macros question

[grazerlor]

Im so tired of not getting tells in time to get on a team that is being advertised. Is there a macro that I can make that says something like "I'll join" in a tell to folks looking for people?

[biostem]

The problem is, if you want to send a private message/tell to a particular person, you'd have to click or otherwise copy-paste their name into the chat box.  I suppose you could do:

 

/macro LFT "lfg I'd love to join your team!  Please invite me!"

 

The above will create a button on a power bar labeled "LFT" which when clicked, simply sends a basic message to the LFG channel, advising you want to join.  You can just click it to post that message into said LFG chat as needed.  Thank you.

[Oklahoman]

13 hours ago, biostem said:

The problem is, if you want to send a private message/tell to a particular person, you'd have to click or otherwise copy-paste their name into the chat box.  I suppose you could do:

 

/macro LFT "lfg I'd love to join your team!  Please invite me!"

 

The above will create a button on a power bar labeled "LFT" which when clicked, simply sends a basic message to the LFG channel, advising you want to join.  You can just click it to post that message into said LFG chat as needed.  Thank you.

 

I don't know how other leaders feel about this, but I am not monitoring LFG for people to invite. And I also don't think we should encourage people to flood the LFG channel with messages like this, especially on busy servers like Excelsior. For one thing, when there are already several posts to LFG per minute, how would I know from this message that someone wants to join MY team/league rather than someone elses? A more generic "Level 50 Tank looking for anything" would be just as effective, I would think, and more useful to the channel.

 

If I advertise something to LFG I am looking for a request to come via tell, broadcast, or local unless I've specified otherwise (like with an MSR where I only invite from broadcast). In some cases, like with iTrials, if I happen to notice in LFG that you've asked for an iTrial, I might invite directly from there, or if they happen to mention me. But that's not where I am actively looking for people to invite.

 

To @grazerlor's point, in general, I don't think there is a macro that's going to help you in the way you want here. I think your best bet, unless the LFG ad says otherwise, is to click the name and Send Message. Some league leaders and I have commented elsewhere that we often get responses that say "sure" or "x" or even just a blank space. If you can manage something relatively polite that's always appreciated, but honestly I feel your pain and (with the exception of an MSR) I will go ahead and invite no matter what you manage to send.

 

Also, saying things like "keep me in mind if you have an opening" or "if you run again, I'd like in if you can remember" work wonders. Many times when my league zones into an iTrial someone declines, and as soon as I can I invite the next available person.

[biostem]

2 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

I don't know how other leaders feel about this, but I am not monitoring LFG for people to invite. And I also don't think we should encourage people to flood the LFG channel with messages like this, especially on busy servers like Excelsior. For one thing, when there are already several posts to LFG per minute, how would I know from this message that someone wants to join MY team/league rather than someone elses? A more generic "Level 50 Tank looking for anything" would be just as effective, I would think, and more useful to the channel.

That was my main concern - the issue is, there's no way to have a macro send a PM to the last person who sent a message in the lfg chat, directly.  I only suggested it as a possible option, but it's far from ideal...

[Oklahoman]

When you click on a player name, it would be great to have some "Quick Message" options, including "Invite me, please." Behind the scenes the game would just do a /t {PlayerName}, "Invite me, please."

 

I'd also like to see an option there to email them, like you might send a prize at the end of an event. You would click the player name, select Email, and behind the scenes a new message would be started to getglobalname({PlayerName}) that you could complete and send.

[Rudra]

Yeah, I can see that as being possible. It would work just like the invite options from clicking the name, just with preset text like any other chat macro.

[biostem]

43 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

When you click on a player name, it would be great to have some "Quick Message" options, including "Invite me, please." Behind the scenes the game would just do a /t {PlayerName}, "Invite me, please."

I wonder if a better option would be some sort of "request invite" option, where a team leader would simply get a popup like "biostem would like to join your team [Yes]/[No]".  Of course, this would also need an option to disable it, so people couldn't grief or abuse team leaders...

[Rudra]

Mmmm... uhm... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that would probably be a bad idea. Getting inundated in tells for people wanting to join is bad enough in my opinion. And now team forming moves from the leader to the would-be members with the leader simply ratifying? Also, all those windows, how would window stacking work for that? What about new requests burying previous ones? Like you want to invite a person but someone else's window request pops up over it as you go to click and now you just accepted the wrong person, possibly as the last member of the team who you now would need to kick to accept the other player. Yes, the leader could still just invite that other person, but if they are sending accept me requests first?

 

Just my opinion, but I think this should remain as a message system rather than as a reverse invite system.

Edited September 26, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to change some periods to question marks.

[UltraAlt]

21 hours ago, grazerlor said:

Im so tired of not getting tells in time to get on a team that is being advertised. Is there a macro that I can make that says something like "I'll join" in a tell to folks looking for people?

 

I"m assuming you are indicating that clicking on the player's name, clicking on sent tell, typing "I'll Join", and hitting enter is taking too long.

 

How about this. Type "I'll join", copy it (aka control c). Next time something that comes up you want to join :: click on the player's name, clicking on sent tell, and paste (aka control v) and hit enter.

 

It won't work as well, but you can always .... /macro join "lfg I'll join!"

[Oklahoman]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

It won't work as well, but you can always .... /macro join "lfg I'll join!"

 

Please don't do this.

[Oklahoman]

2 hours ago, biostem said:

I wonder if a better option would be some sort of "request invite" option, where a team leader would simply get a popup like "biostem would like to join your team [Yes]/[No]".  Of course, this would also need an option to disable it, so people couldn't grief or abuse team leaders...

 

I do like the idea, but as @Rudra mentioned I think it's problematic. To not be annoying, it would have to detect if you team was already full, for instance. As a frequent leader it would be a feature I would not have on. But I do like the path you are on. Anything to make forming teams and leagues easier is A-OK with me.

[biostem]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

Mmmm... uhm... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that would probably be a bad idea. Getting inundated in tells for people wanting to join is bad enough in my opinion. And now team forming moves from the leader to the would-be members with the leader simply ratifying? Also, all those windows, how would window stacking work for that? What about new requests burying previous ones? Like you want to invite a person but someone else's window request pops up over it as you go to click and now you just accepted the wrong person, possibly as the last member of the team who you now would need to kick to accept the other player. Yes, the leader could still just invite that other person, but if they are sending accept me requests first?

 

Just my opinion, but I think this should remain as a message system rather than as a reverse invite system.

Yes, mistells are a thing- it's just part of a direct-message system from a chat window which can scroll by quickly.  As I mentioned, you'd also need to include an option to disable such "invite yourself" features...

[UltraAlt]

7 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

Please don't do this.

 

People post all the time that they want to join teams in /lfg.

 

Not just "I'll join", but post that they looking for a team or someone to carry them.

There is nothing wrong with saying "I'll join" in lfg.

 

I send tells myself to join teams.

I'd rather post in lfg that I'm recruiting and/or how many I have on the team.

 

There is nothing wrong with posting "I'll join" on the /lfg channel.

[Rudra]

I don't really have a leg in this race. I don't form or lead teams except with specific friends. So if those that do are fine with that process, then go for it.

[Oklahoman]

5 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

There is nothing wrong with posting "I'll join" on the /lfg channel.

 

No, not technically. I'll give you that. I gave a couple reasons earlier why I really don't recommend doing it this way, though. The other thing that could come of that, too, if people start doing this, is increased traffic through LFG that just makes it harder to actually form teams.

 

I just finished playing a 2 hour stretch, and during that time there was an average of 3.25 posts to LFG per minute (assuming I did the math right). It was a good evening as far as I can tell - no conversations in LFG, so the communication there was pretty efficient and lite. But imagine posting "I'll join" to LFG and now 3.25 people are wondering if you're talking to them. So you accept an invite, but it's not who you wanted to join, and the other two gave up when they saw you were considering another offer figuring you didn't mean them. Now imagine this practice is pretty routine and 3.25 people per minute are posting "I'll join" alongside the 3.25 people per minute posting to form teams and leagues. Sounds pretty chaotic to me.

 

We get that a lot in Ouro during busy times. People pop in to Ouro and say something vague like "I'll join" or "me please". Then we have to sort that out with the player, or just ignore it, or talk between the league leaders and do some version of rock, paper, scissors to see who wants to grab them.

 

Anyway, I just think we shouldn't encourage people to be vague in this way, that's all.

[UltraAlt]

15 minutes ago, Oklahoman said:

But imagine posting "I'll join" to LFG and now 3.25 people are wondering if you're talking to them.

 

I'm assuming if there is only 3.25 posts per minute. It is most likely to be to the last poster.

 

I think you are working too hard to try to defend  your stance.

[Oklahoman]

8 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I'm assuming if there is only 3.25 posts per minute. It is most likely to be to the last poster.

 

I think you are working too hard to try to defend  your stance.

 

Perhaps I am. LFG in general is a big pet peeve of mine. And maybe you are working too hard to defend a technicality. As I said earlier:

 

22 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

I don't know how other leaders feel about this, but I am not monitoring LFG for people to invite.

 

OP is bemoaning the fact that:

On 9/25/2022 at 6:35 PM, grazerlor said:

Im so tired of not getting tells in time to get on a team that is being advertised.

 

I don't think vaguely stating - really on any channel (except maybe on broadcast and local, in certain circumstances) - "I'll join" is going to fix this for them. At least not in my case, and other leaders who lead as I do. But maybe it will, I don't know. Usually when the waitress asks what I would like and I say "food" that doesn't seem to get me what I want. It's technically a correct use, but probably not the most efficient way to get what I am wanting.

 

OP is asking:

On 9/25/2022 at 6:35 PM, grazerlor said:

Is there a macro that I can make that says something like "I'll join" in a tell to folks looking for people?

 

Unfortunately, there isn't such a thing, and I think OP recognizes that a direct tell to a leader is probably, generally, in most cases... more efficient in terms of getting on a team. Otherwise OP would have asked "How do I spam LFG most efficiently?"

 

But that's just how I see it.

 

It does occur to me at the very end of this long-winded post that you could adapt some of what I have written in Powershell to monitor LFG for you in the background while you play, and whenever a keyword appears (for instance, "BAF") the script could create the command line for you (/t {PlayerName}, "Hey, I'll join that {keyword} please!") and put it in your copy/paste buffer. In-game, whenever you saw a BAF advertised you could just hit enter, CTRL-V, enter and the organizer would get a direct tell from you. I'm sure there are much better programmers around who could do it better than I could, but that would be one way I could think of that might work.

[Astralock]

It's an issue of server culture.  On the Excelsior shard, the LFG channel is far too busy to for leaders to look for "I'll join" comments.  Sometimes there are literally three or four advertisements in the LFG channel in a minute, so "I'll join" is pointless as you could be replying to any one of them.  On the other shards, the LFG channel is not nearly as busy, so you'll frequently see people replying in LFG "I'll join," to whatever is being advertised.

[Confusion]

On 9/26/2022 at 3:42 PM, Oklahoman said:

 

I don't know how other leaders feel about this, but I am not monitoring LFG for people to invite. And I also don't think we should encourage people to flood the LFG channel with messages like this, especially on busy servers like Excelsior. For one thing, when there are already several posts to LFG per minute, how would I know from this message that someone wants to join MY team/league rather than someone elses? A more generic "Level 50 Tank looking for anything" would be just as effective, I would think, and more useful to the channel.

 

If I advertise something to LFG I am looking for a request to come via tell, broadcast, or local unless I've specified otherwise (like with an MSR where I only invite from broadcast). In some cases, like with iTrials, if I happen to notice in LFG that you've asked for an iTrial, I might invite directly from there, or if they happen to mention me. But that's not where I am actively looking for people to invite.

 

To @grazerlor's point, in general, I don't think there is a macro that's going to help you in the way you want here. I think your best bet, unless the LFG ad says otherwise, is to click the name and Send Message. Some league leaders and I have commented elsewhere that we often get responses that say "sure" or "x" or even just a blank space. If you can manage something relatively polite that's always appreciated, but honestly I feel your pain and (with the exception of an MSR) I will go ahead and invite no matter what you manage to send.

 

Also, saying things like "keep me in mind if you have an opening" or "if you run again, I'd like in if you can remember" work wonders. Many times when my league zones into an iTrial someone declines, and as soon as I can I invite the next available person.

Yea I definitely 100% AGREE here... not practical whatsoever. Especially when leading large scale trials/raids... not gonna be looking at LFG to drag people in as its mostly been used to advertise trials/raids/events... thats the whole point of looking for broadcasts or tells if you're wanting to join. especially when us league leaders DO NOT look at LFG channel when we wanna invite... we rely on broadcasts and/or tells as it mitigates traffic on any other channels

Maybe its slightly different if leads form something small like DFB or even SBB... only requires 4 people in total so maybe leads can check the LFG channel but even if thats the case, really shouldnt be especially on excelsior server

and especially when theres 2  or 3 Itrials running at the same time in OUROS or wherever,.. definitely wont even bat an eye on LFG channel

[Idel]

The key take away here is that if you are on a high population server, posts in LFG are only for advising of what they need and if you want to join you can use broadcast in the zone or send a direct tell to the party/league organizer (best option). I know servers like Excel you can advise you want to join in LFG but you will probably not get an invite since there are constant posts in LFG for many things. Not really here to grill anyone but just wanted to provide out a good suggestion.

[UltraAlt]

12 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

erhaps I am. LFG in general is a big pet peeve of mine. And maybe you are working too hard to defend a technicality. As I said earlier:

 

How is it a technicality for someone to use the /lfg to communicate with someone that is recruiting for a team and/or to reference your message per minute rate on the channel?

 

13 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

OP is bemoaning the fact that:

 

Yeah. I understand that you do not think them being able to post quickly on the LFG verus probably trying to type out the person's name to send a tell to the that they would to join would be any more successful.

 

I think it will up their chances of getting on the team.

 

13 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Usually when the waitress asks what I would like and I say "food" that doesn't seem to get me what I want. It's technically a correct use, but probably not the most efficient way to get what I am wanting.

 

This is a garbage response.

"I'll join" after someone posts a message recruiting for something is in no way just just saying "Yes" or some such. It is clearly stating that they would like to join the team.

You can take it how you want. No one is going to have any control over that.

 

I personally invite people to the team when they say "I'll join".  But I'm just like that.

 

13 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Unfortunately, there isn't such a thing, and I think OP recognizes that a direct tell to a leader is probably, generally, in most cases... more efficient in terms of getting on a team. Otherwise OP would have asked "How do I spam LFG most efficiently?"

 

Here is and I provided it for them. It isn't a direct tell to the leader, but it is a macro.

Several of us also directed them that they could click on their name to get the option to send them a direct tell. They may not have known that.

 

You are really getting argumentative with me. I don't know why other than you may want to join my ignore list.

If that is the intent, just ask me to put you on my ignore list.

[Oklahoman]

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

How is it a technicality for someone to use the /lfg to communicate with someone that is recruiting for a team and/or to reference your message per minute rate on the channel?

 

The issue I have here is the vagueness - "I'll join". If the person is sending a message to LFG that says "I'll join THAT BAF" or "I'll join THAT ITF" that's at least somewhat useful. A simplified version of "I'll join the thing with the people and the stuff" is not. I understand that on smaller servers where there could literally be minutes between LFG posts you could do that and it wouldn't be a problem - perhaps even welcomed. I am speaking from the Excelsior side where that will simply add unnecessary and unhelpful traffic to a busy channel. Technically, sure, "I'll join" is a valid thing to post to LFG, but it is also probably one of the least efficient ways to get what you want in this case.

 

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I think it will up their chances of getting on the team.

 

Agree to disagree, then. As me and one other league leader have mentioned, we are not looking to LFG for responses to an ad, so YMMV.

 

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

It is clearly stating that they would like to join the team.

 

Simply sending "I'll join" to LFG is saying that you would like to join... something. It's not saying or indicating what. That may be obvious on smaller servers where there could literally be several minutes between posts to LFG, but not on all servers.

 

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Several of us also directed them that they could click on their name to get the option to send them a direct tell. They may not have known that.

 

And I have not corrected you or others in any way on this as a response. It is a far superior solution to simply posting "I'll join" to LFG in all cases except those where the post specifically says something like "NO TELLS" or "Post in BROADCAST ONLY" or some instruction like that. OP was asking for a macro to send a tell to someone who just posted an ad, and there isn't a way to do that as far as I and anyone else can produce.

 

10 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

You are really getting argumentative with me. I don't know why other than you may want to join my ignore list.

If that is the intent, just ask me to put you on my ignore list.

 

Do what you want, but to be clear - I am against encouraging people to create a macro that sends "I'll join" to LFG. That's it, and honestly it feels a little crazy that I have to explain why that is a bad idea to anybody. I don't think we're doing a service to the players or the community to promote that as a solution to anything.

 

I guess being added to your ignore list is supposed to be a threat, and I'm not really in the business of doing that myself here on the forums. What I will say is that if - emphasis on the word if - someone were to use such a macro as you propose in-game, get frustrated with still getting no response because leaders like myself aren't monitoring LFG for responses to our ads,  and they maybe decide to hit the macro button 10 times in a row out of frustration, I and probably several others would probably add that player to our gignore list and report them for spamming. 

[Oklahoman]

On 9/27/2022 at 8:53 AM, Oklahoman said:

It does occur to me at the very end of this long-winded post that you could adapt some of what I have written in Powershell to monitor LFG for you in the background while you play, and whenever a keyword appears (for instance, "BAF") the script could create the command line for you (/t {PlayerName}, "Hey, I'll join that {keyword} please!") and put it in your copy/paste buffer. In-game, whenever you saw a BAF advertised you could just hit enter, CTRL-V, enter and the organizer would get a direct tell from you. I'm sure there are much better programmers around who could do it better than I could, but that would be one way I could think of that might work.

 

Here's something you can try. I modified another script I wrote for this and it seems to work, but it also throws out some ugly errors that don't impact it's operation. You would leave this running in powershell while you play, and anytime any of they keywords you input on line 28 of the code show up in LFG it will put on your clipboard a response. In game, when you see one of those keywords pop up - say "DFB" - you would hit ENTER to start a message, Control+V to paste the message from the clipboard, and ENTER again to send it.

 

There are wrinkles to this - if someone posts an ad for a "Posi" and before you can respond someone else posts to LFG "I'll join that Posi" - you could end up responding to the second person, not the first. In other words, the code can't distinguish between "I'm forming a Posi" and "I want to join a Posi" and will create a response either way.

 

Use at your own risk.

 

UPDATE: Updated and removed attachment and placed it here instead:

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Oklahoman

[UltraAlt]

 

3 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Agree to disagree, then.

 

Yep.

We disagree.

 

No more comment needed on this.

 

3 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

I am against encouraging people to create a macro that sends "I'll join" to LFG. That's it, and honestly it feels a little crazy that I have to explain why that is a bad idea to anybody.

 

Yes. I think you are crazy to think that other people would think that "I'll join" in /lfg is some kind of sin.

 

I think a majority of players know what that means and respond to it  ...  most certainly most of the people that I've gamed with ... people point it out to me when I'm recruiting and don't catch it fast enough because I'm doing other recruiting stuff. I see other people that I'm teaming with catch it and recruit the people.

 

But do your own thing.

 

As I said from the get go. I send tells.

 

We disagree.

 

I won't be responding to you in regard to this.

I don't want to have to put you on ignore.

This must be a sore topic for you for some reason, so just let it go.

Edited September 28, 2022 by UltraAlt

[Oklahoman]

26 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

I don't want to have to put you on ignore.

 

There's that threat again. Are you under the impression that being ignored by you is going to somehow impact my life, at all?