Why no Speech bubbles?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by D_C

I think the official response was “servers servers, please understand”. I ‘member this shite bein’ talked about way back when, wit color coded names for friends an’ FC mates. Well we got the friends in orange...! So who knows.



Right, so make it a toggle. Problem solved.

---

And last I checked, we still couldn't set fc nameplates separately

Maybe eventually...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I’ve been lurking on the forums long enough to see this topic spring up again every now and then and SE has already said that they have no intention of adding speech bubbles to the game.

Besides, considering how many people would rather have it off, especially in crowded places like Limsa, I don’t see the value of spending resources on it.

---

What do you all think exactly; that they're going to pull someone off the balance, new content, bug fix, server maintenance teams to do this? They have tons of extraneous developers working on trivial things, and whoever gets tasked with this likely would've been doing something equally trivial, or possibly nothing. They have developers who work on important stuff and developers who do menial stuff. One doesn't effect the other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raikai

Not just RP! It's useful to spot messages in the middle of the chaos of a dungeon run for example. Sometimes you can't afford to take your eyes off the middle of the screen. Having it pop up there as a bubble would be quite handy.

---

Also, this. I CONSTANTLY miss messages in chat when we're in the heat of a boss fight. My priorities are health bars, mechanics, CD's, cast bars, etc; all of which are in my immediate view. The chat box is rightfully out of the way. If a little text box with an "Over here!" or "Attack this" popped up in a relevant spot that would be far more noticable and make on the spot mechanic communication during a chaotic fight less annoying.

It's getting me sad, of how much hate people have, and flame VS something optional, which they don't have to ever use if added or see ... why so mean

Smol indie dev company.

Please, understand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testname

It's getting me sad, of how much hate people have, and flame VS something optional, which they don't have to ever use if added or see ... why so mean

---

Welcome to the FFXIV Forums, where it's like this all the time.
"Optional content/add-ons!? Blasphemy!
If I have to click 2 buttons to turn something off, I'ma riot!"

Punch and cookies on your left.

No thank you. Chat bubbles are tacky clutter, and given how long it took for us to get a toggle to disable 'Recommendations' popping up on login after that was implemented, I don't really trust SQX to actually put a setting in for something like this, either, at least not for months at a time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Canadane

Click the name of whoever in the chat log.
Select "Target" in the context menu.

---

This rarely works, very unreliable feature.

I'd like to see them added, though as an optional feature.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jybril

Blasphemy!

---

i mean it only natural to not want the horrible abomination called chat bubbles.

toggle or not the game would only be worse with it at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Musashidon

i mean it only natural to not want the horrible abomination called chat bubbles.

toggle or not the game would only be worse with it at all.

---

Actually, it's far more natural to be ok with it.

If it has a toggle the only impact it would have is to benefit the people who do want it; it doesn't affect anyone else. So, basically speaking up against an optional feature like this is ONLY done to spite the people who do want it.

This seems to be a REALLY petty community, though; so I can't say this is surprising.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Goji1639

So, basically speaking up against an optional feature like this is ONLY done to spite the people who do want it.

---

Arguing for an feature as optional doesnt by default make it worthwhile or worth the development time. If it gets added so be it, but I dont see the value in resources being used on it as opposed to elsewhere in the game. Nothing spiteful about it.

They have blown resources on useless crap before and are still trying to force us to use them (see: Diadem..)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rasikko

They have blown resources on useless crap before and are still trying to force us to use them (see: Diadem..)

---

Still doesn't mean it's a good idea nor means of encouragement for more.

Would certainly love it for RP purposes. They'd have to be careful about its implementation, however.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SDaemon

Arguing for an feature as optional doesnt by default make it worthwhile or worth the development time. If it gets added so be it, but I dont see the value in resources being used on it as opposed to elsewhere in the game. Nothing spiteful about it.

---

and who are You to decide about any resources

You are not game developer, and You have zero idea how it is

It's same with source code (people are telling that it's coz spaghetti etc) , is hat the hell!!! Did SE showed their code or something ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testname

and who are You to decide about any resources

You are not game developer, and You have zero idea how it is

It's same with source code (people are telling that it's coz spaghetti etc) , is hat the hell!!! Did SE showed their code or something ?

---

Excuse me? O.o

I'm no more in charge of how SE manages their resources than you are but just as you are I am here voicing my opinion on how I'd like to see them be used. That is the entire point of this discussion....

And I've studied game design and earned my bachelor's in the field so yes I do have experience on the matter, enough to say that implementing a chat bubble for players is more complicated than copy/pasting and adding a toggle.

Honestly, as far as changes go I'd rather see the menu system improved or better functionality added to linkshells and fellowships over something like chat bubbles being added. Could they be? Sure. Will I complain if they are? Not really, I'd just disable it. But since I'd rather see them use their resources differently, I'm voicing that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SDaemon

Excuse me? O.o

I'm no more in charge of how SE manages their resources than you are but just as you are I am here voicing my opinion on how I'd like to see them be used. That is the entire point of this discussion....

And I've studied game design and earned my bachelor's in the field so yes I do have experience on the matter, enough to say that implementing a chat bubble for players is more complicated than copy/pasting and adding a toggle.

Honestly, as far as changes go I'd rather see the menu system improved or better functionality added to linkshells and fellowships over something like chat bubbles being added. Could they be? Sure. Will I complain if they are? Not really, I'd just disable it. But since I'd rather see them use their resources differently, I'm voicing that.

---

Lol? I am not talking about any resources, because I don't care. You started that, maybe You have came to wrong topic.

The topic stays about suggesting, to add chat bubbles, and You are coming in here talking about something irrelevant, which You have zero idea "Resources"

( how they work, how big the team is, what are their time schedules, what's are priorities right now, on what they work actually work I could talk this all day, - pointing out things that You don't know, and if You don't know, how You can decide where, who, and what can do )

I highly suggest that instead of "bashing-voicing" every topic that You do not like.

Please go and make new topic about things, You would like to see in game, instead of going around with big mouth "NO"

No thanks, dev time could be much more well spent on other things. Also this would add to server load which no one needs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testname

Lol? I am not talking about any resources, because I don't care. You started that, maybe You have came to wrong topic.

The topic stays about suggesting, to add chat bubbles, and You are coming in here talking about something irrelevant, which You have zero idea "Resources"

( how they work, how big the team is, what are their time schedules, what's are priorities right now, on what they work actually work I could talk this all day, - pointing out things that You don't know, and if You don't know, how You can decide where, who, and what can do )

I highly suggest that instead of "bashing-voicing" every topic that You do not like.

Please go and make new topic about things, You would like to see in game, instead of going around with big mouth "NO"

---

You seem rather confused on how game development works if you don't believe resources are involved in implementing anything related to the game and that game developers have to justify spending those resources, which are finite, creating something and therefore cannot simply add every idea presented to them.
As such yes, I am coming into this thread about implementing chat bubbles to voice my opinion on whether chat bubbles should be implemented or not.

Also this is a discussion thread not an echo-chamber. Posts are not limited to simply supporting the OP's idea.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by testname

and who are You to decide about any resources

You are not game developer, and You have zero idea how it is

It's same with source code (people are telling that it's coz spaghetti etc) , is hat the hell!!! Did SE showed their code or something ?

---

Actually it's pretty straight forward to figure out how the team are allocating work internally,. Browsing over the credits and comparing it to how things have changed over the years is highly insightful. For example, I did a pretty detailed break down on why I felt that SE's job design team being overwhelmed with work was behind the issues we've seen with expansions in more recent years. A bit of experience and research goes a long way

Back on topic...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Pokelong

I think this game lacks of speech bubbles. They would improve the conversations going on in the cities. When I see someone writing in chat, I have no clue where that guy/girl is standing.
Further speech bubbles would improve roleplaying and hanging around and socializing in the big cities.

This feature is for example already in gw2 and it makes socializing at random places really fun.

---

I agree, personally this is a feature I'd love to see implemented. It was a staple of classic 2D MMOs and online games such as Ultima Online and Graal and whilst I've never played GW2 extensively, it was a great addition to WoW. I never expected to like it but it was actually a really neat feature that felt like it added a bunch of extra life to hubs and gathering spots even if I didn't have any interest in what was being said.

However

I've always been under the impression that FFXIV's 'in world' text rendering was highly inefficient and surprisingly resource hungry, something that can quite clearly be demonstrated by toggling name plates in busy fates. Thus I think that whilst it'd be pretty straight forward to implement speech bubbles, I don't think it's quite that simple.

If I had to guess why we've not got them already... My first guess would be that it's simply a performance precaution for people on more basic hardware, adding it in could have the potential to nose dive people's performance even further beyond what we already see in busy areas whilst also potentially being open to abuse. My second guess is that it may even still be a hardcoded hangup from the almost comical UI limitations the old PS3's drastic lack of ram used to place upon this game. It's not been that long since SE were literally having to remove portions of the UI to add in party TP bars.

I am against this idea because i am always grumpy snowflake afraid of interactions with other people hur dur.

Btw always funny to see people creating a nonexistent arguments.
Bubbles affecting performance in a game with THIS high level of optimisation and today with how fast computers are, is this a trolling or what?
I
Bubbles were present in majority of mmorpg games, even the oldest had them, it takes almost no resources to render it, it is shown on clientside so it does not load any additional data to server and back. For real this is the stupidiest argument i ever heard xD
Going by this logic we should all play games on terminal CLI because graphics are unnecessary waste of resources!

A toggle would be fine I guess, but I would personally never use it. I like always having all information readily and immediately available in the corner instead of having to quickly look between speech bubbles strewn all over my screen. Then you gotta keep in mind how long the speech bubbles will be viewable, or what happens if someone speaks and they're not in your current field of view, and so on. Just...way too many ways of you missing something someone stated.

If there are people who can handle that mess, more power to em but personally I'm happy with just a chatbox.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nedkel

Btw always funny to see people creating a nonexistent arguments.
Bubbles affecting performance in a game with THIS high level of optimisation and today with how fast computers are, is this a trolling or what?

---

Again I really can't stress this enough. It's really easy to test this yourself if you can find a jam packed hunt. Just get in the thick of it and toggle names on and off. It will impact your FPS quite substantially if you're hitting the max character limit. Consider testing this yourself rather than spouting nonsense please =(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nedkel

Bubbles were present in majority of mmorpg games, even the oldest had them, it takes almost no resources to render it, it is shown on clientside so it does not load any additional data to server and back. For real this is the stupidiest argument i ever heard xD

---

Whilst the triangles from a bunch of letters might be a trivial amount by themselves, it can turn into a gargantuan amount of shading once you have thousands of triangles all with their own transparency mingling in-between a field of spell effects and player characters. Speech bubbles could easily dwarf that budget if abused. As for additional data to the server. What are you even talking about? What on earth does a bunch of rendering overhead have to do with the game servers? At least understand what you are spewing please.

Whilst yes, modern PCs are indeed tremendously powerful, you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think FFXIV is highly optimised. It most certainly isn't. MMOs in general just don't lend themselves to that.

Look at it this way. This is a thing that's already in the engine and has been forever. Speech bubbles have also been a staple of the FF series since the year dot. SE have also openly taken considerable amounts of inspiration from WoW, a game which makes great use of speech bubbles. Yet FFXIV doesn't let players use them. It's just too easy a feature to skip over without there being some technical barrier involved imho.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

Again I really can't stress this enough. It's really easy to test this yourself if you're on a busy server or can find a jam packed hunt. Just get in the thick of it and toggle names on and off. It will impact your FPS quite substantially if you're hitting the max character limit.

Whilst yes, modern PCs are indeed tremendously powerful (My last commercial game was on the PS2), you're absolutely kidding yourself if you think FFXIV is highly optimised. It most certainly isn't. MMOs in general just don't lend themselves to that.

---

I second this as I've played this game on a few systems. When my last PS4 died I went over my friend's house and played on her high end rig. It's why I was questioning buying a laptop instead of a PS4 pro. But I went back to Pro. But even her insane rig had a few nits in XIV. I was shocked. But yeah, you wouldn't think simple things punch your performance but they very well can and will. Hell the difference between a PS4 and a PS4 pro is insane thinking about turning on the 4k mode on Pro. As THAT'll tank your FPS from a smooth 60 to 30 on just that setting along.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SDaemon

Arguing for an feature as optional doesnt by default make it worthwhile or worth the development time. If it gets added so be it, but I dont see the value in resources being used on it as opposed to elsewhere in the game. Nothing spiteful about it.

---

It's either spite or ignorance. Stuff like this doesn't divert resources from anything important; the developers who work on stuff like this aren't the same people that are handling important things like character balance and content creation. This could be implemented easily and would likely just give one of their menial developers something slightly more interesting than his usual routine busy work to do. These menial developers are literally sitting around doing nothing, waiting for little projects like this to pop up.

Something that people might not realise, particularly in combination with the game's tendency to have features designed primarily with the Japanese playerbase in mind, is that there would be very little use for this on the Japanese servers. It's incredibly rare to have any conversations in public - let alone more than one going on at a time. Outside of maybe an FC get-together, it would be very rare to be in a situation where you can't keep track of who around you is talking.

If this is something that would take time and untangling-of-coding to implement, it's quite likely it wouldn't seem worth the effort.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Goji1639

I CONSTANTLY miss messages in chat when we're in the heat of a boss fight. My priorities are health bars, mechanics, CD's, cast bars, etc; all of which are in my immediate view. The chat box is rightfully out of the way. If a little text box with an "Over here!" or "Attack this" popped up in a relevant spot that would be far more noticable and make on the spot mechanic communication during a chaotic fight less annoying.

---

That's what waymarks and signs are for, though - a big <1> over the enemy's head conveys "attack this" well enough.

Also maybe look at which sound you have set for party chat notifications, and find the most attention-grabbing one.

(Side note on alert sounds: I discovered that they recently added an option to get alerts if someone directs an emote at you. It's fantastic for making sure you don't miss things.)

Chat bubbles is something I've been wanting ever since I started playing. I've noticed they tend to make players more sociable in other games, probably because it makes communication more interactive. Also, RPing in this game without chat bubbles is just awful.

Ehhhhh no.. This brings back cringe moments of IMVU and I don't want that here filled with chat conversations of "UwU" I left balmung cause of the RP don't fester it above our heads.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SoulEchelon

A toggle would be fine I guess, but I would personally never use it. I like always having all information readily and immediately available in the corner instead of having to quickly look between speech bubbles strewn all over my screen. Then you gotta keep in mind how long the speech bubbles will be viewable, or what happens if someone speaks and they're not in your current field of view, and so on. Just...way too many ways of you missing something someone stated.

If there are people who can handle that mess, more power to em but personally I'm happy with just a chatbox.

---

Chat bubbles are not a replacement for the chat log. They are an addition to it.

To all people saying that it would clutter their screens, they prefer the regular chat, etc, etc... I'm sorry, but this is the worst argument against this implementation that is clearly being suggested as an optional toggleable feature.

Saying no because you'd rather have them work on something else? Yeah, that's a valid argument, though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raikai

To all people saying that it would clutter their screens, they prefer the regular chat, etc, etc... I'm sorry, but this is the worst argument against this implementation that is clearly being suggested as an optional toggleable feature.

Saying no because you'd rather have them work on something else? Yeah, that's a valid argument, though.

---

But it's their right, just like it's your right to ask for it. So you're not winning any battles with statements like that. It's pointless anyway cause they out right said they aren't doing it anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by monk-dps

But it's their right, just like it's your right to ask for it. So you're not winning any battles with statements like that. It's pointless anyway cause they out right said they aren't doing it anyway.

---

Just saying it's a bad argument. Of course they can bring it up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iscah

Something that people might not realise, particularly in combination with the game's tendency to have features designed primarily with the Japanese playerbase in mind, is that there would be very little use for this on the Japanese servers. It's incredibly rare to have any conversations in public - let alone more than one going on at a time. Outside of maybe an FC get-together, it would be very rare to be in a situation where you can't keep track of who around you is talking.

If this is something that would take time and untangling-of-coding to implement, it's quite likely it wouldn't seem worth the effort.





That's what waymarks and signs are for, though - a big <1> over the enemy's head conveys "attack this" well enough.

Also maybe look at which sound you have set for party chat notifications, and find the most attention-grabbing one.

(Side note on alert sounds: I discovered that they recently added an option to get alerts if someone directs an emote at you. It's fantastic for making sure you don't miss things.)

---

You can't place a waymark over a stacking mechanic; or use one to communicate any kind of "stand here," or "spread out!" Also can have a little "Esuna please" pop up if someone eats some debuff to instant death mechanic. This would be way more versatile than the crappy waymark system.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raikai

To all people saying that it would clutter their screens, they prefer the regular chat, etc, etc... I'm sorry, but this is the worst argument against this implementation that is clearly being suggested as an optional toggleable feature.

Saying no because you'd rather have them work on something else? Yeah, that's a valid argument, though.

---

That's why I brought up SQX's previous negligence on not offering toggles for UI elements in the past. I'm all for it if it can be toggled; I just don't expect it to be until months later, and I really, REALLY do not want chat bubbles cluttering my screen for that long.

There are speech bubbles. For select NPCs. That you have to get really close to trigger its display. Sometimes it doesn't display at all even though you're running circles around them. It will display once then not display again until some time later.

Also, the bubbles are fancy: they have an outline and I believe a slight bevel or shadow effect to make them pop out. I wonder how much resources it would take to render a bunch of them on screen.

That poor, poor potato archer still waiting for their friend to show up at the Gridania airship landing. :((

This actually makes me think of the thread that complained about dying to MSQ battles. Yes, the NPC might say something to alert of an impending attack but someone could be so focused on fight that they miss the text entirely. Maybe...

1) flying text that is a simple exclamation mark that alerts the player that the NPC has said something (during a fight);

2) a sound plays when a NPC talks to you during a fight, similar to how emotes to your character now produce a sound.

Whoa, this was more constructive that I had planned.