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.