Request: Please Consider Allowing Overhead Chat Bubbles During Combat

I'm very excited for the upcoming 7.3 patch and wanted to express my appreciation for the addition of overhead chat bubbles. It’s a feature I’ve personally been looking forward to, and I think it adds a lot of charm and expressiveness to interactions in the game.

During the recent Live Letter, it was mentioned that chat bubbles will be disabled by default (which makes sense), and that they also will not appear during combat, even if enabled. I was surprised by the combat limitation, as I don’t recall that being mentioned previously, and I’d like to offer some feedback on this decision.

I feel that disallowing chat bubbles during combat removes a bit of the personality and fun that players bring to group content. For example, seeing someone’s clever or heartfelt Raise macro pop up overhead in the middle of a tense moment can be both hilarious and heartwarming. It’s one of those small details that helps make FFXIV’s community so unique and memorable.

Since the chat bubble setting is client-side only (meaning it affects only the player’s own view), it seems like something that could reasonably remain active during combat if the user chooses to enable it. This would give players the flexibility to enjoy chat bubbles as part of their personal experience, even during dungeons, trials, or raids.

I understand the desire to keep the screen clear in intense situations, and it makes sense to have it off by default—but I’d love if players who want that added flavor during combat could opt into it.

Thank you so much for your continued work on the game and for considering this request!

Warm regards,
[a cute player with a love for expressive macros ].

Even NPCs get to yell at you during combat! Why can't my healer tell me to get-the-hell-inside-her-Asylum mid-pull? Let us have some fun, devs :P

The example used in favour of chat bubbles in combat being raise macros... is very funny

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KKaminski93

Since the chat bubble setting is client-side only (meaning it affects only the player’s own view), it seems like something that could reasonably remain active during combat if the user chooses to enable it. This would give players the flexibility to enjoy chat bubbles as part of their personal experience, even during dungeons, trials, or raids.

[a cute player with a love for expressive macros ].

---

I suspect the reason why it's not allowed is because it's been abused by other mmo's who have it to effectively do markers and callouts, which are easy automated by 3rd party tools. One simple example using M5S -> make a macro ( that may not need a plugin) to find and print out which debuff you have over your head with a special marker ( based on timer). Same marker (Shared timers) just stack together automatically. Suddenly it becomes mandatory in pf.