So In A Game Where In-Party Communication Is At Times Vital ...

[Vidu]

TBH I just did an alliance raid as ninja and I kind of wished I could whisper to ninja from other alliance to arrange the order we do our trick attack.

Even that would better be communicated to the whole party/alliance if you actually wanted to make the most of it (which you dont or cant do really in alliance raids, but thats beside the point): There are other jobs that have buffs, debuffs or burst windows that would best be timed the same way as your trick attack and/or would influence the timing of your trick attack in a setting where it would really matter.

[LauraAdalena]

Oh yeah, enable /tell in duties so the person you hate can get hate directly so you look like less of a butt in party check and more of a butt to the GMs.

[KDSilver]

What's wrong with talking with your party in the dedicated party channel even if you have to talk to one member?
Whispering won't change the fact that the log will eventually fill with new text or informations.
Besides, you can manually change what's on your log.

[Pintsized]

Why would you not use the party channel to communicate party strategies to your party, so everyone is on the same page regarding tactics?

You failed to reply to my specific point.

[Fynlar]

Never understood why this was a thing either, but from my understanding, it's more of a system limitation than something intentional by design.

For instance, I've had GMs send me messages in instances that I couldn't respond to (and then assume I was unavailable when they didn't get my attempted response). You'd think that if anything you'd still be able to respond to a GM even if you couldn't talk to other players.

Why would you not use the party channel to communicate party strategies to your party, so everyone is on the same page regarding tactics?

Because many a time, people get butthurt over being publicly "called out" over something they're doing wrong in a party, and it's a lot more likely that at least some of these people would respond more favorably from a private message.

And yeah, whispers in this game are /tell, which works just fine if both persons are in the instance, iirc. At least, I’ve had a friend do that before in the past, but that was a year ago, so maybe things were different.

For as long as I've been playing (2.0), tells have never worked, either for sender or recipient, if either one of them is in an instance. Not sure whatever it was you think you were doing "a year ago" where your tells supposedly worked, but it wasn't in an instance.

[Iscah]

You failed to reply to my specific point.

Then on your specific point - why should their communication be hidden from the rest of the party?

Why shouldn't your party see that you are discussing tactics just because it doesn't directly, personally involve them? It keeps them informed.

And as I said to specifically address your point about the party chat being cluttered, you can use another layer of public chat to have that conversation stand out in a different colour for visibility.

I see no need for the discussion to be private.

[Jojoya]

You failed to reply to my specific point.

Your point made no sense. Party chat exists for party communication. Tells don't facilitate party communication. Even DPS have a need to know what healers and tanks have planned.

Tells do facilitate targeted harassment that players are trying to hide from the rest of the party, though, and that is why they need to remain disabled.

[Canadane]

You know you can turn off battle messages right? It not like they have any useful information

The people who do this are the same people that complained Steps of Faith was too challenging.
There was an NPC giving the party instructions the entire fight.

[Kanitezz]

If they made it to where you could send tells in an instance like that, some people would use that to be disgustingly toxic to a single person. Worst part is, they would not be able to get called out or reported as easily by other members for being an asshole. And that would be a tough situation for some people. I prefer for people to have to talk on a neutral ground in an instance. Where everyone has to be able to see what they say. Especially when random matchmaking is in play.

[Fynlar]

If they made it to where you could send tells in an instance like that, some people would use that to be disgustingly toxic to a single person.

I like how people pretend this doesn't already happen.

I also like how they think preventing a particular practice is okay just because it has the potential to be misused. Should we not also ban trading too, because trades can be used to facilitate RMT?