I've been trying to multibox Expert Dungeons in Rift, but my non-tank characters keep getting hit with AOE attacks (the circles that appear at your characters that force them to move).
Has anyone come up with a good solution to keep your characters moving out of the AOE attack?
So far, I've just tried to broadcast keystrokes to all clients, but you can image how that ends up... characters running in random directions ;)
Though I haven't done a lot of Expert Dungeons, there's a lot of ground target circles appearing in other content. I park 4 characters at one end and charge in with my tank, turning around so the boss has its back against the 4 other characters and I have a good view of all characters. I do broadcast movement keystrokes to the 4 characters when they need to move. The tank stays put. Since they were parked on top of each other and facing the same direction, they move together.
Instead of moving left or right, I've started to prefer to move them forward instead. Then I back away with my tank (and the boss) to keep the distance. It feels more controlled, and it seems the 4 characters stays together and can avoid obstacles better.
The problem is when just one or two characters have to move, because they got a debuff or got pulled/pushed away somewhere. In those cases I simply switch to that character and move him manually. Since it doesn't matter which character I happen to be playing as "main", I can keep the fight going while I do so.
Sometimes when one character gets pulled/pushed I can still move the 4 characters as a whole, just moving everyone forward. Some characters will end up past the boss and some are still behind. Then I hit the "Follow" button which causes all 4 characters to turn around and face the tank, and thereby also face the boss properly. I can then either let them be spread out like this or move the tank away to gather up all 4 characters on side again. That's another reason I like to move my 4 characters forward - moving them forward will keep them under control instead of just spreading out more and more.
What I did in WoW and Rift for that was basically look at the area in which you're going to fight the boss. Mentally map out a grid over the area and then line everyone up together in one corner. Then, when the AoEs start hitting your alts, just move everyone up one square each time until you hit the edge, then right one square, then start backing up one square each event. Rinse & repeat. Some fights (like the Elemental Colossus in Gundrak/WoW) are such that unless you outgear things, you need to constantly move. For those, I do the same thing but just make sure everyone is lined up together (may require several "runs" back and forth to get everyone lined up properly) and then run forward to engage the boss on one side, then just start backing up pulling the boss along with you. Then when you're all the way at the back, run forward to the front again and start backing up with the boss. It depends a little on distances, what kind of AoE you're talking about and other variables but the basic principle holds for most things.
Smedbox also has some good points about your movement key setups and other configuration options that can dramatically affect the way you do these fights.
Bottom line, though, is that unless you're willing to pay consulting fees for someone to train you, it's just gonna take high-level suggestions to get you started and then lots of trial and error. ;)