Any way to disable this new smart un-away system?

[Souljacker]

The easier solution is to do what every other game does. This "auto-return" should have been a toggle option players could turn on or off if they so chose.

All of this arguing of semantics is little more than an attempt to bully players into playing the way that YOU think they should. It shouldn't matter if I am sitting at my keyboard on another window on my computer. I am effectively away from the GAME'S keyboard. It's no one's business why - whether I am what they would consider "busy" or if I am out on a beer run and physically away. /away is /away is /away and SE along with the handful of you saying "no no NO if you aren't actively playing the game you can't touch your computer AT ALL" is absolutely obnoxious. Sometimes I like to have the window minimized so that I can do some schoolwork, and then open it up to see if anything interesting is happening quickly. It doesn't mean I'm actively back in the game. It just means I'm checking in and didn't want to exit entirely because it's a freaking PROCESS to log out and then back in when my pc is more than adequate to run multiple applications. I can respond to any /tells that may have come in and decide if I'm ready to go back to playing.

Change the "Feature" to a toggle like other games have to auto-clear the away mode if that is what the player prefers, but don't render a feature entirely unusable just because a few folks apparently can't see the huge red chair in the middle of their screen indicating they are still in /away mode and some others want to dictate how something so innocuous as /away is used.

[Felis]

I'd suggest making it so moving your character or using an action or emote cancels AFK, but keyboard/mouse/gamepad inputs don't.

But then you would not be Away from Keyboard except you would use a bot

[Nicobo]

IMO the AFK function has been improved, it is good that there is a state for indicating the player really AFK,
previoulsy I feel weird when I saw AFKed players running around and doing many things. ^^;

TBH, at the beginning myself also not get use with the new style,
but then I feel comfortable that FC members or friends now will know I am really AFK but not intended to ignore them.

[Camate]

Greetings,

The following is a comment from Hiroshi Minagawa in regards to the automatic away feature.

We’ve been receiving questions from both Yoshi-P and the rest of the development team if something can be done with the automatic away feature as the determination for when players return is too sensitive. As such, the UI team is currently looking into a way to make adjustments to this.

The UI lead had originally planned for the loose requirements for removing the away status to be character movement or action input, which means that your away status would be preserved even if you move the camera around.

However, once we started discussing the implementation of this with the programmer, it was discovered that there would be issues with updating players’ online statuses when their characters are moved to instances via the Duty Finder and such, and it would not be possible to switch to the appropriate status. Due to this, we had to change the way the system functions.

We’re currently testing whether we can make an exception for mouse cursor movement for a future adjustment.

As there are multiple types of devices that control the cursor, we’ll need to test everything for implementation. Due to this, it will take us a bit of time to address.

[Enthy]

This is kind of off-topic but still has to do with the Auto Away feature;

Could we have an option to turn off the icon that displays next to other characters names when they are AFK?

I see the little red chair icon next to everyones name who is AFK as screen clutter. I don't really care to know what random people I walk by are AFK so right now I have Other PC names turned off (when I'd really actually like to see them). Why would I want to see Other Players names in the first place you may ask, well because this is an MMORPG and I'd like to be able to recognize people I may have encountered before but are not on my friends list. It would also be great if I could turn off the FC name next to everyones name but that is entirely off-topic for this thread.

[Meshico]

Please do not change this. Really, I think this is great. I didn't like that they removed the auto log feature either, but people won that battle...

[Rex]

This is kind of off-topic but still has to do with the Auto Away feature;

Could we have an option to turn off the icon that displays next to other characters names when they are AFK?

I see the little red chair icon next to everyones name who is AFK as screen clutter. I don't really care to know what random people I walk by are AFK so right now I have Other PC names turned off (when I'd really actually like to see them). Why would I want to see Other Players names in the first place you may ask, well because this is an MMORPG and I'd like to be able to recognize people I may have encountered before but are not on my friends list. It would also be great if I could turn off the FC name next to everyones name but that is entirely off-topic for this thread.

Then you'll be mad when someone doesn't respond because they got rid of the AFK icon next to their name and you can't tell if they're away or not.

[Enthy]

Then you'll be mad when someone doesn't respond because they got rid of the AFK icon next to their name and you can't tell if they're away or not.

If someone doesn't answer their phone do you think they are actually there just because there wasn't an answering machine telling you they are indeed not able to answer the phone? o_O

I would just like some options to make my screen less jam-packed full of UI/player icons/and info I don't care/need to see. :/

[Nakiamiie]

This is kind of off-topic but still has to do with the Auto Away feature;

Could we have an option to turn off the icon that displays next to other characters names when they are AFK?

I see the little red chair icon next to everyones name who is AFK as screen clutter. I don't really care to know what random people I walk by are AFK so right now I have Other PC names turned off (when I'd really actually like to see them). Why would I want to see Other Players names in the first place you may ask, well because this is an MMORPG and I'd like to be able to recognize people I may have encountered before but are not on my friends list. It would also be great if I could turn off the FC name next to everyones name but that is entirely off-topic for this thread.

Instead of the little red chair, the names could simply become very transluscent or simply fade away. That way, there would be no name clutter from AFK players.

[mbncd]

Greetings,

The following is a comment from Hiroshi Minagawa in regards to the automatic away feature.

It seems that they were originally aiming for what several of us have asked for in this thread, that the status only changed based on actual signals sent to the server rather than random interactions with the computer that didn't have anything to do with the game. Shame there was that DF bug but I really hope they'll be able to find a work around.

Currently, I use an /afk macro with a wait command (as a very helpful person previously recommended in this thread) whenever I want to minimise the window without racing for the button like a clumsy madwoman. It's not ideal but it does work as a temporary work around on this end until they can fix things on theirs.

I'm curious how gathering bots are running around chopping and mining with their AFK flags flying high though. Always figured they just mimicked mouse and keyboard inputs but if that was the case it'd dismiss the AFK status, wouldn't it? Odd. Perhaps something that they're doing could help the devs figure out the work around..? I dunno, just a thought.