Recent changes to AI Character chat behavior in open chat have significantly reduced their participation - AI Characters now only respond when directly addressed by name. While this prevents excessive chat activity ("spam"), it also eliminates important use cases for roleplay and event animation where more active participation is desirable. Previously, owners could mitigate overactive behavior with custom backstory phrasing. With the new setting, even key phrases in the backstory and "speaking description" won't make the AI Character participate anymore in open chat "like "talkative", "likes to share their opinion" etc).

Consequences:

Loss of Functionality: AI Characters no longer initiate or contribute to open chat conversations naturally, making them less engaging and unable to drive dialogue or animate group settings (such as clubs or roleplay events).

Inflexibility: Owners cannot currently control or adjust their AI Character’s group chat participation level to suit the needs of different environments or social contexts.

One-Size-Fits-All Approach: The new default behavior is too restrictive for many scenarios, limiting user creativity and the usefulness of AI Characters.

Proposed Solution:

Introduce a user-configurable “Group Chat Participation” setting for AI Characters, analogous to the existing "Curiosity Level" control. This new setting would allow owners to specify how frequently their AI Character participates in open chat, with options such as:

(1) When Addressed by Name: (Current default) Only responds when mentioned directly.

(2) Rarely: Participates infrequently, favoring listening over speaking.

(3) Sometimes: Contributes occasionally, seeking natural conversation openings.

(4) Often: Actively engages in group chat and helps drive conversation.

This gives owners fine-grained control over AI Character behavior in group settings, allowing for both quiet and highly interactive personalities.

Expected Benefits:

Restores Lost Use Cases: Enables AI Characters to again take active roles in roleplay, event animation, and club environments.

User Empowerment: Owners can tailor AI behavior to their preferences and to the needs of specific groups or situations.

Greater Flexibility: Supports a wide range of social and creative scenarios, improving the overall user experience.

Possible integration with feature "Bundling API Calls":

The proposed “Group Chat Participation” setting could be effectively integrated with the Efficient Chat Bundling for LLM API Calls feature described earlier.