Feature Request: Chat Opening and Manipulation

This is direct feedback request for the team for those of us who need to use the ingame chat to communicate even in combat, for whatever reason, and don't plan to, or can't conveniently use, discord or VOIP (children to wake, etc).

My suggestions and requests for how the chat function is implemented are specific:

1. Make / open the chat window the same way Enter does. I don't think this is being used for anything else? Players who use multi-button mouse could even map a button to this just so they never have to take their hands off it. The rest of us could probably manage to move hand to hit that really quickly.
1a. Make it so that the '/' also gets sent into the chat window, so you can immediately just start pressing for the target (can live without this if somehow it's hard)
2. Make /v the equivalent of /s and /g the equivalent of /p. This is to help with onehanded rapid communication. Can use /f for family. If people prefer, /c instead of /g so /g can be for guild. Maybe /e for a 'shout' to 'everyone'.
3. Make it so that there's a setting so that /q /w, /a, /d, /s and all /0-9 all just close the chat window without doing anything and instead execute the hotbar or movement associated with the key otherwise, so we can toggle this on and not get 'trapped' in the chatlog unless we actually started to type something (toggle so that people with 'interesting' keybindings don't have issues)
4. Make it so that /tt will 'tell' to your current tab or interaction target player. Fails when your tabtarget is an enemy or you're in action mode, I guess?
5. I didn't actually check if it is in, but /r to reply to the last player to /tell you (I'll check this today)
6. Make it so that scrolling the mouse wheel down while within the chat log is the equivalent of hitting Enter.

Reasoning is as noted. I need to be able to use chat... faster. And can't always be talking out loud while playing. I want to be able to just, with barely any hand movement or time off the 'capacity to react', do things like:

/c fwd - > to tell my team to I'm moving forward
/c adva -> to tell my team to advance
/tt sa -> a form of yes
/f ret(reat) -> self explanatory

The number of reasonable terms that can be communicated with the left hand alone while doing things quickly is high enough, in my mind, to prompt this request, especially if it isn't too overwhelming. If you start adding mild misspellings as acceptable, and minor other substitution words, it starts to become a whole 'language'.

I say all that just to clarify why I consider this important enough to ask for. I can just do so much more with the options above, and massively reduce the amount of thought (and worry) required for communication in group situations where voice chat is unavailable to me. It may seem small to some, but Sieges have already shown me that this game has the potential to be intense enough for group leaders, to actually require this.

Please raise my Skill Ceiling, Intrepid.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

~Rae

We have not received permission from Tyranthraxus to share the quoted post.

Ok so based on this response I asked my teammates to proofread this since I'm sick today and therefore less able to order my thoughts correctly.

I don't want to edit the post since I don't like editing Feedback posts.

They suggested skipping over the request list and reading what comes after, for context, then going back to read the requests, and hopefully that will make more sense.

If not I'll try to make another post later when I can articulate better.

Thanks for the feedback @Tyranthraxus

I'm not sure what you mean by easier in this case, so, to clarify, I'm just asking for some extensions of what happens already so I can do things one handed a bit faster.

/p is already the command for 'everything I say after this is directed at my party'

I just want /c to duplicate this functionality, and for the ''/" key to open chat, because right now you hit Enter to open chat.

I wasn't asking for a conversion from 'things I say' in one handed shorthand to 'things that appear in my chat'. My group will understand what 'adva' means on their own.

I'd find macros limiting compared to the literally hundreds of distinct meaningful things that I can say with one hand, given the request.

Not that I have any objection to Macros, but I see no connection between the two.

I didn't say anything about 'regularly'.

I was talking about Siege stuff.

But sure...

Everything here is one handed... or at least 'one handed with the ability to hit the / key from the mouse'

East
West
Gate
Retreat
Attac
Adva
Retr(eat)
Wasted
Carted - (holdover from Monster Hunter, means you returned to base instead of waiting for the raise)
Rez - (the raise)
Dead - (only means you are dead, might not mean you went back to base)
X - (as a form of 'no')
Sage
Aware
Safe
Read
Get Bac - (tanks use this to tell others to fall back)
Fear
Heat - (used when enemies are incoming)
CC
Wa/t
Ha/t
/eft
Rgt
Fwd
Rear
Cetr - (center)
Defe
Dry - (used when out of mana so other in guild can know)
Hate
Grab
Fast
Haste - (holdover from FFXI really)
Gv - (a way that frontlines ask for a specific buff if they know the hotbar of the buffer)
Baet - (bait)
Where/ - Treats the / as a Question Mark
What - same
Test - (admittedly doesn't come up often)
Caref - shortened careful
Rest (and rested)
Great
Hea/
Swr - Summoner
Ftr/Fgtr - Fighter
C/er - Cleric
Frt/ - Frontline
Bard
Extra - lots of uses
Dash
Cede - Calls back a force in a conflict that isn't the same as 'retreat' as a whole, comes up a lot in Mobas
Fresh - Enemy's health is full
After
Here
There
Yes
Ty
Are
Get
Tag
Base

I suppose things like:
Rave
Frag
Seed
Draw
Hard
Cased
Fade

are moreso things my group would get used to and I'd find uses for. Some moreso than others. Some used already but I won't make the argument that anyone else should understand.

I hope you can see how being able to combine some of these quickly would be nice and why I might want to be able to go "/g fresh at west gate" or "/c Brd gv 2" or "/f we at cetr" or without lifting hand off mouse. If not, so be it, my concern is about the playstyle and enjoyment of my own group, so, no matter how much 'easier' it is to click Macros for any given person other than myself, if this is not problematic for others, I still request it.

There's also the wish sometimes to tell only one person in the group a specific instruction so as to avoid confusion as to who exactly you're giving the instruction to, or to give the whole guild an instruction as opposed to your current party.

I'm used to FFXI where I can do things like "/t Friend", "/r" - which instantly talks to the last person to send me a /tell.

Honestly I'd ask for even more than /tt and /tr (assuming that /r shouldn't be used because it seems that R is the secondary weapon and would fall under the 'exclusion', if I were a serious siege leader with some restriction on VOIP. I can see /tsc for 'Tell Siege Captain/Shot Caller' and you set that person beforehand so that the scouts can do this.

I don't know what you play like, but I simply refute your point. There are many more than 20 things I want to be able to say in battle, one handed.

I think I should just disengage with you.

"Hea/ Bard 1st".

I am not sure if you are telling me that I should not play the way I do, or that I do not play the way I do, but either way it's not worth my time.

My request stands. You are blocked for the time being.

But since I hate to leave a request unanswered, and of course I hate losing bad faith arguments, here's the stuff I remember saying or considered saying just in siege today:

"at rgt gate", "bad way", "4 at ctr gate", "heat at wall" (I'd use the // here if I could), "halt", "gv 1 here" (a request for Hallowed Ground), "ready", "clr 2 ballista" (this would have been misspelled and missing the i), "rave heat adva", and "xx 2 far"

I'm not saying I was busy healing every single time this came up. I'm saying I could be. The reason I only thought most of it and didn't do it? Because I don't have the muscle memory for hitting Enter to start talking in games like this (like I said, FFXI, you just hit the spacebar there).

Another bit of information for context that not all may have. When you start typing and then click on something else, and/or use an ability, the chat window does not lose what you were typing, it holds it but does not automatically send it through, at the moment. This means I can talk, interrupt my talking to do something else (unfortunately, dodge is not one of those 'something else') then just hit Enter twice to send what I was saying before interruption.

If I got what I was asking for, I wouldn't need to lift hand from mouse, I'd hit the / button and then flick the mouse wheel down, all while still doing whatever else.

I'm a Cleric, these things affect my heal time when everyone's running around and you currently can't seem to tab-target your own group. Even if I could do that more easily, I'd still want this.