Importance of Reading Chat: Addition to Tutorials

I would like to start by saying that if you don't read this post in its entirety, you may get upset so please read everything before getting angry in the replies.

Recently our friends over on Xbox have joined the FFXIV party with us, which is a great thing! Tons of new people is always a good thing for the game, but I have noticed a couple issues which could be resolved by modifying the new player experience slightly.

My suggestion would be to add a required tutorial window pop up with a forced 30 second timer where people can't simply just close it regarding the importance of reading chat. I totally understand that not all of our console friends have access to a keyboard. I am not expecting them to respond, but simply be able to read chat in duties so they can have a better experience by knowing what is going on, and everyone else with them can have an enjoyable experience as well.

Over the last few days when using the duty finder to level my last tank, I have had some...interesting experiences to say the least.

I tried to be helpful and advise everyone how certain mechanics work etc... only to get ignored. Best example is my last Alliance Raid Daily Roulette of Labyrinth of the Ancients.

We wiped a total of six times in there because we would stand around for five minutes asking everyone to split up to their assigned alliance, and players were just not reading the chat. Over half of the players were in the wrong places and then after the first wipe a few of them continuously ran onto the pad instantly over and over forcing everyone onto pad A once it teleported the rest into the instanced area.

We had been asking everyone to please stop running onto the pads instantly and let everyone regroup. This took five more wipes for them to stop.

Now I could continue talking about how the rest of the duty went, but that isn't the point of this post. I am not here to shame anyone for being new to the game, and not knowing how a mechanic in an alliance raid works as that would just be rude because we have all been new before.

My point is simply how important it is to keep an eye on chat during duties.
I have a unique perspective on this, as one of the first MMO's I ever played was FFXI, and at the time I was playing it on console. Having been primarily a console player back then, and being brand new to MMO's in general I wasn't used to actually NEEDING to read chat in order to successfully complete a piece of content.

I am thinking some of our friends jumping into the game for the first time on Xbox might be experiencing something similar, and instead of blaming people for being new to a full MMO experience I am suggesting that the possible added tutorial window I mentioned prior be added to the new player experience to hopefully mitigate frustrations both for our new friends, and for existing players.

The problem is the lack of chat bubbles, it is a lot easier to miss the chat when it is in the corner of the screen than when a message pops up above a players head.
You have to actively read the chat and look if anyone said something instead of just seeing it naturally, in addition you can't make out the players location without chat bubbles.
Lets say in your case there are 20 people standing around and someone said "come to me"... yeah and where the f are you even? i have to find the player by looking for his name instead of just walking to the text above his head.
Why SE is so reluctant to change that? who knows...

example: with chat bubbles you can easily see and read messages among the chaos of combat.
https://ironyca.files.wordpress.com/...410_025833.jpg

I disagree with chat bubbles as the game is busy enough as it is. I actually use audio cues for a lot of mechs because otherwise trying to pick out what's going on on screen really fast is more difficult, and it'd be even more difficult with random chat bubbles on screen.

Given that the chat box can be used for both good and evil, I would caution developers against explicitly encouraging players to read it. I think it's better to just let the chat box be there, and to let players do what they will with it.

That said, I do think that one thing that can contribute to OP's situation is that it's easy for what's typed in chat to not be visible on the screen. By default the chat box doesn't hold many lines of text, so it's easy for valuable information to quickly scroll away and be replaced by something useless. And if a player has switched to a different chat tab (like if they want to view the battle damage tab) either intentionally or accidentally, then they're not even going to see the chat that's occurring.

So my suggestion to address this issue would be to improve the chat interface so that players have better access to it straight out of the box, and to add protections against accidentally losing access to chat.