Chat Bubbles
“A chat bubble option has been added to the configuration menus. Enable the feature to display speech above the heads of player characters and get a more intuitive feel for who is saying what.
Chat Bubbles are a social feature first implemented in patch 7.3. They are disabled by default but can be enabled as an option.
Chat bubble settings, including options to adjust text and background color can be found under the General tab of Log Window settings in the Character Configuration menu.
Additional Rules
The display of chat bubbles can be enabled or disabled at any time.
- Chat bubbles are disabled by default.
- Chat bubbles will not display when using performance actions, during battle, or during PvP encounters.
Even when enabled, there is an additional setting to display your own messages. A slider is also available to adjust the number of chat bubbles shown, from 10 to 100.
When multiple chat bubbles overlap, the most recent message will appear in the foreground.
Character Limits
Chat bubbles have a fixed width and a character limit. Messages that exceed this limit will be truncated with a trailing ellipsis. The chat bubble format can be set to one or two lines.
- The maximum number of Latin alphabet characters that can fit in two lines will vary because the chat bubble text uses a variable width font. For example, wider glyphs like the letter "W" can be repeated up to 34 times before truncation, while the letter "H" can be repeated up to 37 times. As a rule of thumb, sentences under 50 characters long (including spaces) can fit on two lines.
- For Japanese text, assuming halfwidth or Latin characters are not used, the maximum number of glyphs that can fit on two lines is 30.
- Messages consisting solely of a single word or phrase from the auto-translation dictionary will always appear in full on a single line.
Chat Bubble Appearance
There are three chat bubble size settings: normal, large, and maximum. Please note that changing this setting does not affect message character limits.
Different chat modes such as Say, Yell, and Shout have unique chat bubble designs, each with their own settings for text and background color.
Display Restrictions
Chat bubbles from players who are blacklisted or muted will be hidden, with only a few exceptions. Furthermore, words blocked by the profanity filter will display as ???.
Notes
- According to Square Enix, chat bubbles are unavailable in combat due to concerns that they may become the norm for some encounter strategies that would force players to enable them.[1]
