Chat Text Bubbles over Player Characters?

[BrachyXIV]

Good evening, this is my first attempt at using forums at all so I'll be as clear as possible to not cause trouble.


I've found myself under the feeling that there's something lacking in the game as I walk around the streets of Limsa Lominsa or Ul'dah. I see groups of people sitting or standing and came to realize that the only talking I see is stuck in the corner of my screen inside the chat box where messages can be easily missed or create confusion as to who is talking.

You see a message that got your interest and you spend 10 minutes looking around to see if you can spot the name of who is saying it.

Lost messages between party members in a voice call because nobody is looking at the chat box, instead we are looking at our characters.

I feel like this game would benefit a lot from having Chat Bubbles over our characters heads to have a conversation between characters instead of feeling like you are trapped in a chat box hoping people can read your name and message following it without getting confused.

Would this be possible?

I know people say "it would get cluttered" it's as simple as making it distance based and a TOGGLE and size modifier. It's so simple, if you don't like it, you can just turn it off, names clutter the screen already so that's not an excuse to go against something that could improve immersion so much.

People keep saying I could just use a mod for it but I don't want to risk dealing with that in case developers don't approve it since I love streaming the game.

[Coletergeist]

Right click on the name in the chat box and you can 'target' the player if they are close enough.
Mouths move as you speak in game so it's not like they're *just* standing there.
Chat bubbles above the characters would litter the screen with unnecessary clutter. I know, you already said something about that, but still bringing it up.
As for the mod thing, they really don't care unless it gives you an advantage/cheat I believe. At least they don't really enforce action against folks that use mods like that from what I'm aware of.
Tbh also, I'd rather they use time and resources to fix or add other things than this.

Also, if folks be talking like, that much and constantly around you... wouldn't the chat bubbles like really get in the way/possibly overlap? You'd still not be able to read everything that fast if you can't read the chat box that fast, because the chat bubbles would have to disappear for whatever they say next.

This just doesn't seem like it'd be that much of a fix as you think it would, but perhaps I could be wrong.

[BrachyXIV]

Right click on the name in the chat box and you can 'target' the player if they are close enough.
Mouths move as you speak in game so it's not like they're *just* standing there.
Chat bubbles above the characters would litter the screen with unnecessary clutter. I know, you already said something about that, but still bringing it up.
As for the mod thing, they really don't care unless it gives you an advantage/cheat I believe. At least they don't really enforce action against folks that use mods like that from what I'm aware of.
Tbh also, I'd rather they use time and resources to fix or add other things than this.

Also, if folks be talking like, that much and constantly around you... wouldn't the chat bubbles like really get in the way/possibly overlap? You'd still not be able to read everything that fast if you can't read the chat box that fast, because the chat bubbles would have to disappear for whatever they say next.

This just doesn't seem like it'd be that much of a fix as you think it would, but perhaps I could be wrong.

What about names and titles? aren't they cluttering the screen at all times? especially at highly populated areas?
Wouldn't it be nice to walk by someone and see them say "Good Morning" and reply with a "Good morning to you too" as you make your way even starting a conversation instead of realizing they said anything at all 5 minutes later because their greeting was trapped in the corner of the screen alongside 20 more messages from the game and spam bots?

[Rongway]

What about names and titles? aren't they cluttering the screen at all times? especially at highly populated areas?

There is a finite limit to the number of entities they can draw on the screen at once, and the total number of all entities, optional or otherwise, needs to be less than this number. This is an actual reason they have cited in the past for not adding features like special indicators on hotbar button corners or item icons.

But they haven't even gotten draw priorities right for mobs and party members yet. I'd hope they spend time fixing that before adding even more drawables over the limit that might be wrongly prioritized over more important drawables.

[BrachyXIV]

There is a finite limit to the number of entities they can draw on the screen at once, and the total number of all entities, optional or otherwise, needs to be less than this number. This is an actual reason they have cited in the past for not adding features like special indicators on hotbar button corners or item icons.

But they haven't even gotten draw priorities right for mobs and party members yet. I'd hope they spend time fixing that before adding even more drawables over the limit that might be wrongly prioritized over more important drawables.

I want to see where they say this. Where is this limited number you speak of and how is it any different from an NPC speech bubble regarding what can be "drawn" if it is already in the game but for NPCs

[Rongway]

I want to see where they say this. Where is this limited number you speak of and how is it any different from an NPC speech bubble regarding what can be "drawn" if it is already in the game but for NPCs

I'm still looking for the specific instance I mentioned where they talked about icons and a finite limit to the number of things that the UI can handle at once, but here's a fairly recent answer from PLL LX regarding a question with similar technical demands:

Q: I’d like a feature that displays job icons on the side of characters’ nameplates. I think it’d be really helpful in large groups of players, like FATEs and alliance raids!

A: I definitely understand what you mean! While I’d like to do something about it, at the moment we can only use two icons on nameplates.

One is reserved for indicating your online status, and the other is used for signs (player markers). In order to make this work, we would have to override one of these icons, or make it possible to display another one.

Adding another icon, however, would increase graphical-related resource strain and would be quite difficult. (Job icons are displayed in the Feast by overriding the online status, which was given an exception since it was limited to certain content.)

Yoshida: When we were future-proofing the UI on our in-house game engine during A Realm Reborn, nameplates were the number one cause of strain on resources. Nameplates are a 2D interface element displayed based on a character’s 3D coordinates, which is more resource-intensive than it may seem. If we were to make this happen, I think we would consider seeking another alternative other than increasing the number of icons.

[HyoMinPark]

What about names and titles? aren't they cluttering the screen at all times? especially at highly populated areas?
Wouldn't it be nice to walk by someone and see them say "Good Morning" and reply with a "Good morning to you too" as you make your way even starting a conversation instead of realizing they said anything at all 5 minutes later because their greeting was trapped in the corner of the screen alongside 20 more messages from the game and spam bots?

You can toggle off names and titles. I have mine set to only display names on my friends list and party members. Easy way to clean up the clutter.

[BrachyXIV]

You can toggle off names and titles. I have mine set to only display names on my friends list and party members. Easy way to clean up the clutter.

EXACTLY
You could easily do the same thing with Chat Bubbles. You just said the exact same thing we say about Chat Bubbles!!

[Raikai]

Right click on the name in the chat box and you can 'target' the player if they are close enough.
Mouths move as you speak in game so it's not like they're *just* standing there.
Chat bubbles above the characters would litter the screen with unnecessary clutter. I know, you already said something about that, but still bringing it up.
As for the mod thing, they really don't care unless it gives you an advantage/cheat I believe. At least they don't really enforce action against folks that use mods like that from what I'm aware of.
Tbh also, I'd rather they use time and resources to fix or add other things than this.

Also, if folks be talking like, that much and constantly around you... wouldn't the chat bubbles like really get in the way/possibly overlap? You'd still not be able to read everything that fast if you can't read the chat box that fast, because the chat bubbles would have to disappear for whatever they say next.

This just doesn't seem like it'd be that much of a fix as you think it would, but perhaps I could be wrong.

There's one thing about the right click on the name... The chat reach is completely out of sync with the right click reach. Sometimes I can even see the person but can't do the method you suggested because it's still considered too far away, even if the emote/say/etc reach me.

I'm all for chat bubbles, much like the other interface options like names, etc, that I macro a keybind to show or hide depending on the situation I'm in. If it's optional, and you're feeling like it's cluttering your screen, just hide it.

Chat bubbles are a good thing especially for group content, because sometimes, you're too busy looking at telegraphs, etc, to pay attention to the chatbox. The bubble popping right where you're looking at would be pretty good to catch whatever people are saying/asking, etc.

It works for every other MMO out there, I doubt it wouldn't for XIV.