why isnt there a way to easily chat wth party members?

[Loren]

I do tend to talk more when I join groups through the party finder though. Then when I join roulette.

[Mcshiggs]

lmao quality ffxiv players.

It'll be a nerf to the chat system pretty soon.

Only if the RMTs catch on to this "party chat" feature, I hear there's gil to be made in that chatbox!

[Felis]

The reason for this is because combat is so fast paced, there simply isn't time to spend chatting about random stuff - unlike FFXI where combat was so slow you could easily get away with chatting while fighting. It's the price that had to be paid for having more faster combat (which players actually requested in 1.0 by the way - players wanted flashy, fast-paced battles like were shown in the original opening movie).

You can still talk before a fight (to prevent a wipe) and after a fight (if the party wiped).
But nowdays many people just leave a party and join another party instead to talk about strategie to prevent wipes..

[KyroeFelix]

In case you also didn't know, you can click the chat bubble on your chat box and set it to default to the party. That way you can just hit enter and type whatever you want straight to your pt.

[Tiggy]

i dont think a lot of people know, other wise they would be using it

Every MMO has this function and most people will look around to figure it out or ask someone in game. Instead you seem to have just assumed it didn't exist and are trying to understand why. Quiet honestly I joined a party and instantly did /p. It just seemed pretty obvious. Lots of other games do it the same way.

[Demetirus]

I try to talk to folks on any dungeon run, Duty Finder or Party Finder, doesn't matter. I like to get to know the folks I'm working with, even if only a little. Typing /p is just a reflex at this point (though I could set it to default as others have pointed out). ^^

[Drako]

For those of us that understand very clearly how the game works, this kind of feature is pointless. However to people that are just entering the MMO world, may of at some point accidentally switched their chat to some other channel, and didn't even realize it. And the rest of the group might be like what the heck are you doing?!@?!! this is what you should be doing. or Why is this guy not even responding, or is he even listening? I know someone irl that is very new to these concepts, and this kind of a feature would help him, and those that are getting increasingly irritated with him, and maybe prevent a misunderstood vote kick. Its really a very minor fix that could be useful, but likely will cost more to do then it is worth.

[Tiggy]

Just thought about this, and someone correct me if I'm wrong. Was there not a tutorial window specifically talking about chat channels? There are dozens of these windows, and I'd be surprised if one didn't exist specifically for this topic. If that's the case then what more can we ask from the devs? It wouldn't be their fault players skim the tutorials or close them without reading.

[Drako]

The active help isn't exactly that great of a learning tool. A lot of the people it has a chance to help, only see that window once, and likely don't know how to get back to it to learn more, or re-train. It's really still based around the idea, that the player will at least know one thing. Go into the menus and find active help, then somehow know which categories you should go into to find that one item you were wanting to remember. If i could think of one improvement for active help it would likely be to make it a completely separate icon that is on the UI. Put it in a corner or something could be something universal like a question mark. Then when you get a new active help item, that icon could glow/blink, instead of it popping up in the center of your screen. Maybe that could make it less noticeable, but I don't believe it would. On top of that, maybe they could set Active help up in a way where if a user isn't using a specific feature, that they likely should of touched in a undetermined time frame it could remind them again about the feature. It would be easy for us to switch it off, but the users it would help, it would work great for them. But it would likely cost too much, cause you'd have to really figure out which items would be on that re-minder list, and then you got all kinds of coding involved to make that happen.

[MaiyaBeaumont]

actually they do... when YOU say the 1st words, that is.

PS3 players on the contrary often speak first, to say they won't be able to speak

Um, I'm a PS3 player with a keyboard and mouse hooked up to my console, and speak VERY often in parties, alliances, ect. Not sure what you're talking about lol.