/borders and/or the background color used if you think people are triggering them.

Eoghan · July 2015

Yeah. There have been some hiccups with testing other methods, as witnessed by Wysrias in the quoted post above. We're working on it. We're also going to be relying more on less intrusive methods of checking in the future, but those obviously have limitations.

Rasca · July 2015

My solution has been to stop bashing. </3

Menoch · July 2015

I'm just spitballing here, but why is no one considering that the 'constant' (probably frequent is what is meant here) checks right now are because they are actively utilizing the feedback given and tweaking?

-Imperianites make snide comments about afk bashing because they don't poopsock as well as certain epic pve'ers

-Admins utilize a system to actually catch afk bashers

-Imperianites complain about the system

-Admins attempt implement player suggested changes to said system

-Imperianites complain about system some more

I guess every step has a large amount of ??? but I refuse to postulate on the alleged profits.

Etienne · July 2015

I haven't had issues with the AFK checks. Every time that one has popped up, I have seen it immediately due to the block of text and been able to comply with the directive sent by administration.

I am a fan of them. I don't think that there is anything wrong with holding people accountable to being at their keyboard and paying attention while they are making gold. It sounds from what Menoch has said like this was instituted due to player complaint in the first place.

To play devil's advocate on this one, while it is frustrating to some to receive these AFK checks, it is frustrating to me to attempt to bash to Aspect in areas that are cleared by the same person on what seems like a 24 hour basis, or to be bashed over repeatedly by people who aren't paying attention to what they're doing.

I don't think that anyone bashes so fast that they cannot see the prompts, and the majority of the complaints probably stem from the fact that the constant changes make it impossible to trigger, which I'm pretty sure was the entire point.

If you stopped bashing because of it, maybe you shouldn't have been in the first place.

Shou · July 2015

The issue I had with it is that WHILE LOOKING AT MY IMPERIAN WINDOW, I almost missed the prompt. This is because either I'm pathing through an area, or because some classes create A TON of lines with just their attack combo. Below is an example of mine:

Attack locust added to your EQBAL queue.
<512/512h 411/418m <e-pp> <bd>> <-7>
You have recovered balance.
You step in quickly with a slash across a short-horned desert locust's torso.
You have scored a surprisingly effective hit!
Damage dealt: 237 Remaining: 3.33%
Adrenaline flows in your veins and your wounds hurt less.
You quickly flow into the Ein-Fasit stance.
Balance Taken: 2.00s
You tear through a short-horned desert locust with a long vertical slice.
Damage dealt: 8 Remaining: 0.00%
Adrenaline flows in your veins and your wounds hurt less.
The final blow is too much, you have slain a short-horned desert locust.
You gain 77,630 (bash) experience. You need 1,729,136,850 more for level 155.
You gain 258 faith.
You take a small pile of sovereigns from the corpse as you pick it up.
You quickly flow into the Vae-Sant stance.
Balance Taken: 2.00s
You step in quickly with a slash across a short-horned desert locust's torso.
You have scored a shockingly powerful blow!
Damage dealt: 245 Remaining: 0.00%
Adrenaline flows in your veins and your wounds hurt less.
The final blow is too much, you have slain a short-horned desert locust.
You gain 70,910 (bash) experience. You need 1,729,065,940 more for level 155.
You gain 236 faith.
You pick up the corpse.
You quickly flow into the Ein-Fasit stance.
Balance Taken: 2.00s
You howl as a short-horned desert locust hacks into you.
Damage Taken: 11 blunt (raw damage: 38)
A short-horned desert locust opens a gash in your arm with a skillful blow.
Damage Taken: 9 cutting (raw damage: 31)
<490/512h 411/418m <e-pp> <bd> <-22>>

That is 33/52 visible lines on my screen.

Afk checks were initiated with the help of players who had issues with afk bashers, along with a major bashing event. However, I sincerely doubt one of the complaints a player had was "This is too easy to notice. I wish it was possible for me to miss it while actively playing"

Rennyn · July 2015

Etienne said:
I don't think that anyone bashes so fast that they cannot see the prompts

That's not it though. I for one don't read the entire screen when I'm bashing. I pay attention to two things, 90% of the time:
1) My health,
2) The little box in my GUI, that lists all of the targets I'm gonna be hitting (which colours based on if they're aggro/teaming or not)

The old prompt was easy to see, because it wasn't some easily lost, 3 line prompt that barely took up any room whatsoever on the screen. And it was coloured to actually be noticeable. Even if that one was 3 lines, I'd still be able to see it a ton better than these current ones.

Etienne said:

and the majority of the complaints probably stem from the fact that the constant changes make it impossible to trigger, which I'm pretty sure was the entire point.

This is also wrong, if you read the posts you would see that. Has absolutely nothing with people able to trigger the prompt, given that the 'complaint' was about it being properly visible. Just look at the screenshots already provided. You can have 'good' AFK checks, without them being horribly obscure.

Jules · July 2015

It does look a bit like Menoch says, hehe. But it needs to be less scary, in the sense that as someone who mashes buttons for every combo on every mob, I shouldn't be as scared as I am of missing a "check" (and again, I am aspect and don't bash for gold, so I have the luxury of not bashing much anyway, but not everyone does). They do give you several chances to respond, but even missing one is terrifying to a player with a huge time and financial investment into the game.

Basically, if you're actually there, it needs to be something you'd never worry about missing, while not being something people can code in. Although, I don't think that being able to trigger it in some way is bad, unless that is something that certain people are 100% going to be able to code for a RESPONSE. So by trigger, I just mean I am able to make something generic enough to capture any AFK check they might use, which allows me to scream at myself "AFK check, dummy". You just shouldn't be able to give an appropriate response through the trigger. But if I know my trigger will at least capture that there is a check, I can make it stand out myself and I can also add a sound thing, like I do with say, cleave in combat spam.

Etienne · July 2015

@Shou - I can see how that could easily become very spammy in contrast to some of Demonic's classes. I don't know how agreeable administration would be, but it seems like condensing Predator hunting would make a lot of sense if that's the amount of lines you're dealing with every time you bash.

@Rennyn - If you are only paying attention to health and a GUI box and miss being AFK checked, it doesn't sound like you're paying much attention to what you're doing and I fail to see how that isn't working as intended. I certainly don't read every line of damage that I do while bashing, either, but that hasn't prevented me from seeing blocks of coloured text.

I know that AFK checks are a work in progress. But I don't get the negativity regarding a system that encourages honest gold-earning and fair play. Not much of what I've read from our playerbase on the matter (with a few exceptions) has been constructive or overly polite.

It doesn't take much effort to post - "Thank you for being open to feedback.

Would it be possible to increase the number of lines that the AFK messages use and/or add a background colour so they're a little easier to spot while hunting? It can be tricky to catch when moving through rooms or when dealing with multiple attack lines when you are a Predator.

Would it be possible to condense the amount of lines that Predator bashing utilizes to make AFK checks easier to spot and cut down on overall spam?"

Instead of "why the hell are you doing this".

Wysrias · July 2015

Some bashing systems are incredibly spammy, regardless of the profession using it. I'm a big offender here because I built mine around what works, not what's optimal. That being said, the old AFK checks were fine in this regard because they were pretty much impossible to miss. I'm guessing people began triggering them as a result, which is what led to the current situation.

The actual issue is that "([*%]*$>)$$.),>$.(&}#,,>*({]>#!..,.(^$." looks like a line of gibberish, akin to what happens when my system screws up or starts spewing out gmcp garbage, which happens often enough that I'm prone to just ignore it. It's untriggerable, sure, but it's also unsightly and easy to miss, probably because our eyes are scanning for important keywords and colors, not long stretches of symbols that are potentially the same color as our commands/system outputs.

The idea of 'encouraging honest gold-earning and fair play' is obviously a positive one, but it can easily be viewed from the other perspective, which is 'punishing players for zoning out of a repetitive activity'. Depending on who you ask, bashing ranges from moderately entertaining to a violent assault on one's ability to remain conscious, so adding an inconvenient hurdle is bound to get the same spread of responses.

Jules · July 2015

Actually, I take back what I said about being able to trigger it, which would always allow you to trigger a sound. I kind of want it because these freak me out, and I do use it in combat, but it does give people too much opportunity to be pretty much completely absorbed in something else while their basher runs around, safe in the knowledge that they can just click over if they hear an alert. Eh...

Eoghan · July 2015

We recognize that that bashing is spammy. No one has ever been punished for missing one printed message on their screen - the checks repeat (with varying periodicity) for a couple of minutes before anything further is done. It isn't a matter of missing one message in bashing spam - it's a matter of missing a dozen or so.

Shou · July 2015

@etienne I have already formally spoken to the admin that did my afk check, and I don't have the urge to post a private discussion on here just so I seem less offensive. That being said, I have stopped hunting for a while as well because of this. I gave my feedback, but I'm not going to continue to hunt when a momentary lapse in concentration can get me disfavoured or shrubbed. It's not worth it. This is the same thing that happened when the checks first came out. They were single line, dark colored text on a dark background that said 'DANCE if you're not afk!' that were easily lost in Great Hunt spam.

Additionally, the problem here isn't predator spam, it's how noticeable these warnings are. Similar to @wysrias, when I first saw it, I thought my bashing script was spewing out junk from an error. Predators have lengthy attacks and additional lines, but it could be the same for someone with a single-line attack and an inefficient basher. And while I am definitely in favor of 'honest gold-earning and fair play', it's extremely frustrating to be punished while playing fair and honestly earning gold just because afk checks have become difficult to see. A common argument is 'it's repeated many times', but this fails to show anything. My attack combo is every 2 seconds. Mobs are attacking me constantly. With mapview on and any decently fast pathing system, lines are ALWAYS scrolling by. On my afk check, I had to stop hunting and scroll up to check what the error was, only to find out it was a prompt telling me to send a tell to an admin, and that I had already missed three of them.

And finally, to restate what a lot of us have been saying, we don't have a problem with afk checks. We have a problem with hidden/unnoticeable afk checks, which is what we're talking about on here to change.

Jeremy Saunders · July 2015

As mentioned, we will move back to just watching a bit more instead prompting for a response.

Remember, afk bashing and fishing is not allowed. You can use triggers, but you need to be at your keyboard.

Jules · July 2015

Another point, that has sort of come up in passing before, is that I think we mostly agree that we don't need to be overly... I think a good word is puritanical, about this. I mean, I mash buttons every combo, but that is quite frankly because I am a n00b. Other IRE games, technically speaking DO want to hold people to a standard that would make most people's bashers illegal, or at best, iffy, but I don't think that is the case here. In short, I think our agreed upon goal is simply that the person still be paying attention to the game - perhaps chatting with other players, for example.

Yurii · July 2015

The way I see it, I personally feel the admins are doing it right. Change colours throughout different prompts of it, so that each time it says "send blah a tell", it's a different colour. I don't personally feel it needs to be more than 3 or 4 lines of code. That's something you should be able to see. I see it, because every time I do a bashing combo, I look at the screen and hit a button. It's not that hard.

People are only getting mad, because they're getting caught auto-bashing, which they've been doing for so many years. Admin: 1 Players: 0

Jules · July 2015

In my case, what I am trying to get across, is that, while it is probably not entirely logical, missing even the first check is a very rattling experience, even though I now know (and admin has reassured us) that you get multiple chances. I DID miss my first ever "check" in a great hunt, despite being warned that they were checking, and despite trying to be vigilant, and despite not having any "basher" at all. And it scared me, even though I saw and responded to the second ping from admin. Also, as someone noted above, it's probably partly profession dependent. I do feel I'd be less likely to miss a check when I am in Outrider, for example, because my bashing attacks are less spammy than Templar's (and there are profs spammier than Templar, which I can only imagine).

Khizan · July 2015

I have a bashing combo of 2.9 seconds and I can easily generate enough spam to clear my screen in two combos.

Dicene · July 2015

@Yurii If you want to manual around an entire area and hit a button for every attack, good for you. I don't. I can code. I want my basher to do all of that for me and be as efficient as I can possibly make it(this is all acceptable according to Jeremy). Hell, the ability to code to improve my gaming experience is probably what has kept me with Imperian for all these years.

The previous AFK checks was large, brightly colored, very attention-grabbing, and were consistently formatted in the same manner as some normal channel I have, so they got capped to my chat window. I've never gotten in trouble for afk-bashing before, apart from one instance where I literally fell asleep while bashing. I'm very careful not to repeat that mistake.

I was bashing with another window open. My chat and most of the scrollback were entirely visible. I looked back at the scrollback regularly, monitored my hp, and looked at every line that got capped to my chat, the moment it got capped. Despite all this, I missed something like 12 of those 3-line dark red messages over a ~3-4 minute period of time. They were formatted exactly the same as my deathsights and mob kills, they were similar in length and size, and they all scrolled off my screen within a second of showing up. I wasn't afk, I was literally looking at the screen, and I still managed to miss it. I was punished for it, despite the admin acknowledging my concerns, because "it showed up several times" somehow negates the fact that it's gone within a second(especially since most(if not all) of the checks occurred while I was pathing from room to room looking for the next mob to bash). I'm glad your experience with it has been different, but it's simply unfair to the rest of us who are also bashing legitimately, but automate it for efficiency, or just want to be able to look away sometimes while spamming that bashing macro for hours at a time.

Bashing sucks. There's a strong possibility that there is no real way to make it not suck. Since it's one of the few ways to build currency or improve your character in Imperian without spending money, it's a necessary evil for someone that can't afford to spend anything more than elite on the game at the moment. That why I do it. I automate it to make it not so insufferable. I shouldn't be punished for that.

More generally:

I've heard an admin say something I disagree with regarding their goals with afk checks. Not only do they want them untriggerable so you can't respond to them, but they want them untriggerable so you can't even capture them to chat, etc, as they don't want you to have push notifications or emails or sounds to alarm you to it. That second goal is just too much to me. If you're going to punish someone for not responding to an AFK check which is going to scroll by very quickly while bashing, the check needs to stand out very obviously. The single best way to do that is to format it in the same way as you format other important things like tells. Even if that opens you up to the possibility of people getting some sort of alert when they get AFK checked, they'd be getting the same alert they get on tells, and they'd still have to be able to respond quick enough to pass the check. That's not really that bad of a scenario IMO, and I think it's about the best way to go about this that doesn't put a silly sort of burden on the player like being able to catch a small message in a quick scrolling wall of spam.

Also, just came up with another possible afk check that would be significantly easier to catch. I suggested something prompted based to Lachesis and was told that it'd be too easy to trigger. Something much harder to trigger would be a pre-prompt message, on a different line. That way, the message would always be present, it would negate any issues with it scrolling off screen quickly, and the color wouldn't even need to be anything too extravagant. I'll mock up an image of what it could look like for example.

Khizan · July 2015

When I can trigger an AFK check reliably I can have it play the "Oh crap check in now!" sound effect and leave it bashing while I play xbox across the room or read a book in bed or whatnot, because all I have to do is make it to the computer screen in a reasonable amount of time.

This is why I say that should be big and bright and impossible not to notice. If I am not paying enough attention to notice a giant box like

74345S3whsdh34535nbdrh#$^Eeth456#%$^34dfbdege4@#SDFVJEDH
G$T 748
WRY IO;
$BY ~S`
@#^ Tell LACHESIS "I'm not AFK!" ^#%
G$T 748
WRY IO;
$BY ~S`
REG@$&4587rethe476$#%*&ERTh3467$%*RTH#W$dtu$#%&Ebsr56#23

then, well, you got me. I should have been paying more attention. Mea culpa.

When I miss three cyan lines of text in the relentlessly scrolling bashing spam I'm not willing to admit that's necessarily my fault.

Yurii · July 2015

So ... This is exactly what they're trying to stop though. @Dicene: 'Non-AFK standards' are that you are *looking* at the MUD when it is auto-anything. You shouldn't be looking elsewhere, you shouldn't be alt-tabbed. You should be *paying attention*. I prefer to sit there and press buttons, not because I can't code a basher, but because I'm actually doing something, and participating in the game, rather than sitting there, letting my system do everything and just reading random memes on the internet.

@Khizan: Being able to trigger it, again, is something they don't want. If you're at your computer, autobashing, and you're falling asleep, or picking stuff off the floor(Do people clean their rooms while MUDding?), and it beeps, oh look, you're safe. But the point of it, is that you would have to be looking at it.

Soooo, yeah. All the whining is about people who would get caught if they actually fixed the ways they do checks.

Dicene · July 2015

This example looks a little janky, but I still think this is a better solution and it's still a rather difficult thing to trigger(note that nothing you do will truly be impossible to trigger):

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