[CC] Please consider a revamp of the quickchat system.

[Talke]

I know the likelihood of this getting any traction with the devs is close to nil, but I have two suggestions (split in two posts because char limit strikes again).

1. Review and retranslate a number of callouts.
2. Add a global 5-10s cooldown to quickchat, and set a number of confusing/easily misunderstood English quickchats to be usable only within a context where they make sense.

Firstly, a disclaimer: I don't want regular chat back. If anyone is hyperaware of how little self-control some players in this game have, it's me. Because of this I'm more than fine with having a system that's more or less equivalent to pings and orders in FPS games and the like.

However, in English, the current quickchat system is insufficient, not to mention bloated with terms that any regular English speaking player would struggle to parse any meaning from. I think this is derived from the fact that they're direct translations from the JP client, and JP players absolutely DO NOT USE THEM in the same situations.

To give an example, "Hello" is 「よろしくお願いいたします」(yoroshiku onegaishimasu) and "Good Match" is「お疲れ様でした」(otsukaresama deshita). The former is universally hated by translators like myself because it has no direct translation and isn't used only in the context of a greeting (it can mean "hello", "nice to meet you", "let's work together", et al). The latter basically means "thank you for the hard work", which while not exactly a sportsmanship term, is pretty close to GG.

As of 7.1, the latter is only usable at the end of a match. I assume this was because the devs thought it was the most sarcastically/used in a toxic way; incidentally in NA this dubious honor goes to "Nice Job", not "Good Match".

So why is "Hello" usable at all times if it's only meant to be a greeting? We end up with situations where tilted teammates diving in with no prior notice end up spamming it in a "HELLO? WHY AM I ALONE? WHY DID NO ONE DIVE WITH ME?!" when they unavoidably die solo because their party can't read their minds. Same goes for "Nice Job"; if it's supposed to be used in acknowledgment of good play, allowing it to be spammed over and over only dilutes that purpose.

Continued on next post ↓

[Talke]

We're missing essential callouts like "Avoid/Ignore Target" when a specially dangerous LB (SAM, NIN, RPR, DNC to name a few) is up. Seeing as only a minority of the playerbase is even in the habit of tracking LB gauges, enabling some sort of "this person is dangerous NOW" callout would go a long way. Instead we have callouts that no one uses like "Blocking Target" (which in JP is 「妨害: ターゲット, which arguably could be better translated as "Obstruct/Interrupt" in this context).

We have TWO separate callouts for withdrawing ("Fall back and regroup!" and "Everyone, group up!"). The first sees some success when an engagement goes sideways and people need to start finding ways to vamoose before getting made into cat chow, but the latter is much more generic and people just end up spamming it in any situation where someone is not nearby.

Lastly, "(Job): Moving the crystal" and "Push the crystal!" are not distinct enough, and often end up becoming useless callouts that people can't base their next decision off of. In JP these are「タクティカルクリスタル：運びます！」and「タクティカルクリスタル：運んでください！」, respectively meaning "I am pushing/I will push the crystal" and "Please push the crystal". Keeping these would make more sense if you made the first a distinct information relay, and the second a targeted request at a teammate, so it doesn't end up becoming desperate "WHY IS NO ONE ON THE CRYSTAL?!" spam.


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As for the latter suggestion on adding a proper cooldown to each quickchat prompt:



I shouldn't have to mute system sounds and play ranked/casual on hard mode because of people's poor impulse control. Supposedly this is reportable, and I do make an effort to let the GMs know of this, but the fact remains that people do this because the system enables them to.

[Mawlzy]

I'd suggest there's a distinction between poor impulse control and being deliberately disruptive, and this to me is clearly the latter.

There are some players who use CC and FL as a stage on which they demonstrate how obnoxious they are. I had a whole premade in FL yesterday who spent the entire match typing about food.

I suspect reporting buffoons like this may get more results than lobbying to revamp the chat system.

[Valence]

You don't get that amount of spamm above gold-platinum in my experience. It can happen but it's so rare compared to lower ranks... At least on EU, can't speak for other regions. Most of the time it's very obvious the person is being tilted and doesn't know better, or doesn't have a lot of experience and jadedness yet from that specific aspect of the mode.

Either way I do agree with the OP, and I'd really add that to me, all the quickchat commands like Good game, thank you, nice job, are useless and should be removed from the game, period. There is rarely any way to tell if the person using them is being ironic or not, even with the good match being only usable at the end of the game. Hello, they could keep, but restrict it only at the beginning of the game, even though it would sadden me a little because using it after telling people to retreat instead of suiciding one by one back to the enemy, followed by a little hello, tend to attract a bit more the attention, but I wouldn't mourn it either because people just use it ironically all the time anyway, like nice job. I don't see what those quick chat bring to the actual game beyond forced civility. Just allow us to say hello at the start of the game and good game at the end like in any multiplayer sport and that should cover it. Nice job, thanks, etc, have no place in the game beyond superfluous attempts at covering 5% of egregious cases when someone saves your ass or does a nice action. Nobody cares, and the people involved will feel proud about it even without their team mates taking the time to tell them they did a good job. Perhaps they do make sense in casual, but not in ranked.

We need more actual, tactical commands and not the useless "blocking X" or "moving crystal" ones. We need things like the OP mentioned "warning: job X" that could then be paired with an ignore target macro for example (right now I'm just using the ignore target marker alone for it). We could use a "warning, take a look at enemy LBs". That kind of stuff. Adding a delay/cooldown between spamming the same command would also be good especially to remove the push the crystal spammers, but on the other hand it would probably harm target calling significantly (even though I don't like people spamming it either). I think it would need to be implemented on a case by case basis.

[AlliciaCapulet]

We're missing essential callouts like "Avoid/Ignore Target" when a specially dangerous LB (SAM, NIN, RPR, DNC to name a few) is up. Seeing as only a minority of the playerbase is even in the habit of tracking LB gauges, enabling some sort of "this person is dangerous NOW" callout would go a long way. Instead we have callouts that no one uses like "Blocking Target" (which in JP is 「妨害: ターゲット, which arguably could be better translated as "Obstruct/Interrupt" in this context).

We have TWO separate callouts for withdrawing ("Fall back and regroup!" and "Everyone, group up!"). The first sees some success when an engagement goes sideways and people need to start finding ways to vamoose before getting made into cat chow, but the latter is much more generic and people just end up spamming it in any situation where someone is not nearby.

Lastly, "(Job): Moving the crystal" and "Push the crystal!" are not distinct enough, and often end up becoming useless callouts that people can't base their next decision off of. In JP these are「タクティカルクリスタル：運びます！」and「タクティカルクリスタル：運んでください！」, respectively meaning "I am pushing/I will push the crystal" and "Please push the crystal". Keeping these would make more sense if you made the first a distinct information relay, and the second a targeted request at a teammate, so it doesn't end up becoming desperate "WHY IS NO ONE ON THE CRYSTAL?!" spam.

The french translation feels a bit more like the original japanese meaning than the english translation.

But I do agree that we need those kind of new call, and, I don't know for the english version as I don't play it, but on the french version, we have call to tell "I will help our MCH" for exemple, but, we don't have a call to tell "Please help me". Starting in gold/plat and above, it's less a problem as people know a little bit more how to play, but it happens so many time to have 1-2 melee dps that overextend to kill a ranged dps like a MCH or BRD. In higher rank, someone who overextend usually get punished by the other team that will simply focus him, but it's true that in bronze/silver, people usually don't see what's going on on the map and only focus on trying to kill the target they want. It would be a nice addition, I think, as it's more usefull than a "GG" call.

Same thing for a "please follow my lead" when a tank/melee goes in. In Frontline, we can even put a countdown in a macro to tell when we plan to charge in so the team can focus together. It would be something nice to have. But, at the same time, it would also be something aweful to have with the people who spam for nothing.

But yeah, a revamp of the quickchat is definitivly something the dev should look over.

[Gunz_Zbestest]

Absolutely, great ideas. More direction. It would also be nice to have the icon marker of the player on the map do a little flash on a callout, like 'cover me!' Or 'falling back!'

[Loggos]

I think it would also help to have more commands with inbuilt markers.

Sure, you can theoretically make them yourself but that's something more advanced players tend to do. Casuals or people getting into PvP probably don't know much about common marker customs (e.g., the marker cooldown ending in a circle or the paladin guard marker convention). They also might not know much about creating (more complex) macros to begin with (countdowns or macros that disappear like the PLD guard marker are tricky if you don't know how to write them).

They could also make communication more precise because right now markers are a bit of a "multi-purpose" tool. Ignore-marking someone is probably intuitive at high levels (you know the difference in reason when a SMN is ignore-marked or a tank) but at lower levels it might not be as clear.
The same goes for bind on enemies. Does it mean actually binding/heavy-ing them / hindering them from moving? Does it mean using silence/stun to interrupt an attack? (Does it mean something completely else I'm not aware of? lol) Something that might be common sense for high-level players but not as intuitive for those not as experienced.

So if you could make commands that distinguish between "Ignore this target, attacking them is a waste of time/resources" (e.g., tanks) and "ignore this target right now because they are very dangerous at the moment" or a general "don't ignore but be extra careful with player X" (if someone's very good or on a generally strong job) that would help a great deal (those commands are not word-for-word suggestions btw). It would teach lower-level players awareness and strategies organically and in the moment.
You can also learn this from guides and communities but not everyone seeks out the former or engages with the latter. Like this you could correct mistakes or communicate better gameplay options much more efficiently.

Also, specific ground markers that come with chat commands would be helpful, e.g., "gather up here", "ambush from point X", "enemies incoming from Y" etc.

Another command that comes to mind is "Follow me." Right now we only have indirect ways of saying that such as "I'm going ahead" (please follow me, wink wink, beg, implore, where is everybody?).
(Edit: I just saw that Allicia suggested the same thing. Sorry, I didn't see it earlier.)

Absolutely, great ideas. More direction. It would also be nice to have the icon marker of the player on the map do a little flash on a callout, like 'cover me!' Or 'falling back!'

"I need healing. I need healing. I need healing."

No but in all seriousness, something like a "help me/assist me/cover me" would be useful, esp. if you are targeted by several players.

[Trinket]

During the Feast era, we had a countdown quickchat option that went from 5 to 0. On 0, it would have sword markers to indicate when the team should sync their burst to attack an opponent. At the start of CC, they removed that button. I think they should re-implement that option to better communicate with your team on who to attack.

[ShinyChariot]

I for one would love a free chat and be able to push the crystal to the end while enemy team is too busy arguing in spawn.

[spoo]

i did make this post which suggests a solution to part of what your post mentions:



https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...57#post6608857

Which basically asks that they put a delay on quickchat buttons where they become unusable after using them twice or so. Maybe like an OGCD with 2 charges?