The chat system needs some love

First of all, I love this game and I think they’re doing a great job. That said, I think the chat system in the game is maybe the worst I’ve ever seen in a multiplayer, and borderline unusable. It doesn’t really matter when I am just playing with my wife in the same room, but on a multiplayer server with friends I don’t really want to have to sit on discord to chat all the time, but the chat system is so clunky we almost never use it aside from shouting “sleep??” when it gets dark. It needs a major overhaul, but honestly some very minor changes would make a huge difference. I’ve tried chat mods but haven’t found any that work really well at this point.

1. The chat system needs to remember whether my last chat was in say or shout, and automatically go to that for the next one. If I forget to type /s when I am having a conversation, no one sees it.

2. The chat system needs to be scrollable. If more than a couple people type something, I can’t scroll up to see what was said if I miss it in the .5 seconds it displayed on my screen.

3. The chat window really needs to last more than .5 seconds. I have to press enter to bring up the chat to see what was said if I wasn’t specifically facing the person speaking and paying attention at that exact moment, so now I can’t do any other actions for a few seconds to go read it before it’s gone forever. Forget being in combat or running while you keep up with chat. When many people are online I often press enter just to see if something was said to me that I missed when I blinked or went through a portal because I have missed it so many times and am now paranoid.

4. NPCs have lots to say, but it’s gone so fast you can’t see it half the time or it’s too long to read it even if you’re staring at them, and it doesn’t make it to the chat window. Please put their flavor text comments in chat, in a different color, and just add a filter for people who want that turned off.

Those are the bare bones simple fixes that could be knocked out in a day without a major overhaul. Maybe add a half day for the scrollable chat assuming they are currently not keeping any of the chat after it fades and need to create a new data structure for it.

1. I’m shouting because it’s my only choice. That doesn’t mean I want it in all caps all the time. Minor but it would be nice.

A more comprehensive overhaul is needed long term and much better features could be added. In that case my most wanted chat feature is Person to Person chat instead of only global shout. I get that one could argue person to person global chat isn’t realistic and they’re going for realism… but shouting and people hearing me across the globe isn’t either. Give me some usability.