Chat Settings – Aleczan's New Diary (FFXIV: ARR)

OK Today we’ll talk about Chat Log Settings.

When you’re in a battle, or on a busy place with a lot of crowds, most of the time your chatlog (message display window) will run so fast and you can easily miss a message from your FC or friends because it get pushed off the top of your tony chat screen before you could read it or notice it.

Here’s one method to reduce or avoid that.

First, look at your chat message box, there should be a + button which allos you to add a new “tab” in your chatlog window. Everyone starts with 3 tabs already created for you, and you can add the 4th one. You can also rename any of the old tabs and reconfig them any way you like.

For me, I named my 4th tab “CHAT” but since it might get confusing while I’m explaining things here, I changed the name to “Conversation.”

How to config a chat tab? You have to look at the bottom of the chatlog window again, and find the button with gear (cog) symbol. When you click it, it will bring up the Chat Log Settings window.

This window can be found, in other method, by opening your “Character Configuration” menu (keyboard shortcut : K button) and select “Log Window Setting” on the bottom of the left pane. Then you will see “General” menu by default.

For configuring the Log Filters for each tab, you have to look and click the tab you want to set. This time, let’s set the newest tab first, my Conversation tab.

I suggest to set Conversation tab to show all chat message, and hide all battle/system messages. You can look at “Chat” category in the Log Filter menu and check/uncheck things on the list. I highly recommend showing (check) Say, Tell, Party, Free Company, and Linkshell. If you think you need to hear the Yell and the Shout, for hunting or for eavesdropping the public, you can also check the Yell and Shout filter to have them shown.

For 24-man content, like raid dungeons, it is recommended to set Alliance messages to show as well, because sometimes people discus battle strategies in Alliance channel.

For me, my 3rd tab is “Event” and I set it like the pic below. This will allow me to click on that tab to read what I might have missed while talking to an NPC spamming OK OK OK without reading carefully. XD

Then, for those who have multiple linkshells, or dislike the default chat font colours, you can access “Log Text Colors” menu and reassign other colour to each of your chat message category.

For me, I set each linkshell a different colour, to decrease the chance of getting confused about who said what from which linkshell, and less likely to reply in the wrong one.

In Log Details menu, you can also optionally add Time Stamp to each of your chat tabs. You can also change font size.

Last but not least, you can set Sound Notification for each channel of the chat.

You can select the sound individually, and then test it to see whether you like it or not, before hitting OK or Apply button to save your settings

I set notification sounds to all these because I want to hear the beep when anyone talks in my FC, LS, PT, and in private message. If your LS talks all the time, however, I would recommend turning the sound off, because it can get annoying.

And then, when you’re on your main screen, if you want to read the Conversation tab, you have to click on the tab button under your chat window, it will show only the messages that you set in the Log Filters. This way, it is easier to catch up with your FC conversations or to reread it after the time has passed.

Today I’m going to talk about in-game chat system.

First of all, there are many “channels” of chat.

♥ Types of chat ♥

Tell : Private message, you talk to other person one-on-one. Default color is pink.

Say : Public message, only people near you will see it. Default color is white.

Party : Party chat, only party members will see it. Default color is cyan blue.

Alliance : Alliance chat, to communicate with members of the 3 parties that were formed into an alliance. Default color is deep orange.

Yell : Public message, will be seen by people in slightly larger area than “say.” Default color is yellow.

Shout : Public message, everyone currently in the same area map as you will see it. Default color is pale orange.

Free Company : FC chat, only members of the same Free Company will see it. Default color is pale blue.

Linkshell : LS chat, only people in the same linkshell will see. One person can be in 8 linkshells at the same time. Each linkshell will have its own separated chat and you have to send message separately if you’re talking in 2 or more LS at the same time. Default color is bright green.

Novice Network : Special chat for Novices (newbies/beginners). Sometimes you might get invited into the Novice Network. In that chat, people can ask questions and the Mentors (more experienced players) can answer or explain things. Default color is pale green.

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♥ Changing chat input mode ♥

When you log in, the chat mode will always set default input on SAY. If you want to change the default input, there are 2 ways to do it.

Click on the bubble button on the left of your chat input box, and then select the mode you want.
Type the chat mode command, and then hit enter. This will save your selected input mode.
- Tell : /t Name Surname – For /tell mode, you need to specify recipient name.
- Say : /s
- Party : /p
- Alliance : /a
- Yell : /y
- Shout : Shout cannot be set as default mode, you have to manually change it to shout every time you want to shout.
- Free Company : /fc
- Linkshell : /l
- Linkshells : /l1 (for LS #1) /l2 (for LS #2) /l3 (for LS #3, and so on)
- Novice Network : /n

If you only want to temporarily change the chat input mode for just 1 message, you can easily do it any time before sending the message: before typing, in the middle of typing, after finishing typing the sentence. Just use ALT (Alternate) and a shortcut key that you set for each channel (mode). If you didn’t set it, the default key will be:

Tell : ALT + T
Say : ALT + S
Party : ALT + P
Alliance : ALT + A
Yell : ALT + Y
Shout : ALT + H
Free Company : ALT + F
Linkshell : ALT + L
Linkshells : Hitting ALT + L again and again will cycle through all of your LS.
Novice Network : ALT + N
*Special* ALT + R : Reply to the most recent person who sent you a /tell. If you hit the buttons ALT + R again and again, it will rotate between more persons who had sent you a /tell previously.

To type in the chat input box, you can either use your mouse to click inside the box, or hit Enter key once to make your input cursor appear in the chat input box. When you use the ALT shortcut key from the list above, it will also automatically target and activate the chat input box, so you can start typing your message without having to manually click on the box.